Graduated Elderberries. Thread 9

[Cavort]

The over 30's expecting or just had their first baby.

Tl, dr: The debrief was beneficial lol :)

Brave I wouldn't say that post-birth fuck up is a small thing on their part! I think it's a pretty big deal and you were quite badly let down by the midwives there at a time when you both were still in need of support. I am glad your debrief was so helpful though and has brought you some clarity about it all.

Am I the only one awake?
L has a cold again and will not sleep. We've both been up since 1:30 and she only dozes off while on my lap. Argh.
Oh and dh is happily snoring next to me which is winding me up no end right now

Hi Lol, I'm up too... Hoping this is just a 30 minute feed rather than the 2-hour specials that have migrated over from Cavort's house in the last week or so.

Sorry to hear LL is going through it again tho. Poor love. You must be knackered :( fingers crossed you both manage to get some sleep soon.

bed by 8, then up every 2 hours. Luckily just feeds and goes back to sleep, but still.
Doesn't drink from the bottle properly, only tastes solid foods. Looks like the baby rice is making him constipated. Sigh. The fun.

Even in my sleep deprived state I had to laugh at cavorts two hour specials
Maybe you could patent it and sell it?
I was up pretty much all night. Am knackered

God we're all having shockers at the moment. Sorry pregnant berries, don't mean to put you off! Maybe we should all migrate to post natal so we don't terrify everyone?

Bought a pram sheepskin yesterday (£50 ) and put it under his sheet in his cot, as have tried every other thing I can think of to get him to bloody sleep in his cot ruled out most other things, making me wonder if he's just not particularly comfortable in his cot. Anyway we had a good night: after each feed he went back down in his own bed. Coincidence? Maybe. Although the bed did feel lovely and warm when I lifted him out... If the same happens again tonight I will buy the DSIL the biggest box of chocolates possible for suggesting it - got to love a paediatric consultant coming up with such a non-scientific solution!

Oh, and btw, whilst it was, by recent standards, a good night, please don't think I'm showing off and had loads of sleep. He was still up every 1.5-2 hours for a feed, just went back to his cot after, allowing me to get a bit of sleep...

Good work Janey!

I had a 3-hour Cavort special - he eventually went back down at 630. Little monkey.

Fortunately he stayed down til 9 so feeling ok.

Pg berries it's not all bad, honest. In fact you learn quite quickly how possible it is to get by on less sleep. And you really appreciate lie ins when you get them

I am burying my head in the sand and assuming my baby will sleep through ha ha in reality I am aware its going to be v tough but I'm hating pregnancy so much that anything will be bliss for a while afterwards!

We have been bought a pram sheepskin as a gift so I reckon it'll all be fine and our baby is going to sleep through the night most of the time, which is fortunate as DP and I are both very grumpy with not enough sleep

In other news, I went to preg yoga last night and managed (I think) to release something that was previously very tight (broad ligaments?) and came back feeling much less constricted and uncomfortable and a completely different shape - bump much bigger and lower. DP was incredulous when he got in and said it looked like I'd grown about 4 inches round the middle in the course of the day! Hoping this means baby has dropped and will re-engage its head - it certainly felt last night like baby was rummaging around against my pelvic floor again. Off to the pool in a bit to float about as per previous suggestion.

On another matter, I need to order a mattress for our borrowed co-sleeper. Do I just buy the basic cheap foam one or do I need an expensive organic coir-and-wool stitched-by-free-range-elves one? I am in the midst of pre-PFB haze and far too susceptible to commercial suggestion!

Cheap one. You can put the sheepskin on top to make it comfy!

I use a sheepskin in the pram and Viki also naps there during the day (no sheet, just on the skin). He also loves it.

If someone told me pre-baby that I can be woken up every 2 hours and function just fine, I would have not believed them the slightest. Just one disturbance and I was a zombie the next day. But something really changes when you have a baby, I feel fine.

Exactly hazle. My line used to be "unless I have 8 hours sleep I'm not good for anything". Ha bloody ha.
Had a row with dh for asking for a bit more help during this tricky period. His suggestion? "Go back to work and stick her in a nursery if you're finding motherhood not as fulfilling as you expected!"
You can call him a bastard if you want. I did.

I agree, I'm getting 5 - 6 hours a night yes I know I am umincredibly lucky bearing mind I have a 4 week old and most of the time I feel fine. Its only when I have to do anything mentally taxing that I realise I'm not quite as quick as I used to be.

You do just deal with it. Tis weird.

Mother I really really hope things are different for you, but sleep was actually ok weeks 1-15 and then it went to shit before it went downhill... The last 6 weeks have been infinitely more difficult than the first 16

Oh and lol
I can't believe he said that! I hope you make him grovel an awful lot.

My current annoyance with DP is when he moans about being tired. I know he is a bit, but really he has so, SO much more sleep than me. And I try not to moan even though sometimes I'm so tired I just want to have a little cry However apart from that he's being very well behaved

Whenever mine tries to even sigh, I remind him that a) he sleeps through the night, I don't and b) I work the whole day and then come home to do what he has done during the day.

He's great, can't complain about DH in particular, but sometimes I do think that I would have so much easier life if I was a man. You often read threads here about how the working parent should not be asked to do any night wakings or how SAH parent should also do pretty much all the housework. I can't really imagine it though, coming home and just sitting on the sofa without moving a finger.

mother not to scare you, but as janey said, my baby was waking up once -twice per night at that age as well. Not every 2 effing hours. So I hope the current sleep pattern is just a phase as well.

Same here mother I'm afraid. The first 16 weeks were a lot easier than the last two! Enjoy while it lasts!

Looks like all our babies have read the books about 4-month sleep regression and act accordingly

I agree, the first 3 months were a piece of piss sleep-wise compared to now - sorry Mother. Elodie used to sleep 11pm-4am and then went straight back off until 7 or 8am every night. Those were the days. It all went to shit after 3 months and has stayed shit. And after a week of 4/5am wake ups she has reverted back to midnight for the last few nights , although she did settle straight back off again last night until her 2 hour wake up at 5am, which meant she only went back to sleep for 45 mins after that before getting up for the day. Apologies for sending it your way Brave. We've had a month of it so far with no end in sight so I hope your spell is shorter. My MIL tells me DH did it until he was 2

I've been told I should worry about the 6 week sleep regression too.....is that one I should worry about? Right I'm off to have a kip while I can!!

Harvey was a nightmare yesterday, screamed for hours due to wind, I couldn't get the wind up fast enough for him and he actually had tears he was crying that much....felt awful! Thats the first time he has ever been upset enough to have tears. Today he has been a dream, not hardly cried, even for his food, just whinged and sucked his hands till I fed him. Plus he has slept for ages....perhaps I have a bad night coming my way? Hope not.

Been meaning to ask about routines. We dont really have one and I wonder if thats bad? We have a bit of an evening routine, I make sure he is awake at 7ish and 9.30ish for feeds and keep him awake after his 9.30pm feed to make sure he sleeps more when he feeds and goes down at 12ish. Then he usually wakes twice in the night, when he wakes at 7am (ish) I feed him and put him back down as that means I get to nap selfish or shower/get ready until around 9.30/10am. After that I tend to just let him nap/feed as he wants to, I'm usually busy walking the dog, doing housework, shopping, cooking etc so dont keep a strict eye on the time and just feed him when he wants food. Am I being totally crap? I hear of people who have really rigorous routines who set alarms to remind them when to feed, wake, put baby down etc and have really content predictable babies, should I be doing that instead?

I certainly went baby-led with routines and didn't (still don't have any). Whatever the baby wanted - if he was hungry then he was fed and if sleepy then put to bed. He is developing his own routine at the moment, gets sleepy pretty much the same time every evening, so I think that works better for us than forcing my idea of a routine on him.

Night night ladies. Hope none of us gets delivered a cavort special tonight!

Mother we also have a baby-led routine. Feeding and sleeping are both on demand but Elodie has got herself into her own loose napping routine which means she generally naps 3 times per day which usually start around 9ish, 12ish and then she has a short nap around 4.30ish. Bedtime is usually 7-8pm. The only thing we do is time how long it is between her waking up and going tired again as knowing when she'll be sleeping makes planning the day much easier. Her awake time is currently around 2h15mins before she needs to be asleep again so we start winding her down at around the 2 hour mark. It doesn't matter what other babies do though, just listen to yours and he will tell you when he is tired and hungry and as long as you make food and sleep available to him at those times you will be fine.