BFP wishes came true - thread 3

[RedRobin1]

A big fat welcome party for twinkle and just another thread for us all to keep in touch

Good to hear that twinkle after everything you have had to go through an easy pregnancy is the least you deserve

Sorry I haven't been on here much but I have been reading. Dd has been going through the dreadful 4 month sleep regression and I pretty much feel like a walking zombie these days. God! I miss sleep.

Oh and I second what you said about flying when pregnant. I flew at 12 weeks and was the most unpleasant flight and a blur of a holiday. As ted said I was also sick everywhere as soon as we landed and it was pretty gross through out the trip.

How many weeks are you now twinks? Remind me when are you due again? It will be soooooo amazing when you meet your little one. How is the name picking going? Have you decided or still choosing?

red the sleep regression is awful isn't it? Especially as you have had a taste of more steady sleep and then that all goes arse up again :(

I hope little red sorts it out soon. Have you mastered that soundless creep back to the door yet?!

twinks I am now a proud owner of the rainbow AND the hot air balloon toddler sleeping bags. They arrived today. Thanks for mentioning those.

I almost flipped and moved her out of the room last night! She just wakes up every hour after midnight till 7am Arrrgh!

Waiting for it to pass and daytime naps are the way forward. Ted you should see the looks I give DH when he even so much as coughs or sneezes in bed! Zero Noise is my motto these days :(

Ooh I can post so many bargains, ted, I'm the bargain queen! Pumpkin Patch are amazing - good quality and they always have a sale. They sold out of the hot air balloon one in the baby size which is a shame as that would have been handy to have 2, in case one gets sick all over it.

Red I am 27 weeks tomorrow so nearly in 3rd trimester! Girls names are hard but boys name has been chosen, we had that chosen from when we first got together. Hope you're managing to get some rest. Waking every hour must be exhausting, I have all that yet to come!

I'm due august 7 x

I do love Pumpkin Patch and I was gutted when they shut the store in Bristol. I get stuff online too. We get t shirts with Patch on the front as this is what we call ds2 as his nickname. He loves it!

Hello! Been catching up - it got really quiet on here but glad to see there's been some chat

Glad you're having a good pregnancy winkle - I loved mine!

Oh my god red four month regression is a bitch! Hope it passes quickly for you.

S is doing really well - she giggles and smiles loads She's so much more chilled out then the early colic days!

Those with older babies and toddlers, did you notice 9/10 month regressions and what was it like? We've booked a holiday (Mauritius!) for when S is 44-46 weeks but have since found out it's a regression hot spot eeek!

Alex very envious of your trip to Mauritius - will be a lovely time to go with S. Hopefully she will love the heat and snooze through the nights

Thanks red how's that four month regression going for you?

Grrr I posted a really long post and it vanished as did the thread ?!

What did it say?!

I just realised mine never posted either grrrrr!
It was before my previous post

Meant to say 4 month regression is hellish to say the least. She's gone from waking just once at night to waking every bloody 2 hours from 10pm onwards. She does 3 hours 7-10pm then wakes up 12am, 2, 4,5,6,8am

The hourly wake ups are worse it's like she can't sleep a long stretch anymore. What in gods name is up with her?! I can't figure this one out!

She's learnt self settling well and goes down easily it's just this damn waking up constantly that drives me mad. She feeds or sometimes she just wants to be patted back to sleep. Any idea what I could do to make her sleep longer?

We have a bath, bed time reading, feed, and sleep routine.

We go up at 5.30pm and she's snoring by 7/7.30pm then as soon as it's 10pm she just keeps waking up after that....I am at my wits end! Help!

Other than that she's a very happy cheery playful baby!

Twinkle wow you are very close to that August date now! Must be so amazing....not long now till you meet him/her.

How is little one doing? Is the baby keeping you up at night with kicks? And how's the nesting going? I remember going insane with cleaning tidying and arranging everything in order around this time!

red how did you crack self settling?! Please give me tips! I am getting a bit worried as we always need the dummy for S to sleep, and she just cries and cries if we leave her in bed. To be fair I've never left her to cry it out, I just can't, so I use the dummy all the time.

My answer for the four month regression? Time, sorry. It was the only thing that helped S. Keep your routine going, stock up on chocolate milkshakes (always cheer me up!) and wait it out. It's hard to imagine it getting better again but then one night, it suddenly will.

Right I'll try and remember what I put...
Think I was congratulating twinkle on her bargin, I love a good bargin too, love reading posts while people are still pregnant aswell and living through their excitement!
Red have you started weaning yet? We were so lucky with dd1 she only had sleep regression once at 17wks, woke up 3 nights in a row so I added abit of baby rice and that was it never again, man we've had a difference with dd2! She started waking at 14wks and I felt too young to feed her so by the time we started weaning she was in the habit, she started with one wake up then got to two, I felt I couldn't cry it out with her until the recommended 6 months and when I knew she was eating 3 good meals aday, it did only take under a week and only 2 really bad nights and she's slept 7-7 since then, never had another problem but I know CIO isn't for everyone, we were just all so tired and unhappy
Dd2 is going to be 1 on Monday!! How has this happened?!?
She's just learning to walk and is such a personality, will only drink out of griot shoot bottles or canisters like her sister, turns her head and shakes no if it's a baby bottle god forbid, thinks she's so clever when she's got what she wanted even though I only put water in them anyway so she's no better off lol

alex .. I take a tough love approach to sleep .. Not cry it out as such as we don't leave them for hrs .. But 10-15 min, then go in, settle them, leave (even if screaming) and repeat. They do get it eventually but it just means your sleep for a few nights will be pants.

E had a dummy until past 2 (only for bedtime), but I took it away from P and L at about 4 months as they kept crying for me to put it back in so they burned their bridges there!

Radio 5 live is your friend for killing time between the visits. We became quite cultured on current events at that stage!

I had to do it this way as I have a real issue with getting back to sleep once I am awoken in the night. Co sleeping is not for me and I sleep as lightly as a cat. Therefore not needing to be up and down to them was imperative for my mental health!

I hope this helps. The first thing to stop is feeding her to sleep, if you can. I know that is difficulty though when they are knackered and that last feed of the day is like an off switch for them!

Ted you pretty much did what I did by the sounds, im just like you, sleep as light as a feather then once I'm up stay awake fretting that I can't get more sleep lieing awake. Maybe when your on more then one kid though your need to get them to sleep better is stronger as you don't have another option of sleeping when they sleep or napping, I can remember dd1 was just at the point of needing to loose her daytime nap or would be up at 6 after I'd just done a crap night, that's what killed me!
I found night one hard, no sleep from about midnight or very little, second night not as bad then third night she only moaned for a minute or so if she woke, really although it's hard to do and you get no sleep for those few nights it's amazing how effective and quickly it works! I also found picking her up made her worse and more upset when I out her back down so I only used to pat her bum to re assure her I was there but it's different baby different reaction really

I think CIO might kill me! I'm not judging one bit, promise, I just don't think I could physically listen to her crying and not try and do something to stop her. I can imagine sleep deprivation with a second baby may drive me to desperate measures but for now I'd rather be a zombie than do leave her screaming on her own. However I wonder if I'll get to a point where I think we need to do it with S, maybe a year in or something, or if her dummy stops working as a sleep tool.

You really don't have to leave them screaming Alex, you leave them to see if they will settle themselves the if it escalates to screaming go in and pick up and put down or just re assure but don't feed and don't put them in bed with you or rock to sleep etc I appreciate it's not for everyone that's why I never "advise"it, the only thing I recommend with sleep is to follow the book I used from birth and if it works which it did for everyone I know and me Untill the stupid 4month regression with dd2 you never have to let them cry so itwas just great but you really have todo that from birth , you should never use CIO until6+ months either until they are eating well, but from my own opinion the4 month sleep regression IF they have been sleeping better is usually because they are hungry which is why a lot of mums wean at about 4 months instead of 6 definatly dd2 is a huge eater in comparison to dd1 but she is big too, she's just under the 98th percentile whereas dd1 was little

Another non fan of CIO but like you say kitty I use the PU/PD method by Tracey Hogg and Alex can you change her sleep associations so if she's used to a dummy can you introduce another like a muslin cloth?that way she has two things comforting her and if one falls out of her mouth she still has the other.

DD uses a muslin blanket to chew on or grizzle against and she has a little cuddly bunny. Both are cues for nap times. Also we put her for naps upstairs so when we go up it's another cue to sleep. She also sleeps in her crib for naps so associates the crib with going to sleep. She will still nap in other places like in laws etc as long as her cloth n bunny are with her.

I feed her and put her in her crib awake and leave her to fall asleep. If she does an "attention seeking whiney moan and cry" then I leave her be but if she does the "real genuine crying" then I pick her up ssh and pat her and put her down when she is calm. The first time it took 4ins and several pick ups n out downs. The second time it was 20mins and now 10mins for her to fall asleep in her own!

Kitty We are starting weaning in June once she's five months! She does seem very hungry at nights as she guzzles her milk down. Tried dream feeding and formula milk the other night but no amount of feeds or formula stop the 2hourly wake ups. I guess I will have to wait it out.

It's been 4 weeks and my eyes have such bad bags!! and then today a friend posted her baby's sleeping through on fb (she's just hit 4 months though....)

Hehe

Kitty what book do you advise?

I'm trying to encourage S to suck on the muslin for sleep or her little bunny blanket. I'm also going to make more effort with PUPD in her cotbed during the day. She naps well in her pram when we're out and about so it's really her morning nap she can take at home in bed.

I'm really trying not to feed her more than once a night no matter how much she wakes but it's tough as that means I can't just feed her to sleep at 4/5am. So it's been an early start today as she went back to sleep but only for a while and has been awake to start the day since 5.50am! (Yawn)

Alex it's called the sensational baby sleep plan- Alison Scott wright, it's amazing and there is a section from 4 months plus but it's harder I think and would involve some crying just to break habits they've developed whereas from birth I never had to let either cry it just encourage a a good feeding plan in the day and routine do that they naturally drop their night feeds
Red that's great that she has sleep signs, we always use the cot for naps at home too, the youngest is actually brilliant for going down dd1 always fed to sleep really as was so tired we could never wake her anyway then as she was older used to like her bottle of milk in bed with her but dd2 has her milk until she's had enough, pushes it out, thumb in and I per her in bed and that's it not a peep ever but that's from doing the same thing since day one at bed time so it's so ingrained now
He he for her rude awaking

kittykat .. Yes that is the name if the sleep routine we used .. Pick up, put down. I had forgotten that! Although exactly like you it was probably more like 'back rub, creep away' as picking them up gave them the rage.

Alex.. It is hard hearing them cry but it was only for a few mins each time and we never had full nights of it. Maybe 1 hr or so, but perhaps this happened twice a night until they got the hang of it.

CIO is a whole other strategy and I do know people who have used it and swear by it, but we didn't fancy it.

My best friend is a clinical psychologist and she promises me that controlled crying (ie short bursts in a controlled sleep training routine) is fine! Not damaging to the wee ones.

But you have to do whatever you feel comfortable with!