The November 2023-ish baby club!

[Spareincoming]

A new thread, under a new topic!
Welcome all and please tag anyone I’ve not, because I just copied and pasted from the old thread…

@spareincoming @Pinkplantcase @leeanneD11 @LilmissCa @FlyingHighFlyingLow
@Psqueak87
@spanglesj
@BabyBabyBaby123
@Houseonthehills
@GreenAventurine
@reememberly
@Cegbee
@DollyGx
@38andtrying
@JD90
@travellingislife
@mldn
@sb86
@TMI2000

@user666555 I’ve felt guilty about returning with previous DC but after Covid and the enforced time at home I realised how much I benefit mental health wise by being at work and having a challenge beyond the home of that makes sense.

I’m lucky that at the moment we don’t have a night feed; the last feed of day is 11pm, then LO sleeps until 7.30ish, which fits the family routine in the morning!

I definitely feel like I’ve got to get all the stuff I’d usually do in the house during day done as soon as I get in from work which is added pressure and I need to get back into the swing of juggling everything!

On the proviso Lo’s next set of obs are fine, we’ll be going home tonight, hurrah! Shame that means an almost 3 hour drive!

@Spareincoming I'm glad to hear that it's helped you. I hope I feel the same way. I guess the guilt is worse for your first child - from what I can see anyway!

Yes, I can imagine. It'll be the same for me. I'll be trying to do everything in the time I come back to catch up. Going to try and go back on a phased return so I don't burn myself out to start with

Does your LO have longer naps?

@user666555 I actually just soaked my baby choking on my drink because my DH is literally outside washing the car right now 😅

@user666555 it was the 2 days that she accidentally had only 2 naps and they were both longer. Although recently even on 3 naps a day they seem to have gotten ever so slightly longer. So say for example the morning one used to be 30 mins and sometimes it’s now 45. Not always though it’s forever changing! I just re-read your post about the 5 cat naps, that sounds pretty hard work for you! I know it’s not possible for everyone, especially if you have other kids, but could you try and spend maybe a week or so getting her onto less naps? I honestly love the huckleberry app it’s saved my sanity! They do a 2 week free trial if you wanted to give it a go, after that it’s 8.99 a month which I thought was absolutely ridic but see now I’d happily pay double that if it means having a happy baby 🙈 I think definitely though if you can try and gradually reduce the number of naps you should see them lengthen, it might just take a wee while. How old is your LO now?

@DollyGx I'd love for her to have 4 or even 3 (although at this moment in time I'd be grateful for even 4) naps a day.

How do I transition her to less naps as she just gets over tired and starts crying and fighting sleep? I'm trying to move her to four naps and the past few days it's been a 50/50 situation as sometimes she's just getting over tired and becoming extremely difficult to put to sleep. I used the Huckleberry trial when she was younger. Wouldn't mind getting the actual membership but I feel like she's a bit behind with her wake windows. Where most babies her age can do 2-2.5 hours I think even 2 hours is a stretch for her. I'm not sure if it's because she was born 3 weeks early and maybe she's a bit behind due to that in regards to sleep as I suppose her physiological development is still of a baby due on the 17th of December not the 28th of November? Who knows

@FlyingHighFlyingLow 😂 gosh it does feel like we're married to the same man. Honestly 😂. At least I'm not the only one!

A draining day for me here. LO has been quite unsettled. Not sure why. Exhausted is an understatement

@DollyGx it’s my first babe too and was also obsessed with huckleberry app. When we started with the sleep consultant I had to fill in her spreadsheet too so I dropped huckleberry for a bit, and realized it was actually good for my mental health dropping it, I was obsessing!

@Oreopie im living in Canada at the moment and used a local woman, her company was called new beginnings. If you want to send me your email address I can send you the sleep plan she sent us. I can’t imagine its much different child to child

Anyone dropped their baby yet? I feel like if had some PPA, and an irrational fear of dropping her, and today it happened. I was trying to put her in her jolly jumper, she loves it so much she started bouncing before I had her in it and she kinda flipped. I tried to catch her which actually just made it worse and she fell from about 1.5 feet flat on her back, and back of her head. It was onto Lino flooring. We both just sobbed for about 15 mins.

Our sleep consultant recomended when trying to extend wake windows keep changing environment, feed fruit, do an activity they love (for us it’s the jolly jumper). The first week at 3 hour wake windows felt awful; but now it’s quite natural. She has two naps per day and both are always 90 mins, she never really wakes up early from them. I’m supposed to wake her at 90: but I do sometimes sneakily let her do 2 hours for the last nap.

@user666555 i think it would need to be a gradual process of stretching her wake windows? Great tips from @Psqueak87 about changing environment/activity, I find that almost always works. This morning I needed to stretch the first wake window a bit even though I could tell LO was getting grumpy so I walked round the house with her in my arms then went into the garden for a bit and it bought me an extra 15/20 mins, maybe try that and gradually extend by a little bit each day, even just an extra 5/10 mins at a time? Not sure about her being early it could well have an impact! And I know you’ll have heard it a million times but all babies are so different and some have much higher sleep needs than other babies, so what works for one doesn’t work for another, but hopefully getting down to 3 or even 4 naps would lengthen them and she would hopefully be more rested 🤞🏼I’m invested in this now so keep me updated 😂

@Psqueak87 yeah a few weeks ago I found myself getting extremely anxious over huckleberry, gave myself a shake and I’ve been better since and remind myself daily that 1 bad day isn’t the end of the world. You do need to be careful of that when using these apps! Sorry to hear about baby’s accident, that must have been terrifying. Glad she is ok, I think it happens to most people at some point unfortunately. A couple of years ago I was looking after my cousin’s 7 month old baby and she rolled off the bed. She was ok as it wasn’t a high bed but I felt sick!

Oh @Psqueak87 , absolute rite of passage I think!

My 4 mo DS rolled out of bed while I was dressing him and went to get some socks.

I thought I had gotten away with no falls with DD but last week she fell off the bed while co sleeping :(
Worst feeling.

I'm very jealous of these long naps, my little one is only doing 30 min naps,never longer. When she wakes, I'll try to rock her or walk her back to sleep but she's not having any of it.

Hi everyone, anyone struggling with night awakenings due to the dummy? I can't go cold turkey as need it for naps during the day but need to do something about nights. Will she eventually learn how to pop into her mouth herself? Shall I just wait it out?

I tried a night of taking it away and she just cried every hour so I gave in middle of the night ...

@DollyGx and @Psqueak87 well I have some news!

I increased DD's wake windows to either 2-2.5 hours (depending on what I think she can handle, if she's irritable it'll put her down for her nap after 2 hours, if she's okay then I'll wait until 2.5 hours. Her afternoon nap - I put her down as usual. She didn't cry or get worked up. She drifted off as soon as she was out in the crib. She went to sleep for her usual 40 minutes. I was in the kitchen so I asked DH to see to her. DH was cleaning something and I couldn't get to her straight away. She wasn't crying. But I knew she was awake. By the time DH stopped cleaning and got to her she put herself back to sleep. She slept for 2 hours altogether which hasn't happened since before she was 8 weeks old unless she's in the car or pram! I was SO happy.

So I'm not sure if it's because:

1. I may be rushing in too soon after she wakes up and not giving her time to 'self soothe' back to sleep.
2. She had a longer wake window.

Only time will tell!

In other news I tried giving her some carrot purée today ... she doesn't seem to like it 😂🙈

I'm so exhausted. Mine has suddenly decided doesn't want the dummy. But can't seem to go to sleep without dummy. So mum's boobs are dummy. He wakes up crying in the night and I try to put dummy in and he just spits back out and screams. I cuddle him he screams. Only thing that settles him is feeding him side laying, but I'm not allowed to touch him 🤔 he comes off boob, wakes crying.

@FlyingHighFlyingLow that sounds extremely difficult. Have you tried a different brand of dummy?

He's had this dummy brand since 4 weeks old and always loved it! I do have a different one I did try but he was most certainly not impressed.

@FlyingHighFlyingLow hmm I wonder what it could be? Maybe a regression/leap?

@JoyApple oh that’s a touchy subject in our house 😬 we also tried (and failed miserably) at going cold turkey with the dummy as we had the same, LOTS of wake ups for it. She’s a very sucky baby, I only give her it for naps and bedtime, but I’ve noticed her sometimes sucking her thumb in the pram/car seat, so I think if we got rid of the dummy she’d be a thumb sucker and I’d rather the dummy! I’ve just decided to wait it out, she’s getting pretty good at putting it in her mouth now and seems to wake less for it (she’ll be 6 months tomorrow) but we’ve had some horrendous nights with it so I feel your pain!

@user666555 wooohoooo!! That’s great! Hopefully this can be the start of better naps🤞🏼it was broccoli purée today in our house, you can imagine how that went 🤢

@user666555 amazing news. My sleep consultant had this entire flow chart on what to do with nap wake ups. Will add photo below. Let me know if it’s not clear enough!

@JoyApple not the answer you want to hear but we had issues with wake ups every 1-2 hours all night for dummy! Went cold turkey all together and within 24 hours she was over the dummy and sleeping better! Good luck 🤍

@user666555 here it is

@Psqueak87 that's good to hear re dummy. How does your baby go to sleep during the day?

@JoyApple no issues falling asleep. We do 3 hour wake windows, then her nap routine: clothes, book, sound machine, light, bed. And she falls asleep within 3-4 mins. She used to need the dummy but was over it within a day or two.

@Psqueak87 thank you for sharing the flow chart.

I think we actually might be ready for the 3-2 nap transition, although it seems early (still a week off 7 months). I'm going to trial it today and see how it goes. I was out off by the fact that we tend to get short 30 min naps and very rarely get longer, but after reading here at wondering if the longer wake windows will help the naps to extend a bit

Thank you @Psqueak87

DD had has had 3/4 days where she had a longer nap since. I've changed two things:

1. I've cut down the five naps. She's now having four or even three. It was hard initially has she'd get moody when she was tired but I preserved in trying to distract her etc to prolong the wake window.

1. I don't go in to resettle her as soon as her 30-45 mins are up. As mentioned previously, I was going in as soon as she'd wake up and I accidentally realised (when my husband was too preoccupied with his OCD cleaning and I was in the kitchen cooking) that she actually put her self back to sleep. This has happened a few times now. She'll just put herself back to sleep but not always.

At the moment it seems as though one-ish nap if the day has lengthened. BUT I'LL TAKE IT! I think not going in straight away to pick her up is allowing her to learn how to resettle herself

My only issue is that she's been waking up at 5am 🙈so not too sure what I'm doing wrong there. Tried to prolong bedtime to 7pm instead of 6 and she was still waking up at 5am.

Anyone else experiencing the 5am wake ups?

Thanks for this! I'm feeling hopeful now. You went cold turkey right? I think I might try it today and tonight. I need to hide it from myself tbh. Maybe I should give myself 24 hours and if it really doesn't work, then go back to it? I feel like I'm going to end up giving in at night :(

@user666555 we too are now starting our days at 5am, sometimes 4am! Very tiring! She used to sleep 7pm till 7am and now it’s 7pm till 4am with maybe a 1am wake up, quick bottle and then back to sleep. That being said, last few nights she hasn’t gone to sleep till 8pm but still waking at 4/5am with a 1am wake up. Since she turned 6 months, things changed quite a lot so I’m hoping it’s just a regression stage and she settles again.