How are all the NON gina babies doing???

My daughter is now 12 months and I still breastfeed her mornings and evenings and she sleeps 7 - 7 like clockwork. She is such a complete angel that I can hardly believe she is any relation of mine.

She too eats like a horse - I tried the huge mound of cold spaghetti to play with (as suggested on Mumsnet)last Friday after a big breakfast. It kept her quiet for well over an hour, not playing though, just solemnly munching her way through it strand by strand!.

DS2 (21 months) put his head down on his highchair tray ina restaurant the other week and put himself to sleep without a wimper. GF would probably have been horrified

Bells2, the mental picture of your DD quietly muhcing cold spaghetti for an hour made me smile in a morning full of petty irritations!

My ds (the nightmare sleeper until 8months) is now 14months and goes to bed every night by 7.30, sleeps morning (an hour or so) and afternoon (hour and half plus) and gets up at 7-7.30 (except ocassionally when it is dh's turn to get up, when he wakes up all cheery at 6am, tee hee). The other day he slept until 8am for me. He never cries or has tantrums, eats everything except broccolli, says loads of words, is walking, loves his books, and is so happy and contented and cuddly. Mind you, I do feel like I'm tempting fate writing this!

I think I have a relatively normal, happy 20 month ds despite ignoring the advice of GF at my peril. He sometimes wakes us in the night but we love the extra cuddles, he doesn't sleep much in the day but we love the extra time with him, he is a bit fussy but then so am I (maybe this is because my mother didn't follow GF!). Most of all he makes us laugh lots. We have a sort of routine in that breakfast normally comes before lunch and supper, and bath normally comes before bed, and he doesn't normally wake up before he has gone to sleep. Luckily our ds seems to cope with his parents taking him off on camping trips, mountain climbing and cycling when he won't be able to have a scheduled nap in a pitch black, silent room (do they make blackout curtains for tents?) and gets breast fed above the snowline (no bottle warmer in sight). I'm all for a flexible baby who fits in with our lifestyle rather than changing my lifestyle to fit around naps and feeds. All I can hope for is a happy, well-adjusted child which is hopefully what he'll be.

I am so glad to hear other people raising their babies without much thought to routines and that they are thriving!! My dd is 7.5 months and still not sleeping through and I keep thinking I must be some demonic mother in that I haven't got her into a routine and so preventing her from sleeping. I think it is just her if other babies can sleep through without enforcing strict schedules on them. The thought of having to get up at 7am and eating breakfast by 8 fills me with horror (I like my bed!!).
She is eating well although this last week she has been teething so went off her food. I look forward to giving her the spaghetti mound! I am still bf on demand - couldn't imagine not feeding on demand!
In fact can I use the word contented?!! She is a content, incredibly happy, alert, curious, wonderful baby and I love her to bits.

Hi there Forest,

I think that ~Ginas book is good in some ways but as with all books we should take from them the things which we can relate to and dont worry about the rest.
I work with parents helping them with their new babies in an emotional and practical way and i feel that the most important experience you can give your baby is one that tells him that you have a sense of an understanding of how he feels. What I really mean by that is not to leave a new born to cry even if it is just because they need to be held. How would you feel if you were left to cry in a strange world all on your own.
In my experience a baby that has been picked up when he cries grows up to be a secure child who only cries for a very good reason.
I think that routines are important with a new baby if they are important to you and your family not just because someone tells you they are.
I have written an article on the above and if you would like I can email it to you, Susan

My ds is 24 mo. and sleeps 9-7 or 9:30-7:30 or 10-8. He rarely has melt downs. He just falls asleep when he's tired. I have photos of him falling asleep into his bowl at the table. He eats everything, doesn't have temper tantrums, says please and thank you most of the time and is an absolute angel with his new baby sister (8 weeks). Dd is a little colicky, but almost sleeps through the night. As she is bf on demand this is handy. I'm sure they will make up for this good behavior by being terrors as teenagers.
I can't say I've ignored gf, as I hadn't even heard of her until i arrived on mumsnet.

13 month dd is an absolute nightmare at the minute but I don't think that's anything to do with her routines, more to do with the fact that her head knows how to walk but her legs haven't quite grasped it yet.

Sleeps 7pm-6.30am and between an hour and an hour and a half while we're on the move during the day (I do like to get out). Eating tends to be on the move too as that highchair does interfere with all attempts to walk. (Another fan of cold pasta, too).

But when she puts her head on my shoulder and slobbers over me in a not-very-good attempt at a kiss, it's all worth it. Even if everything I own is now covered in soggy rice cake bits...

When ds was tiny as I held him and held him and slept with him and wore him etc etc and he was very colicky for a while and my HV said I should hold him more!! BUT recently a friend said to me, 'Does he ever cry?' and I said, no, not really. He cries for us to get him in the morning after a bit of burbling and chatting, and he cries if he hurts himself, but apart from that, no. And he sleeps very happily in his own cot.

DS took his first unaided steps accross the kitchen yesterday!! He's very pleased with himself. I bed your dd will be there soon.

nice thread! ditto Aloha. My dd is now 13 months old and unles she's ill she's an angel.

She was breastfed on demand until 6 months (boy, the first 3 months were tough) and started sleeping in her own cot from about 4 months. In her own room from 6 months. From about 8 weeks I used to put on the womb CD (Jaygee babysoothe) to help settle her after a feed and it would help her sleep longer. Stoppped using it at around 6 months and the first time I put her in her cot awake and she turned over and close her eyes - well, I couldn't quite believe mine.
I'm so glad that we never resorted to rigid routines and controlled crying. She is a very happy baby. Most mornings she babbles away to her toys before e we get her.
She goes to sleep between 1930 and 2130 and gets up between 0730 and 0930 (weekends) - she calls the shots.
Just say no to GF

nice thread! ditto Aloha. My dd is now 13 months old and unles she's ill she's an angel.

She was breastfed on demand until 6 months (boy, the first 3 months were tough) and started sleeping in her own cot from about 4 months. In her own room from 6 months. From about 8 weeks I used to put on the womb CD (Jaygee babysoothe) to help settle her after a feed and it would help her sleep longer. Stoppped using it at around 6 months and the first time I put her in her cot awake and she turned over and close her eyes - well, I couldn't quite believe mine.
I'm so glad that we never resorted to rigid routines and controlled crying. She is a very happy baby. Most mornings she babbles away to her toys before e we get her.
She goes to sleep between 1930 and 2130 and gets up between 0730 and 0930 (weekends) - she calls the shots.
Just say no to GF

Almost 14 month old DD is a treasure, at the moment. She does still wake up most nights - dare I admit it? I said I'd put up with it until my periods came back and the health benefits of lactational amenohrea (ie, no periods) for me started to diminish.

The weirdest, most non GF thing for us is, that my kids are going to bed at fairly different times every night. Not just different between kids, but different from one night to the next. The baby is out by 8:30pm most nights, but the 3yo falls asleep any time between 5:30 & 9:30pm. I can honestly say this bedtime variability is rarely a problem, although occasionally I worry it could be!

Anyway, I'd rather have whatever problems we do have, than get wrapped up in the recurring "How to adapt routines to 2nd GF baby?" question.

Sps, I agree that different things suit different people it is just my HV is such an advocate of letting them cry themselves to sleep and having routines. Then I look on here and read the GF threads and the mums always seem to bang on about how great their babies are at sleeping, I just start to wonder why mine doesn't. It hasn't bothered me until recently - I don't mind the feeds through the night as we co-sleep and I hardly wake up, it is just she won't settle in the evenings (she used to) and only has short naps and this is beginning to bother me. I am a very unstructured person and don't want to be tied to a routine but am I doing the right thing for dd? Your article sounds very interesting - dd rarely cries as I have always responded to her.

I'm so envious of the flexible babies described here. DS (now 3 1/2) was like that. We could happily keep him up until 9pm or whenever and he would just sleep later the next morning. We always took him out and about with us in the evenings and it was great.

DD couldn't be more different, come 7.00pm and that's that - she wants to go to sleep in a dark quiet room on a bed. We find it a real bore, especially at weekends but she will simply not be budged from her routine. One of the reasons I am finding being at work difficult at the mo is that her early bedtime means I just don't get to see as much of her on those 4 days as I would like.

Forest, the funny thing is, I never set out to 'impose' a routine (though I don't see this a cruel, just impossible and undesirable for me and ds when smaller) but we definitely have one now. He's up between 6.30 and 8 - though it's nearly always around 7-7.30 and in bed by 7.30 every night. he naps around 2 hours after waking (VERY GF!) and after lunch. However, this did evolve very naturally, and we did knock the night waking on the head fairly painlessly at 8months with a little crying, and I'm glad we did as we were so knackered it was interfering with our enjoyment of ds. I admit, I am quite a creature of habit myself (very put out when my favourite tv series is over, for example!) so I can see why my ds would like supper, bath, play, bed every night. But he didn't sleep through until 8 months (& I stopped b/f feeding at 13 months) but at 7.5 months I was like you, sometimes wondering if I'd done something wrong. I stopped feeding my ds at night around 8months, just gave lots of comfort instead (actually dh did the comforting, I loafed in bed to keep temptation out of the way!) until he was used to that, then did a little cc, which honestly was 20mins at longest, and that was weary crying, not real sobbing. In two nights we'd cracked it and he's slept brilliantly since. A friend of mine's baby also learned to sleep through spontaneously at 8months. He got there first as he was older and I was amazed when ds followed suit. I hate to admit it, but a constant bedtime routine and bedtime did seem to help ds. I don't mind not going out, though, and my mum lives nearby so we do have the option of babysitting if we want it. It's nice to leave the house feeling 99% sure ds won't wake up while we're out. For him, a routine that we evolved easily and naturally together really works. And I do tend to work round it most days - ie getting back home for his sleep at 1ish even though we've had lunch out. However, some days we just do whatever and he sleeps on the hoof.

Aloha, my 14 month old appears to have evolved a similar routine to yours. I just went with the flow and he found his own pattern, which is now fairly predictable. He's a very contented child - apart from when he's doing something he shouldn't, which come to think of it seems to be most of the time these days.

Hi Forest, it sounds like you are doing great. I am sure that if you go to your baby from day one it helps them to be a secure individuals. If you would like my article can you send an email to

[email protected] and i will forward it to you,

Susan

ds is just 9 months and is trying hard to be much older but with limited success

• he has a great walking action when supported (one foot nicely after the other in big confidant strides) but left to his own devices can only roll over and/or push himself backwards into a corner. He's very strong and will stand all day, but shows no interest in crawling either getting very grumpy or rolling away.
  
• He loves food, but finds lumpy stuff difficult (except toast)gagging and sometimes throwing up. He's lost all interest in breast milk - not fed for a week now so I suppose that's him weaned - and only has a partial interest in bottled milk, though he'd drink my tea given a chance.
  -He's very intersted in people, talks to anyone, giggles lots and cuddles the girls at nursery (then pulls their hair).
  
  He's getting a bit frustrated with his current abilities, but is such a charmer (huge brown eyes) that tantrums are relatively rare and short lived.
  
  Sleep is quite good, one feed between 7 & 7, though he wakes more than that but generally goes back to sleep by himself.
  
  I can't belive how quickly my little baby has started to become a little boy - you can see the 5yo in him some days. Everyone told me to enjoy his baby days as all too soon they'd be over, but I never understood (in those days when life seamed a never ending treadmill of nappies & feeds) how soon I'd be mourning their passing.

Just re-read my post and it sounded like I'm disappointed in ds - That wasn't my intent - I'm not at all disappointed, he's beautiful and so happy & good natured - he is better than I ever hoped or dreamed. The only person that's frustrated with his progress is him.

9m old still waking to be fed several times a night...wish he was in a routine! Not much time for mumsnet as a result

Wow, this is a fascinating thread. It's heartening to know that you can get such great early sleepers without using routines. I still don't know how you do it though. It's 9:45 and 6 month old ds is on my knee asleep. I might be able to get him into his cot without him screaming the house down now, but there's no way he'll do it any earlier. I've tried. He screams, and if you leave him, he continues. I remember ds1 being alseep by 8pm at this age, so it's not me. Shucks, I just don't know what to do. He cat naps during the day, too.

What a great thread, my DS 10 mths old is in a sort of routine as in he has a nap 3 hrs after he wakes and then a good sleep at about 1pm, but his bedtimes ranges from 7- 9-30 depending on his mood and believe me he has moods.He now has 3 teeth(AT LAST) and is taking about 6 or 7 steps on his own(clever boy)but I know what you mean about them growing up so quickly my baby has gone and there is a little man taking his place.