June 10 babies have arrived. Now we are all sleep deprived!

[CantSleepWontSleep]

Welcome to 'the other side' ladies. Long may we all continue to post!

ARRIVALS
27/04 (due 23/06) - SunshineDay - Faye - 3lbs 2oz
16/05 (due 02/06) - Meggymegmegs - James (Jimmy) David, 7lb 1oz
19/05 (due 01/06) - whenwillisleepagain - Alice Emily, 8lb 7oz
21/05 (due 21/06) - Gizmo - Hester Rose - 6lbs
23/05 (due 9/06) - greensnail, Alice Elizabeth, 7lb 2oz
24/05 (due 8/06) - Saucepanman, Gabriel, 8lb 4oz
24/05 (due 31/05) - minimoonumber2, Sebastian Robin
26/05 (due 24/06) - GibberingGinger James Alexander, 5lb 13oz, & Douglas John, 5lb 15oz
28/05 (due 30/05) - GoodName, Fergus, 8lb
28/05 (due 31/05) - mampam, Tilly May, 9lb 11oz
28/05 (due 4/06) - jo807bump - Hannah May, 5lb 7.5oz
04/06 (due 07/06) - perkster - Sidney James Perkins Berner, 7lb 11oz
05/06 (due 31/05) - dinosaurinmybelly - Zoe Leila - 6lb 9oz
07/06 (due 02/06 ) - AlwaysHopeful - George, 7lb 13oz
07/06 (due 07/06) - MrsC09 - Rufus Jack
08/06 (due 01/06) - PogueMahone - Magnus Gabriel, 8lb 14.5oz
08/06 (due 11/06) - woofie - Laurence Elliot (Laurie) - 7lb 11oz
08/06 (due 21/06) - sunworshipper - Romola Ann Bettina, 5lb 15oz
09/06 (due 08/06) - LittleRobbo - Summer Dawn
09/06 (due 09/06) - Boobz - Constance Ella Reed,
11/06 (due 02/06) - Justbeme - 'Nobody' (boy) - 8lb 9oz
12/06 (due 02/06) - roundabout1 - Lauren - 8lb 14oz
13/06 (due 18/06) - Virgo1979 - nameless boy! 7lb 9oz
14/06 (due 30/06) - monthlymayhem - Hayden, 7lb
14/06 (due 08/06) - MrsAlwaysRight - Alice Rose, 9lb 7oz
14/06 (due 15/06) - Millymollymoo - boy
15/06 (due 31/05) - RnB - Artemis, 7lb 9oz
15/06 (due 29/06) - playftseforme - Rory 6lb 4oz, and Fergus 6lb 8oz
16/06 (due 17/06) - Chestnut100 - Daisy Belle 6lb 14oz
17/06 (due 01/06) - Madamfreckle - Emma 6lb 6oz
17/06 (due 30/06) - MonkeyMargot - Atticus Fox 7lb 8oz and Rafferty Bear 7lb 14oz
17/06 )due 04/06) - Suzy1975 - Samuel 7lb 14oz
18/06 (due 23/06) - earlyonemorning - Edgar William 7lb 8oz
18/06 (due 13/06) - sobloodystupid - Stella 8lb 8oz
19/06 (due 22/06) - Gaelicsheep - Robin 6lb 14oz
22/06 (due 14/06) - Fillybuster - Mia Rae 9lb 3oz
24/06 (due 16/06) - Nizzynoodles - Samuel James 10lb 10.5oz
24/06 (due 17/06) - summerhols - Lilly
25/06 (due 17/06) - Barbeasty - Ruth Damaris Rose, 9lb
26/06 (due 16/06) - JoKettle - James Lennox, 8lb 7oz
26/06 (due 29/06) - MrsDmamee - Elyssa, 8lb 5oz
28/06 (due 26/06) - imkeepingmum - girl, 7lb 11oz
28/06 (due 12/06) - Georgee - Anna Rose, 7lb 15.5oz
28/06 (due 12/06) - Elena67 - boy, 9lb 5oz
29/06 (due 17/06) - bluesnowfalcon - Corey, 8lb 11.75oz
29/06 (due 18/06) - theperfectbaguette - Clementine Jemima, 6lb
29/06 (due 26/06) - RubyReins - Luke Douglas, 7lb 14oz
29/06 (due 25/06) - Ilovemyterrier - Jeppe Sebastian Fagerlund, 7lb 6.5oz
01/07 (due 30/06)- LaTrucha - Daniel Timothy, 8lb 11oz
3/7 (due 29/06) - CantSleepWontSleep - Jeremy Francis, 9lb 4oz

Madamfreckle Even better night thanks- 7hrs! (definite smug, whilst realising it could all change in an instant emoticon!)

I'm not sure about the doidy. There was a lot of crying last night, but I don't know if we're doing it when Ruth is almost over tired. It's certainly very dribbly, but there were points where she was lapping at trying to get some milk so it can't be all bad. We do have bottles, but Ruth has decided (in the gap since 6 weeks) that they are better for chewing than drinking from and just gets all frustrated when chewing doesn't produce milk. Hence the cup as I also don't see the point in fiddling around with all sorts of bottles if I can make a cup work (and we had the dental health talk at our post natal course, so doidy makes perfect sense!)

Barbeasty - Yay for good sleep! We're just getting worse and worse with sleep. Grrr.

With DS I don't think I introduced the doidy until he was around 5 months. Whenever it was, I do remember it took quite a lot of perseverence - a few weeks of regular attempts - before he would actually drink any of it rather than just dribble it all over himself! - But I was doing it with water, so perhaps he was less interested in it because it wasn't milk.

We're just making the most of sleep for now, knowing that she was like this when we first got home and then got worse.

She sort of laps the milk and takes it into her mouth and then lets it dribble out- some into the mug, lots down her chin and she even managed to shoot some across the sofa last night! It's not too bad unless a) I don't tip it far enough for her to get the milk or b) she hits it and chokes as half a cup of milk rushes in.... either way we get lots of tears. We'll see how it goes, but at the very least I think I need it psychologically to put her in the cot and sleep successfully! I wouldn't trust it to happen if I didn't know she'd dribbled drunk a good feed.

Glad it made you smile MadameFreckle :)

Shouldn't be on here as dcs 1 & 2 are in the bath unsupervised, but I can hear lots of happy noises and prefer to leave them to it

Just wanted to report that I've shifted Mia onto 4 hourly bfs today (2 hours up/2 hours down, feeding on waking a la Baby Whisperer)...so far its gone brilliantly but I'm a little nervous that dropping a feed is going to result in a crap night....fingers crossed she'll just take more ebm at 11 (she's barely had any the last few nights) to balance the missing feed) - I do enjoy bfing but 4 hours is so much more sanity-saving :)

I'm very by Alice's sleep today. After weeks of wishing she'd nap a bit better (or at all...) this afternoon she had a 2 hour nap. Then seemed tired again at 5pm so I got her down for a nap at about 5.15 and she's still asleep now. Very unusual for her, and I've no idea what this is going to mean for her nighttime. Hopefully she'll wake soonish and have a good feed before settling. Think DD1 has enjoyed having me to herself for teatime and bedtime though.

We're all feeling much better today, so seems like we're finally over this bug

Glad you're feeling better greensnail. It's such a struggle when you're ill and BF plus caring for other DCs.
Good luck tonight Filly with the new feeding regime. I've also been tempted to go from 5 to 4, but it's working so well I'm scared to change things. Plus my boys aren't exactly racing up the percentile charts. It's funny as DD gained weight like no-one's business - jumping from 50th to 99th in 2 months and staying there. These boys are right at the bottom - but they are happy, alert and sleeping and feeding well, so I'm not too concerned.
Great news barbeasty that sleep is getting better and better. Hope you are feeling more human for it!
MadameF thanks for your contribution to my other sleep thread - appreciate your input.

Really annoyed as had planned tonight's supper but didn't have an onion in the house. Thought I'd borrow one off a neighbour but both my good neighbours are out of the country and it's too wet to be knocking on doors. So ordered an Indian takeaway from posh/expensive place as a treat and it was rubbish. Phoned to complain and told I would get a discount off my next order. Why is customer service so rubbish? Why do I get so annoyed? Must be hormones.

Madamefreckle may see you on the beach then!

Greensnail glad you are all feeling better. Not the greatest timing when you've got a move going on as well as everything else. Romola has also been sleeping rather more than usual today but is very wakeful tonight which is unlike her.

Barbeasty 7 hours fantastic! Enjoy it.

MM I feel your frustration at the poor takeaway...

Filly and anyone else who has a baby with a routine, please can you tell me what your routine is? George and I are still making it up as we go along and it's starting to feel like we're not making any progress. Most days he snacks more than having proper feeds. He's settling down to sleep at around 7 without a problem, takes a dream feed at around 10 and then it's anyone's guess what time he'll want feeding. Last night it was 1.30, 3.30, 5.30 and 7. The night before it was just 2.40 and then nothing until 7.

This week, I have confined myself to the house to get George to nap in his cot. Up until now, he's only slept in his pram with me trudging the pavements of Lancashire to keep him asleep, but I got to the point of giving him away last week, I was so exhaused with the pram pushing and night feeding. I am feeling much better now, but he's only napping for about 30-40 minutes and I have the feeling that other babies are having much longer naps.

AlwaysHopeful - your Lo sounds just like my DS. It's doing my head in too. By this stage my daughters were sleeping up to 12 hrs a night and he is waking every 2 hrs or so after 2300hrs.
Can anyone tell me "how" you go about eeking out their feeds to 4hrly? Is it a case of letting them scream? I too have no routine, apart from the initial bedtime one of 1900hrs.

Alwayshopeful - not all other babies! Laurie won't do more than 40 minutes at a stretch in the day in the pram or car - he does nap a bit better in his cot, but rarely more than an hour and a bit and I hate being stuck in the house all day. And, like George, his night-time sleep is unpredictable - 2 nights ago we were up every 3 hours, last night he did 8 hours from 7-3... I seem to remember ds1's naps settled down a lot at around 6 months, which seemed to have a knock-on effect on the nights.

I'm still following Laurie's lead rather than trying a routine, mainly because what ds1 does (nursery school/ play group/ music etc) is different every day and I can't see how we'd manage to feed/nap by the clock. So no advice really, but you're not alone!

I've just been reading a thread on the 4 month sleep regression - it's good to have something to look forward to in a couple of weeks...

Barbeasty - I'll be interested to find out how you get on with the doidy. I need to start expressing in earnest, as I've got a couple of (v small) bits of work on next month. I find it pretty soul-destroying though, as even now when bf is established and he's clearly gaining weight etc, the quantities I can express in one sitting are tiny. Does anyone have any top expressing tips?

AlwaysHopeful - we're not having longer naps, except very very occasionally in the carrier (which tbh is the only place he naps at all). We had a lot of 15-20 minute naps today, because every time he fell asleep it was close to a time when we had to go somewhere . And last night for you sounds like a pretty normal night for us, except that we don't normally make it til 1:30 before we start feeding. You only think that others are sleeping better because it's those whose dc sleep better who have the time to post on here .

Thanks girls! I can't tell you how happy it makes me to know I'm not the only miserable mummy out there in the wee small hours!

woofie I expressed some milk this week for the first time since George was born. I expressed lots for my DD and it was a miserable experience each time. I gave up at about 10 weeks last time. This time I didn't try it until 15 weeks and it was a completely different experience! I got almost 5oz in 20 minutes, which I was thrilled about. I have an Avent electric pump, but one of the valves is dodgy, so I have to be careful which one I use. One gets a good suck on it and the other doesn't. I still hate the whole process and my nipples were a bit sore, though.

I don't want to think about work. I had lunch with one of my colleagues today and it sounds like all kinds of hell back at the office. I am most definitely better off with a non-sleeping-patchy-feeding-crying baby!

Hello Woofie I too didn't get out too much milk when I expressed with previous 2 DS. This time I read about power pumping (maybe on this thread, I can't remember). Basically , wait 10mins after you feel you are empty, trhen try again - it has worked for me. I have the medela swing, and I love it..

I too am still up 3 times a night feeding Zoe and exhausted. Hoping for a breakthrough soon!

Woofie The only reason I'm posting about the wonderful sleep is that for the first few weeks I was incredibly lucky and Ruth slept really well. Then at about 3 weeks (looking back at about the time I came off the painkillers etc!) she started waking at least every couple of hours for a feed. I remember looking at the clock trying to convince myself it had been 3 hours one night, when it clearly hadn't. So from then until Tuesday she has been co sleeping so that I could be lazy and sleep lying down feed on demand.

Last night was fine for Ruth, but she cried out in her sleep just enough to wake me but no-one else, so I only got 3hrs in any stretch!

For expressing, I have also been told that expressing one side while you feed on the other can make a real difference.

alwayshopeful
Firstly, don't fret. DD never had more than a 40 minute nap, normally in the pram or car, and it didn't affect her ability to have longer naps and sleep well at night in her cot in the longer term (caveated by the fact she is waking early at the moment - grr).
The twins are on a pretty tight routine as I knew with twins and a toddler I'd need them to be in one from day one. This is their day:

7am - milk
8am - play in bouncy chairs
8:30am - wash, change nappies, dress.
8:45 - play under mobiles in cot
8:55am - sleep
10am-ish - wake twins - play under mobile
10:30am - milk
11:15am - play (on play-gym)
11:45am - change nappies
11:55am - to bed in cot
2pm - milk
2:45pm - play
3:45pm - to bed in cot (sometimes in buggy)
4:45pm - wake up
5pm - milk
6pm - bath
6:20pm - milk
6:50pm - bed

As far as snacking goes, try and ensure your LO feeds for at good 40 minutes. We went through a snacking phase in the early days and it was nipped in bud by always feeding for 40 mins (sometimes I burp halfway through). Burp the babies that is!

It's funny, as the DTs sleep really well in cot and not so well out an about in pram, as they are more used to being confined to the house I guess.

Thanks for the expressing info everyone. Will try power expressing first dimb- Laurie's too wriggly on the boob to manage expressing from the other side at the same time I think. He's quite a snacker too- he gets very restless after about 10 mins on each side, though whether that's because he's finished, the let down is too slow or his tummy's bothering him, who knows! He's getting more distractible as he gets bigger too. As I write this he's grinning up at me making some brilliant gurgles with a boob in his mouth

Re naps- Laurie definitely usually wakes after one sleep cycle- does anyone have any luck resettling between sleep cycles? I've tried a dummy to no avail. On the upside, he generally settles well in his cot initially for naps and at bedtime.

barbeasty- don't worry, gloat away! It's fanatastic when they finally show you they can do longer stretches. Fwiw Ruth's sleep sounds quite similar to Laurie's - he was unbelievably good as a tiny newborn, then settled to every 4 hours at night, then it all went seriously pear-shaped at about 7 weeks, but has recently settled a bit again, with the odd 7 or 8- hour stretch if we're lucky. After ds1 I feel pretty hopeful that he'll work out how to sleep through eventually, but this is probably the hardest bit, when the cumulative sleep deprivation of 3+ months is taking it's toll... But he's cute enough in the daytime to make up for it (almost)!

Hope you all managed some rest last night.

Ooh and forgot to say, he glugged down my paltry 2oz from a bottle very happily at 1am, so that's one potential problem avoided. At least the grandparents will be able to feed him while I'm working

Margot - am hoping that this doesn't come across as facetious, as I don't mean it that way, but what happens if you want to go out for the morning? Do you not, eg, take your dd to toddler groups which the twins have to accompany you to?

Aargh, I've felt like throwing both my babies out of the window this morning. They've both been whingy and I had a rubbish night. Alice woke up at 10 (I'm blaming DH for turning over loudly in bed, but am not sure I'm being entirely fair on him), then fed a couple more times before 4 when she did a massive poo. Finally got her settled again when DD1 woke at 5. Convinced her back into bed in time to feed Alice again at 6, and had just dropped off again when DD1 decided it was morning.

Re naps - Alice also only generally does 40 minutes. She'll sometimes settle again if she's on her tummy and you manage to get the dummy back in without disturbing her too much, but generally DD1 arrives with a loud toy at the crucial moment and disturbs everything.

I seem to remember DD1 was the same until about 6 months so I'm hoping Alice will start stretching her naps a bit more then too.

MonkeyMargot - I'd also be really interested to know how your DD's routine fits in with the twins. I don't think I could manage to spend all that time at home either - my strategy when things are going crazy is to get out of the house. I suppose with 3 under 2 getting out of the house must be quite a challenge though.

Also, was it MonkeyMargot, who mentionned an alarm that clips onto the baby's nappy for when they're sleeping on their tummy? How are you finding them? I think i'm coming back to the conclusion that Alice just wants to sleep on her tummy.

I have absolutely no fixed routine as that's the only thing that suites me, but generally he has a sleep about an 90 mins after waking at 7.30 and a couple of shorter ones in the afternoon. I honestly couldn't tell you how many times he feeds a day. He's doing gobsmackingly brilliantly (IMO) at night, going from somewhere around 9pm to 7.30am.

Sometimes he sleeps loads in the day (and I panic about the night) and sometimes he sleeps hardly at all (which makes me a bit frustrated) but keeping to a routine would make me bonkers and we're all pretty happy right now.

Just thought I'd say, in case anyone was panicking about having no routine

I have to admit, after trying with the cup again last night (with Ruth stripped off this time!!) we went for the bottle again, and this time she eventually took it.

I think we might see if we can stick with a bottle in the evening and introduce the cup in the day, almost as a game. But then, it will probably all change again soon...

The cooing is lovely, until she starts doing it really loudly at 5am. Still, better than crying I suppose!

CSWS I basically rarely go out in the morning. DD is at nursery 2 days a week and DH takes her out for the morning on the other days. I tend to go out with DD in the afternoon from 3-5pm. It's simply because I can't BF the twins just anywhere - I need the special cushion plus lots more cushions to support their weight now they're bigger. It's sad in a way, as I remember with DD being out all the time, BF anywhere and everywhere, but you just can't do it with 2 in public easily.
I'm fortunate that DH is self-employed and hasn't a lot of work on so is able to entertain DD in the mornings.

Greensnail the twins have been sleeping on their tummies for 7 weeks now and are very happy. I bought the Respisense Ditto monitors from www.tensmachinedirect.co.uk/
They definitely give peace of mind, although occasionally they come off the nappy at night and the alarm goes off - cue you leaping out of bed to check baby and then reattach monitor.

Oh it sounds like a perfect arrangement for you all Margot (assuming that you don't need dh to have more work financially speaking) :). Have you a target in mind for how long you'd like to bf the twins for?

CSWS will BF the twins until they're 12 months (as with DD) when I will go back to work. DD weaned herself at that point and hoping the DTs will too. I haven't introduced bottles and nor do I intend to as can't be bothered with sterilising and pumping.
How is J and how was the christening? Hats off to you for organising it so quickly! DD was almost a year when she was baptised.

Hi everyone - I don't check for a couple of days and there's a flurry of posts!

Not much to add really except that Sam is doing well - lots of smiles and chuckles so really cute. I can't believe he's 3 months old today - where does the time go??

Alwayshopeful Our routine is pretty much determined by the fact that DD1 is at nursery school half days so we have a school run at 1 and then pick up at 3.15 so everything needs to fit around that. Sam's breakfast is between 7.30am and 8am then he has another bottle around 11/11.30am, another one 3.30/4ish and then bedtime bottle is 7 and usually in bed by 8. His best sleep is in the buggy at lunchtime - he goes in the buggy for the school run at 1pm and I leave him in there until we get back from the school pickup. This does mean that he only has short naps between the other feeds but he sleeps at night which is the main thing.

Hoping that Sam's christening will be in the run up to Easter next year. We had the girls christened at this time of year and it's worked out well before.

I've probably missed something so apologies.