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

madamefreckle - contrary to popular belief, how much you eat/drink does not affect your supply, so that shouldn't be a problem. Though obv for your own benefit try to drink enough that you don't dehydrate! Your breasts will make milk on a supply and demand basis, so if you feed Emma more to keep her quiet then they will make more. The letdown might get a bit slower, but the milk will still come. :)

Welcome foxy.

Ds2 is close to being able to sit I think, but my other 2 were early sitters too, so that's no surprise. We have borrowed one of those Galt rings from a friend, largely so that he doesn't get knocked down constantly by the other 2, and we blew it up yesterday for him. I hadn't realised how much it would help him to sit, but it's great!

Hi all, extreme exhaustion reigning here still I am afraid. justbeme please tell me exactly what you are doing sleep training wise or anyone else who has done anything succsessful in getting v bad sleepers to sleep as I cannot cope much longer. Have come up with a plan of sorts for time being. Keeping bedtime routine the same massage, bath, feed but instead of feeding to sleep am handing to dh to settle. Did this tonight and instead of the hours of screaming I expected he went off in 5 minutes. Usually he will only settle on me. Now he is in bed. So will continue with this and see if it helps and when he is used to it will try lying him in bed after feeding (not to sleep) and see if we can get him to sleep by patting etc. Hoping this will stop the hourly wakings and refusals to lie down after certain time of night. It better work or will have to try something more extreme but dont know if I could. What I do know is I am not physically capable of going on like this!
Oh we have a rabbit type ring thing which fergus sits in. Its like the galt one but has a nice soft head to lean on. Its from ELC.
Also have great teething granule reccomendation. New Era do them in tablet form which disolve in seconds on the tounge, much easier than the granules which seem to go everywhere. They seem to work too, Fergus got his first tooth yesterday and since taking the tablets about a week ago the drooling and chomping calmed down somewhat. I got them from amazon btw.
Crap he is crying better go

Grr - those teething tablets contain lactose, just like all the granules, so not sure that we should try them goodname :(.

I am totally with you on the sleep thing. Since J was ill we have got into the situation where he will pretty much only feed to sleep, day or night (will occasionally go off in carrier when out, but not as easily as he did),and will only stay asleep as long as my boob is in his mouth. I am getting weary from it, and had a bit of a panic about it when I was rushed into hospital in an ambulance on Thurs night, as I worried about how he would cope if I was gone for long.
His naps are thus often only 10-20 mins long. In fact he's just woken from a 10 min one now, so better go.

CSWS Rushed into hospital? I hope everything is ok.

Ruth has developed a few new skills. The first is her new noise she likes to make: blowing raspberries. So, when we took her to church on Saturday and there was the ceremonial lighting of a candle from the bishop, and what happened at the exact moment that it's lit? Yep, you guessed it. Ruth broke the silence by blowing a raspberry

Her second, equally impressive achievement of the weekend was last night when she threw up on me. This wasn't any old throwing up though. This was a big pool of semi-digested sick which she got inside my top so that it pooled in my cleavage, trapped by my bra.

I'm looking for some nicer achievements this week!!

Ah barbeasty our babies have been in cahoots. Jeremy managed to wake up in the middle of a quiet prayer yesterday and scream the place down.

My hospital visit was down to another gallstone attack. I don't know if there are any other succeeded on here, but if there are then I'm sure that they will agree with me when I say that they are worse than labour and childbirth. I am on waiting list for surgery, but am now attempting to get my appt moved forward.

Oh CSWS, that is really tough.

Goodname, have things got any better for you?

Fergus naps really well as long as he fed to sleep and stays lying on me, same with nighttime sleep. Must fix this but too tired to think. He is in a strange sleepy mood today, very grumpy.
CSWS that sounds bad, can imagine worse than labour and mine was apparently an easy one. Also I have a question for you, why did you have more than one baby after experiencing this extreme sleep deprivation? I guess it helps if you have a cute baby. I tell fergus all the time that is a good job he's so cute or I would be sending him back
CSWS and Barbeasty Fergus likes to fart loudly at moments like those!

CSWS :( Hope you get the appointment soon, that sounds awful

Here's what happens Goodname:

Version 1: your baby eventually starts sleeping and eating properly, you recover and then one day you look round and realise they are already around 18 months and getting quite 'proper', then you feel a bit emtional and wonder where the time went and then you think how nice it would be for little DS to have someone to play with and before you know it.....

Version 2: you and DH finally get around to a little.......um...quiet time , but you're so tired you completely forget to deal with contraception....next thing you know....

All good but slightly hectic in the filly-household - Mia is still angel baby but has hit a massive growth spurt and woke the family on both Sat and Sun yelling for milk at around 7am (yes, I appreciate that by many peoples standards this isn't bad going, but DH and I hadn't gone to bed until 1am on Sat night and both the bigger dcs really really needed more sleep....!)

DH keeps mentioning the 'W' word, but I'm so not ready to think about weaning yet - I think because Mia is my last I really don't want to rush any of the small baby stages :)

Thanks for the advice on the expressing - I'm slowly trying to take it down but its hard to judge. I keep going out in the morning feeling like I've got unexploded ammo strapped to my front, primed and ready to explode at the slightest touch !

Hi everyone! I finally have an internet connection at the new house so am back. Just marking my place then off to catch up.

Greensnail - Hope the move went well, where are you again in Devon?

Goodname - the sleep "training" is pretty much what you are doing - not allowing the baby to fall asleep at the boob ( q hard to know when to break them off), so that they learn to go to sleep themselves. Apparently babies wake 6 or so times a night, but if they can self settle then they will do so - otherwise more booby needed (what was happening here). I have decided that A can go from 1900 - 0400 ish without a feed- as he managed this on his own once.So if he wakes and cries before then, we are going in and putting our hand on his chest, leaving the room after a few minutes, letting him cry for 5 or so minutes and then going back in - and repeat until he falls asleep (3 times max so far). The most he has gone is 11 hours, he had a blip 2 nights ago, so every night is different, but I'm hoping that after a few days, his body will get the message!! Hard work, but I'm hoping it will be worth it.

justbeme with did the same with J to great results, sometimes he needed a little more coaxing to get back to sleep than just a hand on chest, perhaps a cuddle, sometimes a dummy. Gradually he started to wake for feed later and later, but never feeding until he was max 15 minutes before the time he fed the previous night. Within 5 weeks of starting, he was consistently sleeping through.

Our starting point was midnight, after 1 week, he wasn't fed before 02.30, after 2 weeks he moved to 03.30, after 3 weeks he wasn't fed before 04.30, after 4 weeks he was managing until about 05.30. A week later and he would happily go until 06.30.
Then he hit the 4 month sleep regression and is currently all over the place! We think hope it's starting to wear off and so will go back to the start. He's currently waking around 04.30 for feeding, so I'm hoping that in a couple more weeks he'll be back to sleeping through (in time for the 6 month spurt!)

Gah - just did long post and pooter crashed.

CSWS poor you - how did Jeremy fare whilst you were in hospital? Hope you get the surgery you need soon.

SNAFU here. The boys, who have been sleeping through from 7pm-7am since 9 weeks old have hit a serious growth spurt. They are ravenous. Had to give them their first ever "dream feed" last night - also their first ever bottle and first taste of formula - they literally necked 7 fl ounces in 10 mins. Still had to BF Rafferty at 3:45pm and Atticus at 5am though. It's a shock to the system when you've got used to having a full nights sleep, to have it taken aaway again. On the plus side my DD's early wakings have ceased and she's taken to her big girl's bed like a duck to water.

I'm actually looking forward to the onset of weaning. So is my dog . She's a huge fan of BLW!

Right, have just managed to read it all, but haven't retained anything, so no insightful comments from me.

CSWS, hope you get your consultant's appointment soon. You must be superwoman dealing with that pain on top of 3 children and no sleep on your own.

Move went well and we're starting to settle in a bit here. We're in Newton Abbot justbeme. DD1 was majorly unsettled by the move and has been refusing to go to bed and waking up screaming several times overnight. We've discovered she's a bit better at settling for DH than for me now, as I think if I go to her she just can't bear to let me out of her sight again, so that's taken the pressure off me a bit as he has taken over her nighttimes. That just leaves me to get up for Alice goodness knows how many times overnight.

My hopes that moving Alice to her own room would help her sleep have been dashed as she's still waking the same amount as before. It doesn't help that I jump up as soon as she makes any noise as I'm terrified of her waking DD1. She's napping a bit better in the day though.

BLW going well here. Alice is loving exploring different flavours and textures. She's not swallowed much yet but is having great fun trying and is getting quite skilled at picking things up and getting them to her mouth. She even managed a kind of pincer grip on some cereal the other morning which was very impressive.

Please can I just say 'Aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!'?

My nanny (due to start January) decided today to tell me that she'd "prefer to stay in retail" - we were going to do our Paediatric First Aid course tomorrow (there's £100 in cancelled course costs down the pan) and now back to square one on the childcare front.

bravegirl that's so annoying.........but why not do the course anyway? You can hopefully find another nanny before January.

Greensnail you are a brave woman indeed moving with 2 small children. Our house sale just fell through for the second time. It's depressing as we probably won't be able to sell ntil next year now.

Welcome FoxyRevenger and TheSkiingGardener!

It's been a while but I'm now caught up. I went on hols in September back to the UK for 3 weeks and lost my place, both here and in terms of Magnus' routine. He had been sleeping through but I guess the time difference, or the disruption or something threw him off. Hasn't managed it again since (sob).

But the holiday (to go to DB's wedding) was fab! Thanks for all the dress pointers LaTrucha, GoodName, AlwaysHopeful and Nizzy. I found an outfit that contained my enormous boobies, steamrollered the worst of the lumps, and let me BF without causing too much offence. And the 20hr journey to get there with 3 DC under 4 and a DH who cannot stay awake in a moving plane... Well, least said soonest mended.

Apart from the atrocious sleep patterns, Magnus is doing very well. He's a big fat jolly baby. Actually he's gigantic (99th centile). But you can't overfeed an ebf baby, right? I hope so as bf seems to be the best way to get him back off to sleep at night and I hope I'm not overdoing it.

Welcome back Poguemahone!

Hello again pogue and greensnail. Greensnail I really feel for you with the sleep thing. DO not know how I could cope with Fergus if I had a todler too. Dh has decided tonight is the night to sort out Fergus's sleep (men do like to try and fix things, myself I feel there is no chance) as he is now off work for 4 days. So the plan is that I will sleep downstairs and only feed Fergus at prearranged intervals (nothing too cruel, every 3-4 hours) and DH will settle him inbetween times. I believe he may give up half way through the night or I will crack and force him to hand the baby over. Oh well we will see what happens. I must admit I feel quite sick thinking about it. The funny thing is DH thinks its a good plan as I will be able to have more sleep tonight. As if I could sleep through screaming baby who wants his mum. Its nice of him to try though. He is a v good DH.
Monkey Margot, it must be extra hard for you when the twins sleep is disturbed because then you have to cope with both of them all the next day. Hope it has improved and it was just a little blip.
Can I ask a bf question. Fergus for the last couple of weeks keeps twisting his head round in the middle of feed so he is facing the other way. This seams quite weird to me, is it normal? Also he now keeps biting me, specially if he is tired he has this lovely habit of biting anf twisting his head at the same time. Will he grow out of this as I am starting to dread feeding him?
Oh I must add that despite the slightly negative nature of this (and recent) posts I do think he is the most gorgeous baby ever to be born and he is an angel most days.

Welcome back pogue and congrats on the new home greensnail :)

I don't mean to sound critical greensnail but it is surprisingly easy to sleep through the sound of a crying baby, once you get over the belief that you are the only person in the world who can look after that child :) So you need to tell yourself that your dh will be fine (and have a bit of faith in him, for all of your sakes) and make yourself go back to sleep (and believe he'll fetch you when necessary) and you may, or may not, be surprised at the results. If you don't, and end up rushing in when the crying starts (or doesn't stop as fast as you'd like) you will both make your dh feel undermined and useless and set up a longer term dynamic that leaves you as the only person able to look after the baby in your household. In the long term this is sooooo not what you want, believe me :) Being realistic, no 16/17/18 wk old baby should need feeding every hour during the night, and you do want to fix it sooner rather than later - in my experience most baby-behaviour related issues take 3-4 days to start putting right, which isn't very long, but do require consistency from you....so go for it, and stick at it :) :) Good luck :)

OK, off to put 3 kids to bed. Wishing you all good nights :)

Ahem . That last was intended for goodname not greensnail, of course. Sorry, tiredness kicking in....

Goodname Do you have any earplugs? They really worked for me when we did something similar with DD. I think yours and your DH's plan is a good one and could work better than you think. Filly is right - once you let go of the belief that you are the only one in the world that your baby will settle for, you can sleep right through them waking up (in my experience )

Good luck!

All four of us have had a stomach bug over the last few days - 36 hours each with baby G starting on Sunday and DH finishing this evening. Hope we will all be back to fighting fitness tomorrow.

Goodname - I can't sleep through a baby screaming either, but then my dh is never here for long enough, and even if he is/was, couldn't be bothered enough to try and do what your dh is. Good luck with it.
Our very very frequent feeding wasn't even sending J back to sleep last night. He is having so much to drink that I am having to change his size 4 super dry nappy in the night, because otherwise he is soaking through it . But he has come down with a cold, and I have a storming cold too today, so am feeling like shit and I guess he might be too. I have given him medised (for those horrified first time mums - it was suitable from 3 months 4 years ago, and nothing in it has changed - I could go into the reasons for increasing the age limit, but J is awake again so I won't bother).

ok he's settled himself, so can continue.
Goodname, re your question from the other day. We nearly didn't have a second child - dh wasn't sure that he could cope with going through it all again, but that was down to the constant screaming and not just the sleep issues, which there was an actual reason for (milk intolerance, not discovered until 16 weeks), so we figured it wouldn't happen again. Why it concerned him so much I don't know, since he was never here . With ds1 he was around, as was working from home or unemployed for the first 18 months or more of his life. Fortunately, he was a bit of an improvement on dd.
And then of course may I remind you that I orginally joined this ante-natal thread as 'HappyAccident' . Although we were considering a 3rd at some point.
But you need to remember that the first year or so may be really really hard, but it does get better, and a child is for life, not just for the baby days. :)

Sorry to crash your thread, but I was looking for feedback on NCT classes if you have a minute. Many thanks

Thanks for the encouragement to stick with it and trust DH. I managed to stay in spare room and not interfere last night apart from at predetermined feeding times. Decided he could feed every 4 hours as he can go that long in the day no prob. In the end he went 5 then 4. There was quite a bit of crying but no hysterical crying so that was good and dh managed to settle him each time. He woke a couple of times between 8 and 1, lots of crying but sleep eventually came (dh dancing round bedroom )
Second half he woke much less than usual just once at 3:45 and then again (for a feed) at 5. Then slept til 7:45! Result! All in all it went much better than anticipated and DH is very pleased with himself. I of course did not sleep, the first part of night I was so stressed about the crying, the second part of night I was too excited about it possibly working. No wonder Fergus cant sleep with a mother like me!