FEB 2010 Longer out than in and first Christmases around the corner...we're 9 months on.

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

Shiny new thread, as promised fellow FEBers!

Figured we would start another new one to mark first birthdays, bethlou, so I've held fire on referencing that landmark in this thread title - hope that's okay with y'all!

Anyway, welcome everybody, pull up a comfy chair, someone get the wine out and I'll open a huge box of chocolates for us all to share.

GF What a horrible time you are having. my friend gets sciatica and I know how much pain she gets in. You have my sympathies.

Bloody teething goes on forever doesn't it. DD was like it last week and I called dr out. Like your DS she was really miserable and whingy.
She has a terrible green nose in the morning now and it runs constantly. To top it off she has got gunky eyes and a very chesty cough. So will be back down the dr on Monday.

IC DD does that sometimes. Not as often these days. It can range from 1st half hr,45 mins or an hr. She did it last night and cried for 20 mins. After the CC I was a bit but she went off. I doubt it will become a habit. It could be she just didn't take enough milk.

What happens when you put her down for a nap in her cot? What time is her 1st nap in the morning? (hark at me the sleep expert?!!)
It has taken months to get DD's naps sorted.

Hmm, does this work?

Hi BG
No..check/edit your settings. You may need to make it so anyone can view....?

TBH, I've given up putting her in the cot for naps now. The crying/sleep ratio is hopeless, so I stick her in the pram and go for a walk. I tried various times after waking, tried reproducing most of the bedtime routine (sans bath), tried putting her down awake, feeding her to sleep, leaving her to protest for a bit (it worked at bedtime) etc. etc.

If she's not being rocked or pushed in the pram, DD will only get sleepy for her nap if she's on the breast, but wakes as soon as I try and unlatch her. At night, I can unlatch her and put her in the cot and generally, she'll turn over and go back to sleep (sometimes after a few attempts).

During the day - forget it!

At the moment, doing the pram naps is okay - although DD is close to outgrowing the pram. I THINK she'll sleep in her buggy, although we've only tested this once.

It keeps me fit and slim, but I don't get much of a chance to do stuff or have a rest!

I think DH and I will start TTC early next year, so the problem will be if I get pg while DD still needs the pram walks. Never mind the potential exhaustion levels, I doubt my bladder would cope with 1.5 hours plus of non-stop walking...!

Hmm, maybe I could borrow one of DD's nappies....

I ended up buying the maclaren xt as it reclines flat and has a hood that pulls right down. Made it much cosier than pram. DD will sleep longer in it. (45 mins) 1st time was not great as it was not familiar but she got used to it really quickly.

I found 2 hrs after waking she would go down in the cot with me stroking her forehead and I still do this and stay with her until she has properly fallen asleep.
Lunch time we co sleep in my bed. Today she fell asleep at 12.25 and didnt wake until 3pm!! Never done that before. Normally hour and half. Means I get bugger all done but she is happier!!

I cannot wait until she doesn't need naps anymore!

How about now ?

Me too... in some respects, anyway!

Ah, if only my DD would get sleepy with nowt more than a bit of forehead stroking... I don't mind co-sleeping for naps, but again, she needs to be latched on and she rarely sleeps for more than 40mins max like that even so. Plus it's getting uncomfortable now she's nibbling and scratching at my nips with her teeth...

TTSP...and it's not really a big deal as these things go.

Sorry, X-posted BG.... she's adorable, love the "nein, nein, nein...!"

BG She is lovely!! Lots of teeth!! DD still only got 1!!!!

IC Ouch!!! Hmm sounds like she likes being with mummy..and who can blame her?!

Heh, that's what I figure! I should enjoy it while it lasts - and in fact, I do. Mostly.

BG she's sooo cute! DS does the same on 'non, non. non'

IC ouch with the teeth!

I don't have a pram, I bought a pushchair fitting with a carry cot. The pushchair has 3 reclining positions and DS when needed, fall asleep on the lying down position.

DS fever has started to drop but he has been so clingy today that I'm exhausted. He is already sleeping and I hope the night is going to go smoothly (even if I get up every 4 hours for temperature checks and giving him calpol/ibuprofen).

GF Hopefully a good night!! Is exhasuting when they are clingy. DD alseep too.

Hope you all have a good night! :)

Thanks. Our Jan/Feb/Mar babies are all really cute . dd2's favourite activity at the moment is to crawl from room to room and shut the doors behind her... Slightly inconvenient if I am on the other side of the door, but luckily we have old Victorian doors and floorboards rather than carpet, so there is a huge gap at the bottom of most of the doors. I can easily see where she is and then push open the door carefully and not trap her fingers.
(I don't find it nearly as cute when dh keeps closing doors everywhere... If I am going back and forth folding washing etc I think it makes rather more sense to leave everything open. At least I know where dd2 gets it from! Luckily she can't yet copy his obsession with switching lights off everywhere all the time. I am not a bat and can navigate by whatever it is they use (echo??)!!! I have had quite an argument with him already because I don't think it's funny for a light to be switched off when I am halfway down the stairs carrying a baby with a toddler in tow . Anyway, rant over )

BG at your DH switching lights on.

Sorry lights off

Ah, BG that's adorable! Isn't this such a great age? They are just gorgeous at this age...

IC I used to walk the dogs while DD slept but then she started to find the walks too interesting so would fall asleep after an hour's walking, so I would walk another hour, just to give her the full hour's nap. I never got anything done, and despite feeling fit and healthy, I was exhausted and frustrated. After weeks of trying to work out a routine, including dog walks, I have found one that works. I get back from my hour's walk with the dogs, give DD breakfast, let her play for twenty minutes and as soon as I catch the first yawn, I put her in her cot and she sleeps for an hour and a quarter... it is BLISS! I've now extended this to putting her in her cot after lunch, again after boob and a twenty minute play, she sleeps for another hour. It really has made a difference to my life. I can now plan to do drawing, paperwork, go on MN, have a cup of tea. She absolutely refused to nap in her cot before but after days of insisting, she finally gave in! Oh and DP and I are going to be TTC soon too(Paris, maybe?) although no periods here yet! I'm dreading that EXHAUSTION and NAUSEA I had in the first trimester... those of you with two DCs, how did you cope???

Littlebear I also bought the Maclaren XT and we love it. I use it as my urban pram... my other pram was just too damn big to go on public transport and usually had tonnes of mud on the wheels from walking across country!

GF I have sciatica so I know what it's like. I still haven't had any real back pain since DD was born, I put it down to that fabulous hormone that helps me relax during breastfeeding. I find that alternating ice packs and heat really works, have you tried it?

Oh and IC my DD bit down on my nipple this morning while we were snoozing and OMFG! it hurt so much ...

DD slept from 6.30pm til 3.30am last night, so hoping for something similar tonight... fingers crossed that the gaps are widening and soon she'll sleep til 6?

Good night everyone!

All these videos are great BG your DD is absolutely gorgeous.

I can't tell whether LO took her first few steps today or just walked whilst falling towards the sofa. (where nan was siting on sykpe)1111111111111````````````` and that's what LO has to say.

She did take 3 very little steps whilst standing independently though, will prob be walking by xmas

does anyone elses like drinking from a glass, obviously I hold it for her.I keep meaning to buy a free flow cup but they don't seem to have them here.

Those with older kids, when do they start to understand no and acually listen?

Will dash I have her all to myself this afternoon and she is being lovely and adorable.

and she keeps stuffing things in my mouth

dd2 likes to feed us too, but usually pulls whatever she is holding away from us before we can take a bite and then does her cheeky grin. CC walking... . dd2 can pull herself up to stand but gets very cross when she casually holds on with one hand to wave with the other and then falls backwards..

well it's not walking yet, but she has repeated it. So she can take 3/4 steps.

Yeah normally things gets mushed around my mouth for a bit (still holding) and then takes it away.

morning? so what's everyone planning on stirring up today?

DD did our cake with her Nan on tuesday, and we're not making a pudding here, so i don't think we'll be stirring anything here!

just marking really, sorry DS has just pulled all the weekend newspapers off the sofa onto his head and his disappeared under a tonne of cumberland news?

more soon!

he seems to be enjoying wrestling with the papers (not so sure i'm going to enjoy trying to clean the news print off him shortly!) in the meantime though, can't remember who suggested sharing recipes a while ago, but here's our fruitcake one? this was my great grandma's and DD now makes this regularly (with a little help obviously!!) just a plain old boiled fruitcake, but we usually have one in the cupboard cos it seems a better sweet snack option than shop bought stuff or sweets!

now known as Esme's fruitcake, cos she can pretty much sort all the ingredients out herself (though we do the heating up!)

1lb mixed dried fruit
8oz flour
4oz butter
8oz sugar
2 eggs
1/4 pint water
2 dessert spoons jam or marmalade

1. put the fruit, butter, sugar, water and jam in a pan and slowly bring to the boil, simmer for 15 mins and leave to cool

2. stir in beaten eggs and flour

3. put in well greased/lined square tin (somewhere around 7/8 inches) bake for 1.5 hours (ish) gas 1.5/135c

cooking time depends entirely on the size of your tin - we usually use an 8 inch and it takes about an hour - 8 inches makes it less deep and a better size for DD snacking option!!

this in no way resembles our christmas cake, but i'm not allowed that recipe - i think mostly cos my mum makes that up as she goes along every year!

sorry, no individual responses cos i've lost track, but for those of you thinking about TTC - good luck! it took 3 years with DD, and happened almost instantly with DS!

CC That is so exciting about the walking. What a clever little girl.

GF Poor son! Hope he is feeling better soon. What is the hospital like on Guernsey?

BG What a little cutie! Also very clever with her head shaking for 'nein'.

Well I'm a bit down - the CC is depressing me and it is only day 2. I feel like it is so unnatural but I've tried co sleeping and I've tried having his cot in our room and it just didn't work. Last night was quite hard. I didn't keep track of the wakings or how many times we went it but one minute it was 1.30 and the next minute it was 4am so I must have had some sleep. And after I fed him and put him down at 4.30 he slept until we got him up at 7. We've decided we need to start the day at 7 to keep the routine going so I did it yesterday and DH did the wake-up and breakfast today while I lay in.

It took him 40 mins to get to sleep for his nap (am doing it for naps too now, despite what I said previously) but it gave me a chance to get lunch ready (chicken and veg stew) and on the hob so it's there for 12 which is amazing. He's been asleep for 25 mins now. We were going up ever 15-20 mins while he settled for his nap. It just puts me on edge to hear him crying and everything in me wants to cuddle him and I worry about his stress hormones and him feeling abandoned etc.

I wish we didn't have to do this but I've run out of options.

And my dad is arriving from Italy tomorrow and that will f*ck up the schedule a bit because he doesn't arrive at Gatwick until about 5.30 and I've promised to keep DS up to meet him. Can't really not...

And DH's mum is going on about us visiting them again, and the book says that going away can set everything back to square one. But you have to start some time. If you keep saying "let's leave sleep training until after we go away/until my dad's gone/until after the 9m sleep regression..." you end up with an 18-m-o on your hands who can climb out of bed and that's a different and much harder story. So we're doing it now.

I really get upset/anxious when I think about visiting my in-laws even though they are very nice people and it's usually fine once we are there. DS looks very like his dad when he was a baby and I hardly see any of me in him. Maybe I feel like a bit of an appendage, I don't know. It's like I've produced a carbon copy of DH and you can't see my input.

Had an argument with DH. He said that DS wasn't crying in distress with the CC and I said he was and somehow that escalated and I got told I was very aggressive. We have made up now.

Do they learn things and then forget them? Just that DS used to say "mum-um-um-um-um" for a while a few weeks back, then he got more interested in crawling/pulling up and doesn't seem to babble so much. I think he has just started waving but I'm not sure if the arm movement was a coincidence or not.

Very grey day here in London today.

About meeting up in the SE. Probably not going to happen before Christmas now is it? Should we think about maybe meeting in Feb for a shared birthday thing?

Mmm, sounds good, stoof

Walking already CC! Coo, how exciting!

DD still hasn't worked out how to crawl, but she's getting more determined by the day, so I don't think it'll be too long now...

...doesn't stop her being mobile, though. She fell of the mattress in her room again today - oops. My mistake, I though she was happy munching her shoe lying on her back while I nipped across to the bathroom to rinse out her nappy and got back in the door just in time to see her sway over the edge. That'll teach me . Again, DD recovered quickly, not particularly hurt, mainly shocked.

Ooh, Abs, I envy your transition to cot naps!!! Maybe one day...

How's your DS today, GF?

DD had a crappy night last night - first one in a while! She woke at 11.15, then again at 01.15, 02.15, 03.15.... then took more than an hour and several attempts to resettle. I was trying to get her back down with just a bit of a cuddle (as I'd fed her only an hour or so earlier), but she wasn't having any. I hope we're not on a slippery slope back into bad habits, or I might have to bite the CC bullet as well....
It wasn't helped by the teenager next door sticking his telly on at 03.30 , grrrr....
Ah well. At least she slept in until 08.00 - she was obviously as knackered as me. Shame I woke an hour earlier and couldn't get back to sleep....

At least your DH is being environmentally friendly, BG - although the safety and irritation aspect of the habit are definitely !

Aw, X-posted, bc.

Sounds rotten. The lack of sleep and stress will be making you feel crappy about everything just now (but you don't need me to tell you that!)
Someone (CC?) pointed out to LBH that Day Two was often the worst. Hopefully things will start to improve from tonight. Then once you've picked up some lost sleep, the sun will come out for you again...

My advice on your Dad is MAKE HIM WAIT!! I always do that to my PILs when they've just flown over to see us. I let them peek into DD's room, but they know how important her sleep regime is, so despite their impatience, they understand why they must wait until morning to see her properly. Seriously, you are mum, so your say goes!

Sending you (unmumsnetty)