Feb 2011 - The one where they all start sleeping through the night! (We hope)

[WanderingSheep]

Was hoping a positive title might bring us some good luck

suzy steak king prawns salad strawberries cream and WINE??!!! Sounds mmmm mmmm. Pasta with smoked salmon (cheapo trimmings from sains), cream and peas here, takes about 10 mins! Put it in front of DH who couldn't eat a bite, poor chap, he'd been throwing up all morning from a migraine, I'd totally forgotten !!

choc S has discovered her voice too, been screaming all day (in a happy way).

Am v of all you who have breathed the same air as Robbie!!

suzy your dinner sounds perfecto, enjoy! We've had pizza but got some wine in the fridge too :) We don't use PU/PD techniques yet, just shove the dummy in but might try it if needed later. dd is another one whos eyes ping open as soon as we got into the house if she s been asleep when out and about, biut annoying sometimes :)

deb hope your dh feels better soon. More food for you

reastie good luck tonight. And anyone else that needs some luck too!

Non swaddled baby girl is asleep. Will report back tomorrow - bet you can't wait for more ramblings news of her sleeping habits

homemade chicken and broccoli rissotto for dinner here with a magnum for pudding. Freyas not been sleeping fantasticly either. Tried her on a little bit of baby rice to which she made a fake sick noise and pulled a funny face, drama queen already.

i thought it was just mine who woke up as soon as we get home - she never ever naps long in her car seat

well, touching wood but tonight not been as bad so far as past few, but think that's as dh and i been super lazy and watched tv all evening in bed and alice been sleeping in bed with us. dh gone next door to bed and i'm on the glider chair in bedroom while alice has the whole big bed to herself! please please please let her go to sleep easily after dream feed and give me an early night!

choc who is phil neville?!

ponyo glad the grobag is working

fellow tt obsessives (although I'm an exobsessed) shall we play a song game - give a line from a tt song in your post and see if anyonegets it [saddo with nothing better to do]. Here's mine (and it's beginner level imo) - 'as i looked again i saw a face behind you, a little boy stood at the door. and when i looked again i saw his face was shining he had my eyes, he had my smile'

Reastie, babe. Mark Owen was my face until he sang that bloody song!
Noah went down well tonight but was wiggling around then cried so ive turned him over and hoping it isn't a sign of what's to come tonight!
Reastie I hope Alice settles well after her dream feed.
Am desperately trying to think of Take That lyrics.....give me a minute.....oops baby crying, gotta go

Reastie All I do each night is Pray...hoping that your baby sleeps again today. Phil Neville is a footballer btw.

Emski I hope it Only takes a minute to settle Noah.

Hubbard Dinner sounds gorgeous. We also gave R some baby rice this week, I guess now it's time for me to give up pretending she's still my tiny baby. She seems to like it so far...

ponyo Pizza and wine here too :) I did have to tell DP off though as he was slack on the washing up - there was still a lipstick mark on my coffee cup.

Right, better go. R has not been sleeping like an Angel. She's waking up qt 5am with a look that says Why can't I wake up with you mummy?

reastie Do I win?

Oh my god choc I;m not a TT fan but even I got those - round of applause!

excellent work choc i can't do better than that so won't even try

pleased to report dream feed went, well, like a dream and i was in bed by 10pm [bliss] .i've been awakw since 5:30 though despite she's still asleep . so thing that worked was getting her to sleep in bed with us . will stilltry getting her uo early this morning tho

ledkr must be back soon surely?

debka LOL re chewing on snake. Definitely practising for I'm a baby get me out of here.

reastie agree that the morning sleep thing might be the root of your problem. I did some reading around this when C went through a phase of early waking (only around 6ish rather than 7ish), and a lot of people were saying that if the morning nap is too close to the first waking in the morning, then the baby's cycle treats this as night time still. So if you are aiming for 12 hours overnight, then A will need to be getting up to start the day properly 12 hours before you want her to go to bed. Roughly. So by trying to get her to go to bed at say 7 or 8, you're asking her, according to her clock to go to bed at more like 5pm or something?

So see how today goes trying some awake time before morning nap. C wakes at roughly 7 and goes back down around 9 for about 45 minutes to an hour.

DH at work this morning :-( I don't like him working Saturdays as they don't feel like Saturdays [whinge].

we're going to have some photos done at a local rip off studio this pm, free photo session and one free print and then of course they will push really hard for us to spend Claudia's inheritance on a whole album. Been obsessing over what we're all going to wear, I need to get out more.

Water babies yesterday pm was great. I'm really glad I have been persevering with tummy time as C was holding her head up really well when 'swimming' on her front. Last time she almost had her face in the water!

Have a lovely day all.

Dx

yey for Alice reastie!! Did she spend the night in the big bed, or did you manage to transfer her to the cot?

Nightmare night with H last night. Bed at 7.30pm and he was STILL awake at 9pm!! He kept wriggling around the cot and kicking the cot bars! At one point he was sideways in the cot with his feed stuck between the bars and he had to cry for me to rescue him! Then he woke up at 10.15pm for a feed (before we had the chance to dreamfeed him!). Then he woke up at 3.30am and again at 4.30am,. I gave up at 4.30am and brought him in to bed with me. ARRRRRRRR the little pain

ponyo I actually cant wait for your sleeping report! Even tho you did leave me behind with not swaddling

emski hope Noah behaved for you

So, when is mama Ledkr back?? I am dying to hear what happened in Paris, bet they had a wonderful time

delia If C only has 45 mins at 9am, can I ask when her next nap is and how long? H usually has 2 hours on a morning, then 2 again at lunch and Im wondering of that is too much, and maybe shortening the morning nap? But then dont know how he would last til his after lunch nap (usually about 12.30)

suzy she normally sleeps from around 9 or 9.15ish to close to 10 ish. Then often I take her for a walk at this time, so she's mainly awake in the pram but might doze a bit but not a lot and certainly not proper deep sleep as her eyes always open if I slow or turn a sharp corner or go up a kerb or anything. She must be just 'resting her eyes'!

Then she feeds around 11 and sleep again at midday. If it goes well and she doesn't disturb after 45 minutes, she will sleep through till around 2pm. If she does disturb then I try and get her back down or throw her unceremoniously in the pram for a quick march to get her to have another half hour. So ideal lunchtime nap for her is 2 hours.

She's then awake and feeding at 2, then awake until around 4 when she gets whingey again but this one is the tricky one as she's not very good at drifting off for this one, so this is often another march with the pram. This sleep is usually only about 20 minutes. She's then awake until bed at 7 and we put her in bed very drowsy but awake.

So she's only ever awake for around 2 hours, but only ever really has one long nap which is the lunchtime one. 9am is about 45 mins and 4.15ish is only 20 mins ish.

D

Thanks delia!! I have got H into quite a good routine, but think it might need some tweaking as he was very restless in bed last night, he usually zonks out straight away but last night we could hear him giggling and squealing down the monitor! and of course he is tired and in a grump today Why do babies do that?? Nobody is forcing them to wake up, why not just stay asleep if they are tired??!! arrrrr babies are so complicated!

suzy your post made me laugh and is soooo true! I know C is best when she has a really long sleep at lunchtime, but sometimes she disturbs and thinks it's better to spend an hour in a grump about being tired than to actually just go back to sleep. Silly, if only she would listen to Mummy.

Claudia's favourite noise at the moment is kind of a back of the throat ch noise (as in loch not chip) with wet spit that goes on for ages. Cracks me u pwhen i hear that down the monitor!

D

d that v interesting re morning naps - did you find out how long they need to be awake from first waking to first nap? alice managed an hour after waking up before i put her in her cot today (have to build it up slowly) but not sure how long to aim for. our baby sensory class is at 9:45 so she wont be able to go from wake - 10:45 with no nap and i dont want her to moan/sleep through the class now ive paid for a term!!!

suzy poor you - lots of symapthy and yes i got her in her cot after dream feed and she barely stirred from 10 - 6:30 [hallelujah]

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,just lost a massive post grrrr.Needless to say i was trying to say hi to you all and give big sympathies to the sleepless.
Dh has been giving D a later bedtime to break the 5am waking,it seems to be working
Disney was fab,ill put some pics on now. Ella was just the right age to enjoy it all.I was just the right age to have achy legs by 5pm and be irritated by all the rude europeans pushing in and not correcting their badly behaved kids. Big generalisation i know but one big brute actually moved Ella to put his kid in the front to see a parade,we had waited there for half an hour cos she particularly wanted to see it.I glared at him and his wife and she moved the kid over,hard to argue when you only speak a little spanish and french (they were german)I did mutter puuta which is fairly international.
Dh was fine,we were barely speaking when i left cos he was annoyed i was telling him what to do with D,he thought i didnt trust him,he was very good tho and she seems fine.D was in the car when he got us from the station,she was giggling and grinning when she saw us,and was really chilled and cuddly this morning too,i really missed her esp when saw other babies.
Well the frostyness continues here im afraid.We have to go to a wedding on Friday-i dont want to go really,hate the groom,far too fat to feel comfortable,no kids etc etc. The next day is his bros party in Essex so i said we couldnt do both as kids with Mum friday and also we will be tired and hungover so dont fancy driving al the way there. So hey presto,he is going.Hence picke up kids from Mums Sat and then spend the rest of the weekend on my own with a hangover from a wedding i never wanted to go to.
I know iabu prob but i am already planning my revenge,im not a bloody babysitter.

Suzy, I really think Noah and Harry are secret friends because Noah was extremely unsettled last night. It took me until 11pm to get myself inti bed and him to calm down, then he woke every 1.5 hours and was not easy to resettle. He has got a cold so am thinking it was that. He came into bed with us at 5.15 cos I gave up resettling him. Dh let me sleep til 8.30 then I napped with Noah til 10 so dont feel too bad now.
Delia, our nap routine sounds a lot like yours.
Ledkr, glad your back, we missed you.
Choc. Ive never read so many TT lyrics in one paragraph, very well done

www.sleepytot.com/sleepytot_community/articles/five_ways_to_stop_your_baby_waking_early.phtml
This is the link to the evening light exposure to stop early am waking btw.

welcome back ledkr

yes emski i think harry and noah have been talking and conspiring against us!

reastie I can't remember if a 'time' was stipulated, more that from first waking (at a civilised time, say anytime after 6am, not at 4am!), they should have a 'cycle' of eat, awake time, then sleep. So at the moment C's is up to 2 hours awake, a couple of months ago it was about an hour and a quarter, so if you know that A can normally stay awake for an hour and 45 mins or 2 hours etc. then treat that first morning waking the same as you would treat waking from one of her other naps IYSWIM. Agree though you might have to work up to it.

I think as Byronic said upthread, that A might be treating her bedtime as a late nap, hence waking from it not wanting to go back to sleep.

And re activities etc. I tend to find that if I take C to places in the car or pram, she will have 5 mins catnap or whatever which seems to top her up until the next proper sleep. Or put her down for a nap in the pram and then scoot out the door with it at the appropriate time and C wakes up somewhere new!

D

delia S is EXACTLY the same as C in her routine- and I do all the same things as you, ie march round the garden in the pram if she wakes too soon! Makes me feel I'm doing something right :)

Welcome back ledkr it's been quiet around here without you! Glad you had a good time, will have a look at your photos in a minute.

Well we had a bloody brilliant night last night. I heard S about 1.30, got up for a wee, when I came back she was quieter- then she went back to sleep till 3.30!! I thought she might do the same again, but also that she may then wake properly hungry at about 5 and then not want to go back to sleep, so I fed her at 3.30, she went straight back to sleep till 8am and so did I!!!! Woo hoo!!! Long may it last!

deb what was it that happened with the jabs or blood test

suzy - that sounds like L, he thrashes about and gets his hands and feet stuck between the rails then starts screaming. I put the bumper in, it solved the problem but now he likes to sleep with his face buried in it.

L had a better (tho still crap) night, up about every 3 hours instead of 2 but he did sleep 8-12. Usually I feed him for a couple minutes and he goes back to sleep, but he seemed genuinely hungry at 12 and 4 and wouldn't settle for an hour. DH forgot to switch off the alarm clock and it went off at 6.30 and woke L. I said some unrepeatable stuff to DH because L's eyes pinged open and he was up for the day. He did slightly redeem himself by getting up at 8 so I could go back to bed.

I've tried a dummy and PU/PD when he wakes but he'll have none of it, only wants my boob. He gets on his tummy then scoots to the top of his cot, bangs his head (not hard thanks to the bumper) and starts crying.

reastie - yay for Alice sleeping! Babies' sleep habits are so strange and sometimes counterintuitive. Don't feel bad about co-sleeping, I started doing it because I cannot cope without sleep. Do what you need to do for the moment and ignore anyone saying you'll "spoil" her.

Hi all, ledkr welcome back, we have missed you. Photos look nice, E looks so happy bless her. Hope you got lots of lovely sleep, sorry to hear about stress with dh and weddings etc, not what you want to come back to.

reastie pleased for you re: last night :) What time have you got A up today? I am a bit confused re: early waking etc, going to have a read of that link from ledkr in a min.

I am a bit tired dd wasn't too bad last night but dp had a coughing fit at 3am and woke me up, he ended up sleeping on sofa then dd was awake for the day at 5.30am (mn really needs a yawn emoticon - ?)

dd has been really whingy all day, think she's got a cold as shes all snotty and snuffly poor girl. Managed to get her to have some calpol by putting it on my finger then letting her suck it, it took quite a few goes to get her to have a little spoonful! She's the most chilled out now she's been all day, weird this is normally grumpy baby time

deb chuffed for you that you had a good night, nice to hear about some lovely long sleeps too

dp is off out tonight and I'm planning on being in bed by 9pm Sorry if I have missed anyones posts, I have read them just a bit too tired to take them in!