April 2011 - cake-offing, gin-guzzling, wine-sipping, dreams of sleeping

[fraktious]

Thread 3!!!

at your wallet thingys, we had to do the same ILTMI. With the arrival of P, DS now has 15 giant wallets in the top shelves of his bedroom bookcase containing dh dvd collection bookcase. Not sure what dh will do when DS wants his bedroom shelves back when he's older.

I know it was mentioned a while back but i havn't posted for a few days . We did sing and sign with ds which he enjoyed. The best thing to do is ask around at the coffee mornings so you find out who does the more popular classes as I agree it does all depend on getting a nice/good teacher.

oh an extra bookcase has appeared in my post above, seems my laptop is still doing strange things, the cursor jll the time too umpsa around, see it just did it again

Just wondering how much sleep your baby has in the day? After another night of truly shit sleep I'm wondering if S is getting too much. I had always thought 'sleep begets sleep' but I am getting desperate to tinker with something to see if I can get better sleep at night. S has been having 4 naps of 45mins each the past week or so.

I think she has reverse cycled too Ali. Last night she woke 6 times and fed each time. Eeeek. How do I change the cycle though? Where is the button? Will I have to refuse to feed her in the night so she is hungrier in the day? This would seem logical but in the middle of the night when I want to go back to sleep it's so much easier just to feed.

On the tooth front, DS had his first at 21 wks. I think S is 18wks today and we have intermittent drooling and biting down on everything but can't see any white gums yet. I'll be sad when she gets her first tooth as I love her gummy smile.

Oh no! I don't like the sound of this reverse cycling! I hope that's not the problem. I'll make a concerted effort to encourage P to feed more regularly in the day just in case that's contributing to the problem. Thanks for the advise though Ali- I'll carry on feeding her as much as she needs in the evening.

P is not a good daytime sleeper Caramello. I try and encourage her to have three naps (a coupleof hours after waking up, lunchtime and mid afternoon) but she fights sleep and never stays down longer than 30 - 45 minutes, even in the pram.

Caramel & Starshaped: Given that my experience is only with F, you may want to disregard the following, in favour of some more of Ali's wisdom.

I've always just fed F back to sleep. If he's not hungry, he'll just snuggle into my boob and go back to sleep. I had a short phase of wondering if it was the right thing to do, but kellymom reassured me that it would be stupid not to use that tool!

When he went through a bad sleep stage, I fed him, and if that didn't settle him I'd just put him in his cot and go back to sleep myself (NB he was just happy and awake, talking to himself, not upset or anything). I'd wake up a while later to find he'd fallen asleep himself (the beginning of his occasional self-settling skills).

However, he does feed every 2 hours during the day, and has done for a couple of months at least. He only naps for about 35 mins at a time, and has about 4 naps a day. I think he needs more sleep. I think he needs to sleep for longer. But he very rarely does.

Normally (i.e. on a good day!) he's in bed by 7, and asleep by 9 latest (after a 35 min nap & feeding back to sleep). On a good night he'll wake for a feed anywhere between 2-4am. I think the good night's are becoming more common!

However, when I go back to work, and he's faced with bottles all day, I fully expect him to reverse-cycle. Especially in the beginning. I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to cope, but I suppose like everything I'll have to ride it out.

F's so close to sitting by himself today. He's been sitting surrounded by cushions. Although now he's reclining watching Planet Earth in HD!

DH has gone back to reading the BLW book. He's now finished chapter 3! I must restrain myself. Must wait till 6 months!

E have the 35 min nap here too. I don't know what to do to fix it .

Last week was bad at night, lots of night feeds, we just fed to sleep. I don't really mind. Last night DH managed to settle after the nap and he went down til 2 when I fed to sleep, up at 5 and fed them he woke me (but nit himself) with a giant poo so we did a snoozy nappy change and he burbled away while I went back to sleep, I woke a bit later and he was sleeping, went through to 8.45 :) That is rare though.

I wouldn't worry about bad habits, IMO there's not much you can reliably do before 6 months because we're still in a grey zone wrt need/habit. I do encourage quite frequent daytime feeds.

Last set of jabs for now done. Had a bit of a 'discussion' with the paed about the MMR at 9 months. I am not keen..... Lucky ee have the option of singles and I'd rather he caught mumps tbh.

Today i learned doing the asda shop with B in a sling seems like a good idea, but really isn't. He seemed content enough to start with, then he started with the grumping because he was tired. He did doze off, but everytime I reached for something he would jerk awake and scream. I eventually abandoned trolley with customer services (I hadn't nade it to the chiller section) and went to feed him in the cafe. He was much better after that and I managed to finish. I must say top marks to Asda staff who helpload the checkout and packed all my bags for me :o. Shame they couldn;t do the same when I got back home! Online shopping for me from now on! Because of all the fuss I've come home with only half of what I went out for!

We've got those tommee tippee teethers Buck. B prefers them to a dummy now. Not that he ever really took a dummy.

After last weeks through the night wake ups we are now back on track (touches wood) with 8-6ish feed then back down til 9.30/10. Daytime naps still an issue. I can almost time things by them 45 minutes on the dot. I can sometimes soothe him back to sleep after the first wake up and he will go a couple of hours, but not every time.

I keep forgetting to say, but the great hair shed is happening here. Is it normal for your hairline to receed?? I'm just glad I had the heavy fringe cut in because that hides it!

Don't know about receding but I am definitely shedding big time here.
(tip for those shedding who have showers, use a Dossil, it stops your drains clogging)

Well DD is not a napper during the day much atm, but today...a 2.5hr nap?!?! wtf?!
Of course we had plans and had to go late as Rule Number One could not be broken (never wake a sleeping baby) lol.

It's like she doesn't nap for several days then needs to 'bank' a nap for the next few days.
Oh and 45mins is the sleep cycle but you prob knew that

I'm not really sure how i manage to find time to express, i do most mornings, but today didn't as pump was in the dishwasher, grr. Even though i was waiting around for DD to wake up as well.
My minumum target is 2litres and i have 1.1 in the freezer so far :)

Thanks for all the advice folks. You've reassured me loads and I'm just going to carry on doing what I'm doing at night (i.e. feeding...lots!) and encourage her to feed more frequently by day. She's been such a cheerful little girl today, so am feeling more positive about everything. Well, at least until the witching hour later on tonight .

Fizz - no sign of any receeding hairline but I'm losing hair by the handful here. If I'd not been told about it in advance, I'd be worried that I'd developed alopecia!

Starshaped - i too fed as DD wanted when she went through her sleep 'issues' a couple of weeks ago. Actually I'm not sure if i could get her back to sleep any other way and i daren't risk it in the middle of the night!
Feeding takes 10-ish mins and then we're all back in bed.
Plus she helped to up my supply for expressing :)

Generally I figure that if she's not hungry she won't take milk, so i offer it and cross my fingers :)

One sleep cycle is 45 minutes, so in theory!, as soon as you hear your baby stir, try and shush them back to sleep. Lots of people find the shush pat method works for them. It is a bit hit and miss with ds, but then I'm a bit irregular about putting him down for a nap in his cot. However, why they have trouble with the 45 sleep cycle in the day, but not the night I don't know. Maybe it's something to do with melatonin levels in the dark of night?

My dsis, bil and niece and nephew are camping on the Suffolk coast this week and we went to visit them today. Ds2 had a fab time, he loved the novelty of the trailer tent and that the site was pretty much on the beach. Baby I however wasnt so keen, but i think he was a bit cold. Once ds3 is a bit bigger I'm quite tempted to get a trailer tent, I like the laid back lifestyle. No sure I'll get dh to agree though. Spoilsport.

Right, I'm now off to bed, the fresh sea air has worn me out!

Oh, and ds has four naps of 45 mins and I don't think that is enough sometimes. I think he probably needs something like 2 x 45 mins (morning and afternoon) and 2 hours over lunch. I really need to apply myself and get I into some sort of daytime sleep routine, but it is nigh on impossible with having ds2 around. He still can't be trusted to do something naughty while I'm out of the room for an extended period

Naps are the hardest thing here at the moment :( in the past couple of days she's had about 50 minutes each day and got more and more unhappy and grizzly as the day goes on. We put her to bed about 40 minutes early tonight as I knew it wasn't going to get any better. And now we're also going to bed early in anticipation of early waking during the night and in the morning. I decided to introduce a nap routine today - putting her into her cot after feeding her to sleep. Unfortunately she wakes and cries after about 10 minutes. I gave up this afternoon and she had a nap on our bed instead, that lasted the 45 minutes. I bet tomorrow she falls asleep during Tuneful Tots again which is the only baby class we're going to this week.

I think my post from last night disappeared but my other news DH is having his first full week off since paternity leave. It's lovely to have someone else around - I've actually got a few things done :)

I feel like a neglectful mother because I am paying almost no attention to when T is napping, or not! I think I am so preoccupied with whatever DS1 is doing that it isn't really registering. I remember being totally obsessed with when DS1 napped, how long for and so on - poor DS2 just has to fit in around whatever is going on.

Thinking about the last couple of days, he has had a monster nap in the morning and almost into lunchtime, and then a short nap - 30 mins or so - at some point in the afternoon. Today it was in the buggy, yesterday it was later on in the afternoon and in his cot. Morning nap really is long, 3+ hours - which is lovely actually because it gives me a chance to do jobs and get some time just pottering about and playing with DS1.

chilli - what happens if she is in the buggy? I've got ours in the kitchen atm and rocked T to sleep so that I had 10 minutes to peg washing and sort DS1 out before we went to the park and the shops - T stayed asleep for about half the trip out I think.
I used to walk and walk with DS1 so that he would nap in the buggy at this age, he was about 8-9 months before he would nap reliably in his cot. I really miss being able to do that, DS1 is a pretty good walker for his age but we can't just tramp about for an hour, he gets too tired and obviously I can't leave him at home!! Hence the buggy in the kitchen and the rocking :)

Anyway T is asleep now, finally. His teeth are really bothering him, poor chap, so we've administered Calpol and Dentinox plus about 2 hours of boob since 8pm this evening and he's finally dropped off. So I must get to bed too, am shattered.

GGF - this is how sleep deprived I am. When I read your post I was thinking 'extra bookcase'? WTF does she mean? I think I was looking for a bookcase emoticon or something

Ali. I love your posts they make me , I always find myself nodding in agreement with you on the 2 DC front
So will this do you for a bookcase [][][][][][]

I'm also a crap relaxed 2nd timer when it comes to remembering when DD naps, how often she BFs etc. We went to town today. My DM came too so we had a buggy each. I fed P at the library, she fell asleep and stayed asleep for 2.5hrs . She has setttled a bit later tonight but is now asleep on my lap after lots of comfort sucking, teetha granules and some Anbesol. So time for bed. i'll take her upstairs where she should sleep hopefully until 7 or 8ish.

Night all, wishing you all get a few decent hours of shut-eye.

Naps? During the day?! What are these things you all speak of? Suffice to say S doesn't nap much during the day, even as a tiny newborn he'd fight to stay awake as long as possible! He does sleep in the sling when we're out, and sometimes he'll surprise me by having a epic nap, but that only happens in his cot and when he's self settled. Otherwise it's 20min cat naps on my knee after feeds, doesn't sleep in the pushchair, doesn't rock to sleep, doesn't sleep on me for any extended period. I've stopped worrying about it, but then I know that he sleeps very well at night (teething allowing!) and usually goes for 10-11hrs before coming into our bed for a feed and another hours snoozing.

He is suffering with his teeth though, I wish something would cut so that he'd get a bit of rest from it. At the moment we're using the Ashtons and Parsons during the day and Calpol before bedtime.

P.S Ali I was looking for the bookcase so you're not alone

So it seems like lots of us aren't really napping then. Well, at least it's not just us then! I've been obsessing about naps (and night time sleep, well just any sleep at the moment really) and trying to force three naps. She fights daytime sleep so much and never self settles but gets really screamy without a snooze, so I think I'll continue with my daily rocking and pram pushing routine! If we're all pretty much in the same boat at the moment then I will stop getting as stressed about it though. The nap 'routine' will surely fall into place at some point in the future and the important thing at the moment is just that she is getting some daytime sleep at some point during the day.

Last night was a little bit better, with a couple of three hour stretches of sleep. Unfortunately the usual trick of feeding her back to sleep failed, so we were up for an hour between 1.30 - 2.30 frantically rocking her around the living room. DH then got up with her at 6, after she woke at 5.30 and wouldn't go back to bed after a feed. I definitely owe him a couple of lie ins at the moment.

I am in complete awe of those of you that are dealing with tiny babies and toddlers. I've got no idea how you do it. I feel like I'm barely coping with one!

Love the bookcase, thank you! Very glad to know I wasn't the only one!

Worst night for months last night. T woke at 1 for a feed, I fell asleep feeding him. Then he latched on again at 2.30, he fell asleep so I tried him back in his cot. He woke again at 3. Repeat twice more. DH picked him up to try and settle him and i screamed because I thought T was rolling out of our bed. Then DS1 came in at 6am. I have literally had about an hour's sleep, and no chance of a nap. Bleugh.

Plus it is pouring here so I can't even kick DS1 out into the garden Cbeebies day here for sure.

Oh dear, have a big mug of Ali. Sounds like you might need the caffeine today!

Quick question. As I'd been told to expect, P has become a quicker feeder over the last few weeks. However in the last week or so she's often started to refuse the second breast when it's offered during a feed. In the past, she'd always empty one and then move on to the second but now she often seems to think that one side is enough. Is that normal? I kind of expected that as she gets bigger, then she'd be more likely to want both sides.

I haven't had her weighed for a few weeks but she's clearly still gaining weight and producing lots of wet and dirty nappies, so no concerns on that front.

I'm no expert, but I would say it sounds ok to me. Maybe always offer her the second breast, but if she doesn't want it then that's fine. For me, one of the big plus points of bf'ing is that the baby regulates their own appetite.

She's probably become much more efficient on the breast so feeds quicker and takes as much volume as she needs from one breast.

I've noticed I's feeds are a lot faster. He still feeds from both sides (piglet), but he also does breast compressions on me to speed up the flow.

A rainy day here too, and it's cold.

Star I think that sounds ok, as you say she is feeding more efficiently. Also, the quantity of BM a baby takes doesn't increase in the same way that you would increase the amount of formula because the composition changes and the milk gets fattier.
If you are happy that she's happy, gaining weight etc then I wouldn't worry at all

Ali Does DS1 like Peppa Pig, it's on for 2hrs straight 12-2 on Nick Jr today

I'm with everyone on the poor nap front and am glad to hear it must be pretty normal at this stage. Will give up hoping for 2 hour naps for now and try to go with the flow a bit more.
Am also in awe of those of you with 2 lo's! Please tell me it's easier with the second (the baby bit I mean, not overall)...

We are also with you on the nap front . Makes me to know we are all the same boat and that's it normal. I keep fretting that I will have a 1-2 year old who I will still need to rock to sleep for daytime naps but hopefully the 'routine' will come later. J also gets so screamy without naps but fights and fights the sleep so at the moment I take the naps whichever way they come!

Ok, so just to contradict my previous post S napped for about 2 hours today, first on my bed then for an hour on me. I can't claim any nap inducing magic, just baby Nurofen!