Post-grad Brookers, over here! We will Brook No Argument that all Mini-Brookers sleep 12 hours a night and behave angelically during the day

[TooImmatureTurtleDoves]

Over here!

That's where I get stuck Hawthers - if I feed him, he and I will sleep longer, but if I persevere without feeding him then maybe he won't come to rely on being fed. But he'll wake sooner. I'm stuck a lot bit.

Oh, and you're welcome to have my mum for a while - I'll pop her on the train even though I don't know where you live, at the moment any train will do

At the moment I'm going with feeding him because I'm just too tired to do anything else.

has she really never met any baby that didn't sleep through and didn't have Something Wrong? How are you putting up with this? :(

my parents and PIL always automatically ask if DS2 is sleeping better, I'm thinking of saying one that i heard on here - he sleeps like a baby.

with DS1 my mum said every single time she phoned that DS1 would of course sleep more once he was on solid food.

Oh, she's seen plenty of babies that don't sleep through and haven't Something Wrong - in these cases it is the parents that are Doing Something Wrong, or have Done Something Wrong in the past.

She has a colleague of hers with two children who don't / haven't slept well. This is because (apparently ) when they were babies they used to let people cuddle them when they came to visit, even if the babies were asleep . So the babies used to sometimes wake up. This is why they are poor sleepers. Obviously

Also I never fed ds1 in the night at this age (because he slept through). Ergo it is feeding ds2 in the night that causes the problem.

Maybe i should stop waking him up at 2am for my own amusement so I can feed him?

I like the one about sleeping like a baby

My mum says she has no clue about sleeping as both me and my brother never slept, bless her.

Oh, and ds2 keeps biting when he's feeding too, well at the end of a feed. This had better be a phase......

Pleeeeeeaaaase can we swap mums Hawthers just for a week or two?

A was up at 9.30, 11.15, 2,3.15,4.15,5 and 6 last night.

Quite tired. Not sure what's going on, she's been down to 3 wake ups recently. I am definitely doing something wrong with her biscuits, she appears to be trying to kill me....

Perhaps my mum should do a seminar for us as to Where We've All Gone Wrong?

Obviously the babies would sleep through the seminar because its so darn tiring being up all night.....

Pomme can I ask how often you feed her when she wakes up that often? And what about on a normal 3-waker? Are you bf overnight or ff? And how is the beaker going in the day?

Sorry, that's a lot of questions....

I'm limiting night feeds to two and tbh as Ive now got her on four meals a day she only really properly feeds at one. So I'm annoyed because I think one wake up and one feed should be enough and we're all happy.

I feed between 10 and midnight and then normally 3 and 4. The other times it's pop in with the dummy and on with ewan the sheep.

Sometimes she'll call out and go back to sleep before I can get to her but she's so LOUD she wakes me up anyway (no monitor, rooms a reasonable distance ).

Beaker not a massive success with formula - she does well with water now (using a Nuby easy grip thing) but formula is always just 2 oz at about 2pm. How's E doing with the beaker?

I promise to catch up with the thread shortly but just wanted to say I have listed my first ever item on ebay and i'm feeling proud of myself! Time to get rid of loads of stuff before we move and have some cash for christmas

Finally have some time to write out Don't Clap This One Back again...

Get children into a circle, with you in it. You then teach them the Don't Clap This One Back rhythm which is slow, slow, quick quick slow (or crotchet, crotchet, quaver quaver crotchet for the musically inclined). You clap it to them a few times and get them to copy it.

The game then works as follows: You clap a four beat rhythm (e.g. slow, slow, slow, slow) and the children clap it back to you. You clap another (fast fast slow, fast fast slow for example), and they clap it back. You continue until you clap the Don't Clap This One Back rhythm, at which point they have to stay silent and NOT repeat it! (you obviously have to explain this beforehand!). Some people make them throw their hands in the air instead, or shout "Don't Clap This One Back!". Anyone who does clap it is Out, and can sit/stand in the middle and help catch people who clap the wrong one next time.

Not sure if that makes any sense or not...

Pet and Too - joining the PFB/PSB club - I find it incredibly cute when DD shouts! And rather amusing .

Sorry to hear about all the non-sleeping and poorly brooking babies :( Still no teeth here, and still lots of waking up in the night - now accompanied with smiles and not wanting to go back to sleep, aaargh!

Wondering when to start weaning - she's only 4 and a half months old but has been close to swiping food on a number of occasions over the past week! BLWers, any recommendations bib wise? I was thinking of stripping her down to a vest and using some kind of cover all, like the Mothercare ones...

Sorry biscuits - missed one out :) I am bf at night still. DH thinks that if she doesn't get any better I should stop bf altogether. I'd be ok with that but I think that then she'd have no milk at all and still wake up.

Have been looking up sleep specialists. All seem to come in at about £250.

Am sitting here laughing like a loon at the idea of going to the doctor with a 6 month old who doesn't sleep. Of course it is something you're doing wrong, Biscuits! Just like me, Pomme, Jaggy, Hawthers, Dream and every other mum on here. M was up 3 times last night, I think, plus a couple of times in the evening before I went to bed. And I feed her back to sleep every time. I still don't think she's really hungry, she just seems to need me to get her back to sleep...or at least to comfort her to the point where she'll lie and coo quietly before drifting off. She has a wicked sense of timing, though - SFF might possibly have happened last night, but just as we were getting in the mood M let out a howl and it took me 20 mins to soothe her back down, by which time the Moment Had Passed.

Musical, don't rush into weaning unless you really want to. It's much more work than bf! And you have to worry about how much is going in, and keep on thinking of different food to give them, and generally Pay Attention, rather than letting them suckle as much as they want.

i totally enjoy the minimal effort of just ebf too. It's going to be entertaining trying to get both boys to eat something. DS1 is less fussy than he has been, but tantrums may ensue if he is offered the 'wrong' thing. (the wrong thing may change on a daily or hourly basis)

i think we'll start with fruit and veg for DS2 then try to quickly move to just chucking a bit of what we're having in his direction. having lots of mini meals in the freezer was handy when DS1 ate lots earlier than us, but i don't want to go down that road too much this time.

maybe a miracle will occur and DS1 will want to eat the same as him, thus saving even more effort...

But not feeding to sleep doesn't make much difference. A is now good at getting herself off to sleep. I give her the dummy and monkey sing 'you are my sunshine' to her (at bedtime, nighttime she gets ewan the sheep too) and that's it.

But she still wakes up a lot. Hasn't changed bog all the self settling stuff. Grr.

Had another night with DS on my lap. Administered calpol to howling baby twice. He wasn't quite as snotty as before but was clearly in pain or uncomfortable (sore throat?) so sipping at the boob all night kept him happy. DH decamped to the sofa after the second calpol dose, poor man. FX for a better night here and for everyone else whose babies are turning nocturnal.

Biscuits my mum is another one who believes that any problems are caused by the parents Doing It Wrong. But I read that the majority of babies don't sleep through at this age. Mind you, I'm afraid I also read that regular waking is habit not hunger. I totally agree though that bfing settles a wakeful, miserable baby better than anything else, so is the only best weapon in the arsenal to employ when we're knackered. Though my DS would usually accept his dummy, only his cold means he has to breathe through his mouth, so he's currently spitting the dummy out in distress. :(

Scream you asked about weaning. We started giving DS the occasional fruit puree at 21 weeks, because all the signs of being ready to eat were there. At 24 weeks, once he was used to one purée meal a day, I added in a second meal (lunch) of baby rice or similar. Then pretty quickly I started giving him pieces of fruit (nectarine, banana, plum, pear), though mostly he needs help to get them into his mouth because they're either too slippery to hold or he grabs them in his fist and then drops them onto his lap when he tries to put them in his mouth. Now he's 26 weeks he's also had bits of egg mayo sandwich, apple cake, normal porridge (which we shared for breakfast this morning) and cheese on toast (thanks for that idea Hawthers ) as well as a few other random things. So anyway, it's not really blw but not just purees either. I'm trying to give him lots of textures and tastes, and letting him play with the food, but I'm also helping him to eat so I know there's stuff actually going in! He's also drinking tap water now from a free flow soft spout beaker, with help (if I didn't help he'd just pour it into his lap).

Bibs: best ones we've used so far have been ones with long sleeves and a waterproof backing. We haven't had to strip him off when using those, but I have had to retrieve food from his lap. I'm thinking of getting some soft plastic ones with a lip at the bottom to catch food.

Right, have waffled on for too long. Sorry.

Oh, and Dream :( Hope your diarrhoea hell is short-lived and the DTs are back to their usual BBBB ways soon.

Well thank you all for making me feel a bit better about it all

My mum rang this evening just to ask how they'd both slept. Cue much disappointment at the response.

So maybe if it might be just a waking habit I should persevere a bit before feeding. Hmmm how to do it. Cuddling? Rocking? Any other suggestions? Pick up / put down? (How does that even work?) have just googled Ewan the Sheep and I Want One Now!

Dream hope poo-gate is over soon. No, soon isn't soon enough. I demand it to be over now Isn't it lovely though how the twins are learning to share everything already, even bugs

Also I bought a pair of trousers for ds1 off of eBay which arrived today. They had a name label in for the previous owner, which is not unreasonable. I won't give the actual name but it was basically the equivalent of calling your child Biscuits McBiscuits

Chicken curry with rice: possibly the messiest meal so far.

Am Very Cross

DS1 being a three yo teenager. I'm really fed up of nagging, being shouted at and this weeks delight being hit and pinched.

Tea time takes an hour with near constant nagging and I'm really fed up with it. Any tips for getting him to eat more and quicker without me losing my shit every day