Still brooking no argument whatsoever that these babies are happy, healthy and awesome for 2013 too.

[jaggythistle]

eh. attempt at new thread. yo.

[GreenOlives]

jaggy I'm not convinced that T's is really infected, I think it might be water from bath (he loves putting ears under water!), ear wax and probably a bit of milk combining to make the stink!! He is quite well in himself so I'm just putting some tea tree on a cotton bud and gently wiping it round. I can recommend that for improving the smell too!
stacks I hope DS stopped his recurrent waking so you both got some sleep. If you're certain he's not hungry when waking Id be inclined to let DH try and settle him, he's probably old enough now for some gentle sleep training and quite frankly you need to get some rest!
I know about all the meds not being licenced for babies because of work but mostly that applies to under 1's. The fact that this one says not for under 2's makes me more nervous. I think it may be because (rarely)it can cause problems with hearing and I guess that would be easier to identify in an older child? Either way he's well in himself so I won't give the drops unless that changes.

[PetWoman]

Green so sorry to hear about M's accident, and the poor little chap having nightmares. Hope he forgets all about it soon. Glad you had a good holiday otherwise.

Stacks I second Green's sleep advice re the 3-hour cycle. My extensive internet reading suggests that babies should be awake for less than 3 hours between naps, ideally.

Re the frequent waking, I suspect T is used to falling asleep with a nipple in his mouth and keeps waking up and looking for it at night. The solution (again according to the Internet) is to teach him to self settle. Good luck with that.

Here DS (14 months) is co-sleeping and night-feeding again. Sigh. He is over the pox (except for itchy scabs on his head) but now has a snotty cold. Doh!

[GenericDietCola]

Stacks, we're in the same boat re feeding to sleep. Does anyone know how you teach them to self settle? DD had a dummy from about 4 months and she used that to go to sleep for naps and at bedtime all by herself. DS will not take a dummy and feeding is the only way to put him to sleep at the mo. Very occasionally, he stirs and settles, but usually I have to feed him. Sometimes many, many times a night! I'm getting tired!

At the moment, vague plan is to work on this more when he's eating more solid food. We've only just started on weaning, so I think I need to give it a few weeks until I can be confident he's not hungry all night long!

Hope everyone else is well. Keep thinking of Scream, hope things are settling. Sorry for brief post, just never seem to have much time. Rubbish brooker, sorry.

[Stacks]

Generic DS can self settle sometimes, but it seems very hit and miss. One night he randomly did it after every feed - he'd feed but not fall asleep, then thumped his legs on the mattress for ages driving DH nuts, he still complains about it now weeks later then dropped off to sleep. The next night he fed/suckled constantly.
I read a thing recently, the Solihull method or something, that said its a form of seperation anxiety. Sleep time is being seperate from you. The suggestion is to work on daytime naps - walk them to sleep in the pram or anything that works. Through this they learn to sleep without you, and you can gently start doing the same at night.

I'm trying this, but I can't walk T to sleep in his pram at night obviously. If you can jiggle, sing or shush DS to sleep you can maybe try that. I'm pretty much also thinking I'll wait for weaning then try again.

[jaggythistle]

DS2 is awesome at self settling...but only in his high chair which is not that useful at night

[GenericDietCola]

Stacks, they sound v similar. DS does the leg thumping too, but I've never left him long enough to see if he will fall asleep. Too afraid of him disturbing DD. Let's hope they get the hang of it soon!

[GenericDietCola]

lol Jaggy!

[Stacks]

The times T has self settled its taken about 30 minutes. Usually involving leg thumping, turning his head side to side and rubbing his eyes. No crying though, and very little shouting. When I put him in his pram to sleep during the day he cries a bit, but it's a recognisable tired cry which I know means he'll fall asleep very soon.

I tried a bit of pu/pd last night. It sort of worked in that I got him to sleep without feeding. Took 35 minutes of up/down leaving him to cry probably only 30 seconds before picking him up, and waiting till he stopped crying completely (maybe 1-2 minutes) before putting him down. He then slept for 2 hours. However, when I tried the same later in the night he just wouldn't settle at all in my arms. Crying for about 20 minutes before I just gave up and fed him to sleep (in 2 minutes!). I would have tried harder if he was settling at all in my arms, but he wasn't comforted by me holding him at all :(

[TheLittleFriend]

Ah Gen, shame that E isn't sleeping as well anymore, after getting off to such a good start.
I think J's sleep is getting worse instead if better too. I certainly feel tireder now than when he was tiny. I think the lack of sleep has built up in me, and now I really need a good nights sleep and there's still no sign of one coming soon . I know lots of people have it tougher sleep wise, so I'll stop moaning now

[GenericDietCola]

Little, I know what you mean! E has slept well sometimes, but for the last 3 or 4 wk it has been pretty bad, but I know some people have it much worse. DD is up in the night every night too, so we're really having to work on getting her to stay in bed too. She is a real handful at the mo!

Brooking for better sleep all round then.

[GreenOlives]

I'm more tired now too little! I was hoping that weaning off the boob would help a bit with the tiredness but no sign of that yet! I also realise others have it a lot worse but I'm still going to moan anyway! I dream of having a full nights sleep again!
In other news T's ear swab came back positive so now he has flucloxacillin for that! With his gaviscon and ranitidine too it feels like the poor boy is having more medicine than milk at the mo! DS1 is 5 tomorrow, can't believe it! He's having a soft play party at Wacky Warehouse after school tom - he was so excited at bedtime tonight I thought he'd never sleep but he's snoring away now!

[GreenOlives]

Cross posts gen I second the brooking for more sleep!! And brooking that it happens really soon!

[musicalmrs]

Argh! Sorry for being a rubbish brooker again. Everytime Iz naps I plough into work, and if I try to use the computer while she's awake she has a habit of smiling cheekily and typing on the keyboard!

Brooking all round for more sleep. On the self settling front Generic, I found Iz (also dummy free) just started managing it on her own at some point- and also got to the stage where she wouldn't feed to sleep and would have to either be bounced or self settle!

Green, hope DS is having a lovely birthday! Hope T's doing ok too.

[PetWoman]

will that help?

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Me too, sign me up for a tired whinge. S doesn't self settle. Ever. I feed him loads and co sleep and I'm getting desperate. He screams, arches, wakes his brother, generally disrupts everything, very hard if not impossible to settle in your arms too. So I give in and feed. Help!! He self settled for a few months incidentally, around 6 months old. Went down with comforter dog wide awake happy as Larry. Well, how the worm has turned!

Ranitidine and domperidone aren't licenced in under 3's if that cheers you up olives so the ranitidine is actually worse, who knows what that's doing to their immature guts . Seriously though, don't worry, I think its so difficult to get things licensed.

Hmm. In more cheerful news, Dt2 is walking, I am coping much better with all 3 by myself, when dd is being mean to her brothers she's delightful.

^ don't know why I'm being so chirpy here. Oh yes, just had a huge rant on the only other thread I try to keep up with (bar brookers of course) a "ride the mo fo out" sleep deprived thread for the desperate and demoralized so I've got it off my chest

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Erm, when dd isn't being mean of course...

[GreenOlives]

Thanks dream. As it happens T's ear swab was positive so they've put him on Flucloxacillin - and I know exactly what that's doing to his guts as I can see/smell it in the 7+ runny nappies a day!

[GreenOlives]

And if I wasn't so tired I'd have realised I'd already posted about the fluclox - still at least I've now shared with you all about the delightful diarrhoea that accompanies it

[TheLittleFriend]

Hi all

J's sleep still getting progressively worse, and now he's full of snot so even harder to settle. I've tried the snuffle babe vapour run on the feet trick tonight, fx it works! He was four months on fri though, so bang on schedule for the sleep regression.

It's also my first over night alone with two kids, dp won't be back til tomorrow pm. Both are in bed now, but it's the morning I'm not looking forward to.

Hope everyone else is well? We'll need a new thread this week

[TheLittleFriend]

Hi all

J's sleep still getting progressively worse, and now he's full of snot so even harder to settle. I've tried the snuffle babe vapour run on the feet trick tonight, fx it works! He was four months on fri though, so bang on schedule for the sleep regression.

It's also my first over night alone with two kids, dp won't be back til tomorrow pm. Both are in bed now, but it's the morning I'm not looking forward to.

Hope everyone else is well? We'll need a new thread this week

[GreenOlives]

How did your overnight without DP go little? I hope J's sleep regression is shortlived (and his cold too!) T has had snufflebabe on his feet more times than not over the last few weeks! I think it helps a bit!
Well my news is that T slept through last night for the first time! He went down at 7, DH did a dream feed at 10.30 then he slept until 6.30! Stupidly I still went in to check on him at 3.30 even though I could see/hear he was perfectly fine on the video monitor! Both my sleep and his sleep has improved massively since moving him out into his own room last week so I'm glad we did it. Daytime naps are a whole different ball game though!! He was exhausted and fast asleep by 6.20 tonight after a day with only 3 micro naps!!

Really feeling the pain for beedle and geek over in conception - I am brooking like mad for a surprise bfp on otd for them!

[GreenOlives]

gen Meant to say on the dummy front that I had to try several different dummy's until I found one that T liked. I'd bought Avent ones as that's what M had as a baby but T would not entertain them at all! After buying and trying several different ones the only ones he'll take are from the £ shop (and you get 2 in a pack!) Wish I'd known that before spending a fortune on all the expensive brands only for him to spit them out in disgust!

[Stacks]

We're all so quiet these days! I've been avoiding harping on about bad sleep, so haven't been posting much at all. I was thinking last night though - its time to start sharing the good stuff!

T is sitting really well these days. He's been sitting up himself since about 5 months, but now at nearly 6 months he rarely falls down at all he can rebalance himself and lean over to pick up toys etc. His only issue is when he gets fed up of sitting and decides to just throw himself back!
He's great at reaching out to get things too, and his hand eye coordination is getting better every day. He even managed to pick up a little cheerio the other day, and successfully transfer it to his mouth (and promptly spat it out again).
BLW is going ok, though I'm not really doing it properly as he's not 6 months yet. He's tried quite a few foods though, but had a reaction to butter (red lumps all round his mouth) so I'm avoiding giving him dairy now, and back to trying to cut it out of my diet. I need a bit more discipline though, I had cake, custard and cheese today.
Tried giving T some puréed carrot today, to see if I could get him swallowing food. He wouldn't open his mouth for the spoon though. How do people normally do it? Shove it in and hope they like the taste enough to open their mouth for the next spoonful? In the end we just let him play with the purée and get in a mess. Don't think he ate any, which is a shame. I want to get him actually eating food, not just playing with it, see if it helps his sleep or reflux. I did however find some bits of tomato skin in his nappy today, so he has swallowed something sometime.

Sorry to hear about Js sleep Little I hope things improve soon. 4 months is such a tough time with sleep regression, teething, growth spurts and wonder weeks. Everything seems to conspire against their sleep! You should have at least had all his jabs now tough? I hope bedtime/morning without DH went ok.

Olives has the ear infection cleared up? And the not so delightful side effects of the drugs.

Dream it's nice to hear your DD gets on well with the twins mostly. I'm looking forward to T getting to play with other babies more. He's fascinated by them just now, but there's no real interaction.

Waves to everyone else, spreading sleepy dust all round.

[Stacks]

New thread here