October 2012: onwards, upwards and rolling over?

[YompingJo]

Is this part 5 already? Where did that time go?

Can someone sum up Playful Patenting for me? I seriously can't afford anymore books...

Basically - how children use play to communicate and as self therapy, how important play is and how to understand it, how to use it to diffuse difficult situations, how it's important to teach them to play on their own, how to connect and re-connect through play.

I like it for the silly ideas. I realise I am quite a serious person and DS can be too, so I dont think of games such as "everyone has pull each other socks off. The last person wearing a sock wins". It helped me be a bit more daft and lighten up.

Yes definitely - DH is naturally very playful but i don't think i am so much. i worry i'll meet a defiant five year old ds who i get locked into a cycle of naughty step systems with...play can help you understand each other...most animals do it!

Like the sound of that book :) Had it on my Amazon wishlist for a while but never got round to ordering it, it will use up the last of my Xmas voucher!

Hungry - yes! Especially every morning after the 6.30ish feed

Smiles unfortunately mini Angelico settles best with me but it's the odd time when she has complete mental breakdown and goes apeshit that DH comes into his own as I have to walk away at a certain point. Day to day (or night to night) I do the putting down to sleep

Night peeps x

DS boob attacked me, DH and DFIL this morning....!?! I'll see when we get back to Dublin if he's keen to suckle for comfort but it's really bonkers. But at least he happily took bottles this morning. Truly bizarre. I said to DS "too late, mate! The cow's been sold for Aptamil magic beans!" He grinned at me and continued licking/gumming my top

Londonmrs I still think you are just amazing for still ebf after the same difficulties I had PLUS jaundice. I told DH and DPILs of your efforts and they think you're amazing too after seeing first hand how horrendous non-latching babies can make things.

All packed up and ready to go home! Leaving to drive to Auckland in a few hours. Because I'm such a nobber I'll take pictures of my travels and post them on the FB group

argh. sleep regression here. she's never been a champ sleeper but for about two months has been going from 2330 to 0700 with one feed. and for the past three days it's been 0200, 0400 and 0600. she would not be palmed off with reassurance but wanted feeding. how long does this phase last??? not long I hope. crazy I think you are going through this too!

made worse sleep wise cos o went to bed at nine. DF was out at uni but is normally back on time for the late feed. I woke up at 2240 to quite persistent crying. didnt want to jump in on df and tell him he was doing something wrong but after a couple of minutes went in...and he wasnt there. I then checked my phone and he was having a journey of doom. argh.

so though i must have got about six hours sleep it was all in less than two hour segments. yawn.
hope your flight was ok zara.

Our sleep regression phase has lasted about 2 weeks so far....
But it has improved from its worst phase of no evening settling and waking every 45 mins. Now we have approx 2-3 hourly waking which is more survivable.
Hope you have a good journey Zara.

livvy we are in the throes of sleep regression too. He's only 13 weeks, lord knows what 4 month regression is like. Dh took him last night while I slept in spare room. But of course I woke to every cry, and there were lots. I do feel better though could yours do the same tonight?

Off to a Cuban festival today, mojitos for ?3! Oh, I remember I'm breastfeeding...

It will pass the sleep regression thing. We're a week clear now and it feels like it never happened. I'm assured at baby group that it will recur due to teething etc but we'll ride that wave when it comes...

Bon voyage Zara - you're on yer way back to God's own country! Yeoghhhhh! lol

Smorgs I am weeping in sympathy at your predicament - cheap cocktails vs breastfeeding...! Glad your DH gave you a break, it does help. DH had mini-Angelico ON and she hasn't had a feed since 10.45 last night. So she doesn't need the one at 6.30 but I don't mind doing it when I'm there. Boobs are leaking in anticipation here!

Difficult morning with dh. I gave him dd to look after completely on his own for a bit but ended up offering some advice like "maybe she's crying because she doesn't want to be held like that" (as opposed to "can't you see she hates being held like that you compete moron?") and he got in a total mood about it. It's tough because he sees it as criticism and thinks he needs to be allowed to try different things to find out what works which is totally fair. But that means I just have to sit and watch my baby be upset while he works out what the fuck he's doing. The way I see it, he's coming in and interfering with the job I do every day. If I went to his work and tried to be a scientific engineer, I reckon he'd expect me to listen to his advice so I wish he'd listen to mine without seeing it as criticism all the time. I try and say "I find this tends to work..." rather than "Do this..." but he still thinks I'm having a go. We did thrash this out in a conversation and have both agreed to try to be more tolerant of either and consider each other's point of view a bit more, but we'll see.

good luck on your journey Zara!

good luck with the journey zara! how did yours go cookie?

so ds2 is going through a phase of refusing to feed in an environment with any noise whatsoever. ideal with a toddler around. so he'll feed when the toddler's asleep only, and scream with hunger the rest of the time. marvellous. why are babies so ARGH?!!

Londonmrs my ds1 went through a phase like that with feeding. I had to be on a strict timetable with him sleeping every 2hrs or he made my life miserable as he was hungry and refusing to feed. god the stress. he did grow out of it though as I'd forgotten until you reminded me! time heals all things trying to lock down my memories of this time to act as contraception in a couple of years' time when we have the number 3 discussion. if I remember rightly the discussion will end up being brief, with a firm no from me!!

I put DD down for her lunchtime nap and zipped off to the wedding dress charity shop. found one. delighted. came home to super stressed DF and a puffy eyed, unhappy DD. Apparently much screaming and much misery had occurred on this, his first time in sole charge. I doubt he'll be keen to try again any time soon. arse. the control freak in me wants to know what happened and why it went so wrong. I didn't want to leave him with a long list of instructions or a flow chart (I was tempted). but now I think maybe I should.

Sadly smorgs I don't think DF would ever do the night shift. he needs his brain to study.

We've had a month of terrible nights. But the past few nights I've changed approach and had DD in bed with me from the start (we were doing this when she was first born but then transitioned her into her Moses basket). She has had 2 brilliant night sleeps. Last night managed 6 hours before I gave her a sleepy lying down feed then she slept for another 3 hours. This has been unheard of for the whole of January. So now I am reading no more sleep books or articles and just doing what I want to do instead. I will keep her in bed with us and then gradually try to move some of the night sleeps into the cot like we did at the start with the Moses basket. I feel like a new woman although still have a months worth of sleep to catch up on.

Thanks for the London tips. We had a brilliant time. DD managed really well and spent most of the time with big eyes staring at everything going on around her. I leaked milk for the first time because she couldn't concentrate to feed very well in the day. Tube, DLR , buses all easy peasy with the sling.

Hope the mammoth journey is ok zara.

Hey lovelies
Massive sympathy on the sleep regression. Like Angelico we are now about a week clear and things are great.
I had some mates over last night for a late Burns night. They are considering having kids soon and Jess was an absolutely adorable angel for 24 hours solid, I worry I am misrepresenting things! (Though it probably makes a welcome change from people claiming you'll never go out/sleep/have a life ever again.) She is "chatting" a lot, interested in everything, laughing, napping easily, and slept through the entire night while we drank whisky
Today we played, had breakfast, went for a walk, checked out some shops, went out for lunch with them. My mate is now seriously broody. I know I am biassed and a sad proud mum etc, but I love my kid, she is such a charmer!
Now I am snuggled up in bed while boyfriend plays with Jess in the other room. He gets on my nerves sometimes of course, but I will say this for him: he LOVES spending time with Jess and takes her whenever he can.
Just a really good day. I like to document them.

Possibly a weird question... before I got pregnant, my hubby and I were really into skating (he was an instructor in his spare time and we did all the London street skates that piss all the car drivers off every week!). I'd like to get back into it but need to get some sort of pram- presumably one of those ones you can run with would be ok as long as I don't go at speed. Does anyone know of any good ones?

Londonmrs there are some unbelievably knowledgeable people on the buggies and pram board. try there, I think someone recently was asking for recommendations of buggies to run with which must be similar. all I know is that babyjogger do some buggies for serious runners.

Wowzers, those were some small but mighty powerful mojitos

angelico I'm just so confused, is it 4 month regression or 12 week growth spurt? Meaning I have to go through it all again in a month. When he did those 2 weeks sleeping well I just tried to remind myself that if he did regress I would just stay positive and not get down about it, but it is so much harder retaining perspective on no sleep.

olivess that's great news about the last two nights. I wish it would work for us but I've never really had Smorglet in bed with us apart from a few times at the start (and just to play with in the mornings obv) as neither of us seem to sleep that well

londonlivvy well done on finding a dress! And second hand too! I got my knickers in a right twist about it, which I swore I wouldn't, and ended up wearing a meringue that only my mother liked. I'm sorry your df won't do a night here and there, it's no panacea but it does help.

squid that sounds like a great day, loved reading about it. Gives me hope! No seriously I've had some great days but its hard to remember them it's a good idea to record them.

londonmrss i still bear scars from that Friday Night Skate! we have a phil and teds sport and its great, the lady I bought it off used to jog with it. I push it to the supermarket where I buy biscuits.

zara hope the journey went ok

Hello lovely friends. I have missed you! I am miles and miles behind. I kept trying to catch up but could never manage it. Ds2 and I are having difficulties with feeding as he comes off all the time so I no longer have a peaceful period for one-handed posting. Londonmrss and others- hope your feeding issues have improved? Big love to you all. My dh thinks it is time to move on from bf as I am permanently stressed but I just feel so guilty.

I got all stressed reading about all your routines as we still muddle through. It was such a relief to read that crazy and other 2nd timers are in a similar boat! Phew! Crazy- hope you are sleeping now? How was your hol?

Squid- so sorry about your gran. Big love to you
Huffle,bloody hell you deserve a medal for what you have endured with bfing!! You are amazing. Prob totally out of date, but a big yes from me on mobiles. My bro bought me a huge ugly white plastic mobile that ended up being such a lifesaver as it played music and projected lights on the ceiling and ds1 loved it.

Before I go and try really hard to read 20 pages, I just wanted to share some good news- dh went for a job that had 50 applicants this week and HE GOT IT!!! Soooo proud of him and so relieved. It has been a wonderful 2'months having him home, but also a stressful time. so we are celebrating this weekend (or at least we will if he ever stops watching/playing rugby! Grrr!)

Can't wait to hear all your news. Much love to you all xx

bella yay yay yay re dh job. that is tremendous news

fantastic news Bella!!! must be such a weight of your mind.

Bella that is brilliant. You must be so proud of him. I have been thinking about you loads - what a relief that must be.
Don't worry about routines - whatever works - I think anyone with 2 or more kids is a hero!

bella that is absolutely fantastic news, you must be so so relieved!

utterly utterly shit day here- but not anything to do with dd. she has been a beautiful sniley angel all day- im just in a crap mood. i dont think ive stopped crying all day

my period came back this morning.. i started the POP pill this week.
no fair

zara hope your journey home is ok.

any news from cwest and fjord ? thinking of you.