January 2013 Part Two: Coos and smiles but not always so much sleep...

[SpringFlowers]

Our first thread has almost finished so I thought we'd need a new one!

tugs like Meringue I am combine feeding. I now make the last feed - 8pm - formula. And when we did the 4am ish feed I tend to do 20mins max breast, followed immediately by a formula bottle. Midwives say this is fine to do, as he gets the best milk first from me, then a top up if needed. My LO is a bugger for getting snuggly on the breast and soon dropping off, so this has worked well for us from week 2. Hope that helps.

DS just started sleeping through for past week n he is 12 weeks around 13lb and takes about 25oz thru day. Not coaxed him into it, just happened really

My poor little Darcie is in hospital
She has been full of a cold all week and being quite sick, but all yesterday she vomited every feed back, was sick through the night and today, earlier she vomited and it was like water (although all she has had is little amounts of milk)
We went to the emergency docs when took a look at her and sent us off to the hospital.
She has just been sick again just waiting for the doc to come and take a look at her x

Very sorry to hear that, lollipoppi.

Hope she gets and feels better very soon.

Keep us posted, if you get chance.

Sending bestest wishes.

for Darcie, Lolli I hope she gets better soon

So sorry to hear that Lolli hope she gets better very soon.

Ps Tugs, it does play havoc with your supply. If you are otherwise happy with ebf I'd stick with it.

Really sorry lolli, hope you're both doing ok

Glad the daytimes are improving tugs. I don't have any advice on the bottle/sleep thing as we haven't tried it. Do what you need to get by is my rule though!

I think Ellen may be stopping the grunting

Oh and p.s. the only things that seem to affect Ellen's sleep are getting enough daytime naps and cuddles and winding her well. Otherwise there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to get a good night rather than a bad one. So perhaps the daytime improvement will help.

Lolli - hope Darcy is doing better. X

lolli I hope Darcie is doing better.

we visited some family this weekend. on Saturday dd did really well, was passed around relatives and seemed in a good mood. however she hardly napped at all, whenever she dropped off she got woken up again by all of the commotion. we then had a dreadful night with her and on Sunday she was in a grump all day and cried the whole time.

Thanks everyone were home now,
There are a couple of things try think are causing the sickness, they are treating at as reflux firstly so were on gaviscon, but they are pretty certain it could be pyloric stenosis, which develops around 6-10 weeks, from what I can gather the lower intestine past the stomach starts to close so the milk has nowhere to go ... Other than back up.

Sorry, DS tried to help!
So we have to see how she goes on the gaviscon, (although she has thrown up her last 2 feeds) then they will investigate the pyloric stenosis, which would require a small operation
They also picked up that she has a soft heart murmur which is to followed up in a few weeks

Glad you're home. Lets hope the medication works and Darcie doesn't need an op. About the heart murmur, lots of children have benign ones which cause no symptoms and disappear as they grow up. At least they have picked it up and she will be under a specialist.

Today's exciting trip is to the GP to get the Morning After Pill and book in for the coil to be fitted. I have obviously prevaricated too long over contraception and split condoms are never fun.

Ho hum.

Sorry to hear that lolli, but glad it sounds very fixable.

I think it's the same here with sleep - less sleep in the day means less sleep at night. And the same with winding - need to get some burps up before putting her down. Had real success with the self settling throughout the day and night though, but she can't seem to sleep beyond about 40 minutes in the day without being on me. Going to keep working on it though.

And still on 2 feeds a night and not sure why.

tugs is she self settling day and night? I think that's important so she can go back to sleep on her own when she wakes at night. It's just about putting her down all nicely wrapped when she appears tired and avoiding feeding back to sleep.

Also are you sure she's hungry in the night - do you leave her a few minutes before picking her up?

And does she get around 3 hours between feeds in the day so she can get a lot in one go (theory being she's less hungry at night)? Although I'm not managing to stick to this one....

Am no expert but those are the things I could think of!

I haven't seen a big difference in sleep of bf baby versus formula personally (DD1 was mostly formula fed, now just bf DD2)

Thanks all. I was thinking that about the winding thing. Whenever DD's had formula before she's needed extra winding so maybe it's not a good idea for a dreamfeed as it'd just wake her up more. DD doesn't self-settle at all, day or night and I think that's the major issue. She'll eventually go to sleep in the pram if we're out or on me in the sling at home, but as for putting her in her crib sleepy but awake and then her falling asleep on her own, that hasn't happened yet. She goes from gentle grumbling to ear piercingly loud screaming in a few seconds if I leave her. and takes ages to calm down again. She feeds at least every 3 hours during the day and usually more frequently than that. I've been trying to tank her up during the day to see if she feeds less at night, but no. I don't think she is necessarily that hungry at night, I feed her in desperation to get her to stop crying and go back to sleep, which she does but only on me! Not ideal I know... I think I need to just keep trying to put her back in her own bed (which is one of those BabyBay thingies that attaches to our bed) and grin and bear the screaming.

Lolli sorry to hear about Darcie, v glad you're home and hope the gaviscon does the trick.

Has anyone else not DTD yet?! I just have zero interest. Poor DP :(

Glad you're home lolli. I hope Darcie is on the mend soon.

Tugs we've only done it twice, also have very little interest. And my god it hurt!! We didn't do much when I was pregnant because of spd and DH found it weird. It hurt more than the first time!

I think Nancy will have to go into a cot soon, she's almost filling her crib. I don't know how she'll be though, she sleeps with her face pressed right up to the side of her crib. Apparently DH slept the same way

Hi all lolli glad your home and really hope medication helps little Darcie

Re sleep i agree about self settling. If you know they can self settle then its easier to know if they are waking up at night through hunger. I always fed ds1 to sleep and was still getting up a few times a night at 10 months. We then had to sleep train which was hard. Ivy is put down awake as much as possible and i never jump to her (frankly have too much else going). Tbf though with ds1 i could never have left him as i always felt like he might break!

Tugs we only dtd to check it all still works romantic plus poor dp has been ever so patient for about 10 months

Hope everyones getting lots of rest and smiles :)

Haha creepy Ivy does the same in her crib! Currently tryung to decide if moving her out of carrycot to push chair seat is a good idea as she is really filling it out now!

Nancy's really good at self settling, but I always feel guilty when I put her in her crib awake. Sort of like I'm saying "I'm bored with you now, lie in there for a bit" haha.

tugs we dtd once but struggle to find any time when we're not totally knackered! Any rare free time together is usually spent watching a bit of TV!

Re self settling, do you swaddle her? And put her down about 90 minutes after last waking? I do actually feed her a bit just before and then once her eyes are closed I know she's tired enough to sleep. So just as they've shut I move her to her bed which wakes her enough for her eyes to open and them to then self settle. It happened by accident before and I suddenly realised she can do it every time.

apple I was terrified of it stopping her breathing to begin with!

Is anyone else's LO glued to the telly?! I don't really like her watching it, and I never ever just sit her in front of it, but she bloody loves it! When I lay her down to feed her, she strains her neck to see it and if she's on my lap she watches it. I've started just putting the radio(4 )on now!

I'm thinking the same thing about the carrycot, Apple. I will be glad when Daniel is ok in the seat though realistically due to his size and weight I think it will be another month. He really hates being flat and awake in the carrycot and frankly, its taking up too much space in the boot.

We've being DTD about once a week for the last month. Last nights mishap has got me booked in for the copper coil to be fitted tomorrow.

Ooh pascha we're pretty sure it was just such a mishap that resulted in Ivy lol

The only thing putting me off moving ivy is that the seat is bucket style (old hauck infinity) and not really recommended pre 6 months. Though Ivy is really strong and prefers to sit and dd1 went init from about4 months and shr was fine also a quick search on here suggests they're just watching their backs by saying only from 6 months. Otherwise i have a stroller she cqn use but she hates it (unless you sit her up) . We have to use that for buses and scout drop offs as infinity is quite large!

The tandem seat is quite buckety but my old babyjogger classic is flat so I could theoretically use that on a slight recline but then I have nowhere to put DS1 when I need to.