March 2013: Smiles, sleep & excellent feeding.....the thread of wishful thinking!

[SoYo]

Well we may as well start the thread on a positive note before the grumbling about the little darlings begins!!!

Not weeping adorably - sleeping adorably!!

Haha Wing I can think of a few places I could shove that iron. Our relationship consists of mostly - he has also shaken his empty wine glass at me and demanded I fill it, all with a cheeky grin on his face.

Sometimes I remind myself that there's a little version of him living with us now, and soon that tiny person will start making similar demands and I wonder exactly how in going to cope. Ah well, there's always wine to get me through.

Oh and pork scratchings? And cake? Off the menu until August! Damn you ladies for talking about banned foods. I've nearly done a week without anything more fattening than a plain digestive

*mostly teasing and bickering.

I'm off to read in bed. Brain is dead.

Had minor meltdown tonight and was so grateful to hand over to DH when he got in (I was weeping not adorably) as he was out yesterday and LO had a total 40 mins nap today and 15 mins in car. So Soyo I feel your pain and wanted to add hugs. Think app baby monitor and sleep sound excellent plan. You can move her after next feed. Good luck. Sleep tight.

Thanks you lot, just up for first feed so that was over 4.5hrs, the most she's gone for a long time. Very glad I didn't move her. I'm going to try putting her back down in our room in her Moses after thus feed & just hope she gets on ok. It took me an age to get to sleep before without her in our room, it's the longest I've not been in the same room as her since she was born!

soyo that was an hour ago so hoping you got a transfer success! Nice work!

We just did a rugby ball feed on the bad nip. It was preferable to the more traditional position.

wing your daughter facing out was to feed? That's one we've not tried. But will tomorrow! If only we had Ds for her to stare at!

Meant to say (got lost in earlier eaten post last night) big thank you for fore and hind milk info. What a minefield it all is. Will do more google work

You're welcome :)

DD went 10:15 till 2 and in about to transfer. (Der der DEERRRR!)

SoYo, so happy to hear you got a good stretch.

Transfer fail - probably because I've been getting lazy and not burping her in the night but just putting her back down. She strained (against?) the swaddle for a while then did a poo and gave two short cries so I got her up, changed her nappy, she puked a little bit over her sleep suit while lying down so I changed that, reswaddled and I'm feeding her again. Sigh!

Oops! Hope all ok now. And Soyo, hope you and she were feeling better for some sleep.

DS got overtired today from lack of naps so poor DH ended up with a really fractious one throughout from attempted catnap, (abject failure, cried throughout) through final feed (I was so upset and nips were shredded so asked him to give a bottle) and bath and bed (cried himself to sleep). It's been a bit like that all day and I just couldn't do it any more... Still, was lovely as I got to have my first shower since Sunday, to actually cleanse tone and moisturise my poor ravaged facial skin and then to FaceTime with my bessie mate from USA. Hard on DH who had had a tough day at work, but I don't get a break when it's tough and he's not spent longer than 20 mins with DS since Monday due to work, and I had lots of time on my own with him even over the weekend for various reasons.

Means I'm back to enjoying a cuddle with him now while he feeds which is how it should be.

Up again for next feed. 2hrs 40 since the end of the last one so not too bad. Might co-sleep fr the rest of the night if miss madam is agreeable.

Wing I hope you finally managed a successful transfer with no more delay tactics from your wee woman.

Pud glad you got a bit of time off, it's definitely needed for maintaining sanity. I'm really looking forward to hubby being off this weekend just so e can do a bit more with her (even if he can't feed the little bottle refusenik) & I dont feel like she's constantly attached to me!

Oh dear, some rough nights. SoYo, seriously, co-sleep. The only reason I got any sleep, ever, up until about a week ago is I fed grumpy face on the bed until we both just dropped off. It required an elaborate set up of towel (to catch dribble) on top of duvet, then us, then a sheet and a light blanket (so she didn't get too hot), and me freezing half to death. The things we do huh!

Wing, not sure if it'll help, but a few tips for winning the war against bottle refusers:

1 Try Dr Brown's bottles.

1. Pick a feed time when you know she'll be really hungry but not stressed. For us that was lunch time after dd had slept during a 2 hour walk in the sling.
2. Start on the boob, and once she has really settled into it, carefully unlatch her and immediately put the bottle in her mouth without moving her. If you are lucky you will catch her on automatic suck, and once the milk is going down babies tend to carry on.
3. If powdered milk isn't working, try ready mixed, or the other way round. DD likes ready mixed, a friend's baby will only take powdered.
4. If the first transfer doesn't work, put her back on the boob and wait until she is really relaxed before trying again.
5. Don't let your DH anywhere near unless he is totally relaxed. My DH has a tendency to get frustrated when dd picks up on that she screams and kicks which makes lunch an impossible option.

Hi Wors, we always co-sleep after the last feed anyway but I did from 4am today but as much as madam definitely went longer between feeds than normal at this time, I got less sleep. Fully woke up every time she shuffled a bit & got uncomfortable trying not to move & wake her! Ah well, at least we've both had more than yesterday!

pud you deserved that time off!
worse, thanks so much for those tips. I'm only trying her with expressed milk as I thought from the start that bottle and formula was one difference too many, IYKWIM? I'm also going to try heating the milk more as thus far we've been taking it from the fridge and pinging it just for ten seconds in the microwave to take the chill off but it's probably far too cool.

SoYo, sounds like you've had not a bad night! You'll hopefully feel so much better today.

DD took till 3:15 to drop back off on me then went through till 6 so I fed her lying lying next to me on the bed then me, her and DH snoozed till DS came in at 6:30 and we all cuddled till 7:30. I'm pumping now and DD had just leaked poo all over the duvet cover (please, not the duvet...)

She was in her basket 3:15-6 I should say.

Can't babies be such a trial? How many of us actually has one that sleeps through? I keep reading that mine should be able to do this by now but no-one has told him. He still wakes for a bottle between 2 and 4 in the morning no matter what time I give him a bottle in the evening. If I wake him at 10 and give him a feed he'll still wake later for one. If I don't wake him and give last feed at 7 he still wakes the same time. I don't get it. How can he last from 7 til 2 or 3 but not 10 til morning.

Daytime napping is still a disaster too. Started yesterday trying to put him upstairs for his big nap but he wouldn't settle so I gave up after an hour and he instantly fell asleep on me instead. Seems to be the only way he'll nap these days as he constantly wakes if I put him in the carry cot like I used to. Will try again today.

Had second set of jabs tue. Much less screaming than last time and he doesn't seem to have been any grumpier than usual so that's a relief. he's also starting to deliberately grab his toys on the play mat and pay real attention to things which is much more fun than usual crying. Getting better at holding his head up himself too which is cool so I keep trying to find the positives.

Hope everyone has a good day.

Hi Zig. They are coming on all the time aren't they? DS is really working on head and neck control... hasn't got it yet, but wagging it about all over the place! Also, now truly fascinated by the black and white book his granny got him, will stare at a page for 15 mins. Combining the 2 skills, he will also now follow me round a room with his head if DH is holding him for burping for instance. You can almost see the cogs going round sometimes!

Have the dishwasher on a hot cycle with a cleaner in, hoping that will clear whatever the blockage is which means there was a degree of standing water in the bottom when I emptied it this morning...

Looks to be a lovely day here, so wondering about a jaunt out somewhere... not sure whether to go for a walk or pop into town and drop in some paperwork to the office so they can put it in dx rather than me have to find an envelope and stamp

It's all disasters in sleep-land at the moment, isn't it?

SoYo, glad you got some sleep in the end. Could it be that when she's in with you you're hearing everything and so getting her up for a feed before she really needs one? When you're in another room, you don't hear anything until they actually start shouting.

You breastfeeders all deserve a medal, I think. Reading about how your nights go makes me feel a lot better about not breastfeeding myself - it sounds like torture!

zig Mine sleeps through now (or has for the past three nights, at least, but I'm still worried it's just a blip). Bedtime was a bit late last night - 8.30 rather than 7 - and she slept through until 7.30, and didn't wake at the dreamfeed either. It is odd though, the way the timing of the night feeds seems to have no effect on when they actually wake up!

We had a very peculiar bathtime last night - there was no screaming. Seemingly DD likes having an audience of women cooing over her when she's getting dressed. We're off out in a bit to show the wonders of Hull to the man's dad, sister, and stepmother. Should take all of thirty seconds. Then we can show them the crap parts. Should take up the rest of the year day. This means, for the first time, we are going to have to feed while out and about. Am a bit apprehensive about it.

And re the feeding thing, we are much the same. I give the last feed at 7, rightly or wrongly I have given up on dream feed as he won't take it asleep and its easier not to wake him up given he will go through to around 2am (give or take), but as you say - he wakes then whenever his last feed was. Evil BW would say this was habitual waking, but he is hungry and obviously needs to eat (he's 9 weeks tomorrow, but in my opinion that's too little for actual sleeping through even if he'd do it, and besides, his weight gain isn't brilliant enough for me to want to limit him any further). Last night, he went down about 9ish, woke at 3 and then farted happily in his cot from 6.45 to about 7.10 when he decided he actually wanted feeding.

Mind you, "sleeping through the night" is actually defined at being a 5 hour stretch between midnight and 5am, so while the timings don't work he is already sleeping 5-6 hours regularly.

Cross post there Stormy - good luck with your day out.

Have to say, our decision not to warm formula (we use ready mixed) really helps when you're out and about, as you can just whip it out any time and anywhere... in fact I even give it straight from the fridge sometimes and he doesn't mind at all

Unfortunately, pud, DD likes her milk pretty warm. Alas!

We're still keeping track of times and amounts of every feed, so the plan at the moment is to let her sleep through if she's had enough milk after the dream feed, but try another dream feed at 3am if she's not had enough. If she manages, say, twenty three ounces, then she's had enough that she can skip that feed. If after the dream feed the day's total is only twenty one, she needs an extra feed.

We have also been discovering that she actually feeds a lot better when flat on her back. This child confuses me!

Since 9am I've had exactly 20 mins without DS being attached... not a hope of even getting dressed, let alone going out.

As for sleeping through the night, DS normally goes to sleep around 9pm and then wants feeding from 10-11pm, then last night he started jerking around in his sleep, flinging his arms up and making impending waking noises, but I decided I was too tired to move for 5 mins and the shouting never started! he then went through until 3am, so we had 4 hours at least. After feeding at 3am he then wanted another feed at 5am before OH took him until 9 when i was handed a crying boy and here I am still chained to the sofa over 4 hours later :(

OK now seriously ladies - advice is needed and quickly...

I'm aware that when BFing giving formula messes up the amounts of milk the baby then takes from the boob which makes your supply decline etc etc. So people say you just feed them 24/7 if you have to.

Fine, I can deal with that, even though it hurts, BUT - how am I meant to get out and about (as people also keep advising) or eat, or anything else at all, when I have him on me? I've tried feeding in a sling, I cannot get it at all. Can't get him in the right position, he struggles, we both get stressed. Nightmare.

I thought maybe he was using me as a dummy, because there's no way a baby having just eaten 5 oz of formula can still be hungry, yet he still sucks his hands. Tried a dummy. Only works maybe once in ten times. Other times he just gags on it and cries again.

Basically everything people advise is fine in isolation, but I can't actually move right now because if I take him off the boob for 30 seconds he starts yelling.

Do I just sit home unwashed in pyjamas for weeks until this ends?!

Leni when DD has days like this I just take her off the boob, put her in the pram or sling screaming and go for a walk until she falls asleep. I know you're supposed to just keep feeding them but in my head this doesn't make sense as I think you need a bit of time to 'refill' before you can satisfy them again. Every now and then she screams for the whole hour I'm out but somehow this seems better than her screaming in the house because while I'm walking I can't feed her and the noise disperses a bit when you're out in the fresh air! This may not be the right answer at all but it's my solution in times of crisis! I may have even been known to put my iPod and earphones in while walking in the park to drown out the loudest bit of the crying

I tend to figure that once he's been on for over an hour it must be getting a bit pointless, and I need chance to refresh to satisfy him - when I'm empty he gets fussy and frustrated anyway. So I either try formula top up, or if needing to reduce top ups to maintain or increase supply, then as Soyo says, I take a break either by handing to DH, putting him in the sling or going for a drive (he usually falls asleep in the car, though I appreciate this isn't an option for you). However, showers are not my forte at the moment, and I have taken to grabbing lunch with him in the bouncy chir watching me, or screaming at me if needs be, or on my lap with a muslin over his head. Today ate lunch one handed while feeding him in cafe rouge. He then slept in the pram while I did some shopping.

Sometimes he can distracted with a wriggle on his changing mat etc, and he then remembers he gets sleepy too. Can help...

Don't be afraid to take a break though, you are important too.

Leni sometimes you just need to get on even if DS is crying. I had a shower this morning with DD in the bouncer in the bathroom with me. She cried but I had to have one!

I also put her in the baby bjorn (waiting for my friend to send me her sling) and made cookies earlier for a church thing tonight. She fell asleep in it but I was worried that her face was squished against me so I tilted her head and she woke up. She didn't go down then so I ended up giving her a feed and taking her for a walk into the village in the carry cot. She cried for ten mins and then zonked out. My mum used to pound the streets like that when I was a baby, I did the same for DS and it meant we got out too.

DD's getting far grumblier now I'm trying not to feed her constantly but actually I recognise some of it as tiredness now. The E-A-S-Y stages make sense to me although I'm not tying to put in a routine, if she's just fed then she does have an awake time (I don't really do an activity bar singing and talking with lots of eye contact at the moment) then she gets sleepy. I'm still failing there as I've not tried yet to self settle but I'm trying to not feed her to sleep either (completely different at night).

Ooh tea's ready. Will catch up later.