December 2013 - sleepless nights & lots of cooing

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Our very first Thread :)

hotcross I hope your little one gets over the nasty cold soon, our hung around the house for about 10 days with it trailing off to the occasional cough and sniffle.
mum I'm firmly in the camp that anything that gets baby to sleep is absolutely fine! You can deal with getting them to settle themselves or in other ways when they're old enough to deal with it, for now though baby's sleep and mummy's sanity are top priority.

Hi all haven't been on in a while..hope everything is great!

Has anyone got a baby that sleeps through the night yet? Or do pigs now fly?

Have not had one break yet as DP has been working every weekend and just clinging on to hope now :(

Nice to hear from you supermans! My LO won't be sleeping thru for a while but he's only 7 weeks and I'm ok with that tho my DH isn't! He's constantly comparing him to our other DC's poor thing.

That's tough that you haven't had a break- is there anyone else who can take your LO for a bit so you can go out or just chill, have a bath etc?

I'm very lucky and do not want to get too happy about it as I know it can all change in a flash but my almost 12 week old sleeps from 7-7.30pm to 10.30 where I sort of dream feed her then sleeps to 7-7.30 am
She keeps waking in night but instead of checking her I leave her a few mins and she goes back to sleep!! She's a dream at night, it's the daytime sleeps we poor with but you can't have it all I spose!! :)

Yay! Älfi slept 11 til 5. Unfortunately DD1 was up and down like a yo-yo. Älfi is also now napping. I'm dozing on the sofa watching Sweden play ice hockey.

All 3 of mine have fallen asleep on the boob. They all seem to feed for about 10 minutes after they have fallen asleep.

Hey Super! Nice to hear from you. How old is your lo now? Genevieve is getting pretty good at sleeping from midnight until 7. She's 10 weeks old now.

Has anyone opened up a junior isa for their dc? We got the Bounty/Family Investments bumph today and it started me thinking that it might be a good idea to put away a small bit of her CB. Only thing is I've no idea when it comes to these things, know there's stock and shares ones and cash ones, but which is better?

Urgh our sleep gets worse and worse - last night he fed at 10.30, 2 then 5 and filled nappy, had to be stripped down then was wide awake and screamed, luckily DH offered to take over and when I woke up ds was asleep on his chest in bed. He really should be developing one long stretch I think? He used to only wake at 11 and 3, I should have appreciated it more!

What is his sleep like for the rest of the day hotcross?

He's far less keen on napping in the morning now, falls asleep but always wakes after 20 mins and won't settle. Then has a couple of hours over lunch and always has 4.30-5.30. Yesterday I would estimate he had 4 hours total and didn't seem overtired in the evening. Generally I think it's a hunger issue - if he wakes after 5 it's always hard to settle him but I think that's cos he's well rested by then - but pretty much all his wake ups are for food.

Need to try hungry baby again somehow, I was wondering about mixing it with expressed milk? I used to mix ebm and regular formula in one bottle so don't see how this is any different and it might help him digest it better?

hot that's pretty good day napping- pretty much what Gina Ford says to aim for. J is struggling to do similar. He goes down well in the morning (about half hour) but lunch keeps waking and I ended up putting him in a sling today.

My mum means well but she said today 'do you think he's getting enough?' Since he's not settling well after feeds. She went on to say she knows so many women who didn't have enough breast milk and I should top up with formula. She ff me and my bro and doesn't know about supply and demand but still managed to make me feel like I was failing and leaving my baby hungry . I couldn't be bothered to argue my case, just tried to change the subject. His weight has gone down but he wasn't fed properly for 5 days whilst in hospital so that may have something to do with it!

And to top it off, had to have our cat put down today as he has cancer and was really ill...

Oh mum I'm sorry :(
I have made the decision to stop breastfeeding. I am finding my boobs are constantly uncomfortable and painful, I think I have over supply and with returning to work I think it's the time to give up.
I rung my mum in tears this morning due to engorgement being so sore and instead of supporting my decision she told me I should carry on until DD goes through the night- WT! She might not go through the night for months for gods sake! Felt totally unsupported and added to my guilt and emotion over the decision- which wasn't easy to make as all can understand. Parents. Just don't get them sometimes!

So on that subject- I'm trying to during be day just express a tiny amount to stop the pain and FF. The night feed I will aim to BF for the time being. Does this sounds like it will work and reduce my supply? God it's uncomfortable already!

blondie yeah that's not the support you needed. Parents indeed!

I think expressing a little bit May help engorgement when you do it but it'll tell your boobs to make more milk so may not help reduce your milk. I read somewhere you need to reduce your feeds slowly- so remove one feed then in a few days remove another. But this will be hard if you have oversupply.

Thank you. Doesn't help I'm so inpatient and want to do it quickly!
First night time feed and wow my boobs were sore. I expressed a bit at 11 so they weren't sore and DD woke up at 5 by which time they were like concrete boulders. I feel this is going to be a long painful process :(

I know what you mean. When I stopped with ds1 and 2 i just wanted to ff straight away as my mind was made up. I went cold turkey and my boobs were hard and uncomfortable for a few days then gradually the milk dried up. It's not recommended tho due to re risk of mastitis.

I'm pretty happy with J this morning- DH fed him at 10.30 then he woke @ 3 for a feed but didn't take that much and he's still asleep now! If only my other kids had lied in I could still be sleeping! The fact that he didn't take much at 3 is a good sign I guess- getting closer to not needing it...(of course that'll probably change as soon as he has another growth spurt!)

Well done with J's night mumoftwo - he seems to have settled back well after the hospital stay.

Hannah still hasn't returned to the single night feeds so maybe they were flukes! But her night feeds are small - 3.5oz at about 2am, and then just over 1oz at 5am before she conked out. I had tried just giving a cuddle at 5am but she wasn't keen!!

I just hope that it's edging in the right direction!

Been really awful about checking back on here recently, hope you are all doing well.

alyssa how are the anxiety attacks, have they settled down now?

hot James is 10 weeks and he'll go down from 8-10.30 then either 11-5 or 11-7 then goes down again about 8-10 (he's currently still napping now!) but he doesn't really sleep during the day now, just a couple of cat naps here and there.

When I stopped bf, I only fed him from me during the day and ff at night and started with expressing a couple times during the day and then i dropped a bf for a ff during the day would only express before I went to bed and then after a couple days he was only ff and then I expressed a couple times during the day and noticed my supply dropped to only a couple oz everytime and the n I just stopped totally and it was not too uncomfortable and dried up in a week xx

Hi mrs
My bct has said i have health anxiety and the doctor even have me an ecg and blood tests to prove nothing was wrong and they only showed I was anemic and now on iron tablets do I have to admit I'm having less of them so far, so I think it's all starting to help. Thank you for asking xx
I know it's early days so let's keep fingers crossed it stays this way thd majority of the time xx

Fingers crossed things are looking up alyssa

Urgh I feel like crap today. Realised that while Hannah didn't sleep too badly last night, I was awake from around midnight waiting for her to wake, and I didn't get back to sleep properly after her feeds. Have got a crashing headache and just feel miserable with knackeredness.

Had an almighty row with dd1 (ridiculous to be rowing with a 4yr old!) because I didn't prepare her toast to her ever-changing standards! So my mum came to the rescue and I am now on her spare bed with Hannah hopefully drifting off in a travel cot next to me, while DD1 amuses herself downstairs. Just can't seem to sleep while I can hear the grunts and snuffles from Hannah as she tries to get off to sleep...

Afternoon everyone

Argh. Really struggling with seb getting enough sleep during the day. After his jabs he was sleeping for at least 4 hours in the day and was so much happier for it and sleeping better at night. Monday he was ok but the last few have been really hard work.

The longest he goes in one stretch is about 20 mins. By 11am he is knackered and miserable. Just lying in bed with him now and he is waking up more than sleeping and furious at being in bed lol.

The only place I can reliably get him to sleep for a good stretch is in his sling but it's backbreaking after half an hour.

Going to download the gina ford book. We can't go on like this.

Frouby do you have anything that rocks? I realised ds likes the rocking of the car seat when on ground, often sooths him if kicking off while we get ready to go somewhere. So I have started rocking him to sleep in crib for naps, he was waking every 20 mins max but I am lying on bed rocking crib with my foot when he stirs and has done 50 mins now. I'm also using white noise app on my phone, not sure if that helps.

Am not too smug tho, last night he had dream feed at 10 then woke at 1, 4 and then v unsettled from then onwards

Hot I've tried that. His bouncy chair rocks and his crib glides. And have tried naps in the car seat and the pram. And on me. And on dp. On my bed and on the sofa on cushions lol.

I know he will be bang out in the sling for hours. Just don't want to keep resorting to it. Sigh. He really needs to sleep more though. It's making him miserable. He falls asleep pretty easily. Insert nipple and he is asleep lol. It's just keeping him down.

That's rough. Cuddling is my fail safe but at least I can do it sitting down, I'm exhausted after a few mins with the sling! Think of the calorie burning maybe :)