Graduated Elderberries

[HazleNutt]

It's time to move to Post-Natal clubs.

That's interesting about the aquarium lol - I wasn't sure if M would be too young but might take him soon in that case...

M slept much better here. Slept through until 5.45 but then had a quick feed and back to sleep. Hopefully I won't waste half my day sleeping now either!

Up and out early this morning (we actually woke him at 7.15 in the end) to take him swimming. Was so lovely doing it with DP and M obviously loved it. Think it might be a new weekend family activity - as long as we get there when it opens at eight, we left 40 mins later and it was getting pretty busy...

I wasn't massively surprised to discover it was yet another shit night here. It's been about 5 weeks of constant shit so what's another night of it, hey?

Not a good night here either. But at least I managed to get her back to sleep at 7 and she went until 9. Or I just passed out and she had no choice!

Hi Lilly!

So good to hear from you - albeit sorry that shit is in contact with the proverbial :(

H was up with a sky high temperature in the night so got him checked at the walk in centre this morning and mercifully he's fine, just a very sore throat.

I on the other hand am in agony. He bit me with his pointy teeth Thursday. Really hurt but couldn't see any damage. But since Friday it's been getting more and more painful. Blood blisters appeared yesterday and today it's swollen and has opened up to two small holes.

Have just fed him with a rugby ball hold and after the initial agony, it did get easier. Hoping rest, lansinoh and different holds will ease it.

Back to work tomo. Now have 2 outfits. Yay. If I get to work without H wrecking one I'll be so grateful!

On aquariums, we took H with my sister and her boyfriend a couple of months back to The Deep. He loved the lights and the acoustics sent him to sleep a couple of times - not surprising really it must be like womb sounds!

ouch to bitten nip hope it heals soon!!

We had a better night, surprising as H was struggling to breath and took an age to settle. He was up at 2.30 an 4.30, had to resettle at 12.50 and 3.30 though as my oh's snoring woke him, my hand on his chest and some shhing was enough to calm him and send him back to sleep though.....phew. So thats 9 - 9 with 2 wake ups....best ever, shame he has to be so so poorly for him to sleep well.

Hi Lilly, glad you are back, though sorry to hear its been tough for you recently.

I am dreading this sleep thing. W has been sleeping really well for a few weeks - she did 9pm til 6am straight through on Friday, but then last night was up several times with mystery complaints, so I am wondering if it's on the way. She is also dribbling loads and I feel like there's something sharp against my nipple sometimes so not sure if teeth might be making an early appearance, agghh.

I've been meaning to ask you lot for your nap advice as I am crap at getting her to nap. She will go off in the buggy (often after a bit of complaining) sometimes for several hours, but apart from that in the daytime she will only nap on me, after a feed. Today she caught 20 mins here and there but spent the whole day looking knackered, poor thing. How do I sort this out?

Quod are you meeting us tomorrow?
I've always been crap at getting L to nap and things seem to have sorted themselves out in that sense. She has become better and I think I've learnt how to spot if she needs a nap and then help her. For me most days it means coming to bed with curtains closed and lying next to her until she falls asleep then having a nap with her

Quod E used to be exactly the same, I think it's very common but that doesn't help you much! I used a gentle version of PUPD where she nodded off on me and I gently put her down (in her chair where she could still see/hear me) which invariably woke her up at first, so I picked her back up and cuddled her asleep again and then repeated. It took loads of attempts at first but then she started to be happily put down in the chair. When she was comfortable enough to be put down in the chair asleep I gradually started putting her in it more awake and letting her go to sleep in the chair rather than on me. This whole process probably took a couple of months so it was not a quick fix.

As for naps, I have found that frequency is more important. Don't get me wrong, if she doesn't nap for long enough she will still be grumpy when she wakes, but if I time her awake time correctly then she will usually nap for as long as she needs rather then having an annoying short nap. I generally hate all the 'baby sleep experts,' but one thing they recommend which E has always conformed to is ensuring age-appropriate awake times. I tried to link here to some suggested awake times by age but it won't work for some reason so i've put it on FB. Now at 8 months she is starting to nap at set times rather than X hours after she last woke, but up until now whatever time she woke in the morning dictated her nap times for the rest of the day and always worked pretty well. For all of her shitty nighttime sleep, she has always been a pretty good daytime sleeper.

And lastly, don't worry about any sleep regression W may or may not go through. There's not much you can do about it other than to weather the storm and we've all been through/are going through it and are still around to tell the tale. You just get yourself on MN and moan like hell about it and that makes it all seem much better.

After another interesting night, tooth #2 is just breaking through. I've given up hoping this will lead to a reprieve in the crap sleeping but we'll see.

Fab advice cav. H is great at napping during the day just shit at sleeping at night

He must be feeling better as he was up all hours of the night again, think it was 4 times in the end, was made worse by the fact he woke screaming each time and by listening to the awful muccus he was then trying to cough up. What bugs me is I am pretty much the same with him if he's up once or 8 times, yes it can be frustrating but if I'm frustrated H will pick up on it and not sleep. My OH 'helped' last night and it was awful, I could hear him getting really annoyed and saying things like 'H I dont know what's wrong, just bloody shut up' 'stop fucking crying' etc etc, in the end I made sure I got to H first so I did the next 2 wake ups as I didnt like listening to it. Am I being over sensitive or is he being a dick. I complained to him and he did apologise in the end, H is sick he needs our care not his bad temper! Sorry, rant over.

p.s glad you're back lilly, sorry you've been having a shit time

Thanks Cav, that's really useful. Basically I haven't been paying attention to her tiredness, assuming she will drop off if she needs to, but I think I need to start being more proactive with it.

Mother yes he is being a dick. H is too little to understand the swearing, but he still needs calm and caring when he is upset. It's hard yes but your DH needs to get on top of his frustration.

mother sorry to hear about your troubles. I don't think your OH is a dick - he does not have your experience and probably gets frustrated that he can't do anything to stop H crying. I've had words with DH as well - explained that the baby will sleep eventually, but until he falls asleep, it is better to try to calm him, instead of just telling him "Quiet now!". The baby does not understand, he's not a dog.

Interesting night here too, up pretty much hourly until I took him into our bed at 5am so I could get a little sleep. Not sure what was bothering him, I don't see the next tooth. Fingers crossed that it was just one night and not a start of a next sleep regression..

Thanks for the welcome everyone.

Quick question, does anyone know how long babies can sleep in travel cots for? I've been staying at my Mum's for the past 5/6 weeks and I'm starting to wonder if the shit sleeping is partly because she's in an uncomfortable travel cot. What do you think? I know you can buy extra mattresses for travel cots but they cost nearly as much as the actual cots. Will it be doing her any harm sleeping on a more firm bed do you think?

And Mother - he's definitely being a dick, it sounds very familiar, although I get 'can you shut that baby up! I'm trying to think' yeah sure, I'll just explain to her why she needs to be quiet shall I?

lilly I have not seen any specific recommendations regarding travel cots. I don't think it will do her any actual harm, but maybe could try a mattress topper or just a softer blanket under the sheet, if you think it's otherwise too hard?

Quod having a baby who will just fall asleep when she is tired is the stuff dreams are made of for me! All that happens here when she gets tired is that she gets increasingly irritable until she reaches meltdown. There is no way in the world that she will acknowledge that she is tired and just close her eyes unless she is in the car or pushchair, so her sleep is entirely managed by me by looking for tired signs and then winding her down and getting her to bed. E has always followed the same pattern of set awake times between sleeps, which was around 2 hours when she was 4 months and has gradually increased over the weeks and is around 3 hours now at 8 months, but all babies are different so I think it's probably best to watch the baby rather than the clock and see if a pattern emerges.

Mother he is being a bit of a dick about it, especially as you do the lion's share while he sleeps, but I do understand his frustration. It's common sense that a baby has no concept of time or that it's the middle of the night or that they shouldn't be up at that time so there's no point losing your rag with them over it, but I can't honestly say I haven't muttered ,'for fucks sake!' under my breath at 4am when i'm getting up for the sixth time. It's fine to feel annoyed and frustrated over it but no point taking it out on the baby.

Lilly I think it's fine to sleep in a travel cot for as long as they still fit in it, but if you're at your Mum's for a while could you bring the normal cot from your house so she is a bit comfier? Could L just be unsettled over the change of sleeping location, or even that she's picked up vibes that your circumstances have changed? And did you just fancy a new name?

Yes FX Hazle that you aren't heading into the shit sleep zone as well, although if another sleep regression is an inevitability then i'm now thinking it's better to get it out of the way?

What are everyone's thoughts on Will and Kate buggering off on holiday without 7 month old George? They seem to be getting slammed for it.

Personally, I quite like the theory of a baby-free holiday but in practice I just don't think I could leave her for that long at this age. I would miss her too much but would absolutely LOVE the sleep and would worry that she was fretting over where her parents had gone. Having said that, DH and I have bought festival tickets for when E will be 13.5 months but that's only a weekend and we will only be an hour away.

As for naps, V is not a good napper, so sometimes all signs are there, you put him to bed and he simply refuses to sleep. Other times put him to bed and he just grumbles a couple of minutes and is out. However, even if he doesn't sleep, as long as he's not crying, he is more rested after just being in his bed in a quiet room for a while.

Music seems to help, I either put a CD on or if it's dark, he has this lamp that changes colours and plays music for 20 min. www.amazon.co.uk/Chicco-Goodnight-Stars-Musical-Nightlight/dp/B007CZBOEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394446613&sr=8-1&keywords=chicco+lamp
He loves staring at it and usually falls asleep when the lamp shuts off. I would not recommend that particular one though - you can't adjust the volume or select or add songs - but something similar might help.

cav I agree, I'm too much of a worrier and would not enjoy the holiday am already worried about those 2 nights in May, even though he's with DH. But I am absolutely not judging parents who are not as paranoid as I am and are more comfortable leaving their babies for a couple of weeks. I'm sure little George was not exactly given to wolves to raise.

Cavort - didn't fancy a name change so much as had to as The Biggest Wanker in the World decided to advance search me and read everything I'd written about him.

Can't fit the proper cot in at Mum's, I've put a blanket in the bottom of the travel cot and the bottom/mat from her play gym for extra padding so I'm hoping she'll be ok, she's only skinny! Although she's spending a fair bit if time sleeping sideways across a single bed with me so I'm hanging off the edge. Little bugger.

Lilly really? You would think a man with that much time on his hands would easily finish a loft conversion.

Fingers crossed for better sleeping with the extra padding. How's L's weight coming along? Are you still her culinary slave?

Hi Lilly!!
Sleep regression happened here at about 5 months just when I thought I'd escaped
Mother argh that is upsetting for you. Have you had a discussion about it?

..and no, you are ABSOLUTELY not being over sensitive.

lilly that's wankerish indeed - especially if info collected is not used for self-improvement purposes. Theoretically, if I was stalking someone, I would take note of the threads they posted on and check if they have shown up there with a new name, so you might not be totally hidden still.

Regarding feeding, V has mastered sucking the pouches, makes feeding a lot faster and easier - just stick one in his mouth and we're done. Just have to see that he does not squeeze them too enthusiastically.
I think I will try him on a straw cup next, maybe he will drink some milk from there..I mean he has to drink something besides water from some kind of a cup at some point, right?

The weirdest thing has just happened - I was doing my bath routine with S and when I changed her, I picked her up off the mat and there was a little cream coloured lump on the mat?! Had a slight red tinge on some of it. The size of a small pebble and quite hard but I can break into it, the texture is kind of crystalline/gristly. I can't work out what it is but I think it might have come out of her somehow?!? Unless something fell into her clothing. Any ideas what it could be?!