Martians 2014 (and the February early arrivals)

[LyraSilvertongue]

I expect it will be quiet in here for a while with only four Martians born so far and it not even being March yet

Those who have popped so far:
Coolhand
Dabarai
LyraSilvertongue
Wuxiapian

Our baby hasn't lost weight but has been only slowly gaining and is teetering around the 0.4th centile. He's also very sicky so although she wasn't really worried the GP prescribed some carobel powder to try to thicken the milk and make sure he keeps as much as possible down. It's a real pain to do and he does seem to have been colicky since I started the powder so as he's put on quite a bit in the last week I'm going to give it a miss for a day or two and see if he's more comfortable. If it's a choice between sickiness or colic then I'll take the sickiness, unless his weight is really poor. He has been weighed every week so far and although I realise they need to monitor him it does feel a bit like having an exam every week that we need to pass! I think the health visitors have to err on the side of caution.

dropped off the thread haven't slept properly in 24 hours am teary and exhausted James seems to be suddenly not latching and then gets worked up

Aww Vicki I hope things improve soon and you can get some sleep. Finlay often has trouble staying latched on, he punches my boob with his little fist and knocks himself off then screams at me!

Do you have a local breastfeeding group Vikki, I've found mine invaluable for support and advice.

Vikki, ds also does that when he is windy and uncomfortable. I usually can get him to settle after burping and comforting for a bit. I also second the suggestion of bf support groups - there may be a simple solution that you didn't think of because you are sleep deprived and exhausted.

ds has started feeding properly after 5 days of doing 5 min feeds while screaming and I am putting it down my stopping the tongue tie massage. it must be such a relief for him not to be in pain and hungry.

Has anyone got any sort of bedtime routine going yet?

I hope you've had a better day today Vikki

No routine here whatsoever! I've tried but he is so hard to settle for sleep, he's always used to feed to sleep but recently has come off the boob awake and it takes me hours to get him to sleep. We're mil

Nope! We're nowhere near to be honest.

I always take him through to the bedroom to start settling him at 8 but the process can take any length of time. It used to always reliably be feed to sleep by about 9. Now he doesn't always feed to sleep and last night it took me til 11:30 to rock him to sleep on my shoulder.

We're miles off being put down drowsy but awake!

im in Portugal they do have bf support and have said that I can get advice but no group as such. Today oh had him for most of the day apart from feeds so I got naps and reat so feel loads better. baby had a couple of awkward feeds but others were fine i think it depends if he's in a tiz already

Hi comms we have started a bedtime routine. We bath around 8pm dress and feed warm bottle and i settle him in his crib. He has been sleeping anything from 3hrs to 6hrs initially. We started the routine about two weeks ago and seems to work at the mo! No doubt now iv saidthat it wont work lol.
Once he is asleep i sort bottles and also go to bed as im exhausted!
We dnt have a day routine as its always changing depending on whether we have visitors or go out etc so i dnt worry as much, having said though i do try and make sure he gets a decent few hrs in his basket upstairs as otherwise he gets real moody in the eve

we sort of have a routine that works around us. oh tends to stay up late till 3am so when sun goes down we turn off most of the lights in living room and I feed him as normal but less engagement and he sleeps. I give him feed around 1am and oh takes him in a sling whilst he works as a graphics designer he wakes up at 3 or 4 am for feed I then do that and he feeds burps and I wrap him in blanket he falls asleep and I put him in the crib which is attached to my bed and we repeat this throughout the morning. It works for us and James seems to get night and day as we use the shutters here and play and talk less at night

Our routine at the moment is bath at 6 and into grobag. I feed her then pop her in the bassinet in our living room to settle. Sometimes she'll nod off and other times she'll happily lie there awake or scream! I feed her again at around 8 and pop her down again before giving a bottle of expressed milk at 10. Then I take her upstairs and go to bed.

I'm starting to introduce massage after the bath and from next week (when she's 8 weeks) I'll start putting her down at 7 in her Moses basket upstairs to see if she'll settle herself.

Yet again I am grappling with a grizzly overtired baby who is refusing sleep. Eyes wide open, legs and arms kicking.

I even took him out in the pushchair at 5pm to try to get another nap in to stop the overtiredness but he just wouldn't drop off.

Every night it's the same - grizzling from about 7, refusing sleep for hours. Can't even feed him to sleep now, his feeding is so frantic he comes off the boob all hyped up!

Hi mrs u must be exhausted i can relate to the over tired scream. Jack has started this and can be mid bottle and get so worked up he wont drink but also wont be put down. Sometimes putting him up on my shoulder helps or gentle rock or even sitting him up on my lap. Its so hard isnt it as they fight going to sleep when in that state! Sending hugs x

When he's like that, literally nothing will work he refuses to be held in any position!

Frank The Guidelines are that the safest place for a baby to sleep is in the same room as you, rather than upstairs when you are down stairs iyswim.

Some people who (for whatever reason) do have to have their babies elsewhere use a baby monitor on reverse (i.e. so the baby can hear the sounds of the mother and/or moving about to prevent them from getting into too deep a sleep).

Good morning Martians.

My sympathies to those of you with overly tired babies. Finlay does this too and it is heartbreaking when they scream and you can't console them. Luckily he doesn't do it too often. My mum suggested putting him in his moses and letting him cry it out as nothing settles him anyway. I haven't tried it yet though as I'm a softy and I can't bear to.

I have discovered this week that putting him in the sling/baby carrier seems to send him to sleep when he gets grizzly in the evening, especially if I talk to someone on the phone for some reason! It is hard to listen to him screaming but hopefully it's better for him to have a proper sleep and then feed properly rather than snack all night...?

Lots of and for those of you having difficult times. I second the sling for grizzly/over tiredness.

Frank we're going to start putting C to bed upstairs after her bath from next week, although still in our room. She's starting to find it really hard to get herself settled downstairs with us and I've found the better sleep she has in the evening the more settled she is for the rest of the night.

I'm really struggling to sleep in between night feeds. C is the noisiest sleeper ever and always sounds like she's on the verge of waking up. I'm nowhere near ready for her to go in her own room though so I guess I'll just have to ride it out for now!

I 3rd the sling oh uses in the evenings its nice he gets his time and I have freedom until next feed

I am breastfeeding but am supposed to be expressing and giving top ups as slow weight gain. I am struggling to do this though, partly because it's hard to find time to express as well as feed (baby is a slow feeder so feeds take a while). However I also struggle with actually giving the bottle as I hate listening to him screaming while I get the bottle ready when I'm used to being able to feed him more or less immediately. How does everyone else deal with the preparation time? Husband can't help at the moment as he's working such long hours I've barely seen him all week...

Good grief Imeg, - I'm so sorry for hijacking your thread but I was looking for a friend who was due in March and couldn't help but spot this.

What blimmin ridiculous reason was given for you to top up with expressed milk. Talk about make a struggling woman's life twice as hard.

Feed your baby directly. Feed every time you sit down. Offer even when the baby isn't asking. Make sure you offer one breast, then the other breast when the feeding slows down or baby gets sleepy, and then the first breast again repeating until the baby has no interest or falls into a deep sleep.

In the evenings in particular, sit down on the sofa with all you need to hand and hopefully someone around to bring you things. At the weekend spend a good amount of time in bed cuddling and feeding and reading a book and sleeping.

Why would you want to give previously expressed 'wake up' milk in the evenings, or 'go to sleep' milk during the day increasing the chances of a disturbed night.

Perhaps post on the bfing thread if you want to check out what I am saying.

Hi Starlight,
Thanks for your advice - I've been on the weight gain page of the kellymom site which was helpful.
I don't want to derail this thread into a lengthy discussion about this but briefly I think the reasoning for top-ups was they were concerned he was feeding inefficiently and stopping because he was tired rather than because he was full. Also that taking milk from a bottle takes less energy than feeding directly. Also, I was already expressing from time to time so husband could give me a break at the weekends, but it's different feeling like I have to do it rather than just doing it when convenient and I have a spare ten minutes! His weight gain isn't that bad, he's filling loads of nappies and I think he is feeding a bit more efficiently now so I'm sure we will get there, it's just been hard this week with husband not able to help at all.

Imeg it's hard when they're crying and you have to faff around with a bottle isn't it. I don't have much advice I'm afraid but sympathies.

It makes me so mad when I come back to bed after a night feed and DP has spread himself out across the entire bed!