JULY 2014 - WE HAVE BABIES

[justhayley]

Well it's only mid June but I hear we have our first July 2014 baby - congratulations MrsC, also hear there is one going to be joining us very very soon so thought it was time to start a postnatal thread! Wow can you believe it's that time already!!!

I hope to be joining you on this thread in the next few weeks - have no desire to get to 40 /42 weeks in this heat thank you.

For now congratulations new mummies xxx

OK you've all made me feel a bit better - as usual - thank you!

We head to bed between 9.30 and 10pm and here it's a change and a feed and a specific playlist of music and a nightlight only. She falls asleep on the bottle in my arms and is then moved to her cot. She usually wakes up once or twice (4ish and 6.30ish) and then has a morning bath, rather than an evening one.

Her daytime naps are a bit unpredictable still - I'll expect 1.5hrs and she'll sleep for 20mins and vice
versa.

She also loves sitting but is not too keen on lying on her stomach so we're going to experiment with a bumbo today. She will also generally allow me to cook or do stuff provided she can see or hear me. Talking to her is required, not just pottery noises though.

no bed time routine here. I'm crap at it when they are little!
He has naps during the day & evening, whenever. a 2-3 hour nap around lunch time is fairly common but no set time.
night time - he tends to fall asleep around 11-pm - 0.30 am and has a good 6-7 hour sleep most nights.
but yesterday he fell asleep at 10.30pm and woke up at 5am,I bf then he fell asleep again.

I generally don't let him sleep longer than 3 hours in the day (that's the ling nap he has as it's quiet with just DD & me) - any other time he gets woken up by siblings which is unavoidable! so for now I just go with the flow - if he's tired he'll sleep no matter how noisy it is!
(remember, he was/is a sleepy baby and there are benefits of that too! )

I am so jealous of your long-napping babies. Apart from one 2-hour sleep on the change table one time, the longest DD has managed is 30 minutes.

As usual when I post about sleep it all goes wrong: bed at 7 and woke at 11pm, 3am, 4.30am, 7.30am.

What are your babies like with your partners? DD is going through a horrible phase of screaming when DH holds her then stopping as soon as she's back with me.

Kiwi DD doesn't scream when she's with him but I have to be careful to stay out of her line of sight as otherwise she gets distracted.

Only one way to fix it of course...make them do it more. Sigh.

If she's getting tired she's more likely to settle if DH hands her back to me. But if she's well fed and rested she'll hang out with him. He'll often wear her in the carrier and she loves that. He can put her to bed but it's harder for him. Which means he needs to practice more

Getting him to wear the wrap is a good idea. Will start this weekend. Had planned a blissful half hour in the bath with a glass of wine to give them quality time but DH's stupid bike has put paid to that.

ds's bedtime and night sleep is similar to ismarah's dd but daytime naps are fairly unpredictable though he has one about 1.5 hours after getting up so about 8 am and normally 2 naps before lunch and they can vary anything from 20 mins to 2 hours with no obvious reason. ds will only sleep in his crib for 30 mins if I am lucky enough to put him down on a rare occasion and I struggle to get anything done as he also likes to be held/played with but a few times I have managed to do stuff be talking to him while he's on his mat or something but sods law it's never the more important stuff!

ds seems to be better with dp sometimes - he doesn't have to be so gentle putting him down to sleep and ds is happier with certain things than he is with me... I'm trying not to take it personally! He will watch me when dp has him though and laughs and smiles at me for no reason...

Am glad other people have 'night owl' babies going to sleep at 10pm or later. DS has been going to bed when I go to bed but now it's get in possible to get him to sleep without being held I'm trying to get him to go earlier - mostly because trying to get him to sleep when I'm desperate to sleep myself is no fun.

Have just had half an hour of the most tortured screaming trying to get him to nod off - he's finally gone, just about to try putting him down ....

...and he's still asleep!

So good to come here and read others having similar experiences. So greatful ds slept better finally last night. Asleep by 7, fed 11.30 and finally asleep again at 12.30, woke at 3, 5 and finally awake 6.30. But compared to last few nights up every hour feels amazing. My mum is here as well so shes taken ds downstairs so I should be lying in yet im on mums net!

ismarah ds is the same loves sitting- need to try a bumbo but loves standing more! Think will get a door bouncer. You can spend a fortune can't you?!! Jealous that you can put down for any length of time. Although as ds gets bigger he is getting better!

kiwi ds went through a good month of screaming whenever dh took him. He'd be calm I'd pass him to dh and he would scream, I'd take him back and he would be calm again! Was heartbreaking. We persevered- I would do weekly shop and dh would have ds screaming whole time I'm not sure if it made any difference or he jusy grew out of it but he is much better now!

nancy I have encouraged dh to do more bed time put downs too. He always goes down quicker for me and I can put him down awake but important that dh can do it too!

Went to post natal gym session at local hospital yesterday was amazing. Felt so good to do some exercise and when theo got unsettled the physio running it took him. Will definitely be going again next week

Yay for sleep plate hope you got a decent night

ickle

bumbo seat is good, get one. fab for sitting baby in it during early days of weaning when they are still too "wobbly" to sit in a highchair.

two things I used with all of them:

• I think it's called an "activity ring". basically it's like a massive inner tyre covered with fabric and interesting things attached to it. baby can sit in the middle and is supported so it's ok to use before they can sit unaided.

• baby cruiser, which is just brilliant! mine absolutely love it! especially in the garden in the spring when it's too cold and wet crawl but in a cruiser they can be mobile and kept entertained.

I recommend getting one!

Er, what is a baby cruiser? Google was no help.

Is a cruiser a baby walker? If so have one on DDs Christmas list. She loves the door bouncer and Bumbo. Basically she likes being upright.

Sorry to say DD goes to bed between 9pm and 10pm. We read a book in her room then I feed her most of a bottle and pop her in the cot where she squirms for bit then goes to sleep (sometimes she gets ratty when the light goes out and squeals for a bit). Then she sleeps during the night waking up at around 6am, quick feed then asleep in my bed until 9.30am .

I feel blessed... of course she has only been sleeping in her room for 5 nights so this pattern may change

wrt the classical music - I bought DD a baby einstein toy that lights up and plays 7 different classical tunes because I didnt think I could stand the awful pop type tunes most toys have

Forgot to say DH hopeless as settling DD. In fact he's pretty useless at any sort of activity that is more than half an hour long. He has never put DD to bed and has only done a handful of night feeds. Of course this means he has no idea how to settle her. We need to have a chat about it this weekend...

I live in Canada where baby walkers/cruisers are illegal: www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/fines-of-up-to-100-000-for-owning-selling-baby-walkers-1.499954. I always thought it a shame that they were banned but so many people have basements with open stairs here that I can see the concern. We visited England when DS was about 9 months old, plopped him in a friend's one, and he was off - he loved it !

(Nevemind explaining to me about sleep regression, I think I've figured it out! 2am ffs!)

Thanks zing we bought an activity ring (also called playnest) as he loved one at a baby group- gave me an hour of peace and for £12 on ebay bargain! Will get a walker later.

liquid ds exactly the same upright so door bouncer sounds like a good plan- my mum showed me the one I had as a baby in photo and said I'm sure they have changed lots now ...nope! Very jealous of such good sleeping. ..

Ds slept ok last night but twice for over an hour he wouls cry out and then sleep every few minutes. He wasn't upset but kept me awake dh has him now and I'm going back to sleep. Tomorrow he goes into his own room!!!

Shh bad parent alert I'm having a day off- going out for the whole day and leaving dh to it. He plans to spend the day watching rugby. We shall see what ds thinks of that. I'm hoping he will have more empathy after today. What are the chances of ds being perfect?

ickle if my ds is anything to go by your ds will be perfectly behaved all day and let your dh watch the rugby!

I asked my osteopath about walkers/bumbos/jumperoos/etc as I didn't want to cause ds any issues and the advice was 30 mins a day is fine but not to use them for long periods so we're getting ds a jumperoo for Christmas - there's one for 65 quid on amazon at the moment.

lemon it would be interesting to compare the stats for Canada and the UK on accidents involving walkers

AuntieMaggie I don't think there's any meaningful data because they've been banned for so long, and walker 'technology' has advanced over the same time. Jumperoos are fine, though- I'm going to get ours out today!

liquid

a baby walker might be one they push in front of them once they can actually walk.

so I used the term "cruiser" by which I mean the type they sort of sit in, but can stand up and walk.
it's basically a height adjustable giant nappy on wheels with a tray!
Google that!

lemon

I can't believe they are illegal because people don't think!
presumably anyone of any age can fall down into those types of basements if they are open and suffer injury so why is it that leaving them accessible isn't illegal?!
weird and stupid.

of course they can only be used between levels if there's no danger of falling down, but you'd think any parent with a normal IQ would use a stair gate or lock doors/garden gates etc to avoid an accident!

we simply never used them upstairs as it was a downstairs/garden equipment.
I find it invaluable and we never had any injury in years of usage.

Agreed, zing. Given Canada is liberal in so many other ways, it does seem a strange thing to ban...