July 2014 - sleepless nights but lots of smiles

[NancyinCali]

The old thread is nearly full so here's a new place for us to chat about our July babies. Help yourself to some tea & cake to keep you going through the sleepless nights .

Can anyone tell me when to get baby's first proper shoes? I

Clarks is good, they will measure the feet.
but there's something about baby should be walking for 6 weeks before getting shoes with hard soles.
best ask in shop

1st tooth today, very exciting and sweet, but also it made me realise this is it, there will be no more toothless smiles, no more babies for me - and that made me cry

I know IABU, but it hurts

Aw Zing.

Why is sleep such a "1 step forwards, 2 steps back" kind of thing? DD2 was starting to sleep in longer blocks so I only had to get up once in the night but last night she woke literally every single hour, sometimes twice.

Anyone had any luck getting rid of a dummy? I think that might help her sleep better but there are times she won't go to sleep without it.

Funny that others are feeling broody, I am too. I am totally done with 2 dss but can't seem to help feeling a bit jealous of pregnant women

I love being pregnant and love newborns but going back to work in a few weeks and feeling a bit sad that my little baby is now a pretty big baby and going on to the first steps of independance.

Hi all, how many feeds in the day are your dc having now? Ds is bottle fed but pretty much refusing any day time! Will have first thing and last thing but just screams when I try- he was having 2 small ones A few weeks ago. Have tried a sippy cup and he will have maybe 100ml max. He is eating huge meals including plenty of dairy but don't know if I should persevere or give up!

I have decided to let ds cosleep whilst teething in order for us to get some sleep! I persevere in his cot for up to 20mins but then give up- especially on work days!

On Sunday I did something to my foot and now can't walk...going to the drs today as looking after baby and not walking is interesting to say the least! At least its a short week!

Sorry for the self centered post miss chatting to you all!

2nd tooth appeared yesterday.
and for a very brief 2 seconds he let go of what he was holding onto and stood on his own before his bottom pulled him to the ground

loves his food too. I'm telling ya, this boy is so delightful

ickle
I keep checking that he goes no longer than 3 hours without either a bottle of milk (200ml formula) and he has lunch and dinner typically, plus a mid-morning snack of baby biscuits and yoghurt or pureed fruit.
no time for breakfast - I bf first thing at 7-7.30am-ish, he gets a full bottle at 8am, then school run.
he's normally asleep when we get back and I let him sleep (still in baby car seat) and he gets milk and then the snack when he wakes up.

today he had no proper lunch, but ate a bit of my pasta then fell asleep.
he had lots of milk and about to have dinner.

I'm not very good at being strict with feeding times and 2 meals a day at this age - but I actually think that by default he does have a fairly good routine.
he seems happy enough so I don't worry too much.
I hope this answers your question

Your first post today made me smile, Zing.

ickle I'm going to count daytime as the hours I'm awake (so between 7.30am and 11pm). DD2 will have something like 5 or 6 feeds during this time. Mostly she'll take just one side, but the last two feeds she'll always have both sides.

What other drinks does he have? Does he still have plenty of wet nappies? If he's doing fine for weight and has plenty of energy then I'd be inclined to keep offering him 5 or so bottles per day but leave him to it. You might find he starts drinking more again soon.

DD2 still doesn't have any teeth at over 8 months old. She's great at bottom shuffling around the room and getting into her sister's toys, plus she is so funny. Super chubby, great at eating, still wakes 3 or 4 times between 11pm and 7.30am.

Has anyone had any success getting rid of dummies? She wakes me because she can't find it so I'd love to help her learn to sleep without it but no idea where to start.

kiwi
DS5 was the same. about same age.

throw all the dummies out and I mean all of them, after you cut off the teat bits. (which means no going back, no option of bin rummaging and mad sterilising at 2am)

then follow Tracy Hogg's "pick up/put down" & "shhhh/pat" methods. or whatever you think is best - but this suited us.
beware it can take up to a week for baby to settle this way and the a very first few nights can be tough so best to start on a Friday night which means you can nap during the day if needed and your DP/DH can take over a bit more. or other way round.

basically when trying to settle baby you put her in the cot. as soon as she cries you pick her up, and rhythmically pat her back while doing "sshhhh" sound at the same time.
(I do it so the shhh sounds like a "wave", slightly louder at the time I pat on the back - IYSWIM)
when she calmed down you put her back in the cot.
as soon as she cries you pick her up again and shh/pat till she is calm. back in the cot...
eventually she will start getting tired - then switch to gently stroking her back, still dooing sshhh- sshhh- sshhh.
when she's quiet the drop the sound and just rest your hand on her back. as soon as you think she is asleep you can leave or go back to bed.

it seems a bit weird to "give in to the crying and picking up", but it isn't what it seems. a crying baby ALWAYS needs attention, needs to be soothed and held. they need to learn you will jump. this is what eventually builds trust and work in your favour - because they don't need to cry for ages to get "help" funnily enough most of them will learn to only cry if there's a problem.

when we did this with DS5, the very first night he woke up 6 times, the second night once, then slept through.
yours might be even quicker or might take longer.

it helps if you document how many times they wake, how long they are up and count how many times you had to pick baby up.
you will see the progress.
if the crying is grating on your nerves use earplugs to muffle the sound (I did)

The most important aspect is to only put baby in the cot when they are not crying. as soon as they do, even if it's mid-air, you should pick them up.
they will eventually learn to self soothe, but first they need sleep training.

but inly if YOU are ready too. no point wasting 2 nights then giving up. start only if you mean to go on.
good luck

5 kiwi??!! I'd be lucky to get 3 in him! He was happily having big bottle morning and night now refusing morning bottle and only had half his night time one. Tried to dream feed him but screamed and refused he only had about 150ml last 24h as milk although lots of cheese, yoghurt, milk in porridge. He drinks water with every meal. Plenty of wet nappies. .. hoping it's teething related and that he will have more again soon.

How are you getting on now, ickle? In your situation I'd just keep doing what you're doing.

Thanks for the amazing advice, Zing. We'll try it next weekend!

Currently stuck under a sleeping baby who refused to nap in her cot. She's really unsettled today and I don't know what's up. To make matters worse, I'm feeling crap with first day of my period, my joints are sore and DH is going to be out all afternoon and evening. It's a jolly good thing he bought chocolate yesterday!

Will you please remind me of the symptoms of actual teething (just before the teeth arrive)? DD2 has been acting like she was teething since she was 4 months old but still no teeth! But after a couple of good nights of sleep she woke every 2 hours last night and was reluctant to have her dummy back.

She's also being a bit pukey, so could be she has a sore tummy.

Kiwi

teething is a tricky one because they can do the chewing & dribbling thing for absolute months - as the teeth move upwards or downnwards inside the gums they can cause a near constant nagging ache/discomfort.

for my kids, the most common things that would signal immediate arrival of teeth were:

• prolonged temperature or fever
• loss of appetite
• crying
• rancid smelling nappies
• raw bottom with "pinprick" bleeding (as if they'd sat on a hedgehog!)
• waking at night and shrieking, hysterical sobbing, inconsolable, couldn't even be held at times, writhing on floor or bed in pain

most or all of these would be going on simultaneously for 2 days - 5days, the moment they snapped back to happy hungry sleepy babies I'd find a glorious tooth!

mine never really dribbled much and some babies like to chew more (oral stimulation) so to me they were never the signs

and all babies "present" symptoms differently - including lack of symptoms like BabyZing who was absolutely fine and I found his tooth accidentally and to my great surprise!

as always, if you are worried go to GP get them checked.

yes, thank goodness for chocolate!

I'm off all biscuits and cakes types things till end of May (supporting a friend) and I really miss my morning jaffa cakes!

Thanks kiwi doing well and very relaxed about milk at the moment after he went down to one bottle a day! we now get 2 and some milk from sippy cup with snacks. He's eating really well which helps me relax.

Teething wise ds is miserable, dribbles horrifically and chews on everything! We get through it with calpol, teething gel, teethers and days out so I'm not going through it alone!

How amazing is all the sunshine - ds just loves being outside. I managed to get sunburnt yesterday but put plenty of block on ds and kept putting his hat on- must get some elastic for that!

Sorry haven't been on here for a while... I got kindle unlimited and have been obsessed with reading since!

Yes I am very broody and especially jealous of those who are pregnant... want a second dc and was planning to start trying in the summer but anxious about whether we'll cope and the effect on my health and stuff.

DS now has two 240ml/8 oz bottles a day - one in the morning when he gets up and one at bedtime. I sometimes do him one in the day but after the HV told me I had to cut his bottles down from the 5 he was having to 2 bottles and me ignoring her he's done it himself. He's now having 3 meals and 2 snacks a day (plus whatever he manages to scrounge off others) though some days he has more sometimes less. I'm a firm believer that at this age they know what they want/need. Water wise I fill two sippy cups in the morning from the kettle and he has those through the day but again some days he'll finish one or two others he'll barely touch it.

ickle if you're worried about his milk intake how about cereal made with baby milk? I just remembered the baby cereal ds has is mixed with formula.

DS loves fruit including watermelon which he would eat all day if i let him so that's going to be a great way to keep him hydrated in the hot weather.

How is everyone else doing? I can't believe how fast this past 9/10 months have gone!

DS is almost walking - just needs his balance and he'll be off!

another one still making lots of bottles here. DD has porridge for breakfast, snack, bottle, lunch with pudding, snack, bottle, supper with pudding, bottle and two bottles overnight so 5 in total every 24 hours (at 210ml but this is not always drunk).

She is not always brilliant at eating meals (and I am not that brilliant at remembering to feed her either ). I would like to reduce down but she tends to use the bottle to nap during the day and get to sleep at night.

Any ideas?

Am working 4 days a week now

I would love DS to take a bottle but am still bfing against my will as he refuses to take a bottle. He is getting 4-5 feeds despite me being back at work - about 6pm, before bed, about 3am and when he wakes for the day at 6-7am.
I would really like to stop but don't see how I can if he won't take formula. Also I go away for work for 3 nights next month so really want to have stopped by then!

Try increasing the portions of food during the day? DS started reducing the amount of milk he had during the day when he had more food and he has mostly proper food. If I gave him a bottle he'd probably still have 30 ml or so for thirst but he's not really hungry. Our day goes something like:
6 am 210ml bottle and porridge
9 am snack of toast or something (today he had 2 crumpets!)
12 pm lunch sandwich or quiche or leftovers with cucumber and tomatoes (I had Greek salad type thing today so he had houmous pitta tiny bit of feta olives and beetroot) sometimes with fruit/yogurt for pudding
2:30 pm snack of fruit
5 pm dinner same as we're having or what we had the night before and usually with extra veg and pudding
6:30 pm 210ml milk

I read something by a breastfeeding expert saying that women have different breast milk capacities and if your baby is still waking for feeds as an older baby then it might be that you have a small capacity. She described what feeding might be like if you're in this situation.

It made sense for me as the kind of feeding she talked about is how DD2 fed as a little one. We're still doing one or two night feeds.

I'll try to find the link and post it here.

DD2 is 9 months old now and really enjoying having a temper! She's grouchy like me. But she's also very cuddly and sweet. Ooh, and finally crawling! The amount of paper she has consumed in the past week is impressive.

Here's the article. www.nancymohrbacher.com/blog/2012/10/31/do-older-babies-need-night-feedings.html