January 2014 -- the birthdays are coming!

[TobyLerone]

Just wrote a long message on the old thread only to have it not post because we'd filled it.

We really ought to do less chatting and more sleeping

Just been catching up. Lost track after last thread finished.
A hardly babbles either. I think he might have said duck and maybe quack but I'm not sure. He's got a pretty effective scream which always gets him what he wants which he has learned from his sister. I expect his first words to be "I want..." and "Peppa Pig".

I'm trying some very gentle sleep training and have just about night weaned. He still wakes 5 times a night at least though. Seems to be wind, maybe? Or teeth. Whatever it is it is exhausting.

Hello all, just checking in. Hope all are well as can be.

Am trying to catch up, but have just done two 12 hour night shifts in a row so brains are a bit scrambled.

altered it sounds like you might have a chest infection, get it checked again.

Felix that must have been scary, all that noise in the middle of the night.

nature hope you are feeling better.

million phew false alarm!

Sorry not to respond personally to everyone, my brain cell quota just expired.

M is 1 on the 23rd. He has two teeth and a third cutting. He says mum, dad, sister's name, wa wa (water), bah (biscuit), hello. He has taken his first steps, stands without holding on, but still mostly cruising.

Henry can say
Da da da
Ba ba ba
Mum mum mum

He doesn't say mum often. I don't really get to spend lots of time with the boys which is sad. Especially when I'm on a 10-7 shift. We get up and have breakfast, so maybe an hour or so before I have to leave. When I get home they are in bed

Grrrr, book. I'll come over and gloss them to death.

That must be hard, million :(

Re sleep training, when M's new room is FINALLY done we're going to try gradual retreat. I have a couple of questions which someone might know the answers to...

1. Do you just do it at bedtime and then when they wake in the night do what you usually do to settle them (feed, in our case)? Then tackle night weaning/wakings separately?

1. Can/should we both do it? One night each? Or is it better for one of us to sort it and then the other one have a go when the deed is done?

Toby we are trying after this weekend too. I read the 'what worked for us' thread on the sleep section here (search it if you've not seen it before as it's very helpful) and it says to treat night wakings the same as when you are putting them to bed. So sit in the room and reassure but don't do anything else. I'm worried though as S still takes at least 14oz milk overnight (sometimes more) so I don't know if going cold turkey is the answer. It's hard to just reduce amounts though as she doesn't drink the whole 7oz bottle at once, she drinks a couple of oz here and there. I don't know what to do!

Sorry for hijacking your queries

I have night weaned with gradual retreat lite.
I think you are supposed to do the same in the night but A gets too upset and I am too exhausted so I cuddle him and give him some water from a sippy cup which seems to work.
I'm doing it v v gradually though is it's not made a massive difference so far. I'm mainly trying to stop the night feeds without a massive fuss (A loves bfing), if that doesn't stop the night waking I'll do gradual retreat properly. So far I've gone from part time co sleeping with him trying to latch on every 45mins to staying in his room with no feeds between 7.30pm and 5am. Still wakes every few hours though.

Yeah, I think that M will be far too upset if I just stop feeding her in the night all of a sudden.

I have the 'what worked for us' thread open as a tab on my phone at all times, felix :o
I just read a bit now and again when I'm up in the night.

I think I'm hoping that if she goes to sleep by herself she'll just magically sleep through and stop needing 6 feeds a night

As you all know, I have no place commenting on babies and sleep However, we did the night settling first and then found she woke less anyway. DH resettled her for the first couple of wakings to break the feeding habit, and now she only feeds after 3/4am.

We didn't both do it because she went ballistic when I first tried. It has been several weeks since then, and she settled for me tonight (after a stunning bout of shrieking!) The plan now is that I'll do three or four nights and then we'll alternate.

And when that's all done, it'll be the naps. Then the next regression

See, I think you're perfectly placed to give advice, book! You seem to have cracked the worst of it (hope I don't jinx you!) after the worst time ever.

Also, I like that you've backed up my ridiculous fantasy that she might just drop some feeds by herself :o

Morning (here at least, hopefully you are all sleeping through... )

We did gradual retreat (which I thought was called gradual withdrawal and found much more entertaining in the wee small hours) at the same time as night weaning. (When I say 'you do' in the next bit, I mean sleep lady told us to.... So this is my 'what worked for us' - I hate to say that as I feel like when I say it out loud she will stop doing it. It's like my dirty little sleep secret )

So basically you do a settling thing / 'technique' for 3 or so nights, then do something less for 3 or so nights etc. So start with rocking, then after 3 or so nights move to holding but no rocking etc etc. We got a list of about 20 different stages, but you can skip some of them as the differences are unnoticeable. You do that to get them to sleep and every time they wake during the night. Sleep lady stressed consistency especially once you've got to not picking them up stage, as otherwise apparently they think they just have to cry for longer to get picked up. This sucks some nights, usually the first and third night of changing stages. Sucks sucks sucks. But it worked for us. We also did consistency of person so took a night each(hahaha - more like 8 nights me, 1 night DH although that was because I was a bit precious about it and in retrospect wish had let DH do more as em still takes longer to settle for him on my weekly thurs night out)

If you are doing night weaning at the same time first you pick the times you will feed them, eg we went from every hour to every 3 hours, then 4 hours, then to 2am only. So between those times if they wake you do the rock / hold thing, then at that time you feed them. Once they are doing a better job on sleeping (maybe after a week or two) you can start cutting down the feeds, which we did by 1-2 mins of breastfeeding per night (Emily used to do 20 mins per waking). On formula I think
you can give them 1/2-1 Oz less per night. Then comfort settle as per the rest of the night. The idea is that they learn it not worth waking for. Emily stopped waking in the night at 4 mins feeding.

It took a bloody age (6 weeks at least) but it worked for us, and I was scared of doing crying of any description so we took it very ridiculously gently.

Hope that helps! Am off now to see my friends newborn and take advantage of her pool / bay front garden and go swimming - happy days.

God my posts are always so long. Sorry!

sunshine, that's really helpful. Thanks :)

Have a lovely swim!

Tarka you've done really well with it! That's a very good result.

Book you always give good advice on sleep

Sunshine that's very helpful, thanks so much. Enjoy your swim!

So what do we do about dummies then? Do we go cold turkey with that?

M won't have a dummy, although I've tried many times because I get fed up with her using me as a dummy. Lately she's taken to chewing one, but she won't suck it.

If I used one, I think I'd leave it alone while I was sleep training, and deal with it another time. Unless the dummy is what's waking her up.
I did read of someone doing the Pantley Pull-Off with a dummy.

I've read how to do the Pantley thing but I think it would just piss S off even more! She used to wake because she had spat her dummy out but now it falls out when she's in a deep sleep and doesn't wake her as often. I think I'll let her keep the dummy and see how it goes. She absolutely LOVES them and I'd feel like a monster taking away dummy and bottle all at once

She's just polished off her second bottle since going to bed at 7 I'll be happy once she's night weaned as it's costing me a bloody fortune in formula! Tiny bastard.

M's been up twice already, too.

Make that 3 times...

Ds1 has wet the bed. This is the second time this week

I've finally finished the wallpapering in O's room Yay. Carpet being fitted on Monday then she can move in next weekend

exciting nature!

That is exciting nature - any chance of some pictures when it is done please? :)

I know I'm jinxing it for the rest of the night, but I just put P down in her cot for the second night. She was asleep within two minutes with hardly any crying. Hooray

Good work, nature! I've never wallpapered. I thought about it for M's room, but there are no walls without difficult bits in there so not ideal for a newbie.

The second coat is going on M's walls tonight. I'd just started and she woke up. First time of many, I fear :(

book, I'm so pleased for you that P seems finally to be 'getting it' re sleeping. It's about time! Now if she could just update the TBFB group, I'd be most grateful!

book I've put a pic on fb. Will take another after the carpet is fitted Monday unless my carpet choice looks horrendous!

toby it's my first time wallpapering. It was a necessity as the walls were so bad they would have needed skimming rebuilding and as we are likely to be moving one of them in a few years seemed a waste of money. I'm quite pleased with it though. It's not perfect but it's pretty good and I'm really quite pleased with my effort Especially as one wall has a chimney breast and pipes boxed in so lots of corners.

Glad the sleeping has improved for you book. We are experimenting with putting O to bed a bit later to see if we can get her to sleep a little later in the morning. She didn't wake up until 7 today

O seems to have teething pain again, bright red cheeks and chewing on her fingers. She all ready has 8 teeth it can't surely be the next ones can it?

Well done nature. I wouldn't even know where to start with wallpapering!

Put S to bed at 6.20 as she was knackered but she's now downstairs with us again after screaming non stop for half an hour. I can't work out what's wrong with her Arghhhh!