October 2014 // thread 5 // baby's first Christmas

[JeannePoole]

Welcome back!

(Dear greetings cards manufacturers: 'Baby's First Christmas' does NOT necessarily have to include Baby being liberally sprinkled with glitter from your shoddily-made merchandise.

Except that, as I'm rapidly discovering, it does.

goats we've gone back to two hourly wake ups here too. Bleak. I'm hoping it's just a growth spurt- I think ours are more or less the same age?- as she's changing really quickly at the moment. I'm not going to try anything as I think it'll probably get better on its own and also I'm lazy and at least at the moment she's only awake for ten minutes each time.

Ahh munday weve had the leg thumping for a few weeks... no idea why or how to stop it but its so loud! Bloody strong legs he has!

Every two hours all night, think growth spurt (12 weeks this week) and really coldy. So tired

Goats if there was a universal answer to that question, the first person to put it in a book would make a packet. You need to figure out why they're crying which is easier said than done. Screaming suggests pain or hunger at this age - or it always has for mine. Voice testing for mine has usually been squeaks and coos rather than crying, and bad dreams / night terrors don't hit til much later (18-24 months). If she's not wanting fed, how are her nappies? Any hint of teeth moving, constipation or something you've eaten upsetting her? There's not a lot you can do at this age other than go with it. Once they get object permanence (6 months +), you can try controlled crying / cry it out / but its never worked for mine - some babies accept 'abandonment' quietly others get louder . We watched friends try sleep training and have to redo it whenever ill, teething, growth spurting etc and decided it looked too stressful - some of them are still 'training' 2 year olds to sleep. The only thing that sure fire worked for us was excluding dairy and soy and feeding / cuddling at wake ups so that j was secure and content at night knowing we were close - he's an awesome sleeper but it took 9 months of disturbed nights to get him to be a good sleeper.

FWIW it sounds to me like its probably the 4 month sleep regression, in which case it disappears as randomly as it arrives. Its a transition from infant brain waves / sleep cycles to more adult ones - which make sleep lighter between each sleep cycle. Just roll with it, keep being there for her as you are and she'll click back into secure sleeping. I've heard it can last up to 6 weeks but for most its around 2 weeks.

12 weeks tomorrow.

Another thing I just don't get is how she sleeps so well when in my bed, eventthough it's hardly any different to her own - she's not even any closer to me. Last night I got pissed off with her shouting at 4am, put her down on the other side of a king sixe bed, she goes straight to sleep. This morning when I woke up she was already awake and playing with her feet. If she'd been in her own crib, sleepyhead or no sleepyhead, it would have been screaming on waking. Babies = frustrating wee buggers.

curly thank you very much for your message, so nice of you. I have good and bad days but I think it's going in the sort of right direction. I am starting to feel like a person again, on good days.

Do any of you use the sleeping bags with arms? Just been given one. Our room hovers around 16-17 degrees so I'm tempted to use it.

We have ones without arms and our room is usually 18, we were just going to use a long sleeve vest under sleepsuit so arms had 2 layers but babymoosd hates it and does his stompy foot dance whenever we try! Its a shame as theyre really pretty too!

Our room hovers around 14, I use a 3.5 tog bag with 2 long sleeved things underneath. I've tried out different things and that seems to make her sleep 'well' and feel about the right temperature. One particularly miserable day when we got back from Christmas our room was down to 7.7 degrees at 4am and she slept brilliantly in the above combo. I obviously spent the night panicking that it was too cold.

Fatpony our bedrooms are that temperature and I've always put them in 2.5 tog bags with sleepsuit and long sleeved vest.

I'm waiting for my baby with arms to be delivered. I think Goats might use one with Pip?
So I gave up on sleep after 6 this morning, E did a lot of leg banging, fist sucking and generally let us know she was awake.
Then I went to church for the first time in a long time so I can get her baptised, got checked out by the oldies

Er obviously meant baby sleeping bag with arms, I already have the baby with arms

I really want to get babymoose baptised but dh isnt keen, need to look into it a bit more as i havent been to church in a while either :s

stigz we spent Xmas and new year at mil was nice but quite stressful as all in one room! V's reflux has taken a turn for the worse and she is not putting on enough weight as she won't feed for more than 5 minutes due to reflux pain. We have have now started losec I'm crossing my fingers it kicks in soon.

missus I have no idea what I want to do! I'm scouting nhs jobs to see if anything comes up (as long as I return to nhs job I keep mat pay so doesn't have to be current job)

Hmmm maybe I need to use a long sleeved vest. A sleeps in a shirt sleeved vest, babygro, light swaddle below his arms and a blanket. So his little arms are saving about in one layer. I'll try it.

Aw me poor V . Losec has made a such a difference for my wee one, so fingers crossed she gets some relief soon ? Good luck with the job hunting

Wow granny it sure is a small world

We had an unsettled night due to trapped wind & constipation, the reflux milk is good but it is really constipating her even using lactoluse, i have an appointment the with paediatrician next week so will discuss what i should do as the thinner formula just doesn't agree with her.

Might try the long sleeved one tonight. Not sure what tog it is as is a hand me down. Kind of fleecy. Our others are 2.5. Making the jump from full swaddle to sleeping bag tonight!

I take it mrsb & the dogs have moved to facebook? Haven't seen them post for a while ?

Does anyone have anything downstairs they use for day naps for baby? We had a moses basket but he outgrew that a while back, he keeps falling asleep on me feeding in the day and id love to try a move him to something else but its a long way to our room & his cot and i was wondering if theres some sort of inbetween thing

moose i have a wee swing that rocks she loves it and is always out for the count in seconds

moose I bring his sleepyhead down in the day and he naps in it (sometimes!)

I put R in the buggy moose

moose I'm wondering the same thing. DS just about still fits in the carry cot, but he won't in a couple of weeks or so. At the moment he sometimes goes to sleep himself in his bouncy chair, but I don't know whether we should be differentiating between 'sleepy' places and 'playtime' places or if it's fine to use the same thing for both. Will be interested to see what you all say!

Goats and tatty 13 weeks here today and have been on 2 hourly wake ups the last 2 nights. Pretty shattered and hope it passes soon! No idea why and no advice but just saying I feel your pain!!!
Stigz I was wondering the same and also for buggerlugs too? I'm not on the Facebook group...

Operation bedtime routine starts tomorrow. I'm not filled with huge confidence. Especially with all this crazy feeding going on. However the slow reintroduction of dairy seems to be ok so hoping I can use all the expressed milk from Neds first week when he was in hospital and I pumped loads and froze it...I wasn't dairy free then but there's some colostrum I don't want wasted!
Be interesting to see if he takes to a bottle