November 2014 - the one where we all get a good night's sleep

[moggle]

Here's hoping, anyway...

Hi all. Cant remember if posted on the last thread or not so sorry if duplicating! Dd arrived 3 weeks early on 19/11. Should have been on the December thread but here we are! She is 6 weeks now, ff & finally gaining weight after a rocky start.

She still has night & day confusion & I am hoping it'll change soon - am shattered! DH is helping with night feeds while on hols but back to work monday so will be just me again. Liking the idea of handing her over for the evening so I can get some rest before the night shift - will put that one to dh!

Are you all finding your lo's are settling into a regular routine yet? Dd is still all over the place with feeds at pretty erratic times, going anywhere from 2-4hrs between.

I dont know how to establish a bedtime at a set time when her feed times are all over (i.e. i she feeds at 5.30 she wont be ready for a bedtime feed at 7) & can't remember how we did it with ds. Any pointers?

Maybe I am jumping the gun a bit - being early & tiny she is still like a newborn of only 2-3 weeks old so perhaps should give her a few more weeks yet?

Hi Omana!

In terms of night time routine, we do a bath with lavender oil in it and story at about 8.00/8.30 and I then go into our room with her, no music, lights etc and she feeds until she falls asleep. In the last two weeks, she has begun to drop off at around 10ish but prior to that it was 1amish but the first night we tried the routine, it was 10 so we have stuck with it but I think that was probably a coincidence to be honest. We are just stocking with that for now, will start to pull bath time forward in about 3 weeks after moving house in the hope of her moving bedtime forward.

Apart from that, we have no regular routine apart from trying to survive each day as it comes but I want to start to tackle this more. We are trying daytime naps with very limited success this week!

However, DD is our first so we don't have any other children to see to which would make it harder to go to bed at 9.00 with her I imagine. DH has also been home for a while over Xmas so I don't mind an early night as we have time together during the day. This may be more difficult when he is back at work as I don't want to go to bed so early having hardly seen him but we can only get DD to sleep by feeding so that is our only option at this stage.,

Marking place!

2 fantastic nights in a row. No pain/thrashing/crying at all. Goes down at 10.30 and sleeps through till 4, goes straight back to sleep, then awakens at 7 for a feed then sleeps for another hr after that.

No idea whats changed. Is it MILs house? Is it being worn out by noisy cousins? Is it a post-growth-spurt calm? Is it the dairy-free actually working at last? Is it just getting to the 2 month stage? Not a fucking clue!

Terrified its going to go tits up tonight!

Annarose2014 you'll just have to move in with MIL!

Cloth nappy detail as promised :
Yesterday daytime we got big morning poo out of the way into a sposie then used 4 little bloom pocket nappies throughout the day - pretty much the cheapest you can buy - available on amazon or ebay.
Then we put a sposie on at 7 in the vain hope he might sleep at a reasonable time for a child (he eventually went down at 11.50!).
DH put him in another little bloom this morning much to my pleasure / surprise.
We're now onto the preloved bum genius that I bought locally. These are very expensive new but about the same price preloved as new little bloom ones - the advantage is that they will have been washed loads of times so should be really really absorbent.
We had no leaks yesterday so am happy so far.
We have a lidded nappy pail in bathroom which dirty ones go in. I'm choosing to rinse poo solids (bf so not v solid at all) down the bath drain with the shower then squeeze out excess water then put into pail. Will wash all dirties when either 48 hrs since first went in or pail full or down to last clean nappy whichever comes sooner. Going to play it by ear for a few days before spending more money on nappies.

Anna that's great- hope it does mark the start of a new phase! It is frustrating when you don't know what made the difference!
We need to shift DDs clock back by 4 or 5 hours- she's sleepy and goes straight back to sleep after feeds from about midnight to midday - would be better if it was 7-7 or so. Think the first step is to get her up, dressed and downstairs in the light after her 7/8am feed - we've just been lazy and having lie ins over the holidays so she's been put back in her bednest the last couple of weeks.
We've started to put her up to bed in her bednest in the evening instead of her being down with us. Mixed bag so far and I'm definitely getting bored of sitting in the dark nursery for an hour while she feeds but we'll try and stick with it. It's hard when she's so awake at this time and smiling away at me, how can I resist!
Had a meetup with all our NCT couples last night and it was great to see them. The youngest is 4 wks and DD is the oldest at 7.5wks- it becomes so obvious how she's changed when you see them all together. The smallest was only 5lb at birth and 6lb now, we all love to cuddle her she's soooooo teeny!!

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00E6BLPO4/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?qid=1420367497&sr=8-7&pi=AC_SX110_SY165

They're actually cheaper than I remember.

amy- that's good to hear the reusables are working out. I have about 25 cloth nappies, some from my cousin (washed but unused) and some bought in sales while I was pregnant. They're all birth to potty siZed so now DD is 11lb can think about starting to use them, eek. Will be just part time I think to start with, and sticking to pampers at night as I cant believe how much wee they can hold! Not sure if I canbe bothered to use them when out as I hate having to cart around a big changing bag. We'll see anyway.
I LOVE the washable Cheeky Wipes we bought though!

.... You can play with options and get 2 inserts per nappy which is what we're using.

We are using pop in nappies by close parents. DS is 11 lbs 12 oz and they work well now. When we tried them when he was smaller they leaked every time. We use a flushable liner that offers some kind of poo protection but BF so not much. Have a plastic lidded ikea wash basket thar we have in the bed room and seem to be washing a load every other day. We have 20 of them. Ended up in disposables last night as I couldn't be bothered to come down stairs to the drying rack to get one. At night we have a big booster that holds lots of wee but I still usually change him when he wakes for a feed at about 4. We bought 10 2nd hand on ebay and then got 10 as a gift. They aren't the super cute patterned ones but they were much cheaper in plain colours. x

Hi all
We're back to reality today at home after two weeks with my parents & DH's! Nice to be back in own bed, and J slept well back in Bednest, I was a bit worried he'd be a bit confused after sleeping in his cot bassinet for two weeks!

We've been really lucky with sleeping so far touches ALL THE WOOD he usually does 5hrs then 2-3hrs more, the only problem is that the 5hrs usually start from 1am! Relieved to hear that's pretty normal with other babies too. I am waaay too lazy to break the cycle by getting him up early, so I think I may follow your lead moggle and start heading up to bed sooner... I've signed up for Amazon Prime on my mobile, so now I'm hooked on Grey's Anatomy, which is making early morning feeds a lot more bearable, so I'll be able to get my fix at night too

Well today has been a constant feeding day with dozing whilst feeding so no naps as yet n means no sleep for me either and was up every hr last night n been up for the day since 6am. He is mega tired falls asleep on me pop him down n bingo awake again.

Hmm. We have an earlyish sleeper (in his cot by 9pm normally,) but then up for more every 1.5hrs from.about 1.30am, even witha dream feed aaround 11.30pm. It means dh and I have a decent evening now, which is nice, but not very much sleep at night!
We conducted an experiment and let him sleep on his front in his cot top in the living room where we can watch him, and he'll spend hours like this quite happily - as soon as we turn him onto his back so we can go to bed he starts fidgeting. Ds1 also hated his back and turned over to his front as soon as he could at about 4 months, so I suspect they're the same. It's just that until A can turn on his own we don't dare let him because it's against current guidance..

Yeah we are down to bed between 7.30 + 8.30 and generally sleep 3hrs (sometimes 2 n rarely 4!) Then up an hr as I change nappy mid feed so he takes bigger feed and then get 1-3hrs more sleep more the 1hr then 45mins waking n on a crap night every hr is seen sometimes several times!!

We're quite late to bed (11pm ish) but she will usually sleep until about 4. Last night though she had last feed at 11.15, asleep by 1 and woke around 6.30. As DH did the settling to sleep it was a good nights sleep for me.

We're using cheeky wipes too. She did have quite a sore bum until we started with them. It's been much better since.

Should be an interesting week. Am planning on going to a Fitmums Buggy Burn session and a Music with Mummy class. But I now have my rucksack changing bag so can use the carrier a bit more now.

Similar here toni she sleeps until about 8 or 9am. What do you do in the evenings? I bath, massage, i bed for 8ish but she stays awake. I stay in bed with her (cosleeping) but don't play/talk in the hope she'll sleep, which she does eventually.

I'm doing baby sensory this week and hoping to get to a few under onea groups too although I think we're going through 6 wk growth spurt, feeding all day the last few days, like every 30-45 mins. She also just wants to be with me all the time. Might make a group tricky if I'm just feeding the whole time!

Yesterday has been bit challenging, DD going through a growth spurt. We actually weighed her last night and today. In 24 hrs she has put on 200 grams, thus marking her first month with 5 kg exactly. In last 3 weeks she has put on 1,2 kg. I guess because of all the chocolates I have eaten over Christmas she has been feeding hot chocolate instead of the breast milk...
Today she is much better, still eats like a monster, but not cranky anymore, have been sleeping quite a bit, probably to catch up on all the missed sleep day before.

As for sleeping routine, I will let her follow her bio clock till about October time. From January she will have to get up around 6am to fit with her commuting parents, so it's basically this year will be the only year she can enjoy herself without following any rules. Might not be overly pedagogic but maybe because I could go to bed and wake up when I wanted till about 5 years of age, I would like her to have that luxury at least for few months...

Very unsettled evening here. He was sleeping on me & suddenly started shrieking and full on wailing half-asleep! Then woke up REALLY upset. Took over half an hour to really calm down. WTF?? Babies are wierd.

So I have a bad feeling tonight is gonna go tits up. He's been a bit off since and have spent much of the evening in a darkened room with him alongside Ewan the Dream Sheep droning away. My MIL probably thinks I'm a nutter! (She's lovely but def one of those "in my day" types)

I don't mind though - there's nothing on telly and she talks through it all anway!

DD likes Ewen the dream sheep, but it seems to stimulate her. It's quite useful because she will stare at it in fascination when she's starting to get a bit fidgety, which buys me time to have a shower etc, but she doesn't seem to find it a sleep aid. And in fact when we were first staying at my parents it woke my dad up, who thought the placenta sound was some kind of car alarm.

The last couple of days DD has decided to go to sleep at a reasonable baby bedtime (ie between 7 and 8), and she's had a decent sleep then of an hour or two, but she then wakes up again and becomes really alert and perky. However, since she will now settle at about 11 and sleep till 4, I'm so grateful that frankly she can do whatever she likes earlier - it's so much better than the first 5 weeks of waking constantly through the night.

She has also discovered her hands and is starting to soothe herself by sucking them and her thumb when she feels a bit hungry or worried. This would be great, except that she does it incredibly loudly, and it kept on waking me up last night.

Do other people's babies hate tummy time? DD goes completely bezerk - I thought it would get better as she got stronger, but it's actually getting worse as she's capable of remembering for longer that she's angry about something. Today she screamed with rage after being on her tummy for about 2 minutes. I sang nursery rhymes at the top of my voice, which immediately made her go quiet and peaceful again but each time I stopped singing she seemed to remember she was pissed off with me and start screaming again. She really needs to get stronger in her arms and neck, but tummy time is always such a trauma that it's hard to deliberately disrupt the peace, and she can only be calmed down by being shoved on the boob.

Cara, my DD is a knuckle sucker at the moment too! She hasn't quite mastered open hands enough to suck just fingers or her thumb. RE tummy time, have you tried doing it on you? Laying flat on the floor and putting her on your chest? My DD dislikes the mat but will lie on me and push herself up and down etc quite happily for 10 minutes at a time.

I've shot myself in the foot with the sleeping, I think. DD is so windy, for several weeks we co-slept because it was the only way she would settle. It does make me very nervous though and am trying to get back to putting her down in the crib, but she's not having it! Am up now after she fed, I put her down in it and she instantly woke up and howled. She's just had another feed to calm down and I will try again shortly, but it's so hit and miss. Argh!

I think 2 mins of tummy time is pretty good to start off with from all I've read. they don't have to be on the floor for it to count either - any time they're lying on you and lift their head up counts too. I try to remember that when I'm attempting to quieten / calm DD for sleep and she's just poking her head up for a good look around!

DD has been lifting her head when on my shoulder for a while now too. It's not strictly tummy time (unless I'm in bed) but I figure it helps. She'll also attempt to look around when she's sat being winded. I also think her muscles are being exercised when she throws herself backwards across my lap into my arms when I'm winding her and she's decided it's time for more feeding.

DS screams the house down if I put him on a mat for tummy time, but is quite happy to lie on me and look around and is getting quite good at generally holding his head up and beginning to use his hands to push against things so hoping that the mat time is being replicated elsewhere. He seems to be more confident when he's being held, which makes perfect sense now I'm typing it.

Had 8 hrs sleep in one block. Is it weird that it makes me worry rather than celebrate?

I totally forget about "tummy time" and "nappy-free time" until DH is there, he seems fine in terms of neck strength and nappy area skin health, maybe could do with some work on the arms.

I'm off to the local sling library meeting this morning as I'm not getting on with the stretchy wrap and would like a buckle carrier so we'll see how that goes. I know a few other local mums from Facebook groups are going so even if it ends up purely serving a social function it should be good and it'll get me out of the house!