October 2014 // thread 6 // baby's new year resolution is to sleep more?!

[sazzlehopes]

Oh Rudy, that's pants. Fingers crossed you get baby to sleep in good time tonight for you to be able to have a chat early evening.

Yeah yellow i could get the train, what date do you have in mind ?

Pm'd you Stigz

Typical. DH was meant to be out with pals tonight and I was looking forward to a chilled evening, but our eldest has a temperature of nearly 40, shivery, mottled skin and ice cold hands. Dr Google and NHS24 have me panicked about meningitis. So a rock and roll evening at Out of Hours beckons. His appointment is at 10.30pm so I'm expecting a miraculous recovery at 10.29pm. There's nothing like an OOH appointment for tots to make a "my Mummy has Munchausen's by proxy" liar of you. Poor Lil has settled down for the night - wonder if I can transfer her from sleeping bag to star blanket without waking her?

Yellow hope your eldest does make a miraculous recovery. Any chance a neighbour could stay with Lil so you don't have to wake her? Hope all goes ok.
Rudy hope you avoid a row tonight, I hate it when men sulk. Maybe cheer him up with a cuddle?
Think I'm coming down with a tummy bug- rumbled belly and feeling sick Hope E and DH dong get it too.

Thinking of you Yellow. Hope the OOH appointment went OK.

Temperature of 40.5c when we got there despite calpol. And for once he wasn't running amok but looked ill. Chest infection. Antibiotics duly given (and a free bottle of calpol - score!). Why are they never ill during surgery hours? I couldn't leave Lil as our neighbours are elderly and she's BF. She just smiled at everyone. But is very awake now

Glad you got seen and got medication for your LO, and glad Lil was on good form. Not sure how much sleep you'll get tonight but good luck. Hope it's not too stressful for you

Aw yellow thats not fun! Really hope his temp comes down soon and you all get some sleep

Things i cant say out loud for fear of cursing them: paddy slept for 4 then 5 hours last night!
My neck and head hurt now and i have one boob thats about to explode!
he fell asleep at 9.30 this has never, ever happened before!
Am trying not to get too excited in case is just a one off! Hope everyone else had a good night!

yellow hows the little dude this morning?

Eeek moose that's amazing! I'm sure that's the start of many more good nights to come. Maybe his poor wee insides have just settled down a bit.

We had a pretty good night here too. Slept from 9-4 with one resettling without feeding then 5-7. So I'm feeling vindicated in my desicion to stop waking him for a feed when I go to bed.

Yellow really hope things are looking better this morning

Oh God. I'm receiving unsolicited parenting advice on Facebook from people I barely know and it's making me incredibly enraged.

yellow I hope today brings some better things. I had lots of chest infections when I was a kid and they're miserable, but antibiotics shift them really quickly.

I'm really struggling in the evenings at the moment. We do bath story bed at about seven and she usually goes to sleep without any trouble BUT wakes up 30 mins later and then it's just harder and harder to get her back down again. Last night it was three hours of feeding/shushing/rocking in a dark room. I don't know why but this seems to bring out the absolute worst in me. Does anyone have any advice? Will it get better or is there something I should do? I'm really loathe to muck about with the basic bedtime routine because I think it works and I don't want to bring her downstairs again once she's gone to bed so at the moment every evening us just hours of attrition in a dark room.

I don't have any advice at all - I'm permanently floundering - but I don't think I could bring myself to spend three hours settling of an evening. I think I'd just give up on 7 for a bit and put her to bed at 10. I'm rubbish at bedtimes though. I also put him to to bed downstairs so if there is resettling it doesn't involve running up the stairs. Probably lots of rods for back etc there.

Tatty, that must indeed be very boring. What time does she actually conk out for the night? If it's 10pm then can you not do bath at 9pm then feed? And then gradually move it backwards? I remember with M the evening cluster on/off feeds could be a vicious cycle: he'd have a snack which gave him enough to doze but not properly deep sleep and repeat and repeat. Can you let her get a bit hungrier or does she just scream?

Tatty I don't have any advice im afraid - how long have you been trying this routine? Maybe it'll just take a while to settle... And sorry for the unhelpful fb advice, I loathe a nosy beak

I got ned down at 7 he woke bang on 45 mins later and so I fed him back to sleep. He was out for the count again and I actually got a bit of an evening! Little monkey unfortunately went on to wake at 12, 2, 4 and was restless as normal after with continuous chewing of boob and sleeping on me but I feel I'm at least getting there a bit with the first half of the night. It's a bore being upstairs by myself for an hour or so but I'm determined not to give up! I have kirsties 3 week goal to aim for!!!

Does she go to sleep and stay asleep alright during the daytime Tatty? Is it just the evenings?

You have my sympathies because I know how soul destroying shushing and rocking a baby for hours on end is. We were doing this with my first daughter. Could you be over-simulating with all the picking up, movement and shushing noise? This is what it turned out to be with our daughter.

If baby isn't hungry then a dummy is very useful as a tool to allow comfort sucking (but it will cut no mustard if baby is hungry).

I'm sure you have probably tried all of these before, so forgive me if I have nothing new to add

She was going to bed later bit about a month ago she started to get really ratty in the evenings, so we began putting her to bed at seven thirty and for a fortnight it worked like a dream- she usually wake up a bit but would settle back really quickly. Then suddenly for the last week she's been waking up and getting her back to sleep is a struggle even though she's either really cross or really dozy (but jerking herself awake). I don't want her to have a later bedtime though because the actual getting her to bed thing works so well, and because I also don't want to spend every evening with a moody baby. Am I allowed to admit that it completely enrages me, though? It's so frustrating when she's so clearly tired but just... won't... sleep. She's really having a big old grow at the moment though so it might be that, and if no one thinks there's anything obviously stupid I'm doing then I might try and regain my lost patience and stick with it and see where we are next week.

It sounds like a blip tatty.... If it was working then clearly something has changed with her. How many weeks is she now?
It's ok to feel enraged... I'd actually start screaming too if it wasn't going to wake them more!!

If she is jerking herself awake then maybe tightly swaddle for a bit? As fate says it could be overstimulation? Even the presence of a parent can be too much...

Omg, pip was ace in the car! We had a nightmare drive due to snow and car accidents, but I tried really hard to only let her sleep during normal nap times. Boyf drove the whole way and I drove us all mental keeping child occupied. Then she had a genuine excited squealing moment about the snow, which was proper cute.

She also slept ok last night considering it's a strange place - even went to bed on her own at 8. She woke up at 2, then 4, then 7 - because it was all strange for her I just fed her at 4 instead of trying to comfort her. Amazing.

Does anyone else spend their time not quite enjoying the good sleep enough because you're dreading it going wrong (as it inevitably will)? I'm such a numpty.

Well, it's not so much a jerk as eyes closing... eyes closing... eyes closing... EYES OPEN, FOOLS. She's 15 weeks, and just starting to reach and grab so it might well be a bit of a brain growth spurt. We're also having 45 minute nap limit horror. I don't feel like a very adequate parent at the moment.

Oh, fate, I missed your message. She spits a dummy out with disgust unfortunately, although I keep trying. What did you do about over stimulation? Because that sounds like a plausible thing it might be. If we leave her in her crib she cries, though.

Brilliant Goats, glad it went so well. I absolutely am the same about dreading things will go wrong. I'm more advanced than you though so apply it to every single aspect of his behaviour and development.

I'd love to be able to give you some magic advise that worked with my eldest, but sorry I don't have any

I read things like "I'm really loathe to muck about with the basic bedtime routine because I think it works" and know exactly where you come from. We thought certain things were right and what babies should do, like bedtime in a cot upstairs early evening. In fact in insisting on this when it clearly wasn't happening, for us, it created many more far worse sleep associations (like the picking up/rocking/shushing) while we tried to shoe-horn a square into a circular hole.

I'd just stop all that worrying about must have a bedtime and just be kind to yourself (and baby and DH) and do what's easiest for a bit, in order to break the sleep associations. Have a week sitting on sofa with breast in mouth all evening. Or sitting in bouncy chair holding dummy in mouth. Whatever is easiest for now.

Then having broken the rocking/shushing habit, start bedtime routine again once you have a sleep trigger that you know works so she can self settle. We started bedtime with DD only when I knew she would lie still with dummy in her mouth and suck it for 10 minutes or so to get to sleep. If she was doing this at 4 weeks, I'd have started bedtime at 4 weeks. If it took to 7 months, I'd have been happy waiting until 7 months. As it happened she was about 14 weeks when she learnt to self settle using a dummy.

Other self settle sleep triggers:

• Sucking (dummy, fingers)
• Tickling (hand? Like in In The Night Garden)
• Hair twiddling (or just head holding as a baby - DC3 did this)
• Patting (DC2 used to do this. Patting him developed to him patting Ted)

There'll be loads others I haven't thought of. Key is something child can do without you.

Honestly, I would abandon rocking to sleep because it's not teaching her to self settle.

Snotty boy is obsessed with the Lion King. Better than his obsession with Fred Dibnah yesterday I suppose. He's just so wan. Red hot like a radiator despite being stripped to his vest and draped over me in a constant cuddle - which makes BF his sister a bit of a faff. I hate when they're ill. Lil was up twice in the night which isn't like her. I'm now actually hoping its the sleep regression as I really don't want it to be this bug. She's too wee.

Tatty I agree with Fate knock your pressure for what she's supposed to be doing on the head. My two both developed their own self soothing knack. J rubbed his blanket and Lil's a finger sooker. I did use to rock my boy when he was poorly and it gets back breaking. However if rocking is her thing - try a rocking chair and a good book on your kindle to make the most of the time.