Just Mumming 9- We're suffering the curse of Mel B, ST syndrome and the rise of the sleep snatchers. We've all had enough and would just like a good JS.

[PixieChops]

Morning Viroids

Welcome to the 9th Just Mumming Fred.

Pop your credentials down or not:

Name: Pixie
Age:29
Pests: 2- P (girl) 17 months old, R (boy) 4 months old
Things I can't do anymore- have a crap in peace, drink a hot drink, do any housework, shag ST, sleep, take naps.

Things I can do- carry a toddler, baby, dirty bottles and nappies down the stairs all at once, put a double pram up in 20 seconds, have a shower inc washing and shaving in under 5 mins. Be coco the clown on 26 mins sleep.

Ooh nice recipe pixie I'll try that next time!

Another baby group this morning then music baby group this afternoon

I just feed S to sleep. He nods off with my nip in his mouth and still gently sucking. I count the sucks, if the gap between them gets to six seconds I take him off. He wriggles a bit, stretches and then usually goes to sleep (with a cute milk drunk expression). I then pop him in his sleepyhead in the bednest. He will stretch and wriggle again but 99.9% of the time will go to sleep.

This is why I do not understand why he will not nap during the day. Usually at night he goes to sleep easily.

He does the waking thing but I try to leave him if I suspect he is not hungry and quite often he goes back to sleep. I have also started sleeping through some of his wake ups as DH often tells me that he is stirring when he gets up at 5am.

We are going to try dream feeding again as he has been waking at 11pm ish anyway.

I am hoping he is coming out the other side of this little phase. Although he woke frequently last night he went back to sleep easily each time.

I think it was a growth spurt. I am sure his babygro wasn't that tight when I put it on last night

Oh god, sorry fleur! Totally x posted with you and didn't see about your dad! Is he okay? - same here with the wake ups, where he sleeps between us at the moment, he gets fidgety at the end of the 2 hour stretch and although I usually grab and boob before it wakes mr tee up, i'm really conscious of disturbing him. That said the last four nights he's not woken up until nappy change at 6am (mr tee... Not tiny tee). We've managed to get to a place where I will get him ready for bed at about half five and he'll sleep 6-9 which means we can eat in a slight less fraught way, but he won't bloody go back in his snuzpod!! He just scratches at the walls like the bloke in the shawshank redemption.
Re birth shenanigans; I don't really know if talking about it will give closure; I've been pretty alright physically (I thought) - I've worked the tits off my pelvic floor exercises, can shag (although still uncomfortable, but the nice part outweighs the discomfort) I'm not suffering with incontinence, although sometimes if I need to go, I REALLY need to go, but I'm not in tena lady territory or crapping myself. Still some tightness. Thongs are off the underwear menu and I don't foresee bike riding in the agenda for a while. All things considered I think I escaped some of the real horrors that I've read about from ladies on the birth trauma threads; so I feel quite lucky in that respect. Even among this thread I think I didn't have it as bad as some of our lovely viroids. I suppose I want to understand why I wasn't recommended for a CS with a back to back baby who had his head tipped back as oppose to tucked in, esp given all the SPD and back drama I had while pg. I'm also keen to know if I'm going to be talked into another natural delivery for the next one, and how I can avoid this. Also after what she was saying in the phone, will my lady parts put up with carrying another baby without lasting damage ?! Maybe I'll pass on the debrief and just take all the questions instead. Was talking to mr tee about it last night and he thinks it's crazy that postnatally we had little information or reassurance on healing or stitches and could have really done with it like 1-6 weeks after delivery, not 6 months!

I have terrible cat guilt too! My three hate me. We have to keep shutting them in the kitchen/diner which is large but they only have half the attention I used to be able to give them, which makes me feel so bad.

Oh fleur, sorry about dad. How frightening for him, is he ok now?
I hope so. And I hope his partner is home soon too.

I can't remember who asked but I'm cabin crew but will be working on the ground till jan where I hope I'll be given a full time ground job. If not, then I may have to look elsewhere I think. It's just not a job that's compatible with no family living near and a full time husband who works out of different parts of the uk.
I've done 13 years, it's time to start a new challenge I think.

tee, the scratching thing.. Totally normal, though freaky for a while, but r used to do it to soothe herself to sleep. When she started doing it every nap and sleep I realised she liked it and left her to it, that's when she could put herself to sleep. Very annoying when they're sharing a room with you and they're obsessed with the net on the travel cot though.

Think we're back to 3 bottles a day, she's missed two days out and woke both times at night.
Ahhh well.

I have just lost it in front of my MIL - S hasn't slept since 8am. He was massively overtired (because despite me asking her not to she will continue to shove toys in his face when he gets grumpy) and just screamed at me for an hour when I took him into my bedroom to try to calm him.

She has now taken him for a walk in his pram to get him to sleep.

Completely defeating the object of me getting him to sleep in the house.

Why can't I get my baby to sleep?? I am so frustrated. Will a sleep consultant help?

I am dreading winter, what will I do?

Ps my dad is fine. His tablets are working and his partner is back today

Fleur would it be worth rocking him to sleep once you've fed him? I'm no authority on baby sleep, but o used to just stroke/feed/cuddle B to sleep. It worked when he was little but doesn't anymore. Now I feed then wind then rock him to sleep. I turn his face to my chest in exact position as if feeding, say shush rhythmically and rock from side to side whilst bouncing up and down gently. It sends him off even when he's seems very awake. I then do that until he goes limp and relaxed and his breathing is relaxed and quiet. Normally takes 10 mins at least. He normally will then go down fine and not wake for a while.

Feel free to ignore but this is what my mum taught me and it's worked wonders, particularly when he's overtired and at night feeds when I'm desperate to get back to bed.

I really feel for you xx

Hello all, late to the party as always

Name: cookielove
Age: 33
Dc: just the one, DS (E) who is 14 months, will TTC for number 2 when E is 2 and a half.

fleur glad to hear your dad is ok :)

E slept on me mostly till he was almost 9 months, I kinda miss it now lol. S is still very little so I wouldn't worry about it to much, although I know how frustrating it is! I am off to post office this afternoon too :)

I have a plan for the clocks going back, E went to sleep at 8 last night, I am gonna keep his bedtime that late and then on sat I am gonna push it back to 8:30, or 9 also going to keep him outside loads on sat, fresh air helps and then revert back to normal on Sunday. I am hoping it works :)

E is a pickle but adorable!

Oh yes I was going to mention that too cookie! B sleeps on me a lot during the day and I do love it and I think you can't spoil them at this age. I'll miss it when he doesn't sleep on me anymore

deeply here. Allegedly 38 years old, which gives the impression that I am a grown up. However, 7 week old baby D will confirm that actually I am a know -nothing idiot who is nominally looking after her.
I do have skills in inventing emergency additional verses to "she'll be coming round the mountain " when stuck at red lights and keeping piles of baby clothes in some sort of size / genre order. Dh does not share the latter skill, so I have further sub skills in swearing, sighing and reconstituting said piles.
I also have a non sleeping baby during the day, although she's a bit better at night.
During the day, it's not unusual for her to have a couple of micro naps of say 20-30 mins, but otherwise to stay awake for about 14 hours straight. I have no idea how she does it, so fleur - I feel your pain!
What do sleep clinics do anyway? As in do they use drugs or soothing techniques or just hit babies over the head with a hammer???? Genuinely have no idea what they would do when presented with a baby who has no desire to sleep unless in the pram / car/ my arms and not more than 50% of the time in any of these, nor for long either.

Thanks ladies, I know it's awful but I do feel slightly better to know I am not alone

I'm excited cookie thank you

la - thanks for the rocking idea, will try it and see how we get on.
Imogen's main problem seems to be that she is very hard to wind - even if you can get her to burp, she still seems to have lots of trapped wind which hurts her and she's often inconsolable until it's come out the other end. I've tried leg bicycling and tummy massage with limited success - la - did you mention that you had some other tricks that might help? She also has infacol by the gallon and gripe water as well as being on ranitidine, poor scrap, so all ideas gratefully received as I hate seeing her struggling like that and in pain :(

Deeply you've had me singing 'she'll be coming round the mountain' to Melba during her top and tail and its miraculously kept her happy and not screaming. So now I need more verses.. I have:
Coming round the mountain
Wearing pink pyjamas
Riding 6 white horses
Singing yankedoodle (might have made that up? Not sure)
Eating chips and ketchup (definitely made that up)

Viroids, hit me with some more!

Shouting like a fishwife
Burping up some booby
Jumping like a loony
Eating tonnes of ice cream
Shagging til my bed breaks

Any use?

Ok so for wind:

What massage are you doing? I was on my course at the weekend and was taught colic massage. Oh my Lordy it works! I do it and B farts loads about an hour later. So I do that twice a day.

Also:

Keep up the infacol - it's cumulative
Come off gripe water if your using regularly - it has been known to cause wind over time
Bicycling legs
Hula legs (lifting legs and rotating them in circle what singing 'hula legs, hula legs, everybody loves dem hula legs!' in a Jamaican accent (b loves this and laughs like mad)
Holding upright for min 10 mins after feed
Winding properly (ie always until you get a burp)
Taking out in sling if possible as being upright really helps
Lifting legs back on baby (basically folding baby in half) for count of 6 - then gently wafting legs up and down to relax baby
Massage bum cheeks gently with fingers in circles (these muscles are sore of baby's been straining lots)

Massive success this end - b no longer moans with wind. Still wakes up, but hey you can't win it all!

Any massage of tummy undo nappy or it could be sore for baby.

I'd recommend a course as you learn to do it properly but I can post up the handouts to help you on Facebook of that helps? I could also do a video of me doing the other things to show you if you want (feel free to laugh!)

Thanks Pixie I will try some positive thinking, it might make me less of a mizog about the whole thing! Purple, we did think about renting but the thought of two house moves with two little ones actually makes me shudder.

BabySnap does loads of moaning and kicking in his night sleep. I used to jump up and feed him assuming he was hungry but realise that he's just stirring really. It's bloody noisy though. Tee we have scratching too, it's a bit freaky...skreak, skreak, skreak. Enough to give you nightmares (if you could ever get to sleep).

Snap what do you do when he's stirring? I never know whether to intervene or not. If I don't he tends to end up crying and waking up

I do sympathise with your frustration! We are having to rent just now after selling our flat in Scotland. I hate renting after owning our own place. House hunting and moving is just so stressful, I really hope you find somewhere suitable soon.

B went down really quickly after his feed and was absolutely fast asleep, but has already woken up once! This has been the pattern all this week. He just isn't sleeping as well as normal and there's no reason for it, as the wind is much better. He's due to go into leap 4 - could this sleeping thing be a sign he is in it?

One of the tricks that brought up a lot if wind for E was sitting him on my knee then rotating him round in circles! But that's all I've got

One of the tricks that brought up a lot if wind for E was sitting him on my knee then rotating him round in circles! But that's all I've got

Ooh yes cookie, I forgot that one! That helps B too.

Snap we did the 2 moves and it was hard. We had no children either. We didn't unpack more than we needed. It depends on how easy a sale is to come by. We started house hunting after 3 months and were in a good position to buy, we were chain free and we had an overlap on both moves so it wasn't like we had to be out of one and in another fully on the same day. It's worth considering

Re. Having a second baby, there's a three year gap between P and R, which is really nice. P is just old enough to be able to understand why certain things happen and why we need him to do/ not do things around the baby. He's very proud and protective of his little brother. And there is only one set of nappies to change!

Snap we did the 2 moves and it was hard. We had no children either. We didn't unpack more than we needed. It depends on how easy a sale is to come by. We started house hunting after 3 months and were in a good position to buy, we were chain free and we had an overlap on both moves so it wasn't like we had to be out of one and in another fully on the same day. It's worth considering

purple that's a good point about renting making you chain free, it does make things so much simpler. And having an overlap of even just a day or two would mean you could get stuff cleaned before moving in. Hmm, food for thought!

La I'm never quite sure what to do either. Until now I've tended to get him up and feed him if he's sleep-moaning as he takes so little milk during the day it's another chance to top him up a bit - I used to worry that his moaning was him trying to wake up for milk but not being able to. That's probably unlikely, right?

But the night feeds have been so tiny it hasn't seemed worth waking him and me (and poor DP) up for anymore and I've started to leave it until he's fully awake and shouting for attention. He such a strange little man. He can go for 8 hours without a feed and wake up smiling and not seem in the least bit hungry. Even I wake up hungry in the morning, FFS!

B has been waking every 2-3 hours hungry. :(