January 2016 - Hello babies!

[Nousername2015]

Thread to share our experiences and also have a chat to someone also dealing with lively babies at 3am!

Rpj-- no guilt about pacifier either.. We do what we need to do!
Parenting should come with no judgement attached.. If only!

How is everyone sleeping? My baby hasn't improved his nightly sleeping habit and is now 8 weeks tomorrow. I try to give him his last feed of the evening at 9pm and he goes down to sleep at about 9:30-10pm (he sleeps in the evening, but we have him down with us, just because husband doesn't get to see him in the evening otherwise. Anyway, he usually sleeps for 3 hours until 1am ish, but he's then up every 2 hours after that - so again at 3-4am ish and again at 5:30-6am ish. He will usually go to sleep for another hour at around 8, but this isn't usually the case. I accepted this for a while but In the last week I've realised having heard experiences from other mothers that things really should have got better now in terms of him sleeping for longer. I feel really frustrated as my husband keeps telling people that he's sleeping well, or what is to be expected, and I kind of feel he is undermining how tough it is - he falls asleep early at 9:30-10am and usually sleeps all the way through until maybe 5:30-6am so it's easy for him to say because he isn't awake. Btw when I get him up for feeding in the night I don't get him up straight away - he's incredibly restless but i can ignore him for a bit and go back to sleep. Eventually I get him up to feed him which sends him back of to sleep (I don't let him get to the point where he cries, but when he's grunting) so actually I'm probably getting an even more disturbed night than first thought!

I read in the night that if you put you baby to sleep earlier and they sleep a lot during the evening, they have a better chance of sleeping for longer in the night? Perhaps I should bring back his 'last feed' to 8 or even 7:30 and then put him in his cot. What is everyone else doing?

My little guy poos every other day, sometimes longer. HV says its fine tho!
It's funny because he seems to time them for just before I visit my mum and she offers to change his nappy! I haven't cleaned up poo in ages!

She also said he has colic which is why he cries a lot, so he's on infacol now. No idea why they make it orange flavoured. Orange right before milk?

Ohh bless - how old is your daughter??

Elvi , mine is 7 weeks today, and has very similar night pattern to yours.

He usually settles back down very quickly which I think is progress - is that the same with you? The HV said to try and give an extra ounce or so feed in evening feeds.

Lsat night he wouldn't settle at 4am for an hour tho....

Hi rpj16 - yes, the feeds are much quicker, around 30-45 minutes after I have winded and changed him, and he goes straight back down without a fuss. maybe I will try to feed him a bit more, although I'm not 100% sure he's waking up cos he's hungry or cos he's windy.

Makes me feel a bit better that I'm not alone although must admit feel a bit down about it today.

Hi Elvi, I think that sounds normal... If there is a normal for babies! Mine is 9 weeks and at the moment she will do one block of sleep for 3-4 hours, then wake up for a feed and then go down for another 2-3 hours. But a couple of weeks ago her pattern was exactly the same as yours. I feel like she is slowly building up to sleeping on longer chunks.
My DH too can be a bit oblivious to what happens at night. He'll wake up when she does but falls asleep quickly again that it is a blur to him in the morning.
I find it gruelling too. Especially when she can be up for an hour or more sometimes. I am holding on to the hope that it will get easier! Plus in the afternoon I nap when she naps

At the moment my LO goes down at 7, OH wakes her at 10.45 and gives her a bottle feed. Then she goes through till anywhere between 2-4am and then I feed her and she sleeps for a few hours- sometimes till 7, sometimes not.. I go to bed at 9 and sleep till whatever times she wakes.. I was going crackers a week or so ago before the OH started sharing the feeds. With our first I did all the feeding and it was so tiring we started DS2 on a bottle early to give me a break... It is so tiring having a newborn though. Some days I honestly can't see it getting easier..

And rpj my older daughter is 3.. And thankfully she sleeps like a log- even screaming in the night doesn't wake her.. She was a dream baby that was only breastfed and slept through at. 5 weeks.. (We knew we would never get two babies like that!!!) gutted!

Sounds like we are falling too far behind on the sleep front then. I put my baby down at 9pm tonight and he drifted off to sleep ok, but 5 minutes ago he woke up and began to violently squirm - he kicked his legs and flapped his arms around so hard that the crib rocked, and he was thrusting is head from side to side. He even hit himself in the face He didn't moan or cry, but to me he looks really comfortable. He has fallen back to sleep but I can tell from a bit of twitching that he can wake up at anytime. I'm not sure what is going on - wind?? I think this must be what is happening during the night because sometime when I go to feed him in middle of night I see he has his eyes close and I leave him for a bit. Although he isn't crying it's not nice to see him moving around in this way and waking himself up.

Hope everyone has a good nights sleep tonight.

We still swaddle.. Do you guys? I have a feeling we should be doing half swaddling now, but I worry about her waking herself up with her arms..

elvi My ds is 9 weeks and in a very similar pattern to yours. We were getting better in that we would have an initial block of 4/5 hours before the first wake up but that's changed since jabs last week and we are back to regular 2 hourly wake ups. I take ds upstairs at 9 to rock/feed to sleep and he is usually down for 10. Then he is usually up at 1 for a feed, then 3 and now he has added in 5:30, we're shattered! I've started giving him to dh at 5:30 to cuddle back to sleep as I don't think he's hungry. He's usually awake for the day at 7 and we'll start napping at about 8:30. I was getting quite down about it too as it seemed everyone else I knew had babies who would sleep for longer - I keep telling myself we will sail through the 4 month regression whereas they won't!

vicky we don't swaddle fully anymore but if ds is especially restless I'll tuck a muslin over his arms to stop them moving about. He drops off pretty quickly then.

nousername glad the initial stretch has got longer for you, I'm sure that he will settle down soon. We have jabs next week and absolutely dreading it!!

We stopped using a gro bag to swaddle son after a week - he just didn't get on in it and acted like we had put him in a straight jacket (I suppose that is kind of what it is!). I tried to swaddle with a blanket but i couldn't get in tight enough and his arms would escape 😆, so we have used blankets from early on. However, we are going to revert to gro bag and have his arms lose as he kicks off his blankets now.

Aaw Elvi that sounds like wind. DS's wind is getting better on infacol. You could give it a go. Does he jerk legs up one at a time? This is a sign of wind.

We started using a gro bag this week, it's great! H'e wears it in his cot but we take it off him when he gets in with me at 3/4am though.

Yes I think it's wind. Infact I'm sure of it. Can't remember if lifts legs one at a time, but he arches his back which is a sure sign. Do they just grow out of it? We have the doctors next week but do we have to wait until then for him to suggest something or can we just go ahead and try infacol?

I think we will prob wait to see what doc says just incase x

They do just grow out of it by 3 months - this is what my HV said.

I think you can just use it, there are no side effects and doesn't seem possible to overdose according to instructions. Can you call/text your HV to check? Or maybe just speak to pharmacist... My HV also suggested doctor browns bottles, but infacol seems to work.

Thanks for info - yeah maybe I will pop in and see the pharamasist or give the HV a call.

I'll try a gro bag.. We're off to see my OH's family in South Africa soon so I'd like to get her used to a gro bag as it'll be 26+ degrees, and I've got 0.5 tog gro bags we used with DS1..

Sleep patterns here seem the same as Elvi and others. Last feed 9ish, asleep 9:30-10, feeds (45mins with winding/resettling) at 1/2 and 4/5 and up at 6.45ish. He'll actually go back to sleep after 6.45 sleep for an hour or so but usually have to get him up for school run. I'm actually really pleased, one 3-4 hr stretch followed by 2hr stretches is so much better than my ds1 at the same age who fed every 45 mins throughout the night (and day...).
First lot of jabs were on Tuesday and that night he slept 10-3 and then 3:45 -6:45 but I think that was a one-off.
As he starts to need to go to bed earlier, we can put him in his Moses basket downstairs and take him up when we go to bed but I'm stumped as to what to do when he outgrows the Moses basket... I don't want him sleeping in a different room until he is 6 months but don't really want him to sleep in my arms every evening, which is the only other possibility. With DS1, I would go to bed with the baby at 8:30ish and read a book with a torch under the covers (didn't even have smart phone/tablet then) but really don't want to do that again either. Any ideas?

cheese What about a travel cot with datk sheets pinned to the outside of the mesh to block out light? We are using a chicco lullago instead of a crib which is technically a travel cot but is the same size as the next to me. Ds is 99.6th centile for height but this will easily last him until 6 months.

cheese mine sometimes will nap in... I don't know what they are called...a baby deckchair? It's slanted at an angle and is a bit bouncy. Its good when she is a bit sicky as it keeps her slightly upright. Would that kind of thing be any good for you?

Thanks nousername and jeopardy O had completely forgotten about the travel cot, that should work. We have a bouncy chair that ds sits in when I am busy in the kitchen or while we eat meals but he won't sleep in it and I can't strap him in if on his sleeping bag.
Up since before 5 today.. Am knackered. Hope you're all getting more sleep!

Sounds like we are all on a similar page re sleeping. Thanks ladies, I feel so much better. Really cannot wait for the 1-2am wake up to disappear.

Oh, I got some infacol today and have squirted it his mouth twice tonight (and quickly thrust him on the breast before he protests). Not expecting it to work straight away but hope will help settle him soon.

I hope you all get a good nights sleep without too many wake up calls!