March 2017 (2)

[purpleviolet1]

Second thread!

Welcome :) and lol @ line of velvet smoking jackets

If not working I would never get up and do things. Sleep all the way for me at home

DD had a late night last night her routine was pushed back an hour, we went out for the day and got back late. She went down fine. Had df at 11 as usual then woke at 4 for her dummy slept til 6:30. Should I change her bedtime as she slept through? Or one off coz of busy day

Saying that she still only had 2oz at 7, went back to bed at 8:30 and still asleep now. I've got her 10am feed ready.

Had 1st session of cranial osteopathy yesterday (was recommended for DS reflux). Has anyone else tried this??

I would stick to the same routine carol, it's great she is flexible though!

Still asleep 🤤

purple
We took DS to a cranial osteopath twice quite soon after he was born, the first time was to check whether the shoulder dystocia had caused any issues (nothing major thankfully but the osteopath did release some tension) and the second time was after his tongue tie had been divided. Hard to tell what difference it made - the tongue tie division itself was the revolutionary thing for us - but I figured it wouldn't do any harm! Hope it helps your DS.

carol
Regarding routine, I've read that it's a good idea to stick to a 30 minute window, i.e. occasionally going to bed or getting up for the day up to 30 minutes earlier or later than usual is ok.

DD had a 5 hour stretch with no sleep this afternoon. No surprise she fell asleep straight after her bath and feed

I'm really struggling atm. For the past few weeks, DS has been waking more at night, he's still fighting naps (although he's improved, it's far from fixed) which means I can't nap or rest during the day, and he's refusing a bottle, which means DH can't give much of break. To cap it all, he's just started teething again. I can maybe cope with two or maybe three of those things, but four is too many! I'm so tired I can't think and my back is killing me from all the rocking and holding (he is TOO HEAVY!)

Hope you're all doing better.

Oh namechange handhold is there anything you think you could do which would help? When ds woke for two hours during last night and wouldn't settle I decided that if he wakes again and shows no sign of settling I'm going to assume his gums are bothering him and give him
Calpol. I read that teething accounts for the most wake ups. I was also told that teething shouldn't affect sleep

What does he do when he wakes? Does he settle with a feed or just want comfort?

Carolann, DS was up from 3-5am as mentioned above, he then woke at 6.35am and nodded off to sleep at 7.05am. He then woke at 8.10am and napped from 10.20-11.35am. He then didnt sleep all afternoon! He seemed ok, happy, but was absolutely exhausted when I put him down at 6.40pm. I find that if he is overtired he wakes more frequently during the night. That could be your issue too namechange...

Thank you purple.
Usually when he wakes at night I feed him and he goes straight back to sleep. I don't know if he is actually hungry each time or just waking for comfort but I'm always too tired to think about it and feeding him back to sleep is the easier option. However we have had a few nights over the last few weeks when he hasn't wanted to feed and has taken ages to go back down (once or twice he was crying inconsolably ) and that's hard work.
I worry about him being overtired all the time, mainly because he's always fought naps so much. Naps are definitely improving though so I don't think that explain the extra night wakings, although you never know!
As I said, I'm feeling too tired to think, so it's really hard to say what might help, but I do think the bottle refusal is bothering me the most. It means I won't be able to go to yoga when it starts again after the summer break. It means DH can't do one of the night feeds (or the first feed of the day) to let me get some extra sleep. It means we can't leave him with a babysitter. And it's making me worry about going back to work (which admittedly isn't for another couple of months, but it's still a potential issue).
I've stopped expressing now because it was just too depressing to throw away the unused milk

I don't know what to do... I suppose I could throw money at the problem and order a million different bottles and teats, but I worry that DS will refuse them all and then it will be even more frustrating to have wasted the money.

Hmm have you Tried the dummy again? I know you said he didn't like it. Sorry I can't remember if you said whether you have tried cosleeping and feeding whilst asleep/dozing?

For daytime would he nap in the car? At the moment it's just important to get him to start napping during the day. Apparently once they nap at the same time during the day (regardless of method) it becomes easier to settle them.

Just throwing ideas at you in case there is something you haven't tried yet.

Thanks both for the suggestions.

Maybe daytime naps together could work, if he falls asleep in bed next to me, that would be one step closer to falling asleep in his bed by himself, I guess! I just worry he might expect to breastfed (as I feed him lying in bed at night) but it's worth a try. Plus snuggling up together in bed is nice

It's always DH who gives the bottle (for obvious reasons) so I'll suggest the bouncer to him. We discussed it tonight and have decided to use formula for the bottle attempts for now. It's just too upsetting to waste expressed milk, but if he does start taking the bottle again I can start expressing again too.

purple
We did try the dummy again (several days/times in a row) but he still wasn't at all interested! He seems to have worked out how to suck his thumb 😍 So maybe he will start doing that, although he's not doing it much at the moment.
At night he is in the bedside crib on my side of the bed, so I just scoop him out to feed him in bed and then scoop him back again. I do my best to stay awake so I can put him back in his crib, but if he's been waking a lot I do occasionally fall asleep with him on the boob. It's fine but I just have to be vigilant about keeping all the pillows and covers well away from him, and I can sleep better if I know he's safe in his crib.
Funny you should mention the car, it can take him a while to fall asleep when we're driving (and usually a bit of protest crying) but if we time it right he usually sleeps longer in the car than in his crib.
Rocking to sleep is definitely the quickest method (compared to car or pushchair) and takes around 5-10 minutes, but it's pretty back-breaking as he's so heavy!
I've been using a technique I read about for extending his naps beyond 1 sleep cycle... he usually wakes up after about 35 minutes so at that point I watch him like a hawk for signs of stirring, then pick him up and rock him before he wakes up, which helps him to go into another sleep cycle. I've only tried it a few times so far but it seems to be working, touch wood! The idea is that he gets into the habit of a slightly longer nap and should then be able to carry on sleeping himself without me having to pick him up and rock him halfway through. That's the idea anyway!!
Sorry for the long rambly post

I'm a huge believer of sleep breeds sleep and if not enough daytime sleep then they get overtired and can't settle nighttime

5hrs is a very long time for babies our age to stay awake

Usually 2/3hrs tops is enough

I would try and wake up at same time every day so you know roughly what time to put down as will be same time

7/730 wake and milk
9/930 for hr sleep
11/1130 milk
1230/1 sleep for ideally 2/2.5hrs
3/330 milk
5ish short nap if needed
6 bath
630/7 milk

Then add solids hr after milk so 8/830 12/1230 4/430

Can you sit down and cuddle to sleep. Then transfer to cot. Then next time place in cot when sleepy and pat and shush - then place awake but sit by cot and shush but not touching and do it they way / it's called gradual retreat

Thanks blondes, yes I've heard of gradual retreat. Just a bit reluctant to try anything like that just yet as we're going away very soon and I'm worried it will set us back, so I was planning to wait until we get back. I do need to survive until then, though!

It would be great to have a daytime nap routine, it certainly doesn't look much like yours at the moment, because he's been having such short naps, but as I said I've been working on lengthening them so it will hopefully start to look a bit more like that!

My dd started off with short naps. Drive me insane lol

Would have 3 x 45/60mins tops naps thro the day

9/10

1130/1230

330 ish

But has increased and will sleep generally hr am And longer pm

Try white noise or lullabies on you tube as background noise

The nursery was lovely. Of course, I have nothing to compare it to but I felt very positive after our visit! Thanks for all the question suggestions, the lady pretty much covered a lot of it before I could ask!

With regards to the bottle, name, apparently I would never take a bottle when I was a baby - my mum got me a sippy cup and I would take that.

This is probably a stupid idea, but would it help if you maybe tried giving the bottle sometimes? Maybe that would give some kind of reassurance that it's ok to have that instead of the breast sometimes? Just a suggestion, feel free to ignore it!

I hope you get some sleep, you must be exhausted - hugs to you

Hope tonight is a better night, namechange. Fingers crossed!

Ds has been doing so well with settling to sleep without the dummy but on average wakes three times. First time he settles back very quickly. Second time he really goes for it third time he feeds and straight back to sleep. It's the second time (which is why I'm up now) which drives me bonkers. Am waiting for a consultation with the sleep lady to see what she thinks.

blondes I know, I tried to put her down for her usual afternoon nap but she didn't want it, she had an unusually long morning nap today. If she doesn't go down for her afternoon nap by 3:30/4 she won't have it, and then she won't sleep later than 4:30.

Think she stayed awake this afternoon out of hunger though, she didn't have much of her 7:30 or 11:30 feeds. Then only did slightly better with her 1:30 feed so when I got round to her 4:30 feed she had most of it.

She's only had 26oz all day today so I predict a 3-4am feed coming

If you want them to sleep in the afternoon then wake after 60/90 mins so latest 11 depending what time they went down - after am nap so will be awake for few hours then back to bed by 1.30/2

Again work baby asleep after feeding. I'm awake tho tired. Grrrrrr

Think will be snoozing myself when dd sleeps this am

No 3-4am feed, little cry for dummy then back to sleep until 6:15 so nearly 12 hours straight sleep for DD. Gave her her bottle at 6:30 1oz!! She's just sat here chatting to me

Aw she's doing so well carol!

Since starting the neocate DS has been having as little as 20oz and that's including a night feed now. For a couple of days he only took 15 and 16oz 😔 He has started taking slightly more now, averaging at 22/23oz. Still not great though. He feeds around 5am now instead of the 10pm dream feed at the moment so not too bad for me.

Going to get him weighed today - I expect he might not be tracking the 50th percentile as he has been but we shall see.

Ah purple has he been having any food ? That's a good way to bulk up what he might not be having in milk .
DD has our evening meals blended now and usually porridge in morning and veggies at lunch .