April 2018 babies

[Aspenn17]

Hi!

Any mums out there with April newborns? If there is already a group going please point me in the right direction!

I’m a first time mum with a 2 week old little girl looking for some people to chat to with similar aged babies!

I don't know how it works for you guys but if I don't pump at night, I don't have milk daytime. Most of time at night my LO doesn't feed 9 hours or more and daytime she wants to make the most out of it and feeds every 2 hours. So to balance it out and to keep the milk supply good for daytime, I pump 10min each breast before sleep and also 4am in the morning. It's really tiring but what else I can do. If I wean myself off night pump sessions, I won't have milk daytime and my LO will starve. How do you manage to keep good milk supply daytime if you don't pump at night or pump just a little?

My LO dropped her night feed around 8 weeks and at first I woke up at 4am very uncomfortable but did what Sam mentioned, pumped a little, just enough to relive the discomfort and I found after about a week I wasn’t waking up and was fine until about 6/7am. I’m always leaking a little when I wake up but I’m not uncomfortable. Didn’t effect my daytime supply at all.

The swaddling is going ok yustynne! First 3 days she woke up probs 4 or 5 times, just wiggling not crying but then last night only twice so we’re getting there. How about you?

I bought an amber anklet to see if it helps with teething. Anyone else tried them?

Looks like I won't need to think about 4am pump sessions anymore as we are back to night feeds. When I stopped swaddling her, the first couple of nights she woke up only once, but now everything seems to be going downhill as she wakes up crying at least 3 or 4 times and I have to feed her at least 2 times. All what we achieved in those months is gone and she is back to waking up just as she was a couple of weeks old. Aspenn, when your baby wakes up at night so many times, do you feed her? I hope yours is doing better.

We use a Love to Dream Swaddle Up as he likes to have his arms up and will suck his hands through the material. I think he’d like to suck his hands properly but I’m a bit scared to take the Swaddle Up away as he had a strong startle reflex when he was younger so I’m worried he won’t sleep as well. I think the startle reflex goes by about 5 months though. How did you decide when it was time to lose the swaddle?

I read that once they can roll you should stop swaddling. My LO has been rolling for a while now but has recently started doing it loads so I decided not to put it off any longer. BUT not sure if that’s just if you swaddle with their arms by their sides, there is a lot of different info out there!

@yustynne when my LO has been waking I don’t feed her, but she doesn’t wake and cry, she just sort of kicks and grumbles a little and once I put her dummy in and stroke her tummy a bit she goes back to sleep. If she doesn’t settle then I feed her and if she was crying then I definitely would. She was an amazing sleeper before, she had been going 10pm-6am without waking at all, really hope that comes back!!

This is about the time for sleep regression unfortunately, so should go back to normal after this phase!
Luckily he never slept through the night anyway so we don't have that problem 😂 silver linings...
We stopped swaddling at about 3 months cos he got too big for his up to 6 month swaddleme (I can't work out how to do it without the Velcro). It actually really didn't make a difference after a couple of nights. And if they aren't sleeping as well now it's maybe best doing it now as you aren't getting as much sleep anyways.
LO actually slept until 5.30 this morning which was nice for a change. Then wakes up doing his loud screechy sound he has recently learnt.

Oh also @yustynne if you get time through the day can you pump between feeds or even the other side while you feed? That got my supply back up when it felt like it wasn't enough

I've never really swaddled, little one didn't really need to be.

Can't offer any advice with regards to expressing as we have bottle fed, after a failure to latch and milk drying up due to me having to take antibiotics. I did pump for several weeks as I was adamant that LO was going to have breast milk, but it was double the work, having to pump to feed and then feed as well.

Had a rough couple of weeks as LO hasn't been very well, been quite tiring and stressful but think we are on the mend.

Hasn't helped having injections and he is supposed to be in the middle of the next developmental leap.

Feeling quite drained atm

@forest my little one never needed swaddling either!

He's currently teething, in the middle of leap 4 and we have his last set of jabs tomorrow, really not looking forward to that!

We’re the same, he has been a bit more cranky the last few days and not sleeping very well (he never sleeps great so it’s awful when it gets worse!) but I just keep thinking, his reflux has been playing up, he’s in leap 4 which is meant to be worse around week 17 which we are coming up to, and he had his jabs on Friday which seemed to affect him a lot more this time round. So no wonder he’s cranky! Just trying to get through each day at a time

I'm feeling exhausted. I slept only 3 hours. Not swaddled my LO keeps waking up and it doesn't seem to get better. How many weeks will it take? It's frustrating that she was a good sleeper and now without a swaddle she is not. I decided to stop swaddling because she used to break out of it waking herself up and put the swaddle on her face. Sometimes it crosses my mind to start swaddling again but then I don't think it will change a lot. I just have to continue what I started. Is it getting better at yours who stopped swaddling?
To make things worse, today she had her last set of jabs. She is so irritated and crying a lot. I'm sure her temperature will go up in the afternoon. How are your LOs after their jabs?

@yustynne it only took us a few days for him to get used to it. It's hard when they won't sleep but hopefully t won't take long! What are you using now? I find the sleeping bags quite good.
We have our last set of jabs on Friday

Had last set of jabs this morning here too. He seems OK, I've given him Calpol and lots of cuddles. He's had a feed but he brought some of it back up, I figure he'd just reacted to the jabs.

He's sleeping at the moment and is due his next dose of Calpol at 4, so I'll wake him up for that.

It seems these have gone easier than his 8 week ones.

Our jabs are tomorrow :( hope everyone’s LO’s are feeling ok this eve.

Yustynne we are on day 9 of no swaddle and she’s waking me up maybe twice a night now (after previously sleeping through) except Sunday when she woke me up loads. But I think it maybe be a case of the 4 month sleep regression too so it’s hard to tell. You could try just swaddling one arm? I read some people do that instead of going cold turkey.

I spoke too soon on these going better, they have been the worst by far! He's woken up twice in the night, temperature keeps spiking up to over 38 but comes down with Calpol, he's so so fussy as well.

I hate that I've put him through this but needs must!

We are battling temperature here as well. Yesterday evening my LO had close to 38 and she woke up 3 times at night. Today morning she is still running temperature so I gave her Calpol. Poor little babies to have so many injections and then temperature on the top but it's for their own best.

We had our 16 week jabs last week and we found them to be the worst too, he had been absolutely fine with the previous ones. But this time he couldn’t settle for most of the night, his temperature was 38.5 all night and most of the next day, and he was just so fussy and irritable for a couple of days. So glad there’s no more until 12 months! Hope your LO is feeling better @Amysaurus.

We don't have our last jabs for another week, but not looking forward to them from what everyone I know has said in RL and on here.

Sounds like they are the worst ones! Hopefully everyone's LO's are feeling better now 🤞🏻

Just had a similar night to how Alxx described. Temp of 38.4 and wouldn’t sleep until 2am, then up again at 5.30am and 7. Her temp is normal again this morning though luckily. Hope everyone else is ok! x

Anyone got any tips to get my 4 month old to nap longer? He has about 3 naps a day of about 45 minutes. My HV said he should be napping longer, but I can't get him to sleep any longer than this. There's the odd day when he will have a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, but generally naps are only 45 minutes.

He sleeps well at night (1030 - 530ish) so I'm not sure it's worth trying to get him to nap longer.

Those of you whose LOs sleep through or at least well at night- how do you do this?! My baby has woken every 1-2 hours during the night since he was about 9-10 weeks old and I’m exhausted, nothing I try makes any difference. We have been doing the LIttle Ones sleep program for the last month which has given us a good routine for the day and helped him learn to sleep in his bed but his nightime sleep is still awful. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong or if it’s down to continuous things like leaps, growth spurts, jabs, 4 month regression, his reflux, wind etc etc.
And now I’m finding it harder and harder to sleep- I go to bed just after he does at around 9-9.30 to try to maximise sleep but often I am just lying there unable to sleep until 11ish, then when he wakes in the night I can’t always get back to sleep no matter how tired I am Any advice gladly received!!

@Amysaurus If you’re interested the Little Ones program advises 3 naps a day at this age- 45 mins in the morning, 2 hours at lunchtime and 15-20 mins in the late afternoon.

@Alxx I'm sorry you are having such a tough time with LO sleeping. I don't have any advice but I had an AWFUL sleeper first time round and it is so tough! All I can suggest for now is napping during the day when LO does.
This time round he just started to sleep himself, around the 4 month regression (before that it was hourly). So I'm not sure what I did differently. Sometimes babies just don't want to sleep

Hi Alxx. Before the 4 month regression my baby was sleeping all night 9pm-7am, not waking up at all. Not sure it was anything special I was doing, I think she was just a good sleeper but a few things we did that worked. Swaddled (although we’ve stopped that now she can roll) sleepyhead, Ewan the sheep for white noise, dummy, and I’m bf but I would pump so she had a bottle before bed, that was I could see she was getting a big feed before bed. We also had a bathtime, bottle, bedtime routine established fairly early on. But saying all that she is not good at daytime napping and wakes up quite a bit now we are in the 4 month regression! When she grumbles in the night I don’t pick her up right away, I put my hand on her tummy and shush her to reassure her and she often just settles again.

At the moment the only way I can get her to sleep (when I’m initially putting her down) is rocking or feeding her to sleep but I’m worried she is going to become reliant on these things and I am making things harder in the long term :/ what does everyone else do?

Leap 4 is almost over!!! It's not been as bad as I was expecting, he's been fussier and fights the naps something chronic but we are almost out the other side!

He's still sleeping through the night so I'm going to try and bring bedtime forward so my husband and I can have some time the 2 of us, anyone got any tips?