August/September 2019 Babies (Due in Sept 19)

[IVEgottheDECAF]

Couldnt see a post natal group so have taken it upon myself to start one! Will obviously still keep up on antenatal also until babies have all arrived!

Shall we start a list of arrivals?

IVEgotheDECAF - DC5 - boy - 07/09/19 - 9lb1oz

Sorry to hear the suffering re the sleep, killer isn't it. Amazing how just three or four hours of straight sleep can feel so refreshing after having none.

Nate had his first needles yesterday. Was awful, poor thing went as red as a tomato and screamed the loudest I've heard. Was very pitiful for the rest of the day so had to give him some medicine. He's slightly better today thank goodness.

I went into work for a couple of hours and he slept in his capsule the whole time. They don't believe me that he never normally sleeps in the day as every time I've dropped by he's been asleep. Of course, he hasn't slept since I've got home.

@Stroan my 11 year old likes to pretend she's a baby and squashes herself in under the play gym. She most definitely doesn't fit!

@megan2018 have you tried a dummy for some of the time? If I see Arthur muck about or fall asleep or use my nipples as a soother instead of feeding I'm popping a dummy in.

@DustyDoorframes fingers crossed for that then I was hoping for a nice long break!!

@Megan2018 felicity really does seem to run on very little sleep... how are you doing? I know just a few bad nights nearly broke me...

@kyles101 I’m pretty broken, only been coping because DH has been off for a month so I literally don’t have to do anything at home. He’s back to work next week though so I’m really panicking.

@Megan2018 I’m sorry to read your sleep is so poor - we went through the same from about 2-4 weeks and it was absolute hell, if she wasn’t feeding she was screaming and just never seemed content, she was ending up horrendously overtired which then led to more screaming (never crying or whimpering, just screaming). I learnt the best ways to basically force her to nap, even if she fought it- cuddling her and bouncing on a yoga ball worked really well, and within a week she fought it less and is a different baby at almost 7 weeks! That could just be a coincidence, but it will pass and hopefully very very soon for you.

@DustyDoorframes yes my 5 yo is like that too at the moment- I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to tell him to stop doing disruptive things, really hoping the attention seeking settles down a bit soon!

@Megan2018 I am a long, long way from being an expert since I’m only 13 days into this parenting thing, but the things we’ve done that have massively improved our sleep at night are:

Give a dose of infacol at bedtime - seems to increase the chances that she’ll settle when put down rather than start squirming then crying even though she only shows signs occasionally of suffering from wind.

Increase frequency of winding when feeding - as above.

Use a white noise thingy for womb sounds/heart beats.

Put the T-shirt I’ve worn for the day in her cot

Express a bottle in the morning and then give it to her in the evening as well as what she takes from the breast to “top her off” - she then sleeps for 3 hours and wakes up a bit dozy rather than sleeping for 1.5-2 hours and waking up screaming.

She also seems to settle better at night for DH than me.

The only other thing I’d add is that if you are feeling broken then please do call someone for support - my midwife has been absolutely fantastic at coming round and giving suggestions for things that might help when lack of sleep started to really mess with my mental health. You’re under their care until 28 days even if you’ve been officially discharged so I’m sure if you call them they’d come out for a visit.

Great tips there from @Fortheloveofscience does she seem refluxey? We have the crib on a slight tilt head up now which seems to help. I know you weren't keen but I'd also second the dummy idea. Honestly it hasn't confused ds at all, and sometimes I can tell he's using me for comfort to try to get off for a nap so I switch. Especially at night when he's had a good feed, he'd be on me all night if he could. Try to get some help, it's pretty miserable when you're in the midsts of no sleep.

We are co-sleeping, she doesn’t go in her crib yet at all. MW said no point in pushing the crib until she has got the hang of night and day and can sleep at all as it is trying to fix too much at once. Right now she needs to be close to me.
When she is eventually tired she sleeps really well, its just not that often! She just doesn’t sleep for long periods of time even when feeding. So in the day she will feed to sleep but at night she stays wide awake during and after feeds as she has things back to front.
No reflux or colic signs at all, she’s only been sick once since she was born and has no other symptoms. We spend a lot of time winding just in case but she doesn’t have much of a problem with it, she gets hiccups a lot but MW said that is classic in overtired babies. It does seem that overtiredness is our issue.
Last night she had 2 spells of over an hour being walked and rocked and whilst she will stop crying eventually she won’t sleep. We also have 3 different bouncers and swings, which she likes but none make her sleep. She just looks at you wide awake, then as soon as you move her or stop she screams.
MW and HV aware, there is nothing they can suggest as apparently she’ll eventually grow out of it......

My main worry is that she has inherited my sleep disorder
I sleep but have abnormal dream wave patterns, if she has this then I’m screwed as its not treatable

Oh @Megan2018 that sounds tough! She sleeps in the day though, so you know she CAN, and she WILL get the right way round eventually, she will!
Mine have all been quite good with nights, but my eldest never needed much sleep, he never had big naps even when tiny, and much shorter nights than my friends kids. I read somewhere that that just gives them more learning opportunities as they are awake more, which was my consolation...

@Megan2018 Sophie also struggles to sleep at night as well as showing signs of trapped wind/silent reflux so I’m taking her to a cranial osteopath next week to see if they can help - the health visitor recommended it. I just keep telling myself ‘this too shall pass’ but when you know you have a long, sleepless night ahead of you it is hard! Chocolate and Netflix is getting me through at the moment!

Can I joint please I was in the October group but had a surprise arrival on 17th sept.

I have a feeding question......due to a stay in hospital for my little boy bf went out the window but I am expressing and bottle feeding, he is taking approx 60-80ml a feed every 3 hours.... he seems content and I'm not strict on the 3 hours so can sometime be earlier/later. Just wondering if that sounds about right amount. During the stay at hospital they were so regimented on a certain amount of milk at an exact time it's made me a little paranoid he is getting what he needs now he is home.

@megan2018 that sounds so tough. DD didn't sleep a lot during the day and getting anything done was impossible.

The best advice I ever got about sleep was that if you can't do anything about the baby's sleep, you have to concentrate on what it takes for you to survive. When we've had bad nights, that's meant DH taking DS downstairs for a few hours so I can sleep. I can't sleep when feeding but DH can so it was the best compromise that meant we could both cope.

@dustydoorframes you've just described my almost 4yo exactly. I'm rolling out all the parenting clichés that I didn't want to resort to like "why can't you just sit still?" & "Because I said so". It's just relentless. She's not naughty, but never, ever stops.

DS had his first immunisations this morning. Thanks to the paracetamol, he's been asleep all day. I had to wake him for feeds. Hopefully this doesn't mean he's gearing up to party tonight.

@Megan2018 that sounds unbelievably tough with the sleeping. My first was similar (not quite as bad but would go hours in the day without napping and then at most do 30 minutes. At night they'd sleep a bit at the start then be up for the day at 2am and we were broken). The root cause for us was reflux so hopefully a positive that you don't have something underlying to deal with).

It's horrific at the time but wanted to give you hope- at 2 he now is a brilliant sleeper, 7-7 with a great nap and has been for ages.

@2018isanewyear as I understand it, babies need less volume of breastmilk compared to formula as there's much less wasted on digestion. I'm not sure what the percentage difference is though so wouldn't know how to use that information to compare to the recommended oz per feed for formula babies.
But if baby has enough wet/dirty nappies, is settled between feeds and is putting on weight well then I would go off that more than the amount they're taking.

@2018isanewyear hiya, I did the same as you in hospital and had to stick to a feeding plan so I was paranoid when I got home about what to do. I still stuck to the plan but actually I realise we didn't need to. I think i did it for 2 weeks and then once I'd had two health visitor visits where she weighed him and he'd put on lots of weight did I start to relax. Forget about the 3 hours and volumes just go by when your baby is hungry and seeing plenty wet and dirty nappies.
I was on here asking the same thing.

I had my worst night yet. Up pretty much all night with Arthur and only just now has he fallen asleep on me.
He seems to want fed so much more through the night than before. We were on 2 wake ups and feeds and I think we did 5 or 6 last night which along with burping and keeping him upright plus nappy changes meant I got noooo sleep. He's also crying lots recently so I'm certain he has colic and when he starts screaming nothing calms him down. I got to the end of my rope about 1 hour ago and just put him on the bed and sat back. I feel so bad. anyway my husband then took over and walked around with him which helped a tad and then he was ok for a feed. But I just don't know what to do when he is screaming and nothing really consoles him. And if it is colic I just am so scared of how long it will last. I'm already a bit broken!

@Horehound sending lots of sympathy, i had a screamer day and night for months and I was completely broken. We finally realised it was silent reflux and that dairy wasn't helping, but for months drs just said baby had awful colic and was 'high needs'.

I’m trying a few days of Infacol as an experiment, as it can’t hurt. I know it takes a while to work, last night was no different. Frantic cluster feeding until 2 then screaming until about 4. She did then sleep until 8 so got 4hrs together which helps.
I can cope with the feeding until 2, but the bit between 2 and when she sleeps is the killer.
She doesn’t have any reflux symptoms though apart from crying which is only at night, so I doubt its that. It could be colic butI think it is lack of sleep. She gets in a pickle with the cluster feeding and can’t seem to stop then the crying starts- she is properly angry and flings her arms and legs about violently. The minute she shuts her eyes though its like she re-sets and when she wakes up again she’s back to happy baby, and she is very content all day and evening.
We sre going to hold off on dummies as neither of us are keen on them and HV said to not use until 6 weeks.
If no change at 6 weeks we’ll reconsider, also if her growth isn’t as expected then will ask about silent reflux, but at the moment she is definitely thriving and doesn’t cough, gag, breathe noisily or vomit etc

If she's an arm flinger could swaddling help?

Ds stroking my finger nails last night was too sweet, but he gets far too distracted by his hands so they'll be going back in from tonight, he's less nasty with his face though so he can have access again during the day time!

@kyles101
Swaddling not safe when bed sharing according to the guidelines but she also self soothes by sucking her fingers and goes mad if she can’t get to them.

My eldest did really well swaddled with his hands poking out at the top so he could suck them, in the sidecar cot- he slept better like that than in the bed with me. Neither of the others have needed swaddling at all. They don't half keep you on your toes, babies. As soon as you crack something they CHANGE ON YOU too.

@Megan2018 sorry yeah I forgot you were cosleeping. Maybe try it at nap time to see if it does work? Maybe swap it for the cosleeping if it does? I've seen swaddling with hands out so they can suckle too.

Ds just full on chuckled in his sleep! I had thought he'd done it a couple of times before but he's napping on me now and so he had my full attention and it was a proper full on chuckle lasting 3/4 seconds!!

This is how she spends 75% of the day-absolutely sparko