August/September 2019 babies - #3

[Stroan]

Just spotted we were about to finish the last thread....

Very quiet on here!

@Littlehouseinthebigcity hope the sleep has improved a bit for you. So hard. I must admit if Nate wakes now in the night and I know he can't be hungry, I've been letting him cry for a bit to try to get him to figure out he needs to go back to sleep. He's extra tired now as dragging himself all around the floor. I'm that exhausted each night as he's such a shitty sleeper that I'm often too out of it to get up each time he goes off.

Anyone else over breastfeeding? I know I'll carry on, but is hard work right now. Nate such a fidget. He boings up and down off his feet (does this in the bath too, very cute, but not whilst feeding!)and the lastest is pulling his head as far away from my boob as possible like my nipple is a rubber band. Soooo uncomfortable. I have to clamp his head as close to me as possible to stop it. He's really strong too so this take some effort. Poor nips, especially left one, feeling a bit sore. I was hoping he would have slowed down a bit on the milk by now but no!! Oh well, just keep swimming...

Hope you're all having a good Easter under the circumstances. I got a new oven and hot water system put in yesterday as ours was about to die. I haven't had a functioning oven since we moved here last July so am itching to bake something today. Have been getting by with a small shitty toaster oven!! Had to get mainline gas put in as there was none here when the house was built so has been a bit of a process.

From being fairly lapse about routine and bedtimes it appears we have fallen into one! Dinner at 5pm, bath at 6pm then he falls asleep with a bottle sometime just before 7pm. We've actually been putting him into bed (the travel cot in our room, not his room yet) and he's been sleeping through until 7am with just a couple of dummy wakes. It's so strange to not have him around! It's definitely better for him though, despite tooth number 3 imminent he seems much happier and brighter so long may it continue.

I hope everyone's getting on ok in these strange times. I know it's nothing compared to what other people are going through but I'm sad that our last couple of months of maternity leave are going to be caged up and not going out doing all the fun things we'd planned. I also worry a bit about him only seeing us, I'm not sure FaceTime is the same, although he did seem to get it yesterday and was laughing at my mum!

@Geegrl19 @happydays00 We're getting on slightly better thanks. The last couple of nights have been better, only a couple of wakes each. The main issue is the evenings - she goes down at 7 and is up about ever 30/40 mins until I go to bed. She just wants to be held but I don't Co-sleep and therefore really need her to learn to settle in her crib!! despite lockdown it feels like I never see dh cos one of us is constantly settling her!

@Littlehouseinthebigcity you're not at 29/30 weeks by any chance? Ds was exactly the same, but we're just coming out the other side of it. Apparently it's a "thing" where they realise you can leave them - he would cry if I left the room but he's ok with short stretches again now.

The rubber band nipple.... I truly emphasise @Geegrl19. Alice does it occasionally to me, and that's bad enough. No boinging of the feet though. She does little kicks (if you can call axe kicks and stomps little) and stomach crunches instead.

That's an incredibly long time to have lasted without an oven! What're you planning on baking first?

@kyles101 We also seem to have fallen into one. Dinner between 6-6.30pm. Bath (if she's having one) 7pm. Otherwise we gently play for a little bit. Upstairs to her room for cuddles and feed to sleep from 7.30. Asleep by 8. She's been in her own room at night for a while, but it's such a difference not having to hold her until we go to bed. Baby free evenings are weird.

No teeth here yet. Still determinedly wriggling to move, but not getting very far. She rolled twice front to back yesterday.... Tripling her total rolls in that direction to date!

Agreed that facetime just isn't the same. Hopefully this will be such a short and uneventful period of their life's that will have zero impact on them. If we have another long summer this year we should be able to get some day trips in before returning to work.

@kyles101 We're 29 weeks!! You have given me a glimmer of hope 😂

We’ve been in the 29/30 week separation anxiety hell too. I have had her attached to be 24/7 fir 2 weeks. Knackered! 30 weeks tomorrow and marginally improved so hopefully will be able to leave her to dash to the horse soon.

@dyra. Baked a cake today, then for dinner roast chicken pieces with cheese and bacon small potatoes. So good! Wish I'd sorted it months ago but just didn't get round to it!

Woot oven @Geegrl19 !!! Now you too can indulge in lockdown baking (if you can get flour...)
@kyles101 that sounds like a very very exciting bedtime development.
We seem to get mostly unputdownable sleep, but she's quite happy to be mostly parked when awake which makes it possible to juggle the other two, and the endless cooking, so I'm not going to argue. Occasionally she'll let me put her in her cot and sleep through til 5 or so, which feels like Christmas!
She's just about grown out of her sidecar cot, and I still haven't got a mattress fit the bigger cot, argh! That's today's online job (helpfully, a weird size so hopefully people are still making made-to-measure mattresses...)

We've just come through the 29/30 week and is was crap! Starting to sleep abit better again with a few dummy wakes but still not great. He's got two teeth with another on the way so that's not a great help.

On a positive note he's officially on the move and there's no stopping him. Better baby proof the house!

Really nice to hear how everyone is getting on, it has been so quiet on her recently. Did we lose @THAT90sBITCH with the new thread?

@Littlehouseinthebigcity hopefully this is just a phase - it sounds hopeful with what others have said!

@Geegrl19 I don't know how you've lasted that long without a proper oven but how amazing to get back into cooking / baking now!!

@KnobJockey your routine sounds fab and amazing you're living the 7 - 7 dream for sleep!

Is anyone else's little ones refusing milk in the day? DS is seemingly far too busy to stop and drink milk in the day, my precious tactic of taking him into his quiet, dark room for a bottle in the day is no longer working. So he's having a morning bottle (either 3am or 7ish, depending on if he sleeps through or not), one at bed time and sometimes a dream feed. So generally between about 300 - 400ml a day only. He is eating a shed load of solids though (about double what his fussy little 3 year old sister is) so I'm guessing maybe that's why but at 3 days off 8 months it seems a bit early maybe?

@happydays00 does seem a little early but if that's what he wants then I guess go with it. DS still seems to want 4 at the minute, even with a lot of food, but I think a bit of it might just be thirst so I think I'll try swapping the morning one for a drink and snack instead. Have you noticed any stool changes? We seem to have some constipation the last day or so, he's going but they're very hard and I don't think he's passing everything. Will you use vitamins if he does end up regularly dropping below 500ml per day?

Oh, and downside to routine - when dh lets DS nap at 6:30 before last bottle = wide awake baby at bedtime - grrr! Said child is now asleep on sofa next to me, oh well, good whilst it lasted 😂

Oh we're definitely not 7 til 7 sleepwise here unfortunately 😂 we have no bottles 7-7, but at the minute we wake 3-4 times first thing for dummy, 3 til half 4 for a chat and moan, try to get up at half 5-6, but go back over til 8. Hoping it's just week 29-30 pain and over next week!

Oh @kyles101 the late nap! Too ratty to make it to bedtime but way too early to go to bed. Is a dilemma for sure!

We are also struggling with the last nap! She fights it every single day even though I'm sure she needs it! She's going about two hours between most naps then 3 hours after last nap before bed but I'm tempted to try and drop the last nap and stretch out her awake time between the others. Any ideas when you know if they are ready for this??

Anybody have any advice about baby constipation?

Alice definitely has it. The poor mite is straining so hard. What she does produce is type 1/2 on the Bristol scale. It's hurting her because she's then bursting into full blown sobs. I wish I could suffer it for her. Poor baby.

@yevans if DS would just do more than one cycle for post lunch nap then I think he'd be as happy as Larry. Unfortunately he never does but I'm trying to get him into a 7pm ish bedtime routine so a third nap just doesn't fit in any more between all the feeding and bathing!

@Dyra have you tried puréed prunes? Or a little 1/10 diluted orange juice? Or pears / peas supposed to work too. Longer term I think there's such thing as too much fibre when they're little but I do need to look into that myself.

@kyles101 @Dyra it's insoluble fibre that can be too much for tinies (ie- all bran, whole grains in large quantities). Prunes etc have soluble fibre so you are all good there. It sounds grim! Hopefully it won't last much longer!!!

Thanks guys. Alice is back to normal now (thank goodness). A breakfast of Weetabix did the trick. I'll be bit more mindful of her diet. It had been a bit heavy on bananas, potato, carrots, yoghurt and bread for a few days prior. Never occurred to me.

How are people's nights going? We seem to have started cracking our evenings, we did a few days where we sat with her and picked her up if she got distressed but didn't feed her and the last few evenings she's managed 7-10 with one or no wakings! Still feeding on average 3 or 4 times a night though 🙄

Glad Alice is feeling better @Dyra!

Nights have gone to shit here - we were in paradise for about a week - into bed between 7&8 and sleeping all the way through until 7/8 in the morning... then one thing after another, have top teeth about to break through so I assume that's it at the moment but he gets so very distressed at being left I just can't leave him, sometimes he'll go if I sit next to him for about 20 mins, others he'll just get angrier and angrier so I just bring him back into the living room with us 🤷‍♀️ naps prettt much perfect though, put down, walk off. They're short only 40 mins max.

Our nights still vary. In bed by 7 every night and up at 6 but still having dummy wakes in between .

Real bad night last night. He had a fever yesterday and slept on and off all day which isn't like him. He has another three teeth about to cut so initially thought it was that. Then we had too bouts of projectile vomit and a very watery nappy? Thinking maybe he's got a bug? Not sure how as he's not left the house/garden in 7 weeks.

Definitely sounds like a bug @db92 It wouldn't matter if his environment hasn't changed much recently. All it can sometimes take is one bacterium getting past the stomach, where none had before. Feel better soon babydb!

I feel Alice is somewhat average with her sleep. Asleep by 8, but wakes up for the day anywhere between 6 and 7.30. If the clock says it's before then she gets fed back to sleep! During the night she wakes once for a feed. But if one or more of: ill/teeth on the move/growth spurt/development spurt/feels like it, occurs, then there's at least 2 more feeds required.

Still feeding to sleep and all day naps are on me though.