June 2020 Babies-Newborn, snuggles, recovery, milk and night feeds! 2nd thread

[Busylizzie85]

New thread!

@mrssunshinexxx I know he is such a chunky monkey! My twin sister had a little girl 9 weeks after me and she is so small and dainty in comparison. Maybe it's a boy thing to be so chubby! Haha

@HaichMal aww thanks - its reassuring what you've said. Beginning to worry he was getting too big too quick but guess I will just go with it for now

@Busylizzie85 sending hugs ... sounds so tough for you at the moment. Maybe set a day in the calendar to start getting into a routine and possible sleep training (nothing too intense)? Whenever you think you will feel comfortable with it though, dont put any pressure on it. If you set a day in advance you may stick to it better - I know it's hard though

Hi everyone, I haven't written on here since having Ivy really! I have just read back on loads of your comments and it's been so lovely to hear about how you are all doing! And reassuring in terms of Ivys development, she has just turned 5 months old and can roll from front to back but not from back to front yet! She is starting to be able to sit by herself for a few seconds aswell but then falls to the side.
We are planning to start BLW at 6 months but she has had a few tastes of my food already as she looks so interested in it.

What is everyone doing with bedtime now? Ivy is still up with us until about 10pm as before that she won't go to sleep in her own bed... if u put her down after 10 she is fine and sleeps until 7am with one wake up for milk at around 2-4.

I have also been struggling a lot with postpartum anxiety and it's been horrendous 😔 it's part of the reason I haven't written on here for a long time. I am incredibly worried about something happening to me and ivy being left without me. Does anyone else have these worries? ☺️

@SRS1311 my (not so) little one is 4 1/2 months old and we weighed him at home yesterday he's 9kg. He's been in 6-9 month clothes for about 3 weeks and pretty sure he's gonna be moving up to 9-12 before Xmas.
@chocolate26 welcome, I'm with you on the anxiety, had to have CBT for 3 months as the thoughts were getting out of hand. Have you had any help for your anxiety? I'm planning of giving BLW a go at 6 months  our bedtime routine is a work in progress, we bath at 6, give him a feed then settle into bed for 7, he's usually pretty good at settling to sleep however he sleeps on and off (requiring resettling a couple of times) until 10:30, give him another feed then sleeps until 8am with about 2/3 feeds overnight.

@HaichMal can I ask what is NaNoWriMo?

Also so glad someone else has said they're bored!! Starting to feel really guilty feeling bored of doing the same thing every day knowing that I should be enjoying these days!! Can't help feeling robbed of proper enjoyable mat leave!

@Cornishbumpkin it stands for National Novel Writing Month. It's main aim is to just to encourage people to start writing. Generally people sign up and aim for somewhere around the 50k goal posts. I tried it in 2018 for the first time and got to 35k. I'm rewriting what I wrote then with some new ideas so hoping to at least get to around the same word count. I doubt I'll make it to the full 50 this year with a 5 month old and stressful, drawn out bedtimes. I'm currently at about 17k.

Oh wow @HaichMal that's amazing, good luck

Thanks everyone for there responses! I have managed so far 3 out of the 5 naps in the last two days in the crib!!! 🙌🏼
I have no idea how I am meant to get her to sleep for the 2 hour over lunch time once she wakes up (still after 30-40 mins) she's wide awake and no amount of rocking will get her to go back to sleep but it's a start and I am hoping she will settle quicker now we are in a routine but we will see 🤞🏼

@busylizzie85 keep going. Wishing you all the best with sleep training!

We started sleep training this week. Baby was staying up till midnight with us and we thought it had to stop. We are doing the pick up and put down method. The first night was hell. I remember thinking that maybe some kids cannot be sleep trained.
He cried and cried and cried, even though we went in for a cuddle every 2 to 5 mins. Complete nightmare.
Anyway, last night the saga lasted for 40 mins only and he fell asleep at 9pm. We couldn't believe it! Managed to sit down and watch TV with the DH whilst keeping an eye on the baby monitor.
He loves to sleep with the nipple in his mouth. Slowly trying to phase it out with the sleep training. We are in the process. Not quite succeeded yet. Wish us luck!

Hi All,

Just wondering, when was the last time your baby saw the health visitor? DS turned 5 months last week and hasn't seen her since he was 10 weeks old.

Thanks

DS saw HV at around 7 weeks or something. We've texted occasionally, but no further appointments.

@AllChange2020 mine has never seen the HV and don't have any plans to I have no concerns that I. Need her for

HV was last here for her 12week check, before that was 10days old. I wont be seeing her now till 1year check.

@Cornishbumpkin thank you- it's nice to know I'm not alone!!

Mine last saw the HV at 6 weeks and not since. I think it would be nice to have seen them again just to see how he is getting on with measurements etc but oh well.

Lovely to hear the start of successful sleep training. We have been doing the gentle sleeping training for a good few weeks and just want to say how great it is. Not to sound smug, but to let you all know that it's totally worth it in the end! For weeks now he has slept from 7pm till between 6 and 7am with no getting up in the night day time naps can be hit and miss but cant have everything haha!

Wow @SRS1311 that's fab, are you following a particular programme?

Haven't been in the mindset to try the sleep training yet as my mental health has taken a bit of a nose dive and I'm awaiting an assessment next week for PND think this lockdown mixed with the 4 month sleep regression is really taking a toll

@SRS1311 I'm soooo jealous

@Cornishbumpkin hope your okay with the PND, I think I had it a little bit for the first couple of months, it's a horrible feeling

I've been following the Huckleberry schedule..I'll try and attach it here as a picture. With the day naps, sometimes he wont sleep for an hr but for 40 mins, in which case I'll just try make it up on his next nap and put him down 15 mins early.

With the nights - we just used the tried and tested method of allowing them to cry but reassuring them at set timed intervals (a few minutes). Just pat them, say shhh, reassure etc and then leave them again. If he was really upset, pick up cuddle and reassure for a couple of minutes then put him back down. The crying is obviously the worst part, first night or two can feel hard and like it's not going to work. I was surprised that by night 3 and 4 he would go longer and settle quicker and by night 6 and 7 he was absolutely fine. The worst part is starting it and sticking to it through those first couple of nights.

1st December I am going to slowly start to change bedtime routine slightly in readiness for her moving into own nursery.... I need come away from feeding to sleep and instead encourage self settling..

I just need to figure out how to get her to take her bad time feed before bath. I've tried before but she just has a few minutes whereas at bedtime she has a good 20-30 minute feed. Some of that is dozing but I would say 75% is sucking

@Busylizzie85 we have the same issue with the lunch nap, she won’t sleep longer than 30-35 minutes any time of the day! Glad she’s not the only one.

@mrssunshinexxx the settling method in the sleep training guide has been working quite well for us so far, even though the suggested schedule feels like it’ll never happen for us, just getting her to fall asleep without tons of rocking and picking up and putting down over and over until she stays asleep... it’s a big improvement! Thank you so much for sharing.

@Smiffette I have stopped feeding to sleep at night recently, it sort of happened naturally by taking her out of the swaddle and sitting upright to feed instead of side lying, but I have the same issue where she just won’t feed enough unless she knows it’s bedtime so I still have the feed the last thing before sleep but I try to separate feed and sleep by reading a short book or putting her into her sleeping bag after the feed, just so that there’s one step between feed and sleep. Our routine last night which worked well was: bath, nappy & pjs, book, lights down and white noise on, feed, sleeping bag and bed. She slept the best she had all week.

@Cornishbumpkin I also wasn’t prepared to sleep train, but the guide @mrssunshine shared is great because it’s all about helping baby to fall asleep in their own bed at the start of the night and not about training them to not need you in the middle of the night. It still encourages you to cuddle them if they are upset, etc. Whenever you feel ready to give something a go when you’re feeling up to it I recommend at least taking a look. I originally bought the taking cara babies course as it was promised to be “no cry” gentle sleep training but it involves a lot of crying... it just wasn’t for me.

Thankyou @UKtoSK glad your seeing some improvement, the one @mrssunshinexxx sent is good and I'm very thankful as it seems the kindest but I'm not sure where we are going wrong, he can be put in his cot awake at 7pm with his dummy, comforter and white noise and will fall asleep by himself no problem but will wake every 40-50 mins until 10pm (needing one of us to go in give him back his dummy and comforter each time), I then feed him again, he goes back to sleep then is up every 1-2.5hrs overnight, I thought it was because he was hungry but he only feeds for about 5 mins before dropping off to sleep on the boob. Thinking I may get rid of the dummy like someone else suggested but it's a very scary thought lol

@Cornishbumpkin that sounds tough and similar to what my LO was doing for weeks so it could be a leap?
I think getting rid of dummy would be a good idea .. can be put it back in himself ? Is the room too hot/ too cold ? Is he in a sleeping bag? Hope you don't mind me making suggestions I know how bad this is. Xx

@Cornishbumpkin I totally understand! Jia is up all night most nights too. On Thursday night she woke up every 1-3 hours and after a lot of crying at 5:30am I ended up holding her while she slept for over an hour as I was just too exhausted to keep trying to get her back to sleep in her bed. This four month sleep regression has been brutal.

@AllChange2020 maybe I'm the odd one out but we see the HV every 4 weeks for weight and height measure at the local clinic. Home visits were only in the 1st month or so due to lockdown. I religiously book as it was a concern in the early days due to jaundice/weigh loss even tho she's on 50th percentile now. They only measure height on request. I would say HV has been helpful to us as first time parents to ask questions.

@Cornishbumpkin I too have little one waking up regularly. It ranges from 3/4 hrs in the evening but come 1am, put down and settling in her cot bed is a mission. LO is perfectly happy to sleep on me in my arms tho (and has been since 2am).

@mrssunshinexxx Thankyou so much fir your suggestions , he seems warm enough but not too hot, he's in a sleeping bag. He can't put the dummy back himself but has started taking it out and playing with it the getting frustrated that it's no longer in his mouth lol. I think he was entering a leap this week so that could have something to do with it. We've been awake fir the past hour with him happily chatting away and blowing raspberries, very cute but I would reeeally rather we both went back to sleep

@UKtoSK and @PurpleLaws that sounds really tough. I guess I'm lucky he's not screaming! Hope you get back to sleep soon

My health visitor absolute crap she hasn't come out once I've just discharged myself from her actually!

@Cornishbumpkin my baby was wide awake 1.30-3.30am then slept til 7.15 I just don't understand her at all x

@Cornishbumpkin Ivy went in to her 5th leap a week or two weeks ago and her sleeps at night has been dreadful! We've sort of started the sleep training but she cry's and cry's being out down for a nap so I try touch and sooth method with no joy! I end up picking her up several times until she falls asleep but then she wakes up crying 40 mins later. She will never sleep for the 2 hours they recommend over lunch!
Her night times sleep is just 🤷🏻‍♀️ she wakes up around an hour after going to sleep and then cry's for ages, she then continues to wake up every 2-3 hours also! I'm praying it's a phase and not the new norm 😭