June 2020 Babies-Six months on: mobile babies, feeding adventures, and still sleepless nights! 3rd thread

[UKtoSK]

Hi everyone! I made a new thread as we were at the end of the last one. A new thread for the new year! I changed the title as we don’t have newborns anymore!

Thanks @UKtoSK

I'm on night three of LO in her own room, I'm starting to think I should have waited until she slept better..... although I'm not sure when that will come.

She's still waking every 1.5 - 2 hours, she's even stopped doing the longer pre midnight stint, which stopped weeks ago not just as a result of being in own room.

She always has well spaced out day naps, they never total more than an hour and half for both or sometimes 3 if she wakes early. I feel like because not getting the recommend day hours sleeping it's impacting her night time!? But then on the rare occasion I'm out all day driving to places she will nap longer 2-3 day hours sleeping... and this has no impact on night.

She went down at 7:30 and I'm on wake 4

@Smiffette SNAP urgh can't believe I'm trying for another I need her to be sleeping through before I have another new born

@mrssunshinexxx it's so frustrating and now she's been feeding pretty constantly since 01:45 when she woke, she just won't settle back to sleep! I'm so so sore and with the scratching and pinching it's not pleasant!
She's the only one in my NCT group who doesn't sleep through / only wake once.
It's really getting me down now, everyday I have a headache from lack of sleep. I don't feel like I should go out because I'm too tired to drive, but she gets so grumpy when we stay in all day.

I don't think I could think about trying for another until she's sleeping through and potty trained.

@Missgemini I also filmed it and put it on our photo sharing app even though she didn’t really eat anything. Yesterday I gave her a stick of cucumber to play with BLW style as I was eating some myself and she did much better with that. She kept putting it in her mouth despite looking rather surprised by the taste every time!

Re: sleep, going by your definition then Jia sleeps well 😂 at least she is in bed between 7-8 and wakes up usually between 6:30-7:30 BUT she has to be rocked to sleep and will usually wake up 5-10 minutes after first going down, then one hour later then exactly one hour later... then between when I go to bed and morning she will wake 3-4 times, so at the first wake I move her to our bed (husband in the spare room) and side lie feed her to sleep and bed share the rest of the night. I want to work on getting her back into her own bed but I’m just too tired in the night to do anything else.

Naps are a shit show most days. She will not nap longer than 30 minutes. Exactly 30 minutes. Unless I hold her and lie down with her and even then it’s like 50/50 that it’ll be longer. So my problem is that she is both under tired and over tired by bed time because in order to fit in enough sleep I have to give her four naps but with 2-2.5 hour wake windows there just isn’t enough time in the day. I’ve sort of given up on her sleep improving until she’s developmentally ready to nap longer which other short nap baby mums says happens between 6-7.5 months, so any day now 🤞

@Smiffette our nights sound very similar!! What is with the insanely long middle of the night feeds these days? She used to do 5-7 minutes and pass out back asleep 😭

@mrssunshinexxx I had a dream the other night that I found out I was pregnant again already in the third trimester and baby was due soon and I was panicking because how can I look after a newborn when my first baby is still waking all night??

My friend’s first baby didn’t sleep through until over a year and he’s now 2.5 and sleeps well so we just have to power through a bit longer and it’ll happen for us!

Last night was fun. Jia woke at 11:20 and wouldn’t feed back to sleep so I decided to ignore her and hope she either fell asleep basically by herself or got upset enough to feed to sleep. Instead she decided it was the perfect time to practice rolling. She has been doing front to back for a couple of months but last night finally figured out back to front and she was rolling back to front to back to front up the bed until she hit the headboard then I moved her back down and up she went again, over and over for a good 20-30 minutes. Finally got her back to sleep at 1am. We’re both tired today!

Just marking my space! Thanks for the new thread x

Thanks for the new thread! @uktosk

@Smiffette feel so sorry for those of you still struggling with night sleep. I felt I have been struggling last couple of weeks, I think lockdown life getting me down. But dont know how I would be surviving if I was having such little sleep!

We are the same @Smiffette the fact that when I say to anyone she does not sleep through I get a look of surprise annoys me! Sometimes I get a 7-12 sleep but very very rarely, her naps are also terrible, she'll only sleep for as little as 24 mins max 45 but that is usually in the car 🤦🏻‍♀️ most days her day sleep is only around 1 hour to an hour and a half. It gets me so down most days, I know every baby is different and we have been very unlucky with teething early on but I worry she's behind developmentally because of it. 🙁

@UKtoSK don't scare me  I'll be fine !(I hope) nothing can be harder than my mum dying 6 weeks before I had my baby. I need my husband to get back off shore so I can do some more gentle sleep training without him interrupting me !
First month of TTC no2 wonder how long it will take. I am nervous of having a difficult pregnancy as my first one was prettt good minus the dead mum part.

@Smiffette oh that's tough. Don't believe everything they say a lot of people really compete and like to make others feel shit I bet they aren't all sleeping through! Is your LO still in your room? If so that's the first thing I would try changing I think we wake them just by tossing and turning.
I am still BF so I know how emotive and important it can be to some mums so pls don't take offence but would you consider formula ? Or even combo feeding to see if it helps with their sleep x

Hi everyone! Thanks for the new thread. Happy New Year.

My LO had her first night in her own room last night - I missed her being next to me!

I've started weaning! My aim is for my daughter to be a more adventurous eater than I am. 😋 it's a learning curve for me if I'm being honest!

@Missgemini You will get your evenings back, don't worry. We used to be in the cycle of going to bed at 9/10pm and over time we started bath time earlier and earlier each night and now we have the following routine. I think it took around a month or so.

Maybe you can adjust bedtime by -15 mins each day. Also for my LO her bottle intake dictates her sleep schedule (she has 5 x 7 oz bottles during the day).

Bed at 7pm
Wake - between 5-6:30am
Bottle - 7am (I don't feed her straight away when she wakes)
3 x 36 mins (exactly!) naps throughout the day usually spaced out by 2 hours. Last nap usually ends at 3:30pm, so there is a long awake window before bed
Nap times vary based on when she wakes up (and her mood!)

@mrssunshinexxx she moves in to the nursery on 1st January but is back in with me before morning as doesn't seem to resettle after the 2am feed. I don't mind that so much as she was the same when I managed the transition from sleeping on me to the next to me crib. So fully expected it to be a rough few weeks.

No offence, I would absolutely use formula.... if she would take a bottle! She's never taken one despite trying from about 3/4 weeks old and trying multiple different types. Given up now as she's getting the hang of the free flow beaker... unfortunately that's not really practical to give her at night.

I know some of the NCT mums have had various challenges but they are all lucky to have good sleepers and they will all take bottles!

We started weaning at 4 months and she is going to be 7 months on the 13th. I have just started to introduce a tea time
Meal.... I say tea time it's actually 16:30 as I don't want her eating too close to bedtime. She loves food and eating so I am happy about that! she's also crawling, which I had hoped would tire her out to sleep more.

I feel like it's going to be a long slog to get back to the nice 2-3 wakes we had pre the dreaded 4 month mark!
I just need her to be sleeping better by March as I will be going back to work doing KIT days, which I need to do as it's the same time I go in to no pay.

@Smiffette sound like we have similar babies, mine won't take a bottle either screams the house down and I also gave her one when she was about 6 weeks old
But even that was a challenge ! Like you she now drinks either from an open top or a beaker but I think it would get a bit messy to try that through the night or she would thinks it's a game or something because so different to boob in the night ?
Can imagine you must feel abit stressed re kit days I'm lucky that I aren't going back to work so don't need to worry about these factors but I do worry if I had an emergency or ended up in hospital or something now her dad would cope when she won't take a bloody bottle !
She was a really good sleeper pre 4m regression too only woke once or not at all! Was doing 7+ stretches I long for those nights

@UKtoSK Thank you so much for the new thread.

It took me a while to read all the comments. Thank you so much ladies. We're slowly bringing wake up time earlier and earlier to help facilitate the earlier evening bed time. Woke at 745 this morning. Earliest time yet. Will try and cut it by 15 mins each day. Fingers crossed.
Like others have said, he basically sleeps in the bed with me, with nipple close by. My husband said he once saw him helping himself to boob when I was asleep haha. When the sleeps starts, it is generally OK, just the start time is the issue.

Someone mentioned not letting the naps control you. That's such good advice. I've always assumed I couldn't wake him when he was napping, even if I thought it was a bad time. Makes sense to take control of when we want the sleep to happen.

@mrssunshinexxx crossing everything for you re: trying for new baby. I occasionally get excited about it, then think: "nahhhh not yet!" I know it makes sense sometimes to get the babies bit done quickly. Good luck.

Thank you @Missgemini I'm probably crazy!

Love reading everyones routines because i literally sometimes feel i dont know what the hell im doing 😂

LO has her bath 6/6:30pm
She usually settles between 7/8
Wakes for a bottle at 10/11
Sleeps till 6:30am
Her naps are usually every 2½/3hrs, she tends to let me know when she's ready for a nap & are usually for 30mins.

Today we had our mortgage accepted & secured & now there's talks national lockdown being announced tonight.
Hows every coping with restrictions and lockdowns?

@Busylizzie85 I feel the exact same way as you. I have to battle so hard just to get 1-2 hours of naps from her as she only sleeps 30 mins at a time. We were getting 7-12 too and then 3-5 wake ups until morning for a while but the past month or so it’s just constant wake ups from the minute she goes down. I cried last night I was just so frustrated and feeling so incompetent. Feel like I’m just not getting something that everyone else is able to do it. I think being stuck at home all the time isn’t helping. She loves getting out and about and seems to nap better when she has been somewhere but it’s too cold to go out for walks at the moment (due to be a high of -10 and low of -19 later this week here 😫) @Zoey92 our routine is practically the same, why can’t my baby sleep through after 10/11 too?!

Six months old today!

@Uktosk so sorry to hear you're struggling. The weather also sounds incredibly cold where you are. Hang in there. At least, people are being honest and seeking help from others in this group.

@zoey92 congrats on getting your mortgage accepted. How exciting! Moving to your new place would be something to look forward to in these horrible times.

Update ladies. He went to bed at 755pm last night. Woke every hour until midnight. I joined him at midnight. We've woken up this morning at 7. Optimistic for tonight. Thanks for your help ladies :)

Quick poll- what nappies (brand / size) are you in? LO weighs around 8.5kg we think (based on our dodgy bathroom scales ). We have been using Aldi premium which have been great but only go up to a size 3. The regular Aldi size 4 are leaking...

My 6month old is 7kg and been in nutmeg morrisons since birth she's in size 3 now no leeks

Leaks **

We've been using the Aldi size 4s and rarely do we have leaks but they do happen!

@neurologicallyspeaking So, we've been alternating between 2 brands: pampers and mama bear. LO is 10.7kg and a delivery just arrived for his size 4+ mama bear. The last order was pampers size 4, but it started to get tight, so I think the 4+ will be more comfy for him.

I have to say we didn't get any leakage with pampers size 4, even after 12 hours.

Mine is about 8.1kg, we use aldi size 4 in the day and pampers active size 4 at night as a while back we were getting leaks at night and these just seemed slightly better.

Hmm have just ordered Pampers size 4 to try thank you all!

We were doing so well with Aldi! And good for bank balance too!