July 2008 - Living in the Twilight Zone of never quite enough sleep to be compus mentus

[libralady]

Just thought I'd better set up another thread as the old one is just about to run out.

m2L - at night I just put her down in the cot and she goes off. By 7pm she is tired and happy for peace, quiet and bed. (Me too!)
In the day sometimes I sometimes carry her about until she drops off, or she will nod off herself in bouncy chair / looking at mobile in cot.
We've got a few little soft books. babies like those ones with black and white pics, but cardboard ones don't always survive the chewing! Try some like this

how did u get her to do that?
does she cry? i cnt do the cry it out, i hate it totally!

no, she doesn't cry - I think the skill is in recognising when she is tired and not letting her get overtired, that is when she cries.
At bedtime the routine is 6 / 630pm bath and pjs followed by last feed and cuddle. As long as she has no wind she is in bed asleep by 730 pm. Sometimes she falls asleep bfing, not very often.

Actually I think the reason she goes to sleep so well is that for a long time I just carried her in the sling until she nodded off, so she never got into that screaming, fighting sleep habit. I just gradually used the sling less and less.

Sorry, just read all that back and sound a bit smug mummy - I'm not honest!!

lol

leah doesnt cry unles overtierd...but sumtimes she falls asleep herself, suckin her thumb, i reali dnt want her to do this... i feel so stressed....

B's sleep still all over the place so I'm not hte best person to ask. Daytime naps you can usually tell if she's been up for about 2 hours she is getting tired so put her in cot she might have a wee grumble then go off.

At nighttime she is usually fed to sleep, I know bad habit but sod it we will sort it out in months to come.

Books think I started about 6 months with DD1 being PFB and all that. The little chubby plastic bath books are good.

IME you cannot stop thumb sucking, don't be so stressed she's still so tiny her sleep will sort itself out in time.

Oh I remember getting DD1 one of those pram books when we were out, so we are walking around pushing the pram DD1 v quiet looked at her and she had eaten half the book.

Have finally got round to uploading some pics on facebook, have a nosey if you want

Minkus - how did last night go?

Pigley - personally I would never shell out for a nappy bag again just buy a normal big bag! However I have a Skip Hop Dash Deluxe which is ok.

Jodie - think no presents for friends suggestion very sensible and no true friend would object!

mama2leah - Alex has a strict bedtime routine, bath at 6pm and then 3oz formula followed by as much breast as he wants in his own room with lights dim. After that we put him in his cot, 9 times out of 10 he goes straight to sleep but if he does start to cry we pick him up and burp him (usually if he is crying it's wind) and then put him down again. He doesn't leave his room after 6:30pm. Even if they won't go to sleep straight away I think following a bedtime routine is useful.

i wanted a bath time routine, cnt reali do that due to ecezma, so now..im suck for routine...not sure wat to do...ne ideas? its normally a quick nappy change, massgae, feed and ROCKING-to sleep..i hate the rocking...

Well I know your DH think's she is too young, and I think the recommended age to start reading them a story is 6 months, but let's face it it's not going to harm her reading her a story!
So, nappy change, massage, feed and then put her into the cot and read her a story, instead of rocking her have you tried just laying your hand gently on her chest so she knows you are there and has the comfort of you?
Try to ensure the routine isn't hurried or stressful as babies pick up on this.

aaaah - sleeping - its a moving target, i think.

i dropped the dummy and the rocking and yes, had to do the crying out but it wasn't that bad and now she sleeps much better. but then i realised recently that instead of the dummy, i was feeding her to sleep a bit (but putting her down awake) so i have been trying to have a little gap between feeds and going in the cot.

my back is soooo much better since we stopped rocking and she sleeps a bit better at night, as she can self-soothe (in theory! the reality is she wakes up and whinges which wakes me up but i am trying not to rush to bring her into bed for a feed and its working, touch wood . . . )

anyway, its soon going to be time to move her into her room (which is a little bit far from our room for my liking but needs must)

i have been showing books to elodie since the very beginning. sometimes she is too tired to take much in but its a nice habit to get in to.

i agree isaidno - about getting that window before they get overtired and grizzly. just a few minutes and it can go pear-shaped.

sk - gorgeous pics! your girls are fab!

lol at changing bags....I haven't had a proper changing bag since ds3...3 babies ago. I have a supply of wipes and nappies always in the car and have a "BIG" handbag to keep one nappy, wipes and change of vest in while I shop etc...always have too amy things with other dc's to have too much for lo.

Re sleep...I totally agree with routine...I am a routine kind of person and Abbie has been great....bath - feed -bed (still awake) and she sleeps through. However, all babies are different...ds4 never slept a full night till he was 18mths and still has some terrible nights and he had the same routine as all the others....my suggestion...do whatever works for you and don't stress out as the baby will def pick this up

ds4 still not great but doc seems to think it is virus so fingers crossed he continues to improve xx

M2L - Poppy sucks her fingers - I'm not worried about that.

You can still do bathing with ezcema. Go to your docs and get some oilatum on prescription for the bathwater. Do not use any soap / bubble bath / etc. After have a nice massage using moisturiser. Are you using Aqueous cream or something else? My DS1 has terrible ezcema and we use Aveeno cream (available without prescription) and Epaderm (a greasy balm). The bath won't make the eczema worse, only if you use bubbles etc.

tjuice - Poppy has been in her own room for a week now and she is sleeping much better - and so am I!! I have the monitor on quite loud - can't quite hear her breathing, but she woke me up by farting the other night.

My little monkey has always fed very well but over last few weeks has been really off milk. Will have about 3 ounces and then lose interest, not hungry in day and seems happy in self. Tried different bottles/teats/person feeding/times/and even formula but no success

He is now 4 months old. I'm lucky if he has 20 ounces a day. I'm so worried he is not getting enough. So far weight gain been ok but surely this is not enough?

Just a quicky -

mummywannabe, 20oz is the minimum, so as long as he's having that on a regular basis, and he's gaining weight and having wet and pooy nappies, I wouldn't worry (hard I know)

As for routine, I take Sam upstairs at 6ish and we have a kick about without nappy, have some tummy time, I don't bathe everyday, but he gets a top and tail, then a bottle, depending on how tired he is I then read him a story (he is a little young for this, but I'm a great lover of books and I reckon it can't harm them to start early, I started at 5 weeks with DS1 and he loves books now, and will quite happily sit for hours 'reading') I put him down awake on the most part, but thats not something that we 'trained' him to do, we were just lucky. With DS1 we used Control crying, it was horrible, but worth it in the long run.

I do try to vary his routine a little as I think if you stick rigid to it, then if you want to go out etc then it can all go to pot.

mummywannabe- Abigail doesnt drink much either.. She will have between 3/5 ozs every 3/4 hours.
Shes still slowly gaining weight and the HV says thats fine.

Re Bed routine- Abigail goes down about 8pm. She has a bath/wash, then clean nappy,Sleeping bag, feed then into her basket usually still awake but sleepy.
She usually has a bit of a shuffle,sometimes a whinge, sucks a muslin and goes off. Sometimes she has a little pat on the tummy or a rock of the basket but is generally pretty good.

Hoping for a repeat of last nights 8-6 again tonight!

Isaidno- at the farting waking you up!

re books- Funny this should come up as a ordered some soft black and white books from Amazon this morning!

SK- Your girls look liked they loved dressing up.

So many people have commented on how much Abigail looks likes me so dug out some old baby photos of me.- She does look like a mini me! You can def see the similarities!
Ive uploaded a pic of both of us as babies on Facebook.

I'll catch up later, but firstly pigley will you sop beating me at Scramble, I'm hugely competitive!!!!

Thanks Jodie and Pigley - feel a bit better about things today.

Re: routine Max goes up at 7pm has a bath, bottle and bed. Goes down well. Interesting what was said about not sticking to routine too much, I feel i have done this with max as he goes nuts if we don't do it right!

Isaidno - Max wakes me most nights farting. Waiting till i can put him in his own room

Interesting - if i wake him to dream feed him he doesn't sleep well at all, if i don't he sleeps till morning. Won't continue with dream feeds once general feeding picks up. Tried dropping it in the hope it makes him hungrier in the day but no!

It's interesting how different peoples experiences are, I would say because our routine is so rigid we find it easier to take him out as when we get to the place where he will be sleeping he still knows what bath,feed,bed mean. We also find it easy to get people to babysit as we know what he is going to do (FAMOUS last words as I am going out and we have a babysitter tonight!)

I find keeping to the routine means Poppy sleeps as well ay my mum's or mil's when we're there.
It does also mean you know when you can go out!

we havent got a new name for the thread....

ahh yeh i gonna try all ur advice, lets see how it goes...

thank u

July 2008 - We have got very good at doing everything one-handed!

new thread here ladies new thread

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh exciting!!!!