June 2008 babies: rolling, sitting, crawling, babbling, teething, laughing, sleeping (not yet!)

[spongebrainbigpants]

New home!

lol at sponge - fortunately she is keenest on toast and hot cross bun bread (if you've not yet discovered this its highly recommended and yummy with butter)... and 5 have replied on your other thread.

5, that's v thoughtful of you thank you .

poppy, not tried that one!

sponge I am excited to hear your progress with Alex so quickly, gives me hope - could you summarise how you did it for me? I roughly know the theory of CC but it helps more to hear in practice how other people have managed it ...

SA, yes, it's surprised us too! Dh keeps on saying, "why didn't we do this weeks ago?"! Tbh, I was too scared of not being able to do it - and dh has done the lion's share of the work cos my instinct is just to go in and cuddle him .

All we do is if he cries we leave him for 5 mins to see if he'll self-settle. If he still cries then we go in, stroke his back/head, say "daddy's here/mummy's here, go back to sleep" and then go back out again really quickly (our mistake before was to stay in the room for aaaages). Never pick him up! We kept repeating that every 5 mins. I think some people say you make the time longer each time (so 10 mins, then 15, etc) but we couldn't have left him for any more than 5 and it worked for us.

The first night was fairly awful as he cried for an hour but we're now on night four and last night he slept through except for a few noises and self-settled every time. I'm so grateful to my dh for doing it cos I've been exhausted since Monday!

Thanks! Makes me think we have just not been systematic enough so far, I keep weakening and picking her up. Plus of course she is still in our room which makes it more complicated.

Dp is proposing we do it in stages: first make sure she always goes back to her cot after feeds, then move the cot up to 'his' room, then do CC properly once she's used to that, finally move her into ds' room once she's sleeping through. All sounds logical enough at 8pm, not so easy though to get her back in her cot at 2am...

But it really does give me hope that it's worked so well for Alex, especially given you were at the end of your tether with it so recently.

Were you still giving him a bottle at night till then or had you stopped night feeds before doing the CC?

It's really really hard - and yes, we had got to breaking point. The v unexpected pg was what finally pushed us into action!

I think your DP is probably right about the stages, might be a bit of a shock otherwise - and not sure how successful CC would be with a baby in your own room (I certainly couldn't have done it!).

You wouldn't necessarily have to make the stages too long though, I wouldn't have thought, but someone else may be able to advise you on that.

Good luck!

x-posted!

We'd stopped night feeding, then the nights were soooo bad, we re-introduced it on Saturday night and it worked, Sunday night it didn't and he was still unsettled and then Monday night was first night of CC. So, no we weren't really feeding him anymore.

I'm interested to hear how you did it too

Thea is finally in her own room and goes to bed with no problems, but when she wakes up in the night (any time from about 11pm onwards) I feed her and if I put her back in her own bed she gets very upset. So she ends up in with me, grazing on me for the rest of the night. At some point DD1 also gets in and fidgets/snores/kicks and from then on my sleep is very poor quality. Because Thea is in with me I don't like shoving DD1 out - I'm sure I'd be tougher if Thea was in her own bed.

(waiting for all the fans of cc to snigger at how the drips others are finally cracking

Rolf, lol at the drips finally cracking!!!

Yes, I'm sure there are a few 'knowing' smiles going on right now!!

I think everyone has their breaking point - some just reach them sooner than others!!

Thanks again sponge. The ridiculous thing is I know this works - did it with ds - even you may recall I did it with Caitlin to get my evenings back a month or so ago and she now self-settles between 8 and midnight, but the rules change after that!

Hmmm. Just as I'm typing this, I realise she self-settles while I'm not in the room. (She just has, in fact.) Then it's only once I go to bed that she refuses to do it. Hmm again. Wonder what would happen if I left her where she is and slept on the airbed in dp's room.....

cross-posted!

Oooh, I've booked myself in for pilates classes. I'm so excited about it. I'm going with a friend whose baby is about 2 months old and we're having the teacher to ourselves so we can get the hang of it. I did pilates years ago but I've forgotten most of it. The teacher was recommended by my wonderful midwife and she sounded lovely.

Has anyone seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? I saw it at the Big Scream last week. It was too long but otherwise very good. Since seeing it I've kept thinking how much easier society would find it if elderly patients with dementia looked like beautiful peachy babies. Neenz have you been to the Big Scream in Liverpool? It's lovely, and I reckon we're coming to the end of the time when the babies will be easy to take.

Sponge so we're not drips, we're dead 'ard with ace stamina

Lol Rolf!! Not quite what I was saying - more that our babies have use wrapped round their little fingers and we're too weak to fight back (or too sleep deprived!!) !

have us wrapped! excuse typing!

Weirdly I am STILL feeling really nauseous as much as I don't feel ill any more. Supposing I'm up the duff?! Surely you wouldn't feel sick that quickly would you? I never got sick last time so have no idea. Also having weird dizzy instances which I did have last time. Mark and i only had a shag on Friday night so tell me it can't be that and I'm just making up reasons I still feel lousy...it was mid cycle, no contraceptives used however but TMI alert we didn't think anything erm...went in (sorry!)

amberc that bug thing can leave you feeling like rubbish for ages - I still can't eat the meal I had from pret the day I had it and that was nearly ten years ago... I wouldn't underestimate how much it takes out of you esp when you're just back to work etc. and on the tmi given I think you're probably ok

pearls/Spongesomeone I need fb help..can't write a note [why is there no dunce emoticon]

can anyone help re edie - esp the old timers (rolf -great news re pilates - I love my weekly session adn small clases definitely teh way to go).

edie very clingy re her dad this morning then burst into to tears but was fine five minutes after he left - also very unsettled this evening (he wasn't back to do bath as usual) and woke up then resettled when he came back in . is this kind of thing separation anxiety? what and when does it hit? [and yes this is related to me worrying re how she would be when I Go back - tho god knows why as the ohter part of it was that she was fine after 5 minutes of cuddling with me this monring).

lol Amber! No I don't think you could be getting symptoms that quickly but it doesn't mean you are not PG!

I haven't heard of the Big Scream Rolf - is that baby cinema? Tell me more.

Sponge, yes I have to say that I am feeling very pleased about your success with Alex. I am really hoping now that everyone else takes your lead and we can all be smug mummies (like me ) with babies who sleep through .

I say smug but Theo is doing his won't go to sleep trick again. DH is upstairs with him now. He did this on Tues too - we put him down at 7pm as normal but he just cried and cried, eventually I brought him downstairs to play so he would tire himself out and DH eventually got him to sleep at 10pm. Well tonight has been similar, he just has not gone to sleep at all - I even tried Medised and it hasn't worked! I think he just wants to be up playing, he is rolling around in his cot (he has only just started being able to move around in his sleeping bag) rolling over and grabbing the sides of the cot. He also had a little nap in the pram at about 5pm both days (about 15mins on Tue and 5mins today) so perhaps that is enough now to make him just not tired. He doesn't usually have a nap in the afternoon. No more late-afternoon walks for me now then!

rolf I've seen it - waaaay too long in my opinion! I could have easily edited an hour out of it and it wouldn't have lacked anything! I found your thoughts on dementia patients very interesting - I've often felt that many are very similar to babies and people find it very frustrating in a way that is different to that in babies.

Whinegums I, too, feel my life is no longer complete without an inflatable yoghurt carrier!

Essie I am so pleased for you - I've felt your bottle refusing pain as you know, and I felt there was very little advice and help with it in the real world - in fact when I asked my health visitor if she had any advice on what to do with Lottie and her bottle refusal, do you know what her helpful advice was??

try putting mustard on your nipples

I ask you? I'm pretty sure that would have led to a baby who neither drank from a bottle or breast fed! Now that we're all over the bottles though, I am her leading authority on the subject and she phoned me to get advice for another Mum! (I think I should have asked for a portion of her salary as commision!

5 glad S and E are feeling a bit better.

Paro loved your fancy dress ideas - we saw a superbaby babygro for sale once - the label said "please remove baby before washing"

neenz sympathies re wakeful theo - have bene having that on/off for edie the last couple of weeks ..and have made sure she is awake from last night at least 3 hours before bed and just let her tire herself out.. I am assuming its a growth phase (she is mega interested in everything at hte minute). Not sure cc would do any good as when she is like this she is just not tired...

lol at your hv glasvegas - I'm wincing at the idea of mustard on your nipples (where do they get these things ? from the hv book of bollox ideas and guilt trips I expect)

loving this thread least plausible lies

Viva, great advice re: mustard on nipples!

neenz, sorry to hear about T refusing to settle - so hard isn't it?

poppy, go onto your profile page, click on the tab that says 'Notes' and then click on the button on the right hand side of the page that says 'write new note'.

If you want to do one of the notes that we've done, then copy and paste the body of the note into your new note and just rewrite it for you.

Does that make sense?!

Right off to bed. Just watched one of the most harrowing episodes of ER I have ever watched and feel exhausted now .