June 2008: Nine months in, nine months out

[Essie3]

Here's to the next nine months!

Morning. Aberdeen - it's very frosty and blue skies here too. Absolutely beautiful.

Ok, so last night went like this:
6.40 bed, cried for 11mins
7.30 woke up cried for 30mins
8.40 woke up cried for 10 mins
1.45 woke up. BF back to cot
4.30 grizzled and went back to sleep less than 10 mins
5.30 woke up cried for 45 mins, v angry until I picked him up, fed, changed and started the day at 6.15

On the positives:
One BF between 6 and 6
Discovered he can get himself to sleep afterall, sometimes quite quickly

On the negatives
Not sure what I should have done at 6.15. He had been in the samef nappy for 12 hours so felt he needed changing, but did I cave in too early?

Amber, how did you get on?

Hi guys and thank you all for your cotton wool - it's keeping me very warm .

Ali, sounds like a good start. My HV said that if LO wakes at 6am that there is not much you can do to get them back and that's a good time to wake for them (although early for us!). She said you don't need to get up but nothing wrong with bringing them in with you. We do. Alex comes in at about 6.30pm and it's lovely. Like BDQ, I miss my night time snuggles with Alex .

Well, I feel a little bit better this am - my lovely wonderful and amazing IVF consultant has offered to scan me for free. Not only does this mean we won't have to hang around the RBH for hours, she is also doing it two days earlier (Tues) and she knows us really well. If anyone is going to give us bad news I would want it to be her . It's a 2 1/2 hr round trip to the clinic but we'll still be back quicker than we were yesterday and hopefully Alex will get a nice long sleep too!

Anyone see ER last night? So sad. Again .

Sponge thanks it's good to know about what to do after 6am. He often wakes for the day then normally so what you hv says makes sense.

Your consultant sounds fantastic: just the kind of person you need to have looking out for you at the moment. I am sure waiting till Tuesday will be difficult once more, but we are all waiting with you. By the way my Mum wanted to know how you when I spoke to her earlier on: she is rooting for you and spongelet too!

STOP PRESS: HV talks sense!!

We've never succeeded in getting Alex back to sleep at that time unless he's in our bed, and even then it's 50/50 as to whether he will sleep more or not - depends on the kind of night he's had.

So sweet of your mum . And yes my consultant is fantastic - I love her to bits. That's why we do such a long trip to our clinic even though there is another one much closer. Wouldn't trust anyone else now.

Great news, Sponge. Bad night here although Tim was back after several nights away so he got to deal...!
Ali sounds good on the sleeping! Although it's sad, dropping the night feeds was the main thing here, because now he only wakes when something is wrong not out of habit.

Just a thought - Peter goes to bed quite early compared to Iestyn - Iestyn is around 7.30-8 for that final feed and bedtime. Course, it means he sleeps 7.30-7 (or 6 if we're unlucky - and we get up then because he won't go back to sleep!) rather than the full 12 hours. This is just a thought, NOT advice - particularly given that he woke at 7.30pm anyway.

This is amazing: P went down for a morning nap at 9 in his cotabd fell asleep by himself within 2 minutes. This NEVER happens normally

Essie, you are right about the early bedtime. It is because he is usually knackered by then and is really ready for sleep. If I could get the afternoon nap working more reliably and for longer I think a later bedtime might work better in terms of knock on effect in the morning.

Sponge - I'm at how you were spoken to at the hospital but so that your IVF consultant has come to the rescue. Hugs and cotton wool heading your way.

Hellooo - have been lurking and checking the latest on Sponge and Spongelet, but not much posting.

V interested to read about others sleep stuff. We decided to go for CC on Wednesday night. B almost always goes down perfectly at 7 - into cot awake but sleepy after bath, feed, etc, I kiss him goodnight and leave, and he drifts off within 10 mins, sometimes straight away. Then he wakes up after 45mins - 1 hour, up til now one of us goes in and pats and shushes him til he's sleepy/going back to sleep. If he grizzles, we stay until he stops, which can mean until he goes back to sleep, but it usually only takes a few minutes. We don't take him out of his cot. He will wake up a few more times, maybe once or twice, and when he wakes after 10.30 I feed him. After that he's awake at least another twice during the night, sometimes I bring him into bed, because then we all get more sleep.

So, as usual he woke about 50 mins after going to sleep - left him 3 mins, went in, shushed, and left, went back in after 3 mins, then 5 mins x 3, then 10 mins - sort of lost count, but it went on for 2 hours, by which point B was hysterical and I was distraught. Gave up when I went in to find he'd flipped over, crawled to the end of the cot and was banging his head against it and inconsolable. I picked him up, and it took another 30 minutes to calm him down.

Last night, when he woke after 45 mins, he started to get really upset straight away - I said to DP I think we've traumatised him from the previous night. I may have given in too soon, after one night, but I can't put us through that again. I am desperate for a full night's sleep, or even some good unbroken stretches, but I won't be doing CC again for a while yet.

I'm not criticizing any of you who are doing it (in fact I'm envious of your success/resolve), but it's not for us at this point. I suppose if I was working again, it would be a different story.

Allnew - thanks for remembering and asking, we go to Madrid next Sunday - am apprehensively looking forward to it IYKWIM, our first trip abroad with B. Does anyone know - we are going via Heathrow, flying BA, will we get our buggy back between flights?

Whinegums, that sounds v traumatic for all of you. I am sure I would have done the same thing and stopped at that point too. B's sleep patterns sound v similar to P's with the waking after a sleep cycle in the evening. It is really tricky to know how to approach it for the best. All I can say is that P seems happy today so I don't think so have caused him too much damage.

So my friend who went into labour yesterday had a little boy called Charlie 8lb 8oz which is quite a weight given that his mum is very small .

Had another friend over for lunch with her two. Her toddler had a bit of a wobble on the way to see the ducks to cut a long story short I had to sit P down on the grass, turned my back to get the bread and when I came back P was "eating" god knows what off the ground including a peanut sized stone . I am now beating myself up not thinking of the choking risks, but I guess I have learnt a lesson.

Have skimmed really quickly so apologoes to thos who I miss out

Amber we have 1600 lambing ewes in our yard will take some photos to show you, last year wasn't alloed in because of being pregnant but this year I can.

Sponge fingers crossed

Sleep, Sebastian is Ok he still drinks 5-6 botles of milk a day we are doing BLW and sometimes he eats and other times he doesn't. My SIL on the other hand had 8 years of my nephew not sleeping beyond 5.30 which only stopped when she and my brother split up.

We had a great trip and are back and exhausted, I have to say the DC's wre fab and coped for long stretches at a time in the car, Edie loved the ferry and it was so good to see Sebastians godfather.

Hello all,

Not really been able to catch up.

sponge so sorry your consultant was so insensitive. Fingers crossed for the nxt scan.

DS is very busy at the moment. He likes to touch everything and climb into anything! He is very busy compared to the girls.

DD1 still sometimes wets the bed so I took her to the dr who did some tests. She called back this morning saying that she had a lot of white cells in her urine but needed the full repoet to know what's causing it. She's not showing any sings of infection to me so I was suprised. I have to wait for the full report to know if it is infection or if she needs futher investigating. If the results don't come back soon I'll be worrying all weekend. I wish she hadn't called this am.

Oh also forgot to mention that my village was on Breakfast news yesterday when we were inundated by snow, Edie was so excited when we got back this morning.

And DS is on all 4's but is also doing abit of commando crawling (but it isn't called that in RL it is Leopard crawling)

Sponge - I hope everything is OK - it's very early days and so I don't suppose they can tell anything yet. I hope that the scan with your IVF consultant brings you good news.

Ali - I'm sorry I did laugh at your peanut sized stone - they are monsters aren't they? When I leave Luke on the carpet he always finds a tiny bit of dust or dirt and immediately tries to put it in his mouth - you can't look away for a freaking second!

Milk - good glad others are still feeding plenty of milk. I thought if I dropped a feed he might eat more solids.

Sleeping - well last night I left him. I vowed that at no point I would go into him unless it sounded like his was going to vomit. He woke up at 11 (for a feed which we still give him), 3.15, 4ish and 4.45 and I left him alone. He grizzled (love that word) for about 5 minutes each time and then went back to sleep on his own - no dummy. I got him up at 6am which is about 30-40 minutes alter than usual so I must say it was a success. Next thing is I need to get used to not listening out for hearing him and waking up at set times. It's difficult as I think my body is now set to wake at 3, 4, 5 etc.

Five - 1600 sheep - wow! I would love to see pictures of the lambs - I love 'em - always wanted to feed one.

Ali I never know what to do about early morning waking either - I tend to feed Fraser but then he's still up for the day.

sponge great news about the scan on Tuesday, that will be a much nicer experience all-round. I'm guessing she's probably much more used to looking at very early scans too so would be able to give you better information.

5 welcome back! There's a lot of sheep around here and I've been checking out the fields for lambs but I think it's too early yet. I can't wait to take DS1 to see them.

whinegums sounds like B is not having any of the CC! You can't force kids to do what they really don't want to, and I'd be like you, hating to cause that much stress. My boys have always responded really well the next day after CC, more like Ali's Peter (extrapolating from your napping success).

Amber sounds like you've had a great success though - are you personally wearing earplugs? I find that helps me a lot and DH listens for Fraser. Since he responds slower anyways, it means we give F a chance to go back to sleep on his own.

Amber - that sounds like a much better night last night. The peanut sized stone was funny, and a bit gross because of the thought of the bird poo there. It was only about an hour later that the choking thing even occurred to me .

Well, tonight I did the same CC routine and he went to sleep before the first 5 minute buzzer went off.

whinegums after my last post I pondered your cc trauma and I thought of one teeny tiny positive: at least you now know what happens when you try it so you won't have the unknown factor bouncing around "if we tried cc then we might solve this". Not sure it's much consolation. However at least it proves you were in my thoughts this pm.

Sponge, what a hurtful thing to say. Fingers crossed here. It could be too early for a heartbeat? x UDC

Goingto - what a worry about your dd, let us know the results.

Ali and Abdn, thanks. Ali, that's a good way of looking at it. For weeks DP has been saying 'leave him to cry' and now he knows it doesn't work, and hopefully those 2 hours will soon be forgotten by B (but not by me!). He has been a little more unsettled tonight, took more resettling on second waking than normal, so maybe he hasn't forgotten completely yet. Glad you are getting good results though. I'm not discounting it completely, I wouldn't rule out trying it again in future.

Goingto, hope your DD is ok.

Debs The gp rang just before 8 asking why I hadn't picked up the prescription. It was because the receptionist told me the results weren't back - she wasn't very pleased with them. I had to rush over to get DD her prescription though won't make it to a pharmacy until the morning. The gp has also requested a kidney scan. I feel really awful as I had no idea she had an infection as she really isn't showing any signs.

On the sleep front, as my mum was here she put ds to sleep and he fell asleep by himself in a couple of minutes! He doesn't done that for me for months. Right now he's asleep on the sofa and it the first evening for a very long time he hasn't been in my arms! Anyone like to borrow my mum!!!!

Goingto - sorry only skimmed your post initially, just reread the news about your daughter. How difficult to have to wait the weekend for more information. It's easy to say try not to worry, but v difficult to do. How is your daughter in herself?

ali she is fine, no probs at all. I now have the results and have a prescription.

whinegums, you poor thing - how distressing for you both. FWIW's I wouldn't have carried on with CC in those circumstances - it doesn't work for all babies and it doesn't look like B is ready right now. Hope things settle down for you both soon. Big hugs (if I can reach you through my cotton wool! ).

Ali, you need eyes in the back of your head don't you?!

5, you sound like you had a lovely trip with your family. Btw, I was telling my dh the other day about the pg women and lambing thing cos I remember you mentioning it last Spring - but I couldn't remember why?! Please explain to a townie why you can't go near sheep when they're lambing?!

I've never heard of leopard crawling!

Amber, wow! What progress in one night - go girl! That is fantastic, well done! It does take some time to get your own sleeping patterns back on track but hopefully you're not too far off a good night's sleep.

going, sorry to hear about your daughter - hope you get the answers soon.

AH, you're right about my cons having much more knowledge of early scans and also she'll be doing the scan and interpreting it. At our local hospital the sonographer did the scan and the doctor reported back to us without even having seen it! Not ideal .

Hi to everyone else .

Hi to everyone else.