Dec '09 - We're learning to roll, we're learning to eat, all we need now is to learn how to sleep!

[hendo77]

New thread everyone...!

Hello everybody! Al, sorry to hear about the comments at the end of the holiday but agree you dh sounds like he said all the right things (and meant them obviously!) and I'm sure centre parcs will be fine with some of your family there too. Well done on holding back though and keeping the babysitting options open!!!

ABF - your boss sounds like a right idiot, I didn't know you had a bad back, hope the op will sort it all out and you don't have to wait long for it.

Lee - not exactly nice weather here as such...

The operation was going to be 8th December, but I was to keen because Jakes b'day is the 4th and Elizabeth's is the 20th then obviously we have christmas. So he offered 5th January or 19th January which I said I was happy with.
Im not to sure whether th op will help with the pain tbh. It's going to be fusiing the spine into place how it is, so that it doesnt get any worse and completely render my lung useless!
Boss is an idiot, you're right, it must be quite confusing for people at work because some days I can be like a contestant on worlds strongest man, I can lift alot and run up and down the stairs numerous times, but yesterday I was having a bad day and just coulsnt do the work. I think in a way that makes the inconsideration worse, because it's not like im coming in for my every shift and not being up to standard. Grrr. Well luckily he's off on holiday for a week now, so we can all have fun at work again!

Lots to read on here!

Al, I think that you did very well not to react towards the in-laws. Biting your tongue was probably the best thing to do in the circumstances but I bet it was very hard to do. Sounds like your dh is lovely and supportive though.

hendo, hope that the weather gets better for you.

ABF, work sounds really tough for you. At least you have your op date to aim for but it must be difficult, especially as you are not sure if you will actually feel better afterwards.

I got my rota for work today, will be doing 28 hours/week, and I'm sooo pleased to see that I'm off for ds's bday, Xmas and New Year. Don't really care about NY tbh but really happy about it all. Starting to look forward to going back, missing some more adult time and gossip.

Had a good shopping spree trip today, got a couple of maxi dresses, a bikini, and stuff. Got a bargain dress in River Island, reduced to 7.50 from 30! I think I could do with a pair of shorts and dd needs some shorts and t-shirts and a new swimming costume. Ds could do with some bits and dp needs shorts and swim shorts.

Just been out for dinner with DH to somewhere very posh and expensive

My Mum babysat and even managed to resettle Catherine when she cried. I swear she's getting worse not better! Last night she woke at 12, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7!!!

Going to give it a couple of weeks so we know she's resettled after holiday, then I'm going to have to try something to get her to sleep better.

Suggestions so far are letting DH try to settle her so she goes back down without milk and hopefully stops waking for it and trying a dummy to satisfy the suckling need. Not sure about the dummy one given her dislike of teats but I'll try anything right now to at least get back to just one feed a night!

Posh dinner sounds lovely! Fingers crossed for you that Catherine's sleep just gets better now she is back home and more settled again. No idea if it is helpful, but a friend of a friend had some sleep training person help her when her baby was about 8/9 months old and they were told only to feed her after 3 hours had passed initially eg if put to bed at 7 after a feed don't feed before 10 and be really strict so if baby wakes up even 5 minutes earlier you had to make them wait. If they wake before 3 hours was up she was told to do pick up put down either until he went back to sleep or until the 3 hours was reached. I think for her the first night it meants lots of crying and fussing, second night much better and after 3 nights her baby was going 3 hours and then not long after started having a feed at 10/11 then sleeping through. Just a thought anyway!

Lee - think you might be right, it POURED with rain her yesterday, driving back from where we had been it was so bad I had to just stop the car as I actually couldn't see a thing! Looks like it might be nicer today though, the blue sky is trying to break through!

LaDiDaDi - nice to have all those special days off!

Yay for blue skies for hendo and a lovely dinner for Al.

Might have spoken too soon on the Xmas and NY off as got an email from my boss asking if I couldcome into work at all on Sept1st to discuss "Xmas and the Bank Holidays". I can't go as we'll be coming back from Mallorca that day so have offered to go in over the next week. Still going to hold out for Xmas day off, hoping it's just because Xmas day and Boxing day are on Sat and Sun so the Mon and Tue are also BHs, don't mind doing either of the BHs so hopefully it we be ok.

Thanks Hendo. That sounds like it might be useful. I keep hearing about pick up put down but am not sure exactly what it entails. I'm going to go look it up....

Had another awful night last night and she didn't want to go to bed tonight. I'm wiped out - really got to fix this soon.

Hi, not gone off on our hols yet, we are going tomorrow now i think as had a friend staying this weekend.

Just to say, i hope your back feels better soon ABF. and i hope that the op that is being proposed wll help to solve the problem.

Al, hope you get some sleep soon. someone i know saw a sleep therapist for their LO and it really worked for them.

if i don't get chance to log on tomorrow, i hope you all have a good week.

Oh dear Al, hope you get some sleep soon - do you think it's linked to teething at all or just disruped sleep? With pick up put down (PUPD) you basicaly pick them up when they cry and soothe them, as soon as they stop crying you put them back down in their cot all the way down and take your hands away even if they start crying on the down. You can then pick them straight back up if you need to if they start crying again and basically you just do that repeatedly. We found it worked in some situations and not others. Tracy Hogg in the baby whisperer says it takes on average 20 minutes, in the book I have it says it can take up to two hours for feistier (sp?) babies. If you are happy to leave them crying for a bit (not hysterically obviously!) then you can do the PUPD for 20 minutes then leave them for 10 then PUPD dor 20 minutes then leave them for 10. (that's called PUPDCD (pick up put down cry down) in the book). That's the basics of it anyway if that saves you any searching time!!!

I wouldn't try it though if she is teething or ill or anything and tbh if Imogen gets upset and won't settle or feed then I just take her out of her room for 10 minutes an play with her so she calms down and wait for her to rub her eyes then I try again and I find that works for me now! I'm sure that all sleep experts would say that is bad but it makes it the quickest way for us to get her back to bed with the least amount of crying!

Another not so good night last night with 3 wakes. She was mainly doing 1 wake up a night before holiday with only the odd bad night so I think it is the holiday which has messed things up.

Had her weighed today and she's 13lbs 8ozs now (and 8 months old tomorrow). The HV says that she is old enough and heavy enough to be able to go through the night wothout a feed now and suggested that she is probably feeding more because she likes it now rather than being hungry. She suggested that maybe it was time to get a little tougher but agreed that I should give her a week or so to get resettled at home before I try.

I think that way to go might be to get DH to get up and try to resettle her first as obviously, he has no milk and so she might not expect some whereas if I go in, I will smell of it and only wind her up more if I won't feed her. He thinks that she will just cry harder for me so I should settle her. I can't decide of he has a point or is just being lazy.

He also thinks we should go cold turkey and just refuse to feed her till morning whihc I think is a little harsh. I'd be happy to just get her back to one feed a night for now and work on ditching that in a few more weeks time.

Thanks for the PUPD info hendo. Whatever I do will have to involve the least amount of crying possible as Catherine's room is right next to Alex's and her crying wakes him up. Keeping her quiet is probably how we've got into this situation in the first place though so maybe I just need to bite the bullet. If he's going to get disturbed, I'd better sort this before term starts again!!

Last nigth was better. I fed her at 12.30 and had her back in her bed by 1. She woke at 1.20 looking for a top up but I was strong and just rocked her to sleep and she slept till 5am!! Had her in bed with me and she went back to sleep till 5 to 8!

Pity Alex woke me up at 7

Was hoping for another good night tonight but have complicated things by chopping the end off my finger while making dinner. Took an actual chunk off!! Luckily, it was mostly nail so I avoided stitches. Means my left hand is agony though and I can only take Paracetamol because of the BFing. It's going to make holding her quite uncomfortable.

Sounds like Andrew is definitely teething Lee. Try keeping a damp flannel in the freezer. If you give it to him to chew before a feed, it should numb his gums enough to make it more comfortable for him.

And don't worry about letting off steam. We don't mind.

A whole day without a single post!?!?

Can't let that happen :)

I'm still here, but on holidays at mo! Glad the sleep seems to be a bit better (well relatively anyway!). We've had some ups and downs here as well on holidays - I think Imogen might have a slight tummy bug as she has woken up with dirty nappies from naps and sleeps 3 times today, which never happens usually! Anyway off to play games now... before yummy pudding!

I'm still here too!

Ds is not sleeping any better, or at least he sleeps ok but still wakes up twice for feeds so lots of empathy here! For now I'm prepared to go with it but we'll see how I feel when I get bck to work!

My news is that we have a holiday booked for Puerto Pollensa in Mallorca for a week from 25th August. Really happy about it but just stressing about car hire, it would appear that there is only one car larger than a Ka on the whole island and they want to charge 800 quid for it!

Yey for your holiday news LaDiDaDi

for you Lee amd for poor little Andrew. I hope he feels a little more settled soon and you get to go to Spain. Hopefully, it's just teeth.

Well last night I fed Catherine after the bath at 7pm as usual and laid her down to sleep. She woke at 8pm and I topped her up. She woke at 10.30pm and I gave her some more in the hope of a good night's sleep - so when she woke up at 12.15, I was tired and fed up and we decided to try the 3 hour gap between feeds thing being as we've been home for a week now and everything else is settled and back to normal.

It took us until gone 1am to resettle her (I was going to give up at 1.30) and then she slept till 4.20. I fed her again and she slept in our bed until Alex woke us up at 6.40.

Not a good night but I am slightly encouraged by the fact that she went back down for more than 3 hours. She can't have been all that hungry - either that or crying on and off for all that time (she kept settling but wouldn't be put down) tired her out Either way - I need her to start sleeping better soon. 3 or 4 feeds a night is sooo draining and I can't cope with Alex too on so little sleep.

She's 8 months old now. The HV says she's physically able to take on enough calories in the day now to be able to sleep through. I'm not being cruel am I?

Al, you are definitely not being cruel, she's probably doing it a bit for comfort and a cuddle with you. In my (very limited!) experience the better rested I and Imogen are with less feeds in the night the better it is for both of us during the day. You definitely know what is best for both of you though and should go with your instincts. (I get the impression in this case they are to do less feeding in the night!).

Sorry, just reread that post and realised it sounded like I meant Catherine is waking on purpose which wasn't want I meant!!! Anyway fingers crossed for you for tonight...

ps just saw an advert for Flamingoland on TV - I had never ever heard of it until the other week until you mentioned it on here!!!

It's OK Hendo, I didn't read it like that.

So far so good tonight. She went down at 7pm and we haven't heard a peep yet. We're sticking with the 3 hour thing and are thinking of digging out the dummies for if she's desperate to suck. Prepared for another night of screaming though, have even turned down running tomorrow 'cause I know I'll be too tired (not to mention, my finger is really sore) Want to get all the screaming out of the way before Alex goes back to Pre-school in September. We can easily have quiet DVD days during the holidays like we have done today because we were all so tired, but it won't be so easy when he has to be up and ready and well behaved at school 3 mornings a week.

One good point though - after last nights broken sleep and screaming, Catherine managed a 2 hour nap this afternoon which is unheard of!

I hope everyone else is well and getting more sleep than us. Flamingoland brings back memories. I don't think I've been there since I was a child.