Due Dec 2023 - part 6

[Nclktnntt]

Follow-on from part 5 heading into delivery and motherhood.

@FlyingHighFlyingLow right there with you with wake ups. Last week we finally did a few 4 hour stretches at the start of the night and I thought we'd turned a corner- but the last 4 nights or so have been horrific, we basically napped on and off for 45 mins all night. I'm praying for 2 hour stretches now, never mind 4! He's 11 weeks on Tuesday so maybe it's a growth spurt. Hoping it is as it would mean this torture isn't permanent 😵‍💫

@Cindy1802 it's awful isn't it. Mine went like that at 10+5, lasted until 12 weeks, then back to 2 hour stretches. Hopefully it stretches back out again!

Hey ladies - question around periods post birth: I was on the week before last - this is when I had that episode and lost my vision towards the end, they concluded I was infact on my period and the bleeding wasn't anything else. My period stopped on the Sunday, I've had a week of nothing and then yesterday seems to have started again and I had cramps a couple days ago - has anyone else had two so close together? Is it normal?

I can't really find anything online. I have my check on Tuesday so will ask then too but wondered if any of you guys have experienced this?

Hi everyone! Still can’t believe that everyone was talking about signs of labour and their pregnancies just a few weeks ago!

my LO is 10 weeks now and is doing really well, just wondering if anyone else’s LO is on the larger percentiles? He is currently just over 17ib so around 98th percentile which at the moment hasn’t been a problem however he is very quickly outgrowing things designed for younger babies like the bath seat which is suitable for upto 6 months (before they can sit) so my worry is that although he is young and hasn’t met the milestones an older baby would, he has outgrown things designed for his age. He is also currently drinking 7oz every 2.5 hours in the day so I am anticipating that by 6months if he carries on following the curve then the 9oz bottles may not be big enough for each feed 🙈.
Is anyone else experiencing the same?

My baby is big, 91st centile at 63cm, just over 14lb so slightly lower weight centile but always has been. No issue with bottles as breastfed but he eats constantly. 3-6 month clothes getting too short 😅. He's advanced in milestones though and at 12 weeks can lift his head to 90 degrees and hold for ages. He desperately wants to sit and he's having a really good go at rolling. We have a mr ray playmat (second hand, £15 fb marketplace) he loves playing with so that keeps him distracted and a sit me up chair that supports him (we have a giraffe fisher price one also second hand but there are others). Bathseat is an issue so i just get in and have a bath with him which he loves as obviously can make it deeper and skin to skin.

For those with babies with silent reflux, what were the symptoms?

I'm pretty sure mine has it. Lots of vomiting after feeds, I often hear gagging noises then he looks like he's chewing and swallowing it back down. He also cries a lot of he's put flat too soon.

@FlyingHighFlyingLow ah my fellow mum who is also getting no sleep, we meet again 🤣 is your little one incredible unsettled all day some days? We're on day 3 of being miserable out of the past 5 days and I'm at my wits end. Nothing is making him happy at the moment. Won't let me put him down but still really pissed off about something when I'm holding him. Wants to feed, but pissed off when feeding and pulling off the boob and arching his back etc. And finding it really difficult to get him to nap during the day, and considering how badly he sleeps at night, surely he must be as sleep deprived as I am!!

Yes to every single bit of it. Plus i think his stomach hurts him as when he pulls off boob crying and arching his back I can often hear his stomach making lots of noises. He had a really bad week of it around 11-12 weeks. He's slightly better for it now but not hugely. He's suddenly happier on his mat (and seems to have largely figured out rolling front to back 🙈) which seems to get a lot of gas out which helps. Even trying to cosleep doesn't help, he can feed lying down but now cries and wriggles and arches back. In fact I think I get less sleep if I cosleep as his next to me is slanted a bit which helps with reflux! I gave up tbh for my own sanity with day naps. Accepted they would be 45 min contact naps and tried to do one walking, moved him up to the seat so slanted up again. Spoke to my DH, said sleep very bad and I needed some extra help at the moment. He now takes him for 90 min before work so I can sleep then tries to get him to nap before he goes to try get extra 45 min. If it works those 2 hours are a god send as it can literally double my sleep. Last night he woke 12, 2, 4, 4:30, 5, 5:30, 6, gave to DH 6:30. And that was after it took from 9 until 10:30 to get him to go down to sleep in first place!

@Cindy1802 & @FlyingHighFlyingLow I'm sure it's probably been suggested to you both but have you tried cutting out dairy from your diets? When I was looking into if our little one might have silent reflux I would see that suggestion a lot for breast feeding. Just thought I'd mention incase you'd not come across that, I hope your little ones settle 😊

@FlyingHighFlyingLow sounds SO similar to my LB. He tends to be up 4 or 5 times a night, depending on how early we get him down, but like you one of our biggest challenges is actually getting him down at night. I'm so tired and frustrated that I'm still awake at 10.30 even though I've been in bed for over 90mins! There's the odd night we get him down for 9.30... but then he's up again before midnight and I get depressed its still the same day and we're up again 🤣

I have tried to keep him upright as much as possible this afternoon, and tilted his cot so let's see if that makes a difference. Going to get on to GP tomorrow too. Good luck for tonight 🤞

@Nclktnntt yes I'm also almost 3 weeks into going dairy free. Its helped with things like his nappies, the hysterical screaming, his rash. But it's not helped the general unsettled and uncomfortable days, feeding discomfort or his sleep - so HV suggested silent reflux and said CMPA and reflux can go hand in hand.

@Cindy1802 I know this doesn't cover all of the sleep challenges you're facing but I was finding bed times a real struggle as well, used to go up at around 9 and sometimes she'd still be up past midnight. I switched her bedtime to going up at around 7, and nights have vastly improved. We usually now only have one wake up around 3/4! I didn't expect it to work but she also used to fight naps so much that the earlier bedtime worked for her. Means I get a couple of hours back in the evening and watch her on the monitor - it's bliss! I also keep close eye on her wake windows during the day end will do anything to get her to sleep before she goes past it - sometimes the naps are really short but we're slowly getting longer ones! Also, we use the sleeping otter for bed times and find it a miracle worker. If she's unsettled she just stares at it and then starts to slowly close her eyes.

@Flowersandfloral oh really that's interesting. We started putting our first to bed by himself around this age, but he was sleeping 10-6 by this point so I have just assumed this baby isn't ready for it yet - but after your experience it might be worth a go, considering sleep through the day is a challenge! I am defo keeping an eye on wake windows through the day now even though people say you don't need to this early on - but if they aren't going to take themselves to sleep then we need to help. I'll dig the monitor out today...

I was gifted with sleep last night! Went down at 8 as looking tired and woke at 10, 12, 2, 4, 5, 6, up at 7. I got 3 stretches of sleep of over an hour and feel like a new woman 🤣. Probably only 5/6 hours max overall, but in fewer chunks!

Glad you got a bit of sleep last night @FlyingHighFlyingLow even if it was broken sleep.
My LO has only recently started to sleep better at night, until a couple weeks ago he would be wide awake and cranky 12am - 4/5am. I was getting 4 hours sleep.
Much like others have already said, things started to improve when I watched his wake windows and made sure he napped during the day (with the last nap being shorter before bedtime). The other thing I've been doing is trying to show him the difference between day and nightime, usually in the form of a house tour with him shoulder surfing which seems to be his preferred mode of transport at the moment 😆
I now usually manage to get him to sleep by midnight at the latest with only one feed at around 4am, and sometimes even had 6 and 7 hour stretches without LO waking up.
I've recently started to put him in a love to dream swaddle bag which has made a massive difference to his moro reflex, although I find the zipper tends to dig into his neck so I just open it a couple inches and tuck the edges in so he can't get hold of them with his mouth.

I hope you get more sleep tonight!

Still less than 2 hours between wake ups. Goes straight back to sleep after being fed but still he wakes! He's usually asleep during the feed now, it's just me that's awake!

@FlyingHighFlyingLow you’ve probably tried this already but have you tried just settling your LO instead of feeling? My little girl woke up 2 hours after a 6oz feed and I thought you can’t possibly be hungry so just tried rocking her back to sleep and it worked. Just a thought!

@FlyingHighFlyingLow right there with you. I've tried everything. Swaddling, resettling (which does work sometimes to be fair and it can give me an extra 30mins) earlier bed time, keeping him upright all day, I've gone dairy free. Nothing helps the night time sleep! Had a real bad one last night and then my 3YO got up at 6. Sending solidarity!

@FlyingHighFlyingLow @Cindy1802 we have had all the same issues with sleep. It was getting better with some 4 hr stretches and even a 6hr one. HV actually told us to put bedtime later rather than earlier. So we don't actually do bedtime routine until 9/half 9 now, depending on earlier naps and she then goes down between 10/ half 10. We found this made a difference. Last night she went to sleep earlier at 9 and we had an awful night's sleep again. Up every 1-2 hrs. Keep trying to get some sort of routine in the day but never seems to work!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/sleep/5023404-the-no-sleep-club-young-babies

I've set up another thread for those who are struggling with sleep, so not to bore the ladies on here who aren't having the same issues 😅

I do bed time based on wake window from last nap. Usually goes down between 6 and 7. So short nap = 8:30pm bedtime. Today he went down 6:30 so probably wake up 7:30ish if short/8ish if long. Usually awake 2 hours so that means tonight will be a later bedtime of 9:30/10. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference for me!

Our sleep is middle of the road but we do try and stick to wake windows. If it’s goes over 2 hours it’s bad news!

We do bath, pjs etc at about 7pm / 8pm depending on her last nap.

She then sleeps downstairs with us until we go to bed, so normally sleeps from about 8:30pm (ish - this is very variable!) until we head to bed around 10:30pm

Once we go to bed and she’s in the next to me, she’ll have a feed and do 2 - 4 hour stretches normally waking for the day about 9am / 10am.

So a typical night would be sleeping 11pm - 3am, 3:30 - 6:30, 7am - 9:30am.

It’s not bad really, but would enjoy a 5/6 hour stretch.

I’m debating moving her to her actual cot for the first stretch whilst we’re still awake, but she feels a bit little to be on her own in a room. So for now we’re just using the ‘proper’ cot sometimes for day naps (with limited success).

Our little man's been completely out of sorts since his vaccinations. As anyone else babies been noticeably different? It's like he learnt to really cry (which he did - he'd never cried like that before) but now he jumps straight to the blood curdling screams without warning, where we're completely confused as to what he's kicking off for, it's like he's in pain, he does settle but it takes time and he's back to our happy little man again. It's been 3.5 days now. He had a high temp for almost 2 days and needed calpol every 4-6 ours for almost the full 2 days. He also seems to be really uncomfortable and gassy and screams in his sleep right before letting of a ripper.

I'm hoping someone can tell me their little one was like this and they settled and was back to normal after x days 🤞. I really hope this isn't a permanent change 😢

@Nclktnntt mine was the same after his first lot of jabs. It’s like he’d learnt a new vocal level of screaming!
im not sure if it also tied in with a fussy stage too but he was a bit out of sorts for a few days.
He had 12 week jabs yesterday and they went much smoother. He cried but didn’t scream and was in a lovely mood for the rest of the day. I was expecting a grissly baby again.