Misery loves company: riding the mo fo out into Part II

[ElphabaTheGreen]

In our last exciting instalments:

Needles was at breaking point with a screaming 10 mo DD

Hear had experienced the magic of ONE unbroken night!

Dreaming was continuing to confound all with her ability to manage three children on four or five minutes a night, thanks to DT the Terrible.

Stitch was still having her sleep eaten by...erm...Stitch.

Poppy was pondering how the actual fark she was going to manage a newborn on top of BabyAmex's night time shenanigans.

And the desperate Elphaba had turned night duties entirely over to DH with mastitic results.

Join us with your stories of misery and woe in this, the most sleep-deprived corner of MN!

Yay! I win! In your face internet :o

The MN App is sheeeeee-it. I've lost count of the number of my posts it's eaten without warning, and it's always the long ones. Unfortunately, the position of the 'Post message' button on the mobile site means I post before I'm done half the time and the 'Report this poster' button is also easily tapped. Never can decide which is the lesser of two evils. Laptops are just so noughties I CBA MNing that way

DS was off nursery with the squits today so I stayed home with him. He napped for almost two hours after lunch and I was so damn tired I passed out almost as soon as he was in his cot and got some kip myself. T'was bliss! Bet he'll make up for it tonight...

Still not a peep from the OOH GP complaint...

Maybe they have curled up and died of shame and remorse

Or maybe they're away on a much needed spelling/grammar/syntax course?

Both would be acceptable reasons for the delay.

I certainly can't think of any others. :o

I think you should write a second letter to them saying you just wanted to reassure them that you understand how their terrible shame must be effecting their ability to respond (possibly due to death) so would be happy to except their abject apology and acknowledgement of their incompetence in the form ghostly movements of a plastic cup, or maybe knocking on a table. You could even arrange a séance if that would help.

...I think maybe I should go to bed now...

hear you're a fecking genius. I'm getting some of those for winter :) .

I think Dt the Terrible might be one of the minority who don't sleep for medical reasons. Well, sometimes I think that. Other times I just think he's a total PITA..However, we now know he's dairy, soya and egg intolerant. He's happier and more settled. He's even slept all evening a few times, like 7pm til 11 and we've had an evening. Total bliss it was! However last night he frightened the life out of me when I was reading dd her story (so luckily just next door) by coughing, which must have set off his reflux as next thing he was choking on thick vomit... Anyway, he's fine. But I'm sick of cosleeping. He's too wriggly for it to be enjoyable/ a decent sleep for me. He's slept the odd 4 hour block since being on new diet, but i don't think we will get further without huge effort on my part and i currently feel exhausted and too dispirited to try...

elph yeah, say if the communication needs to be by seance you'll arrange it . Seriously though, when my DH did some OOH shifts he often did none for a couple of weeks- maybe he wasn't a regular ooh GP and therefore taking more time to respond?! But really, even if that was the case, manners should dictate someone let you know there will be a response so actually ignore that...

So, it was up 10, 12, 2 (both boys) 3 (dd, having a nightmare) 4 for Dt1 then about 3 feeds to keep him in bed til 5:30. Yawn.

How do you cope, Dreaming? You've said you get a lot of help from nanny, family etc. Do they come and let you have some kip some/most days? Seriously, I think I have it bad, but then there's you

Fairly shit here. DS pretty much never settling for DH now and we're co sleeping again for the second part of the night. I'm finding it pleasanter now that DS is bigger because I'm no longer terrified of smothering him- therefore my sleep is netter quality - and he's turning into a cuddle-junkie. I'm finding it worse, at times, because his method of 'self-settling' involves flailing around the bed like a landed trout usually pounding into my head with various very hard body parts before starting to snore He also DOES NOT LIKE getting up at 6am when we do so I have the pleasure of a screaming, clingy child while I'm getting my breakfast, packing my lunch and getting him ready for nursery and me ready for work. Will he go back to sleep in his cot because he's so tired at this point? Will he heck. He'd rather hang off mummy like one of those monkeys you could buy in the 80s with Velcro on their hands and feet and wail at any attempt to put him down.

I had one of those monkeys! :o

Dd has started nursing like a milk junkie again. She had been on an evening feed only for months now but suddenly wants to feed all day when I am about and then was up at 4am demanding feeding again. I have a terrible suspicion this is merely the slow build up to 18 month sleep regression. She is basically sleeping bloody well mostly though so can't complain too much really. Admittedly I do have pretty low standards and still consider any reasonable stretch of time when she isn't waking every couple of hours to be almost miraculous. Honestly I probably shouldn't even be here any more but this is the only thread I like hanging out on. :o

dream do you think these are allergies he will grow out of in time?

My monkey was called 'Gizmo'!

Oh, and DS no longer rolls over and reaches out endearingly to pull my hair bat at my face to let me know he wants a feed at night. He sits up completely, so I wake to find a dark silhouette looming over me, quietly lifting my shirt up. It's a miracle he hasn't earned himself a punch in the nose with me thinking I'm being groped by a sex pest

Dd once memorably stood up in bed and got my attention for a feed by slapping me round the face. A somewhat startling way to wake up at 2am. She now wanders into our room and stands at the bottom of the bed calling 'mummy, mummy' in a slightly creepy fashion :o

Ha! I've got a sitting up, pinching and scratching baby to demand milk... I say baby. They're 16 months now, and vair adept at escape attempts and running away...maybe they now class as toddlers!? Anyway, I don't normally sleep in the day. For one, its noisy in our house, paper thin walls which do nothing to stop sound transmission, and also dropping off to sleep is something i always find hard. plus my mum finds managing all 3 extremely difficult and my dad just can't cope at all- he gets stressed within 10 minutes. At the weekend I have a lie in one day, til 8:30/9, IF I can sleep through the noise. But mostly, I'm just knackered. Feel better today though as dd and Dt the Not So Angelic Any More both slept through, I went to bed at 9 and Dt the Terrible didn't wake til midnight!!! Before the last two weeks though he's never slept past 9 pm, usually up 5 times before midnight so early bed wasn't even an option.

Anyway today I have them all til DH home from work, he expected back 7pm ish tonight so I'd best get back to my rabble...currently got them all chair dancing over breakfast :)

Oh, I mean all day with no plans yet and no visitors due- dread, dread.... And yesterday I did painting (! stupid plan) glueing and sticking (limited to the toddler after painting experience) playdough, crayons, felt tips. Then it was puddle stamping before I lost the will to live. loooong dayIt better not rain all day again or I'll lose the plot. Fact.

DS, now 14mo, is still not walking without his zimmer (as I call it - four wheeled walker is perhaps more apt, although most of my OAPs don't have 'Fisher Price' written on theirs ) or without two (and no fewer than TWO) hands, so I still rate him as a baby.

What are the signs of lactose/CMP intolerance? DS has started getting quite enthusiastic about drinking cows milk during the day and, at roughly the same time, his bowels have turned to sludge. He's been having milk on cereal and in food since 6mo so it's not a new introduction, but dairy consumption has increased exponentially of late. We can usually expect one, if not two, poonamis before leaving the house in the morning, requiring clothes changes.

Cor dreaming good going on that sleep. Don't want to get too excited but maybe sorting the food has been the key.

elph it certainly sounds like it could be the milk. Maybe do a week without. You could substitute with oat milk or kara the coconut one. I found with dd a week was enough to tell there was a major change when we got rid of the milk and the same with oats. It was very, very obvious that her sleep, poo and general mood all improved.

I have a theory based purely on anecdote and expansive conjecture that food and digestion are a major undiagnosed cause of ongoing sleep issues. With dd once we got rid of the dairy and oats her sleep was much improved and her magic sleep improvement a few months ago coincided with her stomach calming. So I would be interested to see if it does make a difference for your beastie.

Dd is definitely a toddler now. We have come to the realisation that she now needs taking out and running around for an hour after dinner to get her good and tired so she will go to bed at a reasonable time. Seems to have worked the past few nights with her in bed by 8. Hurrah!

Yes elph, I'm with hear, firmly a non believer in "colic" and think our babies are this god awful at night for a reason. Dt the Terrible is like mini elph- with sleep training improved slightly and briefly. Honestly, if you told me 4 months ago he was soya. Egg dairy and maybe more food intolerances I'd have smiled politely to your face but assumed you were totally "woo" . He wasn't miserable all the time. He was cheerful frequently, then v grumpy- which I of course put down to him being sleep deprived and a stroppy baby anyway. He's a different child now, he really is. However, the dietician told me you need to do 1 month dairy, soya and egg free to really see. I'd tried dairy free for him before with no result, but i did 2 weeks and wasn't soya or egg free- which in hindsight is why it didn't seem to help. So, he said 4 weeks without, then add in a set amount of dairy eg half a petit filous. Then as an intolerance reaction can be anything from 4 hours to 3 days afterwards, you see how they are, then at day 3, same amount again, then three days later, same, then next time eg full pot. We've never got that far though, by second lot its been clear Dt the Terrible is reacting- worse sleep, evening wakings +++ diarrhoea, reflux worse.

Just survived solo bedtime, yeeehaa! Dd still not asleep though :/

Oh, and its all 3 free as 1/3 children who react to dairy react to soya as its a similar protein, and think its 1/2 also reacting to egg.

Yes, agree you def need to avoid soya as well. That's why when we did give milk we used the kara. We used oat milk at first and couldn't work out why all dd's symptoms got worse till we realised oats were evil. Interestingly dd won't touch eggs so have no idea if she has a problem with them or not. I don't bother with any milk sub now. Just boob or water :)

That would mean turning him completely vegan which is just not a feasible option, unfortunately, not when he's at nursery full time. There's no way we'd be able to get enough calories into him and cutting soya would limit protein options. They won't let nuts near the building (fair enough) so I don't know what the hell they could feed him. Well, I do, because I have several terrific vegan cookbooks, but they'd struggle. He's such a jolly awkward eater I'd be very worried about upsetting the apple cart on a hunch.

It really is just his bowels. He's happy and boisterous during the day - bizarrely, he never seems sleep deprived or inexplicably grumpy. His sleep is crap but marginally better than it was (only three wake-ups the last couple of nights).

I think I'll give it another week to see if the horrible nappies resolve, and if not, maybe see if I can quietly swap the cow's milk in his cup for something else then see what other reductions I can make if that goes some way to resolving the problem. I can imagine the cat's bum face when he tries it, though...

News bulletin! He's a toddler! Started walking properly today!

Yay for mini-Elph! Good job!

Word of caution, don't be a fool like me...

I went to Clarks to get DD measured for her first pair of shoes when she started walking (she was mainly barefooted until then) and paid 32 GBP for a pair of shoes that I didn't even like!

He's had shoes for a little while because he's been trundling about with a walker for ages and likes to tromp around on the gravel in the garden with long-suffering me holding his hands. A pair of blue Vans (to match daddy's) that he was properly measured for and a pair of £15 sandals from M&S that get him excited just to look at because he knows it means he gets to go to said gravel and be helped up and down the garden steps again and again and again and again and again and again. I am going to need so much corrective spinal surgery at the end if this...