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!

See, Dreaming, I'm still stuck in PFB mode so am far too risk-averse, convinced that insecure fitting of the rail will lead to entrapment and death. I shall slap myself upside the head and try fitting it as you suggest

Oh, dear Such. Didn't you have a brief period of sleep after a round or two of CC? It never worked or lasted here either.

PS I don't think I even know what the 'recommended' amount of sleep for DS's age is. I would even go so far as to suggest that 'recommending' a set quantity of sleep for an infant stinks of bollocks. Is it really worth getting in a tizz over? Is she happy and healthy enough on the ludicrous amount of sleep she's getting? She's meeting her own personal recommendation. You're clearly not getting your recommended amount and it's doing you no favours, but that's what this expert panel is here for.

Well, have a try elph, if your mattress weighs as much as ours, it ain't budging!!! and DT the Terrible shakes it sometimes I daren't tell you I just lug him in, DH whacks up the rail and evacuates and I make a vague attempt at pulling the duvet away from him and folding it back that side, and checking he's not wedged his head under dh's pillow then just leaving him to it.... . That's once I've got the menace off my chest, which clearly, if you wake in the night, is the only possible place you can go back to sleep

such, maybe I'll move onto worrying about recommended amounts of sleep soon. I'm stuck on diet worrying. Too many fishfingers and chicken nuggets and waffles here. While i do believe chicken nuggets are the toddler food of the gods, there is clearly still the possibility of over-offering. 3 fussy eaters renders me stuck though. Not one meal bar those two I can serve all 3. I despair. Plus, the time to sort out proper, nutritious meals to suit all 3 while in the midst of a super whingey phase. I hate the waking in the night thing. DT the Terrible does it and is then up from 1.5-3 hours, maybe 1-2 times a week. Drives me crackers. Absolutely bonkers. No advice I'm afriad, but I can empathise.

I have a seriously grumpy dh at the minute, and have a cold, two of my three have sticky eyes, depsite much handwashing, eye cleansing etc. Flipping winter. Flipping children.

elph, dreaming that's why I'm back. I need a kick up the arse and drugs.

dreaming I have 3 meals I rotate pretty much: spag Bol, sausages and spaghetti hoops. I then cook broccoli and other veg for fresh floor decoration. Florets look particularly fetching thrown then heeled in.

Oh and mini waffles were a hit with my two for months. Great. But now apparently are devil good and only fit for frisbeeing at each other across the table. DD's aim is better than her elder brothers do her sleeplessness cannot be damaging her that much.

Rail is in and seems pretty secure. I chucked a wriggly DS on the bed this morning while I was making it up to test it and he gave it a thorough assessment. Maybe I'll even be able to get up for a wee in the night now!

I have to say, I've stopped worrying about duvets and pillows. DS comes under the duvet now and sleeps high up on the pillow next to me while I sleep lower down which stops it from covering his face. Even if it did he'd have it off sharpish, or let me know, I'm sure. As we've established he's not exactly a heavy sleeper

Welcome back such and thank you for starting this thread.

Just popping in quickly. We've got the PIL staying this weekend, so busy busy....

Welcome back such you know we missed you :o

I stopped worrying about recomended sleep amounts yonks ago as dd will sleep when she sleeps and no more. I figure they are just averages and dd just needs less then average.

Suddenly feeling somewhat reckless with the bed thing as we have no rail. It is very low though and she sleeps between me and dp so no terrible accidents yet. I had to buy another pillow the other week as dd keeps shoving me off mine. Cheeky little beastie.

We have just decided to do all our lifetime stressful things in one go so as well as buying a flat we are also getting married on new years eve. Don't tell anyone though as it is a secret! We are only planning on inviting 2 friends to be witnesses and nobody else. I just bought a dress for £20 from debenhams. Gosh, its all go here :o

hear, it sounds wonderful! I did the same, married DH at 8 weeks pregnant with dd, had her, moved house when she was 5 weeks old. It'll be wonderful. I love love love the idea of a new years eve wedding for just you two, your dd and two friends. One of our friends did it that way, took their neighbours as witnesses and just did it- they told everyone afterwards too.
Incidentally, I only got the bedrail after waking up to "thump!" "waaaah" one too many times! If you don't have that problem, don't worry I say.

such, I am genuinely delighted to find others do the same ridiculously small amount of meals as me not counting Those mothers who also give tea and coke in bottles . I should start cooking veg for floor decoration again I suppose. I'd even stopped doing that . I am also planning in trying to stop the dc drinking juice or squash... Wish me luck there, I've tried before and they just don't drink water. Ah well.

My lovely DH has given me another lie in today. I didn't get up til 9am. Bliss.

Hi all,

Congratulations hear, we did the same moved house when dd1 was 4 weeks old and got married in a registry office when she was 5 weeks old. Our wedding night consisted of spending hours soothing a screaming dd1 who had an awful eczema flare up!

Haven't caught up, but sorry to hear of all the continued sleep troubles.

We have had a rough week with dd2 who has been ill and teething. Not helped by me being in hospital for the previous two weeks with bleeding. Her sleep routine has gone out of the window so we are back to teaching her to sleep in her own bed and self settle.

On the subject of bed guards, dd2 has one, but is so wriggly she ends up on the floor quite regularly after sliding out of the gap at the end of her cot bed. Last night the cot alarm went off and we found her fast asleep on the rug.

Congratulations hear! I think keeping it secret is probably the only way to keep it simple. Somehow weddings seem to be more about pleasing everybody else than doing what you want.
I got hitched at 6 months pregnant. Which was fine except I'd ordered my dress on etsy before finding out I was pregnant and kept having to send my new measurements.

LOL at your DD asleep on the rug another. I take it she's not the bad sleeper?

jacques, I am pretty sure dd2 is/was stitch's current bad sleeper, except she was improving, so stitch visited us less. Still, she then helpfully got herself diffed with #3 to ensure she'll have good reason to rejoin our ranks

Dt1 up already. Gah. Possibly because I'm a flipping idiot and because it kept him quiet let him guzzle my Bacon and brie baguette in a cafe on Saturday. Dt1 is dairy intolerant, typically reacting with d&v and reflux 48 hours after a challenge. He certainly did to a mere 50g soya yoghurt challenge a few weeks ago. Still, kept him happy at the time. Pass the Bad Mother badge this way, again....

We'll done, Hear! Small wedding here too, carried out in the foyer of a winery. Wasn't upduffed at the time, though, as the location may suggest Wedding night spent with my head down the toilet, haven't touched alcohol since

Stitch! Eeee, it's like a reunion, this. Everything OK with DS? Was it related to the placenta praevia?

Oh, and the only lifetime stressful thing we didn't do when DS was tiny was get married. We had him, moved house and both changed jobs by the time he was four months old. I vaguely recall blaming the start of his truly shit sleep on the house move when he was six weeks old because at the time, in the old house, I was feeling terribly smug about doing his bedtime routine, cluster feeding him until about 9pm, then being able to put him into his cot awake, where he would wave his arms around for a while then fall asleep by himself, and stay that way until 4am. Jeez, I thought I was awesome

Hi all,

jacques dd2 is Stitch who ate my sleep for 17 months then improved only to regress recently.

elph yes the bleeding is because of the placenta praevia, now made more complicated because my placenta is attached to my bladder. I was re-admitted yesterday evening with more bleeding. 29+6 now.

Oh Dreaming I think you do a fantastic job, I too have made decisions that have backfired, but at the time gave me half an hours peace

How is everybody today?
We had a couple of good sleeps on the weekend (only two wake ups) but I lay awake for three flipping hours unable to sleep! WTF! It's so frustrating. We are now back in crap sleep mode. Oh well. It can't last forever I suppose although it bloody feels like it.

I'm really keen to start winding down the BF now. DD is 11.5 months and I was hoping to stop or cut down to one of two feeds a day at 12m. I think it'll be tough at DD is a proper booby-monster and doesn't like formula. I can sneak a bit into her porridge, but the bottle is a no-no. A friend suggested trying different brands of milk until I find one she likes. WWYD? It's really expensive, is it worth forking out for milk that may be wasted?
As of tomorrow I am going to drop the afternoon feed and take her out in the pushchair for her second sleep.

Anyone got any tips for how to progress?

stitch poor you! it must be even worse when you think you've finally cracked it and they have a bit regression. What a bummer. FX it doesn't last.

Jacques - you don't need to use formula at all in food at her age. You can use cow's milk from 6 months in food, then from 12 months she can have cow's milk as a drink as well. No need for formula at all from 12 months onwards, despite what formula companies would have you think, so at her age I think you should save your money!

Jacques - with Elphaba on this one totally. And DD didn't like formula but loves cows milk (pity we're having to try cutting it out for a bit to see if that helps) so theres hope!

Terrible night last night after a reasonably good one the night before (and stupidly I got some hope from somewhere in order for it to be smashed) and having already done a museum this morning, am struggling with what to do with my two in the cold and rain when I'm sodding grumpy.

jacques when I introduced cows milk I expressed and mixed it with breast milk at first 10% cows milk to 90% breast then decreased the percentage of breast and upped the cows every day until mine were on 100% cows.

I am still in hospital so DH had the pleasure of being up with dd2 last night when she woke at 4am and refused to go back to sleep!

Such Normally in this weather I wrap mine up warm and take them out puddle jumping for half an hour then they are so tired they are happy to sit down and watch Ben and Holly while I drink tea and eat biscuits.

Another thing I'd say too, Jacques, is jib the bottle. You're not really supposed to use them past 12 months because they can cause issues with teeth. A free flow cup with/without a spout is fine at her age. DS has been using cups daily with assistance since he was about five months old, independently from about 10 months (the spouted kind - no spout still kind of means carnage at this stage).

We're having teeth issues here. The canines are all coming through at once so DS isn't making it past about 10 or 11pm before he wants in with me. Believe it or not, the pillow and duvet haven't made a jot of difference! I know. I was shocked as well.

I can't pusuade dd to drink any blooming milk at all since stopping bf. She is off dairy so trying all the milk substitutes under the sun but she is just not really interested. She will kind of sip at it, splash it about, maybe have a bit with some shreddies but never any significant amount. I have pretty much given up worrying about it to be honest.

I give her a suplement with calcium in and try and sneak some kara into her shreddies when she isn't looking, apart from that just rely on trying to feed her lots of high calcium food. Thankfully she pretty much eats anything put in front of her :o

Its funny what it is that breaks you with the sleeping issues. I find I can deal with dd waking up and coming in with us in the night. I can even live with being repeatedly kicked half the night. However, waking in the evening just destroys me. Her back molars started coming through a month ago and since then she has been waking every evening around 9.30 and just won't settle for any length of time without coming into bed with one of us. It has driven me to the end of my tether as I just need a few hours in the evening to keep sane. We have decided to have a go at tightening up the bedtime routine, as we have been a bit lax with it, and see if that helps. (Oh, please let it help!)

Sorry your having a bad time of it stich my medical knowledge is pretty limited but placenta to bladder attachment sounds like a bad thing. Still, hope you are getting some sleep while laid up :)

Thanks for the advice re: milk. It was planning to make the switch to cows milk, but on our last visit to the paediatrician she was horrified and said it was too soon. Like so many things the advice in France seems to be the complete opposite of that in the UK. I'll probably do what I normally do and do a bit of both and hope it all works out.

How are you feeling today stitch? I like your idea of taking the kids out to jump in puddles BTW. I may have to steal that one when LO is a bit bigger.

Sounds like you've got her calcium intake well covered hear. I'm with you on the lack of evenings being a killer. I really miss doing craft stuff in the evening. What's your bedtime routine? I think we need a bit more structure (or a tranquilliser gun).

Argh! I hate bedtime! I've just spent 45 mins cuddling and boobing DD until I cracked and she's now running around the living room. I feel so inadequate sometimes. It used to be so simple to feed her to sleep but it's taking longer and longer. Sometimes I'm in the bedroom for two hours before she goes off. Im starting to get resentful at giving up my evenings for this. I dread bedtimes at the moment it's so bloody frustrating.

I can sympathise Jacques I also used to give in and just let her run around the flat until she collapsed. To be honest it was just quicker and easier then trying to do the 'right thing' and get her to go to sleep nicely in her bed as a specified time.

Also, I have to say I found it made not the slightest jot of difference to how well she slept in the night.

So I would say just let her do what ever keeps you happiest and sane. If that means letting her charge around the livingroom for an hour while you piss about on mumsnet then go for it.

What are naps like? How many does she do? Just trying to remember when dd dropped her second nap as I remember bedtimes being just as you describe around the time until she settled to one nap.

I am only now starting to think tjat dd has reached a stage when pushing her a bit to go to sleep in her bed (or at least on me in her bed) might help with her staying there in the night. She is 20 months now and definitely a toddler rather then a baby so I think she now has different needs. Could be wrong though, might not help at all but worth a go.

Thanks for that. I feel so rubbish at this. DD is 11m and has two naps in the day. The first around 10.30 and the second around 3-4pm. They can last anywhere between 15 mins and 2 hours, it's really random.