Misery loves company: to ride it out or Something Must be Done- pick your camp :)

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Hello again all- may the sleepers continue sleeping, the new arrivals due or here get the idea very quickly and the rest of us see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Come on then elph do us a semi- clinical trial of how much baby rice you need to eat to fill up your squish

Foot update (you have to have one because it's plaguing me, the guilt, the guilt) . Day 5 post injury. DD still can't put her foot down but can tiptoe around reasonably well now. Wound less bloody and nasty, hopefully closing. It is incredibly inconvenient though Oh, and the panic? that's because she has an early birthday party 10 days before the event on Saturday. which she's wanted all year. With a bouncy castle. She's not going to be able to bounce is she? Then the next weekend we are going away for her actual birthday week. Oh please let her be walking normally by then.

Wow, all these fAnn's coming out of the woodwork. DT the T is not being totally marvellous (I'm at my mum's with the children) but is going to sleep ok ish (no worse than the others) and though I did slip up yet again and get in his bed in the night I also put him back at 5:45 and he waited for his light in a new place. Surely that's good? ! FX for a sleep through.

Yeah hear you must be so totally over sleeping by now, it's totally overrated, sleep is for the weak big fat lies

Oh please, go easy on the cake talk. I'm trying so hard not to descend into consuming a steady stream of crap like I did with DS1 to combat the BFing starvation and non-sleeping exhaustion. DH has been a terrible influence while he's been on pat leave as he's been treating it like a holiday and plying me with cake and biscuits. He's back at work today, though, so I'm sat here with a cup of sugar-free decaf coffee and a banana. Mmmmmm...

I'm impressed with the change of location, Dreaming, that DT1 is still retaining some of his improvements. Still too frickin terrified to try a different location with DS1 in case it ballses anything up.

elph
I think it/I have ballsed it up actually. He was dreadful last night though again stayed out when put back for the last time at 5:45. never go anywhere

DT2 and DD have slept through both nights though. DD still can't put her foot down, day 6 post injury. High panic status starts on Thursday if she still can't. just warning you

Elph coffee and bananas will only fill you for five minutes. You need a list of meals you can make fast and in large quantities. I am using the term 'meals' loosely here but I did things like cook a big pot of millet in chicken stock, and then reheat bowls of it as needed with very basic but filling toppers (tuna, roast chicken from the fridge etc with some beetroot/gherkins from a jar for the lowest effort gesture towards vitamins). Ordered millet online in large bags delivered to my door. I loved eating well back when I had a life, but I've become totally utilitarian about it.

Dreaming it can't have gone south for good, DT1 has now learnt skillz and surely one night (or a few) can't undo that!

Four weeks into our programme and DS is still raging in his cot nightly. Admittedly I intervene much more than Ann would probably approve so I may be the architect of my own misery.

Peregrin My freezer full of batch-cooked, complete meal wonderments would make Nigella weep, I assure you! Coffee and banana was a snack which did nothing whatsoever to stop me from thinking about a massive slab of mud cake topped with lashings of ganache and buttercream

I caved. I made brownies. Mary Berry says 'cut into 24'. I might stretch it to about six.

Pah! To Mary Berry, she isn't breast feeding and sleep deprived :)

Ah heck, just eat the brownies Elph, with a toddler and a newborn to look after you deserve it! :)

Dreaming hope dt1 has settled down a bit now after your trip away.

Peregrin hoping that the magic of Ann kicks in soon for you soon.

Slightly better sleep here in that ds is waking 2 hourly instead of every hour. Two teeth are about to break through the gum at the bottom, so hopefully I will get a little respite between them and the next set. Dd2 has been having more settled nights since getting over a cold and bed times/nap times are getting easier too.

Elph, what about Greek yogurt, preferably with honey and blueberries? Very filling, and quite nice even if it isn't quite brownies.

DH was trying to get DS back to sleep for two hours last night ,while I was snoozing happily with earplugs in the spare room.

We've had a few occasions like that recently, so I wonder if it's the 9 month sleep regression.... He used to at least sleep through one sleep cycle, even when he woke up every forty minutes.

Have a check-up with our HV today so will ask for advice. Not exactly holding my breath here, but Ann says she's booked out on her website so what can you do?

Anyone willing to bet against her suggesting CC?? I offer one to four in brownies that she will probably got the odds arseways, never got the hang of it

I've been eating Greek yoghurt with berries/nectarines/peaches until it's coming out my pores. I needed empty calories, dammit!

Well, I had both boys by myself for the first time today and I got them napping AT THE SAME FRICKING TIME . I texted photographs as evidence to DH and told him to buy a lottery ticket.

We have all come down with a cold, every single one of us. DS has temps of over 38 degrees. Back to hourly wakings and rocking/ feeding to sleep. I really do think we will be the first to fail Ann's programme. sits in the dunce's corner

Clearly I am unable even to operate the cross-out feature

No peregrin it took ages here. We have been working on bedtimes for 3 months now. They are only just getting easier. Illness is a totally different thing.

Peregrin Ann extended our programme by a week when DS was ill because it is a completely separate issue. He was awake hourly as well, but back on the wagon again after a couple of days.

We had a week break in our programme for me going to my mums and a few days break for illness.

Oh, and a week on from going to my mums we only had one wake up last night. clawing my way back

I agree with the others peregrine. When illness or teething get involved all other plans are off in this house. Also when either me or dh go away.

Dh is away at a festival (or as dd says "gone to see the music people"). Dh does more childcare then me and this is the first time he had gone away, so it has really unsettled her. Last night I was back to sitting by the bed with her until she dropped off.

Day 29...Night time nappy changes slowly killing me...drowning in chunky yellow, slightly sweet-smelling mire...send help...going out...I may be some time...

Don't walk towards the light elph!

elph you've nearly done the hellish first month. You will make it. Night nappies was months for us. give up all dairy, do it now, just in case

The worst 2 weeks of my life as as a parent so far was when my boys got d&v aged about 8 months. We changed 9 or 10 shitty nappies a night and literally hundreds more over the 2 weeks it lasted. You will beat it. The yellow poo will not win.

You may need cake. One large glass of wine. I hear (from good sources) pump and dump is bollocks for smaller amounts of alcohol so no fears there.

1-2 wakeup is standard here with me having to get cold on the landing for about 10-15 minutes at least. So over that. Please let it not carry on into winter!

any word from.the others? peregrin ? How's the lurgy?
chocolate ? how are the dds?

elph is right. If your non sleepers start sleeping never go anywhere . 3 wakeups last night. He's getting worse not better. That's it. We go away next week to a cottage in Northumberland. DH is looking forward to it. I now accept it'll be a mission is. surviving no sleep. After that if I can't get sleep back on track I will book a follow up chat with Ann.

Hello Dreaming and all other exhausted people on this thread. Sorry for not posting, have been too tired to do anything other than lurk and feel slightly comforted that I am not alone…

Can I just add to the never go anywhere? I would suggest also never have a sleep-over, never have people to stay and never ever have a party at your house at which DD1 is still up dancing at 10pm. After a holy trinity of all three (for DD2's christening), sleep has been utterly shit for the past two weeks with DD1 waking up 2/3 times a night screaming, coupled with DD2 teething and waking hourly to grumble about it and need a cuddle/feed to get back to sleep. Some nights they wake at the same time and I have to run up and down the landing trying to persuade at least one of them to stop wailing and go to sleep so I can deal with the other. OH generally useless at it takes him about 10 minutes to stop blinking and actually get out of bed and then he complains for the next two hours that he can't get back to sleep. Sometimes I am amazed that he is still alive and has all his limbs.

I think DD1 may also be getting closer to dropping her nap. She has been very difficult to get down and sometimes only sleeps for 45 minutes (eventually). She then wakes fairly cheerful whereas a month or so ago, she would have been a screaming mess on a 45 minute nap. God, I am so not ready to lose the nap!

We are also off on yet another holiday in a couple of weeks, this time to Turkey for a wedding. I nearly refused to go but its a very old friend of OH's and I couldn't bear the thought of OH having another holiday without children. Cutting my nose off to spite my face?!

Trying to work out whether we should take DD1's car seat. The thought of what state Turkish car seats might be is is worrying me! Apparently we could also take it on the plane so at least we could restrain her for take off and landing without brute force

Chocolate why don't you send dh to the wedding with the children, then you can have a lovely holiday at home (OK, I know this is a dream, but it's a nice one) :o

Hear I so would, if only I thought there was a chance of all three of them (or the children at any rate!) making it back it in one piece...

OH is planning to take DD1 away for a night at the end of October to visit a friend. I'm going to make him deal with the fall out if she refuses to go to bed and/or wakes up in the night afterwards.

thank you Elph, Dreaming, Hear, and hello back to Chocolate

DS got over the pestilence that smote our house in three days. The rest of us are still fighting it while trying to contain the bouncing baby. I am now standing in for my boss who has had an accident, while also fully saddled with my own job. (no promotion prospects or overtime pay here, just the satisfaction of serving the citizenry.) Oddly I am still mostly functional although by yesterday I was rowing with DH to the point of contemplating divorce, so maybe I am deluding myself about that. We have made up since our marriage is so complicated that we would never find a divorce lawyer willing to take it on. :) DH is napping beautifully in the arms of his gran during the day. The end.

I need to start thinking about scheduling another chat with Ann but we have no progress to report. Gran is refusing to put DS in his cot during the day for naps even after he has fallen asleep, and I have no energy or heart these days to let him cry there in the evening*, so he is basically settling in our arms all the time.

• (while very much supporting him, just trying not to pick up... for the benefit of those who have not yet joined the fAnnclub)

Chocolate I am amazed that you have developed the ability to be present in two places at the same time. Sleep deprivation brings you superpowers!

Dreaming, that is pants.

Got to get back to doing some work now...