help-probs with 9month ds

[SaucyMoo]

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Ds used to fall asleep at night with bottle, if he was still awake i would burp him and cuddle him to sleep in my bed then shift him to his cot once he was asleep. Recently he has stopped halfway through his milk, sat up and started babbling and wanting to play. hes done this every night for the past week. I have kept the lights dim and not given him anything to play but he doesnt want to sleep. After about an hour i end up bf him to sleep. Im not sure if this is because we moved him in to his own room around the same time as he still falls asleep in my bedroom so the bedtime routine is the same. As well as this he does get up quite a few times at night (always has), first few times its cos he needs to burp and then i eventually end up feeding him around 4-5ish. Ive been trying to try cc at night but dh and his mother (yes she lives with us) cannot bear to hear him cry so i have caved in..
I wouldnt be too fussed about the sleep thing if there werent other things that concerned me. He is generally a happy baby when he is awake, but i have listed some things below which make me worry about him and not sure if this is all 'normal'...

1. very fussy eater-some days only has one yogurt the whole day- which is why i think he could be genuinly hungry at night 2)always constipated-give him lactulose to help him
2. wakes up many times at night needing to burp/wind-sometimes wont settle til he passes wind even though i burp him at his last feed
3. did try cc for some day time naps and worked a treat but doesn't work too well since he's been in his own room-does anyone know if this is a common problem? sorry to rant but am getting a bit fed up now...

all within the realms of 'normal' i promise you.
sounds a lot like my ds2 actually. even now he LOVES his milk and his appetite for other foods is unpredictable and sporadic...i dont let it bother me tbh... i think we all feel like eating differently from one day/hour to the next... and he wont actually starve, im pretty sure of that.
know what you mean tho - he always did take a lot of calories at night, which logically, is the root of the problem. not that solutions are neccessarily that simple to carry out...
i think the idea is to concentrate on working out his daytime routine... offering a good balanced diet to him at regular times, inc snacks between meals, but not in the hour or so before a meal or he wont eat it - sounds bloody obvious, but if you dont time it right, he'll be demanding food in an urgent manner before youve got the meal ready...which will mean a snack or a melt-down... and then hes all out of rhythm again...
sorry, im not v good at explaining - i keep digressing.
anyway - feeding -and sleeping -routines are best tackled in the daytime i think to start with. less pressure on you (esp with dh and his mother listening out for it all) and if you know hes fed and rested well all day, you are better equipped to decide whether any nighttime wakings/cryings are genuine physical need (hunger, wind, illness) or overtiredness/poor sleep habits (and i do believe that sleep is a habitual thing... is a v good thing indeed to guide/teach good sleep habits - such as learning to settle himself and not needing you/the bottle to go to sleep. and i know thats easier said than done coz all my 3 need just those things to go to sleep!!)

crikey - my post was longer than yours! i need to go to bed myself...

hope i helped a bit?

thanks for your message nappies, at least someone replied!

he has a sort of good day time routine, in the sense that he gets 2 naps about 1 hour long each, but the daily routine does vary due to going out etc etc. ill try and be more persistant with routines though. Last night he actually went to sleep normally but i really tired him out before giving him his feed. but he woke up at about 12 and did a huge burp-i mean how many burps does a baby need to do, this is as well as burping him during his last feed!! and then wouldnt settle, about half one i gave up and bf him. i may try changing his formula, using aptamil 3..may try a differnt brand..

how old is your ds2..has he grown out of it?

gawd, the routine thing... its all so much simpler in writing than it is in reality isnt it? i mean; i know all the theory of how its sposed to go, but in practice im hardly in a position to preach about it... i do think that trying so hard to stick to a routine that you place pressure and stress on yourself, and perhaps feel a 'failure' for not getting it 'right' all the time... is prob more difficult to maintain than just going with the flow and accepting that there just isnt any personal time on the cards for the next 10 years or so!! this, however, is my own hang up and, again in theory, i do know there should be something between the two...

Sympathy re. the endless burping. ds2 was the same in that respect and it really is draining, partly b/c you feel you should have 'fixed' the problem (by winding 'properly') earlier so its your own fault hes up agin....blah blah... some babies just get more windy. fact. ds3, bless him, was by contrast the Amazing Self Winding Baby, dont think i have ever had to wind him, he just sorts it all out himself. so it really is just one fo those things particular to some babies. have you thought about maybe propping up one end of his cot or something, to have his head higher thasn his body? maybe then he could expel his air without waking? might be worth a try.

ds2 is 2.8 now... and yes, hes grown out of it, by and large. he does still wake at night now and then and the only way he ever goes to sleep is by sucking on a bottle of milk. he has a pretty strong attachment to bottles of milk all round actually - if hes tired or hurt or upset for any reason, a bottle of milk solves it everytime. and instantly too. quite comical the instant turnarounds from full-on melt down to happy contented smile and sweet, almost surprised 'thanks mama!' as soon as you hand him a milk... but i digress. again.

you made a good point about tiring them sufficiently in the last few hours of their day... bed-times are always a total breeze when theyve been outside in the mud and rain for 3 hours in the afternoon, thats for sure...

btw, what is lactulose? does it soften poo? ds2's are always v hard and dry so might be something he could benefit from too...

my neices never burped or farted apparently, so when i go on about burpy issues most people think its quite weird! lol...he has been burping a lot since he was born and we always have winded him..thought it would sort itself out by now but obviously not yet!
lactulose was prescribed by my GP, its just a laxative syrup that anyone can take. I give it to ds twice a day, after about 2 days of not going...it just makes it softer, doesnt work incredibly well but its def worth a shot...

today we went out shopping and his nap and lunchtime went completley out the window so not sure how he's gonna be tonight..i think shortening the 2nd day of the nap works as he gets tired quicker...thanks nappies i was wondering if he is 'normal' but i feel better after talking to you!

oh yes, hes definately normal!

have enjoyed talking to you too, btw.

i know for my ds2, not sure at what point we started to do this...but we realised that if he slept at all after a certain time, he was nigh on impossible to get to sleep at bedtime... if he had a nap, it had to begin before 12 -1 at the v v latest, and not go on longer than 2-2.30pm... if he hadnt napped by then, we made him stay awake, even when he got ratty and irritable and it worked. every time we relaxed the 'rules', he was a nightmare to get to bed.... so we stuck to it. it worked for us. dont know how that applies to your ds, but might be worth a thought.

that is very interesting! i do a similar thing with him actually, and wake him up if his 2nd nap of the day is going on too long!
yesterday night he went down at 8.30 and woke up 9.30 crying..did a burp and thought he would go back to sleep but he didnt til about 11! ahhhhh..hes asleep right now, lets see what happens tonight.

i was speaking to a friend and she suggested cc in the middle of the night for 3 days and she said it really did work..may try it soon...but his crying is hysterical..oh well will let u know wot happens!

re: cc... i did it with ds1 and yes it worked. in a few days tops. felt like a sodding miracle at the time (well, was like pulling teeth with no whiskey while we did it, but honestly worked so well, so quickly...) and then he was a GREAT sleeper. we thought we'd cracked it! (his sleeping so well was down to great parenting - yeah right!)
ds2 taught us we hadnt!! we tried letting him cry a bit a few times and he just worked himself into such a frenzy that hed throw up all over the cot and then we had to get him up and changed, lights on to clean the cot... he cracked us way easier than we had cracked his brother lol!
in the end, he was 15m and we got a 'night nanny' to come in and 'crack' him for us... she didnt leave him to cry, but she didnt pick him up either, just stroked his back...didnt give milk... and coz she was a bit detached, she could do it. she was up most of the night the first night. and he caved in, in the end, coz he realised he couldnt get round her the way he could with us... she was with us for 5 nights in the end and after that, we took him out of the cot in the spare room and put him in a bed in with his brother and they both slept well from there on in... by and large.

digressed again... but point is; CC can be a miracle, but can be not right for some too... do your research, choose the way you want to go, and then you and your partner (and his mother?)need to agree with it, and support each other through it. it takes a lot of strength... but getting them into good sleep habits can be one of the best things you can do for them so it can be well worth it. a well rested child eats, plays, develops, learns better, is happier....etc.
and a well rested mother is a damn good thing too!!!

i didnt know night nannys existed!!

went to see the HV today, and told her all his problems and she said 'hes a little monster' lol...anyway she didnt suggest cc but did say to put him in the cot and keep patting his back, i guess like how your nanny did it..and give him something of mine that he can suck on, u know that smells of me.

ive just put him in his cot right now, trying to do cc as no1 is at home right now-its not going well the only way i can hear him cry is by being on the internet-distracted! i realise u have to be consistent with cc..will def have to work something out with the family...

thing is whenever i go in he gets even more hysterical..i left him 10 mins then went to check on him, and now leaving him for about 12, i think hes almost asleep!! you're right though, one method may work for one baby but not for another

he didnt sleep, i caved after 50 mins. he stopped crying immediatley after i picked him up, cuddled him and lay him on the bed with me and he fell asleep withing minutes, no feed needed....dont think cc is for us after all

Message withdrawn

hey jetjet can u explain the pick up put down thing as i dont know how to do that....ds always goes to sleep when i cuddle him to sleep, lying in the bed together but only after hes had a feed and hasnt fallen asleep that way. at night when he wakes i usually settle him in the same way-not a good habit but too late now!

nappies just wanted to let you know that ds is sleeping much better just out of the blue but the thing i did notice about him was that when he now burps after a feed its a nice loud big burp, before (the few months that he has been unsettled) they used to be funny burps and im sure thats what caused him discomfort as all the wind hadnt come out...how weird, didnt realise that was why...and why was he burping weirdly for 3 months anyway! i havent changed his milk or anything, anyway lets hope it stays like this, he still wakes once but not 5 times!