new 'SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK' thread

[tibsy]

hi ladies, the other one ran out of space, so if no one else starts a new thread, here it is....

Maebee - We let lo try fingerfoods at about 5 1/2 months as he was sitting up with minimal support, putting everything in him mouth and the BLW approach says that if they can pick it up and put it in their mouths they are ready to eat it. My lo was one of those babies who was really ready and picked up and ate everything we offered him with lots of 'mmmmm' noises. Some other lo are like - 'no I'm not ready' until 8 / 10 months. IMHO you have to listen to their cues.

maebee my lo is 6 1/2 months and i'm still feeding her at night, try to get away without it if i can, but if she cries and cries for bf i take that as she's obviously hungry.

with regard to taking 'shifts' at night, i'd go for the 2 hr blocks, 1stly cos of you finding it difficult to get back to sleep and 2ndly cos it could razz lo up further if he's being passed over every 20mins. thats imo such as it is

divide and rule no more, stick together guys!!! my dp have got a plan (mine) and we stick to it unless something drastic happens. lo knows where she is then. dp a bit sneaky IF i go out tho and brings dd downstairs when she wakes at night just so he can watch tv.

Swizzler, my LO only sleeps when held in the day. I've given up trying to get him to nap on his own - he just doesn't. He wakes up within 5 minutes usually no matter how asleep he is when I put him down Anyway, I have someone come over a few days a week to hold him for a few hours and I get a nap. But I'm sure you know a few hours here and there, just never seems to make a dent in the backlog of sleepless days and nights that I seem to have accumulated.

Sometimes I ask what I did (or what I'm doing) to have such a sleepless child, but I'm sure its got nothing to do with that I'm going to see a homeopath today, I wonder if she can help! Osteopath on friday. I feel I've got to do something other than just grin and bare it!!!

gingerninja - it does seem like everyone else has sleeping babies doesn't it. are they lying??? i can't understand it!

My night went something like this.

7.30pm went to bed in his cot, he was unusually so so tired and could hardly stay awake. fidgeted a lot, but finally fell asleep
9.00pm i go to bed but can't sleep until after 10 feed.
10pm breastfeed. DP takes a while to settle him as he is wide awake and smiling really cute smiles at us
1am breastfeed. try to let him fall asleep next to me but wide awake once i move slightly. settle and put in cot but he does this weird alternating 2 mins sleep, 2 mins thrashing around (even though he's swaddled!) I put earplugs in and ignore.
4am wakes me up as if to feed. cries when i put him to the breast. try to settle. offer breast. cries. warm up bottle of expressed milk. won't take it. he ends up sleeping on DPs chest until 7am.

I don't really know if that's a good night or a bad night. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. I think its pretty 'standard' of our nights.

I think their just jammy Amber and I'm fecking

their = they're! duh, used to be quite intelligent

yeah, sometimes i have to stop talking to them, i'm so jealous of their sleep. i'm sure half the time they think we are doing something wrong as they've never experienced what it's like to have such a sleepless LO. Nice people keep telling me its because he's really intelligent that he's so alert and doens't want to sleep. I think I'd settle for a few less IQ points and a bit more rest.

not had chance to read latest but..... can you give petit filous etc at 6 mths? been weaning for 6 weeks?

cruise, sorry to crash your sleep thread - missed you on Sept thread and saw your name come up on here.

You can give petit filous now, but they are v. sugary, so it would probably be better to give a different yoghurt - DS2 had a Yeo Valley one yesterday and gobbled it up. It's even got probiotics in it, so must be good!!

hi clairmow! yes, been having sleep issues with ds . i just gave him petit filous and he looovvved it . you having sleep probs with your lo?

hi again cruise, no, not having sleeping problems, so will stop hijacking your thread! glad he liked the yoghurt!

clairmow - now I am ! How is your lo doing? don't tell me he/she sleeps 12 hours please....

he's fine - had a tummy bug a couple of weeks ago and only just getting back to normal - lovely projectile milk sicks... Yum yum! He's just started "saying" 'ma-ma' which is sooo gorgeous!

Apart from the sleeping, hope your DS is doing well, and DD?

Come back on the Sept thread! - we're all obsessed by weaning now...!!

Cruise - if you want to give yog that has no sugar, you can give Rachels little ones, sweetened with fruit joice. I think they are nicer than normal yoghurt!!!

Sorry to all those who had bad nights. I had one fantastic night, I do apologise for that, but guarantee it is not a pattern, it was luck/fresh air/medised/baby monitor not turned up loud enough (jk for the last one!).

7:15pm BF, wind down.
8pm Awake in cot, talking to self, I was concerned as she had a sleep at 5:30pm. Went to sleep on own within 5 mins!
3:15am - yes thats right. Awake BF. I had personally been awake on and off for a few hours, waiting for her to wake up.
3:45am, awake but happily playing in cot.
4:15am - awake crying, gave her Redyella Cow to play with, cooing, asleep by 4:30am (I was, and there was no sounds on baby monitor, so presume she was asleep!).
7:15am. Awake, fantastic mood.

She has gone to nursery for first full session this afternoon. I keep thinking I should phone, but she is due a nap right now so might well be hollaring the place down. Am going there to give BF as she will just not take a bottle atm. My poor LO will think I have abandoned her (to be honest, she hardly notice I was going

clairmow - i will! see you there .

pavlov, that is absotootly fantastic if i were in a grumpy mood, i might feel a bit but i'm not!!! and just see it as confirmation that things will improve, there IS hope. well done you and well done dd!!!!!!

Went to nursery to BF DD. She was asleep, apparantly been a right ol groucho all afternoon . She was asleep in bouncy chair. Nursery said she appeared 'angry' rather than upset/distressed. I agreed it was likely as she was asleep with her mouth pursed, arms right by her side, almost scowling. I said this was her pee'd off look, and that it appeared she had gone to sleep in protest...its the way she goes to sleep when DP tries to give her a bottle, like she goes on strike and shuts down. I found it rather amusing

At least she slept tho, was asleep for half hour before I got there and for about 5-10 mins whilst I was there. SO, almost 40 mins, pretty good for the afternoon, even if she was protesting!
I left her playing with brightly coloured feathers with the baby carer, she seemed interested although a bit confused/lost. I did not want to leave her again

Pavlov: are you going back to work soon? I'm starting at 3 days beg of April and starting to worry about leaving DS already...

Spoke to hv re weaning today - she thinks DS is ready too (he's 23 weeks and weighs 19 lbs). If I wAaited till 6 months it would coincide w returning to work - NOT a good idea. So it's carrots tomorrow - ooh the excitement

pav. Fantastic night for you. well done

Amberjee - how old is your lo again? (sorry if i missed it, theres so many messages!) mine also wouldnt be put down for naps in the day at all, and i would just have him sleep on me, although after 3 months of hating his buggy, he now falls asleep in it if hes out moving. well, ive started going to bed for naps with him, just to make sure he got enough. for the first 3 months i couldnt lie down with him, he had to be upright!!! and this very week, i have, today and yesterday, succeeded in putting him in his cot in his room for a nap. hes 5 and a half months, and i think hes just more secure and more used to it through night times..

weaning - my boy been sitting up since 4 months, hes "fast forward" as my russian friend says! not boasting (well...) but he does seem to do everything too soon. hes crawling a bit already too, but mostly backwards. its cos hes such a demanding and frustrated little sod mostly! or my excellent parenting....
anyway, gave him pear today for the first time, recommended cos easily digested, and he loved it. am interested in baby led weaning/finger foods, cos its currently a 2 spoon powerstruggle. he actually takes my hand off the spoon so that he can do it. but my partner is so worried he'll choke if we give him a slice of pear to do himself, and isnt everything meant to be puree? sorry for my ignorance

medised - well, turned up in tears to my Steiner baby and toddler group cos both me and the grumblestilkstin himself were exhausted through sleeplessness. thought id be recommended lavendar oil, but actually the advice was drug em up! havent tried it tonight, but did go and buy some at the chemist (where they laughed at my southern accent...) so have some for emergencies.

relationships - me and my dp have now made up and think its quite funny that we were arguing at 4 in the morning over who had the most feeble rocking technique!

selfsoothing - boy is currently asleep upstairs, and i put him down asleep but he woke up and i just sat and said ssssh, and he kept startling and opening his eyes but not crying, and i didnt have to pick him up again. i think this might be a baby step of progress.

advice from mumsnetters - thanks all on this thread! my dp has agreed to blocks of the night rather than on/off methods.

Maebee: glad you've got that sorted. I foresee all sorts of arguments when I go bacl to work and DH is looking after DS all day... hope we resolve them as amicably .

Quite looking forward to The Day of the Carrot tomorrow...

Maebee, sitting at 4 months is very impressive and obviously due to your superb parenting skills.

My husband was also worried about the choking thing but there is lots of info on it on the weaning pages and there are a couple of blogs (you can find links on the BLW threads). So far we've had a bit of gaging but nothing serious. The babies are actually surprisingly clever at spitting food out that's too big to swallow. The theory is that they'll eat if they're developmentally and physicaly able to so slap the food infront of them and see. Obviously big chunky chip size pieces. If you're worried go for something like pumpkin or squash etc which once cooked goes soft on contact with gums!

Medised had my LO bouncing off the walls. I thought it was supposed to drug them too. Next day was that report on the news about E numbers in childrens medicine. Lesson learned.

We had mega meltdown and bed at 6pm today. kanckered.

Gotta go, DH moaning about me being on here again! Well, maybe he should be more understanding eh?

amberjee...just read, 10 weeks. listen, if its any consolation, my boy was just the same, everyone said, oh, limp limbs test to make sure they are in deep sleep, but he would wake the minute he wasnt being held, and he was like that at night for a long time too, and IT WILL GET BETTER!
we had a sling, and carried him a lot, and as his vision got strong and he became more secure and comfortable, it meant we could put him down more. we broke him in with a buggy pretty gently...we took a sling too so we could carry him when he got really cross!...and i read a lot (mostly books on babies! ha!) and watched crap tv and just held him LOADS.
anyway, people said he'd never be put down, but one day i tried putting him to bed at night and creeping downstairs and it worked.
hes still a shit sleeper im afraid, but he HAS got better, and it was time and love and not pushing him.
and the thing that kept me sane was thinking: is there really anything more important than sitting on this sofa cuddling my baby so we build up a secure attachment? and there wasnt, and i dont now look back and think, oh, i regret all those wasted hours!
in fact, i read a good quote saying something like: nobody regrets spending TOO much time with their kids...and its true, and although this post was interrupted 3 times by the minibeast waking....grrrr....some of us have babies that need a lot of cuddling, and giving that to them is not a waste of a few months.
hope thats reassuring!
oh, and mine went for cranial osteopathy...forceps delivery...and i think that helped him be better at lying down....

Hi Maebee,

Thanks for your message. Yep, he's 10 weeks and I know its early days. I guess my only real complaint is that I'm tired. So, so tired. Otherwise I'm happy to cart him around and not do much other than cuddle him and keep him close. It's amazing how much exercise I must get dancing around the house with the sling, and when he gets really upset walking up and down the stairs endlessly - seems to calm him a bit.
I think he is the same as yours - doesn't like lying down much. I've gotten 1 or 2 naps where he's lied next to me, but mostly if we BF lying down, he falls asleep but then wakes within a few mins to be really alert. I want him to be able to sleep better for both our sakes. Even though I carry him so much, I still think he is not getting the sleep he needs. it shows in his mood. He is pretty contented after he's slept for a while but major cranky when tired/overtired.
I would like him to be able to nap next to me as at the moment I have to hire someone to come a few afternoons a week just so I can get a little rest. Today didn't work out as he was crying all afternoon. Oh well, try again tomorrow.
I feel quite pathetic but I go to bed between 8 and 9 every night, its the only time I can rest!