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....

I got a few spare at the moment Dando so of course come and get some!
Well done for a great night btw, bet you feel great, but a little apprehensive?!!

Should I brave a quick hour nap b4 LO wakes for food. Or should I wait and wake her at 11:00pm? She might sleep longer, do I want to? She might wake earlier, thus waking me before I close my eyes properly.
If I want her to go 4 hours, I should let her sleep. I am going to bed! Wish me luck ok?!

Well, another bad night last night - LO woke every 1.5 hrs and wd only settle with a quick bf. Pavlov: I think it is teeth - gave some Medised at 4:30 and he slept till 7:30. Sigh.

We're tryinh swaddling again - it does seem to help but he can wriggle out of it if he gets agitated.

Morning all!
I can be quite cheerful today as DD2 only woke ONCE last night!!!!
She went to bed at 8pm sleepy but awake, fell asleep after about 10 mins (not crying).
Woke about 3am for a feed. She always falls asleep at the breast in the middle of the night (now, didn't always used to). She then slept until just before 7am this morning!!!

Am being cautiously pleased as there is no saying that she will do it again tonight.

Swizzler your LO sounds just like mine. When a little babe she fed every 2/3 hours then suddenly started waking every hour or so. I put up with it for a while then decided that I would only feed every 3 hours at night. If she woke before then I would give her a cuddle but not feed her. I'm afraid this meant that she did some crying (she was 7 months old). I never thought I would do the crying route but we were both so tired and grumpy all day that something had to be done for both our sakes. I decided to do it after one night when she cried solid for an hour with me and DH doing everything we could to comfort her and nothing was working. I think if I had just put her to bed and let her cry for a short while she probably would have settled quicker than she did with us.
The next night we started a VERY watered down version of cc. I would always pick her up to cuddle her/check for wind as it seemed cruel to me the whole no cuddle no eye contact thing. After 3 nights things improved and she wasn't waking every hour but generaly at 11pm, 2am and 5am (sometimes more).
Now finally at 9 months we seem to have made some sort of breakthrough.
Wish I'd known about this thread/site in the days when she was waking every hour and I was going mad with exhaustion (have a 3 year old too).

Hope this can be a bit of comfort to those of you who are at the stage we were at a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm going to wait till these teeth come through then if things don't improve I'm going to try something like your method - glad to hear you're having success

morning all!!
welcome to swizzler, your lo sounds a lot like mine has been, some improvements lately tho so am embracing those atm!! dd seems to have been teething on and off forEVER, still no blardy teeth tho

beachcomber - congrats on your good night, yey

pavlov, glad you and dp are back on form!! its SO hard at the beginning as i know. lol at dp copping it in kitchen!! my dp has copped my wrath quite a few times!! know what you mean about inappropriate 'help'. he would offer to take dd downstairs in the earlier days (middle of the night) but i KNEW he was going to put the tele on, like THAT would get her to sleep

anyway, our night was quite good,
6.45pm bed
11.30pm fed
4am fed
6.45am up for the day

actually feel quite refreshed

I'm hopeless with keeping up with these threads - never seem to have the time to look at mn enough. Am having a few better nights with ds. I have been told that protein helps with sleep as it keeps you full longer so I am encouraging the lo to have lots of protein with his evening meal. The other thing is that he is sleeping in our bed with us [blush . To me though a good night is only waking up once between 11pm and 6.30am and settling straight back down after a bf. The only draw back is that his daytime naps seem to have gone out of the window and he is currently crying even though I have tried bf him to sleep and I know he is tired. Must go or i will cry too

lori21 hope lo settles for a nice nap soon.
we are co sleeping with dd and LOVE it! she starts off the night in her cot and comes in with us when she wakes, notice i said 'when' not 'if' she wakes!!!!

well i gave up and went and fed him. he only had 45mins though instead of the usual 90mins.

some other things we are trying are....

opening the curtains with him at the time we want him to start the day and trying to get some sunlight on his face - kinda like the 'cure' for jet lag - helps set their body clock

similarly we spend 30 mins in the room were he will sleep with very dim lights and relaxing music , songs or a story.

The 'ask Dr Sears' website has lots of ideas. see her

no answers unfortunately but we can but try.

Welcome new People! [waves]

This thread moves too fast

It sounds like we are all starting to get a few good nights! DD woke at 12.30 then 5ish then DP entertained her at 8 for half an hour while I stayed in bed, only got up when she realised she had not had breakfast yet

She looked a bit orange today, think it may be the carrot she ate yesterday! It is sweetpotato today so she will look like David Dickenson tomorrow

Hope you all have a good day!

ruth2007 - baby with a permatan, thats the way forward

lori - thanks for that website, have had a quick look and it looks like my type of thing. i'm in to the more gentle 'slowly slowly catch ye monkey' attachment parenting kind of approach than the cc route. i know its not for everyone, just suits our family and my mental health!!! dp and ds (12) are also believers so that helps

wow I can't keep up with all these posts! here we go...

pavlov - thanks for the chips idea, will try it! how thick do you cut them? lol at the cat stuck in the nursery, sounds just like something mine would do! congrats on the eating !!!

hello beachcomber, sorry you are here iykwim but hope you can find some support even though we don't have the magic answers! my lo is 5 1/2 months, I also have ds1 who is 3 1/2, fun isn't it? lol

hello swizzler - yes that is exactly what our los have been doing too - great sleepers then the sudden change at 3/4 months. have a look down the thread for some ideas. don't know if our ideas have worked or whether they would have grown out of it anyway as they all seemed to improve at about the same time!?!

lori the first time ds1 had meat he slept 10 hours straight!!!

nights are as good as they're going to get for a while I think barring teething/illness (waking for one bottle and one bfeed, settling well after each). however I'm still knackered at the bfeed is between 5 and 6 at the moment and ds1 has been getting up at 6 so I'm effectively getting up at 5ish every morning - aaargh! so tired it's even affecting my speech, can't remember words etc, it's like being pregnant all over again!

working on naps now...have been trying to work out a routine around ds1's activities so that for at least one of his naps lo goes down at the same time each day, with a little routine as follows: take upstairs, draw curtains, nappy change, keeping trousers or dungarees off, swaddle tightly and into cot, kiss and leave. he is going down much better - much less crying and going for longer too the little success we have had so far has made such a difference and am a lot happier and have more patience with both of them and ds1 is always better behaved when I am calm. always picks up when I'm stressed and acts up - not a good combination

anyway we're going full steam ahead with the weaning, day 10 now and he's onto 2 meals a day now, baby rice and fruit for breakfast and veggie puree for dinner. going to get some rusks or rice cakes in to try him with for midday snack also soon. don't know which is worse tho', sugar-free rusks with dodgy sweeteners or ones with sugar in, any suggestions anyone?

Kiera, know what you mean about the rusk thing. I'd probably avoid them altogether. Rice cakes should be fine tho. Don't think they've got anything added. I'd prob opt for sugar rather than sweetner tho.

Ruth, rather think there's a business opporunity staring us in the face with the 'eat yourself a tan' concept.

DD slept from 10.30 and woke at 2.30 and 3.30. She was replugged with a dummy and fed at 5.30 dirty nappy and then slept 'til 7 so I feel like I actually had a reasonable night.

Kiera, glad the weaning thing is working. Still trying the spoon thing but DD is having none of it unless she's feeding herself so I've resigned myself to VERY MESSY meal times. I've also just been giving her stuff to 'play' with at meal times so 8ish, 1ish and 5ish. About an hour after her milk feeds. So far her favorite is mango which she sucks the life out of but she has nawed potatoe wedges (sucked all the middle out of) carrot, pumpkin, squash, pear and bannana. (Man, those bannna nappies

Well, it's DD's half birthday today so I'll be eating a cake in celebration! Cruise, happy half birthday to your DS too. How you two doing?

kiera - dd LOVES rice cakes and you can get ones with apple too. they're yum. the beauty of them is that they break up to tiny pieces, so no danger of choking on stray big bits. i agree with ginger and would avoid the rusks. they're bloody huge for a start and when they get soggy, i.e muchos gumming, they stick to EVERYTHING!!!

ginger this weaning lark is V V V V V messy!! was sat down with dd today, both having lunch and turned to her and said 'i used to be a very tidy person you know' ..... she just gave me a gummy smile, caked with rice cake lumps, nice!!

ps ginger, happy 1/2 b'day to lo. we had a cake for dds half birthday too. its a tradition in our house that we have cake for brekkie on b'days and we couldnt wait til she was 1

kiera - meant to offer congrats on the nap routine. sounds like its working and you seem a lot brighter for it. good for you and well done lo!!
altho dd only really ever naps for 30 mins at a time, those 30 mins make all the difference to me, just to get a bit of headspace sometimes

kiera - i agree with the rusks thing. rice cakes are yummy. i'm trying to avoif anything with sugars or sweeteners until he is at least 1yrs. we're doing the baby led weaning approach - it is fab! i was hoping weaning would help sleep but not yet!!! congrats on your nap routine - i find it does make a huge difference although i still feed him to sleep

sleepy thoughts everyone for tonight.

So what would be your top tips for getting the little bugger - I mean darling - to sleep?

I wish I knew how to get the little darlings to sleep. We've tried most things except leaving him to cry and although he is better we certainly don't get 7 - 7 as others do. What has helped are...

getting dh to go and settle him before we go to bed
feeding him up well in the day
good bedtime routine
wind down time in his sleep room
sleeping in bed with us
using a white noise generator to send him back to sleep
humming to him
ssshhhinh him (this sometimes even works on the baby monitor walkie talkie)
lots of sunshine in the day
lots of cuddles in the day
making sure he has a full feed when he does wake up in the night

A 'lovey' did not work for us but I would love to hear everyone elses top tips!!!

Top Tip - making sure she naps in the day! Even walking in the Snow last month!

DD2 also only woke once last night!! (Just read Beachcomber's post) Previously unheard of! Gave her a brief BF on one side, put her down awake, and she only cried for 6 seconds before falling asleep! Has gone down tonight without crying. Think I should maybe try not to feed her tonight when she wakes, but don't know what to do instead? Pick her up for a quick cuddle / leave her? Scared incase it all goes wrong and we're back to waking 2-7 times a night! Glad I'm not the only one getting words wrong, Kiera. I work part-time, and told the children at school to "Lie down" (instead of sit) and then said "I'd like you all to go and sit on the toilet" (meant carpet) How embarrassing.

danda - lol at sitting on the toilet!!

lori - funny you should mention a lovey, was going to ask if anyone else used them. have inadvertently introduced one tonight when left dd's teddy in the cot. am sure its just coincidence but its the first night i've been able to progress from putting her in the cot awake (but holding her hand) til she goes to sleep, to no physical contact. i still sang to her as i usually do (hush little baby, if anyones interested )and was sat beside her, but she went off!! i have progressed to step 5 or is it 6 of gradual retreat....whoo hoo on the down side, I really missed that contact and found myself rocking on the bed
i also agree with you that they need lots of cuddles in the day. dd was feelin a bit out of sorts today, so i popped her in the sling and have been carrying her around all day. not too good for my back, but she was SO much happier
hope everyone has a good night zzzzzzzzzzzz

I've just been reading a book that suggests that the more loved and secured they feel the better they sleep. OK, so that's not always the case but it suggests that CC basically makes them more nervous and worsens the separation anxiety and therefore likely to wake more.

I use a soft little taggie blanket with DD (and a dummy). I introduced it a couple of weeks ago because I noticed that she'd play with tags on toys for ages. Anyway, for the first couple of days I 'wore' it so it smelled of me and I always have it between us when feeding and hold her hand with it over mine so that she links me with the blanket and then give it to her to cuddle at night. I think it does help. She fiddles with it a bit when I put her in her cot, then has a whimper, I roll her onto her side and then she drops off.

Tibsy, funny isn't it that we spend all this time hoping for them to sleep independantly and then feeling when they do.

I've been looking into childcare and am feeling very at the thought of leaving my gorgeous girl. Admitedly I don't need to go back for a few months yet but I am absolutely dreading it and I'm already envious that someone else gets to spend three days a week with my baby. Anyone else having this dilema?

omg lo slept for THREE HOURS today and would have gone longer but I HAD TO WAKE HIM UP !!!!! It has been a long long time since he did that, not since he was very little. I think it was the swaddling that did it although I have been careful to stick to same routine same time each day (just for the middle-of-the-day nap ie between 12 and 2-ish). he has been a little unsettled between his bedtime and our bedtime tho' and I think it's related to having solids in the evening before bed which is new to him, am going to try to feed him earlier if poss. will try the rice cakes for midday snack - I'm sure he'll enjoy feeding himself! I am amazed by how much he understands already - pushed his spoon away when had enough this evening!

swizzler -
ditto getting dh to settle if not hungry
dh giving bottle for one night feed pref formula
putting lo in own bed in own room
good regular evening routine/day nap routine
grobags and/or swaddling
sleeping on side position (prop with large towels) - lo slides onto back when sleeping but to get to sleep has to be on side

danda - lol!

oops got to go dh says I must go to bed...and he's right...bye for now (waves)

Hi everyone
Sorry I have no time to catch up on all these posts, you guys know how to talk! Welcome to all the new sleep deprived people hope you find some relief soon (and then please share)
DS has been a nightmare the last week he wont go to sleep until 9pm then wakes at midnight and stays awake until 6am! but I can't sleep after 7 because I have a big exam and presentation to give soon so have to work on it. I am shattered, I think I've been averaging about 3-4hrs sleep a day. DH has had enough too I stay up with DS but he cries (screams) all night, I think he's teething. We are both grumpy at each other which is unusual.
Have to go study, DS will be up soon but will try to catch up soon.