SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK PART 5....... God have mercy!

[Tamdin]

Can't believe we're onto another new thread already!

The tuition fees aren't actually that high -- £4k, but you can normally get funding for 75% of that through the NCT. But would mean committing 2-3 years to studying rather than returning to work...

DS must be making up for lost sleep... his morning nap is still ongoing! (Been down since about 10.15)

morning all. Meg excited on your behalf about possibility of new career. After i had ds i wanted to be a midwife! still am attracted to it but with NO medical background it would be such a huge commitment that don't think it'll fit into my other life plans ie at least 2 more babies (touch wood!),travelling a bit more and dh getting his own practice etc etc! I need 2 lives to do all the things i want to do! either that or i could just cut down the amount of time i spend on mn

our night was a game of 2 halves...the cutting down of milk is still working. ds had one bottle at 3am and only had 3oz but the bad half was that he was in bed with us but he couldn't sleep! he lay awake beside me for what felt like hours. He kept saying mummy and then a load of random sounds which i couldn't make out which i think was him telling me why he couldn't sleep but i'm buggered if i know what it was.

Feel tired today and he's exhausted so fingers crossed he has a long nap this morning. I should be in bed instead of taalking to you lot!

Meg: sounds like a good plan if you can manage the time out. We're badly in need of NCT teachers here, the classes are all hugely oversubscribed.

Tam: you can always train as a doula. Not sure how long the training takes, but you get to support women in labour without doing the technical stuff. Lots of doulas on here as well. Would def consider hiring one if we went for no. 2.

Ginger: would be interested in the leaflets. We've only folowed the canal (north to Waltham Abbey or east into Limehouse) and haven't really deviated at all.

DS bashing the oven with a hairbrush so better go...

meg - shit sandwich yey for the prospect of a new career

tam, yey for the continued success with cutting down the milk. for the 'awake' part of the night. hope you manage to get some rest today

amber, hope you managed to get out

EP, hi!!

hello ladies,

Meg - Sorry to hear about the shit sandwich (that terms is funny tho). Your plans sound very exciting. It is hard to find something that works well alongside bringing up a little one. I am in a supposedly family-friendly post, but the more I enquire about flexible working, the more it all becomes....

Tam - hope you did manage to catch up on some rest after all

ginger - doesn't sound too bad - for getting at least one decent stretch in.

Tibs and EP - for your LOs' nocturnal restlessness.

Amber - hope you did manage to get out to the clinic and the shops in the end.

crap night here. loadsawakings - probably around every 90 mins from 8pm-7am. Probably because we had a house full of people yesterday and so DD went into nap refusal mode. We've been out today as well, so her normal schedule has gone to pot.

Plus side - we've had a lovely brunch, and I have a few new bits of work wear to accommodate my new mummy tummy, which has singularly failed to disappear since dd was born. Can't imagine why not....

Hi all.
Havent read all posts since i was last here but for all the bad nights and for any good ones.
Tam, when your ds has only 3oz is that just 3oz milk? I've been trying (again) to cut down dd's milk to wean her off that night feed but so far have kept the amount of water the same, just reduced the powder, so last night she had 3oz milk to 6 oz water. It's being more successful this time so maybe she is more ready than the last time i tried (where when i reduced it down to 4oz she had me up again an hour later wanting the rest). Anyway dh is away until thursday now(he moans about her disturbing him if i try to not feed her in night) so the plan is tonight i'll just give her 2oz in 5 oz water then tomorrow attempt to cut out the milk completely and just give water. I feel really guilty for doing it, and if i wasn't pregnant and knackered i'd probably leave it but i lie awake for upwards of 2 hours after getting up to her and just can't carry on. The next few nights are going to be hard i think but hopefully worth it in the end. I've decided now is the time because she has refused either breakfast or milk in the morning for the past week so I think she needs to rearrange her hunger patterns (mean mummy)
IBS-re your neighbours we used to have that with dd in the early days (she'd be up crying til 1am tho!), but i thought most babies grew out of it by a couple of months. Maybe they are trying to get a sleep time that suits them(unless it just hasnt occured to them that baby is crying because is tired?) but i don't envy them-how can they relax and enjoy their evening with a screaming baby. Besides which dd has stayed up late the past two nights and although has been fine in the evenings, has been horrible during the day-really wingey and throwing lots of tantrums, bed early tonight i think!

ibs - sorry for the crap night my love. for the brunch tho and retail shopping, even if it is for work!!

claireybee, you're not a mean mummy at all. i think i'd have more incentive to cut out night feeds if i was pg too. you need your rest now more than ever. good luck

Baz I know what you mean re: mummy tummy. DH works from home and we have got into a dangerous habit of walking to Gregg's the bakers every morning to get a doughnut or cake to have with a cuppa in the afternoon . Still, I suppose the walking is some form of exercise...

Also sorry for your crap night. When will the little monkeys learn to sleep?

Tibsy: hoping for a more restful night tonight

Well, today has been naptastic - 2 naps and over 3 hours in total . In gact I had to wake him up at 4pm as he'd been asleep for about 2 hours and I thought he'd refuse to go to sleep tonight. Has been a bit of a struggle to get him to bed this evening, but am going to try and keep him in the cot as long as possible. DH and I are stiff from unnatural sleeping positions so something has to give!

Hope everyone else has a peaceful evening and night ahead

evening everyone,

Just been catching up on all your posts on the blog - it really is very entertaining, and always strikes a real chord. I am definitely a Noise Nazi!

Clairy - it's hard to know what to do with the night feeds. We cut down to one recently, because dd was taking less and less, and then not wanting much of a breakfast bottle. But she still wakes up at the same time anyway (though doesn't need a feed to get back to sleep)! How many weeks gone are you now?

Meg - I am in the same boat! DD goes a bit stir crazy if she doesn't get out for a few minutes both morning and afternoon. so we go to get a paper. trouble is, there's a bakery next to the paper shop......

right - I think a ridiculously early night is in order, esp. as DH is working til 11pm at the earliest, so I'm flying solo tonight . Sending sleepy vibes to all.

x post EP - great news on the naps! hope you put your feet up and enjoyed a little bit of me-time. fingers crossed for tonight...

Here's the link to my leaflets. (Well, I wrote them, I don't work there anymore tho) They're PDF's and you can download them. The Waltham Abbey one is called walking in the Lee Valley. Don't know what happened to the Hertford one and I'd written one for the River Stort around Harlow as well. They obiously haven't uploaded them.

hi ginger, link doesn't work try again?

In our local tesco express you have to queue down the bread and cake aisle-I very rarely leave without something!

ibs, I'm 23 weeks now (i think, kinda lost track!). I'm hoping dd will get to a similar state where she won't need the feed, and then eventually will stop waking. Don't think it will happen anytime soon though but I can try. As she cut down all the other feeds by herself i was hoping she'd get rid of this one by herself too but I'm starting to think she needs a poke in the right direction.

Apparently my sister used to wake everynight until she was about 6 but my parents just used to let her scream as a baby (think that was the generally accepted way of doing things at the time) then when she was in a bed she just used to get out and go and get in their bed- not sure whether i could cope with that or not...

hi all!!!

EP, hope the great naps = great sleep for the EP house last night [hopeful emoticon]

our night ok, 2 wakings for milk. 1st at 12.30, then again at 3.30am. up for day at 7am

i guess i've sort of resigned myself to the fact that i will be woken, and as Elizabeth Pantley says, you should expect a 1 year old to wake once a night (or something like that - havent read it for a while ) i just dont like waking in the morning feeling like i need another couple of hours (days!!) sleep. i used to be right mardy if i didnt have my 8 hours, now look at me ......a veritable little ray of sunshine on half that!!!!

Morning all,

Any good nights?

Clairey - funny how the accepted norms for parenting change. And interesting to see that CC/CIO is not a cure-all - not if your sister was doing it a lot of the time.

Well - didn't really get an early night in the end. Ended up watching that thing on c4 about children who have resettled in the UK - and very good it was too.

DD stayed asleep until DH walked through the door at 11.45 - and given that he was up anyway, it would have been silly for me to get up too ! She stayed asleep til 4.30, then into bedside cot for series of catnaps. I just cannot seem to get her to resettle properly after 5am. I can't push bedtime back as she is trying to drop her last nap. Maybe she has decided that 9-10 hours is plenty!

Morning all. Guess what... DS slept in his cot all night!

Of course he woke every 2 hours and needed to be bf back to sleep, and as a result was not interested in breakfast at all this morning. But I was glad to not have him in bed (and DH was v glad not to be on sofa), and he settled v easily after feeds, so I'm happy with that. I imagine he was waking for the comfort of mum and hope that if we can keep him in the cot most nights, he will get out of that habit...

x post tibs! Glad your night was reasonable.
I don't have NCSS (trying to stay away from the books, though I know it's widely thought of as a good one), so it's interesting to hear that one year olds should be expected to wake once each night.

Perhaps next time I meet the mum of a DC who sleeps through, instead of feeling embarrassed, I should raise an eyebrow and say in a concerned manner "really, how strange....."

x post meg! must type faster!

well done for DS staying in cot!

hi ibs and meg,

ibs, sounds like a good night

meg, yey for the whole night in cot. sometimes you do just need your own space or in the case of your dh, your own bed

oh and ibs, i love your idea about freaking the sleeping babys mummies out

X-posted Tibs and Baz! Glad your nights were OK too.

morning all

well done meg's ds for staying in cot

IBS sounds like a respectable night

Tibs good night for you too

Mine was pants!
ds went to bed at 7.30
woke at 9 (settled quickly)
woke at 10 (settled quickly)
woke at 11 (in with us)
and again would not go to sleep!
Got cross about 12 and plonked him in his cot which resulted in an hour of crying and me trying to be 'tough' but he was just getting more and more hyped up.
brought him back into bed at 1.

He eventually went to sleep at 2 with his bottle (only 4 oz so still better than before), woke at 6.50 for the day