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

[Tamdin]

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

Just a quickie as at work!!!!

tam, so pleased you're back and that you had a good time.

Baz, the ergo. I put DD on left hip, bend forward a bit. Support her bum with right hand from behind my back. Slide left hand in front of her and to her left hip and kind of swing her into place. Then when you've got the straps on you can feed your hand under their bum and straighten them up a bit. The first couple of times do it over a sofa or bed. You will get the hang of it shortly. It does help if you are flexible in the shoulders. My DH can't manage it on his own.

EP, the cot thing: DD has always gone into her cot for the begining of the night. Keeping her there was a problem so we rigged up a matress next to the bed and held hands through the bars. This worked for a while however it has stopped working. We now take her onto the matress with us (one of us as we take turns) so that she's still in her own room. The last week she has been awake for 1-2 hours in the night sitting up and crawling around. I'd happily go back to co sleeping if she didn't move so much but she crawls over the top of us and down to the bottom of the bed. At least on the matress on the floor she can't do too much damage. One thing that has improved tho is that she's no longer waking at 9.30 or 10 wanting to come into our bed. She is going for a bit longer but when she does wake, shes awake for so long. Not to mention the early morning starts. I would do what suits you in the short term. The long term is just short term later down the line! I second the kingsize bed. We don't have one in the spare room (where we currently sleep,'Our room' was actually in the loft conversion but I'm not happy having DD on the floor below me at night so we've moved rooms) it was brilliant. I might have to buy one for the spare room

An interesting one last night. Contrary to all advice, I dug out the lambskin DS used to use on his bouncy chair and stucj it under the sheet in his cot. He went down without a murmer and slept for 3 hours! Then business as usual with him waking every hour or so until he got into bed with us. So tonight I'm trying the hot water bottle trick as well to see if that helps.

Hope the rest of you had good nights. I'm off to meet a friend in town and leave DH to struggle with putting the new floor down

Morning all,

EP - interesting discovery. 3 hours is a reasonable stretch. hope the hot water bottle proves to be another magic sleep aid.

Meg - a tooth! how exciting. I keep peering into DD's mouth, but it would seem she's just generally grumpy, rather than teething.

Ginger - love "the long term is just the short term further down the line" . Especially as we have so many "short-term" crutches to buy DD and ourselves some sleep.

Good night here. DD asleep 7.30-midnight (DH thinks he woke her again as this was when he came to bed). Then 4.30, 5.30 for about 30mins, and 7.20 for the day. She hasn't been in the bedside cot for 3 days, and whilst it was no fun cuddling her back to sleep (not very NCSS, I know) at 5.30, I think I do sleep better without her grunting in my ear .

morning all. frantically running aroud cleaning. freinds due any min (from scotaland staying for weekend)but just wanted to check in

ep ds used to love his sheepskin, it now has a home at bottom of his baby dan play pen!

meg yay for tooth.

ibs glad you had a good night

our usual bed at 8 woke at 11 (in with us) bottle at 3 up at 7 for day

will report in tomorrow with news of our concert. can't wait

meg, I hadn't noticed your post about the tooth but I felt exactly the same as you. I was so excited I phoned my mum but then when I told DH we both got really sad and said 'i don't want her to have teeth' somehow it felt like she wasn't a baby anymore. Now she has 6 and they seem really cute.

Hi everyone. No more movement on the tooth, somehow I had expected it to pop through overnight , hope it's not too slow 'cause LO was in a major grump all afternoon. And he only took three half-hour naps today . His eczema is flaring up badly so combined with the tooth I guess I can't expect too much on the sleep front.

On the food front, we had another carrot-based incident (big chunk broke off in mouth, severe gagging) and DH got the wind up so we are mashing stuff up for now, unless it's really soft like banana. Still, he grabs the spoon and shoves it in his mouth, or grabs handfuls of mush off the tray and licks it off his fingers, so I like to think it's still in the spirit of BLW . So far he has had banana, pear, carrot, sweet potato and parsnip (the last mashed up with a bit of BM). Not sure if I will bother with baby rice, I think pretty soon we will be moving on to pasta, porridge, toast etc.

Hey Meg - we started on mashed carrot today. A bit early, as dd's not 6 months for another week, but I wanted to get things established before nursery in a month's time. DD's gone straight for spooning it in herself (well, up the nose, down the chin, then in the mouth - see my profile!). I'll give it a couple of weeks and the look at finger fodder.

Ah Baz, she looks so sweet. Lovely pic.

Meg. Our first one took a week from gum cutting to actually being able to feel the tooth. Rest have come through quicker. They come in pairs so expect the other one through in a couple of weeks or so.

we have another tooth today too which may explain our weird nights of late.

Good morning! Been awake since 6 here so feels like it should be lunchtime already. Hope everyone else is lying in.

So-so night for us. Needed resettling a few times in the evening then fed 11, 1, 3 then slept til 6 (so one half-decent stretch anyway). Really think I should try to cut down on those feedings but perhaps when he's teething is not the time to try it (there's always an excuse to stick with the status quo!).

Hi Meg - for being up since 6. Those early mornings definitely make the day drag. Glad you got a proper stretch in though.

Tam - how was your gig?

Good night here. Asleep 7.15, fed 12.30, awake 5.00, 6.30, 7.30 for the day.

Hope there were some more ok nights out there .

Glad to hear of (pretty) good nights out there. We had a minor improvement - DS went to bed late but slept for 3 hours as before, then hot water bottle trick, went back into cot OK, but didn't work after next waking as it had gone cold so in bed with us from 3am. Getting there slowly but surely - hotter water tonight with a more insulating cover. It might not help that much but it gives me something to do! Lambskin def a hit so that is staying.

We now have a lovely new floor (edges still need doing - today's job) which DS is happily sliding about over. Much easier to sweep up the crumbs as well. This baby feeding stuff is a messy business.

Re teeth, DS always gets them in ones rather than twos - still only 3 at the bottom. No idea why!

On closer inspection this morning, there is a second tooth coming through a day or two behind the first one. At least it gets them both out of the way at once!

Morning nap was only 30 mins this morning so have dosed with Calpol and he's just gone down again, hopefully for a bit longer...

EP - your floors sound great. i long to rip up the carpet here.
Meg - how exciting that teeth are coming through, baby is growing up. Mine still doesn't have any teeth but has recently required some calpol at night when he wakes up screaming and not settling, so i keep feeling his gums every morning, but nothing yet!
ginger, i made those muesli bars today and you know, i think i'll eat them all myself. they are delicious! and worked out really well despite lack of any measuring. just made it to a consistency that i thought would work and voila - tasty tasty. will try them out on LO tonight. i actually blended up the dried fruits after soaking though and then mixed them with the oats.

PS Meg, this is probably a bit sneaky of me, but i did a lot of the BLW in the beginning wiht LO in the late morning and early evenings because dh wasn't at home and i knew i could be more calm and deal with the whole BLW gagging thing. once i felt comfortable with it, then LO did more eating in front of dh and i just educated him about the gagging thing and drilling into him that it's okay, the gagging makes the food come out, and that it's good for LO to learn to move food around his mouth etc etc.
I think in the early days it really does require nerves of steel though!

Amber, I know what you mean I am deffo more relaxed about the BLW thing than DH but I feel that it has to be something we both agree on. As it is, LO seems quite happy to feed himself with a spoon, so I don't think he's missing out on anything, and in a couple of weeks when we are all a bit more confident we will go back to finger foods.

6 oclock? That's a lay in. We were up at 5!

Glad the bars were a success Amber. I never measure the stuff either. Just make it into a stiff glupe. They only last about 5 days tho. If you haven't already eaten them by then they might get furry. I gave dd one then realised some of them had flexs of mould on them

Hope you all have good nights tonight. Ours was better last night than previous nights. One waking about 12.30 then fidgetted for 40 mins and slept until 5.

Bleurgh. LO awake and screaming house down from 12-2.30, despite cuddles, boob, Calpol and Calgel. Then up for day at 6. Teething = no fun.

morning all,

ginger - hope the improvements continued
meg - hope the nap situation improved
ep - did the hotter hot water bottle work some magic?
amber - for DS's unsettledness. any sign of those teeth yet?

Well, our night looks good on paper: bed at 8, awake at 3, up for the day at 7. Problem is that one waking went on for over 2 hours. DD wasn't unusually ynsettled, just raring to go.

hope you nights were good.

x-post meg.
sorry you had a killer waking as well.

ginger - there's no way they will last5 days. ds is refusing to even taste them, so im eating them! i'll try as a snack when we're out today, he might be more receptive then.
meg, is excellent that ds feeds himself with spoon. all that spoons are good for in this house is banging on trays
IBS and bags booo for unsettled nights, ginger glad yours was okay.
ours was okay excellent i decided that dh could try to give LO a bottle at first waking. what an idiot am i. totally dlusional. LO doesn't drink bottles, but somehow i thought magically he would take it stupid me.
i was just complaining thati'm tired of geting up and want abreak. i wsih LO would even cosleep for a few nights so i didn't have to get out of bed. oh well. guess he'll sleep through one day

I tried the muesli bars as well and they are fab. DS likes them as well. They ended up quite soft so I may have used too much apple juice.

Cot a failure last night - DS was unsettled I think because I had to wake him up from his afternoon nap to go shopping then keep him out of the house so DH could finish the floor edging (which looks great). He went down about 7:30 but then woke at about 9:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep. In the end he stayed up until about 11 and I was so knackered from clearing up and sorting out all his stuff for the childminder today I didn't bother with the cot! We will try again tonight...

I think teeth are def playing up here as well. DS grumpy but not so much that he needs Calpol, just generally more shouty than normal. Hope all those teeth come through soon.

morning all. very quick post as guests still her.
concert was amazing. jumped about like a teenager again and drank vodka and 7up mixed in a plastic bottle to get it past security. what age am i!
went to house party afterwards so didn't get to bed until 4 and picked ds up from mum and dad at 12.
He slept 9pm-8am in his cot with 1 waking for them

will try and catch up with you all properly later

tam, yay for your partying!

Go, Tam! To get the true teenage experience though, you have to snog someone inappropriate

Ooh Tam, you young thing you. Most

EP, Baz, Meg, sorry for your dodgy nights. Ours was fantastic by recent standards. one waking at three. In with me then up at 5 for the day. I felt quite normal today. I really should get to bed before 11 though.

Talking to the other mums at swimming this morning and it turns out that at least four out of 10 are having sleep problems. I didn't feel too bad after that.