SLEEP IS FOR THE WEEK part 7 -- prop your eyes open with matchsticks here

[MegBusset]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

ginger you make me laugh

We did GR with ds1, my dh was really into it and after about a month we were sitting at the top of the stairs and as long as he could still see us he went to sleep - no crying, perfect. Except we'd have to sit there for about an hour and a half!! it didn't seem to make much difference to night time wakings but it could have always been worse if we hadn't done it...

however after ds2 was born..it all went wrong as ds1 wanted a cuddle and we still cuddle them to sleep . However our bedtimes our lovely. the boys colored in their own chart of the 5 things we do every night before bed. Put pj's on, clean teeth, milk, story and cuddle etc.. and its only about 5-10 mins of cuddles and their both fast asleep, with no crying etc!! So its not stressful, and if I go out dh sits and holds both their hands, which works as well (but not for me)..xx

errr....don't know if I'm helping I feel like I'm in rambling mode.....I think I am slowly losing the plot...as I've 6 weeks left to write my PhD thesis up..mountains left to do...and all I fantasize about is running off and having a deep and meaning relationship with my bed..hmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

Ahh YBM your bedtime routine sounds lovely? Can you come and tuck me in?

ds1 gives us the biggest squeeze and cuddle and says that he loves me and (usually) that he's had a lovely day! And no matter how exhausted I am, it just melts my heart..

that is a lovely bedtime routine yummybunnymummy. Well, last night was rubbish after all - she is now settling with being rocked as opposed to bf to sleep bt the number of night wakings is still high. Previously at worst they have been hourly - last night 3 times in one hour at one point!

However, I have put her down for a nap (up from 5:30 am) using rocking and she went out with no crying or stress, so this is progress of a kind.

She is 20 weeks old. The book we have says it is ok for the littleys so in theory we should have a super sleeper in 2-3 weeks. However, as DP says, that's all well and good, but lo has NOT read the book!

I hope your nights were better.

found you!

missed being first up yest, but, hang on to my title this morning! though, not up early, ds didn't wake up til 6.45am, and then we didn't get up for another half hour - lovely! However, did follow the night from hell...still got a bit of a cold, but went to bed no probs, bit of a whimper but left to own devices and was asleep within minutes - fast forward half and hour and ds has woken up doing that screaming thing that nothing stops! Get him up out of the cot where he proceeds to vomit everywhere (i mean i can feel it dripping down my top - yuk!!!) Cue change of clothes for both of us, ds still screaming and finally goes back to sleep!
AAARRRRGGHHH!!!

Leo - my ds is 11mths

Bunny - I agree your bedtime routine sounds lovely - I would cuddle ds to sleep if he would let me After all, they aren't going to want it like that forever - get em in while you can!

tams - we often play that game - and the 'i'd love to go to venice/rome/nyc etc, but without the dc's!'

you all have such organised lives - i'm a little jealous (never got round to taking ds to a baby group, and now he seems to be inbetween baby and toddler - will have to find one that offers both for when the next one arrives!)

took so long to type that, chibi beat me to being the first up!

morning all.

skirmish for your lie in but for your vomit fest n the middle of the night. poor you and ds.

chibi i think you're doing an amazing job and 20 weeks is soooooo young. don't worry what the books say just do what feels right for you and your family.

YBM your bed time sounds like ours.
ds is 21 months on wednesday.
he has bath, pj's on, brush teeth, into bed (our bed as we co-sleep) and 10-15 mins of singing and cuddles and he's out like a light. wouldn't swap it for all the tea in china. i usually slip out after that (although have been known to stay there recently and go to sleep myself)

good night for us. ds asleep by 7.30
woke at 7.15 for the day

please all look out for charliemama link she could do with some support

morning all!!

yummy, am of your dance classes. i love dancing, used to belly dance, but not in a long time now....one day

chibi - i had some good responses to GR, but due to colds etc had setbacks. havent tried it since dd very mobile and couldnt with current bed situation as she'd just crawl out to look for me

ginger - hope you and dh manage to get out together soon am liking your weekly plan, esp the fri evening one

skirmish for lie in but for poorly lo

our night was a bit rubbish,
evening very unsettled with dd waking every 30 mins or so (havent had one of those for a while )
grumbled a few times when we went to bed
fed twice
up at 8am (was liking that part )

oh well, cold and teeth playing up, so will haveto expect it for the duration, ho hum

hi to tam ... good night!

Morning all.

Tam so pleased at your continued success

Skirmish, eww, I hate that sick-running-down-you feeling. DS' speciality is vomming down my cleavage

Chibi sounds like you are doing really well, 20 weeks is very young and rocking to sleep is good progress. Although GR hasn't stopped DS waking in the night, it does feel like at least I'm trying to do something about it!

Our night was OK, although as predicted, the fact that he settled himself in the cot made f-all difference! Woke at 11, very unsettled (teeth and eczema) from then so we gave Medised around 12.30. Then woke 4.30 for milk and 7 for the day.

Am trying to shift his routine forward bit by bit over this week before the clocks go back, still worried we're going to be up at 5am on Sunday though...

X-posted Tibs, for your night, blardy teeth eh?

meggy for the self settling... it will help, i'm sure of it. once the flaming teeth and poor los eczema calm down, i'm sure it will do the trick and you'll have the nights you want.
any news on the eczama btw?

i'm just holding on til dd finished teething. am predicting great things after that

Tibs, the hospital have pretty much said there's nothing more they can do

We just have steroid creams to control flare-ups and have to basically wait for him to grow out of it!

It's not even too bad at the moment but he has recurrent patches on his hands and feet, so he is always trying to rub his feet together or scratch his hands

oh, i can't believe the hosp can't do anything meggy. sigh. have you tried a homeopath or anything? ds had only mild eczema, but it really did clear it up and hasn't come back since.

please remind me never to try hard core night weaning again. the last three nights have been )($£&(&£%&(&(&&£()$()£()$__"!!!

last night was the worst. awake and crying from 3 to 5. i fed him at 5 and he absolutely gorged himself, poor little mite, and then vomited it all up. then wouldn't settle. so feel like i've bene up since 3. it's just lucky i had a massage ysterday and it made me really tire,d so i went to bed at 8.30pm. otherwise i dno't know if i could survive today.

ok.

got that out of my system.

Amber for your night. After me and DH had a row the other night when LO was crying for an hour, we agreed on a one-hour time limit of awakeness before I would feed DS, assuming it's within a reasonable time for him to be hungry (after 3am basically). As my intention was not to drop ALL night feeds but just to only do one, as long as it's late enough to get him through til 7am I don't really mind if it's 3am or 4am.

If he's really unsettled at a time when it's unlikely to be hunger (eg at 11pm last night) then we assume it's teeth and break out the medication! I might try offering water at this time too just in case he's a bit thirsty.

Haven't tried homeopathy for his eczema as I'm pretty sceptical about it tbh, but maybe it's worth a try anyway...

Amber: sorry you're having a hard time. The 1 hr rile sound sensible, but it does mean you;re more likely to have an unsettled night if you're waiting to see if you're needed... mind you I'm too scared to try night weaning atm so not best placed to offer advice!

Another unsettled night for us - DS now has a cold so was waking himself up snuffling. Medised helped a bit but didn't knock him out (shame).

Re GR: how DS got to sleep really didn;t seem to affect his nights, so I just feed and cuddle him to sleep on our bed, then bung him in the cot.

Am considering trying to keep him in the cot a bit longer at night, but that requires co-operation from DH as I'll need to rest during the day if I'm up more at night. Maybe we'll give it a bash next weekend. I'm sure we're disturbing DS atm as every time I turn over or DH stirs he wakes up . Mind you, he wakes up when you put him in the cot as well. Maybe we can't win this one!

thanks meg and ep, yeah, i'm taking a back track and will try for one feed after 3am. dh will settle him before then.
good luck with the cot ep.

meg, i don't know if i believe homeopathy either, but it seemed to work. along with prescribing a remedy, she also said to do the following:

• give up all petrochemical based emollients, such as diprobase etc.

• bathe him in dissolved dead sea salts (quite a lot of them)

• make up a solution to use a billion times a day of neals yard baseline moisturiser with avocado oil or jojoba oil (expensive oils and organic olive oil will do in the long run, but avocado and jojoba have super duper moisturising properties so excellent to give the skin a boost)

• use earthbound chickweed and calendula on the bad spots chickweed calendula

anyway, took a bit of perseverance, but now i just moisturise him twice a day all over and the bath is just plain water.

i don't know what she'd say about the steroids, in my mind you might need them because of the seriousness, but she might say that they are counterproductive. i don't know. anyway, she is really lovely and works near highbury station ifyou ever want her details.

i've jsut spent the last half hour trying to catch up, rather than go to bed for a nap as my babes are sleeping....ooops!

had a great night sleep on Saturday, went to bed at 10 and woke up at 9.....was great....o yea and we didn't have any kids! my mum took them for the night so we could wtch the rugby! last night was good to, DS2 went to bed at 8 and woke at 3 and then 4:30 for the day, but that's cool.....it was quite a good stretch for him.

Cant remember who suggested now, but we did have the cot next to bed with side off, but DF (darling Fiance!) hated him being in there from 6months. he likes to follow 'the rules'....idiot! lol Although this is his thrid kid, the other 2 were both bottlefed, one from birth and one from 3months! so a breastfed is wierd for him!

on the time away front, i go to the gym 4-5 times a week, love it, a great getaway but have to back by 9 'just in case' still at least i get out

Sorry that you all seem to be having bad nights too Maybe the change in weather is affecting them all [desperately grasping at anything to blame it on smiley]

Thanks for all your comments, and for the moxie link, some really interesting stuff on there. DD doesn't seem to fit into any of the stages mentionned but it did make me think more about what it could be and there have been some developments/changes in her behaviour recently.

For example, she has recently had a bit of a growth spurt, is learning lots and lots of new words, has just learnt to climb EVERYTHING and open doors and has formed her first real attachments to items, mostly to her wellies! She is also quite busy asserting her independence at the moment (will only walk where SHE wants to go(the park)not where you are trying to go and has started to be very fussy about who she does things with-will no longer settle for either mummy or daddy but has to be whichever one of us she decides!

Think at least some of that must be relevant to sleep....It IS a phase! She WILL be sleeping beautifully by december!

Oh, and is anyone up for meeting up before Xmas? In London? I have 2 suggestions: the Place on the Corner in Newington Green for those in N London or Starbucks near Liverpool Street (the downstairs bit has comfy seats). Or somewhere else where our LOs can run around! I can do Wednesdays (though not this wed) or weekends.

meggy - i cant believe that. poor lo it must be so hard as he needs to use his hands obviously. lets hope he grows out of soon x

amber for your nights and poor lo for the vomiting. upsetting all round. i hope you manage to get some respite today. he's a lucky boy to have you, youre a gorgeously, lovely mama (((hugs))) xx

Re teh eczema, the main thing my nieces are allergic to is orange (no idea why). Also oatmeal in the bath is supposed to help. FWIW, they were both v bad as babies and now the eldest is more or less free of it and the youngest so much better .

hi bealcain of your lo free time. i havent been brave enough to let dd sleep overnight anywhere, dont want to inflict her sleeplessness on anyone yet gym 4-5 times, crikey, youre more hardcore then tam

and hi, clairey nice attitude, i like it and, yes, it is a phase

EP, for poor lo's cold. it puts the mockers on everything doesnt it? rope dh in on the weekend, i reckon

dd is really funny lately about me having hugs/kisses from dp or ds, she starts crying guess its because we spend so much of our time, just the two of us, shes getting a bit jealous....