December 2013 - sleepless nights & lots of cooing

[Stom91]

Our very first Thread :)

[hotcrossbun83]

Marking my place

[yogafan]

Me too!

Is anyone out there trying to keep their baby more awake during the day in the hope they'll sleep more at night? Does it work or should I just roll with what DD wants to do...?

[hotcrossbun83]

I've heard not too as an overtired baby is harder to get to sleep, and in my experience a busy day hasn't led to a quieter night. I'm going for lights on, tv on in the day and lots of interaction when they are awake, then dark quiet and no talking at night. Not really working yet mind. I'm sure the weather isn't helping, sunshine is surely an important part of the circadian rhythm?

[froubylou]

Well I am trying to get a routine going this week. Dd back ay school tomorrow so have to get up and be out at certain times.

Seb was 3 weeks onFriday. Am ebf so happy enough with the 3 hours between feeds overnight. Just not happy with him wanting to co sleep which I finally did all night last night. Been struggling until 2am ish before letting him in with us but DP got a 120 miles round trip for work at the min. And is a builder so needs to be alert at work too. So he needs sleep.

It's not so much that I mind him being in with us. It's just I don't want to squish him so don't sleep properly. So tonight we are doing a proper bath and bed routine.

Got him sucking on a dummy yesterday too. He loved it. Was everso smug. Until I went to feed him and his latch was shit. Wasn't opening mouth wide enough and then not spreading his lips out. Sigh.

[itsliz]

Woohoo! Can't believe all our babies are finally here

We finally got to bring Finley home from NICU last night so slowly trying to work out a routine at home. At the moment we're letting him dictate things and just making sure he has a feed every 4ish hours.
Couldn't get him to settle without being held or given a finger to suck last night though so not a great start!

[Dasie]

Hi!

Just marking my place!

I've found no correlation between awake days and sleepy days making any difference to how much DS sleeps at night. The most he goes is 3 hours between feeds. In fact a couple of days ago he slept almost all day and then slept so well all night too

He's been a bit unwell and unsettled the last 2 days, lots of puking! My washing machine n tumble dryer are getting well used!

[lisbapalea]

Hi all - very exciting to see we now belong in the postnatal section!

I have also been wondering about daytime vs. night time and whether to try and mark a difference between them, but I don't see how we can force babies to be awake when they're keen on sleep - Hannah seems to be quite wide awake in the morning but spends a lot of the day sleeping, saving her energy for restlessness from 6pm until 11pm!!

We do seem to have eased some of that 6-11pm stuff by increasing her feeds (the Dr's had recommended 65ml every 3 hrs when we had to have her assessed for being underweight and moved from bf to ff, but she is now happily taking between 90-120ml at most feeds) so I think she may have been fussing out of hunger, poor thing! We've also started using infacol as she had seemed to be writhing around in pain a bit during that 'witching hour' period, and again she seems to be more settled. We have had some massive vomiting sessions from her though which have settled down today thank goodness, so I am hoping that was just her body adjusting to the increased feeds being offered. DD1 suffered with loads of vomming and lots of crying, which in hindsight I am sure was reflux so I am keeping my eye on it with Hannah so she doesn't suffer.

So far she is doing pretty well at night, going quite robotically for three hours between feeds and settling OK after each feed into her moses basket but I don't know when I should be thinking more about establishing a difference between night and day, or when I should expect the 3hrs to stretch a bit further at night.

Do you all keep your little ones with you before you go to bed, or are you trying to settle them in their moses basket in your bedrooms say at 7pm? It feels like we're a long way of starting that kind of night time routine, and Hannah currently stays with us while we watch TV in the evening then we all head up to bed together after the feed that's around 10pm.

I think I was obsessed with getting DD1 into a routine and had far more rigid ideas on what she 'should' be doing - I'm not really that fussed this time, but I know that may well change when the novelty of 3hr wake ups wears off!!

Blimey - long post - sorry!!

[Dusty04]

Marking my place :)

Signed off by the midwife today and health visitor been. She was pretty straight laced but nice enough.

Now just waiting for the man to come and look at the boiler after it decided to play up yesterday!

[13loki]

Älfi was 5.18kg when we went to the child health centre at 5 weeks. She is massive, although I shouldn't be surprised - all she does is feed, posset, poo and sleep.
lisa älfi stays with me all the time. Sleeps in her bouncer or carrycot in the room I'm in if she lets me put her down. She has stretched to 4 or 4.5 hours between feeds at night.

[Mogz]

Marking place, feeling like a zombie today so will catch up with you all later zzzzzz

[Alyssa1978]

Hi everyone.

I don't keep Lleyton awake during the day as I found it made no difference, but he now goes upstairs into his Moses basket after his first night feed at normally 7-8pm and he seems to sleep longer before waking up for a feed. Both my other 2 had bedtimes so it was just natural for me to give him one too.
He starts being fussy around 3am and sometimes I end up co sleeping just so me and dp can get a bit if sleep.

[violetbean]

We've started co-sleeping a bit, it has worked OK so far, we've followed all the advice re bed position etc.

Went to our first breastfeeding café today, was great to meet so many other mums. Trying to improve his latch so he doesn't massacre my nipples!

[mumofthreeboysS]

Hello! Joshua discharged to HV today, he's almost up to his birth weight so in happy about that ESP as he's done so well feeding despite the tongue tie. He seems to be most unsettled in the evenings- won't go in the Moses cot so DH cuddles him whilst I get some sleep in before the night shift! He has gone up to 4 hours Inbetween feeds at night which is good.

frouby I've offered a dummy already too and found he was a bit lazy latching after but just used my finger to open his jaw a bit more which seems to help. I'm just trying not to use it too much, just occasionally when he really needs it.

[SupermansGirl]

Well i seem to be quit blessed with the night feeds Delilah feeds every 3/4hours in the day has her last "day" feed at 10pm and then goes in her moses basket. Wakes at 4am then again at 9am shes done this since the day she was born with one night of broken sleep due to illness. She does fuss and cry sometimes when i put her down though and i give her a hug in bed for 2 mins then back in the moses basket. I know its naughty but i cant leave her screaming theres 5 other people in the house trying to sleep.

[SupermansGirl]

Ohh and Delilah wont take a dummy i tried and she just spits it out and makes a funny face...iv given up after 10 attempts.

[mumofthreeboysS]

supermans that's brilliant- I jealous how many weeks old is she? And are you bf or ff? Want to know if there's hope for me soon- soooo want some more sleep!

[Alyssa1978]

Well I started feeding Lleyton his night formula bottle and we started at 10.30pm, 45 minutes later he'd only drank 2oz and now over an hour and 15 minutes later he's fadt asleep in his bed and only drank 3oz
Dp is on night shift and I have a feeling I'm gonna be feeding every 2 hours, I think this was the wrong day for the doc to decide to fit me with a 24 hour bpf monitor

Very impressed super and well jel too

Brill news Joshua is nearly at borth weight mum well done xx

[clare8allthepies]

Hooray for graduating to post natal threads!

Can't believe Rose is 7 weeks old now, feel like BF ing is finally getting easier after the rough start now all we need is to start cracking this sleeping malarkey!

DP now back to work after new year and we have reduced my 3 year olds nursery to 2 and a half days per week so Thursday and Friday might be a bit of a challenge

Had my post natal check at the docs today thinking of going for a mirena coil, anyone got any experience?

[mumofthreeboysS]

Well it's 4am and feeding again. Joshua fed at 10pm but then wouldn't settle so had more at 12 then slept at 1 for 3 hrs. If I can get him down in an hour I get another hours sleep and I got an hour before 10, so I'll have got 5 hours sleep. That's not enough for me to feel human how am I supposed to function- anyone else find themselves adding up how much sleep they're getting? I know I shouldn't! DH wants to go swimming tomorrow night (it's coached sessions for his triathlon training) I'm trying to be understand in about his training but I wish he'd just wIt a few weeks. It means I can't go to bed at 8 tonight for a few hrs before the next feed - and I NEED whatever I can get. Grr!

Mum is offering to help where she can but not sure if I'll be nark to nap during the day (depends if I can when my 2yo is at preschool) ...

[mumofthreeboysS]

Understanding not understand in!

[mumofthreeboysS]

Nark?? wtf bloody phone meant 'able'

[froubylou]

Well we had a tough afternoon and evening followed by the best night so far lol. He had an hour in his chair until about 12am then was a velcro baby until we went to bed at 9pm ish. But he had hid bath and last bf and went in his crib at 10pm, then went until 1.30pm, then 3pm and I let him in with us at about 4am as dp up at 5am.

We have snoozed and fed lying down since and just getting up now. Very jealous of all of you getting 3/4 hours between feeds consistently. But hopefully now we back at school and work he will get the hang of it.

Luckily there is nothing to stop me going back to bed for an hour later!

DD who is only 9 is putting her hair curlers in pmsl.

[SupermansGirl]

mum she is 1 month tomorrow, I started breast feeding then stopped as she was always still moany and hungry and she also settles after a bottle and sleeps longer.

[hotcrossbun83]

Wow super that's impressive, ds is 1 month on sat and we are nowhere close to that. Although after his 4am bottle he went straight back down without crying which is progress.

Currently we don't really do bedtime as he won't sleep in cot. Last night he slept on dh until midnight bottle, then I fed and by the time he had settled it was 1.30, took him into bed and co slept. Need to start moving him into cot,have a co sleeper so was thinking of just moving him as bit closer each time and hopefully he won't notice.

Has anyone heard of cocoonababy? Makes co sleeping safer and meant to be great generally for sleeping but £120, don't know if it's just taking advantage of desperate sleep deprived parents!

[Mogz]

Genevieve has been super the past few nights, she generally has a feed at about midnight then lets us all sleep until 5! Just a shame that during the day she wants food every 2 hours and hugs in between, not got much done since she go home, but oh well, it's actually really nice to be so snuggly.
She's 4 weeks today so we are starting to try to introduce a bit of a bed time regime. Any info on co-sleeper things greatly received as I love having her in bed with me but find my quality of sleep is very poor as I'm hyper aware of tryin not to smother her with my ginorma-boobs!
Clare what's the postnatal check like?