Any March & April 05 mums/moms want to chat?

[Olivia's Mommy]

Hello all! I am new to this forum (thanks for the tip, Kate!). It's good to know that I am not alone in the things I'm facing. DD has recently regressed to short naps, too. (Last week she took a 25-minute nap at one of her regular nap times!) DD is almost 5 months old and, recently weaned to formula, and just started cereal. She also just started rolling over from back to belly and back again. I'm sure all of this has something to do with it.

She's also started staying awake at night. When she wakes up to feed, it is taking her 1hr -1.5 hrs to get back to sleep! Yesterday was a good day--she took 2 2-hour naps. Then last night, woke to eat, then right back to sleep. But this morning we were back to the 45-minute naps. She's down again, and has been down for 45 minutes now, and I'm not hearing her fuss yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Anyway, just wanted to jump into the conversation and say "Hi!"

[Colesmom]

Hi Nancy,

My lo was doing the same thing, staying up 1.5 hours.  How frustrating is that.  May I make a suggestion that helped my DS?  Try putting her down for bed 20 minutes earlier.  If I get him down by 6:45 he sleeps way better than if I wait until 7:00-7:15.  Might be worth a try.

Traci

[Jayri]

HI there nancy, ditto what traci said, I do that with Riley, that way he settle time doesn't cut into her nap time.
Welcome from canada!

[Olivia's Mommy]

I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to give it a try. However, bedtime might be a little tricky...it's already a tight schedule to get dinner ready, eaten, cleaned up and do bedtime ritual (including bath) when DH gets home from work. Do you mean put her down early at bedtime AND naps?

[Olivia's Mommy]

And thanks for the welcome!

[Colesmom]

Hi Nancy,

I actually just meant that her bedtime could benefit from being 20 minutes earlier.  I put DS down 10 min before end of awake time for naps and 15 minutes for night as that is just how long it takes him to settle.  There is no drowsy with my guy, he goes down wide awake!

I was going to ask if it was feasible with your schedule.  Hopefully you could tweak the routine a bit to cut out 20 minutes for a couple of nights just to see if it works.  By the way, I still keep awake time the same, but I wake DS from catnap if it will cut into his optimum bedtime.  I got this idea from Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth. FWIW!

Traci

[Olivia's Mommy]

Thanks for the tip...I'll give it a try!

[Little Bear's Mum]

I'm going to have to try to find that book Traci, I'm getting rather a collection of purchased books, so may have to join a library. Shock horror, haven't joined one of those since I was at school!

My exciting news is Daniel rolled yesterday from his tummy to back, quite intentionally from what it looked like. Yay! Of course, he probably won't do it again for months  :lol:

Our night was not quite as good as the night before, but an improvement overall. Woke at 10.30pm as DH was coming to bed. I asked him to give him cuddles and Pamol, as I knew he couldn't be hungry. That worked. I'm sure it's his teeth (or lack of) giving him troubles. Then woke at 12.30am, I fed one side. Then again at 4am. Fed the other side. Then sometime between 6-6.30am. I heard him at 6.30am. He was really tired from about 7.30am, so I put him to bed and he wouldn't settle. He's still awake now at 8.20am. Because he fed at 4am he wasn't hungry while he was awake, until I put him to bed. So at 8am I fed him. Mmmm, he's still not asleep. What's going on??? Probably over tired. Oh great, what a way to start the day. :cry:

I'm off to the hairdressers today, I'm wanting a new style but don't know what. Currently my hair is below my shoulders, and it's quite thick with waves. I usually go between this and a short straight 'bob' but that doesn't work without maintenance every morning. So I'm going to try to find something different. Oh crikey, who know what I'll look like by tonight!

Better go and settle Daniel - again. Not sure how this time.

Traci, I might try 20 mins earlier tonight too. 7pm isn't working!

SOrry, no time to add other bits for other people, hopefully later!

[kate585]

Hey, all!  We've had a devil of a day today.  (Must be b/c I posted about all the sleep he got yesterday.  I jinxed myself!   :roll: )  But, we go back for our swimming lesson in an hour or so, so there's something to look forward to, anyhow. 
Man, I can't even remember what I was going to post about...have I mentioned it's been a rough day?   :lol:   
Traci, I went back to read my "Better Sleep Habits..." book today.  Seems like it's pretty in line with BW except he advocates CIO.  Is that how you read it?  He said, "Don't let your baby cry for more than an hour."  MORE than an hour?  Yikes!  Other than that, it's pretty related with schedules, sleep times, etc. and seems to have some good suggestions.  Just wondered about your thoughts on that.
We'll see if I remember what the post was going to be.  Ugggh!  Baby Brain strikes again!

[FrasersMum]

Hi All 

Just wanted to pop in quickly and say hi.  I haven't posted for a bit but I always check in and see what everyone is up to.

We had an interesting day yesterday - only 2 x 45min naps the whole day, but not cranky.  What's with that??  Anyway, I seem to have lost the whole sleep inducing touch and can't get him down so we just went with it.  It actually went ok (surprisingly!).  We had an early start this morning - a 5am feed and it then took me to 6.30am to get him back to sleep - but hooray because I did eventually manage it!

Still progressing with the solids here - just rice cereal once a day at breakfast.  I tried really hard to wait until the 6 month mark but all indications were that Fraser was ready to go.  My ped said to me very early on to "read the baby not the book" so that's what I ended up going with (and advice from a number of very smart mums on these boards  :lol:).  Anyway, we were only 1 week shy of 6 months so I will count that as success.  Am going to introduce some pumpkin this morning which will be interesting.

Have a great day everyone!  Here's to babies who nap long and often!

[FrasersMum]

Oh btw - finally added an avatar!  What do you think of my little guy?

[Jayri]

yup, our routine is way off whack. Riley's tooth is bothering her a great deal. So this makes pd at sleeptime real fun :roll:
Is anyone else's lo showing signs of having teeth. Riley's hasn't come through but you can see a faint white line under her gum. I love baby oragel.
Well must run, she is battling sleep and at the same time she is getting harder to keep on my lap.

TTFN

[hayes]

HI!  I have been reading this board for quite some time and FINALLY decided to join in.  I will update my profile some day.  I have a son named Ben, born 4/1/05.  His naps have been shortening as well, lots of rolling over, shrieking, mouthing everything in sight.  No solids yet, I have tried rice cereal a few times but when I reported it to the doc he told me to wait until 6 months.  We'll see if i can hold out for a few more weeks.  It has been great reading and finding out that so many others are experiencing the same thing as I am.  Thanks for all of the time and humor you put into your posts.  I am a terrible speller so please excuse the mistakes!  Good thing I only taught K and 1st grade, their spelling words are easy!
macaire

[Olivia's Mommy]

There must be something about today...it's been a devilish one for us, too. Naps have been WAAAY off. (She finally took a total of about 1 1/2 hours this afternoon, but that was in 15-30 minute increments. I would just leave her in her crib and she'd fall back to sleep only to wake after 15 min or so.)

Now I just went to go to the grocery store, got LO and all the gear out in the car and it wouldn't start. So, now we're stuck here, and DH won't be home until late tonight with the other vehicle, and nothing to eat for dinner!

Well, here's to a better day tomorrow!

[Little Bear's Mum]

J&R's Mum - yep, we're definitely battling teeth. I've just given Daniel some Pamol to see if that helps. I feel like I'm resorting to 'drugs' to get him to sleep if he's upset at night or like thismorning, but for a normally very good night sleeper and good at settling down, I don't know what else can be going on except teeth. His cheeks were rosy red, so I take that as a good sign they were bothering him.

I just went thru my logs and noticed he seems to go down closer to 2 hours after waking up for the day. Even though he shows tired signs earlier, his logs imply that 2 hours is the magic number. I'm going to try to stick with that for the next few days even if he's tired and see if it helps.

Traci/Kate - in the "sleep habits" book does it have ideal awake/sleep times or a routine example? If so, would you mind posting it here, I'd be interested in seeing what it says for a 5 1/2 month old/6 month. I'm going to try to track it down but in the meantime this may help.

FrasersMum - definitely cute!

Kate - do the swimming lessons tire your LO out? Can we expect big naps after swimming? Or does it have the opposite effect?

Hope your napping goes well everyone.