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

[Erin M]

Judy - That's great that you actually got some sleep!    Fingers crossed that it continues. 

Traci - Hooray for Cole!    Interesting findings about the naps too. 

Little Bear's Mum - I found that Katie hated her tummy until she realized that she can roll off it pretty easily and get back to her back.  Now she doesn't mind being on her tummy - it's like she's realized she's getting there on purpose and she doesn't have to stay there, so now it's ok.  Of course when she's tired, all bets are off. :roll:

Shazzeal - Welcome!  Happy to have you here!   

After a week of sleep all over the place, I think we're back to normal now.  Katie had long naps yesterday, slept all night and woke up at a normal time.  Here's hoping it continues.  She seems to do this every few months - just developmental I guess. 

DH was at a bachelor party last night and got home at 4 AM!  I guess we won't be seeing him for a few more hours. 

Take care all!

[M&M'sMom]

Judy- I'm glad to hear the girls are doing so great at night... last night my girls did the same thing, slept until 4:45, took a feed and were back down until 8am! I needed that, they have both been teething and we've had a few rough nights! Are the Kaia and Hannah teething at all? Maisie and Makaylee started at 5 months.... sooo hard because they could barely hold teething toys at the time- this time a little easier.

Take care,
Jody

[Little Bear's Mum]

Judy, great to hear your nights are getting better.

Unfortunately ours aren't. We've now had 3 nights in a row Daniel's been up 3 times, screaming upset. It's so unlike him. He's really hard to comfort and I've had to resort to Pamol. He took some b/milk, but didn't really want it. I'm wondering if it could be his reflux. I stopped giving him his Losec last Thursday as I was going to the homeopath, and he was sooo spilly anyway, I thought maybe it wasn't doing anything anyway. But, at 1am thismorning that went through my mind. He would settle in my arms if upright, but as soon as I put him down he'd scream. He's fine during the day, just at night, so I'm not too sure. A growth spurt doesn't seem to be the answer after all, as he didn't really want to feed. Very strange.

I've given him his Losec again today. Actually I gave him a dose yesterday afternoon, but it may take a couple of days to build up back into his system. I just hope he comes right tonight.

Then thismorning as I was so tired, I didn't really hear him wake up. So I think I kept him up a bit long and I had to feed him to settle him to get to sleep. Ooops. Mmmm I wonder what the next awake/sleep period will bring.

Good news for you too Erin with Katie back to normal. Isn't it funny/strange how we're all going through sleep problems at night at the same sort of age.

[kate585]

xi dtrb w qlehv,u1`BGC C (A little love note from Ryan). 
I think he found the Caps Lock key.  Have I mentioned how incredibly gifted he is?  :wink:  He is always trying to hit the keyboard now, so I usually only pop on when he's asleep.  Which he should be doing now, but he's off routine again.   :?   I think we're going to have to go to church at 5 pm on Sunday instead of Sunday am...which is sad, b/c we know loads of people that go in the morning and there are usually only 30-40 people in the evening.  But, we've had to leave early for the last 4 weeks in a row, so I think Ryan's trying to tell us something. 
Glad everyone is doing well...welcome to the new members. 
Can you believe we've got almost 50 pages? Yikes!!!
Yahoo!!!  The little buggar just rolled over from his back to his tummy to reach the picture frames on our bookshelf.  He's been rolling over for months now, but this is the first time I saw it.  Glad to share it with you all.  Gotta go save the frames, though!  Bye!

[FrasersMum]

Morning All!!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

We are with all of you in the 45 min nap boat - it's driving me crazy!  I've got a little "grump" anyway but the 45 min naps make life SO much harder...  Anyway, no point in reliving the trials of the 45 min naps, you all know the drill.  Have NO IDEA how to fix them, nothing seems to work so far.  Am probably going to ride it for a bit and see if they start to extend.  Would love to drop the catnap if it meant longer naps but it's the wrong way around - because of the short naps he NEEDS the catnap.  Haven't quite worked out how to explain to him that if he has longer naps for the first two he doesn't have to have the third.  :roll:

Started solids on the weekend - a bit of rice cereal.  He took to it well but doesn't seem too fussed.  Will have to think about introducing some veggies - might get him a bit more interested.

Now here's my "what would you do?" for the day.  (Sorry, I can't ask anyone else - everyone I know rolls their eyes at the BW philosophy!).  What do you do if your LO wakes at 5.45am (happens to us every couple of days)  Feed and treat as a night feed or encourage playing in the cot until a more respectable morning start time?  Fraser does not go back to sleep if he wakes at 5.45am - but I have been trying to preserve a 7am feed time.  Means then that I have NO IDEA what time to put him back to bed...  Ah, I just don't know!! What would you do?

Thanks and chat soon
Jo

PS - I don't wait for notifications on this thread, just check it everytime I log in.  There's always something new to read! 

[Colesmom]

Little Bear's Mum: regarding sleep/wake modes, doesn't it seem like we are running little science experiments on our babes???  I am going by these times: am nap starting approx. 9am, pm approx. starting 12-2pm and catnap is approx 3-5pm. 

Every day seems a little different for us right now.  He had an am nap of 45 min. and I thought the day was doomed.   This could have been because I may not have heard him wake up.  Well, I heard him at 5:45 and left him a bit and fell back asleep, then didn't hear him again until 6:45!  not sure if he went back to sleep too.  he may have been up 2.75 hours for first A time :?:  :shock:   anyhoo, then I helped him at 45 minutes for the pm nap because i was having a friend over and didn't want him all fussy.  I stayed with him about 15 minutes doing shh/pat (only really needed it for 5) and then he slept 2 hours!!!

I've been tweaking his interval before bed and it seems it just takes him 17 minutes to settle...at least the last two nights he has.  I put him down a touch later tonight thinking he'd settle after 2:40 A time...but then he added on 7 minutes, so I think I just need to put him down for 2:30A after a 10-15 minute settling period!

Judy  I am in Toronto, east end though...otherwise known as Scarborough.  Don't worry though, I'm safe, no gunshots so far :wink:   I'm actually in a really nice area by the lake.  I'm practically in Pickering if you know the area at all.  And I was thinking this morning that you would reply that you were in London!  It's like I'm psychic!!!

I remembered the couple of things I wanted to add last night.  Also from the Weissbluth book:

Up until about 21 months of age, some babies are born to be short nappers and some are inherently long nappers.  Parents can interfere with a child's long naps by messing up the child's schedule, but they cannot make short nappers into long nappers.  Impt. facts about short nappers.  At 6 months, 80% of babies nap b/w 2.5 and 4 hours each day.  15% nap longer than 4 hours. 5% nap less than 2.5 hours.  If you include babies who sleep a total of 2.5 hours or less, 18% fall into this category.  They keep this pattern for 12-18 months!

Anyhoo, thought that might be encouraging to those that just can't get there los to sleep more than 45 minutes!!!

Also:

It may be very difficult to establish regular naps at four to five months of age in some babies because their biological nap rhythms are maturing very slowly.  Some babies don't evolve into a schedule of regular long naps until five or six months of age, especially if they had extreme fussiness/colic when younger or if their parents were inconsistent or irregular about naps during the first four months

phew, could this post by any longer!

sure it could. I have a Q.  How long do you bathe your lo for?  It only takes me 5 minutes or less b/c really, what can you do until they sit up??  I still wash his head first while holding him over the tub...do you still do that?  Or do you pour water over your los head now?  Not sure when you can do that.  Just paranoid of water in eyes and ears.

okay, NOW i'm done

i'm gonna go have some ice cream!

Traci

[james030405]

Hi Ladies

Welcome Shazeel - nice to have a new mum to share ideas with.

James isnow over the worst of his illness, he had scarlet fever and tonsillitis for a week and then last week he has conjunctivits and a cold.  he is at the tail end of a cold.  I started solids just over a week ago and we are doing breakfast and dinner.  For bfast, we have rice ceral and fruit about 1hr after his bottle.  For dinner he has been having pumpkin for the last few days so our afternoon routine looks like this:

3:30pm bottle
4:00pm walk
5:00pm dinner
5:30pm:  play with dad
6:00pm:  bath
6:30pm:  bottle
7:00pm bed

Last night he slept from about 7:15pm till 7am (that is when I got him up).  I df at around 11:30 (he was coughing for awhile and I found that this helped him).

We are down to 2 naps a day - the first being around 1.5hrs and the 2nd about 1-2hrs.  In the afternoon until he goes to bed, he can be awake for around 3 - 3.5hrs but he seems to cope well. I will only put him down for a catnap if his naps haven't been very good.  I found that if he had a catnap and slept till 5.45pm, he would be up for ages at night before going to bed.  Frasers' mum, maybe if you introduce dinner this might help him sleep longer at night ( I think our lo's are about the same age). 

James had been sleeping through the night for about a week before getting sick so I wasn't sure if it was ever going to happen again.  But it did last night so maybe we are getting back on track

The only downside to my textbook/spirited baby is that although I know he can settle himself, he often needs just a little encouragement to get to sleep. I guess this is okay but I am getting worried that it will become a prop.  He is now sitting up also and VERY aware of his surroundings.  I have noticed that when I put him down in his cot, he lifts his head (he sleeps on his tummy) and looks for me   Makes me feel bad that he can see me leave the room, but I don't want him to be relying on me to be inthe room to get to sleep.


anyway, I hope everyone else is getting more sleep.  Summer is on its way to Australia which is good.  I am looking forward to being able to just put a sheet over james and if it comes off, it doesn't matter. 

Bye for now

Lisa - mum to James (textbook/spirited)

[FrasersMum]

Hi Traci

Ah, the bath, now here is something I can answer (finally!!)   :lol:

We bathe Fraser at the end of the day - around 6 - 6.15 depending on how he is because this is his very fussy time of the day and he loves his bath so it extends his awake time a bit without the screaming!!  We stretch it out as long as we can because otherwise he'd be getting into bed at 6.30 or so (what wake up time would we have then!  :roll: )  So usually about 30minutes. 

We get in the bath with him (either DH or me, not both of us!).  I do it if I've worked that day, gives me some quality time with Fraser and gives DH a break.  Vice versa on the days when I am home with him.  It's lovely time - we swim and sing and play with bath toys and Fraser eats everything and sucks on the face washer  (Hope that's safe!)  We just wash his hair with the face washer (he doesn't have much at the moment) although Frase doesn't mind getting water in his eyes - when he's having a shower with one of us he loves to stick his head under (strange kid!)  We don't use shampoo yet although we'll have to start thinking about that so I guess when we do we'll reassess the hair washing bit but we haven't washed it over the bath for ages.

Does that help?  Oh, we also add in another bath during the day if he's really cranky and we are fed up with him (I know, we're in drought and should be conserving water!  We focussing instead on conserving our sanity  :wink: )

Bye!
Jo

[kate585]

Hey, everyone! 
Traci, just wanted to let you know my swim instructor encouraged  "dumping a cup of water on his head" so that our lo's won't be afraid of the water and a bit of splashing.  I don't think I'd follow that advice exactly, but I do use a cup (while he's lying (laying?) on the bathmat) and start at the forehead and pour it backwards.  Inevitably, he'll splash and get some in his face or eyes.  Luckily, he loves it, so it's not a problem.  Also, we've been using baby shampoo since his cord stump fell off.  (Remember how gross that was? :shock: ) 
Hope you all have a FANTASTIC week!!!

[kate585]

Quick, random question:  Judy, is that Zoe in your Avatar?  Just curious.

[Arwyn's mom]

Judy  :lol: Yes, aren't DHs just so weird? And I think you are very right in not "letting" DH bathe your twin babes.

Just a note... I was browsing the sleep forum and went to an announcement (or was it a sticky?)... anyways, it notes that a baby at 6 months needs 2.25 hours of day sleep and 12 hours of night sleep. All this time, I was convinced that Arwyn needed 5 hours day sleep. (Did I get this from the BW book?) Based on this new found info, my lo is getting enough hours on 3 x 45 minute naps. Yahoo! (Bet I can't take it to the bank yet though  :wink: )

Anyways, I haven't extended naps now for the last two days if she looks happy. I only extend them if she wakes up grumpy. After Friday, (some of you will recall my cry for help) I decided I needed some balance. Not throwing the whole nap thing out the window but some balance.

We started rice cereal today. She seems to like it but didn't finish the whole tablespoon both times. The instructions say to start with 1 tbsp of rice cereal with 3 to4 tbsp of water. That makes a really runny mixture and it takes FOREVER to get a tiny bit into her. Anyways, that's another story.

[Erin M]

Lisa - so glad to hear James is getting better - I am so worried for the day when Katie does get sick - we've been lucky so far.

Traci - we bathe for about 15 minutes.  I let her sit in the tub and splash which she loves.  I also give her some toys to play with in there.  She sits on sort of a big cushion in the bathtub - lays there actually, so when I have to rinse her hair I just dump it over her head and let the water run down.  She gets water in her eyes when she splashes but it doesn't seem to bother her too much.  I'm also with the other ladies in that it makes an otherwise cranky part of the day a bit easier to bear.

Arwyn's mom - We started rice cereal right about the same time you did (Katie is about a month older than Arwyn) - it took Katie about three weeks before I actually felt like she "got" it.  We're working on some fruits now and oat cereal.  I think I gradually made it thicker over the course of about two weeks.

Regarding early wakings - sorry, can't go back to the last page and see who asked about that - I would treat it like a night waking, but if your LO's not upset and just playing I would just leave them.  If Katie wakes that early and is not upset I just leave her.  If she is upset, I try to get her back to sleep and definitely try to hold off on getting her up until a more civilized hour.

-Erin

[Colesmom]

okay, well I did a little more experimenting this morning to prove to myself that I believe in upholding the schedule.  DS woke at 4:15 for a feed, gave him one boob and he was up until 5:00.  45 minutes better than 1.5 hours...but I digress.
He then only slept until 5:45...I let him cry until 6:15 as it wasn't frantic cry.  I was hoping he would find his Ocean Wonders and just occupy himself.  No go...so got him up at 6:15 and fed him at 6:30 with the intention of a 7:30 nap.  I thought to myself...MAYBE he'll go down at 7:30 for two hours which would give the same waking time as 8:45 for 45 minutes.  See my logic?  Well DS always falls asleep for naps in 10 min. now.  After 15 min I got him up and knew it wasn't going to happen.  So after having only 45 min. sleep myself since 4:15 am I did what most sane women would do and walked to the coffee shop on the corner.  All the people commented on what a "bright" baby he was.  BRIGHT is right, overstrung is more like it!!!

Anyhoo, he went down okay around 8:30 for a whopping 10 minutes!  I helped him back to sleep by 8:50 for a 45 minute nap.  Okay, I can handle that.  He is now down for his second nap and went down in his customary 10 minutes.  Anyhoo, going to tweak his bedtime tonight.  Weissbluth says if they are waking early to put them to bed 20 minutes earlier.  I looked back through my week and the night DS went down at 6:45 he woke 10:15pm for feed and 5:15am for feed.  After the am feed he babbled for 20 min, cried softly for 20 then went back to sleep 6:15-7:15!!!  So, I am going to have him in bed tonight no later than 6:45.  I really think trying to push him to 7:00-7:15pm is not working.

Thanks for the notes on bathing.  Frasersmum...do you get in the bath when it's only you at home?  I'd be nervous trying to handle a slippery, squirmy baby while I am also wet.  It's hard enough getting him out of his tub when I'm on dry land!  I guess I'll change his tub to the sitting up mode (still have him laying back but he wants to sit) and let him play longer.  And you're right...at least it will kill the time at the end of the day.  I'm pretty pooped by the end of the day and looking for stuff to do that isn't too boring but not too stimulating.

I used to run (two years ago) and last night I went onto my old runners forum to say hi and actually commit to starting back once DH is done his exam in October.  In the meantime I'm working on picking up my walking pace so that running isn't too bad once I start.  So DS and I go for a brisk stroll in the evening right when he wakes from catnap.  Now I need to look for a running stroller...anyone know a good brand?

Thanks

Traci

[herbst99]

Traci
Lise's swim instructor reinforced to me that "clean" water will do no harm to babies ears and actually has us drawing a shallow bath and then let Lise right down on her back with her ears covered with water! She loves this as she can make "snow angels" in the tub. My husband (he is a family doc) also said this is fine and while I have not had any trouble with her ears but probably would check with your doc re same. It does make them less afraid of water I feel.
Husband just got home - will post furter later![/quote]

[Taylor's Mommy]

I'm so mad my computer isn't working at home!  I got all caught up last niht and took notes, and then couldn't post! :evil:
Now I am at work so can't really talk, but just wanted to say hi.  Hopefuly my computer will work tonight.

BTW, I quit my job today!  How crazy is that!!! :?    :shock:  :?    :shock: