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

[BiancaB]

:shock: GROWTH SPURT !!  :shock:
Hello everyone, Well it has to be! Sienna has spent all day today feeding every 2 hrs, emptying both breasts each time and sleeping short naps in between!! AAAAHHH It hasn't helped that I'm also sleep deprived myself as last night Kyan was waking up every hr from 2am onwards!! I really haven't figured out why he was so unsettled, I think he is growing too.

Hopefully my milk supply increases, it should at this rate  :roll:  I'm going to go with the flow today but will have a rethink if she keeps this up for longer.. By the way I would love to get some opinions on Tracys suggestion of 4hr BF at 4months if you have read through this section of her book..? Has anyone moved to this routine yet?

Back to feeding again....   Bianca

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Rest up if you can Bianca!  I think we had a growth spurt last week, but the only way I knew about it was Danielle waking 3hrly through the night over two nights and then she made her way gradually back to a 5.30am waking after her DF.  However, today she fed 3hrly during the day (up until now it's been 2.5hrly) so will see how this affects tonight.  Also she's been only feeding for barely 5mins and not particularly enthusiastically....not sure what's going on there. :?   So guess it will take a while to get to 4hr EASY for us, although she has extended her activity time to at least 1.5hrs after every nap and the last few days she's been back to 1.5hr naps after only having 45min ones for a good week or so - maybe all related to the GS?  I don't recall ever getting Nathan to 4hrly feeds and I didn't intro solids until he was almost 6mths old, so not too sure how I'm going to go with that. 

We're still just cruising along nicely though and I've given up thinking that things must go downhill at some point.  Getting the most awesome smiles and chatting as well in the last few days - so perhaps there's been a lot of developmental changes affecting everything?  You'd think 2nd time round I'd be a bit more clued up. :wink:

[BiancaB]

Hello to everyone,
Just checking in...Well we are back in an almost normal routine again after our GS. I'm keeping Sienna up for approx 1hr and a half and she is having 3 good naps a day with a short one late evening, bedtime 7pm. Here is one thing that has happened though..I was singleside feeding up until this GS but now I can't seem to get back to it..Not sure why?? She took both sides during the GS and I thought once my supply increased she would go back to one side each feed as she had before, but she hasn't :?  My supply seems okay so not sure how to get her to stay longer on just the one side (6mins usual) before she starts howling for me to give her the other!!
Oh well I'll try not to stress maybe I'll just have to go to doublesiding already. Kyan has his 2yr old molars coming through at the moment which is why we have had a few very unsettled nights. But all in all things are going well
and Nikki we're getting heaps of chattering and giggles aswell isn't it great... By the way Danielle is such a cutie
Take care all
Bianca

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Oh thanks for reviving this Bianca.  Well, here's where we are at...

Danielle is 12wks on Friday, wow has time flown by fast, I kept waiting for things to turn bad and 12wks was my "we just need to get to 12wks" as far as survival goes, but it never got bad.

Danielle is also awake for 1.5hrs at a time now (almost to the minute), generally wakes around 7am (or woken by me by 7.30am), has 4 naps a day - this will usually be made up of one or two long naps and a 45min one or two - she has a catnap at the end of the day which I wake her from by 5.30pm to start bed and bath routine and she's in bed by 7pm.  She's on a 3hr feed schedule too - how do we start to transition to 4hrly?  I've been wondering how you do a 3.5hr schedule that Tracy talks about?  Danielle's definitely not ravenous at 3hrs, but she's still getting the DF and then wakes anywhere from 2.30-5.30am (more often around 4am), so not too sure to stretch out day feeds just yet.

Bianca, I've also gone to feeding off both sides since our GS, my milk's definitely increased, but she seems to need both now - I found this with Nathan at 3mths too.  What I do is offer the same side twice and then offer the 2nd side.  Our feeds have increased to a nice 10-15mins (I was struggling with 5min feeds). 

Nathan's also teething his 2yr molars, 2 down, 2 to go!  We've had some whopper tantrums and whining and night wakings too.  Here's me worried about getting Danielle sleeping through the night, I now think it's toddler stuff that's more disruptive. :roll:

So how's everyone else?

[MyTwoBoys]

Wanted to introduce myself- my DS was born April 27th - he is 8 weeks old today.  I read Tracy's latest book and started the EASY routine about 2 weeks ago and it had made wonders!  I was totally reading his tired cues as hunger cues. We are now easily able to go 3 hours between feeds and he sleeps fairly well during the day and excellent at night.  My concern is the dream feed. I haven't had much luck with it, DS does not wake up and I really can't stay up past 10pm. I am still cluster feeding twice before bedtime and he is able to go from about 9pm until about 4am without eating (he wakes up around 2 and I re-swaddle him and give him his paci and he falls back asleep - a habit I am trying to stop). Since this seems to be working, do you all think I should keep trying the dream feed?

Thanks!!
Valerie and George

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

George and Becca, just my opinion with the DF here...

George, unless you can stay up until 11pm I wouldn't attempt a DF prior to this since your LO's last feed is only 9pm and I would give a 2hr gap.  So if it were me I'd probably consider the 9pm feed as the last and just continue as you are.

Becca, since your last feed is 8pm, you could do a minimum of a 10pm DF.

I've found that it can take at least a week to see some results with that 2amish waking shifting slowly towards morning.  For a while I was stuck with the 1am feed which was there prior to the DF, then it went 2am, 3am etc.

HTH

[Erin M]

Hi all-
Been reading this thread as my Katie was born March 6 (wish I had found it sooner, sounds like lots of similar things going on).  She's quite a sweetie - somewhat spirited, somewhat angel as far as I can tell and a notorious 45 minute napper despite all my best efforts to extend them.  I'm thinking she's just going to be a 45 minute napper for a bit since pat/shh, extending awake time, all that doesn't seem to make a difference. 
Nikki and Bianca - Tracy gives a good rundown on how to switch from 3 to 4 hour EASY in her new book (not that I've had any success with it , we were getting there and then I think we've hit a growth spurt as she was up at all hours the past few nights after sleeping 7-7ish (with DF) for almost a month.  (Although she does occassionally wake at 5 - generally I just feed her then and but her back to bed and we tend to start our routine a little later that day - always seems to work out in the end.)
So nice to hear about all the babies!
-Erin

[becca24]

Well last night we were a little held up so the bedtime routine did not get started until 8.pm (bath,feed,bed) She ended up asleep at about 9.00 and slept to 4.15!!  (no dreamfeed)

Nikki, I have checked out the schedule that Erin M mentioned for going from 3 - 4 hr easy in the new book - it takes aprox. 15days. I could send it to you if that is allowed??  I am going straight on to a 3.5 hour routine as my lo has been sort of doing that herself (with feeds -still working on sleep!) So based on last nights times I have worked out at 3.5hr routine which I am going to start today. I chose 6.30 to start as this is what time dh gets up for work anyway. It looks like this:

E - 6.30am
A -
S - 8.00am 
E - 10.00am
A -
S - 11.30am/12.00pm
E - 1.30pm
A -
S - 3.00/3.30pm
E - 5.00pm
A -
S - 6.30 catnap 45min

A - 7.15 tummy time/nappy free time
   - 8.00 bath
E - 8.30
S - 9.00

no dreamfeed

The sleep times are estimated as she mainly catnaps but I am working on this with the pat/shhh method.

[mrayohler]

Hi all,
I'm a frequent visitor of the site but only today found this message board.  I'm so happy to chat with other moms of babies in the same age range.  My daughter,Payton, has been ready to switch from 3 to 4 hour easy and daycare (a wonderful woman thankfully) has been working on extending her awake times for me.  Payton has always been a great napper so the extended naps for a 4 hour routine are no problem.  I didn't do a great job transitioning b/c of the daycare taking care of extending wake times.  Its pretty much a cutover today.  I hope this switch doesn't affect her night sleep tonight.  She still wakes between 3-5am for one feed but goes right back to sleep. I'm so nervous about tonight.  Wish me luck and keep fingers crossed that the 4hr routine will leave her hungrier during the day and maybe soon sleeping from 8pm to 7am.

I never did the df with either of my two girls and I had to break from using the paci with Payton before it became a bad habit.  It was more difficult for me than her and got her to switch from waking 2x per night to just waking once.  That switch happened around 12 weeks.

I'll post results soon.  Thanks for listening.
Michele O

[hollyandchloesmom]

Hi, just wondered if I can join this?  My dd2, Holly was born 18 March 2005 and is now 14 weeks.  Currently on 4 hour EASY and going well (should I say that!).

Hope to chat soon.

[MommyJ]

Hello everyone,  I'm new to this board too.  My supercute little man was born on April 28th and is 8 1/2 weeks old.  I started easy at about 5 weeks after a big struggle with reflux.  He's on Gaviscon now and a much happier baby, but we still really struggle with the naps (after reading all of this though I'm feeling like that's normal). :roll:   

Before EASY the poor guy would let us know that he was hungry and then have to wait while we mixed up the medication and by the time he ate he would be so mad he'd have tears streaming down his face and a hard time latching on between screams.  I felt like such a terrible mom.  He's on the 3 hour easy now and is starving right on cue so I always know when to start prepping his medication.  It has been such a big help.

[JudeBaby]

Hello, moms!  I'm a newbie as well.  My little sweet pea, Jude, was born March 27.  He's 3 months old today!!!  This is my first baby, so I never know what to expect.  We've been on a 4 hour EASY since 5 weeks because he won'tt eat before then.  Speaking of eating, how many ounces are your darlings eating at a feed and over the course of a day?   Jude will only eat 4-5.5 ounces per feed.

[lindsaysmom]

Hi,

I'm so glad I found this!  I'm a first time mom also.  My Lindsay was born on 4/18/05, just turned 10 weeks today.  My parents came to stay with us and helped the first 5 weeks, so things didn't seem too bad.  But after they left, I realized I had no clue--baby was taking longer and longer to fall asleep at night, and not napping, so she got so cranky and cried all the time.  My pediatrician recommended Tracy's book and I started the EASY 3 hour routine just 2 weeks ago.  I found this site a great place for support and to know that I'm not alone!  Right now I'm thinking of starting dream feed since she still wakes up at least twice at night to feed.  I'm also working on her naps.  I'm much better at watching her cues and get her down to nap.  But it's very erratic whether she will sleep 30 minutes or 2 hours.  We'll see how things go in the next few days.

[BiancaB]

WOW! How nice to have all these new posters!! Welcome to all 
Special welcome to you firstimers its a whole new world isn't it  :lol:

I have been doing some study on Sienna's sleep patterns lately and how the DF feeds or late feed as I call it affects her.
Here goes...There seems to be a pattern of night sleep that occurs for my dd which is related to when she eats...
IE.. Last BFeed at 7pm with no DF and she goes 5-6 hrs straight sleep and then a wake up at around 1-2am then a 4hr sleep for a 5-6am wake up.
This makes it a little harder to get her to sleep right up until 7am especially if she wakes and eats at 6am...because then it is the next day and starts to interfere with her daytime routine.

Now if I feed her at 11pm(DF) she will sleep the same, approx 5-6 hrs for a 4am wake up and feed, which then helps her stretch to 7-7:30 am wakeup.
I have had to actually wake her up for the DF at 11pm as she won't eat when she is asleep and I have found that now she will start stirring around 10:30 -11 pm because her system is getting used to that feed.
So it really is just establishing a pattern that works for you and after a few days they usually will start to follow that pattern quite comfortably.
REMEMBER sleeping from 11pm until 4am -5am is pretty much as close to sleeping through the night as you will get at this age 

For me I set my alarm and get up at around 11pm to feed her because it creates a better routine the following day for us...but Sienna is also very easy to settle back to bed again now, so waking her to feed her is no hassle for us at this time of night.

I'm planning on going for the 4hr day routine very soon, following Tracys suggestions in her new book ..... but first its paci weaning time!! :shock:
I will be starting that next week, she has found her hand well and truly and although she isn't sucking her thumb or her fingers just the whole hand, I know she will if paci is gone for good and I know it is time from the signs(waking sometimes because she wants it to help her re-settle)
I successfully weaned my son off his paci at 3 months aswell so I hoping it goes as well this time around!!

Interested to hear from anyone who has there BF 3-4 month old on a 4hr routine already..

Happy Whispering to all of you
Bianca

[Erin M]

Katie shows no interest of going to a 4-hour routine and she'll be 4 months old a week from tomorrow (she is BF).  However, we seem to have just finished a growth spurt (maybe, so hard to tell) and now I do think she's teething (well I can see the teeth, but who knows how long they'll take to come through - I've heard it can take forever) so we've had things interfering with sleep all over the place.  About two weeks ago we had started to go from 3 to 4 hours (she was going 3 and a quarter to 3 and a half hours between feeds), but we've gotten thrown off since then.  And now we're off to visit the in-laws for the long weekend coming up, so I'm not really going to worry about it too much until after we get back.  (Then of course we've got her 4 month dr visit and more vaccinations    so that will throw things off for a few more days - we'll get back on track someday!) Never a dull moment!