June/ July 05 Mom's Chat

[rooby-rooby-roo]

Any new moms out there want to chat? What is going on with your new arrivals? My little man Red is 3 weeks old, he is a spirited baby, and we are having trouble with his daytime sleep already :?  It would be great to chat with other mom's with brand new babies  and see how you are going along  

[ry,cait&alex]

I would love to chat....just letting you know.  However, at the moment, her Highness has to eat.  Will post back in a bit.

bj

Okay, so SEVERAL hours later....geez.  Cait is 5 weeks old today and has been a fairly easy baby.    This past week she has really been focusing on things (me, dh, and Ry), her attention span has widened to about 10 minutes, after that, she gets overstimulated and can meltdown.  She does not like the music or lights on the swing.  Too much for her little system to comprehend.

She is eating between 4 +/- oz about every 3-4 hours.   We got lucky the other night and she went from 7p-1a before eating again.  That was exciting, but haven't seen it again since.  I think it is just an "freebie" from God to remind us that "this too shall pass".  I think she may have a light case of reflux, also.  It doesn't happen everytime, nor does it happen everyday...but on occasion she gets to be very unconsolable after eating, even after burping and then I will see curdled milk in her mouth that she has "burped".  Breaks my heart.  :cry:

I think she is going to be a Binky baby.  At least tonight she is...or it could be that "sucking" helps relieve the reflux, not sure which.  I really wish she would find her thumb and be a thumb baby, but....not up to me.

Cait was born weighing 8.9 lbs, came home at 9.3 lbs, had a checkup at a week and was 8.6 lbs and the dr wanted us to come back the following week and she weighed 9.2 lbs.  So...she likes her bottle!!!

Other than that, she is pretty much bump on a log.  :wink:  :lol:  :shock: Her brother will be much happier when she starts to "play". 

Thats all for now.
bj

[rooby-rooby-roo]

I think she may have a light case of reflux, also.  It doesn't happen everytime, nor does it happen everyday...but on occasion she gets to be very unconsolable after eating, even after burping and then I will see curdled milk in her mouth that she has "burped".  Breaks my heart.

I think this about Red too, he often seems quite uncomfortable, he will squirm and fuss, and then do a tiny spit up and then howl like he is in agony. But other times he will belch like a good'un and not fuss at all.

Red feeds between every 2.5 - 3 hours and i am b'feeding. He feeds well most of the time and isn't as sleepy as Ruby was. He is gaining weight, at birth he was 8lb 4.5oz, at 5 days he was 8lbs 2oz and by day 16 he was back up to 8lbs 6 oz. He has just had his 3 week growth spurt, which is what was causing all the daytime sleep disruption i think. Today he is back on a 3 hour EASY schedule, and is sleeping well  between feeds, so crisis over i hope!!

We put him down to bed at 7pm, and then he gets a feed at somewhere between 10-11pm. His nights have been fairly unpredictable, he tends to wake for the first time somewhere between 2am and 4.30am. This is where is often goes a bit wrong as his night feeds are never great, he never takes a full feed and then wakes again two hours later, then two hours after that :?  So it might go wake at 2.30am, 4.30am and 7am which is horrendous, but sometimes (like last night) he will wake at 3.30am then 7am which is fantastic. One night waking i can cope with, 2 and i am like the living dead!! One night he went from 7pm till 4.30am (9.5hours) but as you say i think this was done just to give me some hope for the future!!

Red gets overstimulated very quickly too, his maximum awake time is one hour, but often only 45 minutes. When he is awake and not feeding he seems to be quite a calm boy, very wide-eyed and just taking it all in.

I wouldn't worry too much about the binky at this stage, Rubes had one until she was about 8-10 weeks then rejected it and found her thumb at 16 weeks (ish). As long as you are not having to constantly put it in when she spits it out then i don't see it as too much of a problem. Red only has one if  he fusses and i am not quite ready to feed (like yesterday in the middle of the store!!)

Glad things are going   good for you right now, how is her sleeping?

[loliac]

I'd love to chat too! My dd is 6 weeks and things sound very similar. Especially the reflux and the night time wakings. She is all over the place with her wake ups at night. She does only wake up once, though, thank God!! But it can range anywhere from 2am to 5am! I'd like to get that more stable. Do babies outgrow the reflux? Like you said, it's not every time so I don't think she needs medication or anything...

[rooby-rooby-roo]

Hey there, I am hoping that Red's 'reflux' will be outgrown. A couple of the other moms have commented that their babies have had 'immature digestive systems' and that up to the age of 3 months they seemed quite sensitive to and spat up a lot, but then outgrew it. I am giving infacol (mylicon i think in the us) and gripe water, don't know if it is doing much but it makes me feel better!!

Are you breast or bottle feeding, how is it going? I am breast feeding and it is going well, but i am so sick of the multiple night wakings :cry:  :cry:  Last night it was 2.15am (up for over an hour trying to get him to take a full feed - which he wouldn't), awake again at 4.15am (only 45 mins after going to sleep, and again would not take a full feed), then again at 6.30am. At this time he would not feed at all, but fussed for about 20 mins until he did a huge poop and then slept till 8.30am. I could just cry, and i think at 4.15am this morning i actually did. Y'know i do not mind getting up to feed him, but if he won't feed properly it just winds me up - WHY??!!

We are having evening problems too, in that he won't go down at 7pm. I think this may be down to my supply, as with Ruby it dropped dramatically at this time because i was so tired, then picked back up again at 10pm. What i normally do is give one side before bath, then the other afterwards, but tonight i am going to  give both sides before bath, then a bottle of formula afterwards. At least then i'll KNOW he has a full tummy and can't be fussing because he is hungry!! Actually the only way we can get him to settle if he is overtired is with a dummy, so i guess you are not alone anymore BJ!!

I hate to seem like i am complaining about my little man, he is very sweet and i love him so much, but he is hard work, especially with Ruby around and her getting her top canines too :roll:

How are your days going??

[Kayna]

Hi new mom's: Avery is five weeks old today. Our days and nights are similar to yours as well. She was born at 7lbs 7oz and was 9lbs 11oz at her one month appt. She gets a bath around 7-7:30pm and is bf and in bed around 8pm. She generally makes it til around two but has also gone 8 1/2 hours one night, 7 hours another night, and a hand full of times 6. Clair, I too can manage the one feed a night but two gets hard on me.

We have been doing pat/shush for a week now and she's doing really good. It takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes to get her down for her naps and if I catch her 45min mark I can usually settle her back in given her about three 1 1/2 hour naps during the day and try to do some catnaps (need to work on these) in the early evening. If she misses these she gets overtired and is a lot harder to get down for the night.  :x

She's a pretty good baby and turning out to be fairly low maintnance (which I'm loving since ds was extremely high-maintnance the first 4 months). I've been reading the sleep and breast feeding boards a ton and have learned so much. But everyday it seems I have even more questions/concerns........... :roll:

[rooby-rooby-roo]

Hi there Kayna, i'm so pleased to see you here, and to hear of Avery's safe arrival. I LOVE the name! How was your delivery in the end?

About naps, i am doing 4 long 1.5/ 2 hour naps, admittedly he struggles to go down after his 3pm/ 3.30pm feed but if he then sleeps from 4.30pm till 6pm it helps to get him down in the evening.

Glad someone else is scouring the boards in places they have never been before! It is weird to be posting on the EASY forum as i have never had to before!!

How is your BF going? What is the length of an average feed for Avery? Red takes about 15-20 mins on one side then might have 5 on the other side if he is hungry. Are you doing any formula at all? I am thinking about doing a bottle before bed.

[ry,cait&alex]

Sounds as though we are in the same boat....which it were a cruise ship!!!!  :lol:

Cait usually eats about every 3-4 hours during the day and then almost immediately goes down for  a nap.  Sometimes just for an hour (thank you, big brother Ryan  :evil: ), sometimes for the whole 2-3 hours before the next feed.  I find that she is more awake around the 4-6 pm time, which works out well for moving towards sleeping through the night phase.  We always put Ry down at 9 pm (even to this day) when he finally managed to "find" his off switch for the night, and we are still groping for it with Cait, but I dont' think it will be much longer.  She did real good last night-she slept from about 10:30ish to a little after 4 am, so I was very excited about that, I am hoping for an encore performance tonight.  Unfortunately, Ry was up every other hour throwing up...so much for blessed sleep.  Cait also slept the in the nursery for the first time, so that is a big step for us.  She will need to move out of the bassinette and into the crib, probably this weekend.  :cry:   She is so big. Getting her to sleep last night was an act of Congress though...I had the binky and she would fall asleep easily.  Then when she was all lax and in lala land, the binky would fall out and the eyes popped open and the screaming began.  So I am trying not to do that too much.  very tiring.

Feedings take about 25-30 minutes, burps and all.  Usually 4oz.

her highness is awake...again...gotta go.
bj

[happychick2003]

Hi everyone

Annabel will be 8 weeks on Wednesday and so far we have a pretty good routine - well as long as we don't go and visit her grandma as she doesn't settle there!

Our normal day starts around 630am with a feed, then she goes back to bed until around 930am then she gets washed and dressed and seems to be awake until about 1015am then she sleeps until 1ish where she feeds again then about 2ish shes back asleep until 5ish but that's where I give her some water to tide her over until she has had a bath about 545pm and her bottle at 6ish which I do in her room.  She then goes to bed around 7pm and I give her a dream feed about 10pm.  She sleeps through the night usually unless she is having a growth spurt so I really can't complain.

I will say she can be awful to put down for a nap if I leave it too long but generally I take her upstairs to her cot at her first or second yawn and off she goes no problem.

It's nice now when she is awake for those short periods as she is so wide eyed and loves to look around at what is going on.  She is also smiling a bit more now which is good for her as she was 5 weeks early.

The only thing I'm looking forward to is when she won't scream for a bottle at bath time - well once she's out the bath as she loves being in there and by the time bath time is over she's starving - I can't move it forward as that would mean waking her up from her sleep which I won't do so a scream for a few minutes isn't too bad.

Now that she's on lactose free milk she is so much more contented and the spitting up of a bottle is getting less and less as her little tummy matures and as long as she doesn't get jiggled around (her grandma didn't believe that until yesterday when she chucked up all over her after she'd jiggled her around!!!).  I've found gripe water the best thing for wind and giving it before the feed and burping every 1oz has helped so much.

Lovely to read all your postings.

[Kayna]

Hmmm, well today did not go well.  :?  We couldn't get past the 45 minute mark which led to overtiredness/cranky baby. It's sooo much harder to get her to sleep when she's overtired. I'm finding pat/shhh works well but today I'm super tired myself and pat/shhh seems like so much work.  :cry: 

Clair, bf is going fairly good. Avery is latching on good and eats like a trooper but my supply doesn't seem very good. She usually nurses about 10-15 minutes on one side, burp/change diaper, and then another 10 on the other. I was doing single sided feeding but due to low supply I've started with both. I've been trying to get my supply up (more frequent nursing, tons-o-water) but not sure if it's working. Any suggestions? I have supplemented with formula before when I feel like she's still hungry after a feed. She really likes to suck but I can not for the life of me get her to take a pacifier.  :x

Avery too is growing out of the bassinet and figure this weekend will be the last we will use of that. Hopefully the crib won't throw her for a loop. For the last couple weeks I've just set the bassinet inside the crib to get her used to those surroundings, etc.

Well, I'm crossing my fingers tomorrow will be better and little Avery will let mommy get lots of uninterrupted sleep tonight.  :wink:

[loliac]

I have a question. Can your lo get too much sleep in the evening and then not sleep well at night? I am considering this schedule:
6am feed
7am sleep
9am feed
10am sleep
12pm feed
1pm sleep
2:30pm feed
3:30pm sleep
5pm feed-maybe no sleep? Bath and awake time if not fussy or sleepy.
7:30feed
8:00 Bed
10pm feed

Any thoughts? The reason why I'm wondering is because my dd is almost sleeping too good during the day and I'm wondering if it's upsetting night time sleep. She goes down after the 10pm feed but almost always wakes up at 2:30am and then is ready to start the day at 5:30am!

[Kayna]

I know that if Avery gets too "little" of sleep during the day she does make it a lot longer at night but she is a bear during the day and is more difficult to get down that night for bed and after her night feeds. It's wonderful to get seven hours of sleep in a row but dealing with a crying/overtired baby all day is not fun. She's never slept very good in the late afternoon/early evenings but that hasn't affected her night time sleep if she has napped well during the day. It just makes her overtired when it's bed time and again, harder to get to sleep. HTH.....let us know how it works.

[loliac]

Today we are starting at 7:30 and we had to wake her up! She made it from 9:45 until 4:45 this morning! I'm not complaining but there is just no darn stability!  Sigh!  She cried from 7:45 until 9:15pm. We tried to put her down at 7:45 for bed time and she would have NONE of it. So, I sat with her and rocked her. She never did sleep so I didn't feel like I was rocking her to sleep or anything but she was quiet and happier. So, we just stayed like that for about an hour and then I fed her at 9:15 and then she slept great.

[rooby-rooby-roo]

Hey everyone, how are you doing? We have had some good days and some bad. The last two nights have been a lot better, feeding at 10.30pm, 4.15am and then 6.30am. Ruby is up at 7am so that works out quite well. His feeding has all of a sudden become a lot quicker, from 15-20 mins on one side to 6-10 mins. This 'reflux' has been a lot worse too, i am on the verge of going to the doctors about it. In fact it was only because he was not so fussy today that i didn't. He seems to be very uncomfortable a lot of the time, spitting up a lot etc and it is awful to see him like that. I will keep an eye on it and take him if it remains the same.

Our problem 'du jour' is waking early from naps. How are you meant to keep them on EASY if the wake from their nap after only 1 hour? If i go in to help him settle he just wakes up fully and yells his head off, if i don't go in, well he does the same after a while! :lol:  The only way i can get him to settle is with a dummy and a cuddle, i alwyas take the dummy out when he is asleep tho, i am terrified of him waking evvery time he drops it!

For those who are BF'ing, are you giving/ planning to give a bottle of EBM/ formula at any stage? And if so, i place of which feed? I want to do it, and would probably give it at 7pm or 10.30pm. But it is the thought of pumping instead of feeding that does me in! I'd rather just feed! With Ruby my milk was non-existant at 7pm and so i had to supplement, but no such problem this time. I want him to be able to have a bottle and also i would like a break for one feed a day!!

Hope you are all well, off to bed now x x

[loliac]

We started a bottle at 3 weeks! I have a really nice double electric pump from medela (a family member loaned it to us) so it really works well. We have been feeding a bottle at the 7pm feed. It's really nice to be able to give an occasional bottle. For instance, yesterday was our 3rd anniversary and my mom stayed with dd for 8 hours while we played 18 holes of golf and went to dinner.  It was a total of 3 bottles and she took all of them extremely well. More than 4 oz. each time. Then we got home and I fed dd at 10:30 and went to bed. Well, she slept through the night!!! So now of course I'm wondering if she eats better with bottles!  :roll: Probably not, and I like bf too much to give it up yet. Anyway, my whole point is, if you want to be able to do something and miss a feed, it's nice to be able to give your baby a bottle. Plus, I gave her a bottle last Sunday at church instead of nursing her and that was nice too. I felt a little weird giving her a bottle. I felt like she was looking at my boob the whole time. :lol:  But she took it really well. I would introduce it earlier rather than later. I knew a girl who had to leave work on her breaks to go feed her baby b/c it wouldn't take a bottle.