Jan/Feb 05 Babies chat!

[Jaime]

heather - yes, i am the other teacher  :lol:  i never post at work cause i'm never sure if they're watching what we're doing.  i usually log on as a guest once or twice to try & keep up - but then i sometimes forget to post when i get home!!  :oops:  luke is doing the same thing as kelsey about trying to leap out of my lap while he's sitting.  scared the pants off me the first time he did it!!!!  now if he could just put it all together and crawl...

michelle - YES csi drives me batty.  can't watch it.  i sort of use my degree; it was almost a double major in forensics & chemistry; ended up with a major & a minor instead.  i teach high school chemistry.  my school bullied me into teaching physics this year, which i don't know or love so much, but oh well.  thankfully dh is an engineer and can tutor me!!!  hoping that one day i can teach a forensics class... maybe when i  go back full-time....

christine - know what you mean about the screwy routine.  these touchy & spirited ones need them so badly - and it takes so long to adjust to a new one.  at least i'm seeing more good days than bad now, but boy, when they're bad, they're bad!!!

vidya - WOW what a degree!!!!  and i can't belive someone asked you if you were pregnant!  how incredibly rude!!!

okay, i forgot to open this into another window, so i'm going on what i mostly remember here...

branwen & deb - hope things go well with your dr. appt. 

tammy - there is a group for you somewhere.  i'd certainly look for a new one too!  it's so hard to go up & talk to people - i almost never do...

and to all with teething problems - we're with you... why won't they just come in??!!!!!

LOVE seeing everyone's pictures - so nice to put faces with names.  and here are some of us.  i had to look to find good ones... and never really did find a decent one of all 4 of us  :roll:  so the first one is a cute recent one of the kids, the second is luke for his baptism, and the last one is dh & i when we got to go to a wedding about a month ago.

[Leah's Mom]

i never post at work cause i'm never sure if they're watching what we're doing.

That scares me too. But, I figure if they are I am technically logging on during my duty free times (lunch and breaks). Oh well, if I get fired for coming on here during the school day at least then I can be a SAHM! 

[Schae]

Wow! Loads of posts...

I can't stay on long, we are having another horrible night. Luka isn't comforted by anything I do. The only thing I haven't done is bf him, but I'm very tempted. It must be teeth, Branwen we're in this together. It's the only explanation because he had a BM today. A HUGE one, at the mall... all over his clothes and clever mommy didn't bring a change of clothes  :oops:

Vidya: lovely to see you back. I also give Luka pear or peaches, and it works (see above about his large BM  :oops: ) Thank you for saying Luka looks like me. Everyone says he looks like his dad, and that he's only got my skin colouring.  Your comment made my day So, I say Diya looks JUST LIKE YOU!!! 

I'm almost certain that our babies communicate with each other, yesterday they all decided not to nap, and today, they decided unanimously that they would teeth!  :lol:

Here's to tomorrow being better! *Did you hear that babies??*

edited for spelling

[julieb]

Schae: I totally thought Luka looked like you as well (but not just your skin color, your facial features!)!  But I wasn't sure how it would be taken to say your "boy" looked like his mama ("girl"), KWIM?   :wink:

Everyone at first glance thinks Asher looks like me simply because of his coloring.  But he actually has most of the facial features of DH (got my lips though!).  :lol:

[Deb_in_oz]

just a quick note before i jump in the shower (have an old friend frommy old mother's group visiting this morning)

we don't have yobaby yogurt here but i read a note about it on another site about baby food - check and see the sugar content. apparently it is very sweet??  what i used with alex was plain natural yogurt with no added sugars and then i wouodl add some fresh fruit puree for falovouring.

now she has full fat biodynamic yogurt with no added sugar (uses only fruit and fruit juice - no refined sugar).

[thitz]

Hi everyone,

I missed you guys.  Our internet has been down for two days. :evil: I can't possibly catch up.

Everyone, I love all your family photos .  I've got to remember to take one of all of us tomorrow hopefully.

Branwen,  I think you're being very smart by taking 5 minutes when you have to.

Debra, hope tomorrow's better for you.  I'm sending you e-hugs.

about logs, I've kept almost a daily 24hr diary since we started EASY at 10 weeks.  For some reason, writing down her particulars helps me feel more in control.  And in the beginning I was getting so little sleep I needed to write the times down so I could keep track myself :oops:

About babysitter instructions, I haven't left her much but I tell the babysitter (ie grandma or dh) her next sleep (I let them watch a winddown ritual) and eat times and if she doesn't cooperate for either then just hold her and do whatever to keep her happy till I get home.  And absolutely NO crying it out allowed.

Us, We're doing pretty well.  She's smiley almost all day and is starting to have a better second nap.  And we don't do catnap anymore and she's in bed by 6:20pm. 

I forgot to share my particulars.
Education: BSc Mechanical Engineer, P.Eng.
Age: 30 (eeks!)
Married: will be 4 yrs on Oct. 20th
SAHM because I couldn't handle (well) full-time work and a baby (I told dh this before we got pregnant)

Hmmm, I just went up to do our usual 8:30 df and she only drank 3 oz! :shock:   And was staring at me with wide open eyes but no crying or anything.  I hope she doesn't starve in the morning!

Good night/day everyone!  Tarri

[Daniel's mummy]

I was just wondering whether I could join in with your 'chats'.  I have been dutifully reading this thread from quite far back (not the start though! Way too long ) and would love to join in the fun.  My ds is 2 days older than Asher! (see I know you all already).  He is a  textbook baby with a lot of angel thrown in (angel mainly where sleep is concerned).

Thanks,
Hazel

[Daniel's mummy]

Did I just say he was an angel where sleep was concerned?!  He must have heard me and decided to have a short nap :?

[Deb_in_oz]

Hazel - you are more than welcome to join us... we might just get mad with your angel/textbook baby since this group has lots of spirited / touchy. grumps etc  (just kidding - new people have joined us over the months and it feels like everyone has been here since day 1)

ok us- today was another 2 x 45 min nap day and only through a miracle did i finally get her to catnap to make it through to bedtime (it took almost 40 min to get her down and i finally had to leave her to it and she finally just stopped squealing and doing whatever she was doing  :roll: )

what am i doing wrong??? i had at least accepted that she would do a 45 min morning nap and a 1 1/2 hr afternoon nap and was just praying for that one to EXTEND - how can it go backwards?! any ideas? i am going toi look through my notebook and see if there is any similarity between the 2 days that she did this so far this week. 


to top it all off today was a dreary, cold, cloudy, wet day and i was exhaiusted so it was a pretty yuck day altogether.  and my friend that came by was a nice visit but her lo trashed my house  :roll:  and they left without so much as helping clean up  :roll:  :roll:

i am watching a flick with Dh and drinking a nice white wine - must dash off will check in tomorrow when i can tead through the past 2 pages and what i will find when i wake up.  take care all of you!

[dkjokisch]

Sorry for being out of touch, but I'm working on against a  deadline.  I've been trying to read along - I just haven't had alot of time to comment.  Hopefully, I'll be back later today.

BUT, I have a question.  Maya has started to balk at taking a late-afternoon catnap.  We expected this was coming as depending on her wake-up time and nap length/quality, some days she doesn't need it, and we don't even try and put her down.  So, I have been slowly trying to extend her awake time before her first and second naps to better balance her naps throughout the day.  Otherwise she winds up being awake for 4+ hours before bed, is super-cranky by dinnertime, and falls asleep during her bedtime feed.  (We've also temporarily moved bedtime a little earlier.)  However, when I keep her awake longer (up to 2.5hr or so from 2hr), her subsequent naps are shorter (1.25hr vs. 2hr), which kind of defeats the purpose.  In the end, she's getting less daytime sleep, and I still have a cranky baby at the end of the day.

Michelle, I think you mentioned going through this awhile ago.  Anybody have any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?  I'll post on the nap board too.  She's awake now after only 1.25hr, and is only fussing, so I have yet to intervene, hoping she'll go back to sleep.

[HeatherC]

Deborah, I'm in somewhat of the same situation.  Kelsey dropped the catnap more than a month ago, however.  Yet she is wanting 2.5 hours of A time, used to be 2 hours, and naps have gone from 2 hours, to 1 hr 20-30 minutes.  I've moved bedtime up since she dropped catnap, and she's adjusted more to the longer awake time till bedtime, but I'm still worried she's not getting enough nap time.  She wakes on her own, somewhat happy, but a little fussy, too.

[Kinlagh's Folks]

Heather & Deborah - I did post a detailed description of what we did when dropping the catnap about 20 pages ago.  For us, it was a very gradual process.  Deborah, your concern re: 4 hours awake before bedtime is normal.  I've been told that babies can (and should) have much longer awake times in the afternoon than in the am.  4 hours is very normal and is exactly what Kinlagh is doing (up at 3:00 from 2nd nap, and bedtime at 7:15-7:30)  Oh wait, I had emailed the process to a friend of mine and just found it.  Here it is:

3 to 2 naps:  We just recently got rid of Kinlagh's 3rd nap.  Here's what we did.  Might be a long story since there were alot of factors.

1- We would have a very quiet & restful awake time around when she used to have her catnap (4-4:30pm). Usually involved a car ride, watching a video or cuddling with mom on the couch with a soft plush toy, but no major play (no tickling, no tummy time, etc). For the first little bit, she may fall asleep (20-30 min), but never in her crib - too deep of a sleep in her crib.
2- She would have an earlier bedtime on some days during the transition
3- We then started lenghtening her wake times between naps. Here's a guideline I received on a BW forum. Generally, the hours of awake time is 2-2.5 hours/3 hours/3.5-4 hours (before morning nap/before afternoon nap/before bedtime) So as you can see, they can stay awake longer after nap #2 til bedtime
4- Also, we used to count the hours of wake time between naps, but we were then given the advice to just try keeping nap times at same time of day regardless of wake time. For example, if she woke from nap #1 early, keep nap #2 at 1:30 regardless - since that's when she's used to napping. I think this is what made the biggest difference in the length of nap. (45 min to 1.5 hours) So now we have a 9:30 and 1:30 nap whether she naps for 1 hour or 1.5 hours.
Update:  FYI, even though I posted this 20 pages ago, this is still what we're doing to this day and she's still getting 2 x 1.5 hour naps at 9:30 and 1:30. 


US - We just had the scariest moment.  Kinlagh was on the change table and giggling like crazy...until...she choked and peaches and mucus started coming out her nose (sorry for TMI).  She couldn't breathe and had a look of panic on her face.  She started wailing (good sign - at least she was breathing) I ran downstairs for the suction with her bare bum in my arms and suctioned the mucus out of her nose (which she hated).  She was grasping at me and looked terrified.  Poor little thing.  She seems fine now but what a scare!  All this in the middle of packing for a weekend away.  She's also cutting ANOTHER tooth, running a bit of a temperature and had an eczema breakout today.  Plus we're expecting the remanents of Hurricane Ophelia out here.  Talk about signs we shouldn't go away!    Pfew, think we're going to go anyway, but I hope she's ok!  And today is supposed to be TGIF isn't it!?!  She's napping right now, but I'm guessing I'll be in to check on her every 10 minutes to make sure she's breathing and ok.  Scary mommy moment!  

So I will chat with you girls on Monday when we get back.   Wish me luck!!

[julieb]

Holy separation anxiety, Batman!   :wink:

I think Asher's episode the other night was separtion anxiety.  DH put him to bed last night and all was well until he put him in the crib.  Each time he'd pick him up, Asher would snuggle in and put his thumb in his mouth.  Once he was back in the crib, he'd start crying.   :?:   So DH rocked with him some more and then Asher started to fuss as if he was ready to go to sleep.  So he put him back in the crib and off to sleep he went!  So weird!  It was like he just wanted a little extra wind down and snuggle time!

Hazel: Welcome!  Don't let Deb scare you off!   :wink:   We LOVE angel babies!   :lol:   No really, makes me start dreaming about my next!   :wink:

Deb: Asher's naps started getting shorter as well.  Then I happened to keep him up long one day because we were going to my mom's and he slept 2 hours again!   :shock:   So that's when I worked on increasing his awake time before the afternoon nap.  Seems like 2:45~3:00 hours is what it takes in order for him to have a 2 hour nap again.  The morning one is still down to 1.5 hours, but I don't want to increase the morning A time anymore than it is.  I noticed the couple days he took a 2 hour morning nap recently, his afternoon naps were shorter.  So since the morning nap will eventually get shorter and shorter and drop, I'd rather preserve that longer afternoon nap.

Deborah: We had a lot of wackiness when trying to extend Asher's awake time and loosing the catnap.  We had to extend quite slowly, and I'd still end up with some short naps.  And then some days we'd TRY for a catnap, but it wouldn't work and we'd just have to do our best until the earlier bedtime.  It was frustrating, but evenutally settled down.  Can you try to extend those shorter naps?  Sometimes if I knew Asher was indeed still tired, I'd work on extending all the way until we hit 2 hours (and if he fell asleep again, I'd let him go long).  It was all we could do to deal with that missed catnap!

Michelle:  Glad Kinlagh's okay!  Have fun!! 

[dkjokisch]

Ok, met my deadline so now I have some free time (though I suppose I could clean the house, but nah).

So I did a little experiment.  Thus far, everytime I tried to extend awake time beyond 2.5hr, I have gotten a short nap in return.  And yes, I know those of you having napping troubles are sliently cursing me for complaining about a 1.25hr nap.  But, if she were happy when awake, I'd be happy with whatever length nap she was taking, but she's not, so I'm not.  Back to the experiment, I put her down after 2.25hr awake, and lo and behold, she's still asleep after 1hr 55min.  I obviously still need to work on extending her awake time, but I can see it's going to be a very fine balance.

Ah, it sounds like my little chunkfree monkey is awake (and happy!).  I'll be back - I have four pages to catch up on!

[herbst99]

Thus far, everytime I tried to extend awake time beyond 2.5hr, I have gotten a short nap in return

but I can see it's going to be a very fine balance.

Just thought I would share some info with you - Because babies cannot regulate their sensory environment and still struggles with all the sensory input around them (sound, smell, movement, touch, sight, hearing, taste, body position) they get overstimulated easily (who has forgotten the screaming withching hour between 5 and 7!!!!). What happens with baby during awake time is she will usually towards the end of her "happy alert" state go into a time where she gives your tired signs. This is the BEST TIME to put baby down and will usually result in a longer sleep (in theory anyway!!) This is because baby did not get into the OVERSTIMULATED state and was able to self calm into sleep. We ourselves will still at times wake up at night if we have alot on our minds ... and the same for babies!!
Great book if anyone is interested (Baby sense by Megan Faure - she is also an Occupational Therapist and Ann Richardson).
So - the thing is to read baby's signs!! and hopefully we catch them at the right time because as you said - 15min. makes a HUGE difference.

OOH MY GOSH - poor Kinlagh!! Seems like you kept your cool though! I bought an Angel Care monitor (monitors breathing also through sensor below the mattress) and must say I don't know how I would get any sleep without it - I STILL check even with the monitor! Had a few times where I picked DD up for DF and forgot the monitor was on ... only to be STARTLED and DD Woken by the ALARM that sounds! Learned my lesson though.

I have a question re babies WEIGHT and amount of milk feeds you all give. Can you give me an indication as Lise is now really going WAY up in weight.

She has 5 bottles (incl DF) of 200ml thus 1 liter of Formula and the 2 tablespoons of cereal and 3 tablespoons veg and 3 tablespoons fruit in the day. I am trying to figure out how to start making the formula less  without her missing out on important nutritian. She now weighs 8.7kg!!!

Thanx![/b]