March/April Thread #3

[hayes]

Hello to everyone.  Seems like CHristmas is really getting underway.
Hope everyone is doing good in either snow, chillies or the sun.
Lisa-We have had really early wake times around 2 weeks ago-like 4:45.  If it was that early I fed then put Ben back to bed.  If it was later I tried to feed and put back to bed with some success.  After 6 I would hold off feeding until as close to 7 as I could get.  Now he has been waking closer to 7. 
Judy-Can't wait to see what our little mongrel will do when he reaches your girls' age.  LMAO at your stories.  Can we come to stay at your house for some great giggles?  Private parts stories are hilarious.  Not sure if I want to read them to DH because then he will get all revved up to do the same.
Nancy-Went to the dentist recently and had 2 new cavities, was told that when one breastfeeds sometimes it takes all of the calcium out of our bodies.  Can't remember if you BF or not, I started taking calcium supplements.  Hope your mouth feels better.
Hannah-We had a changing table incident about a month ago.  I could have written the same thing you did.  I know exactly what you were feeling.  DH and I promised not to tell anyone... the babysitter told me yes yes I know be careful when he is on the changing table because you let him fall to the ground.  So much for keeping a secret.
Thinking of you while you are at work battling the monsters.  When I am at work I wonder how I ever did it pre baby and had so much patience.  Remember that they are usually a lot better and more mature after they come back from a vacation.
Andrea-Our schedule is matching yours pretty well.  Tricky with the BF at 4 then a solid feed then another BF at 7.  When do you think you are going to drip the afternoon BF?  I don't think Ben is quite ready yet maybe a few more weeks or a month.  Also, I have been having the overwhelming blues lately too!  I am working on taking things off my list for the day that can be done tomorrow.  I know you are out of time but I also started journaling my feelings for about 5 minutes a day and that is really helpful.  Got a fancy journal and fun pen to write with.  I am not a motivated journaler but for the past week it is helping me out.  All of us are so looking forward to the website, all of your hard work will pay off.
Cathy-So sorry about your great uncle.  You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
So finally got the ear infection diagnosis along with a nice snotty eye infection.  Ben is on the mend.  THe nurses thought he was fine because he was smiling in the waiting room.  I finally smarted up and didn't wipe off the yellow mucus from his eyes and they realized something was wrong... ARGGG
Long enough post.  I will try to stay caught up.
Snuggly times with your little one.  I keep reminding myself to have a nice rocking time and snuggle time because before I know it, the time will be gone.
macaire

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Andrea, I'm a bit of an internet junkie ( :oops: ), no wonder I have no time to do the other things I want to. :roll:

I belong to two Attachment Parenting/Natural parenting boards - a US one and an Australian one.  I also belong to a NZ parenting board where I joined the pregnancy club for April to have others to chat to.   I kind of fluked finding them all though, BW was my first, then I heard about http://www.mothering.com from a post on here and that led to http://www.naturalparenting.com.au from a post on there and a friend told me about http://www.everybody.co.nz (for Karen and Hayley).  I have discovered others, but really there's only so much I can keep up with.  This is my main one and the others I just check in every few days and browse the key forums I like.

[Little Bear's Mum]

Hi and hugs to everyone. Why? Cos you all deserve it! 

For those of you feeling a little overwhelmed I thought I'd include this little ditty from La Leche League that they sent me.

"The cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow, for children grow up, as I've learnt to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep, I'm nursing my baby and babies don't keep."

I just think that's lovely and so true.

Cathy, I was so sad reading what happened to your family. My thoughts are with you.

It's funny, when I read thru everyone's posts, there's so many things I think and wish I could just say to you as I go. As I've just read 4 pages, there's too much to comment on, but all your events and happenings have  made me smile, laugh or take a deep breath and sigh.

Judy and Nikki, are you ladies trying to tell me that my 'thing' about  having a nicely and well thought out decorated tree is going to change once Daniel gets older??? OH NO!!!! Maybe we'll have to have 2 trees, one for Daniel and one for me!!! :lol:  :lol: 

Daniel's been off milk and food the last couple of days. Today his first 3 bottles he only had about 120mls each (normally drinks 220mls). But his last bottle drank about 280mls. We've swapped around to giving food first then bottle so I'm wondering if I'm giving him his bottle too close to his food, we were waiting abou 45 mins. Is anyone else giving food first yet? In NZ they recommend to change around 8-9 months. I've wondered also whether it could be as we are experiencing hot muggy weather, or if he's about to get his next tooth. Or possibly all of the above. I guess I shouldn't worry too much, especially if he's drinking water, but it's such a sudden change from drinking 1000mls a day to about 600mls.

Lisa, thank you for the card. I"m feeling guilty now that I wasn't going to do the card thing, especially the warm fuzzy feeling I got when I received Lisa's, so I'm going to see if I can get some done after all. They may just be sent over a few weeks, rather than trying to get them all done at the same time.

Better go, enough rambling here.

[sophieandhannah]

Hayley we have had a huge reduction in milk drinking here too.  I am still doing the df...only now at 8pm because she ahrdly drinks any of her last bottle.
I keep thinking that i should be trying to get her to take 24oz, which would be...about 750ml? I think, but seriously most days we are probably closer to 600. I keep thinking it will affect her sleep....but...all body parts crossed it hasn't yet.

Does this seem right to you other ladies?  That the milk intake would be decreasing like this?

I know it's not an exact science and I do go with the flow (no force feeding here but just wondering.
I am off to shower and put MAKEUP on!  Still can't quite get used to that. 
We got Traci's and Michelle's cards in the mail yesterday....such cute little bubs and cards. Thank you soooo much.

I'm bringing some extra duct tape with me today for the extra chatty kids :lol:   I'll say "Well, I guess you should have thought about the fact that you wouldn't like duct tape over your mouth before you started chatting to your neighbor." Hrmph. 

A girl can fantasize right? 

Hayley thanks for the little La leche ryhme.  I love that.  Oh so true.

Have a great day/night etc. lovely ladies.
Hannah

Oh yes and me too....I want to come live at your house Judy!!!  You should seriously write a book...in your spare time  :wink:

[Colesmom]

Hey girlies-thanks for the support.  I have read but not much time to post.  Got Michelle's card last night.  I feel bad I didn't write personal notes.  Wish I did now...took more time to personalize rather than just rushing through:(

Andrea-thanks for the counting to 100 trick.  Will certainly try that tonight.  This sep. anxiety thing is tough.

Lisa-thank you for pointing out that James can take up to one hour to drink his morning bottle.  So hard for us BF moms because we expect our los to drink it all in one go!  So today I gave Cole a 20 minutes break between boobs and he drank more.  YAY!

oh-not liking the saucer-back later.

[Erin M]

Morning/afternoon ladies!

Traci - hope things sort out soon.  My goodness, he's giving you a rough time. 

Milk drinking reduction here too - as she's now 9.25 months, I've been giving her solids before milk only at lunch.  She doesn't take much of her lunch bottle at all - a few ounces if I'm lucky.  Her 4 PM bottle she'll take about 6 or so.  Morning and night she still BFs well, though when DH gave her a bedtime bottle the other day when I was at work, she only took 5 ounces or so.  I just got something from someone that suggested that at 9 months or so, they should only be getting 16-21 oz of milk.  Doesn't seem like much.

Andrea - thanks for the schedule - we're not too far off from that - or we wouldn't be if Katie ever napped!  I am definitely partly to blame for that as I'm forever dragging the kid around in the afternoon and missing quality nap time. 

Hannah - LOL at the duct tape - I soooooooooo know what you mean.

Hayley - loved the rhyme

Cathy - such a sad story, sorry about your great uncle

Macaire - glad to hear Ben is on the mend

Nancy/Macaire - I have been putting off going to the dentist since before I got pregnant.  I can't even imagine how many fillings I'm going to need when I do go, I think I'd almost rather give birth again, boy do I hate the dentist!

Ummm...15 kids....don't know about you ladies, but my motivation to "create" another after the first 5 or so would be seriously nonexistant.  I guess it only takes once as long as it's timed right.

OK, must go clean, I dropped Katie off at daycare, even though the college is on break so I could get some stuff done.  Makes me feel very guilty to be sitting here typing.  Bye!

[mickymuscles]

hi girls!
I've been sneaking on to keep up for the last couple of days while DH was home...he's back to work now so I can get back to my addiction!! 

Traci: PU/PD took  a lot longer for us also.  With us, if I patted Jack at all it made him cry harder. So maybe just try sticking with having your hand on his bum.  It's great that it only took 15 min.  Our first night of sticking to PU/PD we were up 3-4 times doing it for an HOUR each time.  The second night was better.  He only woke twice and it took only maybe 3x of PU/PD to get him back to sleep.  The third night he slept thru. But then a few nights later he relapsed and was up almost every hour all night long  :roll: .  It's hard to stick to your plan when you think that they are hungry.  But I found that if Jack was hungry he wouldn't settle even for a few seconds.  When he wasn't hungry he would settle for a few seconds then start up again with the crying.  But I stuck to my plan and now he's been sleeping thru since.

Andrea: You've got a ton on your plate!!!  I wouldn't have any christmas decorations out at all if DH hadn't come home.  I couldn't find the time or the energy to do any of that.

Hannah: Sorry about Sophie!!  Those LO's noggins are pretty tough tho!!    I know what you mean about constantly having nightmares about it  tho....I did the same thing for about a week or two after I had to resuscitate jack.   NOT FUN!!!!!     Oh, and about the milk intake dropping, I read that it is normal because their solid intake is increasing.  Makeup---how exciting!!  I got to dye my hair yesterday!!    It made my feel like a new person....to be able to cover all my grey's!!  :shock:

Cathy: Sorry to hear about your family!    People are just getting to be so non-caring about everyone except themselves!   :evil:   makes me so mad!    Oh, and you asked me a long time ago about Jacks b-day!!  He was due on the 26th....we got induced on the 28th and he finally made his appearance on the 29th at 8pm.  I'm glad you noticed that their b-days match because I'm never that observant lately!  :oops:

Judy: DH loved the vagina comment!!!  He totally was killing himself laughing!! 

Hayley: We've been doing solids before milk for a while.  Some days J's intake of milk is a lot less then normal but that also varies on how much solids he ate.  We don't wait in between solids and milk.   He usually takes in about 24 oz. per day.  and 3 solid meals

So far I have gotten cards from Kate and Michelle.  Great pics girls!!

Jackson gets his casts off on Monday!!!  Can you believe it's been 6 weeks already!!    Man, time flys with you girls!  :wink:   He's found his tongue lately...it looks like he's trying to fold it over or stick it out of his mouth.  It's hilarious to watch.  He's also found out how to rotate himself around in a circle while he's sitting...he moves one leg then the other till he has gone 360 degrees.   And one other thing that is funny to watch is he has started bending over while he is sitting so that it looks like he is trying to hear what his knee is trying to tell him.  He's finally figured out that he can do this to look around corners too.  too funny!!

Gotta go. He's starting to complain.

[mickymuscles]

oh yeah, I had to post about one more thing!

Traci: we've been trying to drop the catnap here too. but i think it was backfiring and Jack was just ending up overtired.  Because on days that he didn't have a catnap he would wake 2-3 times over the night needing help at least once to resettle and would only sleep 10 hours overnight.  But with a catnap he only woke once overnight (after 45 min-and needed help to resettle) then didn't wake again until 6 am (talked to himself for about 10 min.) then woke for the day at 7:15am.  So in total got about 11 hours of sleep.  And seems it better spirits this am.  So I don't think Jack is quite ready to drop the catnap.  Soon, but not quite.

[Judy]

Kate you're too funny.   Jude Law eh?

Traci - gosh girl it's really rough over there right now isn't it?  I'm guessing it's a group of things, teeth, seperation anxiety, maybe dependence too now on patting... but it's hard to avoid that.  I still have times I'll pat Hannah and I think "gosh am I going to regret this?" but in the end I just want her to sleep NOW and I ignore the future.  Really, try getting some chamomilla... last night I gave it to both girls and they went right out to sleep after that.  Both of them have top teeth coming in and they are taking their sweet time poking through I tell ya. 

Andrea that tooth story gave me chills.  Ick.  Especially when you said the dentist pushed it back into place. Yikes.

Nikki I've been on mothering.com - I think I read some birth stories on there and remember one gal who of course living naturally didn't have u/s etc. during her pregnancy and had a home birth only to discover THEN that she had twins!!! OMG!!!  What a shock but how cool of an experience would that be (once past the shock!)

Hayley - um yup!!  once Daniel grows up your days of a perfect tree are done.  Well maybe not - you'll just need to adjust what 'perfect' is.  I guess it depends on your approach too - I know some people who would hand their children a couple decorations and give advice as to where it might go... being busy with Kaia and Hannah - Zoe and Sarah just took over and decorated it for me.  I didn't have the heart to change a thing.  Until of course it fell over the SECOND time and then last night I distributed a few things to balance the weight a bit better.  But honestly I always put one ball per spot but Zoe had a great idea of putting 2 or 3 together and I quite like it.   I want Christams to be fun and special for them and how fun can it be if we're always harping "don't touch that!!!" ??  At worst dh said he tie the tree to a nail in the wall if it fell over again.

Ok how's this for bad... ok Kaia and Hannah are never put in front of the tv to watch but they HEAR a lot of Dora and of course they've seen it.  Yesterday they wake from a nap and I start to feed.  Hannah latches on but Kaia is beside herself screaming.  Her gum hurt so feeding was painful but she wanted to feed, but didn't KWIM?  So she's screaming and I can't get her to stop - pick her up, try to feed again, I can't get up and walk with her because Hannah is latched on.  So... cue up the theme song to Dora as Z&S put in a video and suddenly she stops and looks for the tv.  She stopped cold.... and then lay down and fed.  :oops:

Micky - yay for Jackson getting his cast off Monday!!!  You'll have to tell us all about his reaction if he has one.  I wonder if he'll be amazed to have his legs back in his conrol more.

[Colesmom]

Micky-PLEASE tell me you'll be back online before I do CATNAP!  Could you please post your typical A times?  I have no idea what to expect of Cole now that I've been stretching him so long in the afternoons.  I have PMd Jo for the same info.  So far today he woke at 5:00 (not bad considering down at 5:30), 1 hour nap at 7:45 and down again now at 11:45 after bit of a battle (tried to put down at 11:30)  If he sleeps another hour then I think I'll try for A of 3:15 for 30 min. nap from 4:00-4:30 then bed at 6:30.  Just don't know if 2 hours for last A will be enough.

It's so hard to get rid of the pat.  Today I just put my hand firmly on his bum when he looked as though he's going to settle. And he insists on holding my hands.  If i pull them away he starts up all over again. Should I just stay firm and continue with pupd?  And who was it that mentioned it should just be PD?  If he sits up is that considered UP enough?  Or do you think it has to be standing.  He'll sit up with his arms out and sobbing so I'll lay him back down again.  And sometimes he doesn't get up but is flailing his arms and legs on his back so I'll turn him on his side.  Is this not a good idea?

Going to get lunch and review BWSAYP now.

I hope I've posted all my questions.  I thought of a hundred while getting him down just now :roll:

OH-and I just posted my Canadian cards yesterday...

[mickymuscles]

traci: how could you doubt i'd be back on here??  :wink:  :roll:  :shock:   Our typical day is something like this:

7:00am wake
7:30 eat (solids/formula)
9:30 sleep
10:30/10:45 awake
11:00 eat (solids/formula)
130/2:00 sleep-usually only 45min sometimes 1 hour
2:30/3pm eat (formula)
5pm sleep  - 30 min
6pm eat (solids/formula)
7pm bath and bed by 8pm at the latest.

Some days his A time can be longer between 1st and 2nd nap because if I keep him occupied or lots of people over or somedays he just doesn't show sleepy cues then we end up with out a catnap but he doesn't have restful night sleep then. HTH

[mickymuscles]

oh yeah, and congrats on the super mod!!!  Is that just new??

[kq]

Hi all,
Traci-you are doing a fantastic job. I know how judgement goes out the window when you are tired and you just keep at it, wanting the best for Cole! You deserve the biggest hug and pat on the back for it :!:  :!:  Now, our routine is pretty much like Micky's with regards to catnap. So long as I have about 2 hours between catnap and bedtime, we are OK. Some days, Sam only has 20 minutes but that means that he is not overtired. I aim for catnap of 30 minutes to get him through dinner, short play, bath, Bf then bed. Bedtime is between 6.30 and 6.45 pm and the latest I put him down for a catnap is 4.45 pm.

Micky and Lisa, I got your cards and was soo excited. I got home from work after a long shift and there is was. Made my day!

I posted mine 2 days ago so hopefully it gets to you ladies in Canada and the States in time.

Judy and Nikki, love how you both parent! Christmas must be so fun at your house. You are right about how our childhoods form our expectations, my mum was a perfectionist and everything had to be perfect. I am not quite so anal but I still feel like I need to relax a bit more. Sam has dribbled over every Christmas present and tried to unwrap them. I keep sticking things down again. That is his contribution to the Christmas proceedings this year.

Hannah, so scary about Sophie, I would play that over and over in my head too. Dh calls it "conditioning" for when Sam starts to walk and take tumbles.

Cathy,  :evil:  :evil: ! How could people just ignore a 100 year old woman calling for help?!!!

Off to work again. You know you are addicted when...sitting here in my robe posting. Not even had brekky yet.
Miss you all today.
Karen

[Colesmom]

thanks for the quick response Micky!  i just extended a 40 min. nap to one hour.  guess I'll try and keep A time less than 3 hours.  I hope it's worth working on now, even though Saturday he won't get catnap with our party going on :?

and yes, helping Andrea and the others out on the nap board.  I'm just hoping I know what to say to people.  I think the "super" part comes from my huge number of posts per day.  LOL!

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

I think the Sleep Mods are "Super" because of the tough and demanding job you all have keeping track of the sleep posts - good to see you helping out Traci. 

Judy, that is so funny about Dora music calming Kaia down.

Well we had a break through last night!!!!!  BOTH of my kids decided to sleep through (well by a bit of a stretch of the imagination  :lol: ).  With Nathan I decided to give him a jiggle at 10pm when I went to bed and didn't hear a peep out of him until 5.35am.  Danielle woke at 11pm (which was really strange, she never wakes before 1am) so anyway I resettled with jiggling/heavy hand - took maybe 1/2hr, she was just really restless and (probably too hot, it's been so stuffy) but then didn't hear a peep out of her until 6am.  And yay, I got a solid sleep from 11.30-5am.  WOW    :shock:  Now I'm wondering whether to do wake to sleep tonight...