November Chat Thread! - Page 3 « Back to Group Discussions

[pennywhistle]

We sort of have a schedule.  We start the Bedtime Plan around 7:30pm - go into the bedroom, turn down the lights, do some massage/exercise stuff.  Then we play with the flashlight for awhile to get him drowsy.  Then I nurse him while my husband reads a story, and Atticus is asleep within 10 minutes or so.  So he's usually asleep by 8:30ish.  He wakes up around midnight at again around 4am to eat briefly and then fall back asleep.  He's up at 7/7:30am, and I nurse him, change his diaper, play a bit and then he sometimes goes back to sleep for an hour or two.  From then until the evening, however, there's no schedule at all.  Some days he sleeps all afternoon, some days he takes a few 15 minute naps and that's it...I'm glad we have some routine at night when I'm tired, but it would be nice to know what to expect during the day as well!

[monkeyscience]

Okay, so now I'm wondering if my extremely grumpy baby is just extremely sleep deprived?!? He sleeps 5.5-8 hours at night, wakes up (sort of) to eat, then goes back to sleep for 1.5-3 hours. But then he's pretty much up all day except for random catnaps. A week or two ago, he had several days in a row of 2-hour afternoon naps, but it hasn't repeated since. Except for at night, it's difficult to get him to go to sleep (even when he's clearly tired) and even more difficult to get him to STAY asleep! He'll fall asleep nursing and then nap on my lap for 15-20 min, but if I try to put him down at any point, he wakes back up. The past week or so, he's only wanted to sleep either on my lap, or on my shoulder. He'll occasionally fall asleep in the swing, but he hasn't been too keen on that lately, either. The funny part is that it is so easy at night, once he's decided he's tired - anywhere between 7:40 (that happened once, ever) and 11 PM - we nurse on one side, swaddle, nurse on the other side, and he's out for the night, no problem. Sometimes we don't even nurse on the second side lately.

LT - We also do very flexible scheduling. Frankly, I don't think Baby Bird is ready for a specific bedtime, baby book advice be darned. If he isn't tired, he WON'T sleep, and I can't see how trying to force him is helpful. As for the pooping, Baby Bird slowed down awhile back, but not that much. He usually goes 1-4 times a day. If it's 4 times, one or two are very small. He had some stretches where he was going once a day or less, but 2-3 is probably average right now.

Andaluza - Glad I'm not the only one with a crazy leg-slamming baby! This is something he's just started in the past week or two, and I find it odd. It doesn't actually seem to wake him up, but sometimes it wakes ME up! He lifts both legs and just slams them down onto his cosleeper mattress. He probably would flail his arms if they weren't swaddled. Though he does wiggle his arms partially or completely out of his swaddler on a fairly regular basis.

[LilyTiger]

monkey, Piper was much grumpier before we realized that she needed to sleep much much more.  As soon as she's grumpy or yawns during the day, I swaddle her and take her to bed where I nurse her side-lying until she falls asleep.  Then I just squinch away so she won't wake up.  She now takes much longer daytime naps and goes to bed much earlier in the night.  And she is much happier and smilier.  It might work for Baby Bird since he sounds a lot like Piper in that she would wake up immediately if we tried to move her from another position.

[monkeyscience]

Our bed is not the greatest for nursing - it's an ultra-squishy pillowtop. And I kept messing up my neck trying to nurse in it, so I gave up. Plus the squishiness made it hard to sneak away. :( But I did swaddle Baby Bird earlier today (something I typically only do at night) and put him in his swing, and he slept quite well. So I may do more daytime swaddling. Will definitely be trying to get more sleep in for him. Poor little man had shots today, was really pretty good afterward, and then started just SCREAMING earlier this evening. He's just waking up after finally sleeping for 20 minutes, hoping the screaming does not resume...

[iixivboots]

Totally with the leg slamming! He wakes me up with it now, I don't remember it before this week or last week.

[iixivboots]

Aww congrats to DesertSunsets for winning the Halloween costume contest, SO CUTE baby HP, perfect for little Ever and all that black hair.

http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1366791/show-off-your-spooky-style-enter-the-mothering-halloween-costume-contest-sponsored-by-barefoot-books/100#post_17176074

[pennywhistle]

That costume is perfect!

[iixivboots]

I can't believe they're opening the August 2013 DDC! Crazy. What an amazing year it has been, mamas!

[LilyTiger]

I saw that and realized this week was the BFP last year.  Whoa Nelly!  I can't believe how much all of our lives have changed so dramatically.  What a wonderful, crazy year.

[monkeyscience]

Yeah, I've thought several times leading up to this week that this time last year, we were busy conceiving Baby Bird. Happy one year of existence, little one!

[pennywhistle]

Hooray for breast milk!  A good friend of mine had her baby on Thanksgiving - an 11 days past due home birth turned c-section.  As you can imagine from those facts, things already weren't going as planned, and now they won't let her leave the hospital because the baby has lost 8% of his body weight and has really low glucose levels.  The nurses gave him formula after birth, and are still trying to give him more - due to the c-section, her milk hasn't come in yet.  She called me this morning in tears about it, so I raided my freezer stash and smuggled her in all my frozen milk from Sept/Oct since it's meant for a newborn.  When I got there he was frantic and angry, and my friend said he had been screaming all night, clearly from hunger.  We poured him a small bottle and he totally chugged it down, then had another before I left.  After eating he was completely calm and happy.  Three cheers for breast milk!

Also OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I got to see a newborn and now I want another one.  I forgot how amazingly tiny and sweet and squawky they are!!!

[iixivboots]

penny, that is awesome. Hopefully she can get hooked up with human milk for human babies or some such organization?

[mtngirl81]

Penny, that is so incredibly AWESOME!!! So glad you were able to swoop in and save the momma and babe :-)

[Sol_y_Paz]

Penny that is so wonderful!  

So happy to hear this!  

My C section baby lost 10% of his weight in 48 hours.  They let us go though.  My milk didn't come in until days later after release.  It took him 3 weeks to regain his birthweight, perhaps at the very last of 2 weeks (the bathroom scale is tricky and I was going off of the scales at the doctor for the official weigh in numbers).  But by the end of 2 months he had doubled his birthweight according to the bathroom scale.  We had many different doctors involved in our care (and still see our ped often for all those well checks) but at no point did any ever suggested formula since he was healthy, we didn't deal with any blood sugar issues or anything like that that would complicate things.  Our hospital also had wonderful LC and LLL helped a lot too.  

Edited by Sol_y_Paz - 11/28/12 at 12:30pm

[pennywhistle]

They left the hospital last night - her milk came in today, so she's been supplementing with my milk periodically but it looks like everything's on track now.  The baby's doing great!  Since I'm back at work now, she offered to breastfeed Atticus if my husband ever has any trouble getting him to take a bottle in my absence, so our boys can be "Breast Brothers"

Sol: so glad your hospital was better about handling the situation!

[iixivboots]

Ugh. We went to the doc last week because it seemed like reflux meds weren't working anymore. He kept him on Zantac but gave us two different dosing instructions to try, neither of which have worked. I wish he would have given us a different medicine because even he admitted it stops working after a few months. Also its been 6.5 days since the last poop. In the past 24 hours he's been nursing every two to three hours. Sometimes every hour. I'm worried about supply a little although he has plenty of very wet diapers. I am just feeling run down and sad. I don't want my son to scream and cry until he passes out. I feel like even after four months maybe there's something wrong with BF and the reflux meds are just a bandaid. Honestly I have even thought may there is something wrong with my milk and he'd be better off on formula. Ok enough pity party. We have a call in to the pediatrician and hope they give us something else. I do not want to pay another 30copay.

[Veritas Vitae]

Aw, Ever makes such a cute HP.  And the person in second place is in one of my sister's DDCs. 

Boots, I hope you get Lyle's reflux issues figured out.  Hugs, Mama, it will get better.

Schedule, we don't have a routine schedule, but Quinn is mostly consistent.

8ish: wakes up

11-2ish: naps alone, usually on the bed in the front room

6-7ish: naps but she mostly wants to be with me, she basically sleeps/eats for an hour or more

9ish: goes to sleep, usually dad takes her to bed and I enjoy some alone time until I go to bed at 11

1am and 3 am: "wakes" up to eat, we both usually stay asleep, just roll over so she can eat

5:30am: diaper change and daddy time, then back to sleep with me (I don't get up)

If we have a lot going on then she doesn't nap as long and is pretty fussy. This happened while we were visiting family for Thanksgiving. Monkey, I have a hard time putting Quinn down to nap because she also wakes up, I've found that I have to time it just right in order to put her down. I'll usually push my stomach/chest in and out so that it jostles the baby, if she doesn't open her eyes, I know I'm good to try and put her down.

Penny, my sister and her friend traded watching each others little girls since they were babies, and would breastfeed the others baby.  They are three now and still really close...you could even say they're "breast" friends.. *sorry for corny joke*

Wow, a new August DDC. I can't believe it has been 'almost' a year.  I calculated conception at 12/5. My sister just brought up how she was sad last Christmas because I wouldn't drink mimosas with her (a Christmas tradition) because I told her I quit drinking, but really I was pregnant. 

[pennywhistle]

VV: my mom & her friends had a babysitting co-op when I was little, and they all breastfed each other's kids too.  I think it's sweet!  And we conceived either December 5 or 6 - and isn't Q a day older than Atticus (he was born 08/27)?

[Veritas Vitae]

Quinn is two days older, she was born 8/25.

[pennywhistle]

That's so funny - we were pregnant almost the exact same length of time!