They're half a year old! Feb 08 babies, August thread - Page 7

[flapjack]

slgt, no flames here. I don't believe that sleep training works long-term, but I get that sometimes you have to "do" something.
Emily, what about family massages at bedtime? You do Ben does DH does Molly... that's one thought. Have you done a sleep log, btw?

Echo, you're not going to like this My guess is that she's hit that obnoxious stage where separation anxiety hits at the same time as other developmental stages and so she's more prone to waking: when she does wake, she goes "oh crap, where's my booby? my mummy?" and panics. It will get better, it is not AP induced, it's just REALLY BAD LUCK. And you can tell your ped that your new friend from the internet said so One of my best friends went through this- she gave it a month or two until things settled down during daytime, and then did a modified version of what slgt is using. When DD was doing this, we just rolled with it and I slept when I could instead. Both girls finally slept through the night at the same age: which is, coincidentally, the same age as my CIO child (who is still a rubbish sleeper) and DS2, who was always coslept because he needed it. I honestly don't know if this'll make it easier or harder to take, but I do believe that trying to stop a baby waking fully at the end of every sleep cycle is like trying to make a baby walk before they're ready.
Rynna, good luck

[slgt]

It's comforting to see that so many of us are struggling with sleep issues right now. Not in a, "Oh, I'm so glad that I'm not the only one suffering" kind of way, but in a, "Babies will be babies...there's nothing wrong with my child" kind of way.

Last night was rough, I can feel at least one of her top central incisors just waiting to push through. She was up at 12:30-1:30, 2:30, 4...and I had to get up for work at 5 (slept in until 5:30). When the bottoms came through, she screamed all day long until we gave her Tylenol. Poor kid.

Lovetobemama, feel free to PM me if you want. We had every intention of having DD in the room with us for as long as she wanted it, but it turns out that she was sleeping more poorly in our room than in her own (!). Poor sleep for 3 out of 3 people in the household was making for all-around grumpiness. I don't know if it's AP or just parenting, but it was hard to "listen" to what she was telling us, when it meant giving up on something we were so looking forward to! I still bring her into bed in the morning around 5 or 6, and she sleeps for 2-3 more hours with us.

Are any of the rest of you having sleep issues full-time WOHMs; if so, how do you cope with the schedule needs of a full workday on top of getting no sleep?

[Teenytoona]

Welcome Echo!! I agree with the PP about not blaming AP parenting. But it sure can be cumbersome working through all the developmental stuff.

s to all the mommas with the sleep issues. I have no idea on how to manage it, but it seems like at least you're all working toward some solution.

Recent picture including me. See, I'm tired too, but not nearly as much as you all. heh. DD's waking up every few hours, but whereas before it was more of a groggy latch on/sleep, she's more awake and more prone to being completely woken up. If I get up to use the loo, then she always wakes up and tend to get upset that I'm leaving. At which point Mr Toona cuddles her until I'm back. She also, if she's sort of half asleep, will sometimes reach out to see if I'm there (she sleeps on her side) and if she can't feel me, starts to get upset and wakes up crying. This sometimes keeps me up and sometimes I can go back to sleep from it. If it's been a particularly hard night Mr Toona will take her downstairs and sleep with her on the couch after about 2-3 am (roughly her last feeding) and let me sleep the last 2-3 hours before I wake for work.

This weekend at our all-gal family slumber party, I found she wakes a lot less if we're sleeping on the floor, since it does not move when I do. But I do not like floor sleeping that much, so that's not a great solution. (also at this slumber party, I had a great convo with my tipsy cousin who went on and on about all those people who tell you you're parenting badly but doing things like waiting for the tongue thrust to go away before starting solids, making your own baby food and co-sleeping only make perfect sense to the both of us.)

Developmentally she's moving across the floor crayfish style - scooting backwards, rolling and sort of starting to consider getting her legs under her to crawl. She babbles alot - with mamamama being part of the repetoire. She seems to want to be held a bit more in the evenings, and less during the day (she'd rather be playing on the floor), but really the past week when I'm home from work, she's nearly always in my arms, that's ok with me as I miss her during the day. And even though she won't be 6 months until the 27th (but would have been if she came on her due date), we will be officially starting solid food tonight as I'm sure she's ready. I think she will be flabbergasted and thrilled. We're only going to feed her solids, probably once a day (dinnertime) to begin.

[salt_phoenix]

Originally Posted by kailotus

My daughter is Lotus Ruby

HEY! I have a LOTUS too!!! EMBER LOTUS!!!

NOS- LOVE those pants... I'd love to have a copy of the pattern if you feel like drawing one!

Carrie- Can't wait can't wait can't wait!!! Still :

EVERYBODY ELSE- Hi. I can't keep up.

[echoecho1528]

Originally Posted by Dea

You made a comment that "I understand that my decision to AP her has added to this difficulty" which made me a little sad.

Oh, I by no means mean to portray that I am regretful of my decision to AP. What I meant was that I think that her sleeping habits are because of my doing the right thing by always responding to her needs. I have heard some people say that AP is a lot of work, especially in the beginning, but it definitely pays off in the end. That is what I am hoping for! Until then, I will keep truckin!

[echoecho1528]

Originally Posted by flapjack

My guess is that she's hit that obnoxious stage where separation anxiety hits at the same time as other developmental stages and so she's more prone to waking: when she does wake, she goes "oh crap, where's my booby? my mummy?" and panics. It will get better, it is not AP induced, it's just REALLY BAD LUCK.

Thanks Flapjack. I hope this is what it is and that the "problem" will clear up soon on its own!

[nausicaamom]

Still puttering along, smelling of maple syrup. Things are getting a bit better though - he's back to 4-hour stretches at night and will go 90 minutes between feeds during the day - even two hours sometimes. He had his first stomach bug yesterday - my husband kicked me out of the house for some down time and then ended up calling me a half-hour later because the baby wouldn't stop screaming. He stopped the moment I picked him up and when I went to nurse him he puked everywhere. He had a couple more smaller ones before he fell asleep in my arms. He woke up, nursed, and fell back to sleep for another hour and after that seemed fine except for being a little clingy.

I stayed up too late last night and broke down and we had a family nap this afternoon where I got little sleep from having a kid on either side of me but Michael slept enough that he's still awake (at 10pm). Of course, I should be asleep right now myself so I won't get hit so hard with it tomorrow afternoon, but a chicken needs to be picked so I'm off to do that now.

[flapjack]

It took me a few minutes before I figured out what you meant by picking chickens. It's the glorious 12th over here (and start of the grouse season) but a mama in my other DDC is butchering moose at the moment...must sleep more.

River had another midnight poo, complete with two hours of tummyache (specifically, he had a 3am poo.) Words cannot define quite how grim I feel right now

[slgt]

what is UP with the return of the middle-of-the-night poos?! DD has had a couple over the last 2 weeks, plus she went from every-other-day at most to several times a day! Hm, we did travel, so maybe she had a bit of a tummy bug.

Her little ears are red & swollen -she's been yanking on them like they're going out of style. She actually woke herself up doing so at least twice last night, and only settled once I brought her into bed where we could help hold her little hands until she was in deep sleep. Poor kid. Teething, I'm assuming? But no new little pearly-whites poking through, yet. I wish they would hurry up!

[eilonwy]

Pulling at ears could be a sign of infection; You might want to take a peak in there. I wish I had an otoscope, I think it'd make my life a lot easier.

My new computer arrived, but I have not set it up yet. I should be transferring files all day. Yay, what fun. I know, I should just be greatful and get on with it.

Bear is GIGANTIC and desperately trying to walk. I have to keep reminding myself that he's still quite young because he's the same size Bella was when she was trying to walk (though she never seemed quite as desperate for it to happen as he does). Such a muffin. I think I'll go kiss on him a bit before i start working on the computer.

[flapjack]

The thing with teething is that it's only teething in retrospect. If I had a kid with red swollen ears, I'd be squirting some mullein oil down there and taking them to the doctor to rule out an ear infection

[Theia]

Hey there Fabulous February Mamas! I've been lurking here the past few days cuz this thread has already gotten so big. At least we are averaging less than one page a day so far this month!

DD and I had a good trip to see my parents. They loved spending so much time with her, even though she was not her usual self since the trip coincided with the start of her hardcore teething. We still don't have a tooth, but she has two little white bumps on her lower gum. She sits unassisted really well now, and has started to learn the art of play while sitting up. She still has no interest in rolling over or really even in crawling. I play with her on the floor several times a day, rolling her over, putting her into crawling position and crawling for her as she watches me. None of this seems to be interesting to her. But she has become more patient about being on her tummy, so that is progress. She is also talking so much more! DP was really amazed at how much she had changed in just 2 weeks. She has a few words, and recognizes more, but mostly she just sweetly babbles and I never tire of hearing her voice. We are not having sleep issues, she sleeps through most of the night, about 6 hours at a time. While we were at my parents the two of us shared a twin bed. That was rough and she was waking at 2-3 and again at 5-6 in the mornings. As soon as we got back home and into our family bed, she was back to one night waking and for that I am grateful. I haven't weighed her for a few weeks, but I know she is at least 18 lbs, or was a few weeks ago. She is so big that the 3-6month clothes are all being quickly outgrown. Her 0-3 month clothes fit her well in some cases all through her 4th month. No such luck this time. My Mom had bought her a 9month outfit, hoping it would fit her this fall. I put it on her and then showed my Mom, it fit her perfectly! Yikes! : How did she get so big, she's not even technically 6 months yet.

So, no personals at this time. Just to everyone who needs one and to everyone else too. Really, who doesn't ever need a hug? I'll do more to keep up with you ladies now that I am back in my home. I missed you guys and welcome to the new members too! :

[kailotus]

:

Originally Posted by salt_phoenix

HEY! I have a LOTUS too!!! EMBER LOTUS!!

Yay for cool chicks named Lotus!!
My son's name is Kai Phoenix...what is Salt Phoenix??

[justmama]

Just caught myself up with this thread. So many goings on lately! Our February kids are doing great! Grace is coming on 7 1/2months now and still tripod-ing and refusing to crawl or scootch or roll to get anywhere but she darn sure lets you know when it's time for her to be moved to a new location for a change of scenery. She is thisclose to signing for "nack"(nursing) and "more." She's a huge fan of organic home-cooked carrots but tends to spit them up a LOT so I'm not sure we'll keep going with them. Went through 6 shirts yesterday from orange spit-up alone. And that's a little above average for her. I really thought once babies started actively eating a meal of solids that cut down on the amt of spit-up you had to endure but not my girl. She is still projectile vomitting all over me all the time. But she's gaining like a champ so I guess it's just something that will pass eventually and not be a big deal. I'm headed back to work on the 27th part-time and she'll be here at our house with daddy so that's good. It's going to be a big change since she's only been away from me for 2 hours at a time. I'm thinking Thursday on the next "daddy day" I'll let him do dinner and bedtime completely by himself and just show up after 8pm to see how things go. Bedtime is what I"m really worried about since sometimes she just really really wants her boobies and her mama. Not looking forward to having to deal with pumping though. But things are going really well. She's just a lot of fun now. She's sitting up very very well unassisted and only tips over when she gets a little too excited about something and wiggles too much. She's in love with the cat and tries to "talk" to him as he runs past terrified of the shrieking. She's just started laughing at things that don't really involve her instead of as a direct result of tickling or peek-a-boo, which is really cute. Her sisters were beating each other up with stuffed animals the other day and she was cracking up like it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.: Of course that made them beat each other harder but it was still cute.

[eilonwy]

Okay, so i have a new computer. I'm kind of in shock... but it's a good thing. Bear has decided that I have too much hair; He's been trying to pull it out all day. He's also been clicking-- the funny, back of the tongue click that you hear in some South African languages. I read once that babies actually make every sound that the human mouth is capable of when they're in the earlier babbling stages, but this is the first time I've been able to hear many of them; Bean's babbling became English in obscenely short time, and BooBah was never much of a babbler. Bella didn't babble until later, and it was all English babbling by then. Bear's exploratory babbles are very cool. I can hear all sorts of linguistic cadences in there; It's fantastic.

I absolutely love languages. I really need to study and start speaking them with my kids... but for now, the DVDs in random languages will have to do. I'm quite obsessed with subtitles/captioning on DVDs, because I am quite text-fixated. The Stargate SG-1 DVDs for at least the first four seasons only have subtitles in French and Spanish. I've discovered that I remember enough French to understand those subtitles, and that makes me happy... but I'm not at all confident of my pronunciation. Native speakers are always pleasantly surprised by my accents, even when all I can say is, "Hi, how are you?" as in the case of, say, Russian... but without hearing more French, I'm not going to be confident of my accent.

So I think that will be on my list of Goals for next year: Find someone with whom I can converse, regularly, in a foreign language... ideally someone who will speak to my kids. And now.. I have to feed the kids again. That happens when they're still up at this hour. I'm just not in the mood to fight. :

[flapjack]

I'm in a similar situation, Rynna. We have this wedding to go to next year- my multilingual globe-trotting best friend is marrying a German and staying over there for good : They're in Trier, btw, Jezzy- at least, I think they are. The name sounds familiar. I'm panicking about the wedding because my German is now distinctly rusty, and my accent was very British to begin with. I know that when they got together, Volker didn't speak much English so I'm expecting that his family won't, either.
Justmama, River is still spitting up a lot. He's going very slow on his introduction to solids (I think he's actually still got a tongue-thrust reflex, despite having had one solid poo the other day) and is still sicking 2-3 times a day. It doesn't seem to bother him, he's just a sicky baby.
Gen River's started slowing down with his weight gain a bit now. He's in 9-12 months (although he has a few pairs of 12-18 month trousers, I think they're cut small) and I'm kind of expecting him to stay in this size now until the end of the year.

[eilonwy]

Bear is just a ridiculously skinny body with toothpicks for arms and legs. I put a pair of 12-18 month sized pajamas on him, and the length of the legs was absolutely perfect but they were at least two inches too big in the waist. Even over a cloth diaper, they won't stay up! Kid's definately going to be in blanket sleepers as soon as it's cool enough... I'm just having a heck of a time dressing him in pants of any description.

[slgt]

RJ is also a long, lean baby. She's within days of outgrowing her infant carseat (30 inches), but is probably weighing in around 16.5 lbs. She put on about 1.5 lbs in the last 3 weeks - it's so fun to see those chunky thighs return and swallow her knees! Out, then up, then out, then up, right?

Every day (night) an adventure - she woke up & ate at 2:10, woke up when I put her down at 2:20 or so. DH went in & settled her until she fell back asleep at 2:50. Up again & ate at 4:20, woke up as soon as I put her down at 4:35. Exasperated & tired, we just lay in bed listening to her...babble? No, not cry, she babbled & gurgled to herself, emitted about 6 moderate squawks, and drifted back to sleep. All by herself. In about 20 minutes.

Let me restate that - she went back to sleep on her own, without either DH or I going in, cuddling her, rocking her, soothing her, and without any crying at all.

Not that I'm going to count on this as a pattern, but man, that learning curve (for us!) just keeps 'em coming!

So, up & working at 5:15, which means I'm done at 1:15 and will hopefully get a good nap in this afternoon. Off to battle some creative block - I am NOT a graphic designer, yet the lack thereof means that I'm designing creative for our web site...creative block at 5:30 am. Coffee, anyone?

[nikkiethridge]

I still can't believe how quickly its gone by! Half a year!

I had to install a convertible car seat just a few days ago. 6 months old and already hit his limit on his infant seat. Sigh.

[applecore]

I just wanted to pop in and say "hi" to everyone. Twyla woke up at 5:00am, and never went back to sleep until a few minutes ago- it's now 8:35. : And now the other kids are up and wanting to eat, etc. I don't know what's up with this waking and staying up thing. She's been doing it every night. She wakes and stays up for an hour or two talking and kicking around, and occasionally fussing. It's just enough activity to ensure that I can't fall back to sleep. Bleh. Off to consume more caffeine. Love to all!