Hi all,

Kaz - a sleep cycle is the period when bubs goes from light sleep to deep sleep back to light sleep. For Isabel her sleep cycles only last about 40mins during the day, sometimes I can settle her back into a second cycle but often not! I heard a sleep and settling expert say that babies rarely need only one cycle so it is important to try and encourage them to sleep through into the second cycle.

I go in as soon as I hear Isabel stirring during the day and try and settle her through but she wakes so quickly, when I go in she has big wide eyes and huge smiles for me so getting her back to sleep is pretty useless! Ah well!

SJ, you poor thing! I completely sympathise - Isabel is going through a growth spurt too and we've had a few patchy nights. I had my MIL here yesterday which helped - can you call in the cavalry to give you some rest??

AJP - how was your night??

Laura, sounds like a great dinner, well done! How's the supply going?

Holly - how did your 8wk check go?

Ali, about clothes - Isabel is in some 000 and some 00. She doesn't fit Bonds 00 gro suits anymore and is mostly in 00 during the day. Pumpkin Patch size 3-6mths. She's a big bubba - a whole lot bigger than some of the bubs at Mother's Group who are much older! (Det - she weighs more than Heidi and Heidi is up to 16wks LOL)

She's also in cloth nappies so can't comment on the size of sposies...

Cloth users, what are you doing overnight? Isabel is good at the dream feeds without fussing about having a wet nappy but she's wet through a few times... thinking I should get a booster or something so I can leave her in them.

AFM - my MCHN friend says she thinks DD is going through a growth spurt, hence the feeding over night every 2.5hrs. I'm so tired but at least the end is in sight, if its a growth spurt it'll end soon. My BBs were so sore last night, she cluster fed from 7pm til about 11pm when she finally went down and she was pulling off and screaming in frustration, beating my BB with her little fist because there wasn't enough there for her.

It was quite funny - we had friends round and she had fed at 7pm, then DH brought her back after an hour of grizzling so I fed her again, then at 9pm she was crying so I got ready to feed her and one of the guys goes "She can't be hungry again can she??" with this incredulous look on his face.

So tempted to grab a bottle of EBM or formula and give her that... but didn't and she settled eventually. Then she woke at 2.30am, 6am and 9am. So a bit better than the night before. Hopefully she'll start settling into longer sleeps!