Babies born~July 1st-15th 2009 #3

we really have gone a bit quiet in here - i found the thread half way down the 2nd page! is anyone else like me & finds time to keep up to date reading posts & even doing quick posts in other threads but i never seem to find time to type a proper reply in here! well, something like that!

thanks everyone for your posts after my last mini meltdown! i really appreciated reading them & feeling the love! i think some of it was PMS & then some of it is that every so often i just hit a wall with the sleeping. most of the time i just go along with it & but sometimes i just fall into a slump of self pity!

cate - yay for zac crawling! has he been getting into any mischief? is zac back into more of a routine & settling better now you've been back for a little bit?

mamapan - hope the move is going well. once you're settled in, we'll have to organise that melb catch up for all us melb people!

miss e - how is ash going with the clingy-ness? has he settled now that he's been crawling for a little bit?

jetta - how's sam going? has he worked out his arms yet? such a funny stage!

deb - how's annie feeling? i hope she's all better now & back to her normal self. we've only had one cold here but i hated it - it was like corey lost his spirit.

ss_storm - do you think it was just teething that was causing the temps? has hayley been better since?

jas - how's arlea's cold? poor thing, they just get so miserable. how's she going at FDC?

okay, i think that's it - sorry if i missed anyone!

afm, sleeps are still similar. i think we're up to the 6th tooth now...i ordered a teething necklace & hopefully it will arrive today. not that i think that's causing the waking, because it's been going on for ages, but who knows!

corey is really crawling properly now & wanting to pull himself to standing on anything - including legs when you're sitting down. very cute but makes me worry about him falling over (i remember the MCHN saying that you could tell the babies at this stage because they always had bruises on their foreheads!) & it makes it seem like time is going so fast! it's also nice going out for lunch etc now & corey being able to sit up at a highchair at the table. i think he thinks he owns the place when he's up at everyone's level :rolleyes:

okay, best do some housework/tidying while he's still napping!!

Sloane I am :rofl: at your post, you have hit the nail on the head so many times...

:

---

is anyone else like me & finds time to keep up to date reading posts & even doing quick posts in other threads but i never seem to find time to type a proper reply in here! well, something like that!

---

yes :p

:

---

corey is really crawling properly now & wanting to pull himself to standing on anything - including legs when you're sitting down. very cute but makes me worry about him falling over (i remember the MCHN saying that you could tell the babies at this stage because they always had bruises on their foreheads!)

---

and yes... Arlea has a bruise on her head atm where she tried to climb up on her play centre. I said to her FDCarer I am worried she is going to have a major stack soon :( she just wants to climb on everything. Mostly legs though when you sit down with her, although she will try & climb up the couch as well, especially if someone is on it :lol:

Kind of crawling, she has the movement going but still tends to flop onto her tummy after a while. I am trying to tell the kids they need to encourage her crawling rather than the standing & walking... I don't know if it's registering though :P

The last two weeks were so awful, I don't htink it was all her cold - that was just her nose - must have been something else going on surely? I was :wall: by the end of it. She was near impossible to get to sleep lately, but is starting to self-settle again yay! so maybe a wonder week? :dunno: I'm just glad it's over. I think the low point was last Friday night when we got 3 hrs sleep...she was up from 1am to 3:30 straight & I ended up lying on the tiles downstairs with her, where she eventually went to sleep!
But this week there has been a huge improvement & so we (FDC & DH & I) are taking the opportunity to work on a routine following her lead.

ATM the last three mornings she has been up at 5:30, breakfast at 7, car ride (to FDC) at 8 and sleep from 8:30-9:15 ish, then a big sleep in the middle of the day, a smaller nap in the afternoon around 3, dinner at around 6-6:30, bath & bed around 7ish.

She has an extra day of FDC this week (today) and we are going to try & stick with her routine over the weekend...hopefully we can keep it going. It seems to work for her, we have just taken what she is doing normally & allowed the pattern to continue ITMS.

Sorry for the monster post I have run out of time for personals after all that :redface: hope everyone is well, I will do better next time :hug:

sarah - it's weird, because it's been kinda quiet, but then when you get a chance to log on there seems to be dozens of posts to catch up on... Wow, Corey seems to be going great guns with the teeth and the standing and so on! WTG!!

Jasp - sounds like things are starting to get back on track for you - doesn't it just feel like forever when you're in the middle of one those cr@p periods?

mamapan - I didn't see that article, but that sounds really interesting. And I second Sarah's suggestion of a Melbourne meet-up!

AFM, I am having a bit of a pity party atm. Sorry, this is going to be long and very 'poor me'...

My week just seems to have gotten progressively worse, along with Zac's sleeping. Once he's asleep, he's great, it's just getting him to sleep which has turned to custard. I spoke with somebody at the Koo Wee Rup centre (sleep school) yesterday morning, and ended up feeling even worse. The woman just had that tone of 'I really couldn't care less about you'. She seemed thoroughly uninterested and basically said "he's not a little baby any more, it's time for him to learn that he has to go to sleep, you just have to stick to it". She kept saying it wasn't controlled crying - it's "ok" for me to go in and pat him or give him a dummy to reassure him that I'm still around, but that's it. I tried again with his afternoon sleep yesterday - after half an hour of screaming and sobbing (with me going in every few minutes to pat him etc) I decided to lie down and cuddle him, but he was so worked up... in the end, after an hour and a half, he was due for a bottle because he'd been awake so long, and fell asleep while feeding. Now I've gotten to the stage of dreading sleep times, because I feel so powerless and useless!

I keep trying to remind myself that it has been a very busy three weeks for all of us - we've traveled to, and within NZ, he's cut two teeth, he's been constipated, had diarrhea, got nappy rash, learnt to crawl...

I'm just cross at the sleep school woman who didn't try to find out any information - how long is he awake for, what's your routine, how's his health, etc - you would think that would be useful in being able to provide good advice? And cross at myself too I think. I've reverted to 'do what works'. I can't listen to him scream and sob - I don't see how that can be at all healthy.

Sorry for the sob story!

yep sloane & jasp I am the same..lol. I read the new posts and think yeah I'll do it in a second, but then never end up typing anything! Then when I do come back I write a novel :lol:

Struggling to keep up with everything at the moment, Hayley is only having 2 sleeps a day, usually 1 1/2 hours each, but some days, like today, she had almost an hour this morning and a half hour power nap this afternoon...by 6pm she was so cranky and tired! Just finding it hard to fit in housework...bathroom hasn't been cleaned for a couple of weeks and I only just managed to get the floors vacuumed/mopped last weekend, but they need doing again.

Not much new here..Hayley is 7 months old today! I know I keep saying it, but she is so close to crawling...I wish she would just hurry up cause she is making me look like a liar. Lol. She has been babbling a lot too, mostly saying what sounds like "dad" which DF thinks is awesome! Told mum that she had been saying dad and she kind of dismissed it saying she is too young to be saying that yet...well that is what it sounds like! The last couple of days she has discovered a new noise...she makes like a "gggg" sound in the back of her throat, but it sounds like "guh guh guh" a bit like a frog..it is strange but funny.

Still no sign of teeth...so I dont know if her temperature was because of teeth or something else. I've been sick for the last week with a cold, she had a snuffly nose and was coughing last Thursday/Friday but was fine after that...I guess if she was going to get sicker she would have by now. I'm glad it was me rather than her though...I've been cranky enough not being able to breathe/sleep properly and having a sore throat for 4 days!

Cate- how horrible of that lady! Um isn't it her job to assist you in helping him to sleep, not just telling you to be "tough"?!? I won't be much help...we are having sleep difficulties as well, particularly last night! She went to bed at 6.30, was up just after 7.30. I gave her a bottle and put her back to bed at 8.30 but she didn't want a bar of it...chatted away in her cot until 9.30 and then cried on and off until she finally went to sleep at 11...we tried walking up and down the hallway, sitting on the lounge quietly, lying down next to her on our bed..she just did not want to go back to sleep! And then she was awake at 6 this morning, had a bottle and slept only until 7.30... and as I said before our day sleeps today were terrible.
sometimes she will be great and go off to sleep straight away, but other times it can take up to 45 mins to get her to sleep.

well i better go...just got hit by a brick wall of sleepiness so I best have a shower and be off to bed.

:hug: Cate, I don't know if it helps at all to know, but our crap period lasted about 1 1/2 - 2 weeks & was all about sleep, we could not get her to sleep, all our settling techniques etc were out the window so we resorted to 'what works' and then that stopped working too...
I just read your post & thought maybe it is a bit to do with the age, and the busy weeks you've had... he might come good again like Arlea did? I was seriously freaking out for a while wondering what we were going to do...and I was exactly the same, I dreaded sleep time & didn't want to deal with it at all.
So no real advice but lots of hugs, and hang in there, I don't think it's just a matter of being tough at all. If you have to 'do what works for you' then I dont' think there is anything wrong with that at all :hug: I really hope things look up for you soon.

Storm, I hear you on the housework :( I looked around tonight & thought I am never going to get on top of it....but then it has been like that here for a long time. Last weekend we were supposed to get heaps done, and we had that really bad night Friday night so got nothing done Saturday... etc, etc.
Happy 7mths to Hayley :dance:

And Mamapan, I meant to say earlier how nice it is to see you back here :D Good luck with the move, I hope it all goes smoothly for you :hug:

cate - i just wanted to give you a big :hug:. sleep just has this horrible way of being something that we almost judge our parenting skills on when we all know rationally that it's nothing to do with them at all! on good nap days, i feel all empowered & capable and then on days when corey doesn't nap much i feel out of control, like i'm failing & that he will NEVER sleep :rolleyes: i don't know why it has so much power over us!

the lady at the sleep school could use a good slap. if it was that simple, doesn't she think you'd already have been doing it? and that it would have worked?! :doh: i reckon the one size fits all approach isn't a great deal of use anyways - i might just be a soppy first time mum but i just don't think corey would respond to CC or CIO because he gets upset very quickly & easily, and maybe zac is the same?i kind of tried once & he got so hysterical, he was in a corner in his cot & when i took him out it took ages to calm him down. i'm with you & would rather practical info on maybe adjusting how long he's been up, ways to wind him down before getting to the put to bed stage etc. it does sound like zac's had a super busy few weeks & i think you've already come to the conclusion that he needs some time to get back to 'normal'. it seems like it's a tough age as well with the number of naps they have. if corey has 3 naps he's really hard to get to bed but if he only has 2 naps then he's feral in the afternoon...just easier to put to bed. mind you, he also seems to be going through a phase of waking after one sleep cycle in the evening & being more difficult to get back to sleep - and it ALWAYS seems to happen just when i'm putting our dinner on the table :lol:

it's just lucky they're all so cute!!

okay, enough blabbering from me :redface: i'll put my soapbox away now!!

hey sloane i only just noticed- congrats on your RAK!! :D

where's everybody gone???

jasp, storm and Sarah - thanks for the supportive words. It does seem to be all about the dreaded 'r' word :rolleyes:

Still fighting off the nappy rash. I started using home made wipes (cut up some cloth nappies and soaked them in boiled water with a few drops of tea tree oil). Along with using lashings of nappy cream, it started clearing up beautifully, but then I got lazy and started using commercial wipes again :doh: Back to the cloth wipes now and went and got some kick-ass :lol: cream from the chemist, so hopefully his bottom will be smooth as the proverbial soon!

Hellooo everybody...

:hug: Cate. How's it going now? Good luck with the nappy rash... if it's not one thing....

we are doing pretty well atm, Arlea's routine seems to be paying off, she's still waking overnight but the daytime is very predictable & she is settling better through the day, I'm happy with that :p
So at the moment we are having one big sleep in the middle of the day & 2 catnaps about 30-45 minutes morning & afternoon.

Arlea had her needles yesterday & the nurse did her measurements, her head is up on the 97th percentile now (from 75) so we have to go back in a month & have it measured again. I am trying not to worry :lol: She handled the needles great, the nurse blew bubbles after & the tears stopped like magic! Ran a temp last night but seems fine today.

And she is into everything now... crawling, but still not a lot, but pulling herself up & standing...she has stacked it so many times now :( twice in 2 days she has banged the back of her head on the tiles, I am considering a helmet for her.... I have to put her in her playcentre while I express otherwise I invariably end up rescuing her from somewhere, or comforting her after another fall....:rolleyes:

Hope everyone else is well?...

hiiiiii

cate - sounds like those homemade wipes are awesome!! i just saw the pics of zac on fb - can't believe how much he's grown!!

jasp - glad to hear the daytimes have become more predictable. it just takes some of the stress away. how is it that they go exactly where they're not meant to?! a helmet seems like a good idea!

corey sounds a bit like arlea - into anything & everything. the dvds & the plasma tv are especially popular :rolleyes: yesterday i was making a cake & he crawled up behind me & started climbing up my legs & wanted attention. the waaaahhss were getting louder & louder & so i turned my head round & he was standing up, hanging on to the back of my tracksuit pants but didn't know how to get himself down again :lol: it is cute though when he crawls over & climbs up for a cuddle.

we're still having lots of night wake ups. i'm wondering whether we're missing anything & should we be taking him to the doctor for a check up? or whether some babies are just really bad sleepers? i thought it might settle down once he started crawling but there's been very little change!

Not much news to report here, so exciting that they are all starting to crawl/stand up though! I wish Hayley would hurry up :lol: She's still not crawling, just shuffling around everywhere, mainly backwards. Lol.

She has wobbled over twice in the last 2 days and smacked her head hard on the floor..yesterday it was just before bedtime, she was sitting by herself and fell backwards hitting her head on the floor. She cried so much :( This morning she was on her tummy and I don't know what happened but she banged her head on the side, just above/to the side of her eyebrow. I suppose I'll have to get used to more of that!

Jasp- did you manage to get your pump fixed? Read your thread this morning but havent gone back to see if there is an update. hope you managed to get through the day without it! We seem to be in a great routine atm too. She wakes up between 7.30 and 8.30 (although this morning it was 6.30, I put her in bed with us and I dozed until about 8 but I don't think she went back to sleep at all, if she did it was only for about 30 mins!), has a bottle and we usually take the dog for a walk. Back by 10 for morning tea (solids) and she is in bed by 10.30/11am. Wakes by 12 for another bottle, play then lunch and another sleep at 2 or 3pm. Another bottle when she wakes up between 3 & 4, dinner at about 5/5.30 and then in bed by 7/7.30. She has been waking (almost religiously) at 4/4.30am for a bottle overnight. So her night sleeps are pretty good now.

Cate- hope Zac's bottom is better soon! The cloth wipes sound pretty good, I bought some before Hayley was born and havent used them. Lol.

Sloane- lol at Corey not being able to get back down...what a clever little man for pulling himself up though! I think, unfortunately, some babies are just bad sleepers. Have you called Tresillian or anyone that may be able to give you some ideas? Hopefully he will grow out of it though and you can get some decent sleep.

ss_storm - thanks. i haven't called tresillian...i'm hoping to get corey's 8 mth check up appt with the MCHN that took my mother's group because she's a lactation consultant & i know she actually fed her two to sleep. i'm hoping she'll be able to give me some advice - i want to try someone who knows me first. that's mainly because i don't think a helpline will believe me that i have a baby that just doesn't do a quiet grizzle - if he just whinged when you left him, then i'd let him go a little but he just gets so worked up. but i'm worried they'd just think i'm a paranoid first-time mum. maybe i am :redface:

Have to be quick but Sloane - :hug: I don't think you are a paranoid first time mum at all. Arlea also gets very upset very quickly, much more so than any of my other three.
If she just did a quiet grizzle I would leave her occasionally to see if she would settle but I have learnt very early on that it's better to go into her early, before she gets too worked up. I think some babies are just like that. (actually I *think* my sister who also had her baby in July has the same kind of baby ;)) - so you're not alone, and definitely not paranoid :D

Storm, thanks - I did find another pump very quickly TG, a hire place where the mum works from home - and she was just around the corner so DS1 rode around on his bike to pick it up for me! I still can't believe how lucky I was! Not happy about my pump dying after 6 months, but as DH said, it's done a LOT of work :lol:

thank you jasp :hug: it's hard not to doubt yourself sometimes, isn't it? he did do one self settle in the middle of the night last night - i nearly fell off the bed in amazement! it didn't change the length of time he was asleep anyhow! which makes me think it's not the settling part that is necessarily the problem.

hope everyone else is going well. i wonder if some people have lost us because of the new thread?

ss-storm - ouch for poor Hayley's head!

Sarah - yep, Zac is big. I think he's the biggest in my mothers' group, although there is one 'little' girl (5 weeks younger than him too) who is giving him a good run for his money! Corey sounds like he is doing really well with the standing and stuff. Zac likes to stand but hasn't started pulling himself up yet.
Also, I don't think you're being paranoid at all! If it's any help, here are the tips I got from Koo Wee Rup:

• 3 good meals a day (Zac just wasn't getting enough food into him thru just finger food, so now I feed him at least twice plus he gets to play with finger food for his evening meal)
• routine routine routine (one of my least favourite words, but it does seem to be working, fingers crossed!)
• consistency and persistence
• try other settling aids - eg a dummy, a cuddly toy or blanket
• they also said Zac should be in his own room, which I haven't done yet... the main thing I have done is be aware that previously I was being too responsive, so often he would give a little cry in his sleep, I would get up to check on him which would wake him up...

jasp - your pump has done a heap of work, but I understand you would be pretty p'd off about it breaking down after only 6 months!

AFM - Zac still hasn't started sitting on his own yet. Don't know whether to worry about that?

Also, any suggestions for what to feed him other than pumpkin, sweet potato, broccoli etc? Has anyone given their bubbas dairy, eggs or meat yet?

Cate- Hayley has been having cruskits/toast with vegemite, Rafferty's baby cereal, sometimes with a bit of one of their fruit purees mixed in, yoghurt (sometimes with a bit of mashed strawberry, peach, banana or other soft fruit mixed in), last night i gave her a chunk of roast pork to suck on and the day before we had leftover apricot chicken for lunch, she just had a strip of the cooked chicken. She's also sucked on a chop bone.

My MCHN told me that the foods they used to say to avoid, like milk and eggs, you dont have to worry about anymore (as long as for things like milk they don't have too much). I've used a few teaspoons of our normal milk in her cereal a couple of times and she was fine.

Hi all, sorry i have been MIA we've had more visitors! My best friend who moved to the UK just before Ash was born has been staying with us for the last week. It's so nice to have her around, but my goodness it has been busy!

Cate I hear you on the nappy rash. I found that if I used the baby wipes on Ash he got nappy rash almost straight away. Ever since the first couple of weeks I have just used a cotton ball dipped in water, it works really well and I find makes it much easier to get the poo off! I just keep a little bowl of water next to the change table that I change each day and a heap of cotton balls. Now I only use the wipes when we are out cos I find once or twice every now and then doesn't do too much damage...

Sarah and Jasp, I hear you on the sleep issues! Ash now wakes at least once a night, if not four or five times. It's doing my head in, I really don't know what to do. And now that he can pull himself up it's even worse cos he's standing up in the cot! I tend to think it's the learning to crawl that's the problem because sometimes when I rock him back to sleep I'll put him down on his tummy and he moves a little, then next thing he's up on all fours and sitting up before he's woken up. Of course then he's awake and crying. I'm hoping that soon he might learn not to do that, but I have also been toying with the idea of wrapping him again, just not sure if I should go back there but wonder if that would stop him getting himself up...

Jasp is your pump still under warranty, if it is I would definately be trying to get them to replace it, 6 months isn't good enough, no matter how often you use it.

Storm it's awful when they hurt themselves isn't it. Ash has had a few little bruises on his forhead of late, I feel so mean because I'm not sure how he got them (probably falling over in the cot, actually). thankfully we've been able to get through the last few days without a stack, but it was happening a few times a day up until a week or so ago.

Anyway, I better run before the little boy wakes up, hope mums and bubs are doing well!

hi everyone its been along time since ive been in. well my oldest daughter has started school my oldest son has started kinda both r loving it. Anton is rolling everywhere not sitting up by himself yet is eating lots has 2 teeth and i think more r coming. in the past week he has had losts of unsettled days n nights, his dad had him last week and he said he was awake until 6am then i got 2 ok nights 1 night he slept for 11 hours the other he had a 30min play session in the middle of the night but then slept for 9 hours the last 48 hours has been very little sleep lots of grizzles and wanting to be held, at the moment im glad i only have anton to take care of as the older 3 r staying with their dad full time for the next little while