I'm starting to think some parents of older or grown children might be right in that their babies really did used to sleep better. Brought you by my baby yesterday whose longest stretch of sleep between 8am-2pm yesterday was less than 30 minutes with a handful of 5-10 min fake outs here and there. I finally put her on her stomach and viola, she slept for 2.5 hours, I actually had to wake her up so her nap didn't start to interfere with her bedtime. I watched her like a hawk of course, but she had no obstructions and she can move her head easily side to side.
DS was the same but when I told his pediatriacian about his occasional supervised tummy naps she gave me a real hard time about it and she's usually quite liberal in her approach. With all other risk factors removed I feel the benefits out weigh the very very small risk of SIDS. My late FFFC I suppose.
My last 24 hours have been a wreck. It had been so hard without my husband but the last day has been just mayhem. Dh's two sisters came to visit and it's like both children decided they didn't want to be their normal selves. Baby didnt sleep longer than an hour stretch all night and took forever to fall asleep in between. I think i got two hours total. Then we decided to go to the zoo this morning and baby screamed the whole way there. When we were leaving ds1 had the worst tantrum he's ever had. He never makes a stink about leaving anywhere and it was full blown legs flailing screaming everyone staring at me while my sil keeps asking does he do this a lot? I kept my cool so I'm proud of myself. Ds1 ends up telling me he just wants a hug and wants me to carry him. Well I had baby in the ergo and put ds1 on my hip while we walked to our car. Then in the car he can't stop crying and wakes up baby. For 15 minutes they are both screaming. My sil took a video to send to my husband so he could feel 1% of how I was feeling. I'm home now with baby on my chest and ds1 refusing to nap. I.need.sleep. And my husband. In positive news, if sil wasn't here last night it would've been a lot worse. She atleast held baby so I could do bedtime @greysonsmon Wish we could help each other.
My other negative/sad random. A friend from high school lost her 3 year old Friday night. She was at a birthday party and her daughter drowned in the pool. My community is so fantastic and has raised $25k in 12 hours for her. I know it doesn't bring her daughter back but hopefully makes her feel good that so many people care. This sad incident reminds me to take a few breaths even though I've had a hard day and enjoy my babies. I'm fortunate to have two healthy beautiful children.
mladerri Huge Hugs!! I'm so sorry it had been so difficult without YH. You sound like you handled such a difficult situation with such strength and grace. Glad your SIL was actually helpful. And I'm so terribly sorry for your friend. That is devastating. My heart breaks for her. I'm glad the community has rallied around her.
mladerri, I am so so sorry. Huge hugs. Your description of getting out to the car with a baby in a carrier sounds EXACTLY like what happened to me the other day-trying to carrying screaming toddler on my hip while baby is in carrier then two crying kids in the car. It's so hard. Hoping it gets easier as the days go by. You need a glass of wine!
That is the saddest thing ever about your friend. Seriously, one of my greatest fears and why I will NEVER have a pool until my kids are older, and lots of people have pools in Texas. I know you can be safe about it, but I would be too anxious. Drowning and hot cars make me so nervous. With my friend's loss of her baby I talked about last week, I am also trying to remember to take a deep breath and be thankful for two healthy children, even on the hardest days. I know even changing their diapers or dealing with a tantrum is a privilege the that someone who lost a child would love to be able to do. Not that those days aren't hard, because they are.
So when are you guys actually implementing a bed time and nap times? I've pulled out my old sleep books (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby) because I don't remember a darn thing. Like are you actually swaddling your baby and putting them down to sleep? DD has zero self-soothing abilities right now and hates being put down. We are basically just keeping her out with us and putting her down when we go down, but maybe we need to start dong a bed time.
I'm feeling emotional today. DS only likes DH today, he left to get groceries and DS screamed the whole time he was gone. He's only nursed at midnight, 5am and noon. He must be hungry and is showing me all the signs but he just screams at my nipple.
txmommy14,I feel lost too. Ds was a excellent sleeper (like slept all night) until the 4 month regression, then it all went to shit. This LO isn't a great sleeper so I'm hoping we don't get hit too hard at 4 months., but I tell myself it can't get much worse.
Once DS goes down, we change LO or bath if bath night, pjs, then he nurses forever, and as soon as he is asleep, we put him down. If he does a big stretch its then.
Oh the 4 month sleep regression. That was terrible. But like you said, I'm hoping not to get hit too hard since she isn't sleeping at all right now anyways! If there was an Olympic category for longest time for a newborn to stay awake, I'm feeling like DD would take home the gold the past few days.
So when are you guys actually implementing a bed time and nap times? I've pulled out my old sleep books (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby) because I don't remember a darn thing. Like are you actually swaddling your baby and putting them down to sleep? DD has zero self-soothing abilities right now and hates being put down. We are basically just keeping her out with us and putting her down when we go down, but maybe we need to start dong a bed time.
We've been doing a bed time with swaddling since she came home from the hospital. Her nap time is a little less clear because it's too sporadic, but we do usually swaddle her and put her in the pack n play once during the afternoon on most days. She won't sleep being put down during the day unless she is swaddled.
txmommy14, after our first two week honeymoon period, the baby will on sleep swaddled or I've just mentioned, started those tummy naps. In the last week I started a very loose bedtime routine as she seemed to hit an end of the day wall pretty consistently around 7:30-8:30pm.
At 7pm I give her a bath which she loves, then a bottle and various ever changing ways of trying to get her to fall asleep and stay asleep (I know she's tired and ready but she fights it). Granted this has worked to varying degrees of success as far as time taken for her to fall asleep for a total of 5 days but I'm just going with it.
I don't remember what I did with DS, but I have a picture of him and DH asleep together on the couch at midnight on New Years Eve when DS was just the same age as the baby so I'm guessing he didn't have anything like a bedtime at that point yet.
mladerri I'm so sorry about your friend, how devastating. I'm also sorry you've had rough day. I've been there. I hope things are more peaceful.
txmommy14....with my other kids I used the EASY method (is it a method?). Maybe it's more of a routine. Eat. Activity. Sleep-You time. It's worked for me before, so I will try it again.
I'm a single mom for the week. DH is off meeting with the company that offered him the new job to see if it's a good fit. I think it will be and we will be moving soon. So far today has gone well, but ask me again at bedtime :/
Poor DH has been under a lot of stress with negotiating contract terms, and this morning his good friend died after his family took him off life support. I know things are weighing heavily on him.
txmommy14 I have just started to swaddle DD for daytime naps and I don't know why I didn't try it sooner. I watched for a few days when she would get tired during the day and now when she starts to get fussy around those times I swaddle her and put her in her crib (she sleeps in the pack n play at night but I am trying to get her used to her crib). Sometimes she doesn't go down, but she has started to at least "nap" for 30-45min increments which is way better then before when I couldn't put her down. Right now she goes to bed when we do.
shoogars good luck with bedtime! I hope your week goes as smoothly as possible. I'm so sorry for YH. That is so much to process all at once. My thoughts are with his friend's family.
I've started getting a little stressed about the bedtime thing. He tends to sleep from around 8 to 11 or so. I know I should be putting him to bed and getting him in the routine of being somewhere quiet and dark, but I am used to him being with me all the time. I let him sleep in his bassinet next to me while I watch TV, etc. So probably not the most restful for him. I'm by myself at night a lot because of DH's job. Having DS asleep somewhere else unsupervised (I do have a video monitor) makes me anxious.
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