MSE Newborn to 1 year Baby Club 1

Gillyx

mozzyc wrote: »

Oh dear, Charlie is napping now. There's no way I could keep him awake anyway, he's rubbing his eyes and yawning, then gets dead grumpy and starts crying. But he does only nap for 45min max. Glad its working for you!! Maybe one day for me haha xx

I started bedtime earlier last night because of it, I just have to keep him very entertained, no going in the jumperoo, he's on the floor atm playing with wet wipes, and I'll start bath at 6, only another 2 hours and he's happy enough yet,one more meal to get too, which will take up a good half an hour!

turtlemoose

argh I feel so useless reading all your bedtimes and so on! Reuben does not feed at any consistent time, for any consistent length of time....my mum made a bit of a comment today about me being "at his beck and call"....which I felt well, he's 5 weeks old, surely I should be? But since getting off the phone now I am doubting myself and wondering if I should somehow be making him feed at certain times...but have no idea how I would do that??? If he's not hungry, he will not open his mouth so I can't make him eat....and if he is hungry, I can't bear to leave him to cry (it's not often he gets to the crying stage anyway, I watch for hunger cues to get to him before he is going mad).....so how on earth do I change things??

Gillyx

Turtlemoose, my little one is 6 months old almost, at 5 weeks I can't even remember. I fed on demand, and still do if he's hungry. He wouldn't eat if he wasn't hungry. Feeding on demand is the current and correct advice. Your mum is just used to a time when babies were only fed every 3 hours or whatever as it "got them into a routine" don't worry, a baby can't manipulate you at such a small age, he has a small tummy and only knows "oh I'm hungry" "no I'm not" also with his tummy being small, when he is hungry, he is starving so if he cries that's why. You are doing a grand job. xx

Kira000

pinkspiral1976 wrote: »

Thank you ladies for all your positive and helpful comments. It's good getting advice from people who've actually been through the same thing. When you hear about other peoples babies sleeping well, it's easy to think that you're doing something wrong. You've all given me lots of ideas to try over the next few days. I'm going to try a few of them before going down the route of going to my GP to investigate possible causes. I'd never heard of tongue tie before and had a good look in my sons mouth but it appears normal. (I know I'm no expert). I think it sounds like he might have reflux/colic. It is reassuring that most of you said that things improved of their own accord by about 11 weeks.... That just seems a long way off at the moment! I'm just going to keep at it though. Thanks again for your help. Now I've been brave and broken the ice, I might try posting more often. It's good to know there's lots of you out there, with sound advice when I'm cracking up! Who knows, next time I might be able to offer some of you some help and advice!

Pink Spiral- your situation sounds just like my DD. I had it in my head that babies would just sleep, HA! How wrong. It seemed like the first 6 weeks, all she did was cry and feed. Literally awake for about 17 hours of the day, only falling asleep on the boob.
I felt something wasn't quite right, and off my own bat, realised she had both tongue tie, and reflux. The tie got snipped, and the reflux was helped HUGELY by doing a few simple things that you can try yourself and see if it helps, it wont do any harm if Lo doesnt have reflux.

Raise the mattress in the carry cot/moses basket at one end with a towel, or raise the end of the cot itself when you get one.
Feed LO at a bit of an angle, with head higher than belly to help the milk go down and stay down
Keep LO upright for at least 20mins after a feed before laying them down.
Dont pat the back when burping, do gentle circular rubbing towards the bottom of the back, not the top- pats and the top can aggravate reflux. I find holding LO up against my front full contact, the most efficient burp releaser!

Hope that helps, and no you arent doing anything wrong, and no babies wont just sleep by themselves! My DD has always been very bad at giving signs, so generally when she was young, i learnt to assume she was tired after being awake 2 hours.
Well done for braving your first posts, and look forward to sharing your journey!
k xx

Kira000

mozzyc wrote: »

haha Lirin, no chance, she says she's broke..........

Which, btw, we are too, but absolutely broke, surviving on hubbies wage and my smp, which isn't much. We pay £1150 in rent and with all other bills, and all the stuff for Charlie etc, it all adds up to us having next to nothing left over for us. But we knew it would be like this and didn't mind, as long as Charlie had everything he needed. But we've still managed, with no offer of help etc, to buy and make dinner every night for her too and buy stuff for lunch and breakfast. And when his other sister was here too over the weekend with her 2 girls, we also bought all the food etc, and cleaned up after them. For some reason, they all just leave their dishes next to the sink?? I don't know haha, I just don't get it really. On Saturday night I made dinner for all 6 of us, then me and hubby went upstairs to bath Charlie, feed him and put him down, came downstairs, no one said thanks for dinner, they were all sat watching tv and all the plates were left by the sink. It was 8:30pm, we hadn't even had a chance to sit down yet, and still had to eat, wash all the dishes, and make the bottles.

I was just a little dumbstruck by it all, especially as they know how long our days are and how tired we are. Anyhoo, they back on Saturday night, then they all leave on Sunday. At least I know when my friends and family come round they are a massive help with everything, especially Charlie xx

Sounds like you should send them off with an itemised invoice for x days bed and board at All inclusive rates. Cheeky Wotsits!! You arent likely to get any money from them but it would make the point!

Kira000

turtlemoose wrote: »

argh I feel so useless reading all your bedtimes and so on! Reuben does not feed at any consistent time, for any consistent length of time....my mum made a bit of a comment today about me being "at his beck and call"....which I felt well, he's 5 weeks old, surely I should be? But since getting off the phone now I am doubting myself and wondering if I should somehow be making him feed at certain times...but have no idea how I would do that??? If he's not hungry, he will not open his mouth so I can't make him eat....and if he is hungry, I can't bear to leave him to cry (it's not often he gets to the crying stage anyway, I watch for hunger cues to get to him before he is going mad).....so how on earth do I change things??

Like Gilly Said, he is still really young, so dont worry about routine and timings. Alot has changed since our parents generation were advised, so ignore them. You wont harm him by demand feeding. I still more or less demand feed CJ, and she is 6 months tomorrow! Pre weaning starting she had fallen into a routine of about every 3 hours, but that took a while. At his age, and for the first 3 months, they are having mini growth spurts so often, that any routine or timed feeds tend to go out the window, esp when BF. Things will calm down in their own time. Dont know if you have an android phone or similar, but worth considering Baby ESP app, or the free version Ibaby. Its a tracker, so you enter when they start and stop feeding, poo, wee, sleep etc, and i found it really helpful to start spotting patterns. Once you see something starting, you can use that to start a routine.

On bedtimes, it wasnt till about 10 weeks that i started to see anything resembling a pattern- which was LO trying to cluster feed for about 2 hours around 4-5 pm, so she could go to sleep around 6pm. It was the baby app that helped me notice it..

Aimless

turtlemoose wrote: »

argh I feel so useless reading all your bedtimes and so on! Reuben does not feed at any consistent time, for any consistent length of time....my mum made a bit of a comment today about me being "at his beck and call"....which I felt well, he's 5 weeks old, surely I should be? But since getting off the phone now I am doubting myself and wondering if I should somehow be making him feed at certain times...but have no idea how I would do that??? If he's not hungry, he will not open his mouth so I can't make him eat....and if he is hungry, I can't bear to leave him to cry (it's not often he gets to the crying stage anyway, I watch for hunger cues to get to him before he is going mad).....so how on earth do I change things??

I really wouldn't worry at 5 weeks! Here, 6 months old, doesn't nap, wants feeding every couple of hours or so, only sleeps 11ish till 6 or 7 and quite often gets up for feeding within that time, sometimes more than once.

turtlemoose

thanks everyone...just having a bit of a wobble ...probably have another one after the MIL has been over to add her comments too lol

Kira I have the ibaby app but am so tired half the time I forget to use it, and when I remember that I've missed something, I can't remember what time it happened :rotfl:

*Ro*

Hello all

Turtlemoose - mils are :mad: with advice !! Get some ear plugs !!
The last thing you need when you so tired is to concentrate and listen so don't !!! You won't miss anything ! I was told it gets easier after three months and it was for us (but obviously all babas Are different). The first weeks I like to call the newborn fog, it does lift ! As for feed times you do what you want to do ie feed on demand, we just fed every so many hours as we were paranoid about him gaining enough ! But they were Not fixed times as sometimes he did not want it! As for sleep times err again just went with the flow! still do! Xx

Got me JL sleep suits ! :j look good hope they wash well!

Kira - hello ! Hope ur feeling better !!

Nite all xx

mozzyc

Hi Everyone

Better late than never
Sorry, rellies still here. Hope everyone has had a good day, will attempt to read back now. Must apologise again for the lack of posts lately, from Monday, it'll be back to normal (until I go back to work lol) x