PS Mommy Thread-Newborn to 12 months!

[Mandarine]

yayyy! They are sleeping!!! Took a lot of simultaneous rocking and a lot of singing, but they are finally sleeping!

So SAHM thing...I''m going to be doing the half and half thing (from one, part time) and to be honest I thought I would be eager to go back and I''m not!. Now that I found this new mommy group, I have stuff going on everyday and I''m loving it!....I get bored at home so we leave the house pretty much everyday...and I also love to take long walks with them. Five months and I''m not bored! (exhausted yet, but definitely not bored!)

Now on to my LADIES NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!! woot! woot!!!

I''m going to start with a rum drink, followed by a light dinner, maybe some popcorn and a chick flick with maybe some vino...why not, it''s ladies nights in La casa de Mandarine!!!

WOOOHOOO! Yes, I miss the Hubs, but as you guys know...I love my nights alone!!!!

 

[lili]

love BPF!
All the babies are freaking adorable!

Mandy--
Love the easter eggs shot.
How ever do you manage to capture both boys smiling?
It was hard enough for me getting a smiling shot w/ just one baby.
And love those dimples!

 

[Pandora II]

Oooooh, BPF! Yay!

Cdt - Lex is a real cutie. Sorry about the 'asthma' - hopefully he'll grow out of it, but must be very frightening for you.

Steph - I can already see a lot of Andrew in Evan. What a lovely smile!

Nat - Ellie is gorgeous!

Mara - cute pic!

Amber - Love the photo of Piper. I am so jealous of all her hair - I want to put things in Daisy's but it's not thick enough

. I think she's more like you than your DH.

Mandy - Your boys are just adorable... hope you all feel better soon!

Fiery - Yay for standing! Have you got Sophia one of the walkers? I have the VTech First Steps Walkers and Daisy adores it - she has a few problems as she wants to push it and play with the buttons on it at the same time, but gets round the house at high speed crashing into everything.

Daisy and I went to the dentist today. I'm extremely phobic of dentists, so haven't been in 8 years (my confession for today). I'm determined that Daisy will have great teeth even if she gets the crappy teeth genes that my youngest sister and I have and not her father's amazing teeth, so that means I have to go too and try not to be terrified.

D refused to open her mouth at all - she did her Churchill impression with the bottom lip firmly over the top one and that was that. I even tried holding her upside down...

I've lost a filling so I've got to go and have that replaced - sadly it's the one that they thought might need a root-canal last time and looks like it might this time. Eugghhh. At least I get eveything for free at the moment and they said that the rest of my teeth looked great - hooray (you get free dental treatment in the UK while you are pregnant and during the first year of your child's life).

Here's a contribution to BPF...

 

[Pandora II]

Last one...

 

[Blenheim]

Love all of the BPF photos! I''m also impressed that Mandy is able to get Lucas and Alex both in focus and looking happy at the same time.

Our good news is that George no longer needs patching! Both eyes are tracking well and so the doc thinks that it''s no longer necessary. We''re supposed to follow up again in 3 months. If we notice eyes wandering or anything like that in the meantime, we may need to start patching again, but I hope not.

SAHM/working - I never thought that i''d want to be a SAHM, and then it ended up killing me to go back to work, but after spending some time as a SAHM I''m ready to go back to work.

To balance out all of the happy smily babies, here is a pic of my klassy boy this afternoon. He was seriously POed because he had spent hours working on making sure that he was covered with the perfect amount of mud and snot, and then I had to ruin it with a bath. MEAN MOMMY. He kept screaming for about an hour after I took him out of the tub, which resuilted in - you guessed it - more snot on his face. Sigh...

 

[Blenheim]

trying again.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Blen hahaha! What a shot!

And the happy babies are pretty cute too!

 

[mtjoya]

Thank you ladies for all your responses regarding the baby blues. I feel so much better now! I went to my OB and explained to him how I felt. I told him that I felt like I was sad and didn''t have an explanation for it. He told me that its normal and asked if I was mad at my baby and I wanted to hurt her, I said No, of course not! I think it''s the other way around, she wants to hurt me! jk. I told him that I would cry for anything! He assured me that it will eventually pass but he will keep a close eye on me. Luv my doc. but anyways after that appt. I feel better and hearing from you guys I feel good! Thanks ladies! luv ya girls!

RPS-I should''ve told him that DH was not understanding and weird and maybe he could talk to him but I swear my mind went blank cuz I was sitting there naked with a gown on me and leaking ALL OVER THE PLACE, I thought about it afterward! But THANKFULLY DH is being more understanding and we are getting along. He told me that I will be fine and that he will be here for me. So, I am just taking it one day at a time! Thanks for the advice!

Love all the baby pics! I really need to learn how to resize to post pics of Jacky!

 

[Lorelei]

Hi Mommies!

Sorry to intrude, I just wanted to page Pandora, Pan - I just wondered if you might have any advice for this poster please?

https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/setting-loose-diamond-in-london.138948/

Thanks!

 

[rockpaperscissors67]

Drive by posting plus I have to post Ben''s pic the day after BPF!

I *love* all of the pics -- such adorable kids. It''s amazing to me to see the pics of the babies around Will''s age smiling -- they''re already growing up! I got a pic of Ben sort of smiling yesterday, but haven''t taken it off my phone yet, so y''all get one of him snoozing with his lower lip all tucked up so he looks silly. It''s hard to get a good shot of a smiling baby with a camera phone that takes like 3 minutes to actually take the picture.

Today''s the in-law''s 50th anniversary party. We have 48 people coming (and we guessed 50 at the start!) and I''m 99% sure that we''ve got everything covered. It''s a surprise party, so SO told his mom that we''re taking them out to lunch. I hope they really are surprised.

And last night we might have found a house. We''ve gone round and round about this and whether we should buy now or wait, whether to buy an exisiting house or build, etc. The house is one street over from SO''s parents so it would be great because the boys could see their grandparents more often (and MIL isn''t the type to just drop in all of the time). I think we''re going to try to go look at it in the next couple of days. It''s kind of scary, but kind of thrilling, too!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

[rockpaperscissors67]

Date: 3/19/2010 2:18:37 PM
Author: Mara
so maybe someone can help me...(RPS?)... in the last few days my right boob just will not cooperate with my breast pump. no matter what i do or how i futz with it, i cannot get the same ''pull'' on the boob as my left...which is resulting in me sitting there for 40 min instead of 25 trying to empty the boob. and in the end i still have to hand express out about an extra oz to get MOST of it out. what could be happening? do i need to replace something on the pump or is my nipple shape changing? greg thinks its something to do with my nipple itself as he has ''tested'' the pressure/pull from the pump and feels like it''s the same. i have switched up the ''equipment'' on the pump from left to right to see if that makes a diff but it doesn''t, so it MUST be my boob? what could be happening and how can i fix it? i am afraid this will affect my supply and this is my mass production boob so it has to keep going...also i don''t want to get blocked ducts or anything from the non-emptying. i am only feeding J about 1-2x a day on the boob now since he''s SO lazy, this morning i had to continuously bother him for 35 min to get him to empty the left and eat partially on the right...and i know he still had stomach room but was just zoning out looking around.

Ooops, Mara, I forgot that I wanted to respond to this!

The first thing I would have suggested is to change out those little white things, but if you switched between right and left and had the same thing happen, it''s probably not those. You could always replace both of the white membranes and see what happens.

It''s normal for a pump to not completely empty you because it''s not as efficient as a baby. I''m wondering, though, if your supply in that side is down a bit because J is only nursing a couple of times a day. How often are you pumping in addition? Do you feel like the right side is engorged or is it comfortable most of the time?

Would you be open to trying a galactagogue? Probably the easiest one would be Fenugreek -- take 3 capsules 3 times a day. You can get 610 mg. capsules at GNC. That should make a difference pretty quickly if it is a supply issue. I would also try pumping that side like every 2 hours to see if that makes a difference.

I sympathize on the lazy nursing. This is exactly why I started pumping more! I felt like my supply was falling, even with the stuff I''m taking, but it seems to have come back up now. Last night, while nursing Ben on one side, I was able to pump .75 oz from the other is just under 5 minutes. Prior to this, if I pumped on a Friday evening, I''d get MAYBE .25 oz.

I''ll be gone most of the day, but if you get a chance to post an answer to my questions, I''ll check in tonight to see if I can add any other advice.

 

[taovandel]

Blen: That picture is completely awesome! I just keep going back to look at it...too cute and funny (love the shirt also!).

RPS: So tiny and adorable!

Pandora: You know how we all feel about Daisy by now---super beautiful (And squee! for the dress)

CDT: Such a handsome little guy

Sorry to any other pictures I forgot....my brain isn''t working so well---it''s sunny and gorgeous outside and I just want to be out in it right now.

Evan ate all of his oatmeal yesterday (tablespoon of oatmeal mixed with formula)...That was the first time he ever finished an entire bowl of it.

He only woke up once last night (at around 1 a.m.) then he slept til 7:00. I like this new baby I''ve gotten the past two days. I do wish the "Sleeping through the night" brand of baby would return to stock but I can deal with this one for now.


Off to go find a nice new outfit to put Evan in now that I don''t have to bundle him up in pants and sweaters!

 

[Sha]

Loved all the baby pics yesterday!!

So nice to see all the babies smiling and growing up nicely.

Natalina - Love the shape of Ellie''s eyes! Very pretty.

SAHM - I''m partially looking forward to going back to work, mosty because I do miss that mental stimulation and adult interaction. The few times in the week that I go into town or have a friend come over to chat always make me feel so refreshed.

*************

I think I''m going to try a bit of CIO with Dalila. Last night I was up at least 6 times with her. It went like this:

10:00 pm fed and put to bed
12:25 am up/hungry and crying - I feed and soothe her
12:40 am Back sleeping in her crib (only 15 minutes feeding and soothing time! yayyy!!)

1:00 am up and crying again

- I soothe her back to sleep
1:30 am Back in crib
2:30 am up and crying - ??? [

Won''t settle... I feed and soothe her
2:50 am Back in crib
3:05 am up again!

3:20 am Back to bed
4:20 am up...... fed and soothed her. I fall asleep on the couch with her in my arms.
5:35 am Giant moth attacks me in living room. I wake and put her back in her crib.
6:30 am She wakes and starts whimpering...

I go to her, give her a rub and kiss, then leave room. Whimperng rachets up to wailing. Ignore.

Crying stops in 20 min.
8:25 am Up for the day, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Me? Not so much.

Blah...So she''s clearly waking up for comfort/cuddles as much as she''s waking up for food. I think it''s because I co-slept with her the last couple nights, in an effort to get some more restful sleep; but now she seems to miss having me in bed with her. I''ll have to cut out the co-sleeping so that we get her sleep schedule sorted out. I think I''ll try some ''crying it out'' as well - much as I don''t want to. It did give me an extra 2 hours last night.

 

[anchor31]

Hey ladies,

I’ve been gone for a little while and literally went through hell and back, so I hope you’ll forgive me for not taking the time to catch up. I’ve been in the hospital with Jacob since 12:30 AM on Friday March 12th. He woke up at 11:30PM on Thursday night with a 103,3F fever, so we gave him a 5oz bottle because he hadn’t been feeding as well as usual that evening and took him to the hospital. They took x-rays of his lungs, gave him some Tylenol for his fever and we were admitted in the paediatric ward at 3:30PM. At 7AM-ish, they told us he had a high white blood cells count so he had an infection and it was most likely pneumonia (which I found kind of odd since he did have a bit more secretions than usual, but not that much), but they had to run some more tests. They hooked him to an IV and started him on broad spectrum antibiotics.

At 12:30PM, they took him away to collect some spinal fluid to test for meningitis. I was taking a nap when I started hearing people running in the corridor and a nurse shouting “He’s going to code”, and sure enough, a code was called on the intercom for the treatment room in the north wing of the paediatric ward. I didn’t want it to be Jacob, of course, so I started telling myself that maybe they’d taken him to the south wing or something, maybe it wasn’t him...

There was more running, people bringing crash carts and tubing equipment, while I was standing on the doorway of my room, praying it wasn’t my son in there coding. Sure enough, though, and a nurse came to ask me if I was the mother of the baby in the treatment room. Still in denial, I said I hoped I wasn’t, but then she called him by his name. She said he was fine, but I was sort of in shock so I just stared at her, so she sat me down and explained that they had given him morphine to sedate him for the puncture and he had stopped breathing. He had an oxygen mask and the immediately gave him the “antidote” drug to morphine so he never lacked oxygen and his life was never in danger. She took me to the corridor so I could hear him cry from the end of the corridor. the ER doctor that had run in to help my poor baby came to see me and told me I had nothing to worry about, there would be no brain damage or anything, then the head nurse arrived, scolded the nurses for not taking me to see my baby, and took me herself. He had calmed down by then, so I just stroke his hair and sung him a song. They told me they hadn’t had time to complete the procedure and asked me if I wanted to stay, but I left and called DH, who left work and arrived as soon as he could. The rest of the day was pretty nightmarish; Jacob was very pale, hooked on oxygen, IV and monitors. He just slept and slept and had two episodes of apnea until they gave him another dose of antidote and he finally woke up. He hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, and nursed very lazily for the next two days, so even if I pumped a lot in wrecked havoc on my milk supply.

At any rate, the day after the infamous test, they isolated Jacob (we were in a semi-private room) and start coming in the room in masks and sterile hospital gowns over their clothes and refused to tell me why because “the doctor would be the one to tell me in the morning”. It was during the night, when they came for his dose of antibiotics and they thought I was sleeping that one nurse told the other Jacob was in isolation because he had meningitis. I was livid. Why the heck is the mom the last to know?? I had planned on giving the doctor a piece of my mind, but when he woke me at 7AM after I had had maybe an hour or two of sleep(

), I was way too groggy to do anything but nod sleepily to what he was saying. Anyway, he said that it was an early case of meningitis and he’s responding well to the antibiotics.

The morning after, his resident came to tell me that the lab had given the wrong results and he didn’t have meningitis, he had a urinary tract infection. I did give them a piece of my mind then, I was so pissed! They put us through all this for an effing UTI?! I swear if we need to go to the hospital for Jacob again, I am never going to a local hospital again, I will take him to a children’s hospital in the city! Anyway, he stayed on antibiotics for 7 days and we finally got to leave on Friday afternoon. I still have to give him meds 3 times a day and he has a follow-up test on Thursday, then a test to check for reflux between his kidneys and bladder (I think Sophia has this?). My poor baby.

I hope everyone had a better week than I did.

 

[Pandora II]

OMG Anchor, what a terrible time for you all.

I can''t believe how incompetent the staff all were - especially in regards to giving you information. If the lab messed up, then does this mean that some poor child has early meningitis and isn''t being treated?

Anyway, I''m glad it wasn''t that for Jacob, and that he gets better (and you recover) soon!

 

[jcrow]

anchor31 - omg. what a nightmare. my sister in law went through something pretty similar with her first child. it was very scary. i''m keeping you and jacob in my thoughts and hoping for a smooth + quick recovery. hang in there.

 

[natalina]

Oh Anchor, I am so sorry for what you and little Jacob have been through. Poor little guy, and I''m sure you have been a mess- I certainly would be. So glad it was not meningitis or pneumonia, and I hope he feels better soon.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Sha How old is delila? How much does she nap in the daytime? I ask because by about 3 months, I would expect a longer "night" time that 8 hours. More like 12 hours. Not sleeping all the way, waking for feedings in that 12 hours period, but otherwise sleeping for 12 hours. I wonder if her wakefulness is partly sleep deprivation? I know this has come up before, but I would aim to put her to "bed" by 8pm at the latest if she is up for the day at 8am.

 

[fieryred33143]

Anchor-that sounds awful! Poor Jacob and I can''t believe the way you were treated! I''m glad you guys are home. Keep us updated. From my understanding, UTIs in boys is treated pretty seriously.

 

[anchor31]

Thanks all. Jacob is taking his meds like a champ. The dropper thing isn''t too reliable with him because he tends to not swallow it, but putting it in a nipple/bottle works like a charm. We went for a long walk today, I was going stir crazy stuck in a hospital room for a week. Pandora - I don''t think so. From what the resident told me, she called the lab to ask for further results on the spinal fluid analysis and they were like "oops, there are no bacteria in his spinal fluid, they''re in his urine"... So they mixed up his own samples. Incompetent idiots.

 

[Mara]

oh my gosh anchor what a horrible story....ugh! sorry you all had to go through that and poor J! i hope he's totally better soon. was he displaying any other symptoms than a fever that night that you took him in?? our J always runs really warm so i tend not to bother taking his temp or anything but now i might be a bit more paranoid.

blen love the photo and yay for no more patch!!

mandarine hope you enjoyed the night alone ... while i don't necessarily love having to deal with the kiddo myself, i do love having the bed all to myself hehee. and i agree, so awesome you can get the boys both smiling!

sha sorry that D is being so restless at night...hope you guys get some relief soon.

so we finally took the bjorn out of the box and tried it on...haha. J seemed to really like it so i can see myself using it for runs to the store etc..!!

the last 2 nights J has been harder to put down at night even though i know he is tired and he is still fighting his naps during the day though he does finally take them. i was trying to move his bedtime up a bit from 9:30 or 10 but the last 2 nights even though we start routine at 8 to hopefully have him down by 9 he does not end up actually going down til 10. he does the 'closing my eyes and drifting off then snapping eyes open' thing for like 20 min. and if you leave him alone and he's not in his 'sleep' state yet he will def wake up and cry til you go in, reswaddle and do it over again. now that his personality is coming out more i def think that regular CIO won't work with him, i can easily see him screaming for hours if we would let him now that he is stronger haha. we will have to do a more modified version with more soothing. the 2nd or 3rd time we put him down he finally zonks out and is good for 6-8 hours as typical.

what i definitely want to continue doing even though it's hard to stay consistent is the whole 'you won't get out of this situation until you do what you need to'...so even if during naps he won't go down i just keep reswaddling him or taking him, changing diaper, rocking then putting back in etc...so even if there are 'interruptions'... the end result is the same. naps = him in the crib sleeping or sleeptime = him in the bassinet sleeping. the funny thing is that when i go in and reswaddle or do whatever he totally silences up, just looks at me and coos... nice try buddy!!

yep you are super cute but you must sleep!!!

my sister is coming over tonite to watch him so we can go enjoy a dinner out... she loves taking care of him and watching him but i know she doesn't like when he fusses and cries (doesn't everyone want to watch a glowing happy baby??) and of course the evening is when he is most fussulator since it's right before bedtime. hopefully if we feed him before we go she'll get at least an hour of shiny happy baby before his behavior disintegrates into madness...hahaa.

oh and RPS... re: your post. so my supply doesn't seem to be dwindling, it was that the pump was not effectively taking the milk out of the right boob suddenly. and when i mean it wasn't effective... it was that i could feel my boob heavy with milk and the pump was only getting like 1oz out of it in 15 min! whereas before it would get 3oz out in that time. i had to leave it on for like 40 min to even get my 3oz! sooo anyway i futzed around with the pump some more and i changed out the little plastic soft tubes and i think that made a diff. we have extra white things too, would that help changing them out too? i have been using these tubes/flanges etc for almost 8 weeks now...so i guess it would make sense to change them out? last nite i changed out one of the soft tubes and thought it made a diff, and then at the 6am feeding i changed the other out since it seemed like it was doing the same thing on the OTHER boob now...and i managed to get 5oz out of my right boob and 3oz out of my left, so a total of 8oz...a record for me in one pumping! my right boob is the super producer so i am paranoid about anything affecting it. oh and i typically pump 1x during the daytime, 1x before bed at about 10pm and then 1x at about 5 or 6am when J gets up for his feeding. so about 3x total. and he feeds 1-2x a day (sometimes more if he is super fussy and i think he wants a snack or soothing).

and yep he is LAZY LAZY LAZY on the boob. this morning he was SO lazy, honestly when i want him to really eat, its frustrating!! i am like stop looking around and eat !! and i am bothering him the whole time, tickling feet, chucking chin etc. i told greg we need horse blinders for the kid so he can't look around and daydream while he should be eating. we were tempted to put his bili sunglasses on since we brought them with us from the hospital lol. but yeah then i think well EP is so much easier since i don't spend 20 min with him on the boob THEN 20 min pumping. i'd just have 20 min pumping. even though i do like the ease of BF'ing. we'll have to see if he smartens up on feeding.

and while he used to be a champ at bottle, and most of the time still is, sometimes he is starting to get lazy with bottle too. i don't know if it's a phase he's going through or if he's just not as hungry sometimes but yeah our little piggy seems to be turning into a daydreamer.

oh and fun note for me...i finally was able to start freezing milk a few days ago now that our fridge stash is always ~2 days in surplus. i am taking 4-5oz from the nighttime/early morning feedings and freezing it in bags. so if i can just do 4-5oz (so essentially one bottle) a day then i should be more than ready by the time we go to hawaii in late april.

it's another lovely day here with sun so we'll take J out for a family walk later before dinner. have a great day all.

 

[phoenixgirl]

Anchor, hugs to you and Jacob! I can''t get over the "coding" part of your story. What a nightmare!!! I''m so glad that it turned out "just" to be a UTI but so, so sorry that you had to go through that.


We (DH) almost dropped Claire today. We were on a walk with her in the baby bjorn, and I mentioned that she probably didn''t need her second long-sleeve top on a 80 degree day (it was chillier when we left the house), so DH unsnapped the bjorn almost completely. He wasn''t really paying attention because we were in the bike shop and he was chatting with the workers, and she started falling out. Luckily I was right next to them and caught her because I don''t think DH could have gotten her in time on his own. Scary! Of course, our neighbor asked how many times we''ve dropped her thus far, and the answer is still zero, so I guess we''re ahead of the curve. Claire obviously understood that it was scary, though, because she started crying.

I have just woken from a zombie 2 hour nap. We had my deceased friend''s wife over last night for dinner and to meet Claire, and we were talking about him and crying and I just couldn''t tell her I was tired, so I missed my window to go to bed when I needed to. Then at 11 I decided to pump because I hadn''t fed Claire since 5 p.m. and I thought she was down for night, but of course she woke up to eat while I was pumping, so I didn''t get to tank her up like I would have liked to and she woke up at 4 a.m and 7:30 a.m. Sleeping in and several attempts at naps didn''t work for various reasons, although I did take a 45 minute nap earlier in the afternoon. So anyway, I just conked out on the couch, and I finally feel human again.

 

[taovandel]

OMG Anchor!!! Glad to hear things are better now...but what a crazy ordeal!

 

[Kaleigh]

Oh Anchor, what an ordeal. I am soooo glad Jacob is ok, my gosh what a scare.... HUGS to you Mom!!!!!!

 

[gingerB]

anchor -

big hugs to you! so glad jacob is ok. mistakes do happen, but their handling of the situation was a no- no

. so sorry you had to go through that

so add me to the why won''t my baby sleep group

although i think A is a bit younger than the other bebes so i almost feel like i''m not allowed to complain yet. he''s just hitting his 5/6 week mark so the fussiness is gearing up and getting him to nap has been a struggle. there was some improvement when we started sticking hard and fast to the 1-2 hour wakefulness rule and got this 2 days ago which seems to help with his reflux. yesterday he napped like champ in it. it was the first time since his 3 week wakeup that we were able to get him down for a significant nap (more than 30 min) without one of us holding him. today though, he wasn''t having any of it. not too fussy. but no naps. i''m afarid of what tonight may bring

.

he''s still waking up every 2-3 hours and acts starved. this theory about fatty milk keeping the kiddo full apparently doesn''t apply to my little porker. when my milk separates in the fridge, i never have less than a cm of thin milk, the rest is thick and creamy, and on top it''s almost solid (almost yogurt consistency). and when he eats, he is sucking it down like nobody''s business. he could take the whole 3 oz in 5 min if we let him. we had to go buy preemie nipples to slow the flow because we were afraid of him choking. and if you try to burp him or interrupt him in the middle (our attempts to prolong the feeding to a more reasonable 15 min) he screams bloody murder and grabs at our hand to pull the bottle back in. he''s taking down 3 oz every 2-3 hours avging about 24 per day. he acts hungry right after the bottle is done, but if we force him to wait 5-10 min or so so that his tummy can realize it''s full he settles. if we feed him more he inevitably spits it up. but i swear the kid makes me feel like i''m starving him. plenty of wet and dirty diapers and he;s growing like gangbusters so i''m assuming we''re doing ok? i don''t know why my pedi didn''t want 1 month visit -- we''re not scheduled to see him until 2 month mark. it would be nice to get some reassurance that the kiddo is doing ok though.

it''s prob wishful thinking but i wish wish wish he would drop that 4am feed. we tried adding a bit o formula to his last two feeds hoping for somethig but it didn''t faze him. if anyhting he''s even hungrier today! can i blame a growth spurt here?

 

[taovandel]

I think you can..I believe there is a GS aroung 6 weeks..or at least E had one....




Evan slept until 430...fed for 30 minutes..and didn''t get up again until 8!!!

Also I sent his picture into a blog to see if they would post it...and they totally did!

 

[fieryred33143]

Ginger and others: there is a 2 day wakeful, 10d/3w/6w/12w growth spurt, 4mo wakeful, and I believe another 9mo growth spurt. GS affects their sleep patterns a lot. Some babies sleep more than usual, only waking to eat. Others are awake and starving all the time. The first described Sophia''s 10 day and 3 week GS. The latter more horrible one (lol) described her 2d wakeful and her 6w/3mo GS. She never went through the 4mo wakeful because she spent all of her 3mo awake lol.

Also, at 6w awake every 2-3 hours to eat is totally normal. Sleep patterns are not consistent really until the 3mo mark. There''s nothing proven that formula will help STTN so if you are bfing and want to EBF, I would not supplement w/ formula in the hopes of getting LO to STTN. Also, Pandora can better explain the tongue something or other (lol) which affects babies younger than 4mo ability to take in solids such as cereal that also proves that things like cereal do not help babies sleep better.

Its important to remember that until around 3mo, you''re still in survival mode. Sleep when baby sleeps. Eat in between those times. Laundry can be done once a week. A clean house isn''t that important. Dinner/lunches/meet-ups with girlfriends can wait. Routine is always important to establish early so that when those sleep patterns emerge, the routine is already set (I made the mistake of not doing this).

Sorry A was awake so much. It happens and it sucks. But it does get easier, a lot easier.

 

[Mara]

aww ginger sorry you guys are having a tough time...but it does get a little easier with time and as you feel more and more confident in what you are doing. it''s so hard, pregnant for 10 months then suddenly HEY here''s a kid now you take care of them. and most moms muddle through just fine, but we''re so lucky we have PS for support!! i have a real life friend mom who has a 2 week old right now and she is always emailing me going ''is this normal...'' or ''what do i do here'' etc...really people are so lucky when they have any type of support because we really all do have the same Q''s from one time or another.

reading your post made me wonder, did you guys find out if he has reflux or gas issues? because J sometimes gets all crazy like that while eating and when i flat out KNOW he isn''t starving it has to be something else. your kid eating 24oz in 24 hours is a good amt. J eats maybe 22-23oz and he is 7 weeks. and his gut is ginormous! anyway SUCKING is soothing to them so when J screams bloody murder between burps/bottle eats i tend to think it''s something more than ''i''m dying of starvation'' because he doesn''t always do it. and if he does scream when we are burping him, we don''t rush it because i''d rather he scream for a minute but give me a good burp and let the food settle before we give him more or else it WILL come back up later with his reflux and i''d rather it stay in him. does A do the ''chewing'' motion with his tongue/mouth in between feeds? it sucks you have to wait to take him in to be checked, can you email your Dr to ask some Q''s?

J''s gas/reflux seemed to be the worst at about 5-6 weeks, in the last 3-4 days he has been a LOT better and way more chipper during the day. i know it can change on a dime but i am hoping we are managing it better and maybe his digestion is maturing slightly.

re: routines and all that, we are trying to do that too but some days it just doesn''t work. however like fiery noted, setting yourself up for future success is great too. i am hoping that is what we are doing. and sticking to the 1-2 hour wake time is smart IMO...we are trying to do that more with J because i notice when he gets crazy fussy it''s because he def has been up too long and i just go put him down in his crib, and MAKE him sleep. i don''t want him to get sleep deprived because then that really can mess with their budding patterns and since he sleeps so well at night, don''t want to change it needlessly. oh and the short naps, i am kind of resigning myself to that for now, but trying to get him more of them during the day so it still equals the longer nap time. two of my real life friends with 6-8 week olds are experiencing the cat naps during the day now too.

so J broke his record last nite and went 9 hours after we put him down at 10pm. but it did again take 2 attempts to put him down from 9:30-10. he just fights so hard! he is all comatose and limp in my arms and then i carry him into his room where it''s dark with night light and he immediately starts screaming... talk about learning expectations...nooo i don''t want to SLEEP.

kid if only you knew how hard we are all trying to get more sleep at our ages hehee.

oh and RPS i think i fixed the pump, doh. we changed out the white soft rubber things and that seemed to make a big diff! so i will keep an eye on the equipment from now on and know maybe in another 7 weeks we have to change them again. i got 8oz again this morning, yippee. thanks for the help!

 

[Mandarine]

you know I never know when the boys (or if they ever) had growth spurts! I think they are in a constant growth spurt! I just don''t see a definite difference. Like the 4 month thing..not sure if we had that since they''ve been essentially sick for the last 3 weeks!...so who knows.

What I do know is that I''m ABSOLUTELY jealous of any newborns sleeping more than 6 hours in a row!. I kept a log for teh first 2 months (specially at night)...if I posted that maybe it would make you guys REALLY appreciate when they sleep longer than 3 hours before 2 months! hehehe. So not to say "poor little Mandy!"...but you guys with such young babies, give them some time!

So I think Lucas is feeling better but I was left with a whiney baby. Really, he whines ALL day long, unless you''re making him laugh or snuggle with him. I keep telling myself maybe he''s not 100% yet....waiting for the cough to be gone before I stop taking all his whining so seriously. He''s just so needy!!!!

I can''t wait for DH to get home tonight! I hope they wake up to eat as soon as he gets here (in the middle of the night) so that he can feed them and I can catch some ZZZZsssss!!!!!

Ok, my whiney little one is calling...Happy Sunday!

 

[fieryred33143]

Forgot to mention a product favorite for the formula mommies. We just bought the munchkin formula dispenser. It''s pretty cool. It has 3 compartments that holds 8oz ea. Sometimes we''re out of the house for 2 feedings or more so we put in formula in the dispenser and bring some water. When its time for a feeding, you pop the lid and pour it in the bottle. I like it!