PS Mommy Thread-Newborn to 12 months!

[Kaleigh]

Ok PS''ers make the most beautiful , gorgeous babies ever.... I love coming here to see their progress and to see how you Mommie''s are faring.. You all do such a great job...

 

[AmberWaves]

Hi All!

Love the pics of the babies!

Here is Piper''s- she''s sitting in the office''s big green chair. I love this picture.

Since we moved her to her room she''s able to entertain herself in there, but still wakes up twice a night instead of the once she was in her 3rd month. SUCKS. She has also been rolling back and forth, too, so it could just be new things. I have yet to move her to her crib. I think I''m waiting for 5th month, we''re going away for a weekend next weekend so I''ll do it after that.

Crap, gotta leave work, be back with more later.

 

[Mara]

ginger re tylenol. the hospital gave us a sheet that said the tiniest dose for 2 month under 12 lb baby, i think it was .3ml? but my friend said her dr said to give him .6ml (the dropper is .8 i think?) and our babies weighed the same. you might be able to google. but if he was fine with .3ml we just did the smallest.

random Q but anyone with a video monitor, how did you get your kids used to the bright light at night for the video shining right on them? J tends to want to stare at it if the room is dark and i wish we could somehow dim it but the camera needs it. any tips? esp since we are trying crib tonite and he is used to having the bassinet cover on him.

mtj...omg re: the letting yourself go...!! you are like hello i just had a baby haha. i wear juicy lounge pants and flip flops everywhere now...why not?! i''m not working. hehee.

 

[Sabine]

LOVE all the pics!

SoCal, so cool you get to go to Disney, sounds like so much fun!

Drk, I''m sorry you''re still struggling. I know that when you have your heart set on bfing, supplementing can feel like failure, but IMO it can just be a stepping stool to get you over a rough beginning...hopefully it will all work out soon!

Mara, so jealous of your upcoming Hawaii trip! Yay for having enough stashed!

PG, what your dr. said is soooo insensitive, but I''m a fan of blatant honesty. I probably wouldn''t have made it either 200 years ago.

Viz, hard decision as to whether to stick with going to sleep alone in your bed or try in the crib, but if your ultimate goal is the crib I would try to get to that asap.

Ebree...Jacks does that too...when he''s working on motor stuff, his verbal goes WAY down.

Fiery, that pic is great!!!

Pandora, that''s tough. Hopefully some moms of older LO''s will chime in. Jacks is still easily distracted by other things when I take away something he wants.

Anchor, glad for the improved boob time!

Ginger, boo for shots. Hopefully they won''t disrupt things too bad for you!

Hi everyone else!

Well, Robin and Des left today and Jacks and I already miss them. We had such a good time! Jackson and Des are soooo different. And as adorable as he is, Des is certainly a little tornado of energy, I honestly have no idea how Robbie does it! He is on the go without stopping ALL DAY! He is so fearless! Jackson is the total opposite, he''s really reserved and likes to observe and get used to things before accepting them. Even though he''s crawling now, if I put him somewhere new like on the grass or in the sand, he won''t move. He''s also still pretty content just sitting and playing. We did a bunch of stuff while they were here, like go to the park, the zoo, and the beach, it was so great!

Unfortunately, today Jacks felt really warm and I took his temp and it was 103. After some tylenol, it only went down to 102. I''ll take him in the dr. tomorrow to rule out an ear infection. He doesn''t really have any symptoms other than being tired. He fell asleep before his bedtime bottle tonight while dh was holding him, and then fell right back asleep after his bottle and bath. Poor guy =(.

And now on with the pictures! First, Jackson and Des testing each other out...they each pushed each other down several times!

 

[Sabine]

didn''t work, trying again

 

[Sabine]

Des playing in the box our convertible car seat came in (we tried to use it to block off the room, but he learned to move it.

 

[Sabine]

In the swing at the park

 

[Sabine]

At the beach...Des wouldn''t even sit still for a picture, and Jackson was afraid of the sand!

 

[Sabine]

At the zoo.

 

[Sabine]

Zoo again.

 

[Sabine]

And for all your formula feeders...if anyone ever tries to tell you that ffing doesn''t allow you to bond with your LO, you just need to show them something like this...I LOVE this pic.

 

[Sabine]

And finally, Robbie took some great family shots for us for Jackson''s 9 month pics...this is one of my favorites. After this, I''m done, I promise!

 

[anchor31]

Date: 4/16/2010 5:01:57 PM
Author: gingerB
A got his 2 month shots today ... poor baby is feeling warm and has been dozing and fussing since. i don''t think he feels good

. anyone know how to dose tylenol for a <24 lb < 2 y.o baby? and unfort we have some out of town visitors coming tomorrow and family insisting on seeing him all weekend. not that i don''t appreciate the amount of love everyone has for him, but sometimes i wish we could have more space. it''s so hard to try to keep his naps/routine on schedule when ppl keep wanting to come by -- and almost always late when he is going down for bedtime. how quickly one forgets what a newborn''s schedule is like!

When J had his 2-months, the nurse told me 0.75ml (0.75cc or 0.03oz) every 4 hours (max. 6 doses in 24 hours).

 

[anchor31]

Date: 4/16/2010 8:35:55 PM
Author: Sabine
And for all your formula feeders...if anyone ever tries to tell you that ffing doesn''t allow you to bond with your LO, you just need to show them something like this...I LOVE this pic.

Love this pic too! I agree, the look of unadulterated love on J''s face when his daddy gives him a bottle...

So yeah, bottle definitely does not equal no bonding.

 

[NovemberBride]

Love all the pics ladies! Such cute babies we make on this board. It almost makes me want another one (until Olivia wakes me up at 4 am to eat - then I come back to reality)

Sabine, it looks like you and Robbie had a fantastic time with the boys. And that picture of you feeding Jackson is amazing, you should definitely have it framed.

 

[drk]

Sabine - just had to say those are stunning photos. Love them!

 

[taovandel]

Sabine: You left out my favorite picture of Jacks looking so pissed at Desmond...makes me laugh everytime I see it!


ETA: Super cute shoes!!

 

[steph72276]

Good morning. We are heading out to the ball field to watch Andrew's tball game this morning. Then I will be doing some more stroller shopping. I think I have it narrowed down between the City Mini and the Bumbleride. Things that are selling me on the Bumbleride: smooth ride over sand/rough surfaces and since my older son is into sports, we will be living at soccer/baseball fields on the weekends, I can do light jogging with it but also take it to the mall and it handles very well, all the accessories are included in the price, and I like the look of it better. Things that sell me on the Mini: it is lighter, it folds really easily, later if I decided on another baby they sell an attachment so a toddler can ride in the back, and the sunshade is enormous, oh and the price is much much lower. So anyway, I don't know between the two which would be better. Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Thanks for everyone for the compliments on Evan. That was Andrew's robe and I have the exact same picture of him in his scrapbook...these boys are clones of each other!

SoCal, really cute pic...glad you had fun at Disney and thanks for the mommy review on the Bumbleride!

Hi, Lili!

Sha, glad D is feeling better.

Mtj, beautiful pic!

Drk, hang in there with the feedings girl. Hopefully her weight will start going up soon so you can be less stressed.

Ginger, poor A with shots...I always feel so bad for them.

Tao, glad work is better and that E is sleeping through the night for you!

Hi, Kaleigh!

Amber, super cute picture. I just see her thinking "wow, this work thing is tough" in my head!

Sabine, cute pics of the boys!

Hi, Anchor!

Nov, I'm like you. I said 2 is enough but then I see cute babies and I'm like "well maybe one more". Then I snap back to reality when E screams and cries!

 

[taovandel]

Video Monitors: A friend of mine has one. He woke up early one morning and went downstairs to get something to drink and clicked their downstairs monitor on...there was no baby in the crib!! So he ran upstairs the baby was in the crib! He went back down--no baby in the crib. He said he was finally awake enough to notice it was a completely different crib! They had picked up another houses frequency and were getting their feed...how freakin'' creepy!!!


Forgot to mention--my husband called me the other day to inform me that Evan had joined the falling off the couch club.

 

[taovandel]

I never posted a picture!!

 

[Mara]

tao that is creepy esp since it was like 4am and there was no baby in their crib!!! where was it!? hehe.
our neighbors have twins so i wasn''t sure if we''d pick up their feed but maybe they don''t use one anymore, their kids are 1.5 years old. and i dont think there are any other babies in our nearby vicinity, there is one up the street though.

the YAY news for this morning in our household is that we decided to go with crib last nite and J slept his usual long stretch!! just about 30 min shy and i think that was because he was totally naked, he''d worked himself entirely out of his swaddle and kicked it to his feet. my little houdini.

he also has been so tired at night that he passes out eating his bedtime bottle. i think he wants to go down earlier since he just HATES napping during the day and it''s such a struggle to get him to do it, so we''ll just try moving bedtime up a bit rather than adding more nap in. yesterday i tried for 1.5 hours to get him to do his late afternoonnap and he just wasn''t having it. so i got him up and then of course 20 min later he''s tired. we get his bottle ready, not even his bedtime, but the one before it. and he eats 1/2 then totally goes comatose. i put him in crib, he''s down for 45 min. i go in to swaddle him figuring he will be up in a few hours for more..and he wakes up. feed him the rest of the bottle and he eats it all, then passes out again. we figure well lets try crib...so he goes in and he''s good! i was so happy. i woke up at 3am and he had moved down so i moved him back up. then he was quiet til 6:40.

tao..great pic..he''s a total little man now!

steph...have fun today. i wanted the city mini originally but real tires ended up being most important so i couldn''t go that route. and you have to buy all the accessories separately so it would have been like another $100 anyway.

sabine..great pics...love the one of you and J feeding.

speaking of motor vs verbal, J has been talking up a crazy storm. i mean all the time now. and i noticed that he isn''t putting his hand in his mouth much right now but last weekend he was living with it in there. i wonder if now that he is talking more he''s not concentrating as much on other things.

i finally sat down and downloaded pics from my dig camera for the 2nd time since J was born haha. 400 pics! and i found a photo album i bought a long time ago from C&B that can be his new album. and a steel box i bought from ikea that was empty for his interim memory box. i love shopping in the house!

 

[Sha]

mtjoya - what a cutie! She's so precious...

Amber - love that pic! She looks like a little executive!

Sabine - how nice to see the two boys playing together! I also love that pic of you feeding Jack, and the one of him standing between you and your DH. And I love you and Robbie's haircuts as well. It's wonderful that you and Robbie got to be pregnant together and now experience motherhood together with your two little boys.

tavo - awww.....

That shirt on Evan is adorable.

 

[puffy]

sabine great pics!!! your little guy is way too cute!!

mara yay for the crib!!

steph cute cute cute pic!

all the babies are too cute!! i love seeing all your pics.

 

[Pandora II]

Wow we actually had real sun today - a completely glorious day. Went to RHS Wisley with some friends, which is the Royal Horticultural Society show garden and where they trial new plants. All the daffodils and spring blossom was out...so pretty!

Daisy had a great time looking at swans and fish and playing on the grass - then she decided that she would push the trolley with my new containers and plants back to the car. It took a LONG time, but she got almost the whole way there and we were parked at the far end of the carpark. She was so proud of herself and very determined!

She was so exhausted that she slept the whole way back to London - hooray! And then stayed up all evening - Boo!

Here''s a few photos...

 

[Pandora II]

...

 

[Pandora II]

Setting off back to the car...

 

[Pandora II]

Last one... serious effort...

 

[Blenheim]

Aw, all of the babies are so cute! Sabine, it looks like Jacks and Desi had a ton of fun and that picture of you feeding Jackson is just gorgeous. Pandora, I love the photos of Daisy. I don''t know how she does it, but she gets even prettier every time I see her.

I''ve also been wary of friending anyone with PS in their name because I''d prefer that my friends there don''t track me back to here. I know that some of you are setting up different accounts, but to be honest I visit my real one about 1-2x per month and don''t have the energy or inclination to keep up with a separate more anonymous one. It''s not that I don''t care about you guys.

 

[Mara]

pandora those pics of her with dad are sooo adorable!! i would frame that second to last one, so cute.

so i have a question for you moms, hopefully i can get some advice from moms with older babies who are STTN. this is really long so bear with me...and it involves trying to get J from ~9 hours of sleep to 11-12 so if you will want to hit me after reading it, just ignore the entire post below, i hate physical violence.

J is in his crib now, 2nd night was last night. he's doing great, much better than i expected him to (greg says proudly he knew he'd do great haha). previously in bassinet he'd sleep from about 8:30 or 9pm to anywhere from 7-8:30am. the first crib night he slept 9pm to 6:30am. last nite he went down at 9pm, but at 5:30 this morning i woke up to see him squirming in the video monitor so i watched him and formed some conclusions based on what i already knew about his sleeping habits.

basically in the morning hours, probably between 4-5:30pm (since the night before last i woke up at 3:30am and he was still swaddled but moving further down the crib) his sleep tends to lessen and he starts squirming around more. eventually he works himself out of his swaddle. but his eyes are still closed and he's still partiall asleep while he's doing this. i think what happens is his movements at night get him to a point where he's uncomfortable with the position of the swaddle so he ends up fighting in intermittent bouts with it until he gets it off. i ended up going in last nite at 5:30 because he had kind of worked it over his mouth and i was freaked out, but i got in there and found it wasn't tight and wasn't over his nose, but i couldnt see in the monitor.

ANYWAY. once he gets his arms out, then he starts flailing around like a crazy man with both arms AND legs until he's basically worked the entire blanket open and is naked. he sleeps with a long sleeve tshirt and a diaper only because he tends to get hot when swaddled. SO at that point not only do his arms and legs flail but he gets cold. so he wakes up entirely and starts to cry.

anyway last nite after i reswaddled him and stuck a paci in he was good for another hour and that was it, he worked himself out again and started to cry. he acted hungry, so we got him up to feed him. he only ate 3 oz and normally he eats 6 oz when he wakes up. now he has been sleeping again for over 3 hours. so i feel like he didn't 'wake' because he was hungry, he just worked himself into a state of awareness where he realized he was hungry.

the other thing is he has more room in the crib to work on his deswaddling antics whereas in the bassinet he had limited space so i NEVER found him totally unswaddled and naked. but the last 2 nights in the crib, in the morning he was unswaddled entirely.

since the whole goal is to try to get him to go longer stretches of sleep without waking up and needing to be fed... any suggestions on how to keep him sleeping longer without waking himself up when he's not necessarily hungry? i know he can go 11-12 hour stretches as he does it, but for whatever reason those are days when we find him and his swaddle is still mostly intact.

as i see it our only options are:
1) start weaning him off the swaddle: i don't think he's ready for this given how crazy he with arms and legs. viz i always think of your neurological colic phrase. he looks like a drowning man when he's left free. i have been doing this for naps and just tucking blanket at legs but half the time he ends up kicking blanket off and down to the end of the crib and then flailing wildly and crying. his moro reflex is subsiding a lot but it's really his own arms and legs flailing that upset him. if i walk in and hold his arms and legs down lightly he ends up falling asleep so i know they keep him awake when free. ideal end situation is him in a sleep sack with arms free but i dont think we are there yet.

2) leave it all as is and know that he will be waking up at 5:30 or 6am now and we'll just have to deal until he IS ready for the swaddle weaning. i hate to go this route because it feels like 'backwards' from where he was before which was sleeping consistently til 7 or 8am. the end result is he STILL gets the same amt of total sleep but the wake up is just earlier and more of a PITA for us...aka if he gets up at 6am i will go back to bed after he wakes up, but if he gets up at 7:30am i am up for the day. on the flip side, when i am working i will be getting up at 7am anyway, so why not get up at 6:30 or whatever. it is not the end of the world to get up and feed him at 6 or 6:30am either, i just hate feeling like we are kind of going backwards without trying to circumvent it.

the downside of #2 is that i feel like now that i know he works himself out of the swaddle involving 'fabric near mouth' at some points, it is kind of freaking me out. obviously he was fine in bassinet for 2.5 months but it's only been the last 2 weeks he is working out of the swaddle EVERY TIME, and since he has increased mobility in the crib, it gives him 'new options' he didn't have before with movement. since we are in peak SIDS time i would feel so much better with him in a sleep sack but i think it would just be detrimental to his sleep with his arm/leg patterns. chances are if we go with #2 i will prob start waking up more often just to make sure he's ok which means a less restful sleep for me (and when i go back to work i will need sleep, i am a BEAR without it). or we get angel care monitor which i have been considering, as its only $100.

i should say also i would happily leave him swaddled until he grew out of it, our friends swaddled their son til almost 10 months because he just loved to sleep that way. but since he comes unswaddled, i don't see this happening...unless we went the miracle blanket route and committed to swaddling him hard-core until he was totally ready. this is potentially option #3 i guess.

i don't see any other options for us...any other ideas or tips on how you think we can wean him off the swaddle a little early without it making his sleep entirely restless? the end result of all this is i would like him to be in sleep sack in crib, sleeping 10-12 hours at a time consistently. while i know a fair amt of this is what HE decides to do and how he cooperates or doesn't...i obviously want to be as proactive as possible with setting him up to succeed.

TIA!!

in other random news, my boobs were out of control this morning since i went back to sleep after J got up at 6:30 and didn't wake up til 9 so i pumped a new all time record of about 9oz. crazy.

 

[Sabine]

Mara, since the early morning sleep tends to be much lighter, it''s easier for babies to stir/wake, and if they don''t know how to put themselves to sleep (self soothe, which J is young for), it''s likely he will wake/stir often during the early morning hours. Maybe try a sleep positioner to help hold him in place while swaddled? Or resign yourself to going in and reswaddling him if he needs it?

We''re actually still dealing with this as Jacks has a tendency to wake around 5 and again around 5:45, and dh often gets up for work at 5:15, so if dh makes enough noise that Jacks realizes someone else is up, there is NO way he''s going back to sleep. But if dh on overnight or off, he''ll go back to sleep on his own and wake at 6:30.

Thanks for all the comments on the pics! We did have so much fun (and Tao, those are my favorite shoes ). Robbie is such a great photographer, and I''m so lucky that she was able to take some great pics for us!

Tao, crazy about the monitor!

So Jacks has hand, foot and mouth disease =(. It''s a virus, so it just needs to run it''s course, but it really stinks when your LO is sick. Dh is thinking he may have brought it home from the hospital with him or something since Des doesn''t seem sick and Jacks hasn''t been in contact with any other babies recently. He''s doing ok with it (the big worry is that since the mouth hurts, they won''t eat. He''s eating a bit less, but still taking 6 oz. bottles instead of his usual 8, which is fine). If anyone has had any experience with this (with older kids, etc.) and have any suggestions on things I can give him to help ease his poor mouth, I''d be happy to hear them!