@FTM53 Ok that's very helpful. Sounds a lot like how our days/nights look. She doesn't seem dissatisfied with the 4oz during the day but has also started doing the "cluster eating" toward bed time. Man...such a crap shoot all of this is! I feel like we're constantly guessing and reevaluating, LOL!! Maybe one of these days I'll be able to say I feel like I've got this!! LOL
Elise drinks approximately 6 oz 5x a day. She breastfeeds the little bit I have, and then gets a 4oz bottle. When I pump I get 2oz each time. At 4 months, the pediatrician told me to make sure she got 4-5oz 6x a day. Now that we have dropped the night feed, I upped her bottles by an ounce.
Interesting @shaylalr!! Thanks! I'm definitely going to test out more frequent feeds and feeds with more ounces. I feel like one or both of those is going to help!!
I was talking to my husband this morning about my theories and testing them out on L. At the end of the day I feel like she needs bigger feedings or more frequent feedings during the day. I was telling him what you do, @shaylalr and how your LO sleeps for 12 hours! He was all What?? That's a good kid. (pause) I love that kid! This was a sleep deprived 7am conversation hahaha!!
@TiffRox81@shaylalr Piggybacking off Tiff's DH - my DH loves/wants one of the older kids at DS's daycare. The kid's Christmas list included a "dinosaur truck" and "a green thing".
@shaylalr how do you get her to drink the bottles? I can't get Julia to drink more than 3-4oz in a sitting. She's gaining on track and sleeps through the night. I would just love she drank more on a sitting.
She drinks it pretty much on her own. I tried paced bottle feeding but she prefers to hold her own bottle and gets mad if I try to control it. When she is done eating she puts the bottle down and if I try to offer it to her again she turns her head away from it and grumbles. She generally drinks the whole thing, but sometimes leaves a little bit in there. When she's tired at night we have to go in her dark room for her to drink it though, otherwise she fusses and gets upset.
@mnkenned Thanks!! I love it! My only hesitation is the biggest size available is 6-9. Being that she's already practically 6 months, and SO MANY 6-9 things already aren't huge on her....I'm not sure how much time we'd get out of it. Would you say it runs true to size or a little on the larger/small side?
Hmm I think on the smaller side. The arms are long but lengthwise it already fits her at 4.5 months and I have the 6-9. I wonder if the boppy website has them
L insists on holding her own bottle. However learning to quit when full we're still working on, haha! I honestly think if I filled it up with 8oz she'd try and take it all! Crazy kid.
@shaylalr how do you get her to drink the bottles? I can't get Julia to drink more than 3-4oz in a sitting. She's gaining on track and sleeps through the night. I would just love she drank more on a sitting.
I'm curious why you want her to drink more? Sounds like she's doing a great job self regulating if she's gaining on track. Plus it's awesome she's sleeping through the night! I'm just hoping for 4 hour stretches
@holly142 She eats about every hour. And when we're home it's no big deal. When we go out for the day I have to pack 8-10 bottles if I'm not somewhere I can wash the bottles. Plus when she's watched by her grandmother, she doesn't have the patience to feed her every hour. So some days she ends up drinking 17 oz of milk versus her typical at home 24-27 oz. It would just be more convenienent if she consumed more in one sitting.
Woah! Every hour is crazy. I would try slowly stretching her over time? That's what I did to stretch from 2 to 3 hours. She will realize eventually that if she eats more she can stay full longer.
We've tried everything and if she doesn't eat on her schedule, she just suffers with less intake. I tried for a week to slowly space out her feedings and I caved before she did. I swear she ate better as a newborn than now. It just annoying, but we're almost at the half year mark so what's another six months, right?
So not sure if you all remember me complaining about how we failed at sleep training, but we started a version of the Ferber method that worked for my sanity, and kept Q from crying for 2 hours! We still put him down awake and let him cry for 5, 10, 15 etc. but when the time is up we go in and actually pick him up and soothe him. The max he would cry with our new method is 20 min, except tonight... tonight there was no crying!! And he didn't wake up up crying at 3am like he usually does, he slept through the night! It's a Christmas miracle!! Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah every one
I'm glad you ladies found something that works for you too! Not picking Q up was so hard on me and him, so this way keeps my sanity!
On another note... we Are trying to break Q of the 3 am feed habit that started a few weeks ago. He started waking up due to teething so I would nurse him, but now he just does it out of habit. If my DH goes in there, the second he picks him up he falls asleep again immediately, so we know he isn't hungry (if he is it's very obvious!). But if I go in there, he won't settle until I feed him. So now at 3 when he wakes up, DH has to go in and soothe him and I get to stay in bed! It's amazing and I feel so spoiled! DH soothes him in seconds and then Q sleeps until 7. I'm not sure how long I will be able to get away with not having to get out of bed, but I'm going to milk it!
DH decided to take two four day weekends for the holidays instead of the week off. With him home, we started some sleep training with the twins this past weekend. Previously we were rocking them to sleep for every nap and at bedtime. With two by myself during the day... it was all I was doing, rocking a baby or feeding a baby. So now we put them down drowsy but awake, and only intervene if they are crying hard. The one thing that sucks is when one wakes up the other. Separate rooms aren't an option right now, so they're going to have to get used to it.
They're still both stuck in the 30-45 min nap cycle, but B is sometimes taking 1.5 hours around lunch. He acts more his actual age of almost 6 mo, where R acts more her adjusted age of almost 5 mo. Twins are SO hard!
@ladybug2821 We don't use a pacifier. E does not like them and will not take them. My plan was to wean her from a pacifier at 6 months but she just learned to soothe without it. My best friend uses a pacifier when sleep training, but if he loses it she doesn't give it back to him.
@Ladybug2821 Yes we do. She's always gone to bed with her pacificer. She's a big comfort nurser. She looses it pretty quick and immediately self soothes with her two middle fingers.
@Ladybug2821we don't use a pacifier at all. AJ hates them. But if we did, I'd do the same as pp. give it to him initially, but then not if he wakes up.
@Ladybug2821 Our LO used to be pretty addicted to a binky. In the process of sleep training she ditched the binky. Not sure if it was coincidence or if her method of self soothing didn't include a pacifier. She's never needed it since!
@Ladybug2821 we have used pacis since we left the hospital. We do still give it to her before bed, but usually she spits it out in favor of her thumb. Naps are a different story-she won't sleep without her paci!
Any moms that co-sleep, does your baby nurse nonstop at night? Or really, anyone have this problem? At first I thought it was a growth spurt, now I think it's just comfort nursing. Nurses, falls asleep, wakes up in an hour screaming ready to nurse again. And repeat.
Ugh I thought we were getting back on track with the sleep and we are De-railing again She is absolutely cutting her first two teeth but i'm having trouble determining if she isn't sleeping well because of her teeth or if she is just reverting back to her bad sleep habits of fighting it and not falling back to sleep. I wish I knew what she was feeling and thinking. I hate to go back to not picking her up and reinforcing her bad sleep behaviors, but I don't want to be a jerk if she is truly hurting.
@Ladybug2821 We used to use the pacifier all the time, but once we started sleep training she just stopped using it. We still had offered it, but she just didn't care. Now she uses them to gnaw on.
@LDSJM123 We don't co-sleep, but DS will do this when his mouth really hurts from teething. I've found a dose of baby Tylenol before bed has fixed the issue. It's also possible that it is a sleep association if you generally let him nurse to sleep at night. Some sleep training or simply adding a step between bedtime nursing and actual sleep may help (we nurse, then read a book, then I rock him/pat his back before putting him in his crib). Good luck! I hate those up every hour nights!!
@LDSJM123 ^wss, I can't see the teeth for sure, sometimes I think I can feel them, but I have concluded that his gums are definitely the cause of the night nursing and screaming stuff. Tylenol does help immensely. I don't need it every night, but the first night I did it he didn't wake up until his usual feed/wake time of around 5/6am.
Married 6/1/13
BFP #1 7/2013 MMC 9/17/13
BFP #2 5/2014 MC 6/15/14
BFP #3 11/13/14 (Found in ER with ruptured cyst) Diagnosed MC 11/15/14
BFP #4 4/2015 MC 7/1/15
BFP #5 10/21/15 EDD 7/3/16 Praying for our rainbow!
Yes @ldsjm123 all the night nursing!!!! Elijah starts the night on his crib mattress on the floor in our bedroom but wakes up for boob and ends up co-sleeping by morning. We had his 6 month appt today and the doc said he'd be fine to sleep through the night at this point and theoretically, cry it out should stick within 3 nights. He also said continuing to nurse at night is fine. I'm not sure I'm ready for any type of sleep training.... I like having him in our room and don't think I could listen to much fussing in the middle of the night! But I was pumping last night and couldn't get to him immediately and he ended up fussing himself back to sleep in about 10 minutes. I have a feeling this sleep training is going to be harder on me than him!
@LDSJM123 we cosleep and DS is definitely a night nurser. I could probably set my clock by him... 10, 2, 5 without fail. Last night he nursed at midnight too. Usually he wakes up at midnight and I can calm him down to sleep again. He doesn't nurse long, just enough to top him off. I'm sure a big part of it is the teething too. Tylenol doesn't do the trick and he doesn't ware his amber necklace at night.
I gave her tylanol before bed and she slept until 330, ate and went right back to sleep! Thank you so much for the recommendation! We plan on trying again tonight.
@LDSJM123 YAY!! I'm so glad it worked! I know a lot of moms are against giving baby meds, but baby needs sleep and so does mommy. If a single dose at night helps achieve that, I'm ALL for it!
Mamas who have successfully sleep trained baby- will I know when a good time is to do this? Will I know when baby and I are ready? Right now I'm having a hard time imagining baby out of our room. I don't want to be holding him back though. I don't know what to do!
@austinjl i wasn't ready or at least that's how I felt. We chose to do it over the thanksgiving break so dh could help me. I'm glad I did it. She's sleeping through the night most nights now. While the first few days were hard, I remember the first night we put her to bed and she moved in her crib for a bit and then just passed out. It made it all worth it. There wasn't anything that she was doing or I felt that made it click. She is still sleeping in our room though.
We are midway but have her crib in our room still. She is falling asleep so easily now (and even for naps!!) now just working on the night wakings. When I asked my pedi she said 5-6 mo is a good time.
I've mentioned here a couple times that we've been sleeping like absolute crap the last month or so. On Thursday we made the decision to move E to her crib in her own room. Every night since then she has only taken 10 minutes at the most to fall asleep, and is only up 2-3 times a night now instead of taking 2 hours to sleep and up almost every hour afterwards. I am amazed that she took to it so quickly!!!
Re: Sleep Regressions/Sleep Help
I was talking to my husband this morning about my theories and testing them out on L. At the end of the day I feel like she needs bigger feedings or more frequent feedings during the day. I was telling him what you do, @shaylalr and how your LO sleeps for 12 hours! He was all What?? That's a good kid. (pause) I love that kid! This was a sleep deprived 7am conversation hahaha!!
On another note... we Are trying to break Q of the 3 am feed habit that started a few weeks ago. He started waking up due to teething so I would nurse him, but now he just does it out of habit. If my DH goes in there, the second he picks him up he falls asleep again immediately, so we know he isn't hungry (if he is it's very obvious!). But if I go in there, he won't settle until I feed him. So now at 3 when he wakes up, DH has to go in and soothe him and I get to stay in bed! It's amazing and I feel so spoiled! DH soothes him in seconds and then Q sleeps until 7. I'm not sure how long I will be able to get away with not having to get out of bed, but I'm going to milk it!
They're still both stuck in the 30-45 min nap cycle, but B is sometimes taking 1.5 hours around lunch. He acts more his actual age of almost 6 mo, where R acts more her adjusted age of almost 5 mo. Twins are SO hard!
I gave her tylanol before bed and she slept until 330, ate and went right back to sleep! Thank you so much for the recommendation! We plan on trying again tonight.