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ParentERA |OT| What To Expect When You’re Not Sleeping
- Thread starter Hollywood Duo
- Start date
My son (he's 1 month old today) smile quite regularly ever since the first few days, but it's kinda random and we can't really get him to smile as we wish.
I made a thread but never realised there was an OT, im going to be a dad in late Sept/ early Oct. Halp
You'll be fine and a great dad. We all go into the first one going 'wtf!?' But we make it through and the second one is all 'yeah whatevs'
Well, our baby has been officially diagnosed with colic. Fuck.
Any tips for surviving this period? I'm really, really bummed.
Any tips for surviving this period? I'm really, really bummed.
Support groups (ie mom groups), get help from family if you can to get away briefly, it's ok to put your baby down in a crib or safe place and leave the room for a few minutes to collect yourself
Swaddle may help (tight), you could try carrying your baby around more
It peaks at 6-8 weeks of age and usually gets better from there
Good luck! Probably the roughest time for a while
Swaddle may help (tight), you could try carrying your baby around more
It peaks at 6-8 weeks of age and usually gets better from there
Good luck! Probably the roughest time for a while
Just be there for them. Rock them. Hold them. Talk to them. Sing to them. Take turns with your partner. It sucks but in the grand scheme of things it isn't a long time. Ours was mostly gone by a bit over 3 months old or so.
Did your baby take regular naps throughout the day? I'm really worried because our daughter *sucks* at staying asleep and often will barely nap throughout the day, and I've heard this can affect brain development.
Man I read "alkaline food fads..." and I was like "oh shit some other thing my wife is gonna try to introduce to the baby..."
Thank god 😂
splash wave , how old is your daughter? Our 1 year old is also a lousy napper, it's our fault we didn't get her into the napping habit when she was really young... She'd nap on us on the couch, or in the car, or something, and so she's always been a light napper at daycare ... 30-45mins if we're/they're lucky. She's been a little better napping lately but those habits die hard for us.
Th last month has been rough for her staying asleep ... until this week ... and we realized it as because she was teething on her top teeth. She just finally had one big tooth break through 3 days ago and the last two nights she's slept like a rock from 7pm - 4am, and then last night from 7pm to 6am, which was glorious. FOr the 3 weeks prior she refused to go down easy, taking an hour some nights, and then would wake up at midnight or 2am andd take another hour or two to go back down... even with Children's motrin.
When I posted "Sleep Status: Cry it out method" at the top of this thread, I was going insane because it was like 2am or something and I'd been trying to get her down for an hour at that point.
But we seemed to have kinda gotten out of the woods the last couple days.
Thank god 😂
splash wave , how old is your daughter? Our 1 year old is also a lousy napper, it's our fault we didn't get her into the napping habit when she was really young... She'd nap on us on the couch, or in the car, or something, and so she's always been a light napper at daycare ... 30-45mins if we're/they're lucky. She's been a little better napping lately but those habits die hard for us.
Th last month has been rough for her staying asleep ... until this week ... and we realized it as because she was teething on her top teeth. She just finally had one big tooth break through 3 days ago and the last two nights she's slept like a rock from 7pm - 4am, and then last night from 7pm to 6am, which was glorious. FOr the 3 weeks prior she refused to go down easy, taking an hour some nights, and then would wake up at midnight or 2am andd take another hour or two to go back down... even with Children's motrin.
When I posted "Sleep Status: Cry it out method" at the top of this thread, I was going insane because it was like 2am or something and I'd been trying to get her down for an hour at that point.
But we seemed to have kinda gotten out of the woods the last couple days.
Let your kids cry it out. I used to let my kids cry for 20 minutes, then calm them down, then 30 minutes, then calm them down, then an hour. They never made it an hour. My sleep issues these days come from my three kids sleeping in the same room and waking each other up.
Wouldn't that make your kids lost their trust in you? If you let them cry for that long, they might think that you've abandoned them or something. That's what I've read from some parenting tips online.
That length of absence seems excessive to me. We did a method of leaving them for 30 seconds, then going back in, picking up to reassure, then putting them back down. The next time you leave them for 1 minute, then 1:30, then 2 minutes, all the way up to 6 minutes if absolutely necessary. Most children fall asleep long before it gets to the that point.
We found it struck the right balance of teaching them to fall asleep on their own without them feeling like you're ever abandoning them. I couldn't imagine leaving my child to cry for 20+ minutes.
Starting tomorrow our 15 month old is going to have a second baby come over three times a week while my mother-in-law is here babysitting. I'm awkwardly nervous about it even though they've had two play dates and gotten along well.
My twin boys are just coming up to 9 weeks old. They're doing great but holy fuck their mom and I are just physically and mentally shattered. Someone please tell me it gets even a tiny bit easier at some point.
Just for a little on the other side of the age scale :)
It's a-level results in the UK for my eldest (for the non-UK, that's basically your university acceptance/entrance stuff)
Mine missed his first choice but got into his backup. Doesn't know his actual grades yet (just got notifications directly from the universities). He'll head into school shortly to pick up his results and might consider seeing if he can get into an alternative university if his grades are good enough
It's a-level results in the UK for my eldest (for the non-UK, that's basically your university acceptance/entrance stuff)
Mine missed his first choice but got into his backup. Doesn't know his actual grades yet (just got notifications directly from the universities). He'll head into school shortly to pick up his results and might consider seeing if he can get into an alternative university if his grades are good enough
Exciting stuff. We're two years out from university but have been watching a few older friends go through it with their kids. Do you do school visits in the UK?
Yeah we had all that last year - so not far out for you. We went to as many as we could and he went with his friends to some others. System is a bit odd
- A levels are your entry qualifications
- you apply to up to 5 universities after reviewing/visiting etc
- based on your predicted results from your school some or all will provide offers based on 'get this set of results or better and well take you'
- you then reduce that shortlist to 2: a firm and an insurance. You also apply for your loan and accommodation at this point (normally universities will guarantee accommodation onsite for first year students)
- you do your A-levels (results today)
- if you get the marks for your firm choice - you go there
- if you miss the firm but get the marks for the insurance - you go there
- if you miss both you enter 'clearing' where all the vacant spots are up for grabs and you frantically ring around trying to get accepted on a course
I don't have twins (got a 2 year old and a nearly 4 year old) so my situation is not quite the same, but it does get easier after the first few months. Promise :)
Probably? Kids are filled with all sorts of challenges throughout. I don't have twins and can't imagine those challenges but my 11 month old has had ups and downs throughout. Every milestone has another challenge. As soon as something is figured out you've gotta change your game plan again. I can't say it's easier than the first few months, but it's also not harder.
In addition you'll see them grow and learn and play later on so the positives make it easier to get the past the exhausting shit.
Easiest time for us was like 3-4 months. Sleep was decent, couldn't move around much and the colic was mostly gone. Then after 4 months his sleep turned to utter fucking trash and a half and he hasn't turned back since so that's been a persistent challenge. Crawling then introduced a lot of paranoia, etc. but seeing his personality develop has been worth it. Shame about the sleep though.
I don't know how you do it with twins...
But 12 weeks was like a wonder point for us and our daughter. She was still sleeping a ton during the day, but also going to daycare and coming home exhausted, old enough to start doing stuff, big enough to get outta the house regularly, had colds and stuff but that's when things kinda started going back to normal for us I think... and we felt like humans again, rather than just meat slaves for a tiny master.
I think every week, every month, gets a little easier and easier. ANd then they start moving on their own and it gets harder for a bit, but then you figure that out.
Our daughter has been teething for the last month and regressed on sleep, but now that she's got the top teeth poking out now she's started sleeping better. LAst night 7pm to 6:30am... was amazing.
This week's discoveries:
1. Freemasons donate bears to be given to children who attend A&E in this part of the UK.
2. A five year old can chew the end off a glowstick (that she wasn't supposed to have in the first place) and flick the contained chemicals into her own eye. Recommended treatment is to thoroughly rinse the eye and then take said child to A&E to have it washed out again with saline.
3. It takes three people to hold down a five year old who doesn't want a bag of saline in their eye.
4. A hospital cubicle curtain with a simple repeated scene can be used to play I Spy for upwards of an hour, but it will destroy your will to live.
1. Freemasons donate bears to be given to children who attend A&E in this part of the UK.
2. A five year old can chew the end off a glowstick (that she wasn't supposed to have in the first place) and flick the contained chemicals into her own eye. Recommended treatment is to thoroughly rinse the eye and then take said child to A&E to have it washed out again with saline.
3. It takes three people to hold down a five year old who doesn't want a bag of saline in their eye.
4. A hospital cubicle curtain with a simple repeated scene can be used to play I Spy for upwards of an hour, but it will destroy your will to live.
Yesterday morning we welcomed Apache Junior number 2 at 8 lbs, 15 Oz and 21 inches, goddamn. Mom had to have c section as she is 5'2".
Junior Apache 1 is almost 2 and is timid of newborn. We had the newborn "give" a toy to the older one but he is still side eyeing the younger.
Any suggestions or experience working in a toddler to a newborn?
Btw really fucking up my time with NMS Beyond but I'll have the next two weeks to watch baby and catch up lol.
Junior Apache 1 is almost 2 and is timid of newborn. We had the newborn "give" a toy to the older one but he is still side eyeing the younger.
Any suggestions or experience working in a toddler to a newborn?
Btw really fucking up my time with NMS Beyond but I'll have the next two weeks to watch baby and catch up lol.
The difference between our boys is 21months. Until my youngest loinfruit started crawling around, our oldest pretty much ignored him. Then, all of a sudden he started to take notice and even try and help out ( we have some adorable pictures of our oldest trying to help our youngest by holding his bottle to him and feeding him).
Just try and introduce them to each other during your normal routines, and they'll figure each other out naturally.
My daughter will *not* fucking sleep with any kind of consistency and it's driving us insane. She's two months old, colicky, and still awful at staying asleep. Some nights she'll stay asleep for close to five hours, but most others (like last night), she'll sleep for three (starting at 8), and then won't stay down for more than 40 minutes to an hour at a time before needing to eat again, burp, or fart (she gets gassy and agitated). WHEN DOES THIS GET BETTER (and yes we do swaddle/noise machine)
11 months here and he sleeps maybe 1 hour to 1 and a half hours each time down.
2-3 months he was really great. Like 3-4 hours at first then maybe 2-3 each time until the last bit at 1 hour or so. Then the 4 month regression hit and it's just fucking trash.
If you don't "sleep train" or it doesn't work or if you don't co-sleep (and even if you do) this is your life for the next ~3 years for slightly better or worse.
It was sometime around 3-4 months where ours started sleeping decently on a consistent basis. We didn't have to deal with the colick though so I don't know how that affects things. Then around seven months we sleep trained her over a weekend and with only a couple exceptions she's slept from 7 until at least 5 since. So it does get better.
Thanks everyone! Second baby has been much better than first in terms of stress at the hospital. Thanks for the suggestions with our toddler as well. We think it will just be time as well. My wife feels really bad about him because as she had a c section, she won't be able to carry him or put the toddler in the bath. And she already feels like she's been neglecting him since she was super preggers. But that will be time. We get to go home tomorrow and I look forward to devouring the metric tons of food family and friends say they are bringing.
As for the sleeping issue above, we started cycles of sleep training around 4 months when he could roll over by himself. Now, we were also using the sleep suit at that stage instead of swaddling and we think it made a huge difference similar tk weighted blankets. You may be able to find one at a second hand store for near nothing or new on Amazon are about 30. Sleep training only lasts so long though and mentally is a huge toll for those 3 days. Best of luck!
As for the sleeping issue above, we started cycles of sleep training around 4 months when he could roll over by himself. Now, we were also using the sleep suit at that stage instead of swaddling and we think it made a huge difference similar tk weighted blankets. You may be able to find one at a second hand store for near nothing or new on Amazon are about 30. Sleep training only lasts so long though and mentally is a huge toll for those 3 days. Best of luck!
My 7 weeks boy doesn't really have sleeping problem, as he sleep a lot throughout a day. However, what's frustrating is that it's so hard to get him to sleep on the bed or the carrier, especially at daylight. He gets to sleep easily when being carried by either of us. Fortunately, he sleeps just fine on the bed at night, though he still wakes up a couple of times or so for meals and/or other needs.
Thanks for the replies all, sounds like a mixed bag. Reading so much in these posts of what we've been experiencing so far - just doing absolutely anything we can to cope. We've discovered one of the boys will settle really well if I co-sleep with him, he snuggles into me and will sleep for 4 or even 5 hours sometimes. It's probably an awful habit to get into but we don't care. Overall they've been healthy, no colic, haven't even been to the doctor outside of the routine (my wife is a doctor herself which helps) so things going about as well as they can which is a blessing, but it's still just so hard. I can't imagine throwing health complications into the mix.
On the plus side, I see mention above of daycare after 12 weeks... we're in Europe (and a less generous country at that) so my wife gets minimum 26 weeks on full pay and then she'll take another maybe 10-12 weeks off unpaid (or whenever we are about to go broke), so will probably be caring for them for 8-9 months at least before going back to work. Being a doctor though she'll be straight back into 60, 70, 80 hour workweeks, and will be doing 24 hour shifts which will be a huge challenge.
We're getting lots of smiles from them recently too which honestly is like oxygen. It would be so much harder if we were just giving and giving and getting nothing in return.
I love this.
My god this sounds incredible. I'd get to... watch a film, cook dinner, talk to my wife, sleep.
There won't be any consistency for a while. 2 months is still really young. Some kids sleep well from the get-go, but both of mine were up 4-6+ times a night to eat or crying (my 2nd had an unknown dairy-allergy which exacerbated that). At 6 months I did sleep training with the first after laying a lot of self-soothing groundwork, and it worked beautifully. Only took 3 days and from then on she was 7-7ish. She's 3 now and still does that (she does wake up to go to the bathroom, but she handles that herself and then goes back to bed). With the second I wanted to do sleep training, but she had weight issues from the dairy allergy, so it wasn't an option. She eventually started sleeping through the night on her own at 7 months, and she's on the same schedule as the 3 year old right now (7-7ish).
It just takes time sometimes. I don't think you can expect any really consistency before 6 months, and even then you might have to think about options like sleep training, etc. Have you guys had any weight issues? If so, you might have a dairy problem like we did which made sleep almost impossible for the baby bc of all the gas/cramps. Might be worth looking into if you have other symptoms.
My twin boys that I've been asking questions about are basically the exact same age, and we find they're just too young to have any consistency or rhythm to their sleeping patterns yet. I would recommend to just do anything you can to cope, I've found one of my boys will go out like a light if I take him into the bed and let him fall asleep on my chest, then once he's out I just slip him down to my side. He'll sleep for a few hours there until hunger gets the better of him. It's very hard to give advice but just try find something like that that works. Good luck, I know how stressful it is when they just will not cooperate.
Any chance you could give more information on this sleep training? Any resources, books etc on it? Did you get a sleep consultant or anything in to help?
The Ferber book is pretty typical for sleep training
Whatever plan you choose to follow, they're all essentially the same thing. They give parents a framework to follow. It totally depends on what you are comfortable doing.
The general outline is that around 5-6 months or so, most children are capable of sleeping through the night, and no longer need to feed overnight.
You place your child down in a crib or safe sleep environment, then leave the room, and don't go back in even if they're crying. Within 3-4 days your child will get it and will (mostly) sleep through the night and be able to go back to sleep even if they have night time awakenings.
If you were from a previous generation like your parents, you probably could just put your child down in a room on the other side of the house and call it a night, and let them cry as long as they want. Many people can't do that, most like a plan like go in after 5 mins of crying the first time, then increase to 10 mins the next time, with a gradually increasing interval each time
It's really up to you with how comfortable you are with the whole thing. Some choose to not sleep train, some start it and then don't continue, there's no right or wrong way about it. It's safe and effective, and truly lovely to get a full night's sleep.
There will always be setbacks whether teething or travelling or new developments, so it's not one and done, but it's easy to get back on track when the setbacks happen. Also, it's great to have a good sleeper in general, makes everyone in the home happier as a result.
You can probably find plans online if you don't want to spend the money on a book. The Ferber book has one relevant chapter, and the rest of the book is really more for if your child has actual disordered sleep
Whatever plan you choose to follow, they're all essentially the same thing. They give parents a framework to follow. It totally depends on what you are comfortable doing.
The general outline is that around 5-6 months or so, most children are capable of sleeping through the night, and no longer need to feed overnight.
You place your child down in a crib or safe sleep environment, then leave the room, and don't go back in even if they're crying. Within 3-4 days your child will get it and will (mostly) sleep through the night and be able to go back to sleep even if they have night time awakenings.
If you were from a previous generation like your parents, you probably could just put your child down in a room on the other side of the house and call it a night, and let them cry as long as they want. Many people can't do that, most like a plan like go in after 5 mins of crying the first time, then increase to 10 mins the next time, with a gradually increasing interval each time
It's really up to you with how comfortable you are with the whole thing. Some choose to not sleep train, some start it and then don't continue, there's no right or wrong way about it. It's safe and effective, and truly lovely to get a full night's sleep.
There will always be setbacks whether teething or travelling or new developments, so it's not one and done, but it's easy to get back on track when the setbacks happen. Also, it's great to have a good sleeper in general, makes everyone in the home happier as a result.
You can probably find plans online if you don't want to spend the money on a book. The Ferber book has one relevant chapter, and the rest of the book is really more for if your child has actual disordered sleep
Man, my one year old behaves so differently for me and for his mother, it's crazy. During diaper time I lay him on his back and sing/talk to him and he's mostly fine. Maybe he'll roll once and I'll calmly lay him back and he seems to get that "ok, it's diaper time." We finish and then I let him squirm and go. With my wife she sets him down and instantly he pops around and heads for anything he can steal or play with. She chases him around the fucking room with a diaper half the time trying to give him a standing change because he won't be still on the changing station.
Personally I think she's too permissive and doesn't notice a lot of things before they're interesting. She wants him to be cheerful and happy but overall I feel her method has him more angered at having to pull up his leg or contort or otherwise not play when he's down on the floor so she can finally get a diaper or clothing on him. I tend to find things I know would be distressing to have to take away and make sure they're not there. She'll let him play with her phone until it becomes a back and forth because he's chewing the ports. Meanwhile he doesn't give a shit about my phone because I never give it to him. Not sure, though. Maybe it's not really related to 'permissiveness.'
Outside of that stuff he barely lets her set him down sometimes so she can do something even quickly. He'll chase after her and whine about it a ton. Meanwhile I can put him in his exersaucer and cook a full fucking meal as long as I'm singing and entertaining during it.
I do tend to get far more alone time with him though than her. So maybe it's a bit of separation anxiety from the one that feeds him.
Not looking for solutions or anything, just talking about it. Anyone else have kids with completely different behaviors between parents?
EDIT: Oh forgot a big one. I can get him down for a nap in 5-10 minutes. My wife sometimes it takes like a half hour to an hour.
Personally I think she's too permissive and doesn't notice a lot of things before they're interesting. She wants him to be cheerful and happy but overall I feel her method has him more angered at having to pull up his leg or contort or otherwise not play when he's down on the floor so she can finally get a diaper or clothing on him. I tend to find things I know would be distressing to have to take away and make sure they're not there. She'll let him play with her phone until it becomes a back and forth because he's chewing the ports. Meanwhile he doesn't give a shit about my phone because I never give it to him. Not sure, though. Maybe it's not really related to 'permissiveness.'
Outside of that stuff he barely lets her set him down sometimes so she can do something even quickly. He'll chase after her and whine about it a ton. Meanwhile I can put him in his exersaucer and cook a full fucking meal as long as I'm singing and entertaining during it.
I do tend to get far more alone time with him though than her. So maybe it's a bit of separation anxiety from the one that feeds him.
Not looking for solutions or anything, just talking about it. Anyone else have kids with completely different behaviors between parents?
EDIT: Oh forgot a big one. I can get him down for a nap in 5-10 minutes. My wife sometimes it takes like a half hour to an hour.
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We did for awhile because my wife is a teacher and so was home with her all day and got to take her tons of fun places that I don't over the summer. Now that she's back to work everything is back to normal after like a week. So I think it can and will change pretty quickly.
It's funny, I get much more alone time with our little one, but my wife gets the fun things more often just because of our weird setup. I get every morning from ~5AM when he wakes up to 9AM with him so my wife can get the sleep she doesn't at night. Then the days that I work and she has him somehow are the days most of the story time and fun library events are happening.
So little Apache has to spend at least a night in the hospital. Scared us initially but looks like they want to curb off jaundice.
So my dude is catching some rays:
No Filter
So my dude is catching some rays:
No Filter
God, fuck. This is bleak. We're losing our damned minds.
Less bleak, but our baby is colicky, so... :/
How could you tell your child had a dairy allergy? We had suspected ours did, but some of the "symptoms" we realized were probably just colic, as switching to a soy formula (+breast milk) didn't seem to affect anything. I'd kill for our daughter to be on a similar sleep schedule. She had a decent run where she was sleeping 4-5 hours a stretch before getting restless and constantly waking up, but now she literally lasts about 20 minutes before her eyes just pop open. It's awful.
Of course, the only thing that really helps is letting her sleep next to us in bed, but my partner is terrified of doing that while we both sleep.
We have found this to be one of the only ways we can cope tbh. Just don't drink, smoke or take any drowsy medicines and you'll all be fine.
Co-sleeping is relatively safe as long as you follow these guidelines:
Breastfeeding (so baby instinctively keeps head upward toward boob)
No smoking or drinking
Baby's on his/her back
No covers
No swaddle, only light clothing
Bed is obviously not high up, ideally should be literally on the floor
And the baby was full term and healthy (mom should be healthy too)
No one else should be able to touch the baby, so if you're in bed too you should be on the other side of mom
Following those guidelines you risk way more driving your baby around or something on an average day.
That said, we didn't do co-sleeping. My wife is/was scared as yours was. She also didn't like the fact that it hurts a lot of women's backs and you have to basically stay in one position to sleep.
Have you thought about a co-sleeping cot or similar? We used one of these for both our girls when they were younger :
https://www.babybay.us/babybay-Bedside-Sleeper-Untreated
Child #2 kept waking every 40 mins last night. She's almost 4 months old. We have officially entered sleep regression 1.
But at least we have an idea of how to manage it properly this time.
But at least we have an idea of how to manage it properly this time.