ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

LOLing at this image of Alicia Silverstone with a bird's beak feeding her baby!

No, E. That's quite all right.

― pplains, Wednesday, March 28, 2012 2:16 PM (21 seconds ago)

I honestly don't think it's that bad. I mean if she did it exclusively. Oh, I don't know. It doesn't seem to warrant some of the reactions I've seen though:

http://www.thekindlife.com/post/home-video-breakfast-with-baby-bear

Celebrities: They're Just Like BIRDS

The kid is adorable btw. That's her website so there are some positive comments but the people posting in other places I've seen it have mostly acted like she's deranged.

Certainly sounds deranged to me.

srsly what's the rationale behind it

it might not be "bad" but it seems pretty unhygienic and weird, haven't watched the video or read anything about it. going to assume the rationale is along the lines of "brings the mother closer to the child"

i dunno, guess i shouldn't be judgmental, there's probably no harm except maybe transmitting gross adult disease and germs directly to your child, but really the publicizing of it and putting videos of it online is what skeeves me out the most

x-post

idk I think she's just sort of out there. I doubt it's harmful though. She never said it was something she does all the time or anything which is how people seem to be taking it. *shrugs*

harmful? eh probably not (unless she keeps it up through age 5 or something). gross? yeah. publicizing it? gtfo you weirdo celebrity

n/a pretty sure this is nothing to do with bonding. shes just being a weirdo.

harmful? eh probably not (unless she keeps it up through age 5 or something). gross? yeah. publicizing it? gtfo you weirdo celebrity

― You big bully, why are you hitting that little bully? (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, March 28, 2012 3:46 PM (20 minutes ago)

^^^ eggs ackley

i thought this was a pretty good article

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/07/why_parents_hate_parenting.html

The guy was in a relationship without any kids, and he felt neglected. What the hell did he think was going to happen when he had kids? Daily oral?

Whoah haha!

So maybe someone has advice on this. K is about 6 weeks old now. She tends to cluster feed before bed, and then want to eat every 2-3 hours throughout the night. Doesn't seem entirely abnormal, but my wife hasn't been getting sleep. We started a thing where I give her one late night bottle to give my wife a stretch of sleep. At first this seemed to work, but last night K was fussy pretty much throughout the night, even after she drank almost four ounces from a bottle (previously enough to knock her out for a while).

We've been trying to do all kinds of things to set a nighttime mood before bed. H gives her a bath in the evening, we turn lights down, keep our voices down, etc. I rock K in the dark before putting her down, but she tends to fall asleep on me and then wake up the second I put her down.

Basically what I'm saying is that my wife can't keep waking up every two hours to feed her for 30+ minutes and then change her and then hold her for comfort (leaving maybe an hour to sleep out of every two). I can't give her more than one bottle a night, not only because I'm working a lot and need some sleep but because we were told it's not good to do this early. We don't want to let K cry without picking her up this early. But I also don't want H to lose it.

Do we just keep at it and hope that eventually K will learn to calm down at night? Do we need to change our approach?

Is she sleeping during the day much?

Yesterday she did not, and yet barely slept during the night. I guess it could be "overstimulation" because she had gone with H to the in-laws during the day, but I find that concept illusive -- i.e. what does and doesn't "overstimulate" them

For the most part, though, I don't know -- I'd have to ask H.

IME regular naps during the day are essential to things working at night. You don't have to go full-on Gina Ford but if you can, try to work toward a two-hour nap in the morning and a two-hour nap in the afternoon, and the night time stuff will improve. YMMV of course.

I liked that TLP piece for the most part btw. I came to the conclusion before I had K that questions like "Why isn't X making me happy?" or "Why am I not happy?" were pretty much a poisonous line of thinking.

xpost hmm interesting. Sort of counterintuitive, since I'd think her being up more during the day would make her more tired at night. I will transmit this information to H.

I think that'll be true once she gets older but at this age they need a lot of sleep, they need big long naps, and if they can get into a groove with them it'll help make night time less of a big thing, and more like just another part of the daily sleep routine

our kids were p much nighttime hell for the first couple of months, then things sorta normed out in an ok-ish way, but "night things" are one of the hardest things for parents to generalize about I think.

she actually didn't get naps yesterday due to doting grandpa, apparently, so that could explain the rough night

guys, having a kid is awesome and i love it.

evie locked herself in the bathroom yesterday and my wife had to call our landlord to get them to send the maintenance guy to let her out. fortunately the bathroom window was open so he could climb through and unlock the door and meanwhile my wife fed evie teddy grahams through the window. apparently evie was pretty happy about the whole situation.

hahaha

awwww

guys dont resist this

http://www.ourbabynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Baby5.jpg

thats a miracle blanket btw

we got one of those when evie was little and i didn't do much for us but i know a lot of other people on here swear by them

babby burrito

we used one pretty late on beeps because she was a hey im going to sleep for 5 minutes at a time suckerz type kid. she would sleep 8 hours in this thing. We started early with henry and even now, long after he grew out of it, he loves sleep.

We used a miracle blanket and she really liked it, for about two weeks. Then she started to hate having her arms tucked in. IDK though, maybe I should try it again.

the baby burrito is cute as hell though

how fucking cute is that burrito baby btw

woah

when she used to hiccup in it and the burrito would tremble a little, oh man

yeah miracle blanket is truly a miracle. really worked for us in those first few months.

ADORABLE

Hurting, I can't remember, are you co-sleeping? Can your wife manage to feed lying down? But yes, what Tracer said, sleep begets sleep.

Not co-sleeping. We keep the co-sleeper next to the bed but with the mesh 'wall' up because we can't anchor it to our bed and we don't want to risk her falling out. She does eat in bed, but at some point in the night my wife takes over being the one to take her out of the co-sleeper and change her.

are you changing her because she's got a dirty nappy or is it just wet? I quickly realised that only changing dirty ones was key as it really wakes them up and it takes ages to settle them again.

In case you didn't find any safe co-sleeping guidelines - http://www.nct.org.uk/parenting/sleeping-safely-your-baby It's been a godsend for me, I couldn't tell you how many times she wakes up in the night as I hardly ever wake up properly, I just latch her back on and go to sleep. We've got a superking bed now but started off with a co-sleeper, tbh she never lay in the co-sleeper she was always in the bed with me in the crook of my arm. I found that I didn't move around at all, and neither did she.

Another co-sign on the miracle blanket. Well worth sticking with in our experience.

is the miracle blanket the same as any swaddling blanket? My sister swore by swaddling, Aidan hated it and it's not recommended for co-sleeping so I never tried it with Molly.

are you changing her because she's got a dirty nappy or is it just wet? I quickly realised that only changing dirty ones was key as it really wakes them up and it takes ages to settle them again.

In case you didn't find any safe co-sleeping guidelines - http://www.nct.org.uk/parenting/sleeping-safely-your-baby It's been a godsend for me, I couldn't tell you how many times she wakes up in the night as I hardly ever wake up properly, I just latch her back on and go to sleep. We've got a superking bed now but started off with a co-sleeper, tbh she never lay in the co-sleeper she was always in the bed with me in the crook of my arm. I found that I didn't move around at all, and neither did she.

― vickyp, Friday, March 30, 2012 4:23 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

generally we avoid waking her to change her, instead timing it around feedings and when she has already woken herself up

As far as sleeping in the bed, I am a little concerned b/c my wife IS excessively tired.

In re swaddling I did read at least one expert saying don't do arms-in after a few weeks. We didn't really need the guidance though b/c around a few weeks she started fighting the swaddling blanket and also gaining more arm control such that she wasn't waking herself up with her arms.

Re. your wife's tiredness, is she napping whenever the baby naps during the day? It's a hard thing to do when there's stuff that needs doing but it's so important, and her well being is way more important than the house being tidy etc. I did it first time round but with the second it's obviously not so easy and I found it much harder not having that extra sleep.

oh and I recommend dropping diaper changes to only changing when she's dirty, it makes a difference to falling asleep times, even if she's already awake for feeds etc.

Swaddling babies is huge in my family. I just finished making a swaddling blanket out of muslin for our little girl.

Every time a neighbor or friend started up about their babies not sleeping my mom, grandmother and/or aunt would all say swaddle. They would pair that with boiling oats in milk or water then straining the oats out. Babies can't have that drink until they are a few months old though.

We were all swaddled as babies and I guess it was uber comfy and soothing because it went on too long. I could only get to sleep being wrapped up tightly and would ask my mom to "tuck me in" which meant for her to swaddle me. This went on until I started kinder, yeah, too long.

i def needed to be swaddled in order to sleep---my mom told me that if one of my arms got loose i would just go nuts, and as soon as it got tucked in i would pass the fuck out

also fwiw lil 6wk babbies ought to be sleeping like 16-20 hours a day iirc

right, with the little ones there is no night, there is only Zuul