ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

It gets better.

It does get better, and lots of parents struggle with setting sleep habits. Fwiw, your pediatrician is wrong about the ferberization (at least according to Dr. Ferber). You don't go in and visit every 5/10/15 etc for the baby. Acc to Dr. Ferber you could just do cry it out cold, but parents have a tough time just letting their child cry. He sends you in at an interval really for your own peace of mind, not for the baby. Of course, I always found visiting the baby while she's crying exhausting and almost as bad as not visiting at all.

Hurt, have you completely ruled out something odd like inner ear pressure that's increased by lying down? Does she lie down happily enough at other times of day? Can you think of other anomalies, things to do with bedtime/sleeping/lying in crib?

Otherwise I think you are otm with the doing what you need to do for your child and yourselves. There's no quick solution, and you know your baby better than a book does.

Yeah, she basically goes down easily for naps, a little fussing at most. Morning nap is easiest and they get slightly harder throughout the day but only night is really hard. She really seems to notice when it's getting toward night. She even looks at the window and seems to notice the light change. The bedtime routine maybe even makes it worse because she anticipates it, although we tried dropping the routine to "trick" her and it wasn't very effective. For a while we thought it was gas but that's subsided and the crying hasn't.

My mom says that my brother was the same -- just seemed to need to cry at night because nothing calmed him down.

So my two cents is basically don't worry so much about your response to the bedtime (or nighttime) crying being consistent. Gauge that response based on what your baby is doing. If they're crying unconsolably you are going to mess anything up by going in there and attempting to calm them down frankly. Consistency matters in things like when a child goes down for nap/bed and wakes up for the day a fair amount for a lot of kids (and frankly I find the predictably easier to work around).

not going to mess anything up

Childless lady at work today decided to lecture me on what we're doing wrong.

Nodded. Could not really muster smile.

This is why I don't talk to people at work about how I parent generally.

i find a haughty, "ha, ha, ha your genes will die with you" sufficient to turn childless ppl off from giving me parenting advice

i don't have anything equally useful for advice-bearing parents tho.

"yes, but your child is not as lovely and clever as my child, so of course your stupid, ugly methods work with her"

i don't actually say that

Spoke to my grandmother yesterday and she told me how my dad never had a crib, he just slept with her and my grandfather until he was two years old and got his own bed. It was the first time I had ever heard of how she and my grandfather parented. I had never asked before, she never spoke about it until yesterday. Just thought it was interesting how she just volunteered all this info now that I am a mother.

Sometimes August sleeps in her co-sleeper and when she does she will wake up once or twice for a feeding. Other times she sleeps out of the co-sleeper, between us and sleeps through the entire night. The night being 12-1am until 7 or 8am. Seems on days when we run a lot of errands she tends to be fussier at night. I start to think maybe it is too much stimulation. She naps through all of it though. I think she was always this way. When I was pregnant with her and we would be out and about all day or most of the day, I knew that at night she'd be tossing and turning. So far she has followed the same schedule she had when she was inside me, something I find interesting.

I have heard that babies in utero sleep a lot during the day because the mother's movements lull them to sleep like rocking but when the motion stops (the mom at night) that's why they get wiggly.

last night while Tera was cleaning up and taking care of things, I had alone time with August and she was wide awake. I always sing to her and for some reason I decided to sing Neil Young songs to her, she looked like she was on the verge of getting getting fussy. When I started singing she stopped and just looked at me, and she gave me those half smiles she's starting to give. She was laying on her side and I was on my side. She suddenly grabbed my beard with both hands and tried to pull her face closer to mine so I helped her with a nudge and she snuggled underneath my face. I couldn't help but start crying. She was making these baby noises which are new and slowing becoming more varied. I remembered my Dad playing me Neil Young records as a kid, and now I'm a dad singing Neil Young to my daughter. She drifted off the sleep for a short nap. it was a moment that touched me.

aw that is so great. neil young is nice to sing, though my daughter requests powderfinger a lot which seems like a weird song to sing to a kid. i think she imagines some dude with powdered sugar for fingers.
awful day as parent for me today. wife is sick, sylvie having fits every five seconds. totally snapped at her while making dinner. feeling like a jerk!

omg she loves powderfinger <3

Well the other day K was on her playmat and I pulled up a chair and my guitar and did the opening bars of "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison, and she went from zero to screaming in 5 seconds.

Note to dad: stick to pete seeger animal songs

Awww bad day over soon, new day approaching.

I was like "wait, how have you already seen Blue Velvet?"

HA!

Aww Jacob when we found out our second child was going to be a boy I started looking into the differences in girl and boy babies. Boys are interested in movement and groups as a whole whereas the big thing for girls is making a individual connection usually through eye contact. So you hit on something there for sure

Also the fastest way we found to get Henry to stop crying and start laughing was for PP to grab his guitar and start singing. Later on it was hulahooping!

Okay, sunny. Let's use our public voice.

i used to sing "ignition (remix)" to L to get him to sleep, it can actually be a very effective lullaby

i sang the clean version obviously

I'm kinda worried at what my kids are gonna think when they realize all the songs I've been singing around the house for years, in my own cleaned-up versions, often nursery-rhymed out, are in their original forms totally explicit.

But loads of Nursery rhymes are about either prostitution or plagues, etc.

It's probably ridiculous to buy a seventy dollar dress for a infant right?
http://www.katequinnorganics.com/brands/plum-bunny/quilted-sacque-sweater-natural/

Unless you are independently wealthy, yes.

Yes, and I will tell you why in one word: leakage.

Even that aside (you can always put some kind of diaper-covering underwear underneath), I find that even high-end-looking baby outfits can often be had for $30 (Remember it's a tiny amount of fabric and sewing compared to an adult garment), and also that they grow out of things much faster than the sizes suggest (our admittedly large three month old is wearing 9 month size). We have beautiful gift items that she either never had the chance to wear or wore once.

I didn't think about leakage, which using cloth, happens more than not. There are lots of other cool cloths on that same site for less, in the 25 to 50 range, which seems reasonable to me.

The stuff on that site is really nice. Will keep it in mind for gifts. Strictly rags for my daughter though.

not a sack, a "sacque"!

(french for sack is "sac", non??)

you could conceivably justify by saying child #2 will also use it. also with a sleep-sack like that it may even last a whole year, or longer

still

Trying to get every newborn outfit we were given on August before she outgrows them. I am really sentimental and appreciative of all her outfits and have them all organized by size. Would like her to be able t wear everything she was given if not at least photographed in it.

"Whoa!" on the 2nd child talk....

Tera is the voice of reason is our house ; )

lol yeah sorry but you know... when you're like "hmm what should we so with these clothes" the question arrives abruptly

how's it going, Hurting?

so it's been about 25 years since i saw as much sesame street as i'm seeing these days. elmo's world is an abomination. and i hate how they're constantly prepping you for it. ("elmo's world is coming right up!" "soon it's time for elmo's world!" "what happens now? elmo's world!")

lol, ok elmo's world, u win today. they just had a groucho marx puppet show up

http://images.wikia.com/puppet/images/e/ed/Groucho_Marx_Muppet.jpg

I saw the Sesame Street or Electric Company DVD set and there was a disclaimer shown on the screen that said the DVD set was not intended for children. They showed kids playing at a construction site in the 70's and a group of 8-12 year old boys and girls skateboarding in the city. There was a little boy using sharp tools to build himself a raft.

I want our little girl to watch the same shows I did, together with whatever is new out there, sans Sponge Bob: Sesame Street, Electric Company, Carrascolendas, Villa Alegre, Banana Splits, The Monkees, Mr Rogers (it's how I was first introduced to jazz), Captain Kangaroo, Rocky and Bullwinkle (how I discovered Beatniks at a young age) and Zoom! Wonder what is available on DVD, hopefully score some bootlegs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7gzHLKT5g4

Had a crush on Joe who is now a child psychologist or something in Boston.

Old PBS children's shows needs it's own thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwI15oEwA_A&feature=related

thread for children shows in general. i also like putting on Phineas and Ferb for D (found out about its excellence from this new yorker article: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/television/2012/02/13/120213crte_television_nussbaum

That would be cool!

Enjoyed reading the article. How could I forget Sid and Marty Kroft shows?! Need to check out Phineas and Ferb. I haven't watched any Disney films since Escape from Witch Mountain and Bambi. I did watch the three Toy Story's but that was it. I am completely out of touch with what is out there for kids. Would like to see the new Disney film about a baby monkey.

tera, monkees tv series is on DVD, my wife has both seasons
god bless rhino records

my kids LOVE Phineas & Ferb---we only got cable recently & this is p much the only thing (aside from sports) that they care about. I dig watching it too! p creative show.

parenting triumph this long weekend: we put the baby to sleep for the night in an unfamiliar pack n play (the one in my parent's house) and then took her out 4 hours later, took her home, put her back to bed in our apartment, and she went straight to sleep both times.

We found a little trick tonight ourselves, although we'll see if it lasts -- leave the door open and talk softly instead of closing it and trying to be quiet until she falls asleep. I guess she felt lonely in there.