Coffee Catchup 23rd September - Lower Hutt

Hi Dorothy you mentioned at the seminar this afternoon there were notes on starting solids. Can you please direct me to these notes.
Thank you
Tania

Hi Dorothy - cheeky second question - same baby - 8 months, breast fed, solids, 9kg. My son is in care with a porse carer 2x days a week whilst I work. He has been there for nearly 3 months, and refuses a bottle. He goes all day (9.5 hours) whilst he is there without a drink. We have tried formula, and expressed breast milk with no joy. I fed him for only 4 days when he was born before switching to EBM via a bottle, as I had terrible mastitis and cracked nipples. 4 weeks later I was able to wean him back onto the breast, we carried on with one bottle a day for a number of weeks, until we stopped when my husband went away. When he returned we tried again, and he refused. When the time came to go to work, we tried to make him go cold turkey from the breast, offering him a EBM bottle 3 hourly all day. He refused and went for 24 hours without any fluids at all. 3 months later we are in the same position, except that he at least takes solids from the carer. He is always grumpy when I pick him up, as he just wants to be fed. When I drop him off he cries because he associates care with being thirsty. Have you any suggestions? I tried multiple teats, bottles, cups etc, all of which he is uninterested in. Do you think I will just have to wait for him to grow out of this phase? The carer suggested weaning him, but since he wont take a bottle I don't think that would go very well. If he wasn't in care I would be breast feeding until he self weaned. Any suggestions for my stubborn boy?

Hi there,
My question is regarding my little man 3 months and night sleeping,
He's been underweight a lot since he's been born due to my milk supply, he's always been a great sleeper. I am just wondering how I got about cutting out night waking for feeds when he needs to be putting on weight? And if I should be trying to cut them out or keep on. My boys 3 months and at last weigh in was 4.789kg. I had cut out formula during the day feeling like my supply had built up, since re introduced. So back ground of the day is.
Waking between 7-8 feed within 30mins (breast and bottle if needed-thinking of introducing 100ml bottle every morning) then snuggle or play time. Back to bed around 10-11 sometimes 12-1230 depending how happy he is. I'm flexible about his day sleeps because he sleeps so well during the night! Feed before being put back( breast) if he's not put back asleep( off the breast) he some times cries for extended periods, I go in and give a dummy which is usually spat out, then more crying.. Other times he happily settles right in and falls asleep without any hassle. He sleeps anywhere from 45 mins to 3 hours sometimes 4. Wakes has Feed(breast) if I feel like he's still hungry he will get 50-100ml top ups during the day. Then up for play. Prob typically back for another sleep around 2-3. After a breast feed. As I mentioned my days flexible as we do pop out and he does really well for long periods of time up. I often wonder if he's going to long between sleeps as he's up for anywhere from 2-5 hours.he can have anywhere from 2-4 sleeps a day depending on outings( happy to fall asleep in buggy or car seat andtransfers reasonably) No strict night time bed time but getting closer to 7 every night. But always same process to be put down to sleep. Change, feed, swaddle, kisses, head rub, love you then walk out the room, with the addition of a dummy when needed..
So my question is.. Should I be able to knock out the night time dream feeds(11-12pm) and morning feed (4-5-selfwoken) with out damaging weight gain?   I desperately want him to be sleeping threw the night for my sanity.

I've taken away a lot of helpful advice today, just unsure I any of it applies to us in our situation.
He happily falls asleep with bottom pats, or slight jiggling in bed. Haven't tried this during the night because of concern about his weight and getting lots of food into him!

Hope I've given enough back ground. All looks a bit confusing

Edited by Amy129496 - 24 September 2013 at 6:04am

Hi there Dorothy, thanks again for the informative session!!
I have one of the "catnappers" - 3 months, 6.5kgs, breastfed (after waking and sometimes before sleep)with very occasional bottles. He is getting approx 5 naps per day of no more than 30mins, usually with 1.5 to 2 hours awake time except for before bed which is slightly longer. Bedtime is at 8.30pm each night (trying to get to 7pm) and he wakes 6/7am with one night feed.
We are using white noise, swaddling, in-arms jiggling or feed-to-sleep each nap. He goes down asleep every time.
My question is should we start on the self settling training BEFORE we start on re-settling to get longer naps - or do this in tandem? We are about to start a version of the gentle sleep training that you discussed (limited periods of crying etc).
Also with the re-settling during naps...how long should you spend? i.e if you get to the 20min resettling mark and he hasn't gone back to sleep, should you just get him up and start the feed/play cycle again?
Thanks in advance:)

Edited by 11mileri - 24 September 2013 at 10:21am

Hi Dorothy,

Thank you for a great session yesterday! Very informative and enjoyable

I started following you advise with my girl today (7mths old next week), I drew her out in the morning, putting her down later and she did 1hr (usually 20-30mins). I reversed her solid and milk feeds, topping her up before bed and she had a 2hr arvo sleep :-)
So I will keep going and hopefully it remains as good.

My question is around night resettling. Do you believe there is a time limit on resettling at night before feeding (giving in)?
Last night we resettled for 2hrs. Crying would peak and drift to nothing but never stop for more than 5 mins.

Thanks,
Jo

Hi Dorothy
I would really appreciate your advice around my little man’s sleep. He was really good at sleeping through the night (9-11 hours) until he was about 5 ½ months and then he suddenly started waking at night. The waking got earlier and more frequent. The initial waking didn’t seem to coincide with any big developmental event (that I noticed) and he already had at least a couple of teeth by then. I was hoping it was just going to be a phase that he would grow out of but he is now 10 ½ months old so I’m not so sure! In the last week he has twice managed to sleep 8 or 9 hour stretches (an improvement) but that means he still wakes at around 3 or 4 am and he did that for about a week a month or so ago and then reverted to more frequent waking. Often (not always) he wakes up when he hits the side of the cot when he moves about. He has never been a good sleeper during the day (usually only 30 – 45 mins at a time) unless he is cuddled and then he will sleep for much longer.
Background: bedtime is 7 – 7.30pm (asleep 7.20-7.45pm) and he first wakes any time from a couple of hours after going to bed to 8 or 9 hours later. When he wakes before 3 or 4 am we try to re-settle (cuddle him) and put him back in his cot. If it’s after 3 or 4am or he’s particularly difficult to re-settle then he ends up sleeping in our bed (for our sanity’s sake). It is very rare that he actually needs food when he wakes up during the night. He usually wakes up for the day around 6.30-7.30am, has a breastfeed reasonably soon after waking, breakfast an hour or so after waking, morning tea followed by a breastfeed around 3 hours after first breastfeed, closely followed by an approx 30 minute morning sleep (although in the last week or so this has turned into a 10 minute nap either falling asleep feeding or in cot. I tried to stretch his sleep out and give him an early lunch one day but that resulted in lunchtime madness!). Lunch around 12pm, sleep around 1.30-2pm for approx 45 mins although have recently got him to re-settle for up to a further 1 ½ hours sleeping in our arms. Afternoon tea around 3pm, dinner at around 5pm and breastfeed followed by a formula bottle just before bed (around 6.30-7pm). His day sleeps are mostly in his cot with the odd sleep in the car seat. He doesn’t self settle and we cuddle him to sleep. The handout on routines you provided referred to your recommended Toddler Routine for babies aged 10 to 12 months, however there was no Toddler Routine included. Would it be possible for you to post a copy please?
Many thanks

Hi Dorothy,
Thank you for all the info the other day. I have a 2 1/2 year old girl and one on the way (due in december). I'm working on toilet training my 2 1/2 year old. We seem to have the wee side of things sussed but not number two's. She always goes away and hides when she's going number two. So we've had a couple of accidents. She poo's quite often too, two to three times a day so it is not fun times at the moment. I've put her back in nappy pants today as I don't want her to get discouraged. I would really like to get things sorted prior to our Dec baby arriving. Do you have any advise? Also she's reluctant to wear underware, so any advise there would be helpful also.
Thanks heaps, Lynley G

Hi Dorothy

Fantastic session on Monday - thank you!

My son is 5 months old and I want him to self-settle in his cot earlier in the evening. He's a great sleeper, rarely wakes, but I want him to go to sleep earlier.

His background - born 3 weeks early, lost weight so was in hospital for two weeks, is breast fed all the time except in the last 2 months when he's had a 150-200ml bottle of formula as his last feed of the day. We're about 4 weeks away from solids too.

Our evening routine - there are no set times for anything, it depends on how the day has been etc, but the order is feed, play, bath, feed (bottle and breast), sleep - falls asleep on me post feed and I transfer him into his cot. He is usually asleep by 11pm and wakes around 7-8am, and rarely wakes during the night. (When he does I've instantly fed him rather than trying to settle him back to sleep. That's not to say I rush in at the first squeak from him, I wait until I can tell he isn't going to settle).

I like to think I've been a 'relaxed and easy' mum so far; along the lines of he'll sleep when he does, where he does. He's great in the car for sleeping too, and staying asleep in his seat once we're home (but not for too long so it's bad for his spine!). I do pretty much everything with/for him - my partner works 10 hour days in an operating theatre, so I understand can't be too tired and groggy at work - so it's me during the day and me during the night. I've not been great on spotting his 'tired signs' or anything like that either!

As much as want him to be in a great routine, I also don't want to be restricted by it - i.e. going out in the day etc!

If I suddenly brought everything forward by a few hours (instead of him having a nap around 6pm, bath at 8-9pm then bottle and asleep by 10.30pm) so he had his bath at 6-7pm then bottle and asleep, would he be likely to wake hungry during the night??

He doesn't have set sleep times during the day too. Wakes around 7-8am and straight on the boob. Then it's back to sleep for up to 1.5 hours. From then on the day is flexible until bathtime...

Looking back and reading this I sound like a nightmare!!!

Any tips for reigning us in would be much appreciated!!

Regards

Mrs McCaw

Hi again, sorry about all of the questions. When feeding solids, milk and then milk again, how long between feeds do I go? I used to feed my 5 month old every 4hours (milk) and 2 solids inbetween. Now with the new feeding I am unsure of when to feed her, especially since we are still working on getting her to sleep longer than 45 minutes.

Thanks for all of your advice.
Tania

HI I would need to know more about his daytime routine to answer this question correctly so here are some pointers.

7.00am Wakes
7.45am Breakfast followed by breast

10.00am Morning tea - full breast feed
10.15am Nap (minimum 1 1/2 hours wakes 11.45am)

12.00pm Lunch vegetables, protein, followed by breast

2.45pm Afternoon tea - full breast feed
3.00pm Nap (minimum 1 12/ hours wakes 4.30pm)

4.45pm Dinner - vegetables, protein followed by breast

Evening routine - bath, milk,

7.00pm - this means that his last awake time is shorter however, most babies are tired at the end of the day and are keen to get to bed.

With regard to the night waking he needs to re settle, therefore you need to take the time to teach him to do this. The difference between an adult waking and a baby waking during the night is that we have taught ourselves to resettle whereas babies need to be taught.

Leaving him to cry for an hour wont get you anywhere - you can leave him for up to 20 minutes and then you need to resettle him. This takes TACT - time, acceptance, consistency and tranquility.    If you are happy to leave him for a longer period of time then that is up to you as we all parent differently and we do what works for us and not what others do.    If you were going to leave him like this then it would take a minimum of 3 to 4 days for some it can take longer but you would need not to feed him.

I would never offer water in the night - if you are going to offer him something to suck then you may as well feed him.