ok....so usually i blog about what's going on in our lives down here in portland to keep everyone updated and to keep a family journal in a way, but today is a little different. i'm so tired that it is literally hurting right now, and i'm in need of a little mom-to-mom advice, so i figured why not use the blog to it's full potential and get some help from my fellow bloggers :)
i think i'm a pretty ok mom, and i really never want to complain about my kids or being a mom cuz i love being a mom more than anything else in the whole wide world, but that doesn't mean i know everything about it. i wish i did like i'm sure you do too, but i simply don't - not even close actually! so....i am pleading for a little help. my little beckam guy is amazing. i love him, and he loves me. he loves to smile and slobber and giggle and suck on his fingers and swing in his swing and look at pictures on the walls and read with his dad, but the one thing that he is not loving so much lately is SLEEP! and the problem with this is that i love my sleep, and i need my sleep, and he's not letting me get any silly little guy!
so, is my boy teething? is he regressing? is he hungry? what have you found that works or worked for your little ones? first of all, becks has been sleeping through the night (kinda) for the last month or so. he wakes up once or twice for his soother cuz he is what we like to call a sensitive sleeper and needs some help sometimes. now, this is ok with me. i don't mind getting up to give him his soother at all. these past few nights though have been a little different. last night, he was awake whining/fussing but not really crying from 3:20-4:30 when i finally got up and gave him 1/2 a bottle and put him back to bed. he then slept til 6:15 or so when again he laid in his crib and fussed for another hour til i got up, and we started our day. i don't mind getting up to feed him in the night, but i really don't think he's hungry. dust rocked him for a few, and he just laid there wide awake. he was happy when i got him up to feed him and even smiley, and he drank the whole 1/2 bottle, but i just don't know if that's the issue. i want to be a good mom, and i want to know how to help him, but babies don't come with manuals - darn it!
becks has been drooling lots lately and is sucking on his fingers constantly, and i wonder about teething although there are no visual signs that this is the issue. i have heard that babies who sleep good to begin with do regress sometimes and go back to waking up in the night. i'm not sure if the soother is becoming an issue and he's just waking up for that, but no....cuz he fussed with the soother in his mouth for that hour last night. does he just miss his mom? do i just wake up when he gets up in the night and feed him cuz i don't want to start that routine again if that's not what he needs?!?!?!
someone help me please! haha don't worry - i'm still loving being a mom more than anything, and i manage to be patient and happy and loving in the daytime, but i need some sleep here! oh and the other issue is that he doesn't sleep for longer than 30ish minutes in the daytime for naps without a soother or being held to help him back to sleep - sensitive sleeper thing. so, do i stop the soother all together. do i let him cry it out at nap time or in the night? i don't know, so hopefully someone out there in the blogger world does. i'm not at my wits end yet, but i figured that it wouldn't hurt to do a shout out to my amazing mom or soon to be mom friends to see if anyone can shed any light for this new mom :) boring blog i know, but any advice that doesn't make me feel guilty about what i have been doing (because this would probably cause me to cry in my tired state) would be most welcome! thanks chickees :)
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21 comments:
I think Nicole Wagner has had huge successes with sleep training her girls, you may want to ask her. Even though you might not see any little buds popping up he could be teething, sometimes those first ones take a WHILE to come in. Good luck!
Good Luck! I wish I knew too. I'm sure I started a bad habit of letting Jayton just sleep in bed with us because I was too tired/lazy to go into his room to feed him etc. I LOVED holding him and since I am just at home I would hold him during most of his naps. He is finally (at 14 months) starting to sleep through the night again - sometimes. And, kinda liking naps during the day. I'm sure I'm a bad mom for starting all these bad habits (I can't take all the blame though 'cause dad started, or kept on, with a lot of them). Maybe next kid I'll do a little better. When you find the manual let me know!
Ah the sleep issue. It never goes away. And I have learned that even if a mom says she has a baby that sleeps through the night, they really don't. At least not all the time. They go through constant ups and downs. Sleeping good then hit a growth spurt, or get a cold, or go on vacation, or start teething. And then you sorta have to retrain them all over again. Roman was awful - at naps and at night. So I just did what I had to do to get by. He came in our bed for a long time. And I held him for lots of his naps. And then one day he just slept great.
Finn is getting better. But is no where near how good he was for the first four months. I have decided I just can't stress over it, and one day he will sleep good. At least that's what I keep telling myself! I'll send you an online book about sleep training if you want it.
Oh my gosh, I felt like I was reading my own story from last year at this time! I FEEL FOR YOU! I hope it's just a phase and Becks starts sleeping great again! But if he doesn't, hang in there! Cohen was a great sleeper till he hit 4 months. Then he started waking up for his soother, then after awhile that wasn't good enough and he wanted to nurse...So my little guy went from consistently sleeping 12 straight hours at night to waking up every two hours! I knew he wasn't hungry because he had been sleeping through the night before, so I didn't know what to do! So I was tired ALL THE TIME. When Cohen was 5 and a half months, I couldn't take it anymore. So I read 3 different sleep training books. That's what I would recommend if Becks doesn't get back to his old ways after awhile. I read Baby Wise, The Baby Whisperer, and Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child. (If I wasn't so sick of reading by that point, I would have also bought The No Cry Sleep Solution.) People all have their opinions, but I think it's a matter of finding what you're comfortable with and what will work for you. In the end we went with the Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child method. It worked for us, but like I say, everyone has their opinions. We also took Cohen's soother away at the same time. It took 2 bad nights and 4 days of missing his soother, but then it made ALL the difference in the world! He's a GREAT sleeper now! Hope you can start getting some sleep!
Sorry for the long, long, long post!!!!
oh lyns, it sucks, i know. it's so hard giving advice because every mom and every baby is different. so do what feels right for you. and hopefully it's just a growth spurt or maybe he is just getting ready to teeth. i'm not against giving a bottle in the night cause maybe he is teething or growing, but you'll regret it forever if you hold him all the time or let him sleep in bed with you. and if you think he's ready to cry it out do it, but you have to be ready to listen to that crying out too. i am such a soother fan. alli gave hers up only last august and james is still going strong so now he's only allowed his when he's sleeping and that somehow makes me feel better about the fact that my almost 2 year old still has a soother. and frankly james was a horrible sleeper and still has his days..more often than i'd prefer, so who am i to give advice. i just wrote this huge long comment and most likely didn't do any good at all. shucks, sorry. i'll give the worst bit of info ever, you'll be surprised how well you start to function on so little sleep if it keeps up. good luck!
I don't know really, but Chloe did that for like 2 weeks randomly when she was 4 months old. I figured she was just hungry so i started giving her rice cereal and she LOVED it!! and no joke she has been sleeping through the night ever since!! good luck!
Hey, I was just snooping around and saw your blog on Lindsay Baldry's. I have never made a comment on someone's blog I didn't know, so hopefully you don't think I am too weird! Anyway, our baby was a very light sleeper, and one thing that worked for him was a humidifier in his room. The white noise seemed to make a huge difference and the warmer air that it gave off seemed to help too when he got old enough to kick off his blankets. Hope that helps.
maybe he is just hungry and is going through a growth spurt...or maybe he's teething...or maybe he's just a baby haha I'm so annoying No advice my kids have never been good sleepers. I was always better with them getting up in the night as long as they napped good. do you have a swing?? Lily always used to nap in her swing. And just remember you won't be tired forever...it will pass
Ronetta Hill said....
First of all, ths is what I call payback and, frankly, you deserve it. I have a head splotched in grey hair (where there is hair at all) that is due to the likes of you not acting like a regular human being sleeping like you Mom and Dad were...
I know I'm not a Mom and, thus, my advice is tempered at best and likely flawed because of my male makeup but....whatever he's going through is exactly what he's supposed to be going through, whether its sleeping problems, growing pains in body or teeth or whatever. As a seasoned veteran on the child-raising front I simply suggest you do ONE thing: go with the flow, drink deeply from the cup of each experience--challenging or not--, bask in the warmth of whatever is happening and remember, oh, PLEASE remember, that it will all be over so quickly you cannot imagine it and at that moment you will miss sleepless nights and afternoon more than anything in the world. I'd give my left leg to hold a fussy, absolutely unexplainable baby Lyndsey once more......... Dad
aw, i'm totally crying from your dad's sweet comment. I have to agree, it goes by so fast, you won't even remember it. It is barely creeping up on a year, and I can't remember what it was like to be that exhausted, you just forget. That's probably why we have more babies!
You probably already know about Norah's sleep from reading my blog, but she had to have the soother, and I got tired of putting it in her mouth, then I let it go too long, and she expected me to go in her room every time she woke up. NOT FUN. At 8 months, I read lacey's "sleep sense" whatnot, and it worked wonders. She hasn't touched a soother since, only to play with it, and now knows how to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up. Heaven. But I thought you were using that same method, so I don't know what to tell you besides that.
He is probably going through a growth spurt, would be my guess, and is just hungry if he's fussing like that. This too shall pass.
That was not even advice, sorry! lol. I know it isn't very encouraging just to tell you that it will pass--- because that's easy to say when you are already past it!
Darling darling sister of mine..I am on my way!! Haha hang in there, and then I will take care of little Becks! Love ya!! =]
Hey dude!
I agree some with your dad..in hindsight I realized I should have tried to go with the flow more, however you ALREADY do taht so much better than I ever did.
I have 2 initial thoughts:
1. 3-4 mo growth spurt. This really DOES happen....he will Eat MORE for about aweek. I would feed him when he wakes and then the next day, up his day time calories to prevent waking the next nigth. Try to get in an extra bottle during the day. Just try it.
2. COULD be soother..but I just don't think so..he's still too young....Megan didn't show soother addiction til 5.5 mo's ish...sounds like your other friends baby too....
Anyway...my rule was ALWAYS ...give them 4-5 days to work it out on there own before intervening....if it didn't change or got worse by day 5, I stepped in and went back to sitting by her bed comforting her but not picking her up (Baby Whisperer Method). You can use whatever method you choose at that point, but sometimes they just go through weird things so I always let them take the lead for that 4-5 days incase it worked it self out and often it did:)
Erika was a bit tougher but still both my girls were on track for awesome night sleep by 4-6 mo's and I believe Beckam will be too!!!!!
You're a fabulous mom Lyndz!!!
xo
Oh like everyone said we've all been there and it sucks at the time but it WILL pass. Too quickly at that! I'd give more advice but everything I've thought of has been mentioned here by the rest of the girls and your Daddy. Hang in there girly! As soon as my kids could put the soother in themselves I surrounded their head with them at night so they could find one themselves!! I would usually have to pull the crib from the wall the next day to scoop up the ones that fell out!
Good luck Lynz!
Wow, so many comments and i think I've learned, although it won't help me, cause i'm done having kids. Now, it's true that you do forget but i do remember many nights when i would hold you in our rocker and then fall asleep with you in my arms. It's true that babies do go thru good and bad days lots in their first year especially so i agree with dad, go with the flow and ENJOY this precious child you have. I remember sometimes taking you for night walks with dad as it was the only way to soothe you, of course, with lots of blankets on you, in our umbrella stroller!!!!! I love you and i know you're a great mom, so beyond where i ever was. Sometimes, i feel, that you have to go with the flow and maybe, just maybe, he is going thru a growth spurt or just hurting. You know your child more than any book or any other mom, so believe in yourself as a mom and pray for comfort and patience. It works!!! I love you! You could always move to Raymond and grandma could stay up through the nights and give you a break?????!!!! Hope you have a better night!
Hold Him, Cuddle Him, Kiss, Him, Rock Him, Feed Him Sing to him and SPOIL him. You only have one baby at a time with your first. And don't overdue yourself rest in the day when he rest while you still can. I'm sure you're doing absolutely wonderful at being his MOM!
Holy crap. My finger hurts from scrolling down through all your long comments. I have the baby manual at my house...I'll mail it to you.
man....you asked for advice and it looks like you got it!! so many comments. i don't think there is much more to add. but, from a different end of things...maybe get a blessing to help your body adjust to the little sleep. or even give becks a blessing that his body will relax so that he may get the rest his growing, busy body needs?!
Okay, Ronnie's comment was so darn sweet!
All babies go through phases of doing great and others of waking up. One soloution I have heard for babes who like to be held and rocked while they sleep is to swaddle them tightly, and rock them to sleep. Then when they are out, put them in the swing and let the swing take over. You could give it a try.
One of my friends recommended a book called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child". My little guy went from sleeping through the night from birth and then all of a sudden at 4 months he wouldn't sleep at all. He was up every hour during the night and would maybe nap for 1/2 an hour during the day. I read the book and found it very helpful and since then my little guy has been sleeping through the night consistently. I would recommended the book, it has some very helpful tips and is actually quite interesting.
oooo.... i just thought of something. have you ever watched "the happiest baby on the block?" if not, watch it. i think every new mom should. i just watched it in one of my classes, and wish i would have seen it when norah was a baby. there is also a book by the same name. just a thought. you are probably overwhelmed by all the advice by now!!! i like what you mom said though, you are the mom, and you know your baby better than anyone else.
hold him, love him, rock him, sing to him,..... and forever and always your baby he'll be! oh i love that book!
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