Hope February is treating everyone well!

We are just getting over a super nasty cold... 3 weeks of runny noses, coughing, no sleep, and general crankiness for DD, DH, and myself - no fun :(

DD seems to be stuck in a cranky rut that I just can't get her out of.  All she wants to do is nurse, and at 13mos I'm *almost* ready to wean her and definitely done with having her permanently attached to me.  Ever since being sick, she has had no interest in eating or drinking.  We had been making very good gains on solid food, and although she was resisting cow's milk was doing ok with water and juice.  Now nothing on her tray gets touched, sippy gets tossed, and she impatiently waits for meals/snacks to be over so that she can nurse.  Daycare also says she is not eating as much as she was prior to getting sick.  We were doing 50/50 BM/Cow's milk in a sippy but she was totally rejecting that, so I've switched back to one bottle of BM at daycare and she still won't even touch that.  After she started feeling better a few days ago, I started to try to be more strict about when nursing is offered/allowed ... but she will just crawl into my lap sobbing and pull at my shirt.  I know I am having trouble with the idea of completely weaning her because she may be my only and I have loved the relationship, but this is crazy!  Do I just keep redirecting her unless it is an appropriate time (ie bed time)?  Will full out weaning be the only solution here?  Maybe it is normal to have a few days of crankiness after being sick?  Any suggestions on getting my happy/content baby back?  Or is there just no return now that she is more of a toddler? 

Boston, I would give her a week or so to see if she returns to pre-sick behavior.  She might be run down from being sick and is temporarily regressing.  If after a week she hasn't made strides, revisit what should be your next step.  In the meantime, can you have a glass of wine while you're still nursing?  If so, salud. :)

My son hardly eats anything when he's got a cold. And it takes him quite a while to get his appetite back. It's just a phase. Let her nurse. Really - my DS 3 1/2 and sometimes I feel like he's had NOTHING all day. So I push the liquids (in his case, juice, milk and yogurt smoothies).

Have you tried offering yogurt smoothies in sippy cups? It's a yummy and healthy snack that might help with the sippy transition. We use stonyfield smoothies - I used to thin them with milk when the kids were young like yours. Maybe the probiotics will help get over the cold too!

Good luck.

Boston, good luck with your little one.  I agree with above... give her a bit of time as she is probably just exhausted from being ill.  But starting next week, if you are ready to wean, I'd say go for it and she'll be fine after a few days.  I have an only child too, and I don't miss BFing nearly as much as I thought :-)  We have lots of other cuddle moments.

I'm excited and nervous this week.  I fly out this afternoon for a 4 day work trip.  Its an all-staff retreat at our international HQ, (and as some may recall, I just started a new job in November and work remotely, so first time meetings many of my new colleagues).  BUT... I've only had two 1-night trips away from DS in his 2 1/2 years.  DH and DS are flying solo for the rest of the week. (starting with pick up and dinner tonight through to dinner and bedtime Friday... a HUGE adjustment for him since DH is pretty much the secondary care giver now that my work schedule is so flexible).  He's nervous and excited too :-)  I'm starting to get a little weepy, but trying to remember that moms and dads do this all the time... but I'm really going to miss my little guy (and my big guy too).

My DS woke up yesterday morning singing loudly, so I was able to record his fantastically awesome songs on my phone... I'll have that in my hotel room.  And we're going to try Facetime (which we've done with grandpa in the past)... hope that doesn't make DS sad or confused.

I would agree - give her more time. If she had a runny nose for a while, there is a good chance she is not totally over it (if she is like me or DS, then long periods of runny nose usually leads to fluid in ears or ear infection - or in DS' case, discharge from ear tubes - and I find even I will feel a little icky for a while especially if I just have fluid in the ears). Nursing is not just for food but for comforting - which is why I would not recommend weaning at this time. She will take an interest in other things including food soon enough - when she is ready mentally... so as annoying as it is, it won't last forever.

 

Boston, that's rough.  GL with whatever you decide to do.  I think I probably would back off weaning for a couple weeks, but it's really up to you.  She's older, so she may be sensing your ambivalence and that's making her push even harder.  Possibly if she gets the nursing comfort for a couple of weeks until she can resume some of her other eating, she will be more okay with it?  Also, FWIW, my DD was that age when we went to only nursing at bedtime and first thing in the AM - we were lucky that it went pretty smoothly, but we definitely had to be extra active and stay away from our usual "spot" during the transition.  (And also she drank almost no cow milk during the transition or for a couple of months - just water.  She did have yogurt and cheese.  Our pedi said not to sweat it, so we just ignored it and she came around eventually.)

IPW - good luck with your trip!  Let us know how the face time goes - I have been wondering about that myself.

AFM, I am on 2 weeks with the worst cold.  And I'm debating whether or not to try potty training with DD.  She's talking about it a lot and likes to pretend to use her little potty, but when I asked her the other day when she wanted to start using the potty for real, she said, "at eleven thirty, when I'm bigger."  (Not sure why!)  I'm hesitating because I'm kind of lazy, plus the new baby will be here in 3 months (or less) so I'm not sure if that's too close together.

DD is so sweet.  I swear, 2 years must be the best age.  Yesterday I stubbed my toe, which she always gets upset if I am hurt or sick, but I was all, "oh, no big deal!  Just a little bump!" And then I turned around to get something and when I looked back she was sprawled out on the floor giving my toe lots of kisses and an invisible ice pack!

Thanks for the feed back girls!  I think I will just go with the flow for another week or two and see if she comes around.  I don't want to push a major change while she still isn't feeling 100%... just frustrated that our time together is dominated by crankiness and crying right now.  She is starting to eat a little more.  Med, it is good to hear that your DD also resisted cow's milk during the transition but eventually came around.  My DD will also eat yogurt and cheese (or at least she use to, we're trying to ramp back up on those), so I am not so worried about the calcium/protein.  It has been sort of fun to see that while she was sick she found the same go to food that I love when sick... raisin toast with butter.  And when she is extra picky... I witnessed her picking out the raisins and only eating those.  I was slightly annoyed she was feeding all the residual bread to the dogs, but she was so darned cute doing it.  Lily, I'll have to try the smoothies... that might be a good compromse between  yogurt which she knows the taste of also introducing milk.

 

IPW... good luck with your trip! 

Med, that is so cute about being ready at "eleven thirty" :o) Their concept of time is so warped and yet so adorably naive.  Good luck with potty training if you try, but I can totally understand your hesitancy.  Maybe just make the potty available but don't push?  That way you could work on the mechanics (getting pants off, etc) withough any pressure?

My DD loves milk now but she absolutely refused it until she was almost 2.  I nursed until 15 months and I think she just could NOT wrap her head around the fact that when we said "milk" we meant something other than breastmilk.  She would react with shocked disgust upon drinking cow's milk after seeming enthused and/or asking for milk, almost like if you were offered milk and when you went to taste it it was orange juice or something.  So we think once the memory of breastmilk faded and her language developed enough so she could understand they were two different things she was able to drink cow's milk no problem.  She was fine wtih water.  She got plenty of calcium from cheese and yogurt so it wasn't an issue nutritionally.

Yeah, at first I was worried about milk intake because I would see other people's kids just guzzling down whole sippy cups full of it and wanting more!  But, like I said, the pedi said not to sweat it, especially with cheese and yogurt.  In our case, we never used the word "milk" for BF-ing, so I'm not sure what role that played.  But it was around 2 years old, like Lissa's DD, that she started drinking a more notable quantity.  I think she likes 1% and 2% better than whole - when we were still giving her whole at home, she would get 1% or 2% at restaurants or friends' houses, and she seemed to like it a lot more.

I love kids' conceptions of things like time!  DD has pretty much always used the right words for the future (e.g. tomorrow, later, after nap) and the right words for the past (e.g. yesterday, earlier, before lunch), but with no correspondence to when they actually happened.  A lot of things happened "yesterday" according to her!

Boston - I don't have much to add other than I can't believe your DD is 13 months!

DD made the transition to whole milk pretty easily.  I nursed DD on weekends until maybe 10 months, then only in the am and pm for a few more months, but she switched from formula bottles to cups of milk without a problem during the week and was fully on milk by 14 months.  (I almost wished I didn't rush it, but I was super duper glad not to was Dr. Brown's bottles anymore!!)

 

Summer - Regarding your sleep issues from the January thread, it all sounds so familiar!  There were so many times when I couldn't figure out why DD was awake, she wasn't teething, and sometimes I ended up BFing even though I knew she didn't wake up from hunger.  I think we've all been there!  We didn't end up doing a little bit of CIO until she was maybe 9 months, but that was because DH couldn't handle it.  What did help earlier was putting her down for bed awake.  I don't know if you already do that, but learning to fall asleep on her own seemed to help her wake up less and/or fall back asleep in the middle of the night.

 

In response to framerican51008's comment:

Thanks Fram! We tried the sleep easy book...did it one night and she cried so hard for an hour I had to give up. Even DH couldn't take it...we're definitely not a cry it out family, no matter how much patting and shhh-ing we do. We're now reading the No Cry Sleep Book or whatever it's called, so we'll see how it goes if we decide to do it. I know sleep issues are usually par for the course in parenting, but DH and I are "see a problem and want to fix it" people!

Has anyone's LO started refusing food with teething? 7 m.o. DD battles us to eat dinner and/or breakfast most days. She did great with solids at first, now it's just crying and spitting food out and maybe having 4 bites. We've tried letting her try to feed herself some puffs but she doesn't have the concept down yet, and sometimes she likes some things in her mesh feeder but not always.

Has anyone read or heard of Simplicity Parenting?  It was recommended and I think I'm going to read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Simplicity-Parenting-Extraordinary-Calmer-Happier/dp/0345507983/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Hi everyone,

I haven't had a chance to get caught up with February's posts, but would love your advice if you have a moment. Keep in mind I have not had a chance to look at any sleep books recently.

DS will be 6 months on Sunday. He is currently, and has been for the majority of the past few months, waking around 11pm, 2am, and 5am every night. We have been trying some sleep training for the 11pm wake-up, but so far I've fed him for the 2am and 5am wakes. My gut feeling is that he needs to eat at least one of those times, but definitely not all three. We have not been brave enough yet to try to sleep train the 5am wake; we plan to tackle that soon, but want to pick a night when we don't have to get up too early the next day.

My question is, have any of you been successful, or know whether or not it is possible to be successful, in training a baby out of a particular wake-up(s), but not necessarily the other(s)? When we do a bit of letting him cry and just going in at intervals to soothe but not pick him up, it usually works after maybe 20 minutes as long as he's not sick. But the problem is - we have to do it EVERY night. So it's really not helping at all! Just when we have fallen asleep, he wakes up. Then of course he wakes up every 3 hours after that. Are we wasting our time trying to sleep train him out of only ONE of those wake-ups? Should we even bother trying to train him out of the 5am one? Both of us get stressed out doing CIO, even though it does work (in the moment) because a) we don't like hearing him cry, and b) we're continually terrified he's going to wake up DD in the next room.

Again, I do still want to feed him for one of those times because he really eats a lot then, and I honestly think he's hungry. But is this shooting myself in the foot? Should I be trying to train him to wait until morning to eat?

Thoughts, experiences?  Thanks.

Popppy - How is he getting to sleep to begin with at night?  Are you rocking him to sleep or putting him to bed awake?  If you are working hard to get him to sleep in the first place, this is probably why he can't get to sleep in the middle of the night when he wakes up. I would consider a true CIO at bedtime if you have to do a long routine to get him to bed.   Have you tried an earlier bedtime?  I have never tried to train out the early wake up.  If it is really early i.e. 5 am I have given a bottle or pacifier and usually they have fallen back asleep. Over time for both girls it just has gotten a little later to a bearable time i.e. 6:30 .

Try putting a loud fan in DD's room.  We do this in both of their rooms and they never wake each other up.  good luck!

Whenever you decide to sleep train it's not going to be a one night thing.  You might as well just start with whatever method you align with philosophically and go with it when you're generally ready, not waiting until a particularly suitable night/morning.  It will take time, patiience, and tired days while he learns to settle himself down and put himself back to sleep.

Luck - He goes to sleep beautifully! I do one final feeding around 6:30pm and put him in his crib, awake (sometimes grinning at me and trying to do a jig in his swaddle) and he goes to sleep on his own, pretty much right away (by 7:30). Then, in the morning (usually around 7am) he wakes the same way - talking, happy. I can leave him in there awake for a while as I'm waking up and he doesn't mind at all.  I'm sort of baffled why he cries so much when he wakes in the middle of the night. I'm assuming he's hungry, but he can't possibly be THAT hungry at 11pm!

 

We have started turning up the fan in DD's room. Sometimes that helps, sometimes she still wakes up. Usually she goes back to sleep but it still stresses DH and I out, we lie there wide-eyed. Maybe I'll try the pacifier at 5am - usually I'm so out of it and trying to very quickly silence him that I just automatically feed him.

Poppy, I just went throu through this exact issue. My dd2 is about a week or soolder than your ds. For all of January when she was 5 mos old she was waking at 10:30, 1:30 and 4:30 and eating all of those times. My DH was away for a 10 day business trip (which sucked!) so I just went with the easier way of dealing which was to nurse her. About two weeks ago when DH was home we decided to sleep traiIin.  I had the sMae questions as you about how the sleeptraining would work if we were feeding her some of the time but not other times.  We decided to pick a random time (we picked 3:00 am) and before that we wouldn't feed her but if she woke up afterwards wewould feed her. The first night we geared up for lots of crying and prepared our older dd by telling her we wereteaching the baby how to sleep. We found a free white noise app and used the iPato with that running in the hall between theor rooms.  It ended up fine, it took only a few nights and dd2 now is sleeping from 7-3:30 and back until 6:30. Eventually I willstart pushing back the 3:30 feed but for now it's working. Goodluck! The idea of sleep training is usually worse than actually doing it 

Rama - thanks!  What method did you use to sleep train - did you go in the room and verbally soothe, or did you let her CIO without going in, did you pick her up...?  We've been trying to wean him off of the 11pm wake-up for a while now without success, but for some of that time he was sick, so he was a bit off in general, and then a recent night DH and I were out, which threw off the training. Maybe if we can do it for like a week straight it will start to stick... we'll see! I'm happy to hear it worked for you! Great idea to tell your other DD what you were doing! That hadn't occurred to me.

Poppy - when my twins were little I had a night nurse. She had us drop the 2am feeding first. The goal was to get them sleeping 10-6 or 11-7 or whatever. I'd feed at 11pm and then when he wakes at 2 - don't feed or pick up then. You can offer a paci or do whatever you want to try and soothe (of send in DH if you're nursing). I did CIO. They cried about 45 minutes each for 3 or 4 nights and then they stopped waking at that time for the most part. Once they were sleeping 10-6 I felt like a human again! And then I worked on dropping the 10pm feeding. By 5 1/2 months they were both sleeping 6-6.

Good luck!

I agree with Misslily, and I bet he is hungry at the 11pm wakeup, since you've been doing sleep training for a while and he still wakes at 11pm and can't put himself back to sleep.  And he actually last ate at 6:30pm, so that's about 5 hours - does he really go 5 hours between feedings in the daytime?  I think I'd consider feeding at 11pm, then being hardcore about the other feeding until the 5am wakeup.  (so that's then 6 hours between the 11pm and 5am wakeup) 

 

Or, if you do go to bed at 10pm and hate getting up 1 hour later to feed him, perhaps you can dream feed him at 10pm?  Nurse/feed a bottle at 10pm but without waking him very much (feed in the dark with just a red nightlight so you can see enough).  Light from red lightbulbs allows you to see without being too bright and waking you (and him) up.  (tip from a Lighting engineer for broadway shows)

 

 

Oh yes - feed in the dark, don't change the diaper unless absolutely necessary. I got my kids a 'dream light" for Xmas and it has 3 colors. The red does allow me to see without lighting the room too much. (I was looking for "butterfly" at 3am last night).

Good luck!

If he regularly demonstrates he's capable of self soothing and going to sleep on his own and wakes up and is unable to do that he definitely has a problem that needs solving like hunger.

Jumping in to say I hope everyone fares well in the storm! I stocked our  fridge and cabinets but my fear is losing power! We don't have a generator so I'm not sure what we'd do...just bundle up I guess!

Yes, good luck to everyone!!  I hope you're all home from work by now.  I need to gather up all our flashlights, candles, batteries, etc.

Poppy - If I remember correctly, Weissbluth says it's normal for a baby to wake up twice to eat until ~9 months.  I think the earlier advice to try feeding at 11 and 5 and eliminating the 2 am feeding lines up with that theory.  It would also hopefully give you a good stretch of sleep!

Thank you Lily, CT, and Fram! I was actually just tonight thinking I might try to switch the time I'm trying to train him out of - feed him around 10ish, right before I go to bed, even if it's a dream feed. The logic is sound to try to drop the 2am feeding first! Not sure why I didn't think to try that. Maybe because he used to sleep 7 to 1am, then sleep until 5ish, then go back to sleep until almost 8. I think that is what I am mourning now! But for a month or so he hasn't been doing that, so I think I need to let it go. I'm so tired most of the time I can barely see straight.

Lily - just curious - when did you know you could drop the 10pm feed? He'll be 6 months on sunday and I just don't know how many hours of straight sleep is possible at this age. From what you said, it seems like he could feasibly go 12 straight hours at this age, but we're nowhere near that.

Meanwhile, DD has started waking at 6:30.  Fabulous.

Hope everyone's doing ok in the storm and has a cozy family day tomorrow! Personally just really hoping not to lose power. Bring on all the snow, but let me keep my lights and heat!