Parenting Megathread: Babies are like TARDIS, much bigger on the inside.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Parenting Megathread: Babies are like TARDIS, much bigger on the inside.

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skeetied: Mar 10, 2011

Alterian posted:

Can anyone recommend a shoe that doesn't fall apart in a couple months? I am tired of buying my 5 year old new shoes every 2 or 3 months because the top separates from the sole. Part of the problem might be that he's a little on the small size for his age so he's still in toddler shoes. He wears around a size 11. I was thinking of trying something like a converse style shoe where the toe and heel are sort of combined into one rubber covering. The problem is he can't tie laces yet.

We love Tsukihoshi and Native. My middle child destroys shoes and they�ve lasted quite well. We have Keens too but I try to avoid heavier, less flexible shoes.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 04:37

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# ? May 30, 2024 19:31

His Divine Shadow: Aug 7, 2000; I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do.

BonoMan posted:

2 months? drat that's long. Our shoes last two weeks if we're lucky.

What the gently caress?

E: I mean, weeks? I know we bought some lovely shoes a few months ago that are worn out now, but otherwise they got shoes form last year that still work. What kind of crap do they put in stores, the environmental consequences alone of such practices ticks me off. Bad enough that shoes only last months.

His Divine Shadow fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Oct 11, 2018

# ? Oct 11, 2018 06:14

bollig: Apr 7, 2006; Never Forget.

life is killing me posted:

Dang, wish I knew this thread existed two months ago, or even last month.

Our son is five months old. He is generally a really happy baby and smiles at everyone, is fairly easy to please outside his developmental milestones making him grumpy, we assume because all the things he learns are overwhelming at times, and is overall not much of a complainer outside crying because he's sleepy or hungry.

BUT, he's been in his sleep regression lately and it's kicking his rear end and ours. We just started him in daycare last week and he seems to be able to even put himself to sleep there, but has only done this twice at home during the day and never at night. I run a business so my schedule is flexible and thus I've been at home a lot with him as he's grown and my wife has been on maternity leave, making it a lot easier to deal with night wakeups. But since she's been back at work it's been exhausting. He used to sleep really well, only waking up once a night to eat and occasionally sleeping through the night. Now everything is out of whack and it's hard to pull ourselves out of bed to put him back to sleep since he won't do it on his own. We put him down in his room about 7, he sleeps without even stirring until around 10 when we transfer him to our room and do a dream feeding before putting him in his pack n' play. Two hours later he wakes up and then it's every hour or so. Each time it's nearly impossible to get him back to sleep--neither of us has this kind of trouble for daytime naps. So by the time we do get him back to sleep it's been a half hour and whoever takes the turn is wide awake. Then, we put him in his pack n' play and he either wakes up immediately and won't take a paci or he wakes up ten or so minutes later. I'd like to point out that we do wait about five minutes before even getting up. We had also been doing takingcarababies for each wakeup, which got so old (he wasn't responding to any of it) that my wife kept getting frustrated and getting up and nursing him just so she could go back to sleep. I get up about half the time and find that while I can get him calm and "asleep" in my arms while basically doing squats (if I don't do actual squats at a rapid pace he arches his back and moves his head to cry), it's almost pointless as he just wakes right back up before I've got him halfway down toward his pack n' play. I'll admit that we probably didn't give takingcarababies enough time to take hold in his mind, and for myself I excused this by saying to my wife, "I don't know if he's capable of learning this during sleep regression."

We've read numerous articles that seem to contradict one another. We've read that his sleep brain during the day is way different than his sleep brain at night so whatever we do during the day to sleep train him doesn't matter at night. We've read that the better he naps during the day the better he sleeps at night--he RARELY takes a nap longer than thirty minutes at home or at daycare. We've tried to keep him up until around 8 just so he might sleep past 6am, because when he wakes up that early one of us has to get up with him and he will play for about an hour before crying and rubbing his eyes. We only swaddle anymore as a last resort because during one night wakeup I went to him to see the flaps up near his neck; plus he's THIS close to being able to roll from his back to his stomach. So we got a Magic Merlin sleep suit a couple months ago because a friend of ours swore by it. While he slept amazingly in this thing (and looked loving adorable doing it) before, in his sleep regression it makes no real difference. He's not nuts about his paci and since he's breastfed his pediatrician said he will only be able to keep it in consistently when he takes bottles more. That's been the case lately but he is happy to spit it out. If I put him down with the paci in (if it doesn't fall out) his hands go right up there to touch it and he will eventually rip it out--if I hold his arms he squirms and that doesn't exactly help him sleep. He's getting close to being able to get it back in his mouth without getting it backwards but until then the paci has little effect unless he's on his side in my arms with his head against my underarm to hold the paci in. Basically we just need sleep and don't know when this will end or what to do, especially now that he's also in another milestone stage which has always thrown him off with sleep. AND finally, my mother-in-law suggested we try to give him some rice cereal in about an ounce of breastmilk and see if that helps. We've tried consistently but we're not sure he's ready for big boy food yet, he hasn't shown real interest in it or reached for our food but it is close to the time that the pediatrician said he might be able to eat it. I'm sure with practice he will be able to do it but for now most of it ends up on his bib.

Is this something we just have to weather for now and work to break bad sleep associations later? Or do we need to nut up and go down what seems the longest road ever with takingcarababies or something similar? I saw it mentioned a few comments up but down know who it's worked for and who it hasn't worked for. Sorry for the long post in a thread that seems chock-full of goon parents about to have nervous breakdowns from lack of sleep, but I'm interested to hear of other experiences with sleep regression and what your kids were capable of learning during this. It's pure loving hell and for the first time this week I found myself longing for the newborn days where he'd only wake up to eat and then go right back to sleep.

Yeah I'm going through the literal exact same thing. Although my wife is really starting to stress because she starts work in ~2 weeks and my schedule is about to become much less flexible. What's super frustrating is that it seems like there's a solution for just about everything baby-related (even sleep related), but with the 4 month sleep regression it's basically, "yeah do what you have to do, but you're hosed. Also here's ~*WHY*~ it's happening but there's nothing we can do". But here's what I've gleaned:

The good news is that it will end, someday. And your kid's sleep will be better (sleep through the nightier) for it.

The bad news is that it's a pretty indeterminate amount of time. I kind of did some 'article comments' digging (what's the amount of time between when someone says 'yeah this happens to me and mine' and 'okay it ended', and it seems like the median time is around 10 days. It could be 5 days. It could be a month. So you're going to have to game plan for this to be your life for a decent but uncertain amount of time.

Some people have said that it went away with solid food, and I think we're going to start trying this pretty soon. We got the okay from the pediatrician, but our kid is transitioning to daycare so we were like 'eh one step at a time'.

We also just took a step back in the sleep training in order to get him to sleep. We had just completely weaned him from the swaddle, but now, at least for naps, he gets his arms lightly stuffed inside a sleep sack, one arm out in a swaddle up during the night. This seems to help him take naps > 30 minutes. Also it seems like the best advice is to just let him wiggle around in his bed, in darkness.

As far as planning for our sleep, I think we're just going to have to alternate nights as to who stays up with him. Good luck, and I'll let you know what works.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 08:32

sebzilla: Mar 17, 2009; Kid's blasting everything in sight with that new-fangled musket.

Co-sleeping (or one of those side car bed thingies if you're not comfortable with putting a baby in your actual bed) are probably the reason why I don't really remember sleep regressions being a notable thing at all for us. If nothing else, at least you don't have to get out of bed to deal with hungry sad baby.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 09:23

femcastra: Apr 25, 2008; If you want him,
come and knit him!

We had to transition our baby to the cot at 4 months because she was so mobile, rolling both ways, doing laps of the cot.

At 5 months I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought we�d skipped the four month regression, but it reared up with a vengeance. It felt like it was never going to end, but it did. It took 5 weeks before things settled.

We had done sleep training and I stuck to the routines, but after a few sleepless nights I set myself a time limit/limit of times I tried to settle before going to plan B, rocking to sleep or nursing.

It sucks but it will get better. I was a weepy mess at night and a zombie during the day. It got better.

Good luck and be kind to yourselves, and enjoy the kid while he�s happy during the day so the nights don�t seem so bad.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 10:21

BonoMan: Feb 20, 2002; Jade Ear Joe

His Divine Shadow posted:

What the gently caress?

E: I mean, weeks? I know we bought some lovely shoes a few months ago that are worn out now, but otherwise they got shoes form last year that still work. What kind of crap do they put in stores, the environmental consequences alone of such practices ticks me off. Bad enough that shoes only last months.

I'm being a little facetious (except for a couple of pair of sparkle shoes that literally did have the soles only last a couple of weeks before starting to tear up), but generally our shoes lasting months is rare if she wears them a lot. She's also a super energetic 4 year old that plays 98% of her day.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 16:37

VorpalBunny: May 1, 2009; Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog

I have 4 kids, I swing by the local Goodwill once every few months and pick up a half dozen pairs of shoes for like $5/each. I hated buying $20 pairs that fell apart after a few weeks or so of heavy use, so I just stock up on used shoes that somehow seem to last longer than the brand new ones I was buying. I also realized for the older kids they were starting to have school events where they were supposed to wear a specific kind of shoe (black fancy, white lace-up, etc) which sucked but I usually had something from a recent Goodwill run.

# ? Oct 11, 2018 18:56

devmd01: Mar 7, 2006; Elektronik
Supersonik

I think one of the twins has a weird reaction to citrus. If he eats some oranges for breakfast, his poop in the afternoon/evening can turn his bottom red almost instantly if you don�t catch it immediately.

He just woke up screaming because he was already super red from today and then pooped some more, poor guy. No more mandarin oranges for breakfast!

# ? Oct 12, 2018 02:32

bollig: Apr 7, 2006; Never Forget.

life is killing me posted:

Dang, wish I knew this thread existed two months ago, or even last month.

Our son is five months old. He is generally a really happy baby and smiles at everyone, is fairly easy to please outside his developmental milestones making him grumpy, we assume because all the things he learns are overwhelming at times, and is overall not much of a complainer outside crying because he's sleepy or hungry.

BUT, he's been in his sleep regression lately and it's kicking his rear end and ours. We just started him in daycare last week and he seems to be able to even put himself to sleep there, but has only done this twice at home during the day and never at night. I run a business so my schedule is flexible and thus I've been at home a lot with him as he's grown and my wife has been on maternity leave, making it a lot easier to deal with night wakeups. But since she's been back at work it's been exhausting. He used to sleep really well, only waking up once a night to eat and occasionally sleeping through the night. Now everything is out of whack and it's hard to pull ourselves out of bed to put him back to sleep since he won't do it on his own. We put him down in his room about 7, he sleeps without even stirring until around 10 when we transfer him to our room and do a dream feeding before putting him in his pack n' play. Two hours later he wakes up and then it's every hour or so. Each time it's nearly impossible to get him back to sleep--neither of us has this kind of trouble for daytime naps. So by the time we do get him back to sleep it's been a half hour and whoever takes the turn is wide awake. Then, we put him in his pack n' play and he either wakes up immediately and won't take a paci or he wakes up ten or so minutes later. I'd like to point out that we do wait about five minutes before even getting up. We had also been doing takingcarababies for each wakeup, which got so old (he wasn't responding to any of it) that my wife kept getting frustrated and getting up and nursing him just so she could go back to sleep. I get up about half the time and find that while I can get him calm and "asleep" in my arms while basically doing squats (if I don't do actual squats at a rapid pace he arches his back and moves his head to cry), it's almost pointless as he just wakes right back up before I've got him halfway down toward his pack n' play. I'll admit that we probably didn't give takingcarababies enough time to take hold in his mind, and for myself I excused this by saying to my wife, "I don't know if he's capable of learning this during sleep regression."

We've read numerous articles that seem to contradict one another. We've read that his sleep brain during the day is way different than his sleep brain at night so whatever we do during the day to sleep train him doesn't matter at night. We've read that the better he naps during the day the better he sleeps at night--he RARELY takes a nap longer than thirty minutes at home or at daycare. We've tried to keep him up until around 8 just so he might sleep past 6am, because when he wakes up that early one of us has to get up with him and he will play for about an hour before crying and rubbing his eyes. We only swaddle anymore as a last resort because during one night wakeup I went to him to see the flaps up near his neck; plus he's THIS close to being able to roll from his back to his stomach. So we got a Magic Merlin sleep suit a couple months ago because a friend of ours swore by it. While he slept amazingly in this thing (and looked loving adorable doing it) before, in his sleep regression it makes no real difference. He's not nuts about his paci and since he's breastfed his pediatrician said he will only be able to keep it in consistently when he takes bottles more. That's been the case lately but he is happy to spit it out. If I put him down with the paci in (if it doesn't fall out) his hands go right up there to touch it and he will eventually rip it out--if I hold his arms he squirms and that doesn't exactly help him sleep. He's getting close to being able to get it back in his mouth without getting it backwards but until then the paci has little effect unless he's on his side in my arms with his head against my underarm to hold the paci in. Basically we just need sleep and don't know when this will end or what to do, especially now that he's also in another milestone stage which has always thrown him off with sleep. AND finally, my mother-in-law suggested we try to give him some rice cereal in about an ounce of breastmilk and see if that helps. We've tried consistently but we're not sure he's ready for big boy food yet, he hasn't shown real interest in it or reached for our food but it is close to the time that the pediatrician said he might be able to eat it. I'm sure with practice he will be able to do it but for now most of it ends up on his bib.

Is this something we just have to weather for now and work to break bad sleep associations later? Or do we need to nut up and go down what seems the longest road ever with takingcarababies or something similar? I saw it mentioned a few comments up but down know who it's worked for and who it hasn't worked for. Sorry for the long post in a thread that seems chock-full of goon parents about to have nervous breakdowns from lack of sleep, but I'm interested to hear of other experiences with sleep regression and what your kids were capable of learning during this. It's pure loving hell and for the first time this week I found myself longing for the newborn days where he'd only wake up to eat and then go right back to sleep.

Hey this is just an update, but we are taking this as an opportunity to sleep train. That seems to be the solution to the 4 month sleep regression: teach self soothing.

# ? Oct 12, 2018 11:48

InsensitiveSeaBass: Apr 1, 2008; You're entering a realm which is unusual. Maybe it's magic, or contains some kind of monster... The second one. Prepare to enter The Scary Door.; Nap Ghost

bollig posted:

Hey this is just an update, but we are taking this as an opportunity to sleep train. That seems to be the solution to the 4 month sleep regression: teach self soothing.

Keep it up. My boy is 9 months and we've at least got him to understand the cues we are putting him down for a nap. It doesn't always work immediately, but the bathroom fan provides good white nose for whining. He'll cry through a sound proof booth however.

# ? Oct 12, 2018 16:14

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

https://twitter.com/yipe/status/1005555741153902592

# ? Oct 12, 2018 17:46

WarpDogs: May 1, 2009; I'm just a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there's no way anyone can prove otherwise.

jokes you, Alexa, the baby always wins

# ? Oct 12, 2018 18:44

Panfilo: Aug 27, 2011; Can't post for 12 days!

Dr Strange: "I've jumped into 23 billion alternate futures to see how things play out."

Mom: "How many of them have us get the baby to sleep through the night?"

Dr Strange: "One."

Mom : :qq:

# ? Oct 13, 2018 01:00

a podcast for cats: Jun 22, 2005; Dogs reading from an artifact buried in the ruins of our civilization, "We were assholes- " and writing solemnly, "They were assholes."; Soiled Meat

She's 6 months old now and very intent to become vertical as soon as possible. She has been pulling herself up to the cotbed railings, the coffee table, the TV unit, etc to a position where she's sitting on her knees with her back straight up. Today she started trying to move sideways along whatever support she has grabbed onto. From what my wife has found in non-English language sources, supposedly it's not a good thing as her bone structure and vestibular system may not be up to the task yet.

Any cause for concern?

# ? Oct 13, 2018 10:27

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

Other than her falling over and hirting herself, not really. I'm extremely sceptical that babies can do themselves any harm by standing up early.

# ? Oct 13, 2018 10:38

sheri: Dec 30, 2002

It's an old wives tail.
They are fine doing it.

# ? Oct 13, 2018 17:24

bollig: Apr 7, 2006; Never Forget.

InsensitiveSeaBass posted:

Keep it up. My boy is 9 months and we've at least got him to understand the cues we are putting him down for a nap. It doesn't always work immediately, but the bathroom fan provides good white nose for whining. He'll cry through a sound proof booth however.

It's too bad but we're going to have to go with the Ferber method. He just got quiet after 40 minutes of crying. I had really been pushing, early on to just get him in the habit of going down awake but drowsy but my wife would 'accidentally' let him fall asleep feeding and such. And here we are a month later, listening to him scream.

# ? Oct 13, 2018 19:10

skeetied: Mar 10, 2011

bollig posted:

It's too bad but we're going to have to go with the Ferber method. He just got quiet after 40 minutes of crying. I had really been pushing, early on to just get him in the habit of going down awake but drowsy but my wife would 'accidentally' let him fall asleep feeding and such. And here we are a month later, listening to him scream.

No matter whether you support sleep training or not, it�s ridiculous to blame your wife for �letting� him fall asleep while feeding. The four month sleep regression is a major developmental sleep milestone that happens no matter what and most reputable sleep training sources do not recommend sleep training before six months as a result (it�s also tied to failure to thrive). I hope your wife is pumping for any missed feeds if she is still breastfeeding.

# ? Oct 13, 2018 20:55

femcastra: Apr 25, 2008; If you want him,
come and knit him!

The thing I think that�s really important is to be supportive of each other even if you feel you would make different choices.

Before sleep training I used to rock or pat to sleep, and sometimes coslept to get her through. It doesn�t hurt the baby to give extra comfort and to know that there�s milk available, and at four months, everything is in flux.

I am a convert after doing sleep training after I saw the results but I will still do whatever it takes to help my baby sleep if she�s having a rough night and the routines aren�t working. When I have another one, I will be probably changing my approach so sleep training isn�t so hard, but feeding to sleep or rocking to sleep is not a failure, and I will happily do it if the baby needs it. A lot of the mums in my mother�s group who had the routines down from day one suffered hard during sleep regressions.

Sleep training is hard and requires compassion between the two of you. Even with my routines in place, sleep regression and illness require a plan B, and sometimes (often) that will be something outside your routines.

# ? Oct 14, 2018 10:21

bollig: Apr 7, 2006; Never Forget.

skeetied posted:

No matter whether you support sleep training or not, it�s ridiculous to blame your wife for �letting� him fall asleep while feeding. The four month sleep regression is a major developmental sleep milestone that happens no matter what and most reputable sleep training sources do not recommend sleep training before six months as a result (it�s also tied to failure to thrive). I hope your wife is pumping for any missed feeds if she is still breastfeeding.

Man yeah reading that over I came off as a dick, everyone's a bit tired over here. Not blaming her at all, it was a host of issues, but what did help a lot is separating the feeding from the actual putting-to-bed in the bedtime routine. We had been trying put down drowsy but awake. I basically take care of him in the mornings. Some days I was pretty successful for his first two naps and it was the days when I wasn't successful, I looked in the ol sleep journal and saw that it was very often the day after someone had let him fall asleep in their arms, immediately after feeding (although that could be correlated with something different). Not an insurmountable hurdle, but then he started to be able to roll and we had to switch to weaning him from the swaddle. We got the 4 months sleep regression a bit late, he's a little more than 5mo now. With that, advice from the local mother and father advice center and the fact that we will both be working full time in a week or so, we decided to go for it. We had basically run out the clock on more gentler methods. Definitely pumping for missed feeds.

# ? Oct 14, 2018 11:18

Slimy Hog: Apr 22, 2008

Speaking of sleep training, we did it and re-did it after each thing that would interrupt his sleep (teething, getting shots, etc).

Last night he was just unable to fall asleep and I felt sooooo bad. He went to bed initially just fine, but after a few hours he woke up, cried and started to soothe himself. After 40 mins of trying to soothe himself to sleep he gave up and started wailing. My wife ended up feeding him then spending last night in his room so they both could get some sleep.

Sleep training rocks, but as femcastra said, there's going to be situations where something happens and you'll need to re-adjust.

# ? Oct 14, 2018 15:32

WarpDogs: May 1, 2009; I'm just a normal, functioning member of the human race, and there's no way anyone can prove otherwise.

My favorite sleep book says that bad habits are only bad when they become habits. Regressions suck and it's perfectly fine to fall back on things like holding to sleep, bouncing, and all the other 'bad practices' that you should otherwise avoid to get through it. Just make sure it isn't December and you're still doing it

That said, don't be afraid to (gently) hold each other accountable for things you both agree on. It's easy to let "oh, just this once" turn into something you do regularly if nobody reminds you it isn't good

# ? Oct 15, 2018 05:50

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Since we're on the topic of sleep issues, anyone have hints/literature on how to fix terrible ingrained sleep related habits? We're at 14 months now, and we're STILL bouncing her on a swing to get her to sleep, and then having her sleep next to us so that she can be soothed and/or fed on the many times she fusses during the night. It's exhausting.

# ? Oct 15, 2018 06:17

Slimy Hog: Apr 22, 2008

Freezer posted:

Since we're on the topic of sleep issues, anyone have hints/literature on how to fix terrible ingrained sleep related habits? We're at 14 months now, and we're STILL bouncing her on a swing to get her to sleep, and then having her sleep next to us so that she can be soothed and/or fed on the many times she fusses during the night. It's exhausting.

That's a big part of what we used Ferber for, removing those sleep associations and allowing the child to learn to soothe themselves to sleep. That being said I'm sure every other sleep book also deals with this problem since it seems so prevalent.

# ? Oct 15, 2018 15:22

sullat: Jan 9, 2012

There's a reason that sleep deprivation is a part of torture. Both the folks at Gitmo and your babies are using it to help break you down and make you more malleable to either confessing to anything or getting them more milk. There's really no way to fight it if they're determined enough. Just go get them the milk.

# ? Oct 15, 2018 17:49

2DEG: Apr 13, 2011; If I hear the words "luck dragon" one more time, so fucking help me...

We're going through some broken sleep torture right now with our 3.5 month old, but it's due to the little dude being congested. We've tried everything: saline and suction 4x/day, humidifier (didn't do jack), and running the shower on super hot and sitting in the bathroom (same). Even if there's nothing left to suck, it still sounds like something's obstructing his breathing. So it's either way up in his sinuses, or just dry inflammation. I've elevated his bassinette, we'll see how he sleeps tonight, but I'm not holding out much hope. Poor little guy is up every 90 minutes at night, and I flush his nose and hold him upright so he can fall back asleep. He's fine when I put him down and can sleep a bit, but as soon as he shifts, he wakes himself up with his snorts and starts wailing.

No fever, snot is yellow at worst, and only in the mornings, so unless this goes on for what, two weeks (?), I don't think the ped will tell us to do anything different.

Just tell me this will end goons, I'm a wreck.

At least I'll already be broken in once this passes and the 4 month regression rolls in :shepicide:

# ? Oct 16, 2018 16:20

Ben Nevis: Jan 20, 2011

Not much suggestion there as we had about the same experience. Just be aware that long terms colds (particularly with colored snot) can turn into ear infections. Tugging at the ear, crying when laid flat, and a fever are some signs to look out for.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 17:01

Dr. Chaco: Mar 30, 2005

2DEG posted:

We're going through some broken sleep torture right now with our 3.5 month old, but it's due to the little dude being congested. We've tried everything: saline and suction 4x/day, humidifier (didn't do jack), and running the shower on super hot and sitting in the bathroom (same). Even if there's nothing left to suck, it still sounds like something's obstructing his breathing. So it's either way up in his sinuses, or just dry inflammation. I've elevated his bassinette, we'll see how he sleeps tonight, but I'm not holding out much hope. Poor little guy is up every 90 minutes at night, and I flush his nose and hold him upright so he can fall back asleep. He's fine when I put him down and can sleep a bit, but as soon as he shifts, he wakes himself up with his snorts and starts wailing.

No fever, snot is yellow at worst, and only in the mornings, so unless this goes on for what, two weeks (?), I don't think the ped will tell us to do anything different.

Just tell me this will end goons, I'm a wreck.

At least I'll already be broken in once this passes and the 4 month regression rolls in

Nothing is forever, hang in there!

We definitely have had nights where baby only slept upright, which means we took turns sitting up with him in a carrier for 2 hour shifts. Fortunately it never lasted more than 2 or 3 nights, and it was rough but it was better than both of us waking up every time he woke up and having to struggle to put him back down only to repeat it in another hour.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 17:02

Alterian: Jan 28, 2003

My husband and I also do "on call" shifts so that at least we're both not waking up all the time. One of us will sleep on the couch with our kid in the bassinet and switch every x hours (unless he stays sleeping then no reason to switch until he wakes again) At least then you're guaranteed a chunk of sleep so its not so bad. I don't want to jinx it, but we haven't had to do this for a long time. He's been going to bed around 9 and waking up once anywhere between 2:30 and 4:30 for a half hour to an hour before going back to sleep. If he wakes up on the earlier end, I deal with him, if he wakes up on the later end, my husband does because he usually just stays up.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 18:13

Douche4Sale: May 8, 2003; ...and then God said, "Let there be douche!"

We've used a nebulizer, which you can rent or buy, along with an albuterol rx, for really bad colds in the past. Might be worth bringing up to your pediatrician.

Doing it first in the morning, right before nap and bedtime worked wonders for his sleep.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 20:09

Panfilo: Aug 27, 2011; Can't post for 12 days!

sullat posted:

There's a reason that sleep deprivation is a part of torture. Both the folks at Gitmo and your babies are using it to help break you down and make you more malleable to either confessing to anything or getting them more milk. There's really no way to fight it if they're determined enough. Just go get them the milk.

The only bright spot about it is there are people that, pre-baby, could never relax enough to take a nap /sleep in a car/go to sleep early in advance of needing to get up early the next day. And then they have a baby that is running on its own little baby timetable, and so the second that parent doesn't need to feed/care for them /work, they can instantly sleep like a rock.

The most productive thing you can do when your kid takes a nap? Take one yourself :feelsgood:

# ? Oct 16, 2018 21:11

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

2DEG posted:

We're going through some broken sleep torture right now with our 3.5 month old, but it's due to the little dude being congested. We've tried everything: saline and suction 4x/day, humidifier (didn't do jack), and running the shower on super hot and sitting in the bathroom (same). Even if there's nothing left to suck, it still sounds like something's obstructing his breathing. So it's either way up in his sinuses, or just dry inflammation. I've elevated his bassinette, we'll see how he sleeps tonight, but I'm not holding out much hope. Poor little guy is up every 90 minutes at night, and I flush his nose and hold him upright so he can fall back asleep. He's fine when I put him down and can sleep a bit, but as soon as he shifts, he wakes himself up with his snorts and starts wailing.

No fever, snot is yellow at worst, and only in the mornings, so unless this goes on for what, two weeks (?), I don't think the ped will tell us to do anything different.

Just tell me this will end goons, I'm a wreck.

At least I'll already be broken in once this passes and the 4 month regression rolls in

If the lil' dude is congested but there's not a lot of mucous, it's probably a sinus inflammation of some kind. A anti-inflammatory drug like Ibuprofen would probably clear that poo poo right out for about four hours and let both of you get some sleep.

Can you give anti-inflammatory drugs to babies? I have no idea, but I'd ask your doctor.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 22:54

Alterian: Jan 28, 2003

Geisladisk posted:

If the lil' dude is congested but there's not a lot of mucous, it's probably a sinus inflammation of some kind. A anti-inflammatory drug like Ibuprofen would probably clear that poo poo right out for about four hours and let both of you get some sleep.

Can you give anti-inflammatory drugs to babies? I have no idea, but I'd ask your doctor.

Not till they are 6 months.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 23:01

grenada: Apr 20, 2013; Relax.

My 6-mo daughter had a cold that lasted for about 4-5 weeks and turned into an ear infection in both ears. The ped put her on amoxicillin, and she finally seemed to knock it and was congestion-free for a week, but now seems to have caught another cold (which she has since given to me). The joys of the petri dish that is day care!

# ? Oct 16, 2018 23:09

femcastra: Apr 25, 2008; If you want him,
come and knit him!

Yeah we are going through the starting day care germ gauntlet too. Sick twice with two different things after one week (3 days) of care. Now I�ve got what she had and I can see why she was so miserable.

# ? Oct 16, 2018 23:39

life is killing me: Oct 28, 2007

Sorry it took me awhile to get back here and respond! We took our son down to Austin for a wedding where he was very stimulated all day from family and friends so he slept decently, and the few days before that he slept well and only woke up once per night so I thought we were out of the worst. We were wrong. I figure the milestone he's in (according to The Wonder Weeks it's his fifth leap) just makes it worse.

Bardeh posted:

It feels kinda flippant to write such a short reply after such a long post but....it'll pass. Do what you gotta do to get through. If that's co-sleeping for a little while with him, or setting up a bed in his room next to him, my advice would be just to do it.

Not sure my wife is up for co-sleeping and at any rate he may be too big at this point for a bassinet on the bed. We are terrified of rolling over on him. And I get the flippancy! If that's all there is to it, not much else to say either way.

WarpDogs posted:

Phew, that sounds rough. I think a lot of that is typical regression stuff that you just need to weather through, but there's some things you might be doing to make it worse

I'd say it's definitely sleep association related as waking up once an hour is the classic symptom of one. If I had to guess I'd say it's probably nursing, but it might also be he wakes up and realizes he's not in the same room he fell asleep in and that could be bothering him a lot

Do you need to transfer rooms? From your post it sounds like you're waking him up just to nurse and that seems like a bad idea to me.

I've brought up the idea of having him sleep 100% in his room from now on and my wife isn't emotionally ready for that apparently. I've been emotionally ready since we started putting him down for naps in there because I'm already a light sleeper and that's when I CAN sleep. As to sleep associations, yeah, we've been bad about sleep training I admit. For my wife's part, by the time she's done with work she's exhausted. So during wakeups, she's so tired mostly that she can really only muster whipping out the boob and my protests aren't usually received well. I offer to get up and do the sleep training and when it fails to get him to sleep she still has to get up and whip it out. We already do wait a few minutes to pick him up when he starts to cry and his teachers at daycare manage to get him down for naps now without rocking him. But at night he's so resistant to going back to sleep it's hard not to lose patience.

Transferring rooms has been the practice and up until recently he's done just fine with the transfer and dream feed. His pediatrician even told us to keep doing it if that makes him go longer between wakeups. But it's since slowly stopped working as effectively. I suppose I could try to convince my wife to start putting him down in his pack n' play in our room so we don't do the transfer, we have two cameras and if I needed to mount the second in there it wouldn't be a big deal. If we get him down late, we put him in there anyway so as not to wake him up when we go to bed after he's been asleep an hour, and we just keep the door cracked so we can hear if he wakes up.

He's changed his sleep schedule on us so much lately, going back and forth between waking up once to waking up a few nights in a row six or seven times. Our parents keep saying we seem exhausted, and we are. It hasn't helped with me getting drowsy during the day from atomoxetine, either.

bollig posted:

Hey this is just an update, but we are taking this as an opportunity to sleep train. That seems to be the solution to the 4 month sleep regression: teach self soothing.

What has your pediatrician said about self-soothing? We have been under the belief that he's not quite capable of it yet, but about a month or two ago he started sucking on his hands and his thumb (which we've been trying to break him of, we'd rather him suck on a paci than on a germ-infested hand). He is also slowly learning, on his own and without prompting or training from us, to put his paci back in his mouth when he spits it out. He sometimes seems to spit it out just so he can put it back in. He gets it backward most of the time but we've caught him a couple times doing it like a champ. But he can't FIND the paci if he loses it at night, and we're looking forward to him catching up with his middle cousin who can wake up, find his paci in pitch dark, throw it back in his mouth and go back to sleep.

All of that is to say, we don't know where he's at with self-soothing because he still cries through his paci if he's pissed enough, and spits it out sometimes on purpose. He can stay calm-ish for like 15-20 seconds with his hands in his mouth but goes back to crying again.

# ? Oct 17, 2018 16:34

2DEG: Apr 13, 2011; If I hear the words "luck dragon" one more time, so fucking help me...

Yeah, there's not much you can give to <6 month old babies.

femcastra posted:

Yeah we are going through the starting day care germ gauntlet too. Sick twice with two different things after one week (3 days) of care. Now I�ve got what she had and I can see why she was so miserable.

Starting to come down with his cold now. I've never thought to appreciate the skill of being able to breathe through my mouth, yet here we are.

This is our first rodeo, so looking forward to the new and exciting diseases we'll get from the roulette-o-misery. I hear foot and mouth is a fun one :thumbsup:

# ? Oct 17, 2018 16:38

Bardeh: Dec 2, 2004; Fun Shoe

2DEG posted:

Starting to come down with his cold now. I've never thought to appreciate the skill of being able to breathe through my mouth, yet here we are.

This is our first rodeo, so looking forward to the new and exciting diseases we'll get from the roulette-o-misery. I hear foot and mouth is a fun one

I feel for you. When my son first started school it felt like we were all sick for months. It was completely miserable, just a non-stop cavalcade of various viruses. Good times.

# ? Oct 17, 2018 17:39

wizzardstaff: Apr 6, 2018; Zorch! Splat! Pow!

Due to scenarios involving contribution periods and bad predictions too boring to detail here, my wife and I find ourselves in the position of needing to spend $300 on FSA-eligible products within the next 48 hours. (And we need to spend another $1000 before the end of the year.) We're normally pretty healthy people but she's expecting our first kid in January so we figure this is a good time to stock up on baby supplies.

We've been browsing the FSA store and are aware of the big-ticket items like breast pumps and orthopedic support pillows, but what is some of the smaller miscellaneous medical equipment you found invaluable for a newborn, and what is just junk? I'm talking thermometers, nose cleaning enemas, rectal catheters to help with tummy gas, etc.

# ? Oct 17, 2018 17:53

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# ? May 30, 2024 19:31

FunOne: Aug 20, 2000; I am a slimey vat of concentrated stupidity; Fun Shoe

wizzardstaff posted:

Due to scenarios involving contribution periods and bad predictions too boring to detail here, my wife and I find ourselves in the position of needing to spend $300 on FSA-eligible products within the next 48 hours.

Eye glasses? Dental work? Contacts? Lots of things that are FSA friendly.

# ? Oct 17, 2018 17:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Parenting Megathread: Babies are like TARDIS, much bigger on the inside.

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