January 2010 Young Infant Thread

[PoppyJ]

Me: 34 and counting.....
DH: 39 and counting....
Avery: 2.5 yo
Gage: 3.5 months

I have decided to start a thread for younger infants (around 6 months and younger). Hopefully we will be as successful and supportive as the older infant thread. I've done a lot of lurking on the other thread. What a great group of ladies...and some darn cute kids to boot.

Gage is 3.5 months old. He is such a cute and happy baby. He is really generous with his smiles and loves to flirt with strangers. He is also very fond of doing raspberries. We have some issues though....sleeping and eating being the greatest as I am sure it is for everyone at this stage.

Sleeping: I have created a monster. He will only sleep on me or in the swing. He might nap for 5 to 10 minutes in the car seat, but if I even try to place him in his crib, he screams. So I spend all night, sitting up in bed, holding him while he sleeps/eats. My body is really starting to ache from doing this. I think part of the problem is that at the very beginning I did not want his crying to wake up his sister so I always picked him up the second he even started to fuss. At least he will nap in the swing. Any suggestions on breaking him of this habit? I have started to side nurse him and try to get him to sleep on the bed and not on me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Also, anyone with two kids- how do you get the second one on a schedule? I am dragging poor Gage to all of Avery's activities and he has no hope of a schedule. Maybe it is the curse of the second child.

Eating- Gage is a great eater and is already at the weight Avery was at at 7 months. Avery was/is really tiny though. My biggest problem is that he refuses to take a bottle. I cannot leave the house for more than an hour and I am starting to feel really trapped.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.

[MinEaston]

Poppy, I hope your week is going a little bit better.

Question: what time does your LO go to bed "for the night" at 4 months or so of age? I cannot remember when Anna used to go down, and I think I'm letting Nicholas go too long, which is making it harder to get him to stay down for that first hour. Last night I did get him down by 7:20 or so, and while I had to pat him a couple of times, (ducking) he stayed down until 7:20 this morning

[PoppyJ]

Stayed down until 7:20?!?!? You did not even have to feed him?!? Jealous!

I am starting to try to get Gage down at 7:00-7:30 depending on his last nap. He does sleep better (2-3 hours before waking) if he gets to sleep earlier. I cannot even estimate how many times he is waking since he is on me the whole night and the bar is open all night for him. ;):rolleyes:

[linsleyd]

Poppy, I feel for you and I can so see being in the same pattern if we were to have another child!

We have a different situation since I don't get home until 7 at night. As soon as I walk in the door I feed or bathe and then feed. She'll be fine and sit in the bouncy while we eat dinner. Then I'll feed her again or we'll hold her and as soon as I see the rubbing of the eyes I take her up to her room and feed her and put her down. So, we're looking at anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 that she goes down. She still wakes up to eat every two hours, though.

We tried rice cereal again last night and she does not like it. I then opened a jar of butternut squash and she seemed to hate it less but we're not too sure if she actually ate any of it. BUT - she is beginning to turn her head away so I think we're getting closer to her being ready to really eat. I think we'll continue trying a bit here and there until she turns six months and then we'll be more persistent/consistent with solids.