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@Corduroy: we haven't had to buy any clothes for Ellie either! My niece is 7 mos older than E so we get everything she's outgrown. So nice to not have to worry about buying clothes that they'll grow out of so fast.
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Such big babies we all have!
@Jess1483: thanks for the links. Those are great!
@78h2o: glad to hear your extra pumping sessions are working out!Here is W's 4 month photo. We have his appointment Monday.
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So cute!! We're about a month behind all of you
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We have lots of big babies!
E was 16 lb 7 oz (89%) at her 4 month appointment and was also (80%) for height. I'm impressed so many of you are already in 6-9 month clothes! Even with our high percentiles, E still fits in 3-6 just fine!
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@Eko: he is too freakin cute!
@LindsayInNY: look at her cute smile. Love her bow! -
E put on one of DS1's shirts yesterday at my parents' house. P had worn it last week. It fit e quite nicely. Yikes.
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I am another with a big baby. I'm guessing he'll be close to 18 lbs at his 4 month appt in 2 weeks. The dude is in 3-6 month outfits, although some are a little snug - certain brands fit weird on him.
Tell me about the babies' sleep! Am I completely delaying my baby by having him in the room with us still? He sleeps next to me in the rock n play because he's still waking up in the night to eat - we had just started getting 6-7 hours and now we're back to 3 hour chunks
We still use a swaddle, which he now escapes from every night, and that wakes him up, and he refuses to go back to sleep until he nurses. We've tried using no swaddle and we get the same 3 hour chunks. I need some troubleshooting tips and tricks for better sleep!
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@just_ju: E has been in her crib in her room since the day we brought her home from the hospital, so we do have somewhat different situations. E is sleeping in footed sleepers at this point. We stopped swaddling a little after three months old.
We are getting 8 to 10 hours stretches of sleep from E at this point. Personally, I am of the belief that you can train babies to be better sleepers. At the advice and recommendation of our pediatrician, if E wakes up before she truly needs to eat, we just let her cry herself back to sleep. 3-4 month olds do not need to eat every three hours throughout the night. They just want to sometimes! So you can teach them that they don't actually need bottles then.
We started doing this at two months (with a shorter length of time expected for sleep) and have just stretched out that time as E has continued to get older. At this point, if she wakes up too early she very quickly settles herself and goes back to sleep.
I know letting babies cry is not always everyone's cup of tea or belief but it has worked wonderfully for us!
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@LindsayInNY: super cute!!
@Mrs.KMM: W grows out of his cloths in length before weight. He's around the 80% similar to E. We are in 6 month cloths, not even close in 6-9. He likely could still fit in some 3-6, but we would have to buy them and with it getting colder I opted just to buy 6 month cloths so they will last longer. Plus, I like them a little loose.
@Jess1483: lol! That's funny how different your babies are.
@just_ju: W still sleeps in our room. In fact we co-sleep, which wasn't our original intention. Also, we stopped swaddling him because he didn't like it. He uses mostly footed pajamas, but on really cold nights we just use a sack. Sounds like possibly you might have hit the 4 month sleep regression? I've had a couple nights where W woke up more frequently to eat. I do try to sometimes hold him off with a pacifier and that worked a few times. But, could be he just hit that growth spurt. DS is hungry all the time and we recently decided to start adding rice in his formula (to also help with his reflux), you could ask your dr. about that.
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@just_ju: I'm im the same boat as you. I have Ellie In her PNP right next to the bed. If I don't swaddle her she won't go to sleep and if she does break out of it she wakes herself up. Her arms are always flailing around. She gets up 1-2 times a night. I feel like she shouldn't be hungry but I feed her anyways because she will scream until she nurses. We've tried to let her CIO a couple times but it hasn't really worked for us. She just keeps screaming. During the day she will not nap unless I'm holding her the second I try to set her down anywhere she wakes up screaming. Idk what happened she used to be a good napper and a decent sleeper at night. Hopefully it's just a phase
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Just got done with W's 4 month checkup and he weighed 15lb. 8 oz. (48%) and was 26" (83%) Crazy he doesn't weigh more given how much he eats.
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DS is in a crib in his own room. He's been there for a little over a month. I held him on the couch for two months (this kid must think he's a first born). He started sleeping more and more seconds, minutes, and finally hours in his crib over time.
He slept through the night for a few weeks. Then we went to the in laws for a week and he's woken up at least once since. He's been sick, had a time change, and now shots so he's been dealing with a lot. I'm guessing things will get a lot worse before they get better due to the 4 month regression. Great time to go back to work.
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@Corduroy: how did the crib transition go? As in how was it at first and how long did it take him to get adjusted? We want to crib transition him and he cries as soon as we put him there and are comfortable with him crying a little but, but nothing excessive. Our dr. didnt even recommend crying for longer then 20 minutes.
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@Eko: The "method" we use in the crib is that we let him cry (like, full-on cry) for about 2 minutes, then we'll go in and spend 3-5 minutes soothing, then leave, then if he cries 3-5 minutes, we spend 3-5 soothing, etc. If it doesn't work a third time soothing I either feed (if it's in the middle of the night), or transition back to his comfortable sleep space (the swing for us) for naps. He's been in the crib since about 1.5 months now solidly. Occasionally he uses the swing when he's struggling.
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@Eko: I haven't been able to put DS down unless he is already asleep. At first he would wake up instantly when I set him down. I would get him asleep again (by nursing) and put him down again. For whatever reason he's always needed to be put down twice (as did my LO1 at this age). Sometimes it's five minutes apart, sometimes 30. The first week or so he wouldn't go back down after his first wake up so I ended up holding him the rest of the night in a recliner. Second week he would sleep in the crib until his second wake up. Third week he was sleeping until 3am and then wanting to be held. After that he slept through the night in the crib.
I don't think I would let DS CIO at this point. He is just bately learning to self soothe. However, we did sleep train DD with CIO for falling asleep at 16 weeks and it was the absolute best decision for us. She was a colicky baby that cried a lot so I think she was better at comforting herself. She cried less during less training than on a typical night. I think your intuition will guide you to the right method for your LO.
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@Eko: We haven't crib transitioned yet, but did move J to a PNP from an RNP. The transition went okay. We did do full on CIO. He's stubborn as a mule sometimes. Some days, he'll fall asleep easy and other nights not so much. The past couple of nights, he's talked himself to sleep by cooing and nomming on his hands. We tried some formula with him to see if that would stop the constant wakeups. It worked well for two days and then nothing the past couple of them. Tonight, I'm feeding him a long time and wearing him out with a long tummy time before bed.
ETA: This time around, I haven't held him asleep for naps or bedtimes. I've fallen asleep a few times, but have not intentionally held him to sleep. Breaking him of the rocking in the RNP has been the hard part so far since it was an easy thing to slip into.
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@Jess1483: @cascademom: thanks for the information! It's so hard to figure out what works.
@Corduroy: your LO sounds a lot like DS. He falls asleep when I feed him, sleeps for about 20 minutes and I have to put him back down again. Maybe something like what you do might work for us too.
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@Eko: With your LO falling asleep while eating, I would suggest that when he falls asleep, transition then. Do a couple quick bounces or rocks and set him down. It's what I do with J as long as I haven't fallen asleep while nursing (happens a lot more this time than last time!).
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@cascademom: I do do that but even if he sleeps through the whole bottle he wakes up the moment I put him in there.
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@Eko So, LO was in the RnP and swaddled at night until 10 weeks, and swaddled in the crib for naps. She began busting out of the swaddle during nap, and I was nervous to leave the RnP to go to the crib at night since she was sleeping from 9:00-6:00. But, we transitioned using Merlin's Magic Sleepsuit, and it has worked wonderfully. She immediately slept 8:00-7:00. We are having one wake up a night now, I think it's just the sleep regression.
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Well DS fell asleep in his crib with very mimimal crying. Only had to check on him twice. We shall see how the remainder of the night goes.
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We heard from the pediatrician today that pediatric surgery team decided LOs slightly crooked butt crack does not appear to be tethered spine. Yay! No need for an MRI or surgery. Had to share since it's such a relief.
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@Corduroy: that's great news!!
W ended up waking up an hour after falling asleep. I tried for a couple minutes to calm him back down but he ended up scratching himself and got hysterical, so back in his normal spot for the rest of the night. It was kind of nice because he then slept in until 7. Think I'm just going to stick with getting him to fall asleep in his bed first and not worry as much as the motn wake ups. Hopefully he will start getting used to it and his wake ups will just naturally get spread out.
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On another note (not that I've become a thread jacker or anything), I go back to work tomorrow and am having such mixed emotions about it. I know we will all do great, but I definitely have developed a hatred towards changes when it comes to DS.
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@Mrs.KMM: I feel dumb asking this but how do you know if she "truly" needs to eat?
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Since most of your LOs are older... Did they go through the 4 month sleep regression? DD was an amazing sleeper - all night, easily 10 hours, it was amazing! Lately she's been waking once (occasionally not at all still) and I don't know why. We traveled this past weekend as well as two weekends prior (airplane travel) and I'm back at work so I don't know if that's playing into things? I read what everyone does for sleep and I feel so clueless! She's typically down 9-9:30ish, sometimes falls asleep while nursing, sometimes we let the swing put her to sleep and then move her already swaddled into her hammock bed thing. Last night was terrible getting her to bed but we think it might be due to gassiness. How do I know if she's hungry when she wakes up in the middle of the night or not? I'd love to not have to get up but if I leave her crying, I'll be up anyways. HELP please!!
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@LindsayInNY: my rule is I will give a few cycles of trying to resettle (3-5 minutes crying , 3-5 soothing.) On the third time, I feed.
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@LindsayInNY: We went off what our pediatrician told us. He said she didn't need to eat overnight any more often than every 3-4 hours at 1 month, 5-6 hours at 2 months, and 8-10 hours now at 4 months. He said he wouldn't be surprised to see that stretch to a full 12 hours at night without eating by her 6 month appointment.
So we've just gradually extended to time we make her sleep and/or self-soothe as she gets older and is successfully achieving the timing. For example, we wouldn't got feed until 7 hours after she went to bed and she was doing that super consistently so now we've bumped it to 8 hours before we'll go feed. We're hoping to gradually work up to the full 12 hours over the next 1-1.5 months.
I will note that, through this process, E has gotten really good at self-soothing and putting herself back to sleep. At this point she typically doesn't fuss for more than 5 minutes (if she wakes up too soon to eat).
For example, last night she went to bed at 10:30pm. She woke up around 5am (6.5 hours) so I let her fuss and she was back to sleep in about 5-6 minutes. She then slept until a little after 8am (over 9.5 hours from going to bed) so I immediately go feed her a bottle. She then fell back asleep for another almost 2.5 hours then was up for the day.
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@LindsayInNY: DS just turned 4 months last Friday and I don't think we have hit a sleep regression yet. He has consistently woken up once to eat. He has had a couple nights where he woke up twice and lately it's been difficult for him to fall asleep. Usually my solution always involves the pacifier. With motn wake ups I'll offer it and if he doesn't go back to bed right away I'll give him a bottle. He gets a lot of soothing from it so if it doesn't work then I know he's hungry.
Our sleep schedule is usually sleeping at 8, then he will wake at 4am and usually results in a feed. He doesn't get another bottle until 9. Last night he didn't go to sleep until 9-9:30 and he slept in until 7.
My doctor commented that his sleep is really good. Maybe it's just a phase? I've had a few rough nights when he was about 3.5 months.
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@hocuspocus: it sounds like our babies are very similar - I can very rarely put him down when he's napping, and when it does work, it's only for half an hour max. Mine has never really been a great sleeper though, except in the car. Hoping we find a solution to the sleep issues soon!
@Eko: we sometimes co-sleep also - typically when he wakes up at 3 and won't go back to sleep without snuggles and food. I'm breastfeeding exclusively - he's only had a bottle once, when he was 4 days old, so adding rice cereal isn't an option. I used a paci last night, but I would prefer to not start that habit
It's so tricky.I'm thinking that maybe it's a growth spurt/sleep regression/swaddle transition/getting over a cold that's contributing to our wacky sleep. Hopefully we get back to our 5-6 hour stretches soon.
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the embryo transfer that resulted in our sweet baby boy. He's changed a lot in that year, don't ya think?
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@LindsayInNY: I think our babies are closer in age (my daughter was born 6/24). She still wakes up once at night, occasionally twice. Typically she is down for the night between 8-930. She usually wakes up again around 3-4am. Last night was atypical in that she woke up at midnight. Not sure what that was about! She then didn't get up again until closer to 630. I still nurse her when she wakes up. We are just starting to see signs of self soothing (wants her pacifier, will suck on her hands) but she is still swaddled and does still have to be rocked back to sleep.
We plan to transition to her crib in the next month and try to have her learn how to go down more on her own. We will see if the 4 mo sleep regression hits and ruins that or not.
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...I meant to note that she currently sleeps in a pack n play in our room and naps in her crib.
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4mo shots today and i am all nerves about it. i never sweated this stuff with LO1 but i'm crazy mama bear with my boy. somebody tell me they're feeling the same. wishing you ladies all the best!
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@Mrs.KMM: Did you ped specify if that was for formula fed babies, or does he believe that's true for all babies? Just curious because I was always told EBF babies might be truly hungry 1-2x during the night. I will ask my lactation consultant next time I see her. It would be nice if I could train her to sleep all night, but I fear that might not be possible while she's EBF?
Holly is doing well enough sleep wise. I usually nurse her until she is content and sleepy, then put her in her sleep sack and lay her in her crib. Sometimes she goes right to sleep, other times she cries or fusses for 5-10 min. I always tell myself I'll go get her if she ramps up or goes beyond 10 min then I'll get her, but she always falls asleep. If she doesn't look sleepy after nursing, I will rock her for a bit. I always put her in the crib awake though.
When she was going to bed at 11pm (while I was on leave), she would sleep until 7am. Now she goes to bed at 7:30 and sleeps until 2:30-3 (7-7.5 hrs). Then she sleeps until 5-6. If she sleeps until 6, I get a pretty decent night of sleep. However, if she wakes up at 3 and 5, that is more disruptive. Hoping that improves... it seems like we are moving in the right direction.
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@78h2o: He believes that is true of all babies. We started it when DD was still getting mostly breast milk (pumped and bottle-fed since he was never able to latch).
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@78h2o: @Mrs.KMM: That's so weird, because my Ped at our 4 month appt said that since my LO is breastfed to continue expecting her to get up 1-2x per night for a feeding until solids are well established. Crazy how opinions are so different, even among Dr's!
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@78h2o: We are on a similar sleep pattern. Bedtime at 8-8:30 seems to be optimal for motn wake ups for us. Yesterday W started daycare and was so tired so he went to bed at 7:30, woke up to eat around 2, and then was up at 5:00. That was no bueno since we don't' really have to start getting ready for the day until 6. If he goes to sleep between 8-8:30 he won't get up until 6. I've been trying to be diligent to get him used to his crib, but being back at work I hate feeling more separated from him.
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@rosegold: Super cute! Love the sweatshirt! I was really nervous about the 4 month shots since DS had a reaction at his 2 month one, but it was fine!!
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@Eko: yes! The 5am wake up is killer when my alarm is set to 6! I'll try putting her to bed a little later to see if that helps! She does go back to bed after the 5am feed, but it's super disruptive to my sleep!
I hear ya on not wanting to be separated. I am super leery of co-sleeping because I am so afraid of SIDS, but I will tell you that I sometimes leave Holly in bed with me after her 2-3am feed. Probably about 50% of the time. I have not been sleeping in the same bed as my husband though (he has sleep issues) and it's a super firm bed, so I feel that it's safe until she starts rolling to her stomach. I put her near the top of the bed in her sleep sack and I use a small blanket and pillow for myself. She also wears a Snuza Halo alarm because I'm paranoid. The rest of the time, I just take her back to the crib after nursing.
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@78h2o: Hope that does help! I've just noticed that W will still sleep the same number of hours no matter what time he goes to sleep.
We still use a swaddle, which he now escapes from every night, and that wakes him up, and he refuses to go back to sleep until he nurses. We've tried using no swaddle and we get the same 3 hour chunks. I need some troubleshooting tips and tricks for better sleep!
It's so tricky.
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