Curveball

[Thirteen]

We're at 7 mos. - I am lost. I can't get him to really take naps consistently. He then falls apart and is so sad, he just cries/screams. We've been at 1 night feeding for a while, but now it's back to about 2am instead of 5am, and he's having several episodes of night waking. I suspect teething, but I never know if it will be a painful or pain-free night, and I'm hesitant to constantly give prophylactic doses, just because he might have a tough night.
I offer to nurse him down every time, but my gut is telling me that he probably isn't hungry every time.
When do they drop their night feed? How do you know not to feed at night?

About the napping: he has patterns of alert/sleepy, so I wanted to capitalize on those and make them "nap times." How do I get him to stay down? How do I establish a routine that isn't stressful and upsetting for the both of us?

Food: we are still using mesh feeders. When do I start offering solids at every meal? Should I be doing that already?

I still haven't found a ped that I like/who isn't overbooked.
I feel like a bad mom.
This is hard. :S

[v-girl]

I can't help on scheduling because, like nursing, I did naps on demand. If the kid was tired, I held him or her until sleep came.

[HouseofWool]

Can you chart out a typical day for Bean so we have a general idea what it looks like?

[Deebs]

This is hard. It really is. It also makes it harder that by now, you're probably good and sleep deprived. This is what I would try...for the next two or three days, try to write everything down. Maybe print out a chart with every time in the day, and then fill in what is going on. You will probably be able to pick out some sort of pattern. I'm guessing that you're not getting great baby signals of what he wants when he wants it. One of my kids was like that, and I had to put him on a schedule. Doing things "on demand" just didn't work with him. The charting is how I got started. Only do it to figure out what's going on though, because you can make yourself crazy!

[Michele]

Mine all started night waking again around 7 or 8 months. And it lasted until a little over a year and then it started again around 18 months. I just nursed them back to sleep in my bed.

Phedre takes all of her naps on my back. She wakes up around 6am. First nap is 9-10ish. Second nap is 12-2ish and sometimes there is a third nap in the early evening/late afternoon depending on the day.

Food, I offered small pieces that they could self feed whenever we were eating. Sometimes they eat sometimes they don't. I don't worry until over a year old.

[Bittersweet]

Reading this with interest. My guy just started night waking again. Just when you think you think you've got a hang of this parenting thing everything changes, sigh. Hang in there!

[moonlight]

At that age teething was in high gear! i could tell she was in pain tho. It was a really sad and confused look on her face when she cried. Not the normal cry. Can you tell a difference? My thought with DD was that she was waking up during the night but never making much noise then going back to sleep. With teething she would wake up screaming her lunch outs. Baby Tylenol, and I never felt back about it. I think dental pain is one of the worst to deal with. Can't imagine being a baby and going through that pain.

[DCJenn]

The thing with teething is that you want to get the meds in BEFORE they're in pain so keep that in mind. They'll know they're teething before you will. Nikolai got 6 teeth at once in the Moscow Marriott Grande. They were sure happy to see us leave.

J.

[scrub-jay]

The thing with teething is that you want to get the meds in BEFORE they're in pain so keep that in mind. They'll know they're teething before you will.

This. And charting his schedule. And you are a FANTASTIC mom!

[ladymoreta]

I agree about the teething. As soon as we suspect it, we start giving DS Motrin every 6 hours. If nothing shows up within about 24 hours, we'll stop again.

The charting is really helpful. DS didn't do a great job of organizing his sleep on his own, so once we got down to 2 naps per day, I started setting a time for each one to begin based on his usual sleepy time.

Now is also a pretty good time to work on the nursing to sleep if you're interested. If you can encourage the thumb or pacifier, that will work. Or you can look up the Pantley Gentle Removal Plan (from The No-Cry Sleep Solution book). I could sometimes get DS back to sleep by just coming in and patting his back while shhhhh-ing, or if that didn't work, I could sometimes hold/rock him back to sleep without feeding. You can also start keeping a sippy cup or bottle of water in his room. Sometimes DS was just thirsty and didn't need the feeding. Of course, if those things didn't work, I would nurse him. He didn't drop his last overnight feeding until between 10-11 months.

Naps - I'm usually the last person to suggest a one size fits all approach but if you are having a hard time identifying any pattern you might want to try the "2-3-4" approach, with 2, 3 and 4 being the hours of awake time throughout the day. i.e. Aim for a first nap about 2 hours after waking in the morning, a second nap 3 hours after waking from the first, and bedtime 4 hours after waking from the second nap. Worked pretty well for Evelyn from about 5 to 9 months. Now at almost 10 mo she's already down to just one nap per day

Night waking is hard. I wish I had some advice. E wakes up all night long and doesn't always just nurse back to sleep (which I would be fine with). I have to actually get up with her, walk with her, rock her for an hour or more a couple times each night. It's exhausting. For now I just hope it passes soon because I don't know what to do! Just commiserating with you.

Food - just relax. I truly believe in the "under 1 it's just for fun". We offer both finger food and purees with each meal, since about Bean's age. Usually I do finger food first to keep her busy while I'm getting everyone else organized. Sometimes she eats one but not the other, sometimes both, sometimes nothing. It's all good

[samssugarmomma]

when you think you think you've got a hang of this parenting thing everything changes, sigh. Hang in there!

Truer words were never spoken!

[samssugarmomma]

Ugh! My first was a difficult sleeper / napper and it was SO HARD! I knew motherhood was going to be hard - but man! I was not expecting it to be so hard to get someone so little to sleep on their own!

Naps - I second everyones suggestion about keeping a log of your sleep and eating patterns right now. There might be a pattern there that you aren't seeing. And it will give you a good starting point to see where you can make some changes. If I remember correctly, mine usually went down for 2 naps around 7-8 months - a mid morning nap and a mid afternoon nap. We'd get an occasional evening nap depending on how much excitement there was during the day.

Do you do slings or carriers? Does he / will he nap in them? My oldest rarely napped on her own (in her crib) but she would nap if she was in a sling on my chest or on my back. Or if I napped with her. I know that you need time alone and away from the baby - but are you willing to nap with him? Would that even help? I did that for a while so that we could both get some rest.


Food - I guess that we are the opposite of some of the others on here. DH has always wanted ours on 100% table food by 1 year. I did still nurse after a year (I'm still nursing DD3 at 18 months) - but for sleep / comfort. What do *you* want to do? Are you ready to start with some cereal or oatmeal?

I highly recommend the website http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com/index.html even if you plan to buy your food. There are a lot of good tips there for how to acces if your baby is ready and how to get started. I think the the most important information is - There are no hard and fast rules! Most people suggest starting with rice cereal or oatmeal but you could start with banana or sweet potatoes too. The site does have some charts to give you ideas on what you can start with. I printed out the chart and circled things as we tried them so I kept track of what we'd tried. As you introduce foods, you do want to watch for signs of allergic reactions and DH recommends introducing a food (say banannas) and then not introducing anything new for three days. Well, lets say he recommends that for his patients. We didn't follow that rule with our own kids. 8 ) The three day rule is to look for allergies - and once we were comfortable that there was no allergy we moved on to something else. 8 )

We aren't fans of the mesh feeders so we didn't use them. Does your son have his pincher reflex? (Where he can pick something up with two fingers?) When he has this he'll be ready to start trying to feed himself. We let ours start with cheerios because they are easy to pick up.


My post feels disjointed so I hope it makes sense to you.
Kate

[Thirteen]

So many good ideas and advice already!

He's cutting molars, and has decided that naps are not necessary. It's just a vicious cycle of sleep deprivation and pain, really.
Today, after a good week of bad naps and crappy bedtime/night waking scenarios, I decided that nap bootcamp had to happen.

6:15 - waking for the day (usually up at 7:30-8:00).
10:10 - fussy, started new nap routine of: diaper change, nursing, reading while nursing, and a little swishing back and forth.
10:50-12:50 - Successful nap #1. No waking!
12:52-3:00 - Wakeful period: playing, some oatmeal in the high chair.
3:10 - fussy. Decided he needed to go down.
3:30-??? Nap #2.

We usually try to put him down between 7:00-7:30pm, but he's been fighting us until almost 9pm. No way, Jose!
Bathtime will come swiftly again, tonight.

[v-girl]

Glad he's napping for you!