this is not a vent but more of a "please answer my questions"

Ladies,

rather than venting about how my daughter still vomits and always AFTER her bath when in her clean pj's and clean sheets OR that she is waking up for THREE hours at night to chat or make noises... or that DS seems more difficult lately, I just want some advice and words of wisdom to make it better.

1) this gagging is driving me nuts; sometimes it's on her own saliva or fingers and other times their is no rhyme or reason. SHe doesn't seem upset by it but it is SO frustrating and I get so mad, I know it's not her fault but I am so frustrated with this... any advice?

2) DS is not eating as well lately. We did start solids and I am letting them eat as much (usually about 5-6 baby spoons full) as they want. Is that ok at 5 months. We are only feeding them solids once a day. We started with cereals (rice, oateal and barley) now we are on squash and moving on to carrots soon. I'm just giving one food at a time, is that right? OR do you do the new food with an old food? Are there any books/websites on how to start solids..... I don't know if it's too much or whether starting with yellow veggies was ok vs. green. Their is so much conflicting info. Probably it doesn't matter right? But any advice would be appreciated.

3) SLEEPING.. grr, i've read lots of the posts of late about CIO and sleep training. I know we're only 5 months but it seems the babies were sleeping better. We had several nights in the past where they only woke for one feed and slept really well. Suddenly DD is not sleeping as well and wants to wake up and talk for hours at night. I don't know what to do. I am worried she will wake up her brother and I am getting really frustrated being up with them for 2-3 hours at a time. This is new, they were NOT like this before. The dream feeds aren't working either.


Ok, I am sure I have more questions but I am so tired that this will do. PLease share your experiences and advice, I appreciate A LOT

Night,
Anna

 

Sounds like the answer to a great part of your questions is teething - the shoving fingers in the mouth, drooling and wake ups - if they seem really uncomfortable a bit of Infants Tylenol/Motrin may help - I felt like the Tylenol fairy until they finished teething at 2.5...as for solids - one food at a time and you can start your veggies in any order...we did once a day after their dinner bottle for a while...

as for the wake ups I seem to remember DS getting up at night at that age - long after he stopped eating at night...we'd rock and pat and sing and shush and the only thing that made him go back to sleep was a bottle - it seemed to coincide with growth spurts and it didn't last forever - a week at the most...as for DD if she's up for 2-3 hours try a bottle if she's refusing the bottle and is just chatting with herself (and not crying or fussing) I'd let her go - they will learn to sleep through each other...

as for CIO - at 5 months I think its a bit too young...that said letting them fuss for a few minutes until they get comfortable is ok...we did a modified version where I'd time them for 10 minutes (my son mostly as my DD would go down drowsy and be ok as long as she had her pacifier) and if he was still crying (hard) after 10 minutes I'd go in again - generally by the 7 minute mark he was down to a dull whine and by 10 minutes was out...he was also a bit older (maybe closer to 7-8 months old)...

good luck!

 

if she's gnawing her fingers because she's teething you could give her something like a cool damp washcloth to chew on instead. she might not trigger her gag reflex with a washcloth. that said, my boys gagged themselves all the time and there was nothing i could do but wait it out until the novelty passed. first it was fingers, then that passed. then when we introduced silverware they thought it was hilarious to gag themselves with spoons. it may be one of those things where you just have to get through this phase and eventually it won't be novel anymore and she'll stop on her own.

at first i did just one food at a time. i figured it would be a lot harder to know what was causing a digestive problem if one came up if i didn't have a clear idea of what exactly they'd tried and when. wholesomebabyfood.com has great advice if you're interested. at 5 months a baby's primary nutrition source should be breastmilk or formula. solids are just for practice. so if you feel like your DS's milk intake has decreased since starting solids, you might cut back on the number of spoonfuls you give him to get his milk intake up again.

i know some people say you can do CIO starting at 4 months but i wasn't comfortable trying it that early. i didn't feel like CIO was really doable until closer to 8 months. it's up to you to decide what you're comfortable with and whether your kids are ready.

have you ever heard of the 5 month growth spurt? it seems to be a disruptive time that almost everyone encounters and there are lots of theories about what might be happening developmentally to cause it. sleep patterns get disrupted during this time. when we hit the 5 month disruption i did a little googling and read up on it and the best theory i read is that the brain is transitioning which parts of the brain manage deep sleep versus REM sleep, etc. and during that transition the brain may not manage sleep/wake patterns smoothly. knowing that doesn't make sleep come any easier, but when i was awake and frustrated i would sometimes comfort myself by telling myself "it's okay, their brains are transitioning sleep functions." :crazy:

 

:hug: both the pp's covered everything i was going to say....teething, single foods at first, too early for CIO but a little fussing never hurt anyone, and growth spurt! :hug:

 

You've been mentioning the gagging for a while...if I remember correctly. If she seems to gag without putting anything in her mouth and is pooling more saliva than you think is normal, you might ask your ped about a swallow study.

With the solids, you introduce one at a time, but once they have proven they do well on it you can continue giving it while they are trying new things.

Everyone has their own opinions on sleep training and you do what works best for your babies and what you feel comfortable with. In the end, you need to feel sane and happy, and the way you get there doesn't matter that much. We did do CIO at 4 months and my babies are the happiest, most well adjusted babies. I personally think that the older a baby gets, the more stubborn and manipulative they get when it comes to sleep. We still nursed in the middle of the night when they needed it but it taught them to fall asleep on their own and nap, which is something that they didn't do for the first 4 months of their lives! My advice for sleep training is to read up on all the techniques and then choose the method you can be at peace with because only you know what is right for your situation.

 

1) Sure does sound like bad teething. Also, could it have anything to do with starting solids or have you been on them a while? Some digestive systems are not ready and if she is throwing up quite a bit you may consider holding off another 2-4 weeks and trying again. Sorry - don't know whole story.

2) DS's eating skills matter not at this point, at 8 mos, or even 10 mos. We are just so hardwired to see that food go down. I know we had great months and terrible months. BM/formula are providing all nutrition for that first year...you are just practicing solids...hang in there. Also, think of it as a full helping for them would be 2-3 spoonfuls at a meal...kind of hard to wrap your brain around - at least for me it was...LOL.

3) Dream feeds backfired every time on me so I stopped. It encouraged mine to wake it seemed. I think you have to decide what sleep training you are willing to use. In my experience with my own LOs, I think you have to take temperament into consideration with CIO. I will say though that it was between 5-7 mos that we had some erratic sleep behavior and I think it was because my one LO was learning to sit up, crawl, etc. and was just so stimulated she could not relax. No easy answer, except to say it is normal to have ups and downs in sleep during developmental stages, so I might suggest waiting it out a couple weeks to see if you go back to your schedule while letting them figure out how to go back to sleep on their own instead of getting up 2-3 hours. Remember too, giving them 10-15 mins to get to sleep on their own is not CIO. Good luck Anna!

 

Hi,

My favorite book is baby411. It has a tremendous amount of great advice and is funny at the same time. It gives great information on everything from sleeping, eating, development, etc.

I highly recommend it. It helped me tremendously getting through the first year with the first son. I'm using it just as much with the twins.

 

Just a thought for you...my kids all had reflux and food allergies. One was a serious gagger when he would reflux an allergy food (until I figured it out). Something to think about.

Sounds like you are doing a great job with the food introduction :good: Yes, one at a time is how it should go, and like pp said, you can continue with already tolerated ones while introducing a new one.

I may be in the minority, but I could never do CIO ardon: If you think you can, go for it. Those little "phases" can become habits, so if you can end it...then definitely do. I have one that is a 4 am waker upper...has been since day one (he was also the gagger I referred to). He is perfectly happy to lay and talk or sing to himself (as long as he is by me...like on the floor in his "special bed"). However, he has in the past attempted getting up to play, but has learned that behavior is not going to fly :girl_devil:

 

I'm not sure if they are available where you live but one thing we used for older DS for his teething were these things called teething tablets. they were about 4 or 5 dollars for a little container of them and if I remember correctly it had a ton of the tablets in there. they are super soft and disintegrate when they come in contact with saliva. they are all natural and don't have any actual medications in them. Not sure how or why they work but they were wonderful with older DS.