Parent Thread

Our kid was sleeping through the night by about 5-6 months old (which was 3-4 months after we got him home, and sleeping in a crib. He was in an incubator in the hospital for his first 2 months after birth, so I don't know if that time should count or not). He only did the mid-night feedings for the first 3 or so months after we got home from the hospital.

Although, now that he's two he's not waking up in the middle of the night, but going to sleep at night is becoming a problem. Some nights he's out like a light at 8pm, other nights he's still in his bed, wide awake and occasionally yelling for someone to come get him at like 10pm. That's fun.

10PM would be a blessing, right now he's not wanting to sleep until 12-1am

Noodlemod_sl said:

10PM would be a blessing, right now he's not wanting to sleep until 12-1am

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What is his nap schedule like during the day?

Our kid started sleeping really well through the night around the point he got on a pretty consistent napping schedule. At 6 months he was waking up about 6am, napping 9-11, napping again 2-4, and then asleep by 7-7:30pm and sleeping until 5:30-6am

Around the 12-14 month mark we adjusted from 2 daily naps down to just 1, kid wakes up between 6-7am, naps from noon-2 or 3, then in bed by 8-8:30pm(not counting the recent problems I mentioned in a previous post), and we're still on this schedule now at 2yrs & 2 months. The naps might be a tad shorter, 2 hours is more the norm than 3(and sometimes only 90 minutes), but the bedtime/wake time is still pretty consistent.

With my kid, it was around the 4 month mark when he started sleeping through the night, from about 6-7 pm to about 5am. We've since moved his bed time back to about between 7 and 8pm and he'll sleep until 6:30 to 7am. What's nice is he doesn't wake up crying. He'll play in his crib for a good 30 minutes or so after waking up. The trade off we get for this, is the kid doesn't nap long during the day. He'll take maybe a 30 to 45 minute nap twice a day. That makes it hard to get anything done during the day.

The biggest thing I can suggest is have a bed time routine, so the kid knows its night time. Read him books, have music playing, give him a bottle and off to bed. My wife also read somewhere on the internet, that said the earlier you put the kid to bed, the longer they'll sleep. Not sure she read that but it seemed to work for us. We first thought, oh keep up longer, he'll sleep later and that did not work. Once we got him into a good routine and put him down earlier, he slept much better and longer.

My kid was waking up once around 4am till about 4 months, after that all the way through the night. Occasionally there would be a bad night or stretch of a couple of days where there would be multiple awakening, but those are pretty rare. When I was a baby I was the same way, slept great from pretty much day one. My parents thought they had this parenting thing figured out, then they had my brother. Same parents, same parenting method, but he was waking up and screaming constantly. Every baby is different.

I'm with joeboo on the napping thing. A regular, consistent routine really helps, although tough to establish until 6 months(ish?). If we go to visit friends or have a day out and we miss a nap or bed-time, guaranteed cranky pants the following day. Also, there is the old adage,early to bed, late to rise. Right now our 10 month old goes to bed around 7pm and sleeps till 7am, two naps during the daytime at 10:30ish and 2:30ish, usually at least an hour on each nap, usually closer to two. We've had that routine down since around 5 months old.

Yeah, even at 2 years, if we screw up nap time(out doing something on the weekend, or whatever) his sleep routine gets jacked for a day or two. Gets cranky and falls sleep early that night, then up early the next day and wanting to nap too long, then not tired at bedtime, etc.

You screw up those naps, or don't have a set nap schedule, and it's a world of problems.

Noodlemod_sl said:

What age do you guys find the kid start to sleep better through the night?

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My son didn't sleep through the night without waking us up until he was almost 2 1/2.

My wife has had an entirely terrible time breast feeding him. Finally after 3 months she caved on formula and I'm really happy. He's finally getting enough to eat now (stops eating after awhile) and is generally a bit happier.

That said, his naps have been random. It seems like now he takes 2 or 3 during the day, but this is just in the last come days. Last night he slept for 5 hours so that was good to her.

Hopefully now that he's on formula he'll sleep better.

Noodlemod_sl said:

My wife has had an entirely terrible time breast feeding him. Finally after 3 months she caved on formula and I'm really happy. He's finally getting enough to eat now (stops eating after awhile) and is generally a bit happier.

That said, his naps have been random. It seems like now he takes 2 or 3 during the day, but this is just in the last come days. Last night he slept for 5 hours so that was good to her.

Hopefully now that he's on formula he'll sleep better.

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Sounds like the same thing we went through with my daughter (breast feeding issues). She did seem to start sleeping better once she was on formula though. The one thing I'll say about sleeping is, at least for us, it's all about routine. Meaning there is a set time to go to bed at night and a set time for naps. Being in daycare at a young age (6 months) really helped with that as well because they are all about routine there as well. It even got to point where we would have to plan our weekends around nap time. If we had errands to run in the morning on a Saturday, we made sure to get home before 12pm because that was the time she would take a nap, else she would nap in the car and then wouldn't nap when we got home.

It's because of this that my daughter (now 8) has never had issues going to bed at night, unlike what I hear from a lot of other parents. 8:30pm comes around on a school night, it's bed time and she knows it. Doesn't ask to stay up, doesn't want to stay up because she knows past 9pm she'll be pretty tired anyway (we all wake up pretty early every day due to schedules).

So wife confirmed she has mastitis when she went to the doctor, has to take an antibiotic. Hopefully it works because next step is opening up the titty. Titty looks real bad right now.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Yeah I tried to get her into that kind of stuff. Her brother plays FPS'es (mainly Destiny right now) and I understand those little assholes are stupid and they say all kinds of shit but as long as he doesn't repeat it in front of me that's fine.

She doesn't want to just talk to random people she wants to whine about her life and be all emo and have them be emo with her. Every time we read any of these conversations it is the most depressing Romeo and Julliet stuff that quickly devolves into this pity party about her life. It's just too hard being in a middle class white family with no real problems and parents who have stable jobs and a good marriage especially when your brother doesn't have any problems so you need to have all the problems for the entire family.

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Could conspire for her to find my number if you want her to have a safe weirdo to talk to who isn't going to try and deflower your 14 year old daughter!

How could this idea possibly go wrong?

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

So my wife was done breastfeeding and with twins she had generated quite a decent amount of milk. She pumped less and less to get her body to produce less. Didn't work and she got mastitis. Green and black milk oozed out and she had a huge lump and they were hot to the touch and she was in immense pain.

They gave her antibiotics and she put a large cabbage leaf in her bra and those things helped. Didn't need any surgery or manual drainage.

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Cool, we're on the antibiotics now. They did mention the old-wives remedy of the cabbage leaf, but said there wasn't much scientific backing to it. Maybe we'll try it anyways.

The doctor told her to just keep pumping as much will come out because slowing down pumping won't necessarily slow down milk production and might just back her up again.

Kid is loving formula right now, I am hating the new 'human shit' smelling dumps.

I hate teenagers. The wife of course wants the lifetime relationship where the kids tell them everything right away and never have problems. That isn't going to happen.
The whole no one trusts me and I am responsible and smart enough to make good choices bit. Especially when they come and whine about us not trusting him, when he keeps doing stuff that makes us not want to trust him. He has already shown that he will lie and avoid responsibility for his actions when ever possible so suck it up and yes we will fight the war to keep your dumb ass safe until you learn to control yourself. This means yes, we will know where you are what you are doing as much as possible. I am sure you will get into stupid stuff, but the idea is to make sure it is small enough you can learn from it and make it to adulthood better for it.

I am lucky that I have all boys at least and he has already ran into one girl like yours a_skeleton_03. Had to explain that women are batshit crazy, but the really super obvious crazy ones you need to stay away from so they don't drag you into a huge problem that will happen at some point.

Don't know what to tell you Big a_skeleton_03, your daughter sounds exactly like my older sister. My sister would constantly sneak out, have random "accidents," just be a pain in the ass mostly. My parents tried to meet her head on, tried the whole "we trust you" routine, just everything they could think of. Nothing seemed to work. They had her tested, she did well. Nothing out of the ordinary they could find. She's 35 now with 4 kids from 4 different guys and cleans hotel rooms.
I don't think my parents did a shit job, my eldest sister is a pharmacist, I'm a teacher, one brother is a cop and the other is graduating college soon with a degree in computer science. We just have that one sister who is trash. Hopefully your daughter turns out different. Don't give up the fight.

Was chatting with someone at Party city. Forget how the topic came up but her daughter was telling us that the elementary school kids these days are using a pestle and mortar to grind up smarties and snort them like cocaine. Asked my 8 year old niece about it and she sees kids doing that as well. Seems a tad advanced. I think we had those candy cigarettes that blew sugar powder like smoke.