It sounds like things are going smoothly and you are definitely organized which s/help with stress. Your post reminds me how our lives change when we are suddenly back in the parenting business!
Good luck and God bless.

Glad everything went well! It is a very busy, stressful time and physical problems don't help. But at our age, most of us face them sooner or later with the gc. :P

Hope you feel better quickly!

Hope that you get to feeling better. Cereal should help with the sleeping. My GD is a year and a half and she still gets up all the time at night . But the last 2 nights she only got up once :) - the night mares seem to have lessen - if that is what they were. It sure is a busy and stressful time. But God gets us through it - with a lot of prayers

Hi,
I'm glad this went smoothly. I can relate to your neck pain. I have a really bad back and house cleaning is hard on my back for sure. I'm getting ready for a home visit myself, just in case there is a family study with all the custody problems that are going on with my grandson.

I breastfed my first and was a SAHM for the 1st 2 years and with my second I had to go to work when by boy was 8 months old. I breast fed him until then and weaned him off before I went to work.

So I might be able to help you with your question. Is your gs going to a babysitter, or a daycare. Or is the babysitter going to have more than one child?

In terms of sleeping the night, when my boy was breast fed (and he could have been bottle fed. I fed him before bed and said good night. When he cried I didn't pick him up I just patted and stroked him and then left, so he knew I was a good mommy :). It was hard, but he cried a lot and I eventually didn't go in the room late at night, but after night 3, he understood that he was to go to sleep at night and he could eat to his hearts content when it was morning. It was more of an adjustment for me than my sweet baby. Hearing him cry hurt me. I knew that if I wanted some discipline in his life and have good enough sleep so that I could stay awake for him in the day, I would have to do it. It worked out just great.!

I don't know whether this will help you or not, but I thought I would share this would you.

Good luck, I know you'll find your way,

Elona

My gs came to live with me he was 9 months old but his parents hadn't started giving him baby food yet. So I had to put cereal in his bottle b/c he wasn't use to eating with a spoon or being fed for that matter. But I was concerned he wasn't going to be getting all that he needed just from formula. So the cereal in the bottle helped b/c he was waking up 3 times a nite for a bottle b/c he was hungry. He is now eating 3 meals a day and snacks and everything else for that matter. But he sleeps great.

good luck.. btw he has the same name....as your profile just spelled differently.....LOL

my gs was a preemie, 2lbs 9 oz. He came home at 4.5 lbs and in less than a week, my daughter was back in hospital with 1 in 100 chances of living 3 days. She survived that and went into chemo problem in another state, traveling back and forth between treatment sessions. My gs had to be fed every two hours until he gained some weight. I'm a big believer in holding and rocking babies and that is what I did. As soon as his weight increased he began to sleep longer between feedings. When he started climbing out of crib, we put him in a junior bed. He began to get up during night. Didn't think anything unusual at the time. He said the monsters in the closet were after him. Our daughter passed away when he was 14 mos but sil stayed w/us until he was 4.5. He remarried and moved out. We had to fight for visitation and when we saw him again, he told us how he was awake at night and he and older stepbrother crawled out the window and played around the neighborhood. After a long year of neglect and abuse, he was placed back in our care. Every night he came into our bed. At first I just held him and he was okay. However, we had a black lab, a chinese pug and my gs all in bed w/us! It was quite a picture with the pug sleeping over my husband's head, the lab sleeping across the bottom of the bed (lucky we're short)and gs in the middle. One night, I went to bathroom and couldn't find a space in bed when I got back. I went into gs's room, dragged his mattress into our room, and told him he could come to us, but he had to sleep on his mattress which was on the floor next to my side of bed. I still w/wake up and find him back in our bed and w/relocate him gently to his. The monsters in the closet became a big issue, seeming to represent his turmoil during abusive period with bio dad and step mom. We sold our house and moved, going through a big ritual to say goodbye to the monsters in the closet. He was now six but he stayed in his room throughout the night in new home. In third grade, teacher did a project where kids had to keep sleep records. We found that while he stayed in his room, he awakened several times throughout the night. He said the monsters had followed us. I began to sleep lightly always listening for him. He was tired in school all the time. When he was 16 we went to children's hospital for his continued back problems and they did a sleep study which recorded him waking numerous times throughout the night. They diagnosed restless leg syndrome. He was given medication which only worked a little. He's 20 now and still wakes frequently through the night. I tell you this story because I do feel that our gc suffer emotionally and mentally, more than we think. The scars of abuse and neglect are there. I know you your gs is very young but I think that sleep patterns are developed at a very young age. Was he held enough after birth? Was he in a peaceful environment? While it may just be his development and soon w/sleep through the night, I think you need to consider how he was treated in his first months because patterns and behaviors are developed early. While we tend to look at raising these children like our own, there are many differences that need to be acknowledged. Sorry for long post. It's late and I'm probably babbling, but hope this helps. btw, you might want to start a sleep journal to see what develops.

I am so glad to hear that things wen't pretty smoothly with the formal home visit. It stresses a lot of people out, but in the end they usually go pretty smoothly.

With my 2 grands, we usually either put cereal in their formula at night. That didn't really work too well though. For us it was their "stress" level and their fear of being alone. What I mean by this is as long as they were close to us when they slept, they would actually sleep. If we put them in their own bed, they would wake up instantly. What I attribute this to (and I am not a professional by any means) the crap their "wonderful, loving bio's" (lots of sarcasim here) put them through.

For the longest time, and it still happens ocassionally, if one of us hollers to the other at the other end of the house to bring something back with them, both babies put their hands over their ears and start crying. They do not like loud noises whatsoever.

Any way, keep doing what you are doing and everything will turn out for the better, especially for these innocent babies and keep coming back here.

wow...thanks all for your wonderful support. I had the injection in my neck and it seems that it took a couple of days but the pain has lessened. So, I am less concerned about picking the baby up. I am not sure how long it will last thou. I will be returning back to work at the end of this month so I am still concerned about how that is going to go with running the baby to daycare @ 6 a.m. and then picking him up at the end of the day.

Now more drama with bio parents the mother took off on my son (they were on the streets homeless) and he did a police report. They picked her up and did a 51/50 again on her so she is back in the hospital. The problem is that she is my son's payee and she controls all the money. When the police picked her up she had no ID with no bank card that my son could get his money to move on to a place to live. I didn't want to help him because I didn't know if it would cause an issue with the social workers but I did by running down to Social services and signed to be his payee so he can receive his money next month and find a place to live. A friend of mine took him in until he receives his next check and may or may not rent a room to him. I am now sick about this because as a mother I felt that I needed to help him not be homeless but as my gs caregiver I didn't think I should help when they should be doing everything on their own. After I ran all around to help him he told me that he wouldn't give up his parents rights. I wanted to cry!!! He told me last week he would let us adopt!! my husband and I are so upset now because we feel as thou we were used and no appreciation on my son's part. In his crazy mind he still thinks he can be his father. Next week we go to court...I sure hope we have something to keep us going because right now we vision that this is going to drag on and on and we are just going to turn out to be a baby sitter to them.
My husband said we have to just let go and pray about this. However, we feel so drained right now on this whole thing and feel like giving up because of all the heartache it is causing us.
Judi

It's difficult when dealing with mentally ill. You can't anticipate because they most likely will change their mind. With not having a place to live he certainly cannot be considered for custody. I think you are right that you cannot just take him in. That might be enabling him more than helping him. You've helped him but in a way that encourages him to help himself. Don't let it get you down. You are the advocate for your gs now. It always hurts when your relationship with your own child is jeopardized but there is not much you can do. Stay strong.