I like imagine ink books for that age, as well as fidget books, fidget tubes, fidget snakes. Searching montessori books on amazon brings up books with buckles, snaps, things to mess with. I also like silly putty, post its, and snacks snack snacks, especially if you can hand them one piece at a time, or put them in a toddler snack cup. I love those baby highlights books too, indestructible and bright colors, fun poems etc.
ETA: But my best tip is to get as much sleep as possible the night before because at that age, you will need to be ON the whole flight.
My favourite travel plan with littles is one new activity and one snack per hour. It’s unlikely you’ll use everything, but if you do, you do.
Books and magazines
Water wow or crayola colour magic
A thing of playdough if it fits in your liquids
New figurines/little people
Screen time - you can even try a video game
Little toys that are barely safe and only under much supervision
We chose to co-sleep. I don’t know if that was the right answer (pretty sure there is no right answer) but it was the only way we got any semblance of sleep, and we also were not good at sleep training until much later. Thinking good thoughts for you guys - sleep deprivation suckssss
My child just became filled with rage and had no interst in being soothed. We moved her to her own room and tortured ourselves laying on the floor as she cried so at least she wouldn’t feel alone. It eventually passed and I’m not sure it was anything we did or didn’t do, just time and development.
We have been trying cosleeping and that isn’t working either
The last few nights have looked like this:
Put to bed in crib around 630
Dream feed 830-9
Baby wakes up at 1130-12, feed him. Try cosleeping
Baby wakes up again at 2-3 either cosleeping or in crib.
Baby wakes up at 4-430 not having cosleeping, nurse and put back in crib
Baby wakes up screaming at 545. Nothing soothes again so try nursing. Nursing only works in his room in the chair, cosleeping was rejected.
We all cry
None of this is the right way but after a week of 3-5 wakeups it feels like survival and I just want to cry.
My kids schedule looked like that for their first year or longer so you have my sympathy. I got no ideas. Survival naps. Drop a daytime nap? Drop dream feed?
Possibly move bedtime back a bit? Say 7 and see if that helps? Babies however don’t follow plans and sometimes just suck. I’m so sorry you are in the suck.
I will say, cosleeping didn’t usually prevent the baby from waking up. It saved my sanity and just made it drastically easier to feed her and get her back to sleep with the least amount of disruption to my sleep. Much easier to just slightly sit up in bed, latch her on to nurse, then settle her back to sleep next to me instead of physically getting up and going to another room. I would bring her into my bed after the first wakeup.
This was true for a bit but now he won’t really settle unless we get up. I am too tired to describe it correctly haha all I know is cosleeping used to mean more sleep and now it doesn’t
Sympathies. Latte has always been anti cosleeping. It was my emergency plan and she shot even that to hell (but hey. She’s 4 now and we survived. Points for that)
It’s something we are open to! We are in the transition between 3 naps to 2 so that last wake window is already leading to an overtired baby. It is just a phase!
I’ve heard sleep begets sleep, so sometimes an earlier bedtime helps them sleep more. With the multiple awakenings I’d say this is probably more of a baby that hasn’t learned how to fall asleep on his own. Was crying it out pretty unproductive? Honestly it will get better with time, it always does.
I think we had to re-sleep-train a couple times a year the first year, since they’re learning new skills (aka regression) so often. We did it at 4 and 9 months. Spore also started moving so much around at 11 months and getting angry about bumping into crib walls that we moved him to a floor bed.
When the baby can sense I no longer want to participate in this world from sleep deprivation, he is really good at giving us a good night of sleep! Good job baby.
Last night:
Feed to sleep at 7 (last nap was later because of daycare)
Dream feed at 930
Wake up at 215 and feed
Wake up at 545 for the day
Way way more manageable. I think the extra feed at bedtime is helpful but I don’t want to give too much weight to the changes just yet until we get a pattern!
I don’t think it’s teething yet, he is chomping on fingers and I can’t feel anything.
Wow. Black Friday and completion discount means we could get a brand new tripp trapp with cushion and baby set for less than I see them used without accessories around here often times. People with TTs, sell me on this being worth $280
