Comments on Analytical Armadillo - The Booby Whisperer: The Duracell Bunny Baby

My now 23 m.o. was just like this for the first 9-...

2011-12-12T22:43:11.425Z

My now 23 m.o. was just like this for the first 9-12 months or so. He's much calmer now although night sleep is still variable (naps are almost always good).

Naps were hideous and night-time sleep wasn't great until we instituted a rough nap schedule at 6 months, when things improved hugely.

I still bf him to sleep (or rock if feeding doesn't work).

Interestingly (given some of the comments above), we have just discovered that he has a nut allergy, although not to a nut I ate much of when he was younger.

Now during the day he's very chilled and has a huge attention span when he's entertaining himself (which he does a lot).

He's definitely more sensitive to external stimuli than some children, and pretty responsive to my feelings.

Yes. Yes. And yes. This is my 14mo daughter to a T...

2011-12-08T10:05:31.430Z

Yes. Yes. And yes. This is my 14mo daughter to a T. I used feel like I was talking in circles when I was telling minders that they need to get her in the pram (as the plan was to walk her to sleep as I didn't expect them to pop her in the sling) about 30 minutes before she was "due" to get tired. Once she is tired - you've missed your chance!

It has been very hard to pin point her sleep cues but we are getting there and massage before bed has helped wonders. We still rock her to sleep though and we need to stand up as she is just can't settle if we sit down.

Great article. Thank you.

Have you considered also linking into dietary infl...

2011-11-26T22:16:47.964Z

Have you considered also linking into dietary influences? Once weaned is there any connection with blood sugar peaks/introduction of refined foods? Before weaning what about caffeine and stimulants in the mothers diet?

Well, clearly you've met my son!! He is still ...

2011-11-25T15:08:08.142Z

Well, clearly you've met my son!! He is still very much like that at 2, although thankfully does sleep a lot better now. My mum says I was just like this as a baby too. Makes me wonder if there's a genetic link or if I mother my son just the same way I was mothered, in effect almost causing this behaviour?

A lot of you sound like the kids have food allergi...

2011-11-25T12:13:43.782Z

A lot of you sound like the kids have food allergies...

thank you - you have just escribed my son Charlie ...

2011-11-25T09:15:28.119Z

thank you - you have just escribed my son Charlie perfectly. Just nice to know that we're not alone!!!

This explains my 12 month old to tee. I instinctiv...

2011-11-24T22:19:17.418Z

This explains my 12 month old to tee. I instinctively knew he was everything you described a DBB to be, but I didn't have a definition (except from Dr Sears) or a solution. The impact on a mother's life is HUGE. I don't think other mothers realise it. I am an exhausted mess from the last year. My body & emotions are in serious trouble. I'd like to know what you do when the sling is no longer viable? (I developed chronic shoulder/neck pain from wearing him for the first 6 mths).

Sounds like my brother as a baby - he only slept b...

2011-11-24T21:50:11.557Z

Sounds like my brother as a baby - he only slept between 5am and 7am from 4months to 22m then had a few months of sleeping better then back to not sleeping until he was about 3. Even though it was the 70s my parents took it in turns to stay up with him as they didn't want to leave him alone (dad worked mum was a SAHM). He did have bottles upon bottles of calpol though as it was put down to teething :-0

Thank you, AA. So glad to hear a middle ground to ...

2011-11-24T21:49:36.399Z

Thank you, AA. So glad to hear a middle ground to how to cope with the dbb :). My middlest was such a baby and at 5 years old she still has to climb on her bed and spin like a puppy before she finally flops over and sleeps. At least 2 nights week she'll get up and need something in the night.
She was bf, slinged, co slept, home birthed, treated by a cranial ost. And baby massaged every day. We had a very vague routine set in place by her older brother who thrived on regular sleep times.
Every night I'd fall asleep around 7 with her, sneak off for some dinner but never eat it coz shed be wailing and wake her brother. After that if I even rolled away from her in the night she would scream blue murder. Putting her in a cot was unthinkable. Letting daddy deal with her was also out of the question, she bit, scratched and drew blood if it wasn't me next to her. She woke every 20-40 mins til age 3.5. When we night weaned at age 2.5 she screamed for 10 days and nights straight, the neighbours would knock on the door, worried!
At age 3.5 one night after shed bitten her brother for hugging me I sent her to her own bed. She screamed and banged her toys against the neighbor's wall, and when I tried to stop her she ran to the front door (whilt I was trying to put her bitten brother to bed) she yelled out the letterbox that her mummy wasn't looking after her!
I was exhausted, frustrated beyond words and miserable. U had no head space and our marriage was falling apart. When I looked for advice I'd beAt my self up for not having more patience with her, and I never met anyone else who had a baby like it, or even believed me! The ppl I knew thought I was crazy for not using CIO and medised.
So your post is like therapy, and I hope it helps all the other mums out there who are dealing with the same :) xx

I definitely have one of these - and we're sti...

2011-11-24T20:51:04.024Z

I definitely have one of these - and we're still dealing with the hyper-hyper at 8 years old! I've met quite a few DBBs in my time as a doula and I have to pull out all my tricks of the trade to help them sleep - usually the sling (with material draped to cut out visual stimuli), dancing, humming a boring tune and rhythmic patting of the bum finally gets them off. I've also noticed that some like a swaying dance, others like an up and down movement, and some like to feel the vibrations of my feet stamping on the floor...I can 'hypnotise some by stroking down their foreheads down between their eyes and down their noses with my finger, very gently in a rhythmic manner. Others, when they get to that 'stare-y' state can have their eyes gently closed by a gentle stroking hand down over their face. It's about being sensitive to the cues, getting to know who this little person is and what they need from a care-giver to assist them to sleep. I so agree, AA that people who say babies will just sleep when they're tired haven't worked with many babies!

This is partly my daughter. She's always been ...

2011-11-24T12:32:42.152Z

This is partly my daughter. She's always been one to go, go, go, crash (from birth!), and she does get hyper when she gets overtired. She also rolled over at 1 week! But in general she's also laid-back about many things.

Fantastic post. This is my son (20 months). I beca...

2011-11-24T10:15:02.491Z

Fantastic post. This is my son (20 months). I became very high strung about his sleep and clock watching but it was necessary to keep him calm and happy. People who don't have experience with these sorts of babies don't understand!

Fab article! Exactly describes my DD, and she is a...

2011-11-24T09:43:14.712Z

Fab article! Exactly describes my DD, and she is also a very light sleeper. Despite 2 tongue tie releases and quite a few osteopathy sessions she still seems to have fully charged batteries! To anyone else they wouldn't know she was actually tired when she goes into overdrive. I too have found the clock watching to be the answer. I am looking forward to the times when she doesn't need as much sleep in the day so that it doesn't seem to be so much of a battle. Any ideas on helping a DBB sleep for longer when out and about? She really struggles to switch off, and when she finally does (I usually have to turn the pram seat around to face me) it is only for 30-40 mins.

OMG when have you been sneaking into my house to s...

2011-11-24T09:38:13.928Z

OMG when have you been sneaking into my house to study my baby?!

I have a few friends at the mo who have none sleeping babies. I think this will help them as well as me.

Thank you so, so much!

This is sooooo my now 4 yr old! He was an early mo...

2011-11-24T09:30:11.292Z

This is sooooo my now 4 yr old! He was an early mover - rolled at 4 months and walking at 10 mths- and nearly drove me Mad with the 30-40 min cat naps. We tried the pram, the sling, rocking chair, etc and it was always a struggle to get him to sleep and usually involved tears. Once he started going to sleep in the car (still with tears but less of them) I used to drive him to sleep on the nearby highway! He only started napping longer when at about 10monhs I decided to start napping with him. After about 2 weeks of that he started sleeping a little longer. He still winds up tighter and gets louder and sillier the more tired he is, tho thankfully now he'll go to sleep easily when we lay down wih him and start reading him a bedtime book.

Great post! I never realised this had a name! She ...

2011-11-23T22:57:29.567Z

Great post! I never realised this had a name! She was 2 days old when she lifted her head and looked around while on her tummy, about a week old when we realised she can hold her weight on her legs and 9 months when she got up and started running around. We were lucky in the way she likes her sleep, but I breastfeed her to sleep at 17 months. Sometimes she gets so hyper before bed that even the boob can't calm her down and I have to hold her tight for about a minute (she hates being constrained) until she loosens up. I hate that bit, I feel like a terrible person, but I've yet to find another way to calm her down in this situation. Any suggestions perhaps? Other than that I love her being such an active and happy kid, she's fascinating to watch!

Oh this brought back memories. We broke the overti...

2011-11-23T21:41:25.298Z

Oh this brought back memories. We broke the overtired/can't sleep/more overtired cycle by introducing an electric swing with sideway motion. Not what I wanted to do, but it was the only thing that worked and once we had a nap pattern, all else fell into place. Sling didn't work for us, at least not at home. How lovely though to have a second baby that is different and realising that it really had nothing to do with parenting style!

Wow! This was my daughter. She's not so bad no...

2011-11-23T21:17:47.436Z

Wow! This was my daughter. She's not so bad now, but I don't know if that's because we've adapted to her needs. We're lucky if she has more than 10hours sleep at night, and no naps during the day (or she'll be up till after midnight). But both my partner and I were diagnosed as hyperactive as children, so I guess I expected sleep issues. My friends used to think I was mad, keeping my baby up till I went to bed, but it worked for us. I think using a sling and bedsharing saved my sanity. Thanks for sharing this, its good to know we're not alone!

Our son was most definitely one of these babies......

2011-11-23T21:13:28.655Z

Our son was most definitely one of these babies... Drove me so crazy when people assumed that cosleeping was some magic solution.

I found it useful when I learned that the human Basic Rest and Activity Cycle for humans is 90 minutes and babies are most likely to go to sleep easily at multiples of 90 minutes after they last woke up, so at about 80 minutes after they wake up, you want to go somewhere dark and start soothing them rather than e.g. trying to entertain them. I wish I'd known this from the start as I suspect that it might have made our baby's sleep problems less drastic (we did eventually resort to sleep training in utter desperation, albeit of the variety where we stayed with our son rather than leaving him alone)

My.first and.third.are like this. The oldest now 1...

2011-11-23T21:00:34.919Z

My.first and.third.are like this. The oldest now 10 years old was by far the hardest. He slept in 20 increments.until 3 months old totaling 6-8 hrs a day. He is still very hyper and if left to his own devices will stay awake through his second wind, then passout. But he will sleep like a champ now...he just has to.get to.sleep.

Everything you said describes both my girls to a T...

2011-11-23T20:45:47.493Z

Everything you said describes both my girls to a T. My older daughter is 7.5 and of course she's capable of some self-regulation now, but she still gets sillier and more hyper the tireder she gets, and the later she goes to bed the earlier she will wake up. When she was a baby I was extremely well-rested because I slept and napped with her every single moment until she was about 10 months old, when we got an AmbyBaby hammock and she would sleep in that for about an hour at a time.

My younger daughter is almost 1. She took all her naps in the Ergo for the first 7-8 months of her life, and I totally had to watch the clock to see when it was time for her to sleep because she wouldn't let me know with any of the typical cues, or if they were there they were extremely subtle and easy to miss since I was parenting two kids.

I don't think it's possible to truly understand the difference between a Duracell Bunny baby (hee, in the U.S. we call it the Energizer Bunny!) and a baby with more "normal" sleep patterns unless you've lived with one, but this post would be an excellent start to helping someone understand!

I spoke to you about my own Duracell bunny a few w...

2011-11-23T20:18:16.233Z

I spoke to you about my own Duracell bunny a few weeks ago. AD found a small posterior bond that may need to be divided and I have a card FULL of information to give his osteoopath. Really hoping there's an improvement when we see the osteopath as we're already doing all the lovely AP things and I literally have no life as I spend 3-4 hours a day with him napping on my chest in a dark room, and another 12 hours (if I'm lucky) in bed at night with him... in a dark room.

I had to send my washing out this week as I can't stay on top of it. I refuse to believe it's his personality, because he seems genuinely uncomfortable/in pain when he sleeps alone or wakes up.

Wow that's my 3 year old spot on! He woke at l...

2011-11-23T19:35:28.272Z

Wow that's my 3 year old spot on! He woke at least every 2 hours until he was 2 even with co sleeping and rarely napped. He runs around with endless energy and is even worse when tired. He does not eat much either. My second son is similar but not so 'hectic'. AA this make so much sence to me I have been told that it's my fault my oldest does/did not sleep as i for fed him to sleep and co slept. My second still wakes frequently but he is different.

This absolutely describes my now 5 year old son wh...

2011-11-23T19:21:50.539Z

This absolutely describes my now 5 year old son who only slept 45 minutes in a row for the first 3 years. I would love to be able to go back and tr this out. I did bedshare and sling wear and breastfeed constantly haha. We have no found out he has a Tongue Tie and severe sleep apnea.

What a great post. There are times when it seems I...

2011-11-23T19:16:48.659Z

What a great post. There are times when it seems I have the only baby in the world who flips from happy laughing to desperate eye-rubbing followed by howling in just minutes, so it's reassuring to have another name for it and to see it described so well. Clock-watching is starting to work for us, though I never thought that I'd do this - this morning I took him to the cot for a nap just over 2 hours after waking, even though he seemed bright as a button, and he went off without a murmur, which I'm pretty sure shows he needed it. I have to say it's a pain, though, and makes me feel I'm turning into one of those fretty fussy mothers who's obsessed with sleep times, in a way I never thought I'd be.