Rats Successfully Smacked, the 'No Brookers' uneventful pregnancy and pain free birth thread :)

[MeconiumHappens]

Hello :)

biscuits you're right, it's most important when they're floppy little ones with no postural control. Once they can sit up etc they have better spinal control and posture so bit less pressure on the spine. Babies have had vertebral wedge fractures from car seats!!!!! It's best to stick to the limits where possible, but i didn't worry about a 4 hour night car journey once with no stop and dd 9 months.

P.s biscuits, I'd like to work for Which? !!!

Not too bad cramping and no more bleeding so.I'm going to not worry quite as much as an hour ago

What's a vertebral wedge fracture? That sounds serious! How do you get that from the car seat? From being left in too long?

Sorry Dream I'm shamelessly picking your medical brains here!

A crush fracture of the bones at the bottom of the spine from being left in a car seat for stupid lengths of time, repeatedly I think. Poor babies. One of the consultants I work with goes mad about car seats. These are sometimes child protection type of babies getting these injuries, just getting a flat head much more common. I used to see the flat heads!! But i mostly see 2 years up, and vast majority school age anyway, not my specialist area.

Gosh that sounds awful!

Re the flat head - sometimes they get that from sleeping on their backs too don't they? Or if they always turn their head one way or the other when they sleep? I'm sure I remember something saying about that? Of course in a car seat they have no option as to where they put their head!

Yeah, its a combination of back to sleep (safest by far), car seats and leaving babies on their backs a lot. Back to sleep, tummy to play and all --dd hated tummy time with a passion- as I didn't use a pushchair til 9 months and carried her constantly in sling dd has a beautiful round head unlike some of her friends from groups despite hating her tummy and sleeping on her back. She sleeps on her tummy now. I can't believe it, the hours I put in when she was little to distracting her and encouraging tummy play to no avail and now...gah, these babies!!!!

Dream you are an awesome source of info! Thanks for the tips. On balance it sounds like from birth the maxi cosi and BeSafe are pretty equal, so I guess we might as well get the maxi in case we want to use it the way Biscuits has suggested. For the next stage though the BeSafe sounds like it's definitely the way forward. We have a great big mazda6 so I'm not too worried about it fitting into the car, even tho DH is 6ft.

Biscuits thanks for the iCandy tips! I read the MN reviews and some of them mention a size issue, whereas others say their child fit fine until they no longer needed the pushchair. I'm clueless on this kind of thing, and I have no idea if we'd have a big/tall or teeny LO, there's a full range across our families! You're def right on the weight point, it's a couple of kilos heavier, mainly because it's a metal frame instead of plastic. DH loves the metal frame vs plastic though (he's obsessed with things feeling "sturdy"!) and I found it to be just as maneuverable as the lighter bugaboo, so I'm hoping it won't make much difference. These are all key points to consider though, so thank you for raising them!!

D'oh! Sorry I'm on my phone and I temporarily forgot Dream raised the point about the small seat on the iCandy. Baby brain! Thanks again Dream.

I got an icandy pear from ebay a couple of months ago now for when there are two. It's in the garage currently awaiting arrival but it doesn't seem horribly heavy and dd fits nicely into the seat at 18 months.

I'm looking forward to using it.

We went with recaro for car seats which have served us well so far!

We wouldn't have a size issue with the iCandy- DD is little even though Dh is big!! She's still wearing 6-9 month clothes at 13 1/2 months. I wonder if we'd had a boy if he'd have been more like his dad, where she's certainly more like me build-wise so far. I reckon the twins are 2 boys. We'd both like a girl and a boy, and Dh said he didn't really want 2 girls!!!! How rude. He'd adore them if they were, I'm sure but i can't believe he said it!!!!

No more bleeding here overnight, thank goodness. Dh thinks I should just leave it but next scan not til 20 weeks, 1st Dec. I'm only 15+4 today so ages away. I will Brook No Argument...

dream - dh kept telling everyone we saw he wanted this one to be a boy. But when we found out it was a girl he was overjoyed! Men are strange creatures.

Good news on the bleeding. If it were me if i had any more blood I'd call the midwife and ignore my dh who would be exactly the same.

dream thank goodness for no more bleeding. I think you're best to play it by ear. If it happens again definitely go and get checked out. Having twins is new to you both, do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better. I'm brooking for you too, but I'm sure you don't need it.

On the subject of prams and pushchairs, I'd love a new one but I'm not having one. If only I'd known when I was pg with DS what I know now I'd never have bought the one I did. My advice to anyone is, don't just think about what you want to push your baby around in, think about if it'll still be practical to use after their 1st birthday. I didn't realise how small mine was until DS was completely squashed in it and unable to move not long after he was one. A complete waste of money as I then ended up having to buy another one. I'll be using the same 2 again this time as the original one has the carry cot and the frame that can connect up with the car set (as Biscuits said ideal for when the baby's asleep and you need to nip in somewhere quickly) and then I'll transfer to the second one when the baby grows out of it. I might buy a Maclaren stroller this time though, I've heard good things about the Techno XT.

Getting on well with the doppler so far, just using once a day in the morning. DS loves listening in and trying to make the same noise.

Dream glad to hear no more bleeding. I agree with the others though - anything more and go get it checked out. Please

Scarlet the Techno XT is the mclaren we have. I likes it a lot. It's a little more bulky when folded than some of the smaller mclarens but as it could lay flat DS slept better in that than the bugaboo when he was a bit older. And it had the bit where you can have the extra leg support for when their legs are too short to bend (iyswim) so he slept really well in it for a long time. It wasn't tiny folded. When we had our golf, it used to go diagonally across the boot whereas my friend had the next model down and that went in across the boot so took up less room, but now we have bigger cars so I'm not bothered! Oh and it had adjustable height handles too (not as adjustable as the bugaboo but still a bit) so that was super for my lanky DH

I will. If there had been any overnight I would have already. But in my area I can't ring a midwife as I'm not 18 weeks yet and they will not see any pregnancy problems until you're 18 weeks (???!!! so I was told when I rang last weekend), so I'd have to get a GP appointment. Trying to rest, but we went to look at this people carrier for sale in the next village, a Seat Alhambra, which DH loved, and wants to make the guy an offer- he stupidly said he was open to all offers, no matter how low. It's making me more twitchy as if anything did go wrong with this pregnancy we do not need a massive 7 seater.... While he was looking at it and chatting to the guy etc I was obviously chasing DD around, carrying her about, taking her to the playground by his house while DH and the guy took it for a test drive etc etc (the BeSafe is too big for us to face moving it for a quick drive!!!).

Had a morning of sickness and I'm tired already.

scarlet, thats why I borrowed a pushchair and didn't buy- I couldn't imagine what I'd really need, though i did buy the carrycot for the pushchair I'd borrowed, what with my babies-go-flat obsession and all . I was debating between a MacClaren stroller and my City Mini- the mini is not much more expensive but I preferred it. Folds tiny and wheels pop off with one click- it goes in the boot of my mini! Which was v useful when the focus was in for servicing.

I am having a little wobble. A little bit of spotting is not a disaster, right?! No more today, obviously I'm not knicker-checking every 10 minutes....

Dream, you can't ring a midwife until 18 weeks?! That's madness! Where I am, my direct contacts are the GP and A&E until 20 and then labour ward afterwards.. but my midwife gave me her telephone number and said I should feel free to call it at any time of day, if I felt I needed her for whatever reason. Guess I should feel lucky - I've heard from someone that the system where I am isn't that good, but apart from some idiots in A&E, I can't fault it so far...

You're all scaring me a little with all this talk of prams and car seats! DH and I have made the decision not to buy anything until after Christmas - and to maybe capitalise on any new year sales there might be! Also gives us some time to figure out what we want. Apart from knowing that I want a pram that converts into a pushchair absolutely fine (I think my favourite is a MacClaren, but can't remember - didn't look in that much detail!) I know very little. Feeling very underprepared now..!

Also, Dream, definitely contact someone if you have more bleeding, just for your own peace of mind!

Think I shall research prams, so I have a slight idea of what on earth's going on...

Ah Musical - I really wouldn't worry about feeling underprepared. We didn't look at ANYTHING at all last time until after 20 weeks. The only reason I know anything about prams etc is because I already have it all :)

Oh bugger. Why did I just read that thread in Pregnancy about length of 2nd labours after long first ones?

Not sure what's worse, the thought of another 3 day labour or a 20 minute one and delivering on the bathroom floor

I'm so not reading that thread.......

Oh scarlet reading stuff is bad for you! Everyone is different. I had 17 hr assisted labour with DS1 and 2 hour with DS2 so goodness knows what this one will do! I am not going to think about it until much closer to the time ( when I actually go into labour) :)
prams can be so confusing- they have changed so much since I bought one last, 16 years ago!

musical, my mw said they don't deal with twin pregnancy, I'm totally consultant led and won't see a mw again at all. Our system sounds similar- except it changes to mw/labour ward at 18 weeks. My mw is very scary, and I could tell when she did my repeat bloods after I'd had all that pain and been scanned that she thought I'd overreacted. She was incredibly horrible to an acquaintance who miscarried at 13 weeks too.

I didn't look at anything last time- hand me down car seat, Moses basket, pushchair to get me started. I wouldn't buy anything til after 24-26 weeks ideally, is just there's the car so close to what we need for sale now. And as I've had one I know what car seat I want and its on offer. So tempted. I also only know about stuff because I have dd. The only reason I'm plannng more is twins are obviously at risk of prematurity. Even so is rather hold off til the viable stage before spending anything. And the only thing I wish I'd looked at was car seats, as ours wasnt actually great if we'd been involved in a car accident with side impact but i naively thought all were as safe ad each other which they're not at all!!!!!

scarlet bathroom floor delivery can't be that common, but hoe wonderful! Not to have to go into hospital, be at home with your baby straight away etc... I'm sure you'll make it in though. My friend was 3 days the first time, 7 hours the second time if that helps!! Another was 24 hours first time, 10 second time.

Oooh, I'd be way too scared to deliver at home! And all that mess......

the mess is what would put me off! one of DH's colleagues had an unplanned home birth for her third child and didn't say anything about the mess!!

Hello people! Sorry for the long silence - have been away for the weekend with no internet access .

I have news! Bean is a girl! And the rest of the amnio results were absolutely fine. Am so pleased.

Dream, Brooking for no more scares or bleeding . Is there anywhere you can go for reassurance if you need to? I'm shocked you can't see the MW before 18 weeks.

Am loving the car seat/pushchair chat - I had no idea car seats were restricted to an hour in case of flat head! I don't want Bean to get a flat head. How long do you have to take a break for on long trips? Both Dad and PIL live a 3 hour drive away (in different directions) so I will have to find out. I have a Maxi-Cosi car seat and Quinny Buzz pram with carrycot and pushchair attachments.

Hope everyone else is well - will try to keep up in future!