Graduated elderberries - 30+ and looking forward to DC1! (Thread 6)

[HazleNutt]

Oh, looks like I wrote the last post! So new thread here where we will see more berry babies and hopefully loads more graduates as well.

Cross post janey ahh lovely to hear something good and positive, glad it went well! I have two friends who did use those cringey expert books and both with good results so let me know if you want me to ask what they did, one of them merged two. Someone was telling me yesterday that she just let her baby sleep through and didn't wake her baby for feeding, followed absolutely no routine, got told off by midwife apparently but had a great sleeper and said it's just what worked for them. Helpful hearing different methods.

That's really interesting Janey. I have to admit I have been toying with the idea of giving formula for the 11pm feed to see if it makes her sleep through, but I did some Googling and the general consensus seemed to be that you either get a sleeper or you don't and the slower digestion of formula might only buy you an extra hour, and I am too chicken to experiment in case my milk starts to dry up when she has formula feeds.

So glad and he slept for you though!

Purple I took Elodie out wearing denim jeggings and a grey t-shirt and had loads of people admiring 'him.' I couldn't be arsed to correct them and who cares anyway, it's not like she will be left mentally scarred in later life.

janey my mate gave me the CLB Gina Ford book and to be honest I figure anything is worth a try! If it makes for a happy mum and baby who is to say it's wrong, I'm not going to be as uber strict as she is but will pick and choose bits to try and make my life easier see I'm selfish. Long may it continue to work for you and Miles!!!

Alex it could have been an amber teething necklace, boys and girls wear those so I wouldn't fret too much. My mates little boy has rather long curly strawberry blond who am I kidding he is ginger hair and wears a teething necklace and always gets comments about what a beautiful little girl he is. It's a running joke now. He does look cute with his curls though so I can't blame them for wanting to keep them.

My pram is royal blue so I would hope people will realise it's unlikely I would have a blue pram with a little girl. I guess that's me stereotyping again though.....naughty me.

Alex Wake baby for feeding??? What kind of lunatic would do that?!!

Ha can't remember who it was now but heard a story about someone whose baby looked so much like the other sex, she ended up telling a random in a shop the baby was called 'Jessica' or something even though it was a boy just because it seemed to make people feel awkward when she corrected them, made me laugh

I have some Gina Ford book too, but at the moment following the "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" parenting. Even though most books and experts tell us that baby should have a routine and put the baby to bed every 1,5 hours or so, I am happily ignoring it. Vic eats when hungry and sleeps when sleepy and that works for us just fine. If it no longer works, will consider other options.

That's exactly what we were like - doing as and when - but seemed to stop working and I was exhausted. I'm not sticking rigidly to it but the night time routine and waking him for a feed worked for me! Alex - if Miles slept through there is NO WAY I would wake him for a feed! So not surprised your friend didn't. I just woke Miles as I was going to bed to buy us some time asleep

Took Miles swimming today, he went underwater and everything and loved it. He was falling asleep in the pool by the end of the 30 mins session - was hilarious, bless.

By 'worked for me' I mean that it worked for one night. I'm sure we'll be back to normal tonight

Argh! I'm so pissed off, just been to HV clinic to get her weighed and she's dropped a couple of centiles so HV said I have to wake her to feed her. Bearing in mind that it's only this week that she has started letting me sleep for more than an hour and a half at a time. HV lady, you are out of your fucking mind if you think I'm setting an alarm to disturb my sleep even more then waking up a sleeping baby. Do they not even stop to think about your mental health?

I've got to go back next week to check her weight again and I'm really worried that after all the long hard battle I've had with breast feeding they're going to tell me to put her on formula. Fuck sake, can I not do ANYTHING right?

Oh purple that sucks. Really feel for you. Not sure what to suggest at all. Would you consider topping up with one bottle of formula before bed? Not sure if it would help but could be worth a try? Although I guess it could make her sleep longer which is the opposite of what they want

I've just looked in the red book and it's worse than I realised, she's only 9lb 2 and she's nearly 10 weeks. She was 7lb 15 at birth. She's gone from following the 50th centile right down between the 9th and 2nd line in the graph. I'm really upset about it all and my OH has come home and just basically blamed me because I'm 'not eating enough'

Oh purple it's so easy to blame yourself. And with bf it's impossible to tell how much they're actually eating which makes it hard.

You could do things like eating foods renowned for increasing milk supply like flapjacks oats? Also when Miles was intensive care a midwife told me that expressing at some point between 2am and 4am really ups supply?

Please don't blame yourself - this is all so hard. Hugs xx

Purple is she happy, healthy and not hungry in your opinion? If so I would be inclined to ignore advice and just carry on as you are. We didn't have health visitors and red books when we lived in caves.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/a1590454-14-week-old-breast-fed-baby-dropping-percentiles

Purple I agree with the others. You should see how she looks and be able to tell whether or not she is well. Her weight seems on the small side but people come in different sizes and that does not mean unhealthy or weak!
I bought an avent slow flow bottle and Lara was really happy with it today! And she had frozen milk too . So dinner is back on tomorrow. Don't think dtd will happen though. With baby and mum here I don't think I can get in the mood.
I've been given two gina ford books and did have a read but a lot of it sounds way to regimental. Having said that I am willing to try anything!
I'm at the stage where I sleep from 9ish/10 until midnight (she stays with dh) then she feeds and fusses for about an hour then sleeps till 4ish/5 and can fuss for a few minutes up to 2 hours!!! Then she sleeps well from 6ish to 9/10 but by that time I'm usually awake. Main difficulty is that most of that sleep is either on my chest or my arm and dh is telling me off for not forcing her to stay in the basket!!

purple do not blame yourself!!! You are breast feeding because you want what is best for her, you are working your butt off to be a mum and a HV and your OH should know better than to suggest anything else. If she is happy and healthy then all is ok, plus you said she feeds all the time, so shes certainly hungry. Maybe try the oats as cav suggested or mix some formula in too? Don't beat yourself up though!!!

Anyway, so today, in an episode of particularly bad timing, my baby was woken up by Peter Andre, or rather Peter Andre plus a couple of hundred of his screaming groupies (WTF?)... which was most unexpected and not something I saw coming when I got up this morning.

Where on earth were you?! My equivalent of that is that yesterday I was in the John Lewis parent feeding room, and two middle aged women came in talking about having just seen Duncan from Blue...

You all speak such sense, she is happy and full of smiles, she eats and stops eating when she's full. I'm going to take a deep breath and get on with it because we're all just doing our best and you can't do any better than that. Thanks for the support and common sense lovely ladies

I'm really glad Purple. It's one thing choosing to use formula, but I would hate to see you bullied into it because she isn't following some stupid line on a graph. A gain is a gain and who cares if it's slower than other babies so long as she's healthy.

Janey I was in a shopping centre and he was apparently there promoting his new perfumes. I had no idea and came out of Debenhams just as he walked out and loads of girls started screaming. It would have been funny if I wasn't so annoyed about them waking Elodie up while I was trying to shop. He is short and orange and thick as shit.

Well here's something I've just remembered.... I was out at some trendy bar a few years ago, and Mr Andre was in the same bar. I think he was with Jordan at the time. Anyway he gave our friend Alex the eye - stared at her like a right old perv....

And just how many sodding perfumes has he released?! Thousands so far, surely?

ohhh alex check you out

I agree cav he is short, orange and once found jordan attractive so must be empty headed!!

purple glad logic and common sense won out over small minded HV!

My mate who works in telly has done something with him (not like that you filthy minded lot) and she reckons he's really nice but does confirm he's practically a satsuma close up.

I have no idea how many perfumes he has but he was promoting 2 new ones today, which some woman sprayed me with as a ploughed through with the pram, and they're both actually quite nice. I could obviously never buy them though just in case someone ever said I smelled nice and asked what it was. I would die of shame admitting I was wearing Peter Andre.