Graduated Elderberries - Thread 8

[Cavort]

The over 30's expecting/just given birth to their first little bundle of joy.

Thread 8 already!!

Lol step away from evil Gina! It's just an opinion. Did she even have kids herself?

I am disorganised. I breastfeed. I muddle through. Strict routines plus breastfeeding are simply incompatible.

Re naps - as soon as H starts the cute eye rub thing I either offer him a feed or start rocking him to sleep.

As long as he gets at least 2 hours during the day, we'll avoid meltdowns. Sometimes he'll sleep when we're out and about but it's very hit and miss - if he's already overtired before we go out, and it's optional, I'll try and stay in so he gets one good nap.

I'm probably totally doing the wrong thing but he's only 12 weeks old - we can start training him to 'comply' when he gets a bit older. For now, I'm happy for him to be babied.

The only exception is re night time routines- we're starting to add more structure there but it's a loose approach at the moment.

I haven't read it but I get the gist of it from other people and have decided it's a cruel load of bollocksnot for me. Have a look at www.askdrsears.com in order to balance the GF approach with one which advocates just trusting your instincts just as human beings have evolved to do with babies over millions of years. Personally I think it's whatever works for you and there is no right or wrong. We do have some routine here but it is flexible and has developed through instinct of what our baby needs rather than some bint trying to sell books.

strike through fail, bloody phone!

Yeah miss ford has a rather bad name, I say take from it what is useful and ignore the rest, why beat yourself up about something a random woman thinks is right?

I'm having period type cramps/pains, I'm guessing these are the BHs they tell you about? Not overly painful just enough to make me think 'ouch' and change position, feels odd having period like cramps while also having a big bump

In answer to your questions Lol, Elodie gets up about 7am, usually has 3 naps per day and goes to bed about 7pm. Up until last week her naps were generally around 9am for 1-2 hours, around midday for a few hours and then around 4ish for 30-60 mins, all of which has been decided by her based on watching when she gets tired and irritable and then making sleep available to her. At the moment though she is being a PITA and only naps for 40 mins unless I am pushing her in the pram, so depending on how much sleep she's had the previous night I either just let her have short naps (and add a fourth daily nap) or if she needs to catch up on the previous night I take her out in the pram for her lunchtime nap, like today and she slept for over 3 hours while I had a pub lunch. If she won't settle I used to just skip the nap and try again a bit later or bring bedtime forward, but since she's become really fussy this last week I am now forcing her to settle by rocking her until she's almost asleep and then putting her down. I will let her grumble and moan and just leave her but when it escalates into a full blown cry from which she stands no chance of settling then I pick her up and put her back down again as soon as she's calm. Bedtime routine is bath, babygrow and sleeping bag on, feed, cuddles and then put down sleepy but awake. Feeding is totally on demand and varies from day to day.

Lucy quite regularly only has a 20 minute nap all day no matter what I try to do. I refuse to worry about it any more she'll sleep if she's tired. Screw Gina Ford.

Bloody hell Purple, you must be knackered keeping her entertained all day! Elodie can only manage a maximum 2 hours (quite often less) between naps before she's miserable and crying through tiredness and that 2 hours wears me out! I've worked out she needs roughly 14 hours sleep in 24 in order to avoid all round misery.

Ooh Mother they could be! Next time you get one, see if your bump goes hard all over - if so that's definitely one!

How far along are you again? memory is shot to bits

I had period like pains for about 3-4 weeks before my due date - someone said it was a sign my cervix was starting to soften/dilate.

If they become regular tho, could be early labour (unlikely, so don't panic) so if you're getting a lot, just keep an eye on the time.

Tis a weird feeling though - I've been having period pains on and off for last 3 weeks - keeps reminding me of being in labour! - so the total opposite :)

I'm 37 weeks brave, I'm happy for him to come whenever he's ready now, I'm starting to feel huge, plus the bump has dropped which feels weird.

They went off when I had a nice bath, I shall check next time though to see if the bump goes hard. Exciting times.

Hope everyone had more sleep last night!

Ahem, is this one of those times I realise I'm a terrible parent again? I'm not sure I do 'entertain' her much at all, let alone all day I mean I chat to her as I go about my day but she seems quite content to just watch the world go by most of the time unless shes in a bad mood, then she's a Velcro baby. Most days I just bung her in the pram and take her round the shops/ out to lunch, take her to my mums and some days I vacuum around her. As long as she knows you're nearby she just sits in her bouncy chair and kicks her legs. Umm...what should I be doing? (Vows to make more of an effort)

Oh god, that makes it sound like I ignore her all day which isn't true, we go out a lot and she seems to be quite happily amused by looking at people and smiling at strangers until they tell her she's gorgeous (attention seeker )

Purple where do you live??? Maybe we should meet up for walks etc. Your slack style seems terribly similar to mine!!!!
Having said that I will try to offer her the opportunity to nap in about an hour and will then take her for a long walk at lunchtime when I need to go to the post office to sort out her passport. Then I will see what happens in the afternoon.
Last night she just woke up twice and settled herself to sleep at least 4 times - I heard her and instead of comforting her I just let her be and she went back to sleep.
Cav thanks for the answers and for that website. I read some of it and quite enjoyed the style!
Janey did I read on fb that you went out on the booze last night ?

Ooh Mother exciting!

I will admit to missing a huge wodge of what's gone on in here because all the post-natal stuff is just too scary to contemplate..but since it looks like I'm actually having some babies here I should really start to take notice!

Lol I've heard some horrible things about Gina and her technique. I'm a dippy hippy at heart anyway and will probably attempt to go down the attachment parenting route, the thought of controlled crying etc is just horrifying!

Sorry people have been having sleepless nights. When we did the phone-round yesterday pretty much everyone was saying things like, 'ooh, say goodbye to sleep with twins then'...reassuring why do people always have to point out the negatives of having babies as soon as you tell them your good news? Mr Boom said all his friends were saying, 'well that's your life over now mate'...nice everyone also said lots of very nice things, just wondering why they have to stick a negative on the end!

To be honest Boom the 'stupid things people say when you're pregnant' merges seamlessly into 'stupid things people say when you've got a baby' without any respite at all...though I guess you're going to get a whole new level of stupid comments with twins!

My favourite ridiculous comment which everyone seems to ask is 'is she good?' (Or more often 'he' even when she's wearing a purple flowery babygrow, what's that about? Does she look masculine?) I mean how can a tiny baby be 'bad' I'm always tempted to reply 'no, she's an evil genius plotting to overthrow the government' or something so they realise what a nonsense question it is!

Lol- I live in Devon, we're all pretty lazy relaxed around here come on down, it's warm here and we have ice cream and a very nice local vineyard

boom people say incredibly stupid things when your pregnant and I doubt it changes when you have the baby, or babies in your case.

To be honest having twins and getting the 2 children I ideally want at the same time sounds pretty good, yes it's hard but I think having a baby is always going to be hard. Plus you won't know any different.

Try not to panic about the talk on here which isn't relevant yet, you'll soon be glad to have ladies you can ask anything who have been their before. I know it's been a huge help/support to me.

More cramp pains today and the wonderful 'lightening crutch/cervix' which the midwife told me about. Eeek.

ohhh purple I love Devon! My cousin lives in woolacombe and it's so beautiful.

No no, I'm the terrible mum as I'm the one who bought and followed (to some extent) Gina ford!

To be fair, I ignore around 90% of it. But we were having a sleeping nightmare, and I was exhausted and soooo tired of miles waking at 4.30am for the day, I had to try something. She doesn't advocate controlled crying at all at this age, and I ignore the feeding stuff, but within two days of following roughly her napping times and bedtime routine miles was like a different baby. Yes, the last week or so has been tough but he has been better for the last two nights.

Basically I found it really useful to give me a guide as to how much miles needs to be sleeping in the day as I had absolutely no idea. And if we get that bit right - even if it's not at the 'right' times - we seem to be ok.

And yes, I was out last night with the lovely blooming Alex, and some other friends. I was SO excited!! But because I had to wait for DP to get home from work to go out, before i knew it it was past final orders and nearing last tube home, so home I went. Pleased to report that my local minicab firm still remembered me from my drunken days, and it turns out, have been keeping and eye on me strolling around the place with a baby in tow!

HA Purple please say that next time, please!

Good to know the stupid comments continue long after they're born, and we've only just started...oh well. In all fairness I don't know why I thought that people who made 'just relax and it'll happen' comments while we were ttc would be any better now we're diffed!

Mother oooh sounds like developments are afoot....

janey hope you had a lovely night!

Purple 'entertain' is probably the wrong term to use and makes it sound like I spend all day putting on puppet shows and juggling which I most definitely do not. We do spend a bit of time each day on her gym and sitting on the floor trying to force her to roll over which she refuses to even entertain playing with her toys, but I just mean I feel like I can MN and enjoy a brew relax fully when she's asleep.

Janey I was also unaware of how much daytime sleep is usually required. I did some reading up on it and realised Elodie was showing signs of overtiredness, one of which ironically is wakefulness so now I try to make sure she's never awake longer than 2 hours at a time and she hopefully gets about 4 hours daytime sleep. She just woke twice to feed last night at 1am and 5am so a bit better than of late, and she has broken through the dreaded 40 minute nap barrier this morning without being in the pushchair - hooray!

Mother I had forgotten about the lightning crotch but I got it really bad in the last few weeks. It felt like I was being stabbed and used to make me jump off the chair! FX it means things are moving along for you and bubs will making an appearance soon.

Ahh I see what you mean, no, there's not a lot of relaxing around here...or puppet shows! Been meaning to ask how your hips are? Mine obviously aren't as bad as they were but I'm still having probs, pushed a shopping trolley with a wonky wheel the other day and my left hip had been screaming at me ever since. Ouch.

As much as I hate to utter the dreaded word, what's everyone with babies doing about Christmas? I keep buying her stuff thinking I'll put it away for Christmas then thinking but she could be using it for the next 8 weeks and get more use out of it. Trouble is I'll have nothing left to buy/wrap up soon. I know she won't know any different but she's got to have SOME stuff from Santa!

Sensible baby-related post: we need a new car. At the minute we have a Honda Jazz (yes, I am in fact a grandma), which is my car and I use it to get to work. Mr Boom doesn't have a car but is starting to need one for work, so we're looking at getting a second. Mine will quite happily fit the babies in the back and the buggy in the boot, but the dogs are an issue. Any ideas for a budget-ish car lorry that will fit two grown ups, two springer spaniels, two babies and any required baby paraphernalia in it at the same time?? We'll be looking second hand, but I just don't know where to start!

Boom - my OH is a mechanic, he swears by Honda. I've got a civic and he's got a CRV. The CRV is definitely lorry sized. We fit two adults two massive teenagers a baby and two large dogs in it. They're very reliable. Hth!

I didn't realise you were still having hip problems Purple My SPD magically disappeared in the delivery room so my hips are fine. It must be quite rare for it to carry on post pregnancy as isn't it caused by pregnancy hormones? Have you seen a doctor about it to perhaps get some physio or exercises? Oh yes, wonky wheeled trolleys were a killer.

Aaarrgghh, you said the dreaded C word! Now this is where I get to look like the evil parent because I don't intend to get her anything as she won't have a scooby doo what's going on and I figure everyone else will get her stuff. I might stretch to a novelty christmas outfit but that's about it.

Boom we had the same car problem (except with one baby and one dog) and basically the pram is the problem because we didn't want it in the boot with the dog (not that it would fit anyway) and we couldn't put it on the back seat in case of an accident Elodie would get hit by the flying pram, so we got a roof box for the pram which gets us by in my car. We currently have a 4x4 on order though to replace DH'S car which will fit a dog divider in the boot like this one to accommodate everyone and everything without a roof box.

Cavort - I think that's exactly what was happening with miles, too tired to sleep. As soon as he started getting more (because The Dreaded Gina told me how much) his nights improved.

Car wise, I know nothing about them. However we've just got a qashqai - your typical family car - and love it. As do three sets of my friends who also have babies and loads of crap to cart around . Ours was two years old but has lovely heated leather seats which not only keeps me happy but I think will be good for when miles voms all over it makes a mess. He also LOVES the glass roof. My friend told me her ten month old always waves at the glass roof when they're driving, and they've just figured out it's because he thinks the trees are waving at him as they pass. Bless.