February 2014. The cake mix is in the mug, the microwave is on, it's slowly rising and we'll be pinging in three more months!

[Shropshiremummy2B]

Sadly my cake mix is rising too much and resulting in a serious muffin top.

This is just another thought, but when we did our antenatal classes, they covered using pumps and gave sone recommendations of ones to use from feedback they had had from people.
For those looking at slings/wraps, we also looked and tried various ones of these out. This led us to buy (I think) a mei-tai and we had a borrowed Bjorn.

On bottles/pumps, did anyone NOT use them?

I'm hoping I can bf - obviously will need bottles and formula if not, though figure I can send DH to the 24 hour supermarket for those if needed after the birth!

If I do manage to bf, will I almost certainly also want to express and do some feeds with a bottle? Or, even if you do all the feeds at the boob, do you need a pump because otherwise there's horrendous leakage?

Sorry for all the questions - feel totally clueless about this side of things, (well, most sides of things!!) and am trying desperately not to buy too many things until I know I need them...

Julietee cats are wonderful - I have 4! As the others say however, wait until after the baby is born, because it can be difficult for cats to adapt to a new person in the house - my cousins cat moved out to the porch as soon as his daughter started crawling around!

Toxoplasmosis is incredibly rare in cats, and very much exaggerated when it comes to pregnancy. It's more likely to come from medium-rare steak for example :) Also, only young cats (under 2 ish) carry it, and you would literally have to get poo inside your mouth to be infected, by the 2% of cats that carry it! I have done a lot on research into this, seeing I have 3 adult cats currently living with me :) The 4th one is adopted to my boyfriends mum, but is still my baby obviously! hehe.

Off to try out my pregnancy yoga dvd! It's called Pregnancy Health Yoga, with Tara Lee. Full review will follow!

I'm hoping to bf too but have bought some bottles and steriliser as they were on offer on amazon. I'm hoping to express and let DH help out eventually. Will probably invest in an electric pump as manual just seems like a faff!

Awww my friend who lives in Reading has been up vision family nearby so came over on her way home with her 3 month old baby! Sooooo cute!!! Can't believe I will have one soon! I've also bought some reusable nappies from her and she brought some others and gave me a bit of a nappy lesson on the different types!

Now I'm gonna attempt to make a cottage pie that I can also freeze some up of

Glad you're all safe and that "the storm" has resulted in some days of x

Marzipanned I know a few women that tried to express but found that they were either expressing or feeding continuously round the clock so gave it up as a faff. I suspect I am more inclined to need DH to be able to help out occasionally and also want to be able to have a night out occasionally before I'm ready to give up bf so I want to give it the best chance I can! It's def not an essential piece of kit though... Plus you can do it by hand with no pump at all! (Messy?!)

Thanks for replies re pumps. I figured I might need one to express a bottle here and there so my DH/others can give me a 5min break now and then! Knowing my luck though, baby will get confused between bottle and boob and then I guess it's formula all the way?

champagne am also wondering about the bf classes - we have 2x 2hr NCT sessions in our class schedule - who knew it could take so long?!

eeyore that's strange about the annual leave carry over. When do they expect you to take it if you can't carry it over?

I think I might have to use nipple shields all the time anyway due to lack of nipples so I'm after the same make bottle teats as shields (mam). Some twats are more 'nipple like' than others to make interchanging between the two easier but I have heard some babies have problems with switching and back again. But 'problems' doesn't necessarily mean the death knell for bf altogether...just means you might not be so willing to try it again?! I've also been told to wait until b is properly established before trying to mix in bottle feeding. Once again I'd like to point out I am a childless cat lady so I am not talking from any experience! But I've been close to lots of friends who have gone before and I've read a LOT ;)

Haha oops! Teats not twats! Fat fingers!

Lots to comment on - haven't got time atm but just wanted to jump on board with the bf / pumps conversation. whoput you don't need a pump to stretch your nipples - look for a diagram of breastfeeding and you will see why. You nipple literally gets sucked right down the baby's throat!

Re pumps marzi I bf for 13 months with DS1 - mainly because he wouldn't take a bottle so you can definitely manage without pumps, bottles or formula.

I think we've had this debate before but it is also not a good idea to express too soon. You shouldn't express to control your supply as demand = supply so will only make it worse. Also babies can get confused and then refuse the breast (as a bottle is actually easier for the baby). I did mix with DS2 which was beneficial for many reasons but only got to 5/6 months before he was refusing the breast.

I will no doubt say this again and sorry if I sound like the breast feeding police but it is worth expecting it to be hard and to hurt and be determined not to give up too easily. If you say 'I'll give it a go' but get formula in 'just in case' then the chances are you won't stick at it. It is not easy at first and I wish midwives / Health visitors would be more honest about that so people know what to expect and know that it will get easier and it's worth persevering with. Instead they insist on sticking with their propaganda of 'it only hurts if you are doing it wrong' - absolute rubbish - your nipple has never been stretched down someone's throat before!! (probably!). My first baby vomited what looked like pure blood at a few days old. I was hysterical and phoned the hospital who said 'don't worry it'll just be your nipple bleeding.' Now try telling me that doesn't hurt!

Will catch up later on the other posts!

Will second what others have said re bf. When I first started bf with dd it was awful. I found it really painful and ended up with cut nipples I persevered and bf her for 7 months with dd choosing not to in the end - obviously preferred solids!!!

I ended up using nipple shields and found they were more harm than good as totally messed with my supply so think twice before using them for more than a couple of days.

Re expressing I was lucky in that my dd took a bottle of expressed milk from 6 weeks without getting nipple/teat confusion. It was necessary as I went to a take that concert although by end my boobs were agony as we're totally full!!!

Last word on it if you can then bf is great and makes life easier but don't put yourself under too much pressure if it doesn't work for you. I cried so much in those first few weeks of bf and put myself under way too much pressure but I wouldn't do that this time. It is good but it's not the be all and end all of feeding. X

Another one finding 'working from home' more conducive to hanging out on mumsnet than doing much actual work...

Jazzcat - I think I had the Medela Swing electric (battery operated) - a friend gave it to me second hand and it was very easy to use. To be fair, I had a ridiculous oversupply issue and could fill a bottle in a couple of minutes but it definitely seemed like a good option. I only started using it after about 6 weeks though and so didn't buy any bottles or things in advance. Luckily my DS was a greedy boy who would happily feed from breast or bottle and was exclusively breastfed until 10.5 months, no formula used. I'm inclined to agree with Poppy - we didn't get any formula in 'just in case' because I chose to believe (perhaps naively) that we wouldn't need it and that's how it panned out. Would agree about being prepared to grit your teeth through the early weeks of discomfort too, although I think a lot of mine was due to DS having an undiagnosed tongue tie which resulted in a nasty split nipple and bout of mastitis that made me pass out and break my nose, blood all over the (new) carpet when DS was 2.5 weeks old. So my one massive piece of advice is please get the midwives to check your newborn for tongue tie at birth. They can do a simply snip with scissors there and then and it won't really hurt them (or they certainly won't remember) - much more traumatic having to take DS to have it done at about 6 weeks old. I also agree that you should be careful with pumps - I had horrible oversupply issues (seriously uncomfortable and bad leaky/spurting probs) and initially I was mistakenly advised to pump a bit before each feed to help ease the pressure. Trouble was, if I pumped and then did a feed, my body clearly thought the baby needed all of that milk so it just produced a load more to meet the supposed demand. I ended up with a massive stash of milk in the freezer which I never even used and very quickly dropped the pump in favour of breastfeeding directly because that way my body could get used to exactly what supply was needed to meet the demand.

Wow, that was loooooong, sorry!

Second that about tongue ties - both mine had them. My first was only spotted at a few weeks old and he was never snipped. With my second I asked them to look straight away and they did and they snipped it (at a few days old I think). I'm going to make a note in my maternity notes to get them to check this one.

PS not knocking anyone who doesn't stick at bf - each to their own. I just think mw / hv being more honest would help people recognise what is normal and not give up because they think they are doing something wrong.

Wow who knew there was so much to consider!

I am keen to try bf and really would love it to work but am of the opinion if it doesn't work then ff is not the end of the world. Am determined to give bf a proper go though, short of letting the poor little mite starve of course! Perhaps I'll hold off the pump purchase until I know that bf is working as would be a total waste if we end up switching to formula.

The stories of bleeding nips are making me wince already though...

Haha Jazz - at least it'll take your mind off the rips, stitches and afterpains

jazz I'm of the same view. I'd love to make bf work (because I'm lazy and a skinflint, and the benefits for baby). However, if for whatever reason it doesn't work I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

My nipples are dry and cracked already :( I don't know why, I'm applying moisturiser twice a day.

Just had a two hour snooze with the work on the ensuite going on directly above! Time to get off mumsnet and back to work...

Gah!! incoming rant!
I have a mild case of Tourettes, and I can't stop tic'ing for like the last half hour nonstop whilst cooking dinner. I keep squeaking (yes, it's weird, I know) and it really hurts my throat now! Hopefully a nice cup of tea will calm me down. So much for relaxing yoga eh!

Wow, thanks for all the advice.

I am pretty committed to making bf work so think I'll hold off buying anything feeding related (except lansinoh!!) til the little one arrives and we see how we get along.

Eeyore, a snooze sounds like an excellent idea. Horribly nauseous today (the builders just found a whole new infestation of the rot and I'm sure it's the smell of that being ripped up) so anything to make the hours pass more quickly. DH wants us to move into a hotel for the rest of the week, hurrah.

jazzcat I only breast fed but decided to buy a breast pump just incase I needed DH to feed her. I bought the Avent hand held manual pump. It's cheap and very simple to use. I did quite a lot of expressing but it all went to waste as she refused a bottle.

I actually didn't like the electric pumps and thought from seeing friends use the they seemed like much more faff than a manual. There is more bits and pieces means more to wash and sterilise.

I don't think I will bother with a pump this time as I do believe that babies get confused if both nipple and teat are offered. And most babies in my experience who have both end up refusing the boob in the end. Unless they are like my DD whoever. She actually was so adamant she wasn't having a bottle that the first time I went out for a meal and left her with my sister. My sister ended up having to breast feed her as she completely refused the bottle and got herself in such a state. Lucky my sister had a baby the same age and plenty of milk.

jazz babies can learn the difference from 6-8 weeks, so you can both bf and bottlefeed without confusing them, as long as you wait until then :) I hope to bf'ing and bottlefeeding when I need a break + it's nice bonding for the dad! Sorry if I seem like a know-it-all (not having had a baby yet) - I just research obsessively about stuff, currently babies :P

Hello, help!
just had a bit of a show, yellowy mucus with streaks of blood, I'm 26 +5, had weird cramps and a dull ache the last two days. I've left a message for the midwife but not heard back yet, would it be a GP thing or should I wait?
I'm thinking it could be an infection but not sure how urgent that is?

Littleen my experience would certainly back that up - my DS was a guzzler who happily breastfed or took the occasional bottle of expressed milk, never a single issue with him refusing either. I also had to use nipple shields at one point because my nipple was so wounded and despite plenty of books saying these can confuse the baby, he didn't bat an eyelid. But I appreciate they're not all such enthusiastic feeders! He's still a keen eater at 20 months and a massive chunk!

Fizzling I think in your situation I would phone the maternity unit at the hospital, they'll probably ask you to come in to get checked over. Hopefully nothing to worry about but I would definitely want to be sure. Good luck!

Thanks, that was my thoughts too, however the hospital is almost an hour away and the main road is currently blocked by a nasty accident so don't want to make the trek if not needed. Argghh, this is DC 4 as well, you'd think I'd know what to do by now! I'll try the midwife again.