Graduated Elderberries. Thread 9

[Cavort]

The over 30's expecting or just had their first baby.

Moan away! And I'm drinking wine, baby is asleep anyway.

Baby is asleep on me, otherwise is be heading to the fridge for a beer and joining you! It is the weekend after all.

Baby in bed and nice big glass of Shiraz on the go.

Mother from what you've said, I can't see how you're possibly wrong for being mad at him, but I'm glad you've sorted it out.

I've got S feeding in one hand, cider in the other (all class) and a bottle expressed so I can have a glass of wine too! Cheers!

Very nice Pinot Gris here. Living in the middle of a wine region does have its advantages. Cheers!

Hmm that reminds me, there's a nice Pinot gigglio (as it's called in our house) in the fridge, might join you Hazle!

I had a few glasses last night to celebrate my bday and L was happy on bottles of expressed. I'm also happy to report jet lag is working in my favour now and she was up at 10am . Didn't know what to do with myself!

10am?? Amazing! I need to work out how much I need to express so I can go and do things - for example I've got a hair app booked in Feb. At the moment I'm only doing a bit of expressing but am getting my confidence up about it - I don't want to confuse my boobs yet so I don't express much but might try freezing some to build up a stock!

Sounds like lots of fun and games and wine being had this weekend!

Friday night was spectacular for us. When I counted back at 930 this morning, I think I was in bed for a total of 2 hours by the time it got to 6am. To his credit, DP finally volunteered to take H downstairs at 615 - definitely encouraged by my tears having just returned to bed 10 minutes previously.

The context of this miracle makes it more impressive. We had been having yet another 'shall we split up' discussion that started because a few weeks ago I asked him if he could get a lift to and from work this Monday so I could have my the car for the day. I'm meeting up with 2 friends and their babies 150 miles away.

Given that one of his colleagues nippped round a couple of weeks ago for some baby clothes, I knew that a) someone lived close enough to do so and b) they were obviously fairly friendly as DP wouldn't have offered H's old clothes.

So instead of asking this guy who does the same hours in the same office 60 miles away, he announced one night that he had juggled his days so he could work out of a different office, 30 miles and in the same general direction as I would be travelling so I could take him to work and pick him up again at either end of the 150-mile/2and a half hour journey.

Thing is, I wanted to go down on Sunday to break the journey, see my folks briefly - my friends and I are meeting at my mum's - and take the pressure out of such a long journey on my own with H.

So from there DP started saying 'why do you really want to go down' and announced that he wouldn't travel 2 hours on a 'peasant wagon' just to get to work etc.

I'm obviously totally unreasonable to ask him to put himself out for one journey in all the time I have been and will be off

So the all-nighter was fun! Tried to give H a top up of formula to knock him up tonight but he refused it. Hoping this is just cos he's a little under the weather. Otherwise we're a bit screwed as I'm back at work in 6 weeks.

Sorry your DH has been an arse, too, mother . Bloody men.

Oh god that's a bit long, sorry

Alex I used to find 4-5 oz was enough if I went out at your stage when I was still able to express but tried to leave 2 bottles just in case.

brave yes they really are trouble arent they.

Everyone, raise your glass of wine, cider any other booze you may have the child I was beginning to fear was part nocturnal after sleeping badly for so long just slept 7 hours straight. 12-7, I finally feel human again Sure he won't do it again for about 3 months but at least I know the little sod has it in him to actually sleep!

glad he is actually being a himan though brave

himan wtf.....human

Oh brave rubbish Doesn't sound like you were out of order at all, if I were him I would have just asked for the lift and wouldn't be put out about it! Are you getting on ok generally?

Good news is S slept for 5 hours again!! Woop! She is next to me grunting so not quite awake yet, think she may have been grunting a while as I had weird dreams but she does this a lot in bed - turns her head side to side and grunts?! She actually had quite a good day yesterday - DH had to go to an event and last minute my mum decided to come over to help which was brilliant as she took S while I relaxed and watched tv for a bit with my stepdad and some booze. I expressed 4oz which it turns out was enough for one good feed. I'd want to leave more though if I were brave enough to go out for a whole evening. My mum and I took aaaaages to settle Sophia for bed though as she did cry quite a bit and took 3 hours altogether, until 2am. I think she had wind and gets herself overtired - I could hear the bubbles in her belly again and she does a higher pitch cry than hunger. It was frustrating trying to settle her for so long but during the day, she did well and she could be distracted whenever she cried even just temporarily, so hopefully it's not awful agonising reflux all the time?!

Sorry essay - anyway does anyone else's do the grunting/head turning in bed? Another thing she does loads is a wind face - I hate it as it means wind but it was really making us laugh last night as she looks like a pervy old man - tongue hanging out, eyes rolling around and big creepy grin haha

Her piglet grunting earlier didn't wake her up and she's now made it 6 hours!! damn wish I'd gone back to sleep too instead of being sure she'd wake up and just watching her cute little face sleeping!

We have grunting, whimpers, thrashing and sometimes babbling in H's sleep. H's weirdest sounds like a crying dog.

Honestly, if she's sleeping it's probably fine - she'd wake up if not!

Great news on good nights for S and H. Here, we devised a trap to stop H thrashing around and waking himself up. Lots of blankets rolled up on either side making a wedge (like the moses basket or being held), then s cellular blanket on top, pinned down by the blankets to reduce his legs piking up.

Nailed it! We'll gradually reduce the padding in time but such a difference :)

Oh and very belated happy birthday Lol! I kept forgetting

Brave could you pls take a pic so I can see what you mean about the baby trap and steal the idea when S moves into her cot?

We have thrashing and grunting. Plus snorting, snuffling, whistling, sighing, contorting, moaning, murmuring, squeaking, peeping... Why the expression 'sleeping like a baby' exists I do not understand. We also have a poo face where she goes puce and looks like Winston Churchill.

I thought we were having a good night when she slept midnight-4, but then she has basically been up and feeding every hour/1.5 hrs since then. I am shattered. And I didn't even get to drink any bloody wine.

Just thinking about holidays this year - what are you doing about travel cots abroad? As with easyjet for example, babies can only take two items free - buggy and car seat in our case. We're hopefully going to Spain in July and also thinking maybe we should get something else in the diary, maybe around Easter. I'm wondering if it's cheaper just to buy a basic travel cot on arrival. The alternative is paying for extra hold luggage or even finding a travel cot light enough to squeeze into our main bag - although I bet they're huge and guess you need a mattress too for comfort?

alex are you renting a villa in Spain? Hotels will usually provide travel cots. (Yes, they are huge.)

Alex you could perhaps get something like this? or this? or even this?

I think I have the start of PMT - hooray!! I am bloated, craving chocolate and DH is irritating me just be being alive. This is great news! Well, perhaps not so great for DH over the next few days but hopefully means we'll just be sticking with the one baby for now.

Hazle it's a friend's villa so we'd need to bring it. cav thanks that first one looks great and really light, would love to see how compact it is as ideally we'd put it in a huge suitcase with our stuff. Might risk ordering it as I can always return it.

Oh and good news on the pmt! Well, not good news as you're prob not feeling great but you know what I mean!

Great news cav. One baby is good for now huh
I have another question which is more like a moan! We have moved L into her room today and I've convinced dh to set up the travel cot in our room just in case she doesn't settle. So far so good excerpt for the bloody angelcare movement thingy which doesn't seem to work under the thick cot mattress!!! Have any of you tried that? What mattresses do you have in the cots? We have a good pocket sprung one - not the most expensive you can find but a good quality one - and it just doesn't pick up her movements
Can anyone suggest how to fix this? With her in another room I feel I need the reassurance of it and can't get it on the first night! Hence she is now fast asleep and I'm here alone in my room listening out for noises on my other monitor!