January 2014 Thread 17 - and the final babies will be here any day now!

[Frizz1986]

Thought i would start up the last thread before we move over to postnatal thread.

fly - big hugs to you too. I hate when they say to go to a cafe. I'm sure they're lovely there but it's a huge thing just getting out if the house - particularly when you feel tired and vulnerable

Secind calling NCT counsellor - they'll come to the house or you can go to them.

If you don't have numbers it hand, the community midwife will if you can call them or the NCT helpline can help

another - how stressful - so glad she's been found x

Wow a new thread already. Rly sad that this is the last one :'( that time has gone so quick.

I had a good catch up on here whilst sebastian was awake last night. Hugs to those who need it.

Am feeling I cant contribute much to the breastfeeding problems as I am bottle feeding and also did this with dd. I almost feel guilty as I seem to be the only one on here!! It just wasnt for me. Think i have it a lot easier than most you ladies at the moment though as sebastian just takes a 5oz bottle every 4 hours in day and goes 6 hours in night and is sleeping rly well. Dd was nothing like this. Was up in night for all hours screaming.
The hardest thing I find is the school run and day to day life!! I just cant seem to get on top of everything. Washing ironing cleaning is just Not happening and cooking also gone down the drain.
OH been off another week due to me having my op and he went back to work last night. So I gotta start getting myself into a routine as only walked the girls to school but feel exhausted from the mad rush of it all!!

Know how it feels to have OH who doesnt do a lot though. Not sebastians dad but my dd dad was useless and I literally did everything and tiptoed around every night letting him sleep whilst I struggled. Talk to your OH's about it as I ended up resenting mine and we split up when dd was 3. Dont want any of u to go thru that. My OH now is brilliant with sebastian. I dont ever have to ask him to do anything when hes here. Hes crap with housework and that but hey if he looks after his baby well and cooks for me most nights I can live with that. Just he works nights and has busy days at the moment training for a marathon of all things!!
Sorry I'm rambling lol. Feeling a lot better now that big kidney stone gone!! Am also back down to my pre-pregnancy weight but think that's where ive been so ill. Just gotta keep it off.
Hope you've been to docs humpty and all is ok. Right I need pancakes ...

Thinking of you today, humpty.

And you, MrsV. Hope it's going well.

loulou, how lucky you are with Sebastian's feeding/sleeping!
I'm so glad I don't have to do a school run. Taking DH to the station is enough for me!

I meant to ask toby, did your DH get to retake his driving test? Hopefully you'll get to sack off the early morning drive to the station soon :)

He's retaking (3rd time lucky?!) on Thursday. When he passes I'll still be taking him to the station, though. We only have one car and I'd rather put up with getting up early so I can have the car all day.
It would be lovely to be able to sack it off, but bugger being housebound!

I'm off to Sainsbury's and then to my mum's in a bit. Hopefully I can stay awake round the supermarket :o

Just checking in, haven't read any posts yet. Baby was a perfect sleeper for our first night home again.... feel much happier as a result.

checking in and hoping all going good for MrsV

Hi, just checking in.

I'm a bit late with this, but our daughter May was born on 19th Jan, weighing 9lb 10oz. Birth was far from ideal, but we're all well and at home.

Surprised at how flat I felt for a while afterwards, it took until day 10 for it to lift and to feel normal.

I hope you are all well and those with feeding/healing problems get better soon.

Choco I'm now bottle feeding too so you're not the only one sounds like Sebastian is feeding/sleeping in a good routine! How many weeks is he now? Sylvie is having 4oz but I think she's starting to want more now but I'm scared of over feeding her!

Toby good luck to your DH. I am starting driving lessons soon and can't wait until I can drive!

Percy glad you had a good night

Hey all. Hope humpty is ok and has managed to see someone.

choco i am so jealous of the feeding situation you are in and glad you are feeling better.

mrsv still thinking of you and hope things are progressing

toby being housebound sucks. We have 1 car atm but dh needs it (i sold mine 2 weeks ago because it was crap and didnt want to waste money fixing it) I have struggled to get out and about and think it has taken me longer to feel myself because of it.

Am beyond lucky though as my dad was made redundant this year (his work shut) but was almost at retirement age anyway so he has a good pension but got a big payout too. He decided to buy himself a new car so is giving us his old one. Told us at xmas before bubs arrived so i only have until march to wait. Really hope we can be as generous to aurelia when we are their age.

felix aurelia does a lot of straining and gets red faced. She squirms and pulls her legs up. I assumed it was her trying to push gas through as she is pooping plenty and it is liquidy.

I went for a longer work today with bubs and pooch. Really starting to feel much better. Cant believe it has taken 6 weeks and im still not quite there yet.

Humpty hope you manage to get checked out

Fx for you mrsv

Just had the hv round. Not sure what the purpose of the visit was though as they didn't look at Olivia, just gave us loads of leaflets (and some wrong advice regarding meningitis!). Have the mw later who will weigh her. Hoping she has put some weight back on.

nature i think the quality of hv vary from area to area.
My first visit involved a lot of leaflets but she also looked at aurelia and went through vaccinations, how i was feeling and offered to weigh her. Not sure if this was because of her jaundice and weight problems though.
My hv thankfully is very nice and came again last week to check in after aurelias blood tests and told me to make sure i call her if i have any worries and she will pop by.

another that's good news. Such a relief for your family.

toby good luck to your DP.

Thinking of you humpty and MrsV.

Argh had a meltdown trying to get both boys out the house, on my own for the first time. Pil had kindly offered to take Ewan (DS1, 2yo) so I just needed to get them 5 minutes up the road. Ewan insisted on going, Cal was asleep. Got Ewan into his coat and wellies, then got Cal up. Ewan had a strop as we weren't fast enough. Had to bundle both of them out in tears (me almost in tears). Up until then I thought I was doing ok. Dps mum made me some tea and toast and now I've hit the dairy milk. Can anyone offer me some advice on coping with the logistics of a baby and a toddler? Ewans the kind of toddler that needs to go out almost every day. I feel like curling up in a heap sobbing at the thought of doing this again.

Happy Monday all. Can't believe how quickly the weekend goes and how soon it gets to being just me and LO at home again. My brother came to visit with his two this weekend so Emily met her cousins for the first time...was quite lovely seeing how gentle my 2 year old DNiece was with her. Mad weekend with 3 kids and a dog in the house though.

We had our weekly visit to HV this morning and Emily is back up to her birth weight - woo hoo! Looks like the tongue tie snip has helped.

book - you asked about nipple shields... I didn't use them although the midwife mentioned them in passing the day before we went to clinic. I think I had read in here that they needed to be used under supervision of a lactation consultant so I was a bit afraid of them, although considered buying them just to wear out to the shops to stop the chafing . It was recommended that I express and feed her to give one boob a rest, so for a few days I was only feeding her on one side. We started by giving her 100ml bottle of expressed once a day, and when her weight kept going down they asked for us to try and give her 2 lots of 100ml / day, which we did for about a week before the snip. I used a medala swing and just about managed to get enough out but did spend a lot of time pumping or feeding. The bottle suited me because I wanted DH to give her a feed anyway as it is nice for him, and he used to do the last one (11pmish) so I could go to bed. She got v windy, but no bottle confusion yet. You can't give a bottle at all for a week after the snip, but I will reintroduce next week again I think.

fly - yes, we were snipped at kings college hospital in Denmark Hill. We are in Greenwich, so to be referred from here we had to see a tongue tie specialist breast feeding advisor at the local cafe twice (7days apart). She then faxed a referral and they called a week later to offer an appointment the next day. I think you can self refer as well, especially if you have a kings college hospital number (which we didn't).. The number I have for the tongue tie clinic is 020 3299 3350... The clinic is on in the afternoon so when I needed to speak to them I called that number and you spoke to the secretary / leave a message and then they call you back. Another woman at the breast feeding group I went to used an independent midwife to assess and snip her son's tongue tie, and the lady was recommended if you wanted to do it quickly and don't mind the cost. This is her website... www.ann-dobson.co.uk/index.html

Congrats to all the new arrivals..., and hugs / medicinal thoughts and best wishes to those who need them. Hope people are managing to get things looked at...am increasingly a firm believer in happy mum, happy baby theory

Is it possible to still join the Facebook group? Would love to see some pics of the scrumptious newborns...

Trying to have a lazy rest of the day as tomorrow I am planning a trip into the office to show the baby off and discuss the fact that they need to stop sending me emails asking how to do things. Not sure how I am going to feed while we are in London...used to work in the City so not many bf'ing friendly locations. They have offered me use of a small corner office but it has glass walls and I worked with 30 men (and only 2 other women) so not sure if I am up for that.Also am incapable of feeding without a pillow so am probably going to have to take one with me

Another epic post from me, sorry for rambling...am slightly obsessed with feeding at the moment obvs

I am NOT INFECTED!
Stitches dissolved early, one of them was still dissolving, which was what I thought was white pus (tmi klaxon, bit late).
Secondary healing has started, so no need to restitch, just keep it clean and dry.
I am so relieved! The abdo pain is a UTI, they got the urine results. Got antibs for that as well, so I should be fine.
Thank you all for the lovely messages.

fly I second getting help. I didn't at all get the latching thing where you sort of shove them at your boob ("bring" baby to breast) until a mw showed me. So many mws aren't v good on b feeding advice, I'd ignore ones who haven't had kids themselves...

loulou I'm still topping up with formula, would love advice on a) best brand and b) how to make up bottles in the middle of a night without all the hassle (if there is a way...).

constipation Alex doesn't poo for two/three days, and is unsettled and screams, and pulls up her legs and sort of pecks her head against my chest.
When she takes water (today we did warm water with a tsp of OJ), about ten mins later she does a big poo. Getting her to drink the water however... She looks at me like I have murdered her puppy when she realises it's water in the bottle.

Humpty that's brilliant news! So glad it's not as bad as we all thought

Re bottles in the night - It takes me 2 minutes to make up a bottle. Making a 4oz bottle, I fill the kettle with the minimum amount, which boils very quickly. Whilst the kettle is boiling, I measure out 2oz of cooled boiled water from a sterilised sports bottle I have in the fridge. Fill baby bottle with 2oz from the boiled kettle. Add 4 scoops of formula & shake for 10 seconds to mix together. Then I add the 2oz of cooled boiled water, give it a quick shake and it's always the perfect temperature. I know some people make up bottles in advance and keep in the fridge for the night, although it's not recommended (but I'm sure it's totally fine). I was considering buying that Tommee Tippee perfect prep machine but it basically does exactly what I do anyway, so I'd rather just save the 60 quid!

Congratulations on all the new arrivals!

Choco I'm ff to, so also feeling like a bit of a failure but tbh don't know if I would cope as well as everyone, with the problems some of them are going through. Also mentally I know how low I was feeling After the birth mixing in worrying about feeding wouldn't help. As long as she is eating and growing I'm happy!

That's good news Humpty

Felix and Humpty I bought the perfect prep machine. I love it. So easy to use and only takes like 2mins. Think if I didn't have the machine I would have prob spent a fortune on the ready made formula, we used that for the 1st week, making up the bottles stresses me out, so many guidelines and steps involved. Had no idea you could pretty much do the same on your own Felix.

It's strange to think baby has only been here 2 weeks, can't really remember what it was like without her.

So who's still waiting? Can't be many left.

Excellent news, humpty! What a relief :)

enormouse, I can barely remember having a newborn and a toddler. DS and DD1 are 18 months apart, but they're now 14 and almost 13!
From what I remember, DD (the youngest) was far easier as a baby because she didn't get picked up all the time just for the sake of it, because I had 18mo DS to deal with. So when we went out, as we did practically every day, I just had to feed her and bung her in the pram. I didn't feel the need to put her in some sort of fancy outfit or anything. A clean nappy, the closest vest/sleepsuit to hand, and blankets for the pram.

This meant that DS rarely had to wait at all, so lessened the chances of meltdown for all of us. It was most important just to get out of the house. I became an expert at BFing standing up, whilst simultaneously doing up coat buttons or velcro on shoes.

Bandon I am tempted to get one for the bedroom so I don't have to venture downstairs to make up a bottle. Or is that just plain lazy?

loulou i bottle feed too :)

i make all the days bottles up in the morning, fast cool them down in a bowl of cold water, then keep them in the fridge. They are good for 24 hours. This is along with WHO directives.

Henry will drink the milk straight from the fridge, or at any temperature. Just if that helps anyone

Hey,
Just checking in to see who's still left.

We're beginning to get the hang of the night feeds now. Karen wakes up at 3.20, 5.20 and 7.15 quite regularly now so it's getting easier. DH helps with the 7.15 by changing her then bringing her to me for feeding before he goes to work.

We're also getting out of the house every day even if it's only to the corner shop. The aim is to practice going out so we get good at it. Today"s trip was to the Dr as we have a case of thrush between us :(

Anyway, come out babies! There's milk and cuddles for you!