"hey Mummy! Ready or not, here I come! ;-)" - July 2014 thread

[ZingWhale]

Some of us has weeks to go, some just days and of course another massive Congratulations to all who have already given birth!

pack your pads, tiaras, nappies & Vaseline -HERE WE GO!!!

Two things first, then I'll go back and read.

For those local to me (Hants / Berks / Surrey border) practice runs for Farnborough airshow start today. If you use Twitter at all follow @fiafarnborough for the daily schedule if you need it. We have a very scared-of-loud-noises dog (but not loud music) and for us notice is crucial so we can head his tizzy off at the pass.

I am also using an app called Baby Feed (Apple store one) that's about £2 and listed as 'recommended by NHS midwives', icon looks like a diaphragm. I use it to time feeds, log boobs, add formula feeds, log diaper changes and my own painkiller intake as I kept getting confused. The app doesn't look that pretty but it seems to work quite well. And no in-app purchases required or ads wahey. Also tells you which boob is due and in theory when.

Ipsum Weekends should be used for relaxing, IMO. I've managed to get most of the dishes done already since DD didn't wake up till 10am!

MrsA Glad to know it's not just me who finds it hard to tell. Don't have MW till next week so will be ages till I find out what's going on. This little one is so active that I'm sure he/she is changing positions every couple of days. Hope things get going for you soon; the waiting is so frustrating.

Re knowing which breast to use: when I had forgotten which I was due to use first I used to squeeze them and go with whichever felt slightly harder/fuller. Seemed to work ok!

Good luck Blue how exciting - is this our first potential homebirth?

Still in a lot of pain tried to walk to post office and wasn't going to happen so gave up any idea of the gym and back on my ball. I wouldn't mond if I thought this was related to labour but I'm just not convinced it is! Can't cope with this for long though...

Aw ickle that sounds rotten, but hopefully the fact the pain isn't going away is all a good sign? Hope the ball helps, if possible try to ignore it and before you know it the baby will be here... That's how it works right? :) fingers crossed for you.

The pains I'm having seem to come and go really randomly so I doubt anything's starting soon here. They went after my shower this morning and reappeared while I made a quick walk to the shops. Now they're gone again. Was going to walk over to a friend's house this afternoon (30 mins away) but scared that they might strike again with a vengeance if I do...

ickle Hope it turns into something for you soon.

Babies R Us just called and they can get the spare parts (apart from one bit, which I think will be fine) and I am so relieved I cried! I love that crib, didn't want to take it apart, and now I just hope that it works ok once the new bits are in place.

Great news kiwi :)

ickle and its sorry you're suffering with unknown pains

Things all v frustrating here, basically getting DS up and out and sorting the pool out this morning stressed me out - DH wasn't v calm with the pool stuff which didn't help. Result is that all contractions stopped and haven't restarted yet

We've arranged for DS to stay over at the childminders tonight and will be with her all day tomorrow so that gives me some space to relax and get stuff going again. Spoke to the oncall HB MW who is one of my two preferred ones from the team-she was v excited :) So now going to try and nap/lie quietly, relax and get 'in the zone' so to speak to get stuff going again!

That's how I feel its don't want to go out and be in agony....am trying the ignore but it's not going away. Can't decide ababout having a bath might relax/reduce pain but don't want to slow anything down. ..not that dh would agree!

blue rubbish that they have stopped but hopefully this isn't it and will get started again soon!

kiwi so pleased that you can keep the crib you love

Contribution to Zing's Head Tilt: Oh what a cute baby but I can't tell from the non-gender specific hat if it's a boy or a girl?! Sigh.

wow! exciting to see labour possibly kicking off for some of us here ...GOODLUCK!!!

without monopolizing this thread with breast feeding questions, can I please just ask two??

zing we need you and some of the other experienced ones on the post natal thread, so hurry up please

BF and latching is going well in the day now but the baby wants to feed a LOT at night. Well last night he was feeding constantly and I caved and gave him 2 oz of formula (something I swore I would never do so early on) and he slept for 4 hours!!

Does anyone know that if I give him formula after the late night feed (midnight), would it affect my milk supply??
also I bought the Aptamil hungry baby stuff, is that the right one?

Coco don't worry about the formula as a top up - we're doing exactly that as I've been to ill to establish BFing enough for bean.

We're using the Aptamil liquid formula as well as powdered formula - but we're using the First Milk one - Hungry Baby is one up from that for babies that just need more. Our bean is small and doesn't. She can take about 60-90 ml in one feed on top of breast milk and afterwards she settles like nothing else - which is normal for formula feed. It is very difficult to estimate how much beans actually take in from the breast as it's more work for them and there are no gauges anywhere to tell you. I fed our bean for 4hrs straight one night and couldn't imagine she wanted more - but she did.

She's not had any problems latching back onto the breast and mostly we try and do a feed from each breast then top up with formula. This applies particularly at night for prolactin etc. Late night or early morning she will sometimes have just the formula.

Hope that helps.

ah, thanks for explaining that ismarah
trust me to buy the wrong formula and open the pack...arrgghh!!!

Oh Blue, how frustrating! I hope things get started again for you now that you have a child-free window.

About to head out for a walk...come on baby it's time to move!! Just hope the rain holds off, don't fancy getting soaked right now tbh.

coco do be slightly careful with the formula feeds as they will have an impact on how much milk you produce as you won't be doing that feed iyswim. Also formula takes longer to digest which is why ff babies tend to go a bit longer between feeds, breast milk is easier to digest hence why they might feed a bit more often. I think sometimes they can have a less than optimum latch which can affect how much they get from the breast but also I think they quite like being snuggled up to mummy all cosy suckling away which can lead to longer feeding sessions.

Having been panicking slightly about breastfeeding a newborn after so long feeding DS who is now very much a toddler and does his own thing in terms of latching on etc etc I'm actually now really looking forward to it. It took me hours to get DS to latch on again after his first feed just after he was born but the satisfaction of him having those first sucks of his second feed have stuck firmly in my mind! Precious times :)

Missing DS a lot this evening, this is only the second night I've ever spent away from him and it feels very odd having a quiet house! When we arranged for him to stay away tonight I was expecting to be busy labouring and not paying much attention to anything else right now! :(

Agree with blue re breastfeeding. Also I spent many an hour reading the kellymom website when dd1 was small for advice (I looked up everything from green poo to blocked ducts to growth spurts on there!).

Don't know what to think really! Went over to a pregnancy yoga friend's this afternoon and noticed while in the loo I'd had a bit of a show. Had a few mild tightenings while there and then a couple of big ones while on the walk home. Trying not to jump to conclusions as I know it could still be ages, not even sure if i should be bothering to time them as they seem relatively mild, like I can still move through them...

Worried to even post this as it could all be a false alarm and I'll still be waiting 4 weeks from now!

Lots of potential for more babies soon! Hope everyone waiting for profess gets some soon. I'm still v much enjoying the 'me time' so this baby can definitely hang on in there a while longer! Had 6 hrs in interrupted sleep last night and felt so much better for it . Have been out and about all day, slightly exhausted now but in a physically exhausted rather than sleep deprived way which makes a pleasant change.

coco ismarah and others - don't worry about the BF chat, it is really helpful to read.

And a question - a few days ago I was getting lots of crazy octopus-baby movement - limbs sticking out of the bump all over the place. Now I'm still feeling regular movements but they're generally more 'muffled'. I think (hope) the baby has moved into a more anterior position so I'm getting fewer outwards kicks. Anyone else had this?

Attempting to make dinner without keeling over from hot flushes...woot.

Coco if you make sure to BF first, especially at night when your prolactin levels peak, you should be fine mixing feeds if that's what you need to do. Then once you have life a lottle more figured out you can slowly start to increase the ratio of BF to FF and possibly even cut out the FF entirely over a period of a few weeks. Our BF session at NCT was very informative and one thing that surprised me was that you can start to breastfeed again after stopping. Nobody says it would be easy but it is doable.

The way I see it, without the formula, my bean would have lost a hell of a lot more weight from birth than she has and I would have been at my wits' end. Without being able to mix the feeds, I would have already gone to full formula feeding - if only to know she was getting enough - because of how ill I've been. Although I agree with Blue and Nancy 100% in principle I'm finding this whole baby thing like any other best laid plan - they rarely survive the first encounter with reality...much like birth plans.

Lots going on here! Hope things are progressing for you Blue.

My little bundle of fun arrived yesterday morning about 11:30 after contractions kicked off about 3:45 am. Delighted to say I got the labour I wanted with my tens machine and gas and air and a pushing stage of only 6 minutes. Ds2 is totally gorgeous and very like his big brother who is delighted with him.

Hope for swift easy labours for all those still waiting.

Congratulations Casmama that sounds like an awesome labour! Well done you :-)

Congratulations Casmama!

Congrats Casmama!

moresnow tightenings still here at present but don't seem to be getting any stronger. Hoping for a restful night's sleep. They died down a bit this eve after I had a bath but seem to be back again now. In 2 minds if I want them to turn into something or not - I'll be really frustrated if these have absolutely no effect as they seem painful enough to, but at the same time I'll feel really guilty about DH's interview this week...

Here's to a restful/eventful night for everyone, whatever you're hoping for.