It's all balls, bicycles, and babies for the PESH!

[maamalady]

Antenatal fred for BESH graduates

CRESH

Faith - pinky faithlet arrived 14th April 2013
Pinkr - suitably pinky one arrived 25th August 2013
Jethro - blue one arrived 23rd September 2013
Noks - pink one arrived 12th January 2014
Frankel - large pink one arrived 10th March 2014
Merks - pink one landed safe and sound 21st March 2014
Sinky - Stubborn blue one arrived 26th March 2014
Driz - blue one arrived 12th June 2014
Kat - pink one arrived 21st June 2014

PESH

Draf - Expecting a late pink one EDD 19th June
Winks - EDD 26th June
Ginger - Miniginger due 13th August
Dor - A very special pink one expected 18th August
Euro - eager Centime expected to arrive a lot sooner than 28th August
Buggerlugs - Buglet due 20th October
Fankle - ESHlet expected 4th January
Cunty - Minichops expected 7th February

So the June cluster is halfway through laying, and then we're on to the July/August batch! Are we even going to have time for Wimbledon and Le Tour and the World Cup in all this excitement?!

That sounds lovely bugs

Another one stressing about baby overheating. The Gro egg is angry in our room. I put her 'down' - for all she stayed down - in just a vest then added the 0.5tog grobag when the storms cooled the room.

No room-cooling storms here (yet) :( The calf has spent the last two days and nights in just a vest - at least chucking a blanket over her if need be is easy!

Excellent news, euro!

winks MiniJeff is in his nappy & a 0.5 gro bag. Window wide open! Fingers crossed.

E is currently just in a vest in a 30 degree bedroom the windows are as wide as I can open them at the moment because the blackout blinds are stuck to them, once it gets dark I'll take them down and open them a bit wider. I have a feeling tonight could be a rough night, she's had me up to her twice already and she's only been down an hour and a half

Euro that's great great news! Go centime

30 degrees here, E in a vest with a fan pointed her way and is still sweating. Come on storms

Wow, it's "only" 26 degrees here and R is asleep upstairs in a vest - and has been down for 90min so far... He is still in our bed though, so there's still the move to manage... Bets that he'll stay awake? Unlikely.

Thinking of you and centime tonight Euro.

Thanks ladies. Will add photos when I get home. Hozzie inter web connection is a bit crap.

Not seen centime yet today but will go down to nicu once I have had a shower. She gave us a scare last night by choking on the first feed they had us put down her abdominal line. Cue alarms going off and red lights flashing until a nurse came to rescue us with a suction thingy. Terrifying. Apparently the gut is one of the last things to develop so it's not wholly surprising but very scary. Hoping to get some skin to skin later.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the speed of my recovery. I'm only 36 hrs post CS and won't be running any marathons soon but I'm hobbling around the hospital pretty well now. I'm hoping I can be discharged later (although that does mean facing the journey to and fro to see centime). Getting up from laying down is still the hardest part.

My section recovery sounds similar - rough first night and loo trip but rapidly better after that. Take it easy though - bad patient sinky probably did too much (although is have cursed/laughed at you if you'd try to tell me that). Somehow I suspect you might do similar.

Sorry centime gave you a scare, but sounds like it was sorted quickly? Does this mean anything for her feeding or is it just a case of push on?

Today I'm trying to figure out what to do on a v rainy Saturday with a baby. Not shopping, rain is torrential so a walk, even with appropriate clothing, isn't appealing... Went swimming yesterday and all the stuff is still in the machine waiting to be washed...

Yes, euro, getting up is definitely the hardest part - I lived going home but really missed the magic bed with all the buttons so it could sit me up rather than me having to do it! Glad you're feeling okay :) It does sound very scary having centime struggle with feeding, but I guess she'll improve as she gets to practise? Enjoy your cuddles :)

Today I have been practising feeding on my own without HOTB fending off the calf's flailing hands. Success was limited - eventually got her latched on, but with many tears of frustration on both sides first. She hates having her arms restrained (wrapped up in a muslin), but I can't think of a better way to keep her hands out of the way?

draf download The Womanly Art Of Breastfeeding, full chapter on positions for getting baby attached hands-free leaving you a spare hand to restrain her

Draf, R was a bugger for that. Eventually you realise you can be quite forceful with your hold on them...

For me its the feet. I was feeding topless in the heat but I can only tolerate being kicked in the free nipple so many times! Anyway the book has a very twee name but I've found it brilliant.

euro glad the recovery is going well. Fwiw I found getting up and down pretty painful with fanjo stitches too. Hope the healing is good and speedy, but try to not push yourself too hard. That must have been scary with the feeding.

My friend has lent me that book, winks, so I'll search for that chapter, thank you! I put it down in disgust quite early on because it basically said "if it hurts, you're doing it wrong, you massive idiot" and it was so disheartening it made me cry. If it actually has something useful to say I'll give it a second chance, though!

Draf I have had similar with the disco arms. For the first week or two I mostly had to swaddle the kitty for feeding. She is better now but it takes practise. Try to offer boob before she reaches the frantic fist chewing stage and definitely read that book, it is most helpful for many breastfeeding problems.

A fair bit of it is hippy claptrap but its worth persevering, the actual information is fantastic, it's helped me no end.

I've just downloaded it to my kindle. I'd avoided it due to what I thought was hippy drippy claptrap.

The bit about natural birth and accepting the "good pain" as if failure to do that is the reason for interventions, but the chapters on feeding have been a bit of a revelation!

There is another good book,baby led breastfeeding, which is not hippy claptrap so far as I remember and also has good information.

Although I strongly dislike hippy claptrap, I can say it was much easier to establish breastfeeding with a baby that had not been exposed to four shots of pethidine!

I found that to stop The Little Mister flailing around I had to tuck his arm closest to my body under my arm and then hold tight to the other arm.

Fanjo stitches were painful but nothing in comparison to the vulval variscosity that took 8 weeks to heal. It made getting off chairs and sitting very painful.

Isn't the flailing them trying (unsuccessfully) to use hands to help them find the nipple? I'm sure I read that though not sure how true it is but it recommended giving them something to grip in their top hand pre latching (eg a muslin) and trapping their bottom arm as described below

I bought several of these necklaces from [[https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/monkeymamanecklaces Monkey Mama].

It meant that The Little Mister had something safe to fiddle with.

Monkey Mama

Take 2.

No magic bed for me tonight draf - I've been discharged! It has been a crazy day. We'd mentioned to one of the nurses last night that we would be happy for centime to be moved to our local hospital once I was discharged as it would make it easier to spend time with her. At 11 this morning, we were told she was being moved there at noon! So we then sorted out my own discharge, got my parents to pick us up in their nice car with smooth suspension, and got me home this afternoon. Then we've just been out to see her in her new home. It's not as swish, but the staff seem nice and we can spend time with her more easily. The only hiccup is that she is now jaundiced for the first time and so was back in an incubator and under special lights. That meant we couldn't hold her. I've only held her twice so far. But she is doing really well - they wouldn't have moved her otherwise. I, however, am absolutely shattered!

Next challenge is sorting out the feeding. The expressing is going a bit better but it's hard work. I started later than I would have wanted to because I felt so rough after the section. Hopefully my milk will come in soon.

I'm reading all the breast feeding info with interest. I have all that to come!

Woo hoo! Must be great to be home!

Expressing is hard work but it will be worth it.I think you need to do 8 times a day including once in the middle of the night. You'll hardly get anything at first until 3 or 4 days after the birth when your milk comes in. Have you had any professional advice about breastfeeding and expressing for a preemie? I have read somewhere that looking at a photo of your baby while you express is useful.

Now you are home I hope you have a lovely lovely sleep tonight. I bet you have hardly slept in weeks.

Oh that's generally positive euro! So glad centime is near you so you can visit easily.

The hospital taught me how to hand express colostrum and Faithlet took it from a syringe. They also got me expressing when my milk came in (day 3 for me). (Not sure if you'll have seen my posts from back then - because she was low birth weight she struggled with feeding so we BF and then she had hand expressed colostrum and formula from a cup to start with, then EBM top ups after my milk came in. By day 5 she was latching better and we didn't need the top ups).