Summer holidays are over, the PESH are bringing their bumps and baybees back to school

[TheOriginalWinkly]

Pack your giant pants in your satchel and maternity pads in your pencil case, it's the antenatal thread 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
draf - pink calf on 1st July 2014
winks - a pink one dragged out kicking and screaming on 4th July 2014
euro - a pink one in a hurry to see the world, born on 17th July 2014
dor - a pink one born at speed on 28th July 2014
ginge - completing the ESH Summer of Pink on 23rd August 2014

PESH
Buggerlugs - Buglet due 20th October
Fankle - ESHlet expected 4th January
Cunty - Minichops expected 7th February

Drink plenty of water, eat plenty of food as rest as much as you can. There's no reason for them to admit you is there?

Back to birth weight already is awesome! Well done on the feeding.

As for you, you have gone through a very difficult birth. You can't expect to be functioning on all cylinders right away. I felt pretty rough for a week after a normal delivery. Its going to take a while but you will feel better soon. Keep up the iron, get other people to make nice food for you and keep your fluids up. Breastfeeding is dehydrating in itself, I still take a pint of water up to bed with me each night.
If you are feeling really rough stay in bed for a day or two. I know you can't co sleep but you can feed, cuddle and change her in bed. In some cultures new mums get a six week "lying in" period.

Bugs these first few weeks your hormones are all over the place. It's brilliant that Buglet is back to birth weight already. Take it easy, get all the help that is offered, eat food, lots of food! You're doing a great job.

Agree with the others Bugs, it's completely normal to feel like you've been hit by a train. You might not be able to get much rest, but ensuring you are fed and hydrated will make a massive difference. If you can sleep while P does then do so, even a 30 min nap will make you feel better. Keep going, your doing a great job with P back up to birthweight.

you're

As a night shift worker, I often have short naps and commonly wake up feeling nauseous. Add in the constipation and it's not wonder really. I agree - you had a really tough birth - long time without sleep, traumatic finish and now you are EBF a premmie baby. Totally normal to feel like you've been hit by a train. I was shell shocked enough by Faithlet's arrival and I was only in labour a couple of hours.

I'd say to GP he needs to take care of you - anticipate your needs - drinks regularly (set an alarm if necessary!), plenty of roughage for those bowels and sleep whenever you can. We barely went out the first couple of weeks. I swear by joggers - comfy but you feel 'dressed'. Just remember you will get through this and it will seem like a hazy memory. (My first few weeks with Faithlet seem like a blur!).

If you want to breastfeed for quite a while i would recommend not giving formula at this early stage. It can be a slippery slope to messing up your milk supply. Combined feeding often ends up as formula feeding. If you are ok with that then fine.
i introduced small amounts of formula (couple of feeds a week) from 7 or 8 weeks both times. By then breastfeeding was well established and missing feeds didn't do any harm except for wet bed sheets.
what i did do was express. I am totally shit at sleep deprivation and i need one decent chunk per night. Once i got to nearly 2 weeks old with each baby i started really small amounts of expressing. You only need 2 or 3 oz per feed for a newborn so if you express an ounce and a half each day you can get an early night every other night while GP does a shift. Bottles are only easier if someone else is doing the feeding. If he is working that night it is waay easier to feed direct from source
beware of the midwife as she has given you some bogus bf advice already.
neither of mine had any nipple confusion problems despite having a few bottles a week from 2 weeks old.
ultimately if you feel really shit you could get a few bottles of ready made formula, go to bed for six hours and then see if you feel better for a decent sleep. Doing that for a couple of days is unlikely to do any harm to breastfeeding in the long run. It isn't breastfeeding that is making you feel ill, it is most probably extreme fatigue. If you try to get a 5 hour chunk of sleeping two days in a row you might feel better about bf by Monday.

Kat is giving great advice. Nothing prepares you for how tough the first weeks are. It's the sheer relentlessness of it. It is only in the past few days that I feel like I am really enjoying it rather than just getting through the days making sure that both our basic needs are met, and she is 11 weeks now. I had a very different but also traumatic birth, and getting over that while looking after a newborn was hard. My colleague had a hysterectomy earlier this year (similar op to a CS with something different taken out!) and she was ordered to and able to rest much more. Birth plus then caring for baby is unique in terms of its demands. You just need to drag yourself through the early weeks, and you will with GP's help. X

Yep all that "enjoy every minute" bull crap pisses me off. These past three months have just been about getting through each day for me. I seem to have cone through the other side a bit now but just a couple of weeks ago i was feeling very low. Getting lots of baby smiles does help as does the feeding schedule calming the fuck down. You can tell she isn't a newborn any more, she is more interactive so it feels more rewarding.
i did see the hv about depression. Not my asigned hv as she is less use than a chocolate fireguard. But the one i saw is great. I am going to get an hour and a half per week for six months with no children whilst i chin wag with other mums in a post natal support group with tea and biscuits.

right feed over lets see if she will sleep in the crib. .

As for things being tough remember you are an ESH. We are tough. Most of us have been through various types of shit stuff. You more than most. You got through that in spite of it being tough. So you can totally do this!

I agree with the others. It doesn't seem like bfing is the issue but tiredness.

Being tired with a newborn is normal though. To expect anything different it bullshit.

Personally I would stick with trying to get bfing established for a a few more weeks and then consider expressing. We have had some success using the Medela Calma tears.

I should add a disclaimer to every bit of advice I give at the moment.

The Mister has become a sleep refuser and The Little Miss has too.

I am feeling murderous tonight.

Shit night here too dor

bugs how long do you need to set alarms for? With a term baby they never say to do that so long as they don't go more than six hours at night at first and there are at least 8 feeds per day. Hopefully once she is another week or two older you can just feed on demand.

We were setting alarms to begin with too. We then noticed that she was waking at least as often as the alarms so stopped bothering. It was only after about ten weeks that she went longer than three hours overnight.

We were the same with alarms with Faithlet being low birth weight. MSB told me to stop after about 10 days and Faithlet woke me at about 3 hours herself. Not crying, just awake and snuffly noises! Keep going bugs. I really would avoid formula/bottles yet if you can, just to get BF established. I expressed and MSB gave Faithlet a bottle day from 3 weeks (on the early side but it worked ok for us).

Ten weeks would presumably be three weeks corrected? Sounds about right, that was when Emily started to go 4 or 5 hours at the start of the night. Shame she hasn't kept it up! I think when they say 3 hourly they mean not to go longer than that and wake your baby for a feed if they have been sleeping for three hours in the day. At over 3 months mine does not regularly go three hours between day feeds. I consider 2.5 hours to be a good interval and I'm not expecting 3 hours or more until she is having solids.

Sounds good Bugs, remember making breast milk takes about 400 calories per day, so you need to be eating enough to ensure you are also getting enough as your body will prioritise the milk over your needs.

I found having a bowl of nuts/fruit near to hand while feeding always helped.

I feel shocking today. I'm bloody knackered!

I've been knackered all week. I ran out of multivitamins with iron a couple of weeks ago, I don't think that helps. dor and kat I have no idea how you're managing with two!

Managing??!! Surviving is probably more accurate description. I have got back used to broken sleep now. It was tough readjusting as I had got used to better nights (well until the third tri anyway) but I am coping OK if I get 5 hours a night now. Bloody didn't last night, was more like 3. Grrrrrr. Off to visit parents tonight till Monday. I am going to sleep in a_nice quiet room all by myself!!!! Yay! Andy has volunteered to do first night feed so I might indulge in boozing too.

Breastfeeding makes me hungry. Carbs are the way forward. Health people would say slow release low GI carbs. I say cake. 400 calories is the equivalent of an extra meal per day. Officially cake is not a meal but my fourth meal is elevenses and I think cake is perfect! Due to fat arse I think it might have to change to bananas from now on.