May 2015 - thread 6 - third trimester, here we come!

[Titsalinabumsquash]

New thread ladies

sorry, I keep chuckling at the dreams of babies with adult heads, like thay scene in friends where joey has a dream about rachael giving birth to a baby with a Ross Head ha ha

leanne my Aunty was telling me that today, she preserved with breast feeding for six months with both. She said that formula is thicker and lays heavier in their tummies which is why they can sleep better but she still preferred to breast feed and express. I'm just going with what suits better, will try bfing first

just you are right it is our anxieties coming to the fore! Am sure our dreams will continue to get stranger as we get closer!! Giving birth to your cat though made me chuckle! :)

apple Hope you are well today and you have been resting as much as possible this weekend! I am 100% trying BF i will probably try to co feed after a couple months and give her a bottle of formula in the evening to see if that helps with her sleeping.

Ha ha glad I'm not the only one with that dream!

Glad it's not just me with the sexytime dreams! I was getting a little weirded out by my teenage boy brain.....

I also feel like I have several of those personalities plinky. Great article, thanks for sharing.

I have exactly 12 weeks of work left, and counting down! Starting to discharge some of my patients which is sad, but there is no way I can see them if I get any waddlier!

I think it is a myth about formula filling them up more. Past the very early days they don't actually need milk at night but it's very easy for breastfed babies to develop an association between feeding and sleeping. Certainly my dd just couldn't seem to get back to sleep without a quick feed first and only reliably learned to self settle after I stopped breastfeeding at 13 months. Hoping to fare better this time but tbh not sure how!

just giving birth to cats! definitely anxiety dreams ha ha

leanne resting lots I promise :)

Wondered what everyone's views were on swaddling? I know NCT frowns upon it, I have bought two swaddling blankets in case I choose to

Glad so many of you are having fun and getting prepared!

Leanne, that's really not true. I know plenty of babies who are bottle fed and don't sleep brilliantly, and breast fed babies who sleep like logs. The slow digestion issue can make a difference but on the flipside, breast milk changes through the day and in the evening it contains sleep promoting hormones. I don't think at all that people should be pressured to breast feed if they don't want to but I hate the idea that misconceptions might put people off!

Midwives don't always get baby bits right. My last baby was breech at 32 weeks, about two days after the midwife had happily put him down as cephalic.

apple, my NCT teacher taught us how to swaddle! Not sure if she was an iconoclast or it's just an individual teacher you've come across there. In my experience some babies love it and it makes all the difference to their sleep, and other babies absolutely hate it! You can swaddle with anything too - we used random things that were more or less the right size.

I've got some of those little gro-bag sleeping bags. Have any of you used them from birth? Your dream stories are making me laugh- funny how your subconscious does strange things!

We've used them more or less from birth. Caveats being that we've had fairly chunky babies with good head control, and we've used the ones with poppers under the arms, which means they can't sink into the bag by mistake. I think they were both a few days old when we started.

Three That is why i wanted to check here with what other people's opinions were. Most people i know haven't BF so were kinda pushing their experiences on me! I am just hoping i will get lucky and have a good sleeper. I never knew about the sleep promoting hormones in breast milk, that is really interesting!

I bought some of those grow bags too :) I like the idea of swaddling

Nature is very clever, Leanne. On the other hand, it can be a right bastard and make it hard for some of us to breast feed too!

ToriB34 - hehe :) Always a bit scary when that happens - stomach goes all hard and you think what is going on in there!

leanne963 Midwife didn't really tell me much about what she was doing or looking for and her touching my bump with pressure was actually painful. I'd had a scan the day before showing baby was head down. At the moment, I can see a slightly raised left side of bump, starting about 3 inches below the belly button. When she moves I can see my belly shift to where she is, but I can't make out which part is which - all I can see is this mound moving around! I'm too scared to trace the baby with my hands. Only time I ever touch my bump (mainly because i get freaked out!!) is when baby is kicking my ass and I end up talking to her and stroking my bump which occasionally seems to calm her down.

Book is going good so far, lots of common sense - very baby needs focused. However - as I've found with most baby books, each author has their own mantra and it's easy to get confused by the conflicting advice on offer.

At Bumpfest, there were so many different speakers there - all very well educated and experienced, from midwifes, nannies, academics, doulas etc... each offering their opinions on bottle feeding /breast feeding, night time feeding strategies - I left thinking, if these people can't agree on a single right way of doing something, then how the hell am I meant to? I've come to the conclusion that there is no 'right' way, so I'm just going to try and collate as many different strategies offered and be aware that some if any of them may / may not work with my baby.

There are a lot of aggressive pro breastfeeding posters elsewhere on Mumsnet, so you could ask the same question re sleep on the Chat/AIBU forums and expect a good argument! I am still very anxious about BF, and feeling a lot of pressure between NHS literature, NCT classes (2 sessions just on BF!), books etc. Trying to get informed is a nightmare - there is so much conflicting advice re BF and sleep, feeding on demand/waking baby up... you're not going to get a single 'right' opinion because your baby is not someone else's and you will only really get a feel for what's right for you and your baby once they are here :)

RE: Dreams - not really getting naughty dreams, but I am missing DTD and physical contact. Since I've started feeling the baby moving around, it's all felt kind of wrong - my brain and drive are not in agreement on this one :(

Btw.. for those suffering from piles, how about this?

oh my god! if I presented that to my DH for valentines I think he would have me committed ha ha ha

Haha plinky - the chocolates look quite gourmet if you forget what they are!

Anyone thinking of bfing please don't make it the be all and end all. I was so determined not give dd formula that when I had to top her up with it I felt so horrible that I would cry and get angry and it just ruined our first few weeks together, really ruined them. I was so distressed about it and even blamed dd for being "no good at feeding".
No one could get through to me and I don't have any lovely memories of her as a newborn because I was either crying or pumping.
This time if bfing isn't enough on its own I'll just top up as needed.
Dd has always been a good sleeper though (well early wake ups lasted a while but if she woke a quick boob always got her back down). My sister ff all her girls and none slept longer than 4 hours until solids were well established.

I was the same Fluffeh!

I bfed DS3 until he was 1, I stopped because I needed medication for my skin that was so infected it was gross and making me really miserable (like not leaving the house ever miserable) even then I got Nast comment from strangers in the chemist about being too selfish to continue feeding him myself just so I could have nice skin (it's still not nice but it's not covered in bleeding scabs! )

Anyway, people will judge whatever you do or don't do, I enjoyed bfing for the first few months, the pressure became a bit much at times when he would feed and feed and DP couldn't help to give me a break but in general it was good.
I won't make a thing of it if she needs a top up then he ca ha e a top up, if I find myself needing a break, she can have a bottle, as,long as she's fed and warm and clean and dry she'll be fine, it's only taken 3 babies to know that lol

Having seen a couple of friends go through the same I told me DH that I would try it and if not working I am not going to punish myself (easier said than done, I guess it depends on how you feel at the time)

*my DH

On swaddling I do think the advice has changed recently. Everyone was quite keen on it when dd was born and I couldn't get the hang of it/didn't really like the idea. Then a few months later the advice became a bit more cautious.

Anyone who does struggle to bf - make a pest if yourself re the tongue tie issue. So many people I know we're told this wasn't their issue and months later it turned out it was. Apparently they are quite hard to diagnose.

I have the sleeping bags. They were great! I didn't use them straight away as our nct lady wasn't keen but in retrospect I think they would have been ok. It could be quite hot when our little ones arrive though so will have to play it by ear.

Omg tits I can't believe people would say that to you?! That is awful :( if you HAD continued to BF someone would moan you are giving your baby medication!?!?! Argh people's unwarranted and unnecessary opinions......grrrrr

plinky Oh don't worry about the dtd I cannot get my head into actually sexy tune mode, even though I am having dreams about it, but in my dreams I'm not 6 months pregnanct with excessive discharge lol

fluffeh I am definitely trying to keep my options open, I love the idea of BF I have been getting dreams about doing it cause I am so looking forward to trying this new experience :) But I am aware that sometimes it doesn't work and tbh formula is made for babies in mind so its not just like I am going to pump her with crap, the formula IS good for the babies too!

I am glad this thread is full of very level headed women and I really do appreciate the advice!!! Thank you!

some people are just ar $ eholes! I find it shocking how opinionated people are towards pregnant women and mothers