July 2015 - into the final trimester we go!

[broodylicious]

Hope this works....

Bonding wise, we are planning on OH taking a dedicated half hour each day after one of the feeds to have skin to skin with baby. We have a nice comfy chair in the nursery, so he will sit there, strip his shirt off and have baby naked on his chest with a blanket over them both to keep them warm. Of course he will have other times with the baby as well, but that half hour is their special time together each day. This will hopefully also give me the opportunity to have a shower in peace!

Hi all,

Love hearing all the fabulous baby names! We finally have got our first choice names in order now :)

Also nice to hear of different ways to allow DH to build a close bond... I like the thought of a shower with no stress fatty :)

Just came back from 29 week midwife appt... Bump is measuring at 35 weeks. That explains why I feel huge!! I feel like just sleeping all day and counting away the days... Is anyone else feeling run down? I feel as though I've ran out of steam when I should be picking it up. :/

Lew Run down is not the word ... Utterly miserable and overwhelmed by how much I have to do before B-day. I'm hoping that it's just a cold that I'm suffering from and that things will pick up.

Sorry, that sounds a bit dramatic but just want to feel well again. Totally over being pregnant.

I'm bored of pregnancy now. just want July to hurry its arse up!

Thanks for all the bf thoughts. I think I was overthinking it! And totally forgetting all our other plans for his bonding.

MrF will be in charge of bathtime. When we got the baby bath thermometer mths ago and I loved seeing how hot I had my baths, we found MrF has his at perfect temp for baby. So was thinking he could bath together with the little man. Plus bit of baby massage, skin to skin time, bedtimes etc. And was totally thinking like you Fatty, his baby time will be my me time!!!

We thought through mat leave last night too. I will have yr (10mths mat and 2 annual leave) so that leaves some left so we can do the shared parental leave. We plan to both be off together for first month for real family time, bonding as a unit and individually with baby. So now really excited for that likely "mad but amazing" first month.

So mummy bf will be my special time, no one off daddy bottles of expressed needed until like you jmojo will be seeing what periods do / move to bottles / mix feed or formula gradually over time especially when weaning so we can get ready for ttc again from 9mths old...

mrsf, dh still baths with dd and she's three - they have a lovely time and I just leave them to it while I get her pjs ready or clothes for the following day. We started that routine at about eight weeks, before then we bathed her in a little baby bath because they're so tiny and squirmy.

Thanks for the book recommendations, will let you know how I get on.

I also feel wiped out this week Lewaney and Zampa - haven't felt this run down the whole pregnancy. Hate hearing myself moaning about being tired, but not as much as I hate being tired! Am worried I'll just spend my entire week away asleep. OH will have to go sightseeing on his own!

for us all! Glad to know it's not just me feeling completely shattered. Soon our babies shall be here ladies! July is not that far away Or in my case June

Some great baby names on here. can't wait to hear more

I'm with you ladies who are starting to feel really tired. I'm away on business this week hours from home, had no meetings today but lots of work to do, but spent a lot of it sleeping in my hotel room...oops. Just going to bed now, early morning meeting.

My DH is looking forward to skin-to-skin time. He is wearing a popper shirt to hospital to make it easier! So cute of him :)

I have been recommended Miriam Stoppard books as someone who uses mix of tools - not too extreme in her methods. Don't fancy anything extreme like Gina Ford or at the other extreme, pure attachment parenting!

P.s. obstetrician has released me into midwife care - Yeay!

However found out baby has been lying transverse since 25 weeks. Coming up to 32 weeks so still time for her to move, but getting worried as she is obviously pretty comfortable in there. Any tips for shifting transverse baby? Can feel her legs tickling my waist and feel her heartbeat somewhere near my belly button! Natural birth not possible with transverse lie -you have to have a C-section

Lucky Google spinning babies, they have videos and instructions if I remember rightly :)

lucky, we don't follow AP to the absolute letter - the beauty of it is being able to select what you want from it. For example, you may not want to cosleep or breastfeed so that's cool, just follow other principles. We mainly just fell into AP because of how we feel about "sleep training", controlled crying, cry it out and other methods that just seem waaaay too harsh to be using on babies and littlies.

Lucky My little darling is also a transverse breech at 32 weeks. I'm not going to worry about it for another month as there's plenty of time to shift positions.

I'm not sure that I would undertake any of the exercises on the Spinning Babies website without proper supervision. They look a bit athletic!

CL Sleep on your holidays! It's your last chance!

Oops I dropped off the thread, hi everyone!
Lucky mine is currently transverse and I think has been pretty consistently for the last month at least (I'm 32 weeks now). I'm using the spinning babies suggestions, in particular the inversion every day (kneel on the sofa and put your forearms and head on the floor, bum in the air - v glam! Hold for 30 seconds), making sure you sit upright without slouching and a brisk walk every day is also supposed to help and maybe wearing a support belt (helps hold the uterus in the right shape which encourages the baby to turn head down). I am a bit worried tho as it seems so persistent and I've read that most babies are either breech or cephalic by now, transverse not so common. Time will tell!
I'm with everyone else on the exhaustion, starting to really struggle in the mornings now and still 6 weeks to go at work

I'm feeling pretty drained too lewany and huge, are they going to do anything about you measuring bigger than dates? An extra scan or anything to check? I'm sure I must be measuring bigger than my 31 and a half weeks as I'm full right up to my ribs and look ready to drop, but I don't see the midwife again til 34 weeks I think.

broody and lucky I sort of followed AP with my first child, carrying her a lot and trying to be very led by her needs and didn't impose any sort of rigid routine, tuning in to my earth mother self! until one evening she was really restless as usual, and I just had to put her down in her cot for a minute to go to the loo or something and she settled down within minutes, no crying! And similar happened on the following nights.
It turned out I wasn't as tuned in to my baby's needs as I thought, I was just annoying her and over stimulating her. I really needed to ignore what the books were telling me she would want, and just trust myself.
I followed more of a routine with my next 2 children regarding eating and sleeping, and they were quite happy babies.

With this baby I'll hope the routine falls in to place, but some babies thrive on routine and some don't, you just don't know til they get here!

I think my baby is still changing positions quite regularly, sometimes I get a load of digs in the bladder, sometimes the ribs, sometimes she's definitely sideways but I'm not too worried.

meeska, that happened with one of our friends - her first dc was a very touchy feely dd, wanting to be carried everywhere so she did the same with her second dd but v different baby and she hated it, wouldn't settle, didn't like being fussed over so our friends just popped her in bed and left her to sort herself out.

Re AP, we absolutely did have a bedtime routine (I think a lot of people think AP = letting your kids completely rule the roost when it's really not!) but it was mainly the cosleeping, anti CIO/CC, breastfeeding, baby wearing and tuning in thing we loved/followed.

We kind of AP, we just follow our instincts and go by what the kids need/seem to prefer. I'm not a very permissive parent and our kids don't rule our roost but we are quite relaxed in most ways. Off to Drs this afternoon, more tests (fun fun fun) then I have a (hopefully) quiet weekend planned! sil going for another scan this afternoon, one of my other sil is coming to visit next week with her family and dh has next Thursday off so hoping for plenty of naps this next week :)

Yeh I think I was misunderstanding the whole concept of being led by the baby with my first and became a bit of a martyr in my sleep deprived state. I don't agree with controlled crying either or anything either, just something in the middle and having the confidence to do what I think is right at the time.

As people say, the baby hasn't read the parenting books

Exactly! And they're all so different, that's what wonderful about them. I'm just hoping this one may like sleeping a little more than her big sister

Afternoon ladies,

I haven't read any parenting books yet... Think I may be burying my head in the sand but will look at some of the suggestions on here!

Definitely second sleeping on holiday! I can't get enough of sleep at the moment :)

meeska I'm measuring way ahead as I'm carrying id twins :) their weights from all the scans "appear"average. although I am only 5 3" so I feel almost as wide as I am tall!

I will be ok sleep wrise once baby is here. I had DS who woke up every hour for a feed!!! literally every hour. didn't sleep through the night until he was 4

got it easy with DD though, she has slept through from birth and only gets up when poorly or teething

so I am prepared for any outcome.

fatty, your ds and dd are the same! She's only just turned three though, still not sleeping through. Maybe soon. Who knows!

[missed out the word my before dd]

lewaney ah I did wonder if you were one of the ladies carrying twins but I couldn't remember, how lovely x

lucky, I wasn't transverse, I was a breech baby. I was breech at 40 weeks. And at 41. I turned all by myself at 41+5, about started at 41+6 and my mum had me in the early hours of 42 weeks. So plenty of time for baby to turn head down.