August 2016 number 5 - waddling towards the third trimester!

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For the August 2016 ladies and babies!

I'm from Aberdeen, but I live in London :) its nice cos i feel an affinity with both the aberdeen crew and the London posse! We're flying up tonight actually (last chance) weathers bloody awful in both places!! Haha :) why couldn't I be from somewhere sunny??

plimsolls hope all comes back ok and baby was just having a 'pushing the belly out' day. I know it's a daft question, but she did double check the measurement...? She couldn't have messed the tape measure up somehow?! At least you have a little extra peek at baby to look forward to anyway
I'm also not too far from London - am edge of Hampshire, about 20mins down the A3 from Guildford so pretty accessible.
Feeling a bit more settled now, need to start doing a bit of exploring once the weather perks up! Although I attempted to visit a nearby soft play with DD the other day - we ended up stuck on the A3 for a long time while the sat nav repeatedly told me to turn right and I shouted "I CAN'T!" at it was supposed to be a 20min journey; we finally made it after an hour. So maybe I should stick to walkable distances for a while!
Christine hope you're feeling better today - hormones are a menace! It really is all worth it at the end.

Plimsolls & long yessss!! I'm in H town!!

Plimsolls & long yessss!! I'm in H town!!

Though I'm not sure I'd call it my fantasy place to live ;)

Tough week ladies! Last week low iron this week urine infection. I just parked my bum at the Drs and refused to move until somebody tested my urine like a crazy lady. Antibiotics for 7 days - knew something was wrong!
suzie it's actually quite warm in Aberdeen today just unfortunate that it's also still raining!

Hello all!
Has anyone had blood cultures taken and know why?
The plebotomist today thought it was an unusal request but took them all the same (after I did lucozade test). They put the blood in bottles that looked like mini wine bottles (if only!!!).

I had an extra scan at the fetal medical centre last week, babe still head up and facing my back-ha! When did your babies "turn down down"? I'm 28+4.

Fellow Sussex crew checking in!

Blood cultures are usually taken when people have suspected infection, usually when they have a high temp, to try and grow bacteria to identify the source. If you haven't been unwell, it is an odd thing to have requested!

Hmmm thanks Dots. It must have been a mistake. I also had some other woman's address and DOB stickers and notes in my file last week after a hosp visit! Admin is not my care providers strong point! I posted them back to the mother to be.

We are home. Shattered, we got woken up on the ferry at 5:30! We are having a washing and film watching day. Tomorrow we need to get on with sorting out the baby's bedroom. Back to reality!

fizzy I know - I've only sampled the nicest/best bits as a tourist on a few weekends away. Last time we went, we stayed in St L but had ana amzing time in H Old Town. There was a music festival thing on and all the lovely pubs had bands playing (etc), and it was a sunny Feb day, the sea air, seagulls all around, etc etc. Just lovely! We ended up bumping into several of OH's old friends/workmates (he didn't know they had moved there) so it just felt like a Dream Town!

glenncoco That's lovely where you are- you must be near the South Downs? My brother and his family live near-ish to there, all very idyllic!

If any of the London/near London people fancy a meet up at some point pre- or post-babies....

Britny My midwife reckoned yesterday the baby had turned head down, so it must have done that sometime around 27 weeks. I think they say mostbabies generally turn before 36 weeks so you've got awhile before you need to worry...

Alfie glad you've got some ABs and that the doctors saw you after all. Well done for insisting!

I hope everyone has got a nice weekend planned. I'm a little under the weather (waiting for urine test back as my sample indicated possible urine/kidney infection) so I'm parking myself on the sofa and doing nothing for the next two days. pickle I hope you can have a restful day today!

pickle hope you had a lovely time! Reality always makes its entrance with a bump.

plimsolls yes i insisted quite firmly, the receptionist was trying to say I could wait until Monday - clearly she has never had a urine infection! Hope yours gets sorted, they did send a sample to the lab too, but we're happy to start me on ABs.

We've ordered our pram today! Went for the oyster 2 in the end - took us forever to decide.

Anybody got any nice weekend plans?

I've just made a thread about it as I neeeed answers..what cot mattress has everyone gone with? I think it needing a cover/protector goes without saying, leaky nappies an'all but sprung mattress? Foam?

Aww plimsolls, when it's nice, it's very very nice, but when it's bad it's horrid
You should visit on May Day for Jack in the Green, it all gets a bit 'The Wicker Man' or Pirate Day in August (though we might all be a bit busy come August!) I think it's less pretentious than Brighton, cheaper to live in by a country mile, arty and cultured, but has a deep vein of poverty running through it that has the associated fall outs. If you're ever in town, give me a shout! But I am always in London too if folks did wanna meet too!

Christine we agonised over the mattress to get one the Angel care sensor worked well with. For the cot we got the pocket sprung one from IKEA (the £60 one) as it said foam wasn't so great for picking up readings from, and as we got the next 2 me co sleeper, we also bought the Snuza hero clip on nappy sensor as the Angel care won't work on a co sleeper. Got a mattress protector in ikea too, it's just a flat sheet bit, but says to make sure it's only under their bum area not head as I guess it's not breathable.

This is a really dumb question but I just can't work it out. Let's blame pregnancy hormones.

Baby is due very end of august (so, could arrive then or early Sept). .... All the "essential lists for a newborn" differentiate between summer babies and winter babies (types of bodysuit, grobags, blankets and so on).

I should use the summer lists, right? As it might be really hot when the baby is born.

But.... I'll need to get some warm stuff in small sizes, won't I? The baby could only be 8 weeks old in November.... and it might be really chilly by end of Sept when the baby might only be a couple of weeks....

christine as you might be able to tell from my above questions, I haven't got anywhere close to thinking about practical things like cot mattresses!!

I

We bought a spring mattress for the cot bed, cost about £70 from our local retailer

I'm planning on just buying sleep suits, short sleeved and long sleeved body suits in the first size (newborn/up to 1 month/0-3 depending on the shop, all differ so much!). Will buy other clothes once baby's here and we know boy/girl and know what size they are!

People buy you a tonne of stuff when baby's born in loads of sizes and I quite liked going to shops to buy stuff post birth

Plimsolls layers is your answer. Babies are generally too small for sleeping bags until they are c3months so you don't need those in advance.

When DS was born, it was mid June and bloody boiling - yet he still shivered for every nappy change for the first few weeks. I think we did vest & sleepsuit & then a cardigan or similar or a blanket depending on where he was.
And remember it's okay not to have everything before baby arrives - there are some basics that are a necessity but otherwise you can wing it afterwards depending on weather and your baby

Whereas when my DS was born in mid June and it was bloody boiling he was in just a nappy from day 2 and still sweated everywhere. Some kids are hit and some are cold, you just don't know until they arrive.

We decided tonight to rent a bednest.

Hello hello, ladies!

Sorry been MIA. So knackered lately, doing anything but the bare minimum feels quite a stretch. And speaking of s t r e t c h, the bump is starting to feel well heavy. I am so much bigger this time, I'm sure I look/feel about a month more pregnant. Oof.

Just scrolled back a bit & saw tales of lost mucus plugs! Hope all is still well for you Erica! That really brings it home that we're on the home stretch for these babies! I've started having lots of braxton hicks, some of which make me need to sit down & catch my breath. And it's June already, there'll be babies before we know it...

Re mattresses, we got some hippie, organic, wool & coconut (I think?) ones for our bassinet & cot last time & will just be using them again. Well, baby 1 is still in the cot! But the bassinet.

And re clothes, layering is your friend. I'd get a couple multi-packs of basics - short sleeved vests, long sleeved vests, baby gros, maybe a few leggings, a couple hats & cardigans. And then play it by ear once baby has arrived. Of course, I did no such sensible thing last time, & overbought wildly, & it's true that 90% of new baby gifts tend to be clothes, so we ended up with massive amounts of 0-3months clothes. But I didn't mind because our son was super refluxy & went through multiple outfits most days, & anything that cuts down on the frequency of laundry is fine by me! So there are potential pros to every approach. But there will always be the chance to get things afterwards! And you may well need to anyway, as newborns sizes can be so different, & how they measured before birth/guesstimations of how big they'll be may be well off, so you might buy a bunch of "first size" stuff, only to have a big bubba who outgrows them in a hot minute, or vice versa! Basically, best not to overthink it, which I was very guilty of.

Still agonising over whether to double buggy or not to double buggy... I think we'll cough up & buy the single-to-double tandem converter version of our current buggy, & just weep that it didn't exist when I was pregnant last time. Oh well, at least we got our current buggy really cheaply 2nd hand! Sadly the upgraded version is too new for any cheap 2nd hand ones to be on the market. But we know it suits us/our lifestyle, so may as well just go with it. And this way poor, neglected baby 2 will get at least one new thing! Cause we don't need anything else other than another high chair, which we'll just get 2nd hand again. Otherwise, it's all hand-me-downs!

Anyway, hope everyone's having lovely Sundays. I'm contemplating painting my toenails later, but I'm not sure I can still reliably reach them all.

pickle welcome back to reality! It's always hard to come back to earth isn't it!
Alfie fingers crossed the abx are kicking in today, UTIs are the devil's work! Good for you for staying firm.
plimsolls yes we are on the very edge of the South Downs! This whole area is completely new to me, never been here before in my life, but there is so much to do when we get round to it! So far every time I open a window or door I realise how lovely and fresh the air is compared to what I'm used to
Re clothes - totally agree with whoever said layers! You can't predict how the weather will go, or how your baby will be. Much easier to just wait and see. DD was an August baby, it was hot that year and she was a hot baby - spent most of the time in just a nappy and vest. To this day she's a hot dog and will regularly moan about being too hot while I'm still in jumpers! It's better to keep babies on the cool side anyway as overheating is not good.
Christine don't know about cot mattresses yet! Think we had a foam IKEA one with DD and it did the job perfectly well, we wound up co-sleeping more often than not anyway so the cot mattress didn't get an awful lot of use. Will probably do the same again so not going to worry too much about it.

Beautiful day here today, hope the sun's arrived for everyone else too! DH has gone out with DD to visit his dad and I have a day off for good behaviour lots of chores to get through!

Rum good luck with the toenail painting.... I'm not allowed to do mine now after the cat incident

Back on with the painting and sorting this weekend, unbelievable what hoarders we are! Feels good though chucking everything out!

Hi all,

Sorry I've been a bit absent! Work has been mental and I've had to be in late most nights last week... Argh! Can't wait for this big project to draw to a close - I was planning to start doing a little less in June/July, not more!

Nothing to report here, everything is normal! Which is quite unusual by the sound of things so I will just keep quiet and hope it stays like this. I've been tired but that's about it. Today DH is working and I'm making some curtains for the nursery (if I manage, not made curtains before).

I went to a new yoga/antenatal class last week, very different from what I normally go for... There was some chanting and talking to the baby! It was very much in favour of home births, attachment parenting and exclusive BFing, some of which I agree with, although I wouldn't be comfortable with a home birth as we live in the sticks. Quite a lot of importance was placed on making our babies move to the left hand-side as it's better for labour - has anybody got any experience of this? I was quite intrigued as I would have thought we were all symmetrical and it wouldn't make a difference!

So I have a (seated) ticket to go and see Beyonce with my sister on the 28th June... my due date is the 4th August. Is it crazy of me to think I can go?

I should think it'll be fine Sophia. As long as your not having too many issues with PGP and you are seated. I am going to a wedding 6 hours drive away with 2 nights away from home and 2 children in tow on July 17th and I'm due the day after you. If you are crazy, I'm mad.

Also, who was it who is going to hire a bednest? Thanks for the suggestion, I think I might do the same!