Due in February 2017....thread 5!

[SkyLucy]

Thread five for the chattiest bunch of preggers ladies you've ever had the pleasure of encountering. We're greeting the second trimester with excitement and apprehension, and lots of questions, humour, reassurance, empathy and advice.

Fourth thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/antenatal_clubs/2684139-february-2017-thread-4-are-we-the-chattiest-bunch-or-what

Ooh I might join the fb group too .

Tell you what though about breastfeeding, there was a couple of things I didn't know about at all before DD was born that I wish someone had told me, or maybe they did but I hadn't listened or understood enough. 1) your milk takes a few days to come in and when it does you can feel a bit like you're coming down with flu - I felt so hot and poorly (only short lived though).
2) until your supply is established and your boobs know how much milk they need to make for your baby you'll have engorged boobs which I found really uncomfortable but importantly this doesn't last! At first i thought Omg is this what breastfeeding will be like?! I got very upset about it until I got assured they would calm down.
3) when baby feeds from one side, the other side will leak; breast pads are your friend .

readyfortwo just a few sites for maternity clothes I can think of are Frugi, Seraphine, Verbaudet, JoJo maman bebe, if you've not tried those already.

Can't believe we're hurtling towards a thread six already!

Re: breastfeeding, as I mentioned downthread, I really wanted to but I found it hard work and I resorted to combination feeding after 4 weeks, until DS was 5 months when he decided he didn't want the breast anymore.

I'm definitely still pro-breastfeeding and really hope it works out this time, but I thin it's important to remember that formula is not poison, as some judgemental BF proponents would have you believe. Yes, it's probably not as good for your baby as breast milk, but it's absolutely nutritionally adequate to meet all your baby's needs and DS has absolutely thrived on it.

Just thought I'd point that out as I felt so guilty giving DS formula last time and looking back I don't understand why, as I should have just been happy that he was happy and full! I think we have a tendency to put pressure on ourselves.

topmammy and leaking when baby cries....

Very good point twocats. As a MW once phrased it: "it's formula, not bleach".

Thanks for the tips, I think I've tried most places: Jojo, Asos, Vertbaudet, Gap, Topshop, seraphine, Isabelle Oliver, eBay. I like good quality brands normally so struggle with the flimsy cheap end but then I just can't bring myself to spend £50+ on an item that I'm going to use for all of 5 months. Not sure there's an answer....maybe when the new season clothes come in I'll have a few more options.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to breastfeed but decided to give it a go because of the health benefits early on. It was tough initially because DD didn't feed as long as the midwives in the hospital demanded and then my milk took about a week to come in. I was counting down the days to 6 weeks and decided I'd stop then, but things got easier before that and we're still going at 17 months. I was also determined to introduce a bottle to share feeds but I hated expressing and if she knew I was around she'd feed again after the bottle anyway.

I use cloth nappies intermittently but get fed up with the washing. I tend to do a couple of days and use up my small pile of nappies then accidentally leave them drying for a week.

I hated expressing too, I found it so time consuming and I felt like a dairy cow. When DS was struggling to latch at the start I had to pump a lot to keep up my supply while I worked on the latch and so I spent half an hour battling unsuccessfully to get DS onto the boob, then feeding him a bottle of previously expressed milk, then expressing another for later. It took forever to do each feed and I felt like such a failure.

Turns out I have flat nipples and nipple shields helped a lot, but I got such conflicting advice from MWs and other 'experts' on using them. This time, if they help my baby to feed when he/she otherwise wouldn't be, then as far as I'm concerned they're a good thing.

ready I am sharing parental leave with DH and that's a really interesting strategy. Mixed feeding never occurred to me.

I should add to my previous post as I get not everyone wants to read through the whole analysis. In the baseline, disposables are actually marginally better environmentally than reusable nappies. There are really 2 big ways to make reusable nappies more environmentally friendly than disposables (and how many kids use them isn't one of the significant points as reuse (though not 100 percent) is assumed in the baseline)

1. Never tumble drying (even in winter)
2. Not using a very hot wash setting

Without those, it's difficult to overcome the embedded energy use in laundering after each use. Also poop not thrown away but flushed down the toilet or rinsed away in the wash has to be treated like all raw sewage which also has an additional energy cost relative to disposables. On top of that there is the additional water use.

If you exclusively tumble dry OR use a hot wash above 60c, disposables significantly outperform reusable cloth nappies. Also, if waste treatment in your area includes technologies such as waste conversion to biogas then again disposables pull ahead.

I live in Southwark (in London) which has one of the most advanced waste treatment facilities in Europe. They convert waste to energy. That combined with the fact that as a household we tumble dry the majority of the time except items that can't be dried that way which go on airers means we'd actually be harming the environment by using reusables.

The only way to know if it's an environmentally friendly choice for you is to consider how you'll launder (in the baseline they assume a combination of line and tumble drying rather than exclusively one way or another) and looking into how waste is treated in your area. I'm very lucky to live in Southwark where waste is managed in such a sophisticated way.

To the 2nd time moms, is it possible to bf from both sides or do babies tend to only use one side all the time?

ready. Not sure how much you normally spend on clothes but Nine in the Mirror sells higher end brands normal clothes that can be worn as either maternity clothes or normal as the designer intended. I work in a very smart office so I've bought some dresses for work in the sale that will fit my bump all the way to the end of pregnancy but that I can still wear and like post baby. They are expensive though even in the sale! You have to search hard for highly discounted items but thing for 100-150 quid are there.

You're meant to feed from both sides, ideally, and you start the next feed on the side where the last feed ended. A lot of babies have a preference though, DS2 preferred the right side and would try to skip directly to that one. When he got older he would only feed off the right during the day and the left at night (but by that point supply was adjusted to demand so it wasn't a big deal).

My DD prefers my left boob but does feed from both. In the early days be prepared for lop sided boobs as one is emptied of milk while the other one is still full . I know someone who just feeds her child on one side though as he just chose to from quite early on for some reason.

Watching but (obviously) not contributing to all the bf chat - great to see so much wisdom, I'm so lost about all of this!

London - I LOVE Nine in the Mirror. Gorgeous stuff, want it all! Ready - have you looked at Topshop's mat range? Don't know what your style is but their stuff's definitely not 'floral wrap dresses', which seems to be quite a common theme everywhere else!

Random q....anyone else got REALLY itchy legs?! It's driving me nuts so I googled it which was a mistake, because now I'm worried I have some kind of liver malfunction.... Anyone else?

Ready I'm planning / hoping to do the same, pleased to hear your experience was positive! DH is in agreement thus far Must admit the electric pumps scare me a lot less than the manual ones, I guess I feel safer putting my boob under the control of technology rather than just relying on the efforts of my future sleep deprived exhausted self! Did you go electric or manual pump, and would you say electric pump is worth the cost in terms of time and effort saved?

ready re clothes, I did a bit of an Amazon shop the other day and was pleasantly impressed with this bargain purpless.co.uk/en/94-6107-dress-with-pockets at £12.99 which comes in a range of colours. It feels a bit big around hips but then I'm not sure how much room is for baby (!) but worth a try. Decent weight of fabric, not like the stretchy Lycra bits I also received that are now going back.

Ooh, like the look of that one Piano. Will have to trawl through nine in the mirror a bit- def more my sort of style. I don't normally buy designer but would spend £100 or so on something that I loved as long as it wasn't just for maternity.

London- everything you are told by BF literature says don't mix as baby will get nipple confusion, but my friend had such a good experience (and bf'd for over a year) that I decided to follow her advice. All my friends who left it later really struggled to get baby to accept a bottle so I ignored the official advice and went with it. Fortunately DS took to bf really easily, I may have delayed slightly if he wasn't 'getting it'. My mum is a health visitor & was very sceptical but it worked for us. So my advice is, if you're going to try it- don't ask ur mw/HV as they'll tell you it's a bad idea!

Re pumps: I felt the same about a hand pump so used a Medela Swing electric. It was a bit of a faff in that I'd wake up, do the 6am feed then wait an hour, express for 30-40mins and then feed again at 9/10am. But you can do it laying in bed, I was going to bed early too so it wasn't stopping me sleeping. I do look back now & say 'why the hell did I bother?' but breast milk is easier to use in some ways as you don't have as many risks with how long it sits around for & worrying about how sterile everything is etc. I could just pick a bottle out the fridge & throw it in my bag and use it a few hours later without having to warm up or chuck after 2hrs. Also, I think the pumping probably helped keep my supply high (the more you feed, the more you produce) so it may have prevented my supply from dwindling with a bottle use.

I've never heard that you're supposed to feed from both sides and have never needed to either. Milk production continues as you feed so you're never actually empty. Also the milk gets thicker gradually as you go through a feed, so swapping sides means you risk going back to thinner "foremilk".

Mystery if you're planing on expressing regularly then you should definitely get an electric pump. They're so much more efficient and do the job for you without too much thought. My hand would cramp up quite quickly whenever I used a manual pump.

Hi all on the breastfeeding front I have to say that I found it really easy (once my milk came in on day 3 - before that was more difficult and I definitely agree with having a couple of bottles of pre mixed formula to hand). No one ever really seems to say it can be easy so I thought I'd put forward my views. I know it's not easy for everyone. I'm sure if I'd been in a lot of pain I wouldn't have continued but it can be easy and you should seek help and support from wherever you need it to help. Anyway, this time round I'm considering introducing a bottle early like suggested up thread as that's the only really downside I found. You're the only one relied on by the baby for feeds. That's not really a big deal most of the time but a little more flexibility would be great. Obviously only if things are going well and I may not mention to my health visitor either!!

I think I'll have a go at introducing a bottle of expressed milk earlier too. I reckon I left it too late so that's probably why DD refused it completely. She also refused dummies!

Re. The giving a little formula while waiting for milk to come in. The baby is still getting colostrum though, super concentrated goodness, and their stomachs are soo teeny. I personally wouldn't do it unless it was taking more than the usual time frame for milk coming in as all that suckling in the first few days is what brings your milk in and I wouldn't want to disrupt that process. (Nothing against formula itself I must add! )

My mother, mil and a number of friends have all managed to breast feed successfully so I definitely intend to try at least for the first 6-8 weeks.

I also have friends who struggled badly with supply, cracked nipples and mastitis so I'm not going to have elevated expectations that it will automatically be easy or possible for me.

Like most things to do with babies, I'll have to take it as it comes.

How long can you leave expressed breast milk to sit? Is that in the book some of you recommended? Can someone remind me of the title again?

Also, I've noticed typos in my post about reusables but I can't edit. Reuse isn't assumed in the baseline but in one of the sensitivities but by itself it just brings disposables and reusables more or less even (as in the baseline disposables are marginally ahead). The baseline also assumes line drying 74 percent of the time so you need to better that to improve environmental performance of reusables.

London You can leave freshly expressed milk out for up to 4 hours. I found this table from the Kellymom website useful for info about breast milk storage kellymom.com/ages/bf-preemie/milkstorage-preemie/

Oops sorry that was the wrong link. I meant this one kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/milkstorage/milkstorage/

topmammy I'm sure that's right. Dd was jaundiced though so the formula was really helpful with expelling the bilirubins (sp?).

London after the first 6-8 weeks is when it gets really easy though! If it's working obviously... And that's the most important time. But in my experience once ppl reach that mark they continue for a few months as things are easier then. You can leave expressed milk in a sterilized bottle for quite while even out of the fridge... Can't remember exactly how long.

Also I generally always fed on both sides and dd had no preference. If I hadn't my boobs would have been different sizes I think and I always leaked on the other side.

In other news we have an appointment for harmony testing today. Kind of excited to see baby again and even though it's expensive we are lucky enough to be able to afford it to put our minds at rest after our relatively high (though not actually high risk) downs screening result.

topmammy it may have been because I had an oversized baby (10lb) but my colustrum def wasn't enough. I was feeding pretty much constantly for about 6hrs & ready to tear my hair out, fortunately I had the 'your baby week by week' book & realised what was wrong. 1 lid of formula & he went to sleep! You hear a lot of people saying they gave up bf'ing as their milk wasn't enough/didn't come in so I feel its important to share that you can use a bit of formula & it doesn't have to spell the end of bf'ing!

Lacy I'll probably continue on if it's a doddle but I want to try for at least the first couple of months. I'll see how it goes but I'm going back to work probably circa 5 months post birth so that will be a natural cut off. I travel for work so bf won't be feasible.

Just thankful for all the great advice and insight on bf from you ladies. I think I'll try mixed feeding with expressed breast milk and then switch to mixed with formula ahead of weening to go back to work and my DH taking his second chunk of the shared parental leave. His first lot will hopefully be for the first month post birth using some vacation time too