June 2019 Thread 4 - sliding towards 2nd trimester

[SassehMonsta]

Morning June bfp-ers, here is thread 4!

I am considering buying some nappies in size 1 or 2 in advance, to spread the costs! We are ok for car seat, as DDs is from newborn, and we have told her she can pick her new car seat after Christmas (high backed booster time, though with harness still, around £40-60). Things like formula and such are my worry, as we got through £15 tins on a rapid basis with F. We shall see what we need! I need to get some more bottles, because even if we don't formula feed, I will be expressing as I am NOT doing all the night feeds. Screw that! I have bought a new manual breast-pump for less than £30 in the Amazon sale.

We are OK for car, as we currently have use of a 5 door ford focus, which should be spacious enough even with baby crap kicking around in it. We aren't getting a pushchair, we have an old one that's ok from 6+months, and before then I have slings and will be making DH wear too. I have already bought a new sling. Ooops.

Bed-wise, we have a cot from DD (used to be mine, and all 3 of my siblings too). Its not great for new born, but hoping to borrow a rocking crib or getting a stand for moses basket to begin with. We did a lot of co-sleeping. I hope this baby doesn't wriggle as much, and that it sleeps more.

I can't think of what else we will need - baby will be fed, cuddled, safely transported, have somewhere safe to sleep, nappies and wipes. Maybe borrow my baby bath from my mum? We did a lot of washing her in a washing up bowl. Would do again.

What am I missing? Other than stuff for me and medication, nipple cream, infacol, bepanthum, maternity pads? Probably clothes, but I have so many friends who are willing to give me bits that theirs have grown out of (mostly stuff I may have passed on to them myself!) that we will be OK for those too. I have some stuff of DDs in the cupboard/boxed somewhere, like muslins/towels/blankets/favourite clothes.

Kescilly, take a urine sample to every appointment. Even if you don't need it, they can have it anyway! ;-)

I haven't been spoken to about a health visitor - if you don't want them coming to your house, just ask them to find somewhere else to meet. :) My house is a tip, and the hv didn't mind. She was in her 70s though!

I'm thinking of doing cloth nappies too. Hoping to get birth to potty training ones as my DS is in nappies and likely to be so for quite a while despite being almost 4. I've heard mixed reviews and I don't think I'd have managed the first time round with DS! My local NCT does a nappy library so if you're considering it may be worth seeing if there is one near you? You can try them out that way before shelling out all the money.

I have no idea why, but depsite the scan and feeling awful I am still struggling to accept I'm actually having a baby
So haven't even started thinking about what we need etc which is odd for me as I am super organised. I think Christmas and applying for school places for DS is keeping me too busy to remember I'm pregnant!

I'm quite worried about money - we were conned by a builder earlier this year which means we're having to pay around 30k extra for our kitchen extension to be finished - starting tomorrow and hopefully finishing in February. That plus this is our first baby and I found out I was pregnant 2 days before starting a new job, which means I gave up my entitlement to enhanced maternity pay and instead will not even be eligible for statutory maternity pay 😖
Trying not to stress out but we're going to have to remortgage and are in a very different position than we were a year ago!!

Torsz Look into statuary maternity allowance, if you aren’t entitled to stat mat pay my employer you may be entitled to that instead. I claimed it with DS2 , it’s the same money but paid by the government

Thanks @Napssavelives - I think we are eligible for that but it's minimal (my work normally offers 6 months full pay whereas I'll go straight onto £160 per week). Although anything is better than nothing! ☺️

@Torsz being very frank start looking around in Jan or so for second hand everything for the baby. As far as I am aware you only need to make sure one or two things are BRAND new and that is the mattress in baby’s cot/Moses plus bedding like sheets etc.

Everything and I mean everything else (inc car seats) can be second hand. NCT also hire car seats on long term loan. My neighbour had a lovely Cybex seat that fitted her baby from birth to 14 months for the grand total of £56 from NCT on the proviso that she was responsible for its cleaning, upkeep and timely return.

Good advice thanks @PaulHollywoodsSexGut - I'd been thinking of using gumtree/Facebook/nearly new sales and some friends and family have offered their things which would be gratefully received! I think it's mainly a case of working out what we need to buy new (eg mattress, car seat) then getting everything else second hand.
Unfortunately we don't have any free space for storing things at the moment as the new kitchen was delivered in August and our conservatory was knocked down (with everything from it being stored in our spare room) so we're living in our loft bedroom until the kitchen is finished, but hopefully we can get things moving and start hoarding in February!
Thanks both for the advice ☺️

Re mattresses does that mean I can’t reuse the one for dd which has been in our musty dusty loft for 7 years? Have I answered my own question.... also we have a mattress (of sorts) in the base of our Moses basket (which dd uses as a doll bed in her room) and innthe pram (also in loft) and I don’t know if I’ll need to buy new those too.

I wasn’t aware you needed new bedding though. Top tip I did last time was to use pillow covers on Moses basket instead of buying special sheets (which are a waste of money) and we just folded up a regular flat sheet and used it in the cot instead of buying cot sheets. I also bought cheap regular towels from primark instead of special baby ones (you really don’t need to pay extra for a built in hood) which dd still uses today (I got the size between a hand towel and bath sheet and got it in a really dark colour and took to hospital with me initially to use after birth in the shower there so it wouldn’t stain with any bleeding I may have had). I bought really cheap ebay bundles of clothing which were local to me so I collected to save the postage cost. Once I got a huge bag of clothes for 99p! Will post if I think of anything else we did to save money but keep an eye out for second hand for sure. Charity shops can be worth a look too, my local one one quite often has buggies or other big baby paraphernalia outside the entrance. We have a monthly charity shop warehOuse sale where all children’s clothes and bedding for £1 too. I’ve seen gro bags etc there before so once I’m up to it I’m going to be going there every month to see what I can find. Oh, and don’t bother with cot bumpers, I don’t know if the advice has changed but with dd they weren’t recommended as didn’t let air go around the cot so easily which wasn’t thought to be good.

So, is everyone still feeling that nauseous need to eat like they have to eat but they feel sick and have to force themselves to eat which helps? I’m still having to force myself to eat all day long even when I’m not hungry because I feel so sick and it does somewhat help (or should I say worsens a lot if I don’t).

That all sounds great, thanks @Reastie! I'm not totally certain re: mattresses but I read a few things which said to buy new to avoid increased risk of SIDS so I figured it's not worth the risk! I'm not sure of the science behind it though...
I'm afraid I'm in the 'eat everything in sight' club so I'm just turning slowly into a whale 😂 can't help on that one!x

Yes I remember that about mattresses, guess we’ll need a new cot mattress then! Still not sure about Moses basket and pram mattress as not sure you can buy those, will have to investigate.

There was a query why it's not a good idea to have a home Doppler a while ago and here's a terribly sad example. www.familiesonline.co.uk/life/news/heartbroken-mum-pleas-for-home-dopplers-to-be-banned-after-losing-baby

Just had a successful private gender scan and got lots of lovely pictures and videos to take home. They revealed the gender to us on scratch cards and we're actually having a girl - this is what my husband and I were really hoping for 😍

Congratulations @annihall 🥰 how far along are you? That's so exciting!

@Torsz I'm only 15+1 and booked an early gender scan. They were very sure that it's a girl though, didn't have any doubts - so I'm hoping they're right haha

Please tell me if I'm wrong to be raging here. I will try to limit the sweary words...

Had my scan on Friday, took the picture in to show my son when picking him up from nursery. He said it was an elephant. Made everyone laugh. They've got a kindness advent calendar going on at nursery and Fridays thing was to make someone laugh. They asked if I'd mind them videoing us doing it again for their Facebook page. I thought the page was private. It's not. My mistake.

Anyway one cousin who is on holiday at the moment must have seen the video somehow- no-one was really meant to see it outside of the nursery people. She told another cousin who loves a bit of drama I was pregnant. Now cousin #2 Is pissed off because she didn't find out directly from me.

However, instead of speaking to me about it, she's gone and complained to my mum! So got a text from my mum last night telling me I needed to phone cousin #2 sharpish.

I am fucking raging. How dare she assume she'd be top of my list of priorities. I certainly didn't plan on her finding out that way, was going to announce at Christmas. I'm left feeling like I'm the bad guy and I'm furious that a) she phoned my mum and put her in the middle of it and b) hasn't bothered to offer any words of congratulations.

Ahh I'm far too excited about this - I love that we're getting to the stage now where we can find out the gender 😁 we've got our scan Sunday although hoping not to see anything too obvious as we don't want to know what it is until Christmas Day 🤣xx

@socktastic that's absolutely ridiculous - on all counts! I don't see how you're the one in the wrong here - I'd be annoyed with the nursery, both cousins and my mum! It shouldn't be such a drama, it should be a happy time...
Grr xxx

I can't really be mad with the nursery, they did ask if it would be ok and I said yes. I was under the misapprehension the page was private and I just didn't realise so that's my bad. But I do feel like she's telling on me to her mum cos I've upset her.

She's 54 years old....

@annihall congrats on your girl! I've got my gender scan tomorrow I can't wait 😀 will update you all once I know what it is.

How exciting @annihall! Congrats!

@socktastic that's so annoying, I can't believe your cousin was upset over that. I can understand being disappointed, but obviously accidents happen and you didn't do anything malicious.

Thank you ladies :) somehow knowing the gender made everything even more real

@fee1234 how exciting. Any preference or a feeling whether it's a boy or girl?

@socktastic I think your cousin is overreacting. She should realise that you're just as annoyed that the news leaked this way and shouldn't make you feel even worse about it

@Torsz are you also going for a gender scan? Will be so exciting to find out on Christmas Day

@annihall we sure are - got one on groupon for £39 ☺️ just hoping we don't see any obvious genitalia as we don't want to find out before Christmas!! 😂

@Torsz I don't think you will see anything obvious. I couldn't see anything without the lovely sonographer lady explaining it to me, it's very hard to interpret these scans if you're not an expert