September Babies Thread #5 - we're a chatty bunch

[Stroan]

Yet another thread for our September babies!

The Google Doc with stats is here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VUDuTLeibUnnaCWCjb-pqUe4Wnq-fTau4HJgmE1XE3c/edit?usp=sharing

This post was edited at OP's request

I’m a planner and worrier by nature and as the main earner by miles I’m feeling really panicked about radically reduced income. I’ve always been financially secure and independent.
But we are far better off than most and if it comes to it we’ll rack up a big credit card bill and worry about it later.
Our mortgage is pretty low and fixed for 5 yrs, we just have some big commitments that can’t be undone (car lease, horse). And I am determined to hang on to our cleaner even if we have to reduce her hours as we’ll need her once I’m working and they are like gold dust here. But obviously if it comes to it she’ll have to go.
I am cancelling all my non essential direct debits though like charities, which is upsetting but can’t afford for now. I’ll restart when I can.
One thing I do hope to be able to do is slash the food shopping. At the moment we are time poor so end up paying more. Hopefully I’ll be able to shop at Aldi/Lidl and markets more and hunt out bargains.
I figure it’ll get us out the house too if go shopping a few times a week instead of a big online shop.
Once I’m on SMP my net income will reduce by about £2.3k/month. That’s a lot to find! but its not forever.

@Bunnymummy89 I'm in Bournemouth

My little boy (prem) struggled to BF at first (once he finally got to the age where he could physicality suckle/swallow/breathe at the same time) but when we tried nipple shields that made it much easier. I think they’re why he took to bottles so easily. From about 6 weeks once BF was established I started pumping whilst having breakfast and that would be a feed for later in the day. At about that age he started sometimes wanting feeds more often than a few hours and it meant I couldn’t leave the house without us worrying about whether he’d want a feed! Getting it for some me time (a horse ride for me) - couple of times a week was essential as otherwise I would have gone stir crazy! It also meant my husband felt in control and able to cope when he had some time alone with the baby, which is also so important for them. As he got a bit older a bottle feed with milk if expressed earlier in the day became part of his bedtime routine too. Expressing was a bit of a drag but it was worth it for me to have some me time!

If anyone wants to BF but baby seems to be struggling in any way PLeASE get them checked out for tongue tie. 7 out of 8 babies in my nct group needed tongue tie snips but only 2 were picked up by a breast feeding consultant and midwife, despite all of the mums reaching out to breastfeeding consultants. The others were self referred by mum.or support. The lack of training in this area seemed worrying, I do wonder how many mothers have had to quit BF when they didn’t want to because tongue tie had been missed by the professionals. After the snip they all got on so much better and all managed to carry on until 1 year.

BF is so much easier than bottles I think and in all
Honesty that’s the reason I stuck with it! We would have been let out of hospital in the early days sooner had we decided not to give BF a try, but I kept focusing on how I didn’t want to be faffing around with bottles in the middle of the night and whenever I wanted to leave the house 😂 At 3 months old I could not wait to stop at 6 months, but by 6 months it was so easy and with no cluster feeding I couldn’t imagine stopping, and only stopped recently at 10 months when I went back to work and was struggling with pregnancy issues.

As for nappies, like most people I assumed Panpers were the best but whilst in NICU my baby had a loose tummy from jaundice treatment and he got a really sore bottom. Pampers have introduced a mesh in their nappies that stuck to his little bottom making his skin go raw. It was awful. We stopped using them straight away and moved onto Aldi and Lidl, which are actually the only one the NICU nurses recommend. Still using Aldi and Lidl now at 1

Crikey that was a very long post. Sorry!!

I will say things like nappies really depend on your baby! My dc3 would get such a sore bottom from aldi nappies she looked burnt! The other three have been fine with them though!

We also had a weird sex split on nappies in our NCT classs. The girl babies all got on fine with pampers but all the boys suffered with leakage! My DS' favourite to use were the Asda home brand but we switched easily to Aldi when we started shopping there to save money.

@Megan2018 my income will drop by a similar amount while on SMP but in my family my DH is the planner so he’s the one worrying and making spreadsheets. I’m a risk taker by nature so my attitude is much more ‘wing it and it’ll be fine in the end’. I’m not willing to compromise on how much maternity leave I want to take (I want to take 9 months including annual leave) so we’ll just have to make it work.

@stormtrooperjulian
I wish I wasn't the worrier. DH is very blase.
I'm not prepared to compromise on mat leave either. I'm taking 12 months inc annual leave (7 weeks is paid leave) as it's a one off for me.

My parents are fabulous though so if we got into huge difficulty I could ask for a bail out (I just don't want to!). Fortunately house is new and under warranty so we won't have any big house bills to worry about. We'd like to redecorate as it's all magnolia but we don't actually have to spend any money on it for a while. That is the one bonus to having moved recently. That and also by the time we re-mortgage this little one will be at school so we don't have to worry about childcare payments impacting affordability! So every cloud...

@stormtrooperjulian my income will drop significantly too on smp, unfortunately we have a large mortgage - we moved last year to what we hope to be out forever home, but because we jumped a few rungs in the ladder, the mortgage is large, I can probably only manage a couple of months on smp. So we're looking at 4 or 5 months maternity leave. I'm the planner in our house, I would love to sit back and let DH take over, lol but if I'm honest I quite enjoy it.

At the moment we're contemplating cars, we have a small run around but it's only 3 door and I don't think we'll get the car seat in, or we have the older estate we use for towing, but isn't fuel efficient at all. Trying to decide if we take one of them of the road, or replace the 3 door with something larger for daily use. Nothing is straight forward, I don't like difficult decisions 🙈

@Bunnymummy89 we're in the north Cotswolds. Do we have a FB group set up?

I'm lucky that my DH earns a great salary and covers the majority of the bills including MTG, but I did originally pay the deposit on the house so it was kind of his way of paying back his share of that. I just have to find DS nursery costs to cover and I'm quite a good saver so have a bit put by for maternity leave. My work also lets you sell any unused holiday allowance too, which I've got quite alot left over for this year. I'll probably take a week or so before starting mat leave then be paid for the rest. I'll then have all of next year's holiday (ours runs jan-dec) that I can be paid for. I'm also not really a big spender, only what's necessary plus a few treats here and there. So although I am naturally a worrier, I'm also quite sensible and tend to have things covered. It's more the expense of the new car I'm worried about, but I should get a decent amount back on mine.

@Bunnymummy89
I’m Leicestershire/Rutland border

Good idea to add to spreadsheet

@GemmaJen yes we have a facebook - you need to add Leyla Preston (pictured with two kids against a mint green door) as a friend and her to add you to it.

@Bunnymummy89 im Huddersfield.

I’m in SE London.

I spent DS’s nap going through newborn to 6 month baby clothes. Our baby girl is going to be wearing A LOT of navy stripes and dinosaurs.

If anyone is interested in a more eco friendly disposable nappy, check out Kit & Kin. They biodegrade in something like 3-5 years instead of 500. They’re not cheap, but they’re great for newborn sensitive skin too without all the chemicals.

I haven't been on for a little while, my boss has given me a project to lead on at work. Which is great, but it's sucking all of my time! Luckily it's only until mid June!

Anyway, 20 week scan here today. All looked ok, I've got to go back because they couldn't get a good view of the heart structures, feet and something else... baby was curled up in a ball with legs, cord and feet all covering it's body! No amount of star jumps and Coke we're moving it! But we are having a girl 💗

I was actually quite surprised! I honestly thought this one was a boy, I've had the name Henry picked out since I was pregnant with dd (who also turned out to be a girl). So now I'm back to square one 😂 I used my 2 favourite names on Dd! But on the upside I have a spare room full of girl clothes from newborn - 3 years old so far so that will save us some money!

@megan2018 I’ve decided to get wall stickers for the nursery instead of completely redecorating it to save on costs, I found some ones with really good reviews. And once I go back to work and have money ill redec his room properly

I really recommend www.kalistileman.co.uk stickers if you haven't set your heart on some already. We have a couple of the stickers from there and they are lovely. Only issue is, DS has started scratching at them now... So doubt they will remain up for that much longer Hsunshine

Got my recommendation from The Nappy Lady, not gonna lie I am so bloomin confused now by it all! 3 parts to one nappy; a wrap, nappy and a liner? jeez! Also not totally sure if what has been recommended has been based on my actual needs or is just generic as there seems to be no additional information, just "buy this for this much money and here is a code" rather than talking through how the nappies she had stated will be best for me considering I havent a good way of drying them in our house.

Think I will have to do my own research will I probably would have anyway

Megan2018 I'm also going to miss my 2k a month and I havent been in my job very long so I'll have to get the maternity allowance from the government. Luckily my husband's wage covers our mortgage and bills and he gets a good bonus in March (I might too) so that should keep us ticking over and I'll squirrel away all I can up until then.

I mentioned stickers to my colleague and he said they are a nightmare to get off. He said he had to redo the whole room in the end once they didn't want them anymore.

I did the questionnaire too. Got 2 options..
1st Option

Full Order Recommendation Bamboozle Stretch (Stretchies) Size 2 used Birth to Potty from 10lbs
2nd Option

Full Order Recommendation Bumgenius ElementalJOY Pocket Nappy

Think I'm leaning towards 2nd option.

ah so we do have different recommendations at least I guess!

Mine were Option 1 Teddys & Option 2 Miosolo with both coming in at around £500 but I think I will do daily washes and still do disposables at night whilst he is still small and I am sleep deprived. I cannot imagine faffing about with 3 separate things in middle of the night

@TwittleBee 6 years ago now, but nappy lady recommended us teddies or Charlie bananas for no drying space and the other factors. I bought one of each, hated the teddy but loved the CBs... give 'em a try I guess. Fuzzybuns used to do a hire pack of 6 different popular nappies which was a good way to try a few.

Not fuzzybuns! Fill your pants!
www.fill-your-pants.com/cloth-nappy-trial/TRY01f.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwq-r-9vI4QIVTLvtCh3kyAB5EAQYASABEgKmDPD_BwE

ah thank you DustyDoorframes super appreciate that! I suppose having seperate parts to the nappy would make it dry quicker!

Does anyone know if child benefit is based on previous financial year or current?
Trying to work out what at what point I’ll get it! Hoping that at least 1 tax year with mat leave I’ll be under threshold!