Due April 2008 - new thread for October

[lemonaid]

Old thread here.

Mathair, dp, is perfectly happy with it, but being such an advocate of it, I doubt he'd dare tell me he preferred the idea of bottle feeding!
Personally I think the benefits of breast feeding outwiegh daddys need to feed, there are a million and one things daddy can do without having to feed the first few weeks.
FWIW, he will be involved in feeding baby, once my milk has been established I will express sometimes, so we have milk ready incase I need him to, I'm also planning on donating breast milk to the hospital as well, so I will be expressing quite a bit!

Lorayn... do you use a hand or electric pump? Which is best? I used hand before and it took forever...

Mathair: if I do manage to get breastfeeding established this time I will express occasionally so dh can help out and may include some formula feeds if expressing doesn't work out. I'd like dh to be involved in the feeding (partly so I can get some sleep!!) and he would too.

Sagitta, I hired an electric pump from the hospital last time and it was fantastic - couldn't get the hang of the hand one at all but the electric was brilliant. I only expressed for about 4 weeks in the end though as exclusive expressing is just way too time consuming (dd wouldn't go anywhere near my actual breast)

sagitta, I used the avent electric pump, I tried a few and that was the one I found best.
Sometimes though I found I couldnt express, it just wouldnt work, whereas others I was like a bloody fountain!

Piccallili, I think expressing or even top-up feeds (once milk is established) is a good compromise if you want dp/dh to be involved too.

Just catching up on some threads. Are you guys seriously starting to feel the baby moving?
I just have weird cramps but less than a few weeks ago... it's just gone very quiet...
I can sometimes sleep on my tum, and then the next day there's obviously a big hard belly in the way, but it changes day by day.
Very odd.
I want to fele the baby do the washing up too!

Loistella, any day now!
When I went to the doctors when I fainted he said to me 'ohh fetal movements will start anytime now' so we must all be hitting the time in the next few weeks.
How exciting

MathairNua, Dia dhuit!
My dh says that breast vs bottle is a no-brainer! Millions of years of evolution vs 50 years of formula manufacture, deffo on the side of breastfeeding. However we have never had any problems with breastfeeding so it was very easy for us. What some people do is express a feed early in the day and let their dh/dp give the baby a midnight feed so that they can get some sleep. I didn't bother as baby was always in bed with us anyway so didn't disturb our sleep.

chipmonkey - Dia 's Muire duit (delving into the LC memory banks there a bit - ) Must admit that I am veering strongly towards the bottle - but it seems to be going against the current trend. Among other things, I'm not the most nutritional (is that a word?) eater and I don't like the idea of depriving junior of anything that (s)he needs.

loisstella - I have not felt any movements yet (no butterflies, no washing up), and to be honest, although I feel slightly tubbier, I don't think that anyone would notice that I am pregnant if I hadn't told everyone by now. Would love to feel junior move. Even when I had my scan, the sonographer was having to cause me all sorts of discomfort to get him/her to flip to get a measurement! Maybe (s)he is lazy, just like me...

Mathair - my baby is moving allright - on the scan he (?) was just constantly swimming away...papperazi shy... obviously a superstar in the making!
Belly's popped out big time also (allthough that could be due to the clotted cream icecream I've been eating.
But I'm not "feeling" a thing at the moment.

You don't have to be the best eater, I'm not and they've all been fine. None of mine ever caught chicken pox when I was bfing even thought I'm the type who catches everything going!
But do whatever works out best for you. Even if you bf for the few days in hospital and then switch when you get home, babs will still have gotten the benefit of the colostrum. Or you could mixed-feed if you like which might be a compromise and dh could give the formula when baby is bottlefed and you still get to bf.

Question - if you express does baby still get the benefit of colostrum? loisstella - very of you being able to sleep on your tummy some times. I really miss that.

If you express right from the start, what you will get out is colostrum.

Good, will remember to pack my pump The one at the hospital was broken when I had DS so nearly ended up killing someone when milk came in

am i terrible for madly wanting cheeseburger and chips for dinner?

Hahahaha, no scorpio, of course not!
I wanted home made chips so badly the other day I made DP drive around to find me some lard and potatoes (we live in a village with a tiny little local shop so he had to go into town)

No. Totally normal, I reckon. I dreamt that I was gorging on Wispa bars - I don't really eat chocolate, and now I can't think of anything else.

lol scorpio! I have eaten about 3 big macs (with chips of course) since I've been pregnant. Before that, I couldn't tell you the last time I ate a fastfood burger!

go for it!

Cheeseburgers were all I could eat for a few weeks of this pregnancy. I had mad cravings for battered sausages with DD and chow mein. Then with DS I ate indian food for the first time, and loved it. Well, not the first time, but the first time I had enjoyed it.
Funnily enough DS loves curry now.

think i may go when dp gets home.... what shall i have? big mac or 1/4 pounder with cheese? surely i can kid myself that there is iron in the burger?

You´ve all just reminded me that it´s chip day tomorrow at school - yippee My cold is also slowly getting better so I should be happier by the morning ... students should be pleased as well as DH. DH asked 1 of the students to get me some choccie at lunchtime while they were out, isn´t he sweet

You have to have a quarter pounder with cheese, tye are the only burgers macdonalds do with proper onion.

oh ok, then!! and maybe a donut?

why the maybe??

sagitta I'd be inclined to try to bf exclusively for say the first 8-10 weeks or so to get your supply properly established before you start introducing formula. If you start off mixed feeding then then you may find your supply never properly establishes (you might be fine some women are -- but on the whole introducing formula from the start makes it difficult to keep breastfeeding even partially).

DH is fine with my breastfeeding, I don't think he's too bothered about feeding the baby TBH (although I'll try expressing so after we've got my supply established he can have a go if he wants to). With DS we established that bathtime was DH's thing and special bonding time. Also he did virtually all the nappy changes if he was at home (that was my suggestion for special bonding time ).

MathairNua -- baby will get what he/she needs, it would be you who risked missing out (so vitamin supplements generally a good idea for breastfeeding mothers who aren't eating very healthily)... Sows who produce milk for formula only eat grass and I presume your diet is more varied than that...

I didn't feel anything that I knew was the baby with DS until 22/23 weeks last time (and plenty of my RL friends said the same) -- I was starting to feel paranoid with seemingly everyone online feeling things much earlier. This time I think I may be feeling flutters but I wouldn't stake anything much on it; could still just be wind.