Due April 2008 - the food porn thread for expanding waistlines!

[SantasGotABigFatEllieG]

Hello

Best of luck to your man! Not what you need before Xmas though is it?

yikes - my DH is definitely due the same kind of thing but totally putting it off (i.e. teeth are awful and lost a crown about 18 months ago but hasn't been to dentist). I can't bug him as aside from teenage years being fully dominated by robocop-style metalwear I have never had tooth issues (although I'm looking forward to the inevitable 'name something yellow' 'your teeth, mummy').

Poor Ellie - I hate those dreams! I am anticipating my really small baby/puppy dreams soon. Last time I was absolutely hounded by them. If it helps when you get to third trimester you won't really be able to sleep (it's preparation, they say...) so there should be fewer haunting dreams then! They are horrible, though.

Train was cancelled last night and I was half an hour late for nursery - cried all the way home! AND got charged £30. AND the girls who had stayed behind made a real point of how they don't get any of the money so will have to get them something to say thanks ON TOP - any ideas? chocolate?

Buy them a book about 'How to be polite'. Miserable old so and so's.

Thanks for the lists/comments, it's all really useful

Gonna sound really dumb now, but what's baby massage? Well, obviously, I figure it's where you massage the baby but how do you do it?

I'm with chipmonkey on loving the sound of butteries! Had another Scottish thing I had never heard of before yesterday - Ecclefechan tarts! Sounded like a term of abuse, but they are gorgeous (Sainsbury's Taste the Difference). In case no one else has heard of them either, they are kind of like a luxury open mince pie, with great lumps of crystallised fruit and nut. Heaven

Off to aquanatal soon to work off a tart or two!

or 'The Importance of being Considerate Towards Pregnant Working Mums (and Pregnant Girls in General)' - hmm, I might write that.

Dunno what baby massage is exactly, have heard is very good and can help sleep and colic etc. I am going to a class, as there is one held at DP's workplace.

Quite right scamp.

Baby massage is lovely - good for their skin, circulation and muscle tone and great bonding. I say that, but the number of times I ACTUALLY got round to it was pretty pathetic. And I was lucky enough to have a lovely SureStart midwife who was trying to qualify so came round to the flat to give us one-on-one sessions. I have some diagrams and directions (just photocopied on A4) if anyone wants them sent, or you could ask for a book on it for Christmas. Good for no nappy time, too, although DD had a wee hit rate of around 100% - must be the relaxation!

I did baby massage with DS and he loved it. It's best to be taught by someone, most areas have someone who will come round and teach you or a class you can go along to, it's something surestart used to do. It shows you how to rub baby the right way to ease any stomach aches/colic/wind etc and you use olive oil with is really gret for their skin, much better than any of this 'made for baby' stuff.

I was thinking about what I said WRT no expressing for the first 6 weeks and I want to be 100% that I haven't given you ladies the wrong advice so I'm going to post a thread about it, I'm sure tiktok or hunker will tell us all be need to know!!

My mum gave me a magazine with loads of piccies of how to do baby massage. However DS1 was sooooo laid back that all he ever did was eat then sleep so never really got round to doing it. Relaxation is not something DS1 lacks

If my LO is anything like her Mummy and Daddy she'll be like that too! Am hoping for a nice chilled out one

cardiff and south wales girls: there is a meet-up thread

oh, on the nipple cream I had a great one called Green Baby (I think) that a friend gave me. It was basically olive oil and some kind of wax - rub it in and the little waxy bits melt.

I will find your expressing thread, VS, as I want to know too - I had some work associate telling me yesterday how I HAD to get a maternity nurse () and "even" if I wanted to bf (like some kind of weirdo ) I could express, which I questioned (given that I never tried to express colostrum and she was talking about from birth for two weeks), and then she said that I ought to be giving a bottle instantly to get the baby used to it - I remember last time I think I started maybe around 3-4 weeks and felt in retrospect that was too early as I was very lucky she didn't suffer nipple confusion.

Managed to bf 9 months last time and want to do more (as not going back to work at 6mo) this time so keen to give myself the best chance and not just assume I did it all right last time as it might just have been good luck.

Is DD likely to ask to try it (bf), btw?

I didn't hear about the no expressing for six weeks rule last time, but it took me about six weeks to get the hang of it because the milk supply's not ready for it anyway.

One good thing about baby massage is that it gets you out of the house, and meet up with other mums. It's not always relaxing though - it can be pretty noisy (and messy)!

Other list things: I don't think you need baby soap - water does fine to begin with, and their skin is so young, it doesn't seem quite right to put on soapy stuff (and they then smell of soap, not baby!)
I didn't buy a thermometer - you get to know the temperature of your baby so well by touch. But other people are more paranoid, and lots of my friends wanted one for the room the baby sleeps in too. I guess it depends on your worry levels...

VS - who are tiktok and hunker? I haven't really ventured onto any of the other threads much ... other than the ones where all the babys are arriving .

I've never been to a formal baby massage class but DD loves it when I rub her legs and feet at a nappy change. She has to be in the right mood but if she is, she gets all dreamy and placid - it's lovely, wish someone would do it for me!

I'd like to send you all a virtual buttery (I'd send you real ones if I could!).

On another subject altogether, just one thing to watch out for with cold water sterilisers. They do the job really well but if you have sensitive skin (like me) they can wreak havoc with your hands. I didn't get round to using gloves with mine and have sworn I'll get a microwave one (I'll probably borrow one though) this time.

When one of my friends was pregnant first time round she had a very similar dream about losing her baby but it was in a layered salad (the baby was very very small). We laughed about it when she told us but I think when it was happening it was really very traumatic.

all my mum remembers about me being a baby is crying, colics, sleepless nights, pneumonia 5 times a year...
so I pray LO is not like me...

tiktok is a breastfeeding counsellor who knows everything there is to know about breastfeeding, hunkermunker knows probably just as much, and UrbandDryad is a peer-to-peer breastfeeding helper so if you ever need to know anything about breastfeeding ask them.
There is also Klaw and camillathechicken (formerly lulumama) who are doulas and are great for advice on labour/giving birth/birthplans and VBAC's.
The thread is here but I don't know how long it will take to get an answer!

Scamp, I managed to feed DS upto 8/9 months last time too, but he bit me ton and I didn't know how to stop him from doing it, I also went back to work then myself.

I don't know if DD is likely to ask to try it, I've been showing DS breastfeeding videos and he tried to suck my tummy, but thats all, he knows I fed him like that when he was a baby as Dd has told him, so I'm not sure. If he does ask though I'll probably express some into a cup and let him have that, i would have thought he wouldn't be able to suck properly now anyway as it's been so long.

Yes - was just looking for it and got distracted by the pump'n'dump thread - very reassuring for this time and last time! Wish I'd been hanging out on Mumsnet more then. Luckily my NCT girls were a bunch of old p1ssheads like me so there was lots of safety-in-numbers meeting at the pub. Although they all then ditched bf quite early...

It's odd - I'm not anti-extended bf at all, but I do feel veeeeery strange about DD even wanting to try it, even at the mo, and she's only 19 months so plenty of people are still bf kids her age! Maybe it's just that the idea of bf is always weird and in practice it's not weird at all.

Oh, and I was lucky - no teeth till 10 months. Crossing fingers for this one to be a late teether too.

Scamp, I'd feel odd about feeding ds now, but it's because I stopped so long agao, I remember when I first fed him, I thought I'd do it for 6wks, just to give him the goodness, then come six weeks, I said until he was weaned, then 6months, weaning came and went and when I stopped I was pretty gutted about it. He got poorly just before his first birthday and when I was cuddling up with him I had such an urge to feed him.

I'm hoping to do the full two year recc'd by the W.H.O this time, and tbh I don't think it would seem weird if I carried on, just the idea of it once you've stopped iyswim?

Me too - almost looking forward to the grief I get given how much stick people were giving me for bf a 7/8/9 month old! My mum says we all weaned ourselves much earlier than that, though, so not going to force it.

I was OK about stopping (DH made me) as I was working full time and practically losing it (as I think I've said before, def on other threads) with the expressing, early mornings, total lack of support at work etc. Also stopped exclusive at 7.5 months and did morning and evening on the 4 days I worked and all feeds (4? 5? can't remember!) on the other 3 days. I expected to be gutted but I wasn't really. Think in retrospect I was a bit depressed and not caring that much about anything .

I don't think my gutted feeling came until he was poorly, but at the time I had just split with their dad and had had to go back to work, find a nursery etc etc so had a lot mroe on ym mind!!

I watched a breast crawl video the other day from hunkers blog which was just amazing, the baby had literally just been born, was put on mums chest and moved itself over to her boob to latch on for the first feed. Something I really want to try this time.

breastcrawling video

Afternoon,

Going back to the layette thingy, we use Tescos nappies for DD (15 mo) and they're fine. Just as absorbant as Huggies but much cheaper!

Also, if you do want to express milk, I'd recommend seeing if you can borrow a pump first. I got on fine with a hand pump and was glad I'd saved money not buying the electric ones!

We asked family to donate old towels and we used to put them on the changing mat on the floor, undress DD and let her have a good half hour kick each evening before bath. If she weed on them (as she usually did!) they went in the wash, if she poo'd on them, they went in the bin!

Catching up on posts has made me hungry. DH made me honey on toast for breakfast and I've just scoffed 2 bags of crisps waiting for lunchtime. How much weight have people put on so far? I haven't dared weigh myself for weeks!