Due Sept '08 - Counting Down Rather than Up Now!

[Sunshinemummy]

Thought I'd do this and post my last comments:

Hi all. Glad to hear more good scan news!

We had MIL visit this weekend and she is such hard work. She literally never lifted a finger and kept going back to bed every couple of hours. I've asked DP not to let her come again for a while as it's hard work waiting on someone.

We also finally put DS in his 'big boy bed'. Went quite well - he went to bed no problems, but he woke up at 2am crying as he'd got stuck under the duvet. He was then awake for a couple of hours so I'm feeling shattered today. Anyone of you with older children got any tips?

Slinkie we'll be near each other for mat leave won't we? We can have some fun together I'm sure.

Meglet I'm the same as you with the whole bf thing. I hated it last time and was relieved when I gave up. I keep veering to and fro with regards to trying it for this baby. I had such a happy time last time round, really enjoyed the whole experience, and am worried that attempting to bf will make the whole thing fraught.

i hope it's fun.

Mustsleep - I tried a bit of potty training last week as dd suddenly announced se wanted to poo in the potty, but I've given up already. She only did 1 wee in the potty, the rest of the time on the floor - I really don't think she knows it's on the way. She was fab at pooing in the potty though - in fact all too good, seemed to be able to magic 1 up every time she sat on it! Then she suddenly took against sitting on the potty at all, so I'm postponing it a bit. I like being out and about most of the day, so I'm dreading feeling I can't go asnywhere for fear of accidents.

I haven't bought anything at all for baby, and the not knowing the sex thing puts me off buying much either. I'm sure I have some neutral things in case they were wrong about dd. I'll have to dig them out.

Last time round I was totally disprganised, didn't want to jinx things etc, and in the end, luckily had just bought a few things before dd popped out early. I had to go and do late night shopping to get a breast pump the evening I was d/c from hospital as dd was in scbu - I had a manual aveda one which was fine - the electric ones at hospital were very efficient though, but that was DEFINITELY cow like - you went into a room with 2 machines, and so you could be side by side with someone else, pumping away - quite surreal.

Ooh it's the apprentice, must go

Lolipop- I too have the zeddy and parsnip range but have not put any of it together yet. It looks lovely in ur nursery though.

Maybe I will start thinking about getting my room painted next month, still really nervous of doing it too soon.

I've just remembered the question I've been meaning to ask you well-informed ladies all day!
Namely: how the HECK are under the bump trousers supposed to stay up?! The bump pushes them down and gravity (and dd) finish the job. I'm permanently showing the top of my pubes to the world at large. Am I just built wrong?!
Absolutely the only ones that stay up are the ones with a jersey panel that comes all the way up to meet my bra. Great for summer...not.
Grr.

so the ones i wear seem fine...the ones i got from H&M were atrocious...but i've learned gap maternity is the way to go for my body (i guess).... also whoever mentioned french connection, Thank You! I bought some of the prettiest dresses from there yesterday.

Morning guys
Gosh u were up early eandz, enjoy your lie ins while you can.
I ll have to go for a proper shop soon. My boobs have inflated again. I too am a curvy short person so remember the trousers round my knees situation.

yep i have the same prob with the underbump trousers have found that they either fall down or are too tight when sat down and make lo dig into my bladder uncomfortably

am trying to get away with out buying anymore maternity jeans though have found a pair of size 2 river island jeans in the back of my wardrobe that are super stretchy (i normally don;t wear them as they fall down all the time) that are great at the mo and am just going to leave my normal jeans undone with a bump band covering the opening

ok now i have another slightly embarrassing prob but we like to share on here don;t we i had thrush and eventually dragged myself to the midwifes and got the pessary and canesten cream which i have now been using since monday, but it hasn;t gone away although it is nowhere near as bad as it was. but the itching is all around my wee hole so wondering if maybe i had thrush and something else aswell

really excited today ds (6) has a friend from school coming round for tea tonight for the first time as i'm normally at work but what should i make them for tea

had anyone got a maxi dress that is not too expensive and to cover my big boobs! (40F)???

ooh also a question for all you bfer's

i quite fancy the idea of the calorie burning and money saving aspect of the breastfeeding and obv all the health aspects too

the bits i don;t fancy are having to always be the one to do all feeds - dh would miss it too and my mum and mil

i don;t know how i will cope when my breasts become engorged is it on day three as i have been in agony even touching them both times before

plus i don't think that i would feel at all comfortable feeding infront of other people

could i express all the time i realise that this would take up time but i have loads as i am at home all day practically every day and on week nights we generally have no visitors so would that be the way forward - plus i would feel more comfortable knowing exactly how much lo is feeding etc iykwim

can you do this then it wouldn;t matter if he had a dummie would it either?

In theory I suppose you could express everything but I personally wouldn't want to rely on it. I had a manual expresser and found that some days I got loads and others it just wouldn't behave. I'm guessing though that electric ones are more reliable and efficient though.
I did all bf for 3 or 4 weeks then expressed for about 4-6 weeks just enough for the last thing at night feed (and the occasioanl day feed if I was busy or something) which dh quite liked doing. But then I got fed up with expressing and gave a ff once a day for that 10.30pm ish one.

I have just been catching up and looked at a few questions (including ones about thrush, breast feeding and swaddling), and didn't know the answer to a single one, so I have nothing very useful to add to the thread this morning!

On the other hand, finally saw a picture of my workmate's beautiful new baby boy this morning, born last week. He is so cute and lovely! Her husband's black (OMG, is that the current pc term? Picture me using whatever the pc term is...) and she's part eastern-european, so baby has the most beautiful olive skin and bright pale eyes in the world. Damn my boring scottish colouring and DP's bright blondness.

Morning all, mustleep I know what you mean about expressing. I want to bf for the baby benefits but my dds are both really looking forward to giving the baby a bottle. Was wondering about maybe doing both but I do remember last time trying and just found it easier to latch the baby on so give up the expresing and only stuck at bf for 3 months.

Any tips from all u bf experts would be greatly appreciated.

Is anyone else getting weird, quite sharp and a bit sore but hard to describe pains very low down? I keep getting weird twinges esp in evening that are way lower than my bump. They are quite uncomfortable.

I'm not with it at all today, feeling sleep deprived. Went to bed late anyway coz of the football then ds had a very weird night. He woke up crying twice which is very unlike him. Couldn't tell us what was wrong though. Then at 3.30am he woke up and chatted loudly for half an hour! He kept talking about Edward but we have no idea who Edward is! This morning he said that Edward was driving the weetabix lorry and then he started looking round the cot for him. Must have been a dream I guess.

thanks starlight think i really need to put some more thought into it and see what i feel would be best for all of us

mustsleep - I certainly wouldn't choose to express by choice - it's like having all the hassle of bottle feeding - sterilising kit etc only even worse, because you also have to sit there pumping. No reason not to combine expressing with breastfeeding if that works for you, lots of people express for their dp to do one feed a day or similar. Even if you find feeding hard - generally it is only really tough for the first 2-3 weeks and then it starts to settle down (I'm talking in terms of the physical discomfort here, which isn't inevitable, but some people do get very sore to start with).

But in the end - you do what is going to make you a relaxed and happy mum.

My pump will probably be in action once a day - but that's because I'm hoping to do what I did last time round and donate milk to our local hospital's milk bank for premature and sick babies.

no i do appreciate your honesty as i would rather have my eyes wideopen iykwim

might do what you suggested and express and top up with formula hmmm need to have a good old think about this

Breastfeeding is the one thing where (unusally for me!) I don't have a plan...

In an ideal world I'd like to breast feed exclusively, expressing the occasional bottle for DP to do once I'm a bit more confident in it, but I've already decided that at first I'm just going to see every single feed I do as a triumph and if I can carry on and do more, that's fantastic, and if I can't, I'll try to solve the problem, but not give myself a hernia with stress about it.

Is it bad that the calorie burning is a big incentive to want to breast feed...?

Starlight - it took me a while to organise the blood test you have to have before donating, but I got into the swing of just expressing about 3oz each morning, after I'd fed dd around 7am. I would feed her one side, pump off the other, then let her finish off anything that was left! So that kind of got the routine going, then finally after about 3 months I got the blood tests done and the milk started going to the milk bank for the next 3 months. It was a lovely thing to do, and not very onerous. Before the milk went to the milk bank I used to put what I'd pumped on my older daughter's cornflakes!!

One thing I did was I had bottles, steriliser and a small tin of formula in the house just in case the bf went horribly wrong. Someone else gave me this idea as she had found bf hard and felt under pressure that she 'had to do it or else baby would starve' as she had no other way to feed it so then she got stressed which made her baby stressed which made it harder. I didn't need to use the formula but I think knowing it was there made me more relaxed if that makes sense.

If any one else is interested (probably most likely for second timers or more!), have a look at this and there's a list of hospitals that take donations here, though there may even be more nowadays.