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.

Johnworf I get bladder kicks quite regularly, it's fine until I actually need to go and then it is really quite stomach churning! I also get this kick which feels like the scraping you get when you have a cervical smear, God that is gross! I assume she's kicking me right in the fanjo, can't wait for her to be bigger, NOT!

Mamamuffin, EandZ & Mustsleep Thanks for the nursery comments, it is currently my obsession so it's had a lot of work done to it! I just received the mattress for the cot, yay!

Kel You can't go wrong with Zeddy & Parsnip, the colours are so gorgeous to work with.

Mamamuffin I am rentable for nursery decorating, think I'll probably do the lot for a chocolate chip cookie right now!!

I ordered my mattress from The Glasgow Pramcentre, ordered it on Monday, they rang on Tues saying it would be delivered on Wed, I asked if they could deliver it today instead and it has come already, amazing service!! It was also £15 cheaper than anywhere else (M&Ps product) and came with free postage which other sites didn't.

To anyone on a budget or who (like me) hates to spend money on myself, have you thought of Freecycle for maternity clothes and breast pumps etc? I got a wonderful bag of clothes the other day, loads of gorgeous tops, one amazing pair of jeans and even a dress! I also got a breast pump, I won't actually feed the baby with any milk I collect as I think that's a bit icky and I read you can't 100% steralise the pump so you could pass on germs from the other user, but I am going to use it to see if I get on with it, then when I want to use a pump I'll know what type to get.

I've viewed everyones questions on here too but I don't know any answers either I'm afraid. Pelvic/fanjo pain does sound a bit like SPD though.

Mustsleep You should stick a photo of yourself onto your profile and we can compare! I have to admit that I love that hair style, but I've been too tight to get it done since October so it's grown out now (pic take Oct last year).

Thanks for the offer lolli, it would be lovely if you lived nearer. I am still struggling to convince my Dh to get the plastic boxes out of the loft. I told him this morning that I would have brought it all, all over again by the time he gets the stuff down. Me thinks tonight he will be up there . This is no threat as I have gone baby buying mad .
I got the millie and borris borders from m&p yesterday. I have the whole barnaby bear range from ds but the border for this has changed and I dont like it. The Millie and borris border has barnaby bear on it so it should look fab! .
Anyway, Ive just done my weekly tesco shop and picked up some infacol, gripe water, milton, dentinox gel and breast pads. Ds wasnt colicky but I would rather be prepared in case. Also he had his first teeth thru at just weeks old and remember dh having to find a supermarket open late one night as he was screaming in pain.
Loli I would not worry about the 100% sterile thingy. Your boobs arent either! It would be such a waste to discard the milk .
lol at your daughters breakfast pidge x

Random question that has nothing to do with nurseries or breastfeeding...

What's the deal with free nursery places? Is everyone entitled to them once the child is over a certain age? I am wondering this purely in a very vague 'how long can I avoid getting a job on the basis of childcare costs' kind of way.

Also, in light of Mamamuffin doing a very organised tesco shop, what extras should I get in weekly shop? Will get a few disposable nappies for first few weeks, but what medicine cabinet/nappy changing stuff/things I haven't thought of should I have in the house in case I need them urgently?

Oh, and should I know what things like gripe water actually are? Always hear things like that mentioned and don't give it another thought

OMG, and what is Milton? And dentinox? I know nothing!

Yes lollipopmother the fanjo kick (sounds a bit like a martial arts move to me) is not very comfy.

I got one yesterday from her while I was having a poo. Not very nice experience

I just read the label on the mattress, it said "sick babies should not be left unattended, this mattress may not soak up all vomit". That is GROSS! Should a mattress soak up vomit?! I was thinking of putting a waterproof sheet on it, although it says there's one inside.

Hopefully Sorry to panik you, these are things that are not vital to buy, but may help you if you are having a tough night.
But again they are not recommeded for under 2 months.
Infacol and gripe water are for windy babies.
Dentinox is like bongela for teething.
Milton is a sterilising fluid.

Other stuff I found helpful include;
A thermometer
Calpol sachets
little syringes (already mentioned)
Nappy cream

Lolli you could use muslim cloths under the vital bits Bum and head for a few months.

Mamamufin Thanks for the tip, I'll see if I can find any Muslims that fancy being made into a cloth, wonder if there'll be any takers!!

OK, so I can avoid worrying about them in the first weeks after the birth! Will probably go wild and get a thermometer and get the rest as I regain my brain after the birth.

I'm sure I used to use Milton to clean my horse's stable and water bucket...

starlight that's so annoying with nurseries! Hope it won't be too much of a problem for me, as I'm in a rural area - although knowing my luck that just means there'll be no nurseries at all!

mustsleep sorry i'm answering your question without reading everyone else's responses, but I exclusively expressed for weeks due to having deep breast thrush and finding expressing less painful than feeding, but I still wanted dd to breastmilk. It worked brilliantly in that she was getting my milk and anyone could give it to her, and she had a dummy. Dh loved feeding her. But the two problems I had were:

1. if you go out, even though you feed the baby from a bottle, you still need to express the next feed, if you don't you not only don't have a next feed, but you get engorged after a few hours!
2. I ended up with bleeding hands from washing up and sterilising the breast pump 8 times a day! Now if you have a dishwasher, or rubber gloves or something then I'm sure you can get round this, but it was one of those unforseen side-effects. Oh and thirdly, if someone drops a bottle of milk then what will you do?! Oh and fourthly, once in the middle of the night I accidentally put the steriliser in the microwave without any water in it, so destroyed the breastpump. My neighbour had been trying to sell me a pump second hand so we had to wait til morning to pick it up. By the time we'd been round, got the pump (and had a cup of tea) I was ready to burst and expressed 13oz in one go, which was more than 3 feeds at that time!!

But you can get better pumps, and better sterlisers, and if you have a dishwasher then you don't need to sterilise anyway.

Carrieon gets the waffle award once again

hopefully milton is sterlising fluid useful for teething rings and stuff you can;t really heat

Dentinox is teething gel

i found that nothing really helped that much with colic but that could have just been my two (maybe i'll be lucky this time)

although i'm sure when the time comes i'll still try anything!! we used infacol and then when that had no effect colief (which did seem to work a bit) but at £10 for a weeks worth if you get it get your hv or midwife to prescribe it

actually since joining mn have discovered that ds actu,*[]#
ally had reflux as he would
[#'=/o'l .9oprojectile vomit after every feed we actually had bets at one stage of how far it would reach i thought that it was something that babies did after every feed but dd was hardly sick at alljj/í

Hopefully, your child is entitled to a free nursey place from the term after they turn 3 (so probably from January 2012 unless baby early or rules change), they get up to 5 sessions of 2.5hrs each for 38 weeks of the year, but some do charge top up fees. dd is going to a pre school from this Sep just for 2 mornings, as the nursery i like only takes in Sep unless someone leaves, and it's 3 hrs a day, and it's £8 a morning, then when it's free, you still have to pay £20 every half term. There are council run nurseries too, but they only take children in September too. You can use the state funding towards most day nurseries / childminder costs etc as well I think

hopefully you won't need much for the baby with a Tesco shop for the first few weeks, but these days I order the nappies / wipes on line every 3 weeks or so. And I get all the heavy stuff (loo rolls, kitchen wipes, bottles, tins etc) it saves me loads of time. Basically anything that won't fit under the pushchair gets delivered so I can just grab fresh stuff when I walk to town.

I have the worlds worst cold and went to the doctors today to check what I can take, ie: paracetamol, which is what i thought as I am coughing up some pretty gross stuff. So no work for me until next week now.

How sad is my life? I watched all the episodes (inclusive of the entire first season) of Brothers and sisters...watched 27 dresses and now am in the most cynical mood in the world!

little noah decided to squirm wildly till i woke up and hasn't really stopped squirming since. I'm SOOO tired! i also just polished off a 1/4 pint of movenpick swiss chocolate ice cream.

before the afternoon is over i MUST get rid of all this body hair and i have no idea how thats going to happen since it's not even hair anymore, it's like a carpet! blah!

i hope all of you guys are having better days though

I began to wax my bikini line this morning, but I ran out of wax as there was just too much hair to remove!

I am very excited, I have worked out how to upload pics onto my profile. I have now got the grand total of 2 pictures on there!

Thanks for all the info on breast pumps. I too have a sterilizer and bottles and formula in the cupboard debithescot as I think I will be less stressed knowing they are there if it all goes wrong IYSWIM?

Anyone bought a tommee tippee manual breast pump? I have seen those in tesco. (I got my stuff less than half price there when they had a baby stuff sale)

Another scan today..sonographer saw the spine this time and was happy. Baby was waving and I saw his willy so its definately Toby George!

Got to go, ds getting very insistent I play trains with him......

this nursery stuff is all so confusing. Someone told me that it can depend on where you live, that some places are from 2.5, some from 2yr 9 months and some from 3. I have doen nothing to look into it as I thought I could bury my head in the sand (as usual) and hope that we'd have moved to Scotland by then where I htink its less complicated. But who knows where we'll be as we haven't done much to start thinking about moving and dh getting a job. Once again, if we stick our heads in the sand and pray, everyhting will magically work itself out.

Hopefully How can you be waxing your bikini line, I can't even see mine, which is an issue because i'm part of a consumer research study on bikini shaving and I haven't even seen my bikini line for the last 4 weeks!

A mirror!

Oh, and who was it who said we should remind ourselves every day? Pelvic floor, pelvic floor, pelvic flooooooor

Very interesting to hear all about expressing and breast pumps. I think we might leave buying a pump for now, unless I decide I'm not prepared enough nearer the time.

lollipop fab nursery!

carrieon I also find under bump trousers a bit uncomfortable, I have under bump jeans and they dig in when I sit down yet I still spend all day hoicking them up.

mustsleep still sounds like thrush to me, i think if it starts burning then it could be a mild infection. best drink lots of cranberry juice and stay off bread products and beer (it's

The kicks feel different now. Stronger, but less pointy.

Had lunch with my friend who's got a 6 month old DD, she's very cute! One day I'll have one of those. I can't imagine ever getting my head round going out to see people with so much stuff. I'm so forgetful at the moment, how on earth will I remember toys, changing stuff, feeding stuff and several blankets/cloths to wipe it all up?

...and have just noticed they're up to Jan 26th on the Due in Jan thread. Not long till someone starts a Due in Feb thread soon , we are sooooo properly pregnant!!!