Due November 2008....Mmmmmmmmmmmm....minty Gaviscon, swallowed not stirred

[LackaDAISYcal]

Thanks to Pinkali for the title

the reason why it appealed to me with dd3, was because i was the only sole carer till she was 18months, due to dh being in hospital long term. i found it a lot easier tbh.

sister has offered me a close baby carrier for this one, and other sister is offering loan of a mei tai as well

HM2J, i also think part of dd3 confidence is due to being in a hospital enviroment a lot for her first years. she learnt to come face to face with lots of different people very early on.

Ohhhh, I have been looking at the Close baby carriers. I really want a wrap type carrier for when baby is little. I am also going down the cloth nappy route this time as well. If that makes me appear to be a hippy, so beit! It will go well with my home grown veg, organic gardening, tree hugging side!

I can honestly say that I have turned out to be a completely different kind of parent than I ever thought I would be. I never imagined I would use cloth, carry my children or be an extended breastfeeder. I am very happy with the parenting choices I made with ds2, I just wish that I'd had the guts to listen to my instincts and started with ds1.

Hmmm, maybe that has alot to do with J then? Obviously he spent alot of time in a hospital environment for the first 2 or so years of his life. Your dd3 & my ds2 have had alot to cope with in their little lives.

DD had to get used to more noise and people because she was taken to toddler groups with DS, rather than quiet little baby groups. I agree though, HM2J, you could be here a long time trying to unpick the nature/nurture debate!

oh i know HM2J, i parent totally different now to when i had dd1. with her i listened to what people told me. now i disregard it all lol.

i laughed inwardly when the HV told me that dd3 needed to put on more weightm cut breastfeeding and give her more chicken and carbs. because that would obviously make her heavier than breastmilk lol.

I love the whole nature vs nurture debate and like a lot of you who parent differently I also have happy, confident and outgoing Lo's and they were in routines Therefore, can we assuem for the purposes of this discussion that we are all wonderful, rounded parents who have raised amazing kids despite using very different methods?!!!

mum2becks DS1 was in hospital for the first 3 weeks of his life and the SCBU put him on a strict 4 hour feeding routine (I pumped for the first weeks then successfully breastfed for the next 9 months, amazing myself as he made the switch from breast milk in the bottle to boob no problem!)

When we finally got him home, we went with the flow (ie demand feeding, sleeping when he wanted, where he wanted) and by 12 weeks of age he was cranky, colicky, and couldn't be settled. Several friends were following GF and my SIL who swore (by it and had given me the book when i WAS ABOUT 6 MONTHS PG) LITERALLY told me to give it a go...When I had initially read it my first thought was no way as it was really rigid but by this stage, we were desperate.....we decided to adapt it for us and our lifestyle so followed the feeding/sleeping patterns but ignored all the nonsense such as 0815 have your breakfast, 0820 go to the loo etc etc

It changed all of our lives..literally! DS was so happy in a routine, he changed into a totally content, happy boy and his colic literally disappeared overnight.....due to him getting proper long feeds and taking the hind milk (gold top!) rather than snacking on the skimmed milk every 30mins or so...

I also changed from a very tired stressed out mother to someone who really started to enjoy parenting....

DS2 we did it staright away and he was a dream baby/toddler (Although he always wakes at 6am!)

Heartmum - what is AP him??!! (also nice to see you posting, it;s been a while!

Off out with the girls soon, really looking forward to it!

According to Freakonimcs its all nurture so when our babies are born we can do no more to influence them. Personally I find that very saddening and would believe the opposite but its always an interesting debate!

Chocorange do you mean when they are born it is all nature as in we can't change anything or nurture in that we can??????

DM my children do have routines, regular mealtimes, naps, bedtimes.

I think most babies do- but how they arrive at their routines can differ according to how you parent.

I give them a 7-7 day but the bf routines seemed to just happen naturally, I wonder if this was the case for anyone else?

It could well all be down to nature, choco. I know lots of clingy AP children and many extremley independant GF children.

I like to follow my own instincts really. I start to loose confidence when I try to follow any one doctrine, but I know many who swear by one or other.

I must add I also know quite a few independant AP children and clingy GF type children, too! I'm not even sure that being a clingy child is such a crime anyway- it can be a pain for the parent, but I'm sure if it's dealt with sensitively it shouldn't become a big problem in later life.

See Pinky - we have arrived at exactly the same conclusion (happy content kids, good routines) just got there in a different way!!!

Not sure about the BF routines and how that happens, all I know is that my 2 were fed at regular intervals and greedily guzzled and thrived rather than when I was demand feeding and had cranky kids........who knows if I had carried on doing that what they would be like now!!!!!!

at what stage did your kids reach a routine? Did you demand feed and let them sleep when they wanted and then they just got into a natural one or did you go for 7-7????

(shame I am going out, I bet I miss a good debate tonight)

It is a very interesting debate. When we had dd we didn't know about theories of parenting like Attachment Parenting and I had never heard of GF. I breast fed dd for nearly a year and co-slept until she was 2 (still do a lot of co-sleeping now even though she officially has her own room) Also, I held her a lot in the first few months and she slept in my arms quite a lot too so I guess we fall in to the AP category in some ways.

I'm not sure how I will handle things with the new baby. I was very anxious when dd was a baby and eventually realised I had PND just as I was starting to come out of it and I realise now that a lot of what I did was due to the fact that I couldn't bear to be parted from dd for a minute. I put myself under a lot of pressure for months and made myself and dh miserable so hopefully things will be very different this time.

I definitely intend to breastfeed again and am thinking of getting a sling to carry baby but not sure if we will do the co-sleeping again although I was saying to dh last night that it feels so natural to sleep with dd that I don't know if I will be able to resist the urge next time.

oh God I've had to put anthisan on DS as I have no calamine until DH gets hoem from work. He's got them between his toes as well now. Poor love.

Routine- I would get them up at 7 and put them to bed at 7,sort of make it night time and day time, IYSWIM. Often, esp. DD, they would still want to be fed after 7pm but I would treat it as bedtime feeds.

I'd demand feed and at a certain point- so many weeks, their feeds would start to show a definite pattern, eventually forming the 5 or whatever it is feeds a day.

They both BF 'slept through'(ie five-six hours) very quickly, but DS slept 7-7 from 12 weeks and DD was still waking for a 2am feed until she was nearly 11 months.

DD was quite a colicky babyat first, but as her stomach sphincter grew stronger that tailed off and she was more settled at night, thought still very propped up.

I usually find I'm somewheree in the middle in these kind of debates- not strict routine, but I believe they need good regular sleep.

Have a fab girly night out, DM x

I really enjoyed the programme too. The comparison of different styles was very interesting.
For the first few days ds was asleep all day and awake all night. Then he changed. And put himself into a routine that you could set your clock by. I bf him at 6am,10am,2pm,6pm,10pm,2am. Becasue that was what he wanted. I suppose it was bf on demand, becasue come 1.59pm, he wanted feeding. It really was like that.
He went to bed at 6 and woke at 6. With 2 feeds inbetween. He would wake up, cry for a millisecond, I would breastfed him, wind him, he was asleep again before I have left the room.
I lost my bf ability and he had bottles, but nothing else changed.
This is why I am preparing for the devil child as my second. If I get anything less than devil child, I will be grateful.

thanks pinky - out in 5 mins and can't wait!!!!!

Have you got any Rhus TOX - FAntastic for Chicken Pox as helps with the scars and itching....sounds like a bad case if it is in betweent he toes........How are they in themselves??

well put it this way- neither of them are asleep.
I don't have ANYTHING to put on it, really. They've had a bit of a cough. I'm not sure I've had chicken pox. No point worrying about that now. Off to settle itchy children.

Wow, you lot have been having interesting debates today!

We also put DS in a routine from about 2 or 3 weeks - loosely based on the Baby Whisperer EASY routine - although I couldn't get DS to nap when he was 'supposed' to so it ended up just being a 3-hourly feeding routine and we let everything else (sleep, activity etc) happen round that iyswim. I don't think it took long for DS to fall into a routine with his naps but I think it took longer for us to figure it out Obviously if he was hungry before the 3 hours I did feed him but tbh, this was very rare as he just wasn't bothered by hunger (and still isn't!) although I have a feeling that this is because of the condition he was born with, he was pretty much permanently hungry for the first 8 weeks of his life before his operation as he couldn't keep any milk down and therefore got used to it.

I will definitely be going down the 'routine' route with this baby aswell although it is obviously going to have to fit in with DS's routine so may not be as easy as I think. Just need to figure out how to bath and put 2 children to bed.......

Choc - we kept DS in our room for exactly 6 months and will do so with this one aswell (I am a stickler for rules so not comfortable with 'da rool brakers' thread ) but I know a lot of people move babies into their own rooms within days/weeks because they are noisy sleepers etc - however, to me, it is not worth the risk, however noisy they are - but that is just my view.

Wow loads of very interesting views and points on here tonight. I never really stuck to any particular advice and let DS go with the flow, he did seem happier settled into a routine which came about around 8 weeks or so.
He was a fantastically easy baby in that respect and I am so grateful for that. Like you Oblomov he was so good if this one is even a fraction as good I will be very very happy.
I do very firmly believe though that all babies and parents are different and you have to do what suits you the best.
Good Luck Hana I hope it goes well for you. I have no idea what we will do this time round until baby arrives. FDS was in with us until 11 months but it was because his room was cold and the radiator was broken. Can't do that this time because the cot won't fit in this house!
Pinky hope the Lo's are ok.
Dozy hope you have a lovely night!

well they are finally asleep. Not very nhappy bunnies .They were quite hot, so I gave them some calpol. Off to the doctor in the morning for us. HO hum.

Pinky, chicken pox ? Poor you, ie children.
I went to Kings today. They are pleased with my diabetes. Very.
Had a scan. Also an internal scan, as part of research project. Was very uncomfortable. But all measuremments fine. No risk of early delivery or early signs of pre-eclampsia.
So very happy.
Ds had his last day at nursery. And I met up with 2 colleagues for coffee from 3-5pm. It was so nice to see them. Had the best time. Before dh and I picked up ds from nursery.
So sweet.
Bed for me. Sleeping for england at the mo.

that's great news, Oblomov. Does that mean you wont have to have the baby early? Do they still do the early c-section thing for diabetes? My aunt had her 3 by elcs because of diabetes, I was curious if that is still the way things are done.

Hope you get some good zzzs

Oops - pregnancy brain - I meant to write Freakonomics says nature!! That makes more sense to my comment huh!

No pinky, they were testing me to see if I was high risk of giving birth prior to 33 weeks. They can now test that.

I think they will prob section me for 38 weeks. But I may start naturally before and be rushed in. Thats what happened before, with ds at about 36/37 weeks.

ah I see. That's fab they can screen for risk of early delivery. 36-8 weeks is pretty good, isn't it.