Due in September 2009: we are now officially blooming!

[StealthPolarBear]

Even if it doesn't seem like it most of the time

Evening all... mils, what a can of worms. It is so difficult trying to get the balance right in terms of keeping them happy and letting them get on with it versus trying to draw out boundaries. I don't have any advice, just offering sympathy.

I was a little concerned before we had DD (1stGC on both sides) but fortunately my main issue has been feeling guilty for not seeing them often enough, I wish we all lived closer.... well maybe not that close

We had our scan on Saturday, appointment was 1h45mins!! late , but worth it in the end - all is well and we got a lovely cute 3D snap .

Hmm. After spending the whole day with my MIL alone, I can foresee a time when we will clash mightily. She has very strong views about child rearing and child development, and doesn't like to be challenged about anything (she lives on her own so whatever she says goes). She seems to have a problem with the fact that I don't want my cat to use the plant pots on the roof as a litter tray and am trying to discourage him, saying 'oh he's just being a cat', in a way that makes me feel I'm being judged for my obviously crappy parenting skills already. I can already hear her voice from the future...

She also does something else that drives me mad, even though it's a ridiculously small thing - she has to be the last person to go to bed, so she'll stay up even if she's totally tired. I just end up feeling like a child traipsing up to bed with the 'real' mum left in the kitchen. She's down there now. Grrr.

Sorry needed to vent. It's been a long day...

Feeling cheerier this morning even though she got up to drive home at 6 this morning and drank all the milk

Have just done a tpt and come in at very nearly 9 sheets. Not getting as big as quickly as I thought- seems to have slowed down in fact, when I actually feel mahoosive. (Remind me how hilarious this statement is when I'm 8 months...)

Hi all
It's taken an age to read all the posts I've missed. I am now classified as massive, any bigger and I will have to go on the relief map of Wiltshire.Babies are kicking now like mad and my daughter (6)has christened them Ben and Gwen. bigbang I am twice your age that is quite scary- in fact could be your mum quite easily-still feel 16 though.
All seems well so far all my bloods etc came back well in the middle range so really normal except I have no antibodies for rubella which is a little worrying.
DP and I put a cot up this weekend as he isn't back for a few weeks and I am on a mission to get the house all sorted before I get too big- I think this is called nesting
Keep cool on the MIL front they are a pain at times but can be really handy in an emergency.
I haven't met my new one as she lives in Germany and hasn't visited yet, but the last one was OK.

So far I don't have to worry about interfering grandmothers - they're all excited and interested but they certainly haven't started shopping or advising me (yet). And this baby will have a handful of grandmothers: his and my mother (Wiltshire & Germany), my father's 2nd wife (Germany), my grandmother (who's got 9 great grandchildren already) and my late boyfriend's mother, the only one who lives close by. She will be a sort of god-grandmother as we both would have liked nothing better than her son and me having children together but it wasn't to be.
Maybe this is where it helps to be a little bit older - I've been living on my own for 18 years now, and abroad for 11, so my parents have long since gotten used to me being an adult in my own right. I'm sure they will help wherever they can but they are unlikely to pester me with their own parenting views.

Lol, age is just a number. I was pregnant with ds at the same time as a friend of my mothers- now that was a bit weird! One of the NCT ladies I knew was 41 to my 19 and we got on great, I swear I should have been born 10 years earlier.

My mum and MIL have surprisingly been really good on the advice front. They had things to say about BLW, extended breastfeeding and sling wearing but we are confident in what we are doing so they just gave up after a while when it fell on deaf ears. We often get sarky comments from my dad about the way we do things but he also thinks ds's allergy is something I make up to be fussy so we generally ignore everything he comes out with! Those of us with sons/having boys need to start our lists on 'How to be a good MIL' now I think.

I was going to say Babylady, if you are into the organic thing, have a look at welovefrugi. They sell lovely fairtrade organic clothes, cut slightly bigger for cloth nappies but fit well over disposables too. I love their stuff but it is very expensive. Its great quality but usually better waiting for the sale- I spent £25 on some dungerees for ds when he was 6 months and two weeks later they were on sale at half price !

Thanks bigbang, welovefrugi have some things on sale now! Might have to start ordering...

I do try to buy as much organic cotton stuff as I can, not because I don't think my skin can cope with pesticides but because I know the cotton farmers' can't! I also buy a lot of stuff second hand, and will try to get lots of hand-me-downs for baby.

Thanks bigbang. I am keeping an eye on sale items for organic clothing but to be honest I don't really know what to buy for a Summer baby. Not that I really know for a Winter baby but at least I know the answer is something warm!! Do I bother getting anything other than baby grows and bottoms for newborn?? Everyone says you end up swaddling them most of the time so in Summer they don't need lots of layers anyway. So much to learn.

i would totally buy the bare minimum for summer baby, clothes dry a lot quicker and of course they need to wear less. don't go for fiddly stuff as you will be changing them OFTEN in the early days. stick with baby gros and vests definitely. people will give you more impractical fancy stuff that you can use for special outings if you're so inclined.

bigbang i feel exactly the same about age it is so strange. I'm 22 and my friends range from 19 right up to their 40's i would say i do probably have different types of conversations with different ages of friends and different types of nights out but all are equally as nice. age never comes into it really. I did however feel that people judged me a lot as being a young mum when I had dd and were often very shocked to find out that i was married and actually took very good care of dd.

Can't offer any advice on coping with MILs, LizLemon, but we use large stones and chicken wire to stop the cat using the pot plants in the back yard for a toilet (she only tends to wee in the litter tray and prefers to poo with a view).

My ex-MIL would have driven me mad, although mitigated by her living 200 miles away. She drove her own daughter up the wall when her DCs were tiny (and probably still does), although her heart is definitely in the right place. DP's family are also a fair distance away, but think they will have the balance about right. We've been offered loads of second hand stuff but not too much unsolicited advice (so far) . My family are a long way away, too. My Mum died nearly 15 years ago and my Dad and step-mum are in Canada. My Dad's sister who lives down South, on the other hand, has offered to come and give me a hand after DP goes back to work. So, I'm not really such an orphan-annie, after all.

Probably a really stoopid question coming up A few of you are buying clothes now - are you going for "newborn" sizes? The weight guides on the packets are confusing me a bit.

StayFrosty LOL at your hippy humming!! 'hello bee,hello spider'! I'm more 'bah humbug' at the moment,bees too noisy,spiders,how quickly can I suck them up with the hoover?...!

Great bargain on the baby things Blue!

Happy birthday BigBang, what a lovely DP you've got - was it a nice cake? DH very impressed with the all night cooking! Your comment about parenthood made me cry a little bit ! (in a good way!)

We ended up going for the Loola Up in the end TrixieVix as the handles came up much higher and were very adjustable, and DH seemed to miss the board as it was a bit higher,he went round the shop so many times I'm suprised he didn't make himself dizzy! think he felt quite at home pushing a buggy! Am glad you had a lovely day at the wedding,especially if you've been feeling rough,it's great to feel like a million dollars when you've been feeling crappy !

at difficult ILs. Its a very hard situation as being ILs you have to see them and get on with them with as little hard feelings as possible,and if they interfere etc can make you feel very angry,but to keep the peace,keeping quiet seems to be the best option unfortunately.Until the line is crossed...I'm shocked your MIL is actually trying to choose the babys name Mum2be, I wouldn't know whether to laugh or go mad if my MIL announced she was choosing our LOs name!

Did you find that the massage helped Audrey? was wondering whether to go down that path just to try and feel a little better!

Was our 2nd wedding anniversary yesterday! Cant believed that 2 years ago today we were in Vienna! We had a lovely romantic evening in watching 24! LOL! I did feel a bit guilty but I really felt to crappy to do anything else,poor DH!
Work is crazy busy at the moment and I seem to be doing a very good headless chicken impression!
Oh and got my pillow on monday,it is the COMFIEST thing ever,bed is the best place at the moment by far!

Hope I've not missed anyone x x

Minshu - to learn of your mum dying (1 year ago or 15 - still devastating) but glad you will have good support from the family I have both parents around but my dad is pretty useless and lives in Ireland. I do try to maintain a relationship with him though. When I had ds I found I grew closer to my mum and started to feel very resentful of my dad - nothing in particular had happened around this time but the birth of my child seemed to trigger these feelings. It took me by surprise tbh.

Anyway lighter issues...........I only bought one newborn outfit. Everything else was 0-3 months. Ds was a whopper at 9Lbs, 3 oz so the newborn outfit only got worn a couple of times before he outgrew it. Maybe you could get 0-3 month stuff, then buy some newborn clothes after the birth if you need them.

Thank you ladylush. I always miss her, but this whole pregnancy thing is something I would love to be able to talk to her about. We were always close, and were just developing a really good adult relationship when I lost her.

And thanks for the size advice - not that I'm allowed to do any more baby shopping until we've worked out where everything that is currently in the baby's room will be stored in the future. Hopefully that'll be before she arrives, otherwise she might be naked for years...

Minshu when pregnant with dd i didnt have a clue what size clothes to buy so bought all 0-3 she was 7lb 5 and it was all absolutely huge on her but we got a lot of hand me down new born bits after she was born so i didnt bother buying anything smaller myself and she wore the 0-3 sleep suits for bed and even though they were so big it didnt really matter

I'd second the advice from Ladylush. DD was 9lb 14.5oz and I always remember laughing at the midwife trying to haul the newborn sized babygro around her shoulders determind to make it fit!!!

This time I haven't bought anything smaller than 0-3 and if by some miracle I do have a tiddler DH can go out and buy some babygros. Even then my babies seemed to put on between 8oz - 1lb per week anyway so new born stuff lasts all of 5 mins.

Sorry Minshu think I was still typing and missed your post. about your mum x x x

lol at naked for years We are so unprepared it's frightening. I think we keep putting stuff off until the scan. I can't wait to buy something for the baby, get room sorted etc. Like you, we need to get rid of stuff in our spare room. Think it'll mostly go in the loft.

ladylush we are also very unprepared although it really doesnt seem to be phasing me at all. With dd I had nearly everything so early on that i was bored towards the end as had nothing left to buy.

this time i feel we need to buy so much in order to get the babies room sorted i dont know where to start. the room at the moment is full of mine and dh's clothes as we recently moved and need to buy wardrobes for our room. We dont need to buy a cot but we do need to buy dd a single bed and move the cot/bed into babies room. all the nice beds ive seen are so expensive though.

i already know which pram and sling i want but going to wait until we get my maternity grant to buy them.

Hi,
I've been away for a few days and we have ben offline too. Glad that everyone is pretty much feeling OK and the scan are going well.
I'll report with more news soon (not that there is much)

littlecheese - similar story here. We need to buy ds a bunkbed (so he can have sleep overs) and convert his cotbed back to a cot. Then we have a wardrobe which we need to put in the loft. There's also a sofabed but that can go in ds's room as the room is big enough. I should be chilled but I want to do things while I still can.

pebble - glad your scan went well

Ladylush we are prepared in our minds but not in actual reality! There seems to be so much to buy!Nothing in babies room but a lovely chair SIL gave us,and 2 fluffy bunnies!Think this LO will be naked for a while too..!

One question, does anyone elses bubs have 'quiet' days? sometimes bubs moves loads,then on other days,like today has been mostly quiet,with just the odd kick now and again - bit scary

daff - yes some days much quieter than others. I read that this is because baby is still very small so can't always be felt.

Dafodilli, my lo is also quiet some days. I notice more that he is quiet during the day and I tend to feel him most first thing in the morning and early evning. I think its still very early for strong regular movements. I'm not saying its not possible to have hem just that you don't need to worry if its taking its time to build up.