Due April 2009 - Chapter 32: Shake your pom poms, Shake your pom poms, Shake your pom poms!!!

[BabyBolat]

Hope no one minds I gave Nutty the vote after her epic birth!

Schulte - Sounds like it to me. Is she drawing her legs up?

How bloody cool are my girls? I have been preparing a nice supper as DH's brother is coming over later. To help me get on DD1 kept DD2 amused by dancing and singing to AC/DC.

Bleu - I'm thinking of you. I hope the LLL or NCT are able to help. Stay strong sweetheart, you are an amazing woman and a fantastic mother. Meg is very lucky.

Has Trista been on lately - I have tried to catch up but I keep getting called away and forget where I've got to. Really hope she's okay, have been thinking about her loads.

Springy, hope things are okay with you now too ((hugs))

I have been out shopping all day but I started to get short of breath, heart was racing and I felt really dizzy - has anyone else felt like this since childbirth? I had post-natal hyperthyroidism with DS2 and I'm really hoping it's not that again.

Evie is still sleeping through. Someone told me only jaundiced babies sleep that much. She doesn't seem jaundiced (my other two were), but I'm a bit worried now. MW coming tomorrow though.

All my little grazes and tears seem to have healed apart from the second degree tear that went almost through to my bum. It doesn't even to seem to have started to heal back together, but it doesn't hurt or sting either, and I'm really worried it never will and I will have to go and have it repaired
(I have no stitches in it).

Tomorrow I have visitors all day. One in the morning, three in the afternoon and four on the evening. I love to see everyone but I really can't wait til everyone has been and seen her so I can relax again!

Off to read a bit more.....

No not blue around mouth and not pulling legs up - more like kicking / stretching her legs. Not wind then?

I think Frekkles you have probably gone but I was threatened with the drip and I was definitely going to have an epidural. (Hannah was B2B and I was in agony) In fact I didn't have to have the drip in the end. TBH I found the first stage labour worse than the second stage.

Conker in terms of your [whispers] piles mine were dreadful after giving birth. If they are really causing you lots of pain I would recommend going to see your GP. The stuff they can give you on prescription is a lot better than Anusol (which didn't make any difference to mine). Springy - have yours gone down completely? I have a nasty feeling that the doctor will have another poke around at 6 week check and decide a couple need banding or something awful

Talking of intervention, I might just write as my birth plan for next time 'I want an episiotomy' because I'm convinced it was all the friutless bloody pushing that caused them.

Schulte give infacol a try - the rest of the thread's babies are all on it, so I doubt it will do any harm even if it doesn't do any good. The other thing it could be is silent reflux - does she arch her back?

Springy hope everything is OK ROFL at vibrochair sleeping. I now feel much better about it and once more Hannah is giving me a quiet hour in hers.

Nutty I don't have a problem with dummies either, unfortunately Hannah seems generally quite unimpressed by them and likes to lob them across the room after about 10 minutes. I did manage to pacify her with it on my lap while HV was here though lol. I also use wipes and disposable nappies

FWIW in terms of BFing HV strongly implied that she thought I'd probably done the right thing. I actually think there is more pressure on MN to BF than anywhere else (obviously mean in the wider MN sense).

Nutty, she wasn't my text buddy, really hope she's okay though

I will try not to worry about not healing yet then, least it's not too sore anymore!

I have been given a break but I am so tired I can't sleep, if that makes sense. I would like my own Boffin-size vibrochair.

Re: extreme bf, I had a friend who had nipples worse than Bleu's and she got there in the end, but she had had a cs and was about as determined as it is possible to be. However Bleu is pretty much in that determination zone as well, IMO, so I reckon she has a fighting chance of sorting it out if she wants to. But I agree, formula is there for exactly this purpose.

Brett I agree - with you re MN (outside of this thread) and there is a lot of pressure on here to BF, use re-useables etc etc - I do both but for personal choice rather than pressure and believe people should do whatever is right for them!

Schultes - I think Nutty is right - she may have slight constipation - or struggling to poo - Kara poo's 5-7 times a day so he is not clogged up and they are big ones but he does exactly those motions you described before hand and gets really irritated as I think he struggles to break the barrier as such (although once it's out - it does so at full force) as soon as that wet watery fart is out he completely calms down - I bought some infacol to see if that helped him but haven't tried it yet although it's mainly for wind, I read on an mn thread that it helped for that too. I find Kara gets it all out either during a feed or when I hold him upright but with my hand on his bum so he is pushing against it almost -

Surprise ouch re tear - keep monitoring it and if you are worried check it out with your mw or hv

Puzzle - very cool girls!!!

Nutty - I know! Am just attracting rude men at the moment!!

My dad is currently with Kara having a little chat and is so cute!!!

oooh we need thread titles for the LAST ANTENATAL THREAD FOR THE APRIL MUMS - yay!!!!!

How about ... 'Chapter 33 in the April Mums saga - But now, the end is near, and we did it oooooooooour waaaaaaaaaaaay'

Chapter 33: FanjoFM takes April mums to the airwaves!

Chapter 33: Frekkles pips tartetatin to the post-natal thread!

Ooooh Boff - love it love it love it!

Frekkles! I can't believe I missed you and didn't get a chance to say good luck! Next time you are on here you will have a lovely fluffy little head in the crook of your arm.

Bleu, you have really been through the wringer. I think you really need to slap those men about as you don't need that extra stress. I know exactly what you mean, about that constant pointless low level background noise. I really hope you get this sorted, for what it's worth here is the sum total of what I know / have been told about BF (on a postage stamp):

FROM THE NCT PHONE LINE:

keep experimenting - just to find something that works for you, don't get hung up on reproducing any one technical aspect of "correct" bf, just keep moving around.

keep telling people it isn't working and asking for advice - practise your speech for the MW or HV or whomever so that you can't be fobbed off with "well it's working because the baby is putting on weight". It is not working if it is not working for you and you deserve help.

Pulling the baby's body closer to you, jammed in really close, can improve angle of the head and therefore latch.

FROM REAL LIFE MIDWIFE (bossy and effective):

Hold the baby across you, take the breast in the hand and point it at the baby's upper lip to stimulate the open mouth reflex. With the other hand hold the baby's neck from behind. This seems vicious but I saw the MW do it and it gave me confidence to do the same so you can really control what the baby does with her head. When the baby's mouth is REALLY open, jam it hard on the boob. As you know you have to be lightning quick to catch that moment but the way the MW showed me to hold the baby by the back of the neck gave me a way to control her enough to snatch the moment. It saved my life - one nipple is almost healed completely and the other is on the way. I can't always do it quite right and it is not suddenly pain free but it helped me. Only this MW seemed to understand that not all newborns are the pliant floppy things in the BF books who calmly allow you to do whatever you think will work best - V latches like a demon very actively and did not do what the books said she would. you know what I mean better than most.

I am sure you have heard everything from other sources already but I just wanted to share these things just in case there is anything at all that might help you.

Very very best of luck, if you go over to ff you have already done a huge amount for your baby at considerable cost to you. Thinking of you!

Puzzle, your girls are ace

brett, my piles are more or less gone - there's just a very tiny bit that I need to poke back in after a poo but is fine otherwise. I've found that poking them back in as soon as you can is far more effective than the cream is. The cream just soothes & shrinks a little bit. Being poked back in seems to make it take care of itself. & I agree with you about the episiotomy preventing them - I really should've just had mine at the outset.

I also agree about there being more BF pressure here than anywhere. I probably wouldn't have even tried without MN!

ginger thanks a lot.
I do what your mw suggests and experimenting with angles too to be honest. What's strange was it was good for a while, and now has gone all ucky again (like in the first weeks). Dh suggested it might be because once again I'm engorged, which may well be actually.

I'd like to ask when other big breasted women put their babes on do you cup/pinch your breast in the angle of the horizontal 'fall' of the breast or the vertical angle of the baby's head? I'm thinking that no matter my best efforts I'm still not getting enough of the lower part of the aerola into her mouth.

Meg, for whatever reason, does not seem to respond to the nipple on the upper lip...not sure how to encourage this more.

She also tosses her head forward suddenly to latch on, which means her chin ends up in her chest..any ideas how to stop this?

I have whopping great norks, and I am trying to work out what you mean about the horizontal/vertical thing. I am currently using a 'non-approved' technique. I hold the areola between my second and third fingers and seem to hold the breast up a bit, I think. I then wait for the nearest to a 'big wide mouth' moment that I am likely to get, and then ram it all in big time, to get as much nipple and areola in there as possible. There are a few moments of pain even after four weeks, but it settles. I too am a bit engorged of late, as he has been working hard at getting my supply up but then went off his food a bit (perhaps he has got a version of the virus I had). I think the point about babies not always being floppy and compliant is a valid one - I have had two compliant ones and two difficult ones, and Felix is a difficult one. What I would say is that after 6 weeks it is usually a little easier as they start to get the message about what they are supposed to be doing, and after 12 weeks it is generally a doddle as they really do develop a much better technique all round. It is not always much to do with the mother. I bet if I fed Meg she would knacker my nipples too, from what you have said on here.

Bleu, have you tried gently pulling her bottom lip down? This makes George open his mouth in a way that faffing about with his top lip doesn't. He does the lunging forward thing too, but if I pull him off to put him back on, he doesn't do it the second time. I don't know if either of those things are relevant to you. & I'm only a C cup, so not big boobed - can't help there, sorry.

Do you know what? I have NO idea how the hell I am meant to look after both these children on my own! DH went out to watch football last night, which I said was fine, but could he wait till DD1 is in bed (7pm) before he goes, so I just have Talia. So he did but she woke up an hour after he left and by the end of the night I was utterly exhusted. DD1 is really teething - getting another 2 back teeth, and I think her front one is still sore from when she chipped it. She isn't eating at all which I think is why she is waking up (She is drinking milk though). DD2 seems to be having trouble with wind. I bought some infacol today. Can you tell me, do I need to use it at every feed, or can I just use it when needed? I am a bit wary of any meds and I am happy to give them when needed but prefer not to give things just for the sake of it iyswim? Like just now, I fed her, and has I sat her up she did a huge burb and is now asleep on my knees, so doesn't need it. However at another feed, I can be winding her for half an hour with her screaming and curling her legs up etc and nothing - so the infacol would be needed iyswim? Does it work like that?

Anyway, back to when DH goes back to work - I just can't work out how to do things by myself with 2! I had Talia in the close carrier today when we went food shopping with DD1 in the trolley. Worked well till I realised it was extremely hard to get the shopping out the trolley with her strapped to my front! DH was there so he did it but still. THen at the park, DD straight away starts running off, trying to go on things she is far too small to do on her own - in fact, there is nothing in a park she can do on her own. DH was waiting outside the gate as he was smoking but I had to call him in as DD1 was going to end up hurting herself. I just couldn't do everything properly with Talia in the sling. I don't want to not even be able to go to the park on my own! There is no way I could have sat and BF if I was on my own - DD is just too young not to have somebodys full attention when she is out. And when DD runs out of the room at home and I am breatfeeding its hard. DD goes straight for the cat bowls, tries to climb out the cat flap, climb on tables - you name it, anything to get into mischeif! In some ways, I wish I had a bigger age gap, so DD1 would be at nursery and I can enjoy Talia properly. I know that sounds awful, and I will probably get used to it, I am just panicing I guess.

I BF in the park today - a 5 year old little girl came and was talking to me and Talia, stroking her head etc. She didn't even realise what I was doing. You couldn't see anything, just looked like DD was snuggling into my Tshirt . I am generally fine BF in public, just not when I know the people that are around.

For those struggling to BF, I had help from a MW about a week ago and she really helped me. I was, almost giving up with it, having to express most feeds, blood pooring from nipples and in tears most times I fed. But now we are feeding perfectly, no propblems at all. It just seemed to all click one day.

A few things the MW taught me though:
-Don't sit up straight with baby lying on your lap. I kept doing this altomatically and it felt like it was the easiest way to feed but after she pointed it out, I realised how much harder it was making it, as I was ending up sort of leaning over baby, and she was lying on her back and having to reach for boob.

• So sit back, lean on tyhe arm of the sofa with a pillow on your lap/under baby. Have baby on her side facing your boob, so they hardly have to move to get latched on.

I know that is not much detail or anything but those 2 points really helped me and it honestly changed everything.

Evening all

DH and Karahan are asleep on the sofa so just catching up quickly

Re breast feeding I have no advice - however, Karahan's position / latch is different everytime - I just let him get on with it - sometimes it hurts sometimes it's like he isn't even there!

Soon2bejennypenny (sorry you'll always be soon2be!) it wll get easier as you adjust to the different dynamic (I say with no experience) but it's all very new at the moment - the only thing I can compare it to is that first day at a new job when you get so much information thrown at you and you just sit there thinking you will never ever learn all this and then over time you just pick things up and before you know it you are reciting things by heart! Hope that makes sense - what I am trying to say is that it is naturally daunting but it will get a bit easier day by day!

This is going to sound really silly but I've lost a nappy and it's driving me crazy - can't think where it is - grrr!!!

Jenny, looking after two starts to take on some sort of pattern after a while, and seems to become more manageable. It's never easy doing anything with a new baby tbh. If you're stuck at the supermarket, just ask for help and it will be OK, similarly out and about in shops, cafes and so on. People are usually very obliging when asked. They do understand.