Due May 09 - May Day! May Day!! Read All About It - Babies Dropping Everywhere!!!

[divedaisy]

Here we go ladies... over to you all!

Yes those charts are being changed. This book explains it brilliantly

Morning all! I'm so addicted now - I have to log in every morning to see if there's been any new arrivals!

Good news that the baby weight charts are being updated, I knew you could get the separate BF charts but have heard of people have a real struggle getting HVs/GPs to recognise them.

I'm getting more and more every day - my next door neighbour had her baby on Sunday, she wasn't even due until a week after me! I know I'm not even overdue yet, but I am getting so impatient! Sorry, I'll stop grumbling about it soon.

We've got another quiet day here, really need to clean the bathroom and we might go to the library later for rhyme time, but that's about it. DD was awake at 5:45 this morning, she's obviously back to normal after her illness last week.

Morning! Another rubbish sleeper here - had tummy wonk (love that expression!) all night as well, and I also had trapped wind so tummy was all hard and sore. Ugh. Settled into a light snooze after dp left (late) for work at 8am then the postman knocked at 8.30. Gr!

Re: growth charts, yep they should be out any day. I use these charts daily in my practice (well, I did when I was at work, hahaha!) as children's growth is the main part of my job - there are SO many factors to consider, it always really psses me off when someone does a random dot on there and makes a judgement about the child's nutritional status. Ggrrr. I have gone blue in the face trying even to teach the junior Drs and nurses on the wards about the correct use of growth charts - I just go round in circles!! Aaaaarrrrrgghhh! At least I know that children seen in my* clinic are being treated properly (ahem) so not much else I can do about it. I tried to get on a community bandwagon in south London with school nurses, but they are so busy with child protection cases that they didn't have any time for me. Same with a friend of mine who is a health visitor, who came from the same paediatric endocrine background experience as me. It frustrated her so much in the baby clinics that things weren't being done properly, but she had to focus her time on all the child abuse cases she was involved in. She left in the end, and hasn't gone back. Sad.. there's only so much fighting you can do.

Blimey, that was a rant! Soz!

pula - am so sorry to hear of your bf experiences before. Hopefully it will be better this time around? Again, I hope it will work for me, but am not going to go mad trying and trying and trying.....

Nearly cried in NCT last night - they started to talk about 'when things don't go to plan' and when babies are poorly. This is my biggest fear, if my baby isn't healthy, not the labour pain. I know its completely irrational, but I've seen so many sick babies over the years, and not many healthy ones, that that's all I really know. Dp was being all hand squeezy, bless him. I know things will be fine, but still.

Right, ought to get dressed really! Brr, chilly again!

Morning all!

I have a quiet house. Sleeping baby, toddler out with daddy and my feet up. Bliss. We had a wonderful night. George only woke up at 2am and 3.30am and had to be woken up at 6.30 for a feed. We are co-sleeping and to be honest I think it is making the difference. I never did it with DS and he really never slept at all at night. George has been really alert this morning, so I am confident that we should see some weight gain when the MW arrives today.

If we don't I shall definitely mention the breastfeeding charts to her and she what she says.

I am sorry that some of you aren't getting much sleep. Late pregnancy is so uncomfortable and I actually feel more relaxed and refreshed now, a week after the birth, than I did a week before the birth.

Morning everyone,

Another bad sleeper here. I was woken twice with period pains and tightenings and another I don't know how many times for a wee. Yet, this morning no b/h or tightening in sight. Why do strong b/h always happen at night when you want to sleep. I'm feeling v. tearful today, because even though my due date isn't until tomorrow, there's just no sign of anything happening and my mum is starting to say that she shouldn't have come over so early and that she'll miss the birth etc... I also feel like there's not all that much I can do to get things going, I've been popping raspberry leaf tea tablets and having sex, which worked with the other 2, but this time no success. I'd love to get out of the house and go for a long walk etc... but I just physically can't and it's soooo frustrating. DH is going to take me out for a swim this afternoon, because I'm afraid of walking in the swimming pool on my own, because it's slippery. Maybe a bit of excercise will make me feel a bit better. I think most of us are going through a poor me down phase at the moment

As for baby weight charts Yes the bf ones are coming in soon. And I also know people who had to be firm and refuse to give ff top ups just because the baby wasn't following it's line on the chart. Like others have said. Weight gain is only 1 little part of seeing if a baby is growing and healthy. If your baby is waking for feeds, weeing, pooing, active, happy and reaching his/her milestones, then surely he/she is healthy even if the weight gain isn't brilliant. Even as adults we don't all gain weight at the same rate. Another thing to remember is that the birth weight isn't a reflexion of how big the child will be, but a reflexion on how well your placenta has been nurishing lo in the womb. E.g. both mine were born about the same weight on more or less the same centile, but ds climbed a centile and now sits on the 85th, while dd has dropped one and has been on the 50th ever since. In both trusts I've got experience mws also stopped weighing babies on day 3, mainly to stop women focussing on weight gain as a means to see if baby is feeding well, but to just look at all the other signs mentioned before. I.e. a newborn who wees and poos plenty, who sleeps well and who has some happy alert time is a healthy baby, regardless of what the weight does really.

Morning ladies!

Just trying to catch up a bit. Been an aweful weekend for me. Woke up with pains Sat night, but they went away. Then Sunday I woke up again and started being sick. I could not even keep water down. So started pains again but not sure if it was just my tummy being sore or what. Had to go into hospital yesterday to have baby monitored as she was not moving. Baby seems fine, they think I had some sort of tummy bug. Was given a shot in my bum which hurt like hell but made me stop being sick. Still feeling under the weather but much better I suppose.

Good news is my HB stuff should be delivered tomorrow or Thursday so that is good. One less thing to worry about.

Sorry this was a me post but DH took off work to be home with me and DD so I am going to take advantage and go lie down!

Rosie sorry I never got back to you regarding a meet up tomorrow! I am not sure what or where you would like to meet, but as I am a little unwell and expecting the HB stuff delivered I was thinking you could come to mine if you wanted rather than meeting in town but it is up to you I am getting nervous going out on my own with DD just incase baby decides to come so you are more than welcome to come to mine for coffee and cake!

Going to take the laptop in bed and try to catch up on a few days of posts

Morning!
emmabemmasmom - sorry you've had such a bad weekend. Great that your DH is able to be at home today. Definitely take advantage of it and rest up / MN today!

BF charts - I saw that on the news yesterday as well. I actually had a dream about BFing last night which was quite odd seeing as I've never done it! It was all fine though!

Today I'm meeting up with a friend for lunch and then seeing MW. Can't believe only 5 days til my EDD but still trying to persaude myself that it's much more likely to be late!
Just hope not too late as my best friend is down visiting from York from 22nd. We reckon that I'll be induced by then if I've still not gone into labour...

Oh Belgian I wish you were my midwife!

My midwife snorted at me when I told her that I suspected DS2's weight loss was more an indication of my GD than him not feeding well. Then she indicated that clearly I couldn't feed both a toddler and a newborn, which made me wonder just how much support and encouragement twin mums get to breastfeed.

Pah. Enough of me. Am off to watch Dirty Sexy Money now.

llare I've only ever met 1 tandem feeding mum before, but she did well. As I said before I was still bf ds when I got pregnant with dd, the cmw I had at the time was hoping I was going to become her first tandem feeding mum! Unfortunately for her ds self weaned when I was about 4.5 months pregnant. She encouraged me to carry on though. That particular mw was my inspiration to go into midwifery, she was brilliant. I'm really surprised your cmw is that worried about your baby's weight loss, I'm sure you said it was 8.7% and anything up to 10% is perfectly acceptable. It's normal for babies to lose weight at first. If I were you I'd ignore that midwife and go with your instincts

Morning all!
Sorry to hear that so many aren't sleeping well
Congrats to LadyHelen!
Thanks to all those who have added me on FB- I will have to go through the list and make sure I've added everyone else - don't want to miss out on seeing any baby pics!
I am still in dressing gown and need to shower and then dry hair before I go to aqua natal- seems stupid to be drying hair to go to swimming pool
Absolutely no labour signs here but I am an end of May-er. Am hoping he holds on to near due date as both sets of parents have decided it would be a fab idea to come and visit during my 38th week of pg and I don't want lots of people there making a fuss when I go into labour. I love my family to bits but want it just to be me and DP when littl'un arrives.

Belgian I suspect they are very cautious in our trust for some reason. I did meet a different MW on Sunday at the hospital and she was great. She had tandem fed herself and was very reassuring. In fact she said pretty much what you said here. She also told me that he didn't look particularly jaundiced either, which was great.

I also wanted to ask you about exercising. I'd really like to start doing some light exercise. Nothing too strenuous, but I do have a post-natal DVD workout that I'd like to do. When would you recommend exercising? Should I wait until lochia stops? Or until my stitches go? I feel perfectly fine now and ready to leave the sofa...

Aaaarrgh! Just had my mum on the phone. Think she's just trying to show concern and getting excited about her first grandchild but she wanted to know if I wanted a lift to the MW this afternoon - kind of her but no thanks, it'll send my BP sky high!
(She really does not relax me!)

Then she started talking about champagne for the baptism!! She's already been asking about when we'll be having the baptism (as have DH's family) and I just want to have the baby first before planning a baptism too!! She was saying how she and Dad have a few bottles of champagne that they won't drink and how many people will we be inviting?!
I'm trying to put it down to excitement on her part!

llare The advise is generally to wait with 'proper' excercising until your 6 week check. There are some light excercises you can start earlier, e.g. pelvic tilts and the all important pelvic floor excersises etc... I think the best excercise at this stage is just gentle short walks, because even though you feel OK pottering around the house, you'd be surprised how quickly you feel like you've done too much when you start to go out and about.

Ses your mum sounds a bit like mine. She started asking me about the baptism almost as soon as I got pregnant! She's still asking every so often now. I keep telling her that like you I want to have the baby first before I start thinking about organising a baptism!

Oh well, time to get ready for that swim I suppose. DH is going to help me out of the pool and stuff so I don't slip. Hopefully a bit of excercise will release some feel good hormones in me

Yay! George has gained 3oz so we are all happy.

Thanks for the exercise advice. We are going to go for a stroll this afternoon and we'll see how it goes.

I am completely knackered.
I went to the library this morning for toddler time which is about a 10/15 minute walk although it took me 20mins today used my new phil and teds which went well. Can't wait to try 2 babies in it!!!
On the way home I bought some bits including cream of tartar so can make DD some play dough.
Got home and my washing machine hadn't drained so evrything was soaked still. I thought DD fiddled with it this morning so had already put the stuff though 2 cycles so I hung it up dripping wet. At least the weather is warm and breezy. Hopefully DH will figure out whats wrong this afternoon when he is finished with Dermot .
DD is full of beans today but is thankfully sleeping now. I just had a big shop delivered from Tescos so am about to finish putting it away and have some lunch.
My pelvis and back are sore from doing a bit much today so hopefully I can just rest a bit this afternoon.

Glad to hear the changes in growth chart for BF babies. DD was born 5 lbs 15oz and stayed pretty small through 1st year 25th percentile but is normal now not that I have had her weighed in ages. Very tall and muscular since baby so I never worried but HV wanted me to intro weaning at 5 months which I did pretty slowly. She has always been happy and healthy so I never worried about her.

My sister is 8 weeks PG now and sick as a dog poor lamb.

Well done on the gain llareggub and George.

llaregub - well done on George's weight gain (well, congrats to both of you, really!) and especially well done on tandem feeding, that's really impressive. I'm really trying to stop using the emoticon though, it's most unbecoming . Enjoy your walks!

LOL at all the baptism comments already! Our families gave up on us years ago when we didn't get married in church (much to MIL's disgust) so fortunately we don't get anything like that. I have had my mum on the phone every day for the last week, sometimes twice - there's always some excuse ('just wanted to tell you something', 'just wanted to see how DH is' ) but I know she's checking up on me! My brother has done the same, he doesn't call all that often but phoned me at 8.30 yesterday morning jst to say hello!

febes, your poor sister. Hope it passes soon.

belgian - hope you enjoyed your swim.

We didn't make it out of the house in the end, it started raining just as we were getting organised and I couldn't be bothered to fight with the pushchair, the raincover and DD. She's asleep now so having a moment (or ten) of not doing much other than surfing.

Afternoon everyone,

Cant believe so many of us seem to be having bad sleep at the moment - I want to try and stockpile some sleep before the baby comes because i know how bad i will be when the baby comes as i am so bad without sleep its not true!I've been up half the night with a bad neck as well as the normal trips to the loo and practice contractions.

Very interesting chat about breastfeeding - I managed quite well with my first and therefore when my dd came along I was quite blase about it but did struggle for a little while until we both got the hang of it together so obviously the baby needs to learn as well! Hopefully I will get good support for this one as its 10 years since i last did it to will be a bit rusty!

On the same subject I was watching 'Bringing home baby' on one of the sky channels this morning - not sure why as the americanism does annoy me at times but anyway one of the new mums was using a 'hooter hider' on the programme - couldnt believe it - first time I've seen one being used and it looked quite bizarre - felt sorry for the poor baby and didnt seem like the new mum was very happy as she was really struggling as well. Hope they never become the fashion over here!!

Congrats to all the new arrivals - brings it all home to me that hopefully that should be me soon.

sophietom Sorry I missed you! Midwife turned up a day early as she had transcribed her list wrong, so when I mentioned about the twisty baby last night, she had a good feel. Unfortunately she couldn't feel the bum properly as my tummy kept going hard, so I had to go for a scan. Just a quick whizz to see the head was down. It was thank goodness. Am unlikely to see you next week. If I do, I will the most pregnant I have ever been....

Afternoon all.

Just checking in to see if there are any new arrivals, but just blotted's kittens (I want one now now now).

This will be a short post as I'm feeling really pissed off and down at the moment - I've had this hideous cold for a good 5 days now, my throat is agony. My back is killing me, stupid BH's all the time, moan, whinge, whine, the usual.

Off to get my girls from school shortly, I need cuddles from them .

Love to everyone....I shall make a reappearance when I've cheered up and have nice things to say

Oh and I didn't mean to dismiss the kittens like that 'just' the kittens - you all know what I meant!!

Belgian, sorry you're feeling low. You sound like how i felt for the past few weeks before things happened late fri night.

I'd been having signs for a couple of weeks and was getting fed up. The night it happened, I must say that I didn't feel a thing (well until contrax started at 1030pm, that is). maybe another sign of impending labour is... nothing. anyway, I really hope it happens for you soon. xx

grumpy, cross-posted. sorry that you and emmabemmasmom, are down as well. I think cuddles from the little ones do help.

grumpy I'll follow you to grumpyland. I know exactly how you feel, except without a cold

The swim did me good I think. It was nice to be out of the house. I have discovered that I can't do breast stroke or crawl movements with my legs. Either make my pubic bone hurt, so I swam with just my arms. DH came along to help me shuffle to the pool and stuff and once we got there he discovered he forgot his swimming trunks

I've also told dh that as baby is still not here and my mum is here I'd like to go out for a drink or a film. DH didn't quite get what I wanted to do and so now we're going out for a meal after school this afternoon with the dcs and my mum. Still better than nothing... If baby isn't here by friday he'll take me out for a spicy curry too, this time really without my parents.

Febes my washing machine did that all winter. I had to do 2 extra spin cycles to get my washing dry enough. I really thought my machine was on its way out, but for some mysterious reason it has stopped doing it and has been OK for the last 2-3 months or so.

llare well done on the weight gain. It does make you feel proud when that happens, doesn't it?!