Due Jan 2010....watching our beans grow into babes!

[dal21]

Hello all! Thought I would start this off as our existing thread is full!

crumpette your workplace continues to sound horrendous. Good that they know you're pregnant now and hope that means that they will lay off a little....... I also think that reddish bleeding more worrying but have you contacted the MW to make sure everything is ok ?
Hope everyone else has had a nice weekend.

Hi sazlocks, all I got from work was a ''how far along are you??!!...what do you mean you don't know....how can you not know..'' from my manager and a big glare from the top one, who talked to everyone but me and made it very obvious!

Argh sorry to vent. I don't think they will be nicer to me, but I think I have wrecked their plans for dismissal/pay-cuts hence their looks of disgust!

I haven't contacted mw, tbh I don't know if there is an EPU or not at my local hospital (Kings) lottie if you're about do you know?

I wouldn't actually know what to do..... had DD at st thomas's where you can just turn up and be seen if there is a problem...

Hi londonlottie! Thank you for the link, hmm I don't think I even have a midwife!!

Will wait and see how it goes I think..

By the way, bought cheesy pregnancy magazine having snuck it into trolley in sainsburys much to DP's dismay, and it has soooo many positive natural birth stories of women who had twins, I assumed most people need caesareans but yeah if you were thinking that far ahead, then it is very doable without surgery, it seems! unfortunately I can't find it but it's one with pregnancy on the front..

about work, I have calculated I can take leave from the 21st October...SO tempting!

Crumpette, i wish i could share some of my good being-pregnant-at-work vibes with you. I know i am very lucky, they are all over the moon for me.

As for the mags, ooh, good idea, i am just as easily sucked in Lottie but i think it might be fun!

Disclaimer: crumpette is not recommending buying pregnancy magazines, definitely definitely not

Morning all!!

Crumpette - great to hear that you have told your employers and they have had to back pedal on the salary front. Roll on Oct I say! Hope the bleeding has settled. I too have heard what you say, that dark brown is nothing to worry about.

Best of luck to all those with scans this week! Mine is next Monday, am counting down the days! Am veering between having days with no sickness and heaps of energy to days of feeling constantly nauseous! Feel utterly drained today so am staying at home and catching up on some much needed rest. Think the heat last week took its toll. Any one else feeling the same?

Londonlottie - LOL at the reusable nappies! Kudos to you if you do go for them - but they are much more work. One of my friends bought the type that grow with the baby she wishes she hadnt. She finds they leak a lot more and take circa 3 hours to clean in a very hot wash.

Happy Monday all and once again, looking forward to hearing about all our sticky beans!

Morning all!

Well, dd and I had a lovely day at my SIL's yesterday, while dp stayed at home to do concreting... thing is dd fell asleep on the way home, so I put straight to bed from the care, which meant a night with no nappy, and of course, despite the previous night being a dry one, she woke up at 5am having wet the bed.... and couldn't get back to sleep. Hey ho. She may nap at lunch time after such an early start I suppose...

Londonlottie I used re-usable nappies with dd until she was walking (when it just didn't seem fair as they made her waddle so much!). I used the pre-fold type with waterproof outers. It was a bit of a pain when it was wet weather, but they dried really quickly outside. Saved me loads of money, and have them ready and waiting in the loft. Won't use them for the first 3 or 4 weeks though - just becuase I needed time to get into enough of a rhythm to be have time to wash them. Get some tea tree oil for the nappy bin though...

crumpette, hope the bleeding has stopped, as even as it's probably nothing to worry about, it's still not nice for you.

Hmm, just noticed all my typos...

Londonlottie I will try and remember the make of the covers I liked the best. The cotton pre-folds are much of a muchness. Using the biodegradable liners does make them easier to clean out too, but don't be conned by the fact they say 'flushable', I blocked our drains (on Christmas Eve) . The make is not coming to me at the moment, but if I do a bit of googling I'm sure I will remember...

I do remember I didn't like the Bambino Mio ones, as the tops stayed too rigid...

Okay, I think the ones I liked best called 'Pro Wrap', or something like that. Velcro, rather than poppers.

Anyway, got to go, got to get dd dressed, do Tescos and leave for gymtastic by 10.30!

Morning all,

Lottie, anouther money saving idea is freecycle. Have you tried it?

I find our local one is always offering baby things.

Crumpette, i like the disclaimer!

Yay, someone else who's going to go with the re-useable nappies! I hadn't thought to ask about them on here...d'oh.

Another resource for baby stuff is your local paper's classifieds.

For what its worth there is some stuff that you probably won't use that much but seems to be on every first baby list. If you have friends who have had kids then they might be glad to offload hand on some of their baby stuff if you don't mind second hand. We also bought and continue to buy lots of clothes and other stuff at NCT sales.
For example we were given a huge baby bath on a stand which we used once - after that DS was bathed in the sink and then in the bath either with us or with one of the cloth baby rests you can buy. Also we didn't bother with a changing station - just a wicker basket for all the nappies and faff and a changing mat which we used on the floor.
I am sure all the other second,third etc timers will have their own top tips to add !

I have to admit I did love my changing table - but then I needed a chest of drawers to store the baby stuff in, so I just got one that had a slide on/slide off changing top, so she still has it in her room, just without the changing bit on it. I found it especially useful when they start to squirm away at nappy change time - much easier to contain her somehow.

But Sazlocks is aboslutely right, there's loads of stuff on 'essentials' lists that you just don't need... like nappy wrappers, and baby toiletries. I agree with really sticking to the bare minimum before babies are born, which to me is: a few clothes, a few nappies, a few muslins, a car seat if you have a car, some form of transport (sling or pram) if you walk anywhere, somewhere for them to sleep + associated bedding (unless you're going to co-sleep of course), and erm, some nipple cream. That's probably about it!

Sorry, just realised I made the sweeping assumption that everyone would be planning to breastfeed - of course if you are planning bottle or mixed feeding you'll need to add some basic bottle equipment to that list.

If you are hoping to breastfeed though, I would recommend not buying anything bottle related - it's easy enough to come by if and when you switch to bottles.

For those who are thinking of what to buy (here I am at my desk skiving and thinking about babies ) then for DD the following were essentials:

-babybjorn active carrier
-a buggy of some description, that is small enough to fit into a car boot

• cot (or moses basket while teeny, but a cot will be needed later on)

-changing mat -playmat kind of thing that baby can lie down on

• bouncy chair that baby can sit in

-baby bath

and, er, that was about it! Really, didn't use changing table just stuck changing mat on top of chest of drawers. I didn't use reusable nappies, used pampers most of the time but did try a lot of biodegradable nappies which are available in stores like greenbaby and so organic, and which mean you can disregard most landfill guilt. I was surprised that they didn't leak and were actually really good.
Definitely never used a changing bag, which sounds odd, but I got a little fold-up change mat and carried that with me with a nappy or two and some cotton wool and that was all I found I needed.
Best purchase by far was baby carrier- harder for twins of course, but it was fab. Alas, I gave it to my neighbour at the time proclaiming 'I am never giving birth again!!' so I may have to buy another one
Oh and I breastfed, I bought loads of bottles before she arrived but never once used them. She used cups when we were out and about from about 9 months I think, some lightweight ones with handles that she held herself.

Now the tmi bit! still have some bleeding, but it's really dark and not a lot now so I am hoping it's ok. Also I felt the munchkin move last night, so I'm not too worried.... now where's my chocolate croissant.. aha!

ps londonlottie definitely moving to zurich? V sad I can't coo over your twinnies when they arrive!! sniff sniff

oh yeah and a car seat- doh!

I used bambinex Lottie!! They were called wambamboo at the time but renamed. I loved them. Went straight into size 2 with nappy nippas to fasten, so did from birth (well around 6 weeks, I started off with some didn't get on with and took time to return and find better) till potty training. They're lovely and soft bamboo fabric, really slim fitting and absorbant, no leaks. I used motherease airflow wraps in the day and wool wraps at night (with different nappy). Lined with fleece liners as kept skin dryer than paper, and more comfy on little bottom! I bought a metre of blue fleece at John lewis and cut them out myself.

You don't need to wash at really high temps, this ruins the nappies, 40C normal wash is fine, perhaps with pre-rinse if particularly bad, but most of the poo stays on the liner, and drops off easily into the loo, so left with just 'skidmarks', not loads of poo going around your machine!

Bamboo is really absorbant so takes ages to dry, which is the only downside to this make.
You use quite a few per day in the initial newborn period, but then it declines until only need 4-6 per day and one at night.

The potty training/nappy thread here has loads of tips on reusables. I'll be checking it out as might treat new baby to a brand new set, lots of new brands have come out since my DS was in nappies, need to research again!
Think you can get popper fastening bambinex now. There was only the choice of velcro or nippa when I got mine. I think I'd go for poppers now but get a nippa too for a tighter fit while baby small. I didn't find velcro fitted very well, it gets bits stuck in it, and toddlers can easily rip them off!

back from town and my scan!
turns out that i am even further than the last scan said so instead of 13 weeks and a half i am 14 weeks and a day! i could see the limbs as if i was looking at a 20 weeks scan! she said it was wriggling around loads, kicking and moving aconstantly but i put that to the cold drink and a chocolate bar an hour ago! all the sugar guarnatees a wriggly baby! ideal for 20 week scan when want to know the gender!
dp said it was a girl, what makes men experts just becasue they have seen a scan twice before, suddenly they are more qualified than the sonographer?!!! i did ask but she said she would not try as not guaranteed to be right and i cold not see the bits to make my own judgement!
so now due 3 jan which means could be a new year birth!
will be tested for diabetes at 28 weeks as had it in first pregnancy but not the second! i tried to tell the doc it was becasue of hte two litres of coke i drank a day!

Yay bethoo and your bean!! Huge congratulations!! How are you feeling? Are you starting to get the second trimester bloom?

p.s. crumpette, glad the bleeding has settled.