How to stay awake during night feeds part 4 - Food porn a plenty

[HorridHeffalumpsWickedWoozles]

A brand spanking new thread for midnight ramblings, chocolate covered pretzels and so much more

I'd been feeling like that mrsn, we are demand feeding, demand sleeping, demand everything! I was just thinking to myself it is ironic that I am getting so stressed over whether my 'relaxed' parenting style was good enough.

Babyred is having a nap in his Moses basket. This is progress.

Missmarbles and I'm still demand feeding. The most helpful thing my HV with DD1 said was imagine how much you eat in a day; you might go to the kitchen and have your breakfast then a glass of water an hour later. Then you have a cuppa and a biscuit. Then you have a light lunch etc. when your baby goes to the "kitchen" (ie boob) you don't know why they're there or how much they're there for, so give it and don't worry too much. I found this really helpful at the time and to remember it now. And also found with DD1 that routine just sort if happened once she was in solids as she worked her day round breakfast lunch and dinner.

Of course, I might just be making excuses for the fact that I can't get a routine to stick I like to think I am a relaxed parent but feel the beef to justify it

The first line should read
Missmarbles is 20weeks and I'm still demand feeding

Beef to justify it??! NEED to justify it!! Stoopid phone!

Lol marbles, thanks and thanks blonder so glad I'm not doing anything 'wrong'! That's a great way to look at it marbles ! We are getting on brilliantly this way so I will just need to develop a thicker skin!!

Wow a sparkly new update for mumsnet chat

Hair feels amazing, loads of highlights too so as a bonus it now doesn't need washing as often

Like the new smileys

Fantastically put by marbles re demand feeding, I am still demand feeding and whilst we have no set routine his feeds have dropped considerably in the last few weeks. It is really hard when faced with other people's opinions and I tend to say that I'm just doing as I'm told by midwives/NHS/hv's etc and things change all the time as far as babies go and that feeding on demand is the current advice and we are getting on marvelously thanks

Might have smiley overload

Chilli for tea which is pottering in the slow cooker as I type.

Yep, still demand feeding here too. Which means that we have good days and bad days, which are becoming fewer and further between. Kid has a cold at the moment so is feeding little and often, I think partly because of trying to breathe and feed at the same time, but also to avoid dehydration, clever lad.
I too am breathing rather hard at the moment at all the unsolicited advice (smile and wave, boys, smile and wave!). Makes me feel like I am doing everything wrong, and makes me doubt what I have experienced in the countless hours when I have Kid on my own. Latest one was, "but x is on hungry milk, and thus she is sleeping through the night - I will find out about it for you." yes, I know about this thank you, I am feeding a prem and have no intention of giving him a long-term constipation problem, which has happened for several toddlers I know who was on this stuff. Sometimes hopefully I do know what I am doing, though many seem to think not!
susie the new hairdo sounds great!
What am I missing with new smileys?? I don't seem to have any!

Totally how I feel goat - it makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I forgot about the smile and wave!! Must think of penguins (was it penguins??) when I get annoyed

I got an update for mumsnet on my iPhone and now it's all new - are you on the computer?

Yep still demand feeding here too! I also get fed up of advice!! And it doesn't stop when you're on your second baby either! My SIL is really hard and got her 2 on 3 hourly feeds from beginning, but that involved lots of screaming which I would never be willing to do. I think eventually they sort themselves out a bit but when I once asked HV when to stop 'demand' feeding she said that bf kind of is always demand & I guess the beauty of it is that you can top them up before a journey etc even if its not a general 'feed time'. My only worry with demand feeding is the fact that DS could be snacking and not getting enough hind milk, although if that were regularly happening I'd guess that weight gain wouldn't be steady.

When we are in the company of people who believe in 3-4 hourly schedules I feel like they think I'm just feeding for the sake of it & I feel uneasy about it but actually now I think sod it, I know what my baby needs. I was speaking to DH about it yest & we said the difficulty with bf is how comforting it is for them & I know DS does it for comfort or to nod off a fair bit, but I've decided to be a bit more chilled and go with it, as he grows and weans I'm sure he will be much more intrested in the world than bf ing and the benefits of bf surely outweigh the disadvantages.

Me and DH have been for lunch and made up (still slight atmosphere!). Hoping we get some more 4 hour stretches tonight . Xxx

Baby small has sort of put himself on 3 hourly feeds although sometimes it is two. We don't have a routine either although I think it might help me if I had one! We have at least done better napping today he has had 4! This is another thing that puzzles me because all books etc say 3 naps a day but they also say don't let baby get overtired and ds seems to get tired after only an hour of awake time so he needs more naps
Anyway will see what tonight brings.

On last feed before bed, well there will be at least another two. Are all babies frightened by loud noises? Dp and dss have twice made babyloo scream earlier by making loud noise, he really hates it, dp thinks he needs to get used to noise and I agree to a certain extent but loud noises really freak him out. There was something else I was going to ask but it's gone totally out my head.

I'm hoping my projector will work it's magic again tonight, wish it could turn off the 6am poonami which signals morning.

Have a good night everyone

Ooh Small jealous of your decent nap times today. Missmarbles has been a nightmare and been quite grumpy (for her anyway) because if it.

Susie, I don't have new smileys on my phone but then I am on the classic site, so maybe that's why. I don't think all babies scream at loud noises but I think it's normal if they do.

I must remember smile and wave, Goat Excellent advice for the oodles of unsolicited advice. Why does everyone feel the need to proffer an opinion?

I must have been lucky with the advice thing, no one has tried that on me! My friends all know how annoying it is, and my SIL is too nice, and too low on confidence, bless her, to offer me unsolicited advice. The only telling off I have had was from DM when I told her I deliberately bought full fat Calpol for babyfunch on the grounds that it was a highlight of my childhood! she pointed out it may give her a sweet tooth but I suspect her genes have given her that anyway! I used to bloody love Calpol so want DD to have the lovely sugary version

We are still feeding on demand but I always feed her between 6 and 7ish in the bedroom with lights low then put her to bed. this is the one bit of routine we impose but it works fine.

Happy sleepies!

We are still demand feeding too - really don't see the point of torturing myself or baby buttons to go for a fixed feeding structure which would probably only impact negatively on my supply! I'm not overly bothered by lots of feeding during the day, and now used to evening cluster feeding too. Over time it's definitely improving - now 7 weeks - went down at 8pm last night and slept til 2:30!

I salute all us demand feeders for doing a fab job

Glad I'm not the only one utterly confused by naps! I tried using gina fords but he won't have the long nap in middle of the day. We've had rubbish day for naps - he went down at 9 for 1 hour then 1pm for about 1 hour and that's all! I knew at 6 there was no way he would manage bath-feed-bed so I've just let him nap now in bouncy chair (much to DH's disgust seeing as I made such a fuss yesterday - but he had already had a nap yest)! What does everyone else do with naps? I can't remember now what DD did really, but again with formula day is naturally more structured around feeds! X

amey I haven't got to the structure bit of formula feeding yet, I look forward to it! Naps were rubbish here too today. Half an hour at about ten, then nothing until 3, by which time he was really crabby, and managed about 40 mins. Although it was quite funny just now, as he was right in the middle of a good grizzle, I picked him up, his head flopped on my shoulder and he was out! Hope it lasts!

I'm glad we are all on the same page re demand feeding and people giving advice! Another thing me and hubby have disagreed over, and I ended up in tears trying to explain how it had made me feel!!

My eyes are driving me mad - I have a stupid condition that really effects them and I have suffered with them badly at the moment. Having a flare up at the moment (although certainly not at their worst!) - they feel like they do when you chop onions but all the time just hoping they get better not worse tomorrow.

Hope there are good nights all round!

And amey we have no structure whatsoever with naps!!

What do you do with naps mrsn and what time does LO go down at night? Our babies are same age so just wondering! X

Sorry - cross posted there mrsn! Glad you are the same as us!! X

No nap structure here either, and from memory it was quite a long time before we mastered a map routine with DS1 too. Gina naps make it difficult to go out for lunch

Hope you all have a good night. My eyes are burning already, sympathy with your properly sore eyes mrsn.

Thanks two!

amey - spooky! His 'down for the night' time was varying a lot until the last few nights where it's been about 9/9:30. Nothing seems consistent though! How about your little one?

Lol at 'map' two!

DS is now 7 months (5 months corrected) and has only just about established his own nap pattern (they are still quite variable though). He tends to wake at 7:30, 1hr nap around 10am, another at 1pm, then either one or two shorter ones, around 4 - 6pm. Bedtime is around 9pm, if he's playing ball. Today he skipped the 10am nap entirely (I hoped he'd fall asleep at yoga, but only did so in the last 5 mins of the class ), so he's been a bit out of sync. I'm struggling to fit in solids at suitable times at the moment, so I think that is going to catalyse a more structured routine. There aren't enough hours in the day!

Sorry about your eyes MrsN, is there anything you can take for it? Sounds very uncomfortable

Loving marbles analogy for demand feeding

Sleep has been making slow improvement here - we are on about 4 hour stretches at the moment, which will do for now I think teeth are still an issue here - I've managed a couple of times to settle him with teething gel and the dummy, but most of the time he is genuinely hungry or the pain is too much for the gel to have any effect.

Transfer time - then I'm going to sit down with a cup of tea, crumpets and my cross-stitch! Me time

Lovely to hear from you tea
I use lubricating eye drops all through the day and night, and when it flares up there are antibiotic drops and pain relief drops I can take but unsure whether they can be used while breast feeding! Going to the pharmacy tomorrow! Glad all is well with you - enjoy your you time