all ye women with slow-gaining babies... come and sympathise with Aitch here please...

[Aitch]

oh bloomin' heck. she's only put on an ounce and a half in 6 days.

Agree, sounds normal normal normal.

Am gutted about the pics but will soldier on.

Hope her cold is better soon - the older she gets, the less these things will get in the way of feeding ime.

All sounds good. Are you occasionally getting any sleep or is it just the usual new-baby-psychotic sleep deprivation in the aitch household?

I'm not exactly sure when "floppy" happened, but I do remember thinking I was running/had run out of milk for quite a while - ended up switch feeding a lot - no idea if there was any point to it, but psychologically it helped me. dd is fine. just bloody fine. The car-puke episode was apparently the end of it. We called in at a friend's yesterday (her dd is 3 days older than mine), and apparently there had been vomitousness in their house on Friday too, so clearly some kind of short-lived bug. Nappies sound good - I always found it hard to tell if they were wet as mostly they were covered in crap...

actually i'm fine for sleep. i'm a night owl anyway (hellooooo antipodean ladies ), dd cluster feeds loads in the evening (although not tonight , hence the TWO HANDED TYPING) and then by about 12.30am she's about sated and i switch off the lights and we go to sleep. her on my chest, no please you're all doing it really.

and then she's asleep til five or six then again til eight or nine. she's a wee diamond, tbh.

Aitch you just took me back to when DD2 was a few weeks old and we discovered that she would sleep on DP's chest. Prior to taht he had been driving her to the 24 hour Tesco to hang out with the coppers and shelf stackers.

Floppy boobs rule!!

oops dd woekn up now, although i need ot thank you HEAPS for your clothes ll, so kind of you. it'sll stand me in good stead for the coming scottich winter, i feel... specialy the suits.

forgive typos.

Oooh those snowsuits are sooo snuggly!! Enjoy.

Aitch - floppy boobs are good, it means they are full of hindmilk rather than foremilk, ie your body has adjusted and your milk supply has become established. So, a good sign!

My boobs have been like that for a week or so, and even though I know the reason for it, it still makes me feel better when they are hard and full. It's such a barrier to get over in your head isn't it?

As we aren't seeing a HV for a another month or so, we done a unscientific weight at home, with daddy on the scales, then daddy and ds2. The difference was 10lbs, so we know he is still gaining weight - yippee.

ignore my last post, while it has some elements of truth in it, Ive spoken to bfc and she had the following to say about 'floppy boobs'.

In the early days milk production is to do with oxcytocin (sp?) so you get the full boob sensation, ie the boob is ike a tap and always full.

Between 4-6 weeks prolactin becomes the hormone that dictates supply. So your milk is made upon immediate demand. ie your boobs won't feel full as milk will be made when the baby/pump is put to the breast. Unless you go a long time between feeds.

Hope this makes some sort of sense, am typing one handed

cheers, weigh in today...

Ilike - just gonna jump in and say it's the other way round and also not quite right

Prolactin is the hormone that drives milk production in the beginning, and yes, the process is often over-generous and makes a lot of milk, leading to full breasts.

Over the next weeks, prolactin takes a back seat and the amount of production is driven not by hormones (oxytocin stimulates the let down reflex, not milk production) but by simple removal of milk from the breast. (Prolactin is in the background, just keeping the show on the road, but prolactin levels are way, way down after the first weeks and only slightly elevated from about six months).

Milk is not really made in instant response to the baby's feeding - it's not conjured up from nothing in response to the suck - but small gaps between feeds mean it is made quickly, and long gaps mean it is made slowly. There is always milk there. The over-fullness is gone, partly because supply is calibrated more to the baby's needs, adnd also because there is now less fat in the breasts - 'cos the fat that makes us have breasts when we are neither pg nor bf (unusually - other mammals only have breasts when pg or bf) is not there and the space is taken up with milk producing and storing tissue. This is why when you stop bf, you may feel very floppy indeed as it takes time for the fat to get replaced.

Aitch - hoping all goes well for you

I'll just shut up shall I?

Thanks you for stepping in Tiktok - and I mean that in a sincere way

I won't give up my day job, and I'll not write anymore half arse posts.

Glad you take it the right way, ilike

5lb 5 and a half! or 2.425kg...

so that's a gain of 125g or 4.5oz on exc bfing, no top-ups. how do you like them apples?

Glad to hear she's putting on weight and you've reverted to the lazy way (not topping up ) keep it up!

fingers crossed! thanks TM

Great news, Aitch

Good for you, Aitch. My second son was diagnosed as failing to thrive, after lots of visits by the hv, who at one stage told me that SHE had to think of the best interests of the baby - as if I wasn't!! I told her to leave my home at that point.

For whatever reason, none of my ds's seemed to put on weight on my milk. No's 1 and 2 were exclusively bottle fed after the first two or three months, and No3 was mixed-fed - me during the day, and a couple of bottles in the evening and during the night - which seemed to work for us.

I felt (and still do feel) like a total failure because I couldn't feed my babies myself, and I am sure it contributed to my PND.

Fantastic!!

Are you getting convinced now that this breastfeeding thing really is working??

AND you have a baby that sleeps . Where can I get one of those?

Well done you! (I would leap about waving pompoms but at this stage of pg you really, really would not want to see me do this)

sunnygirl, that comment from your hv was just beyond the pale.

What a disgusting thing to say to a new mother. Did you complain about her?

And how awful that you ended up feeling you'd failed. 2-3 months of bf for 2 babies plus mix-feeding no.3 adds up to a lot of breastfeeding.

Oh I am ridiculously pleased on yuor behalf Aitch.
Now finally, do ye have the faith??????

yay!!!!

thanks ladies, and BOO to sunny's bitch HV. i mix fed dd1, sunny... gotta say, it is the absolute worst. well done.

I like them apples A Lot, Aitch - well done you!!!

you've really cracked it Aitch.