May Babies

[GeorginaA]

Have we got enough that I can officially open this thread yet?

How are your little ones doing prufrock, twiglett, snowbird?

I think mine is going down with jaundice. Dh isn't convinced, but it's either that or he's got a lovely tan sigh. I remember all the stress associated with that last time with ds1... hoping ds2 doesn't get it as badly.

He's still being a very sicky baby, about a couple of teaspoons a few hours after each feed (which is odd - I'd have thought if it was a reflux type thing it would happen immediately after the feed?) Midwife seems to think it'll settle after the milk comes in but if not then we'll look at some sort of baby gaviscon. Poor little mite, can't be comfortable for him... and we're sure getting through a lot of laundry!

Feel so bloody knackered at the moment, fed up of bits leaking and being sore, and it's only day 2! How long is it before you start feeling human again? Please tell me that it's sooner than the 2 week paternity leave dh gets!!

kbaby - I wonder if your stitches are starting to heal/disolve thats causing the extra soreness. Or as the flesh heals they might be pulling more. Think I was lilke that with DS.

So far today we are having a much better day. You'll probably all hate me for this - but last night dd slept from 7.45pm to 4.45 am which is 9 hours. Am worried this is too long for a 3 week old. What do you think?

Bozza - poor you, that really does sound like the day from hell! I hope you're getting the opportunity to put your feet up a bit more today and are feeling more relaxed.

Linnet - glad the feeding is going better. It really is torture when they're feeding frequently and your boobs hurt, isn't it?

Well, it doesn't appear to be a fluke, except he'll only settle when I put him to bed, not dh, which is a little restrictive... hopefully he'll grow out of that though. It's fantastic to have that 2 hour break at lunchtime!

Had a thought, does anyone have any photos they want to share? Here's one of ds2 during my bad mummy moment when he got himself stuck in the cot... !

oops... posts crossed - glad you're having a better day today!

Yes - 6 weeks on Tuesday. But you're all geting better nights than I am - ds doesn't seem to have realised he should be able to go longer then 4 hours between feeds now, last night he fed at 11, 2.30 then 5 (when he was wide awake and smiling at me). But tonight it's dh's turn to do the first waking, so I should get at least a 6 hour stretch.

Linnet - so if dh works evenings he's presumably around at some point during the day? So get him to give bottles then

Funnily enough, my ds has started waking at 2am then 5/6am too, prufrock - big shock after he was going 11pm - 5/6am! We'll obviously have to print that spreadsheet in a bigger font size...

Georgina your ds pic is lovely. I was hoping someone would post a pic or two... would do myself if I knew how to do it. (am chicken but willing to take tips on how to do it).

feel a little shamefaced to admit I had a browse around - but did you think that wouldn't happen? - and saw more pics and georgina stuff! under diff. name! how mad is that... I thought you only existed on mumsnet! shall make use of new emoticons here:

No that's okay, feel free to browse around I exist under a pseudonym on that site, mainly to avoid family members googling

message withdrawn

ooh, piccies! your darling looks like such a sweetheart - I love staring at them whilst they sleep!

Here is my little monkey boy - he already looks so different as these were taken on the day he was born. Hope this works . . . .

www/photobox.co.uk/public/detail.html?c_album=688179

I can't work out the proper link gubbins!

umm, try this instead . . .

www.photobox.co.uk/public/detail.html?c_album=688179

humph!

Aw, beautiful boy libb! Thanks for sharing

Spoke too soon. Had full-blown colic yesterday evening and well into the early hours of the morning. It was horrific.

Please God let us not have another two months of this to go...

the piccies are lovely. i wouldnt have a clue how to get mine on here. I cant believe how much my dd has changed already, she looks so sweet when she pulls faces.
Is anyone trying GF, ive bought the book but not sure whether to start it. How can you get a baby to stay awake for a set time etc.. does it really work
I'm off now as dd has been grouchy all day and ive just managed to get her to sleep on my lap, although im sure shell wake the minute i attempt to move.

kbaby Georgina and I are both GF devotees (though not sure it's working for poor Georgina this time round) If you do try it don't stress too much if your baby doesn't do it exactly - just aim to start with the feeds/nap times, and you find that the staying awake bits sort of fall into place.

Well it's working well in the day for us now ... it's just the colic is stopping him sleeping in the evening and by the time the pain seems to have stopped he's overtired and it all goes downhill from there.

Must admit to wanting to go beat Ms Ford around the head with the smug part of the book which says "none of my babies had colic"... GAH!

Ooh -that sounds familiar. dd would never settle after the 7pm feed - wouldn't be screaming in pain, but very unsettled and windy. But she wouldn't want to feed anymore, and by the time it got to the 10pm feed (which she would take) she was so overtired that it would take hours of cuddling to settle her.
What worked for us was ensuring that she got at least a 30 min sleep at some point (usually around 9). For us that meant taking her for a long walk in the big pram - it would take 20 minustes of crying before she dropped off, and as soon as we got home and stopped moving she would wake, but it was enough to make her not too tired to sleep later on. I bought and listened to the entire works of Shakespeare on tape in the first 4 months of her life...

Well that's hopeful - we managed 45 mins of sleep today at 9 (he's just woken up) - hopefully that'll mean we won't get another 3am night....

Libb lovely boy!

I don't think I could even look at the GF book at the moment... far too caught up in the business of how parenting works in the first place to try and impose any sort of order on it. Did you two come to it during hard times with your firsts or do you just find it chimes a chord with you?

Sweet new skill from dd in pram; she has a pram toy on string with bell and seems to enjoy batting it so it jingles. whether by accident or design it makes us so proud! you just see these little shaky hands reaching out and...aaah....

I came to GF originally because I had a bad napper for my first ds1, spots. GF isn't a miracle cure by any stretch of the imagination, but ds1 seemed to really thrive on a routine and it kept me sane at the time knowing I was going to get "time off" at specific times in the day and I could plan better. I think it's as much for the mummies as the babies, but I say that as not a bad thing - a miserable mummy is going to mean a miserable baby too.

And talking of miserable mummies. My night last night:

7pm ds2 just finishes mammoth feed. Gets put in cot.
7.10pm Still howling. I roll my eyes at dh in a "here we go again" sort of way.
7.30pm still unable to settle. Give him the chamomila granules and watch him foam at the mouth. He immediately shuts up (well for a few minutes anyway) out of shock.
8pm give up and bring him downstairs, start to walk him around and let him suck on daddy's pinkie finger.
8.30pm Daddy's pinky finger worn out. Give up and in desperation use a dummy. BLISS... no more noise even though he's still wide awake.
9pm Finally doses off. Or at least doing a very good impression of sleep.
9.20pm I express ready for the 10pm feed and hope I get an early night.
9.40pm ds2 wakes up again. Give him another dose of granules. Mental note: giving granules when they're horizontal may be easier, but it means they breathe it in rather than swallow. This is a bad thing.
10pm ds2 gets his bottle of EBM, mummy gets to go to bed.
10.20pm Mummy gets woken up by Daddy - apparently ds2 has drained the bottle and needs topping up. Argh.
11.30pm ish. Mammoth feed finally over. Ds2 goes in moses basket. Appears to settle. Collective sigh of relief.
12.40am Wakes up again. Give him a feed, but he's not really interested. Has a short (15min) feed and then we manage to settle him again.
1.40am Wakes up again. Not hungry. Just will only sleep in a feeding position snuggled up against my breast.
2.20am finally manage to transfer him to the moses basket without waking him up.
3.30am Wakes up again. Has a full feed.
4.30am Finishes feed, put him in moses basket.
4.33am Still whimpering. I crack and beg dh to take ds2 downstairs so I can get some sleep tonight.
5am Mummy still awake. Bloody milkman and dawn chorus. Shoot the damn birds (okay, I didn't)
7.05am ds1 wakes up and demands to start the day.

And that was a good night compared to yesterday because the amount of actual high pitched crying wasn't that long!

Ooh we have new faces to use, shows you what I miss in the few days I don't log on.

Well, yesterday I bought the Gina Ford book. So far today dd2 has fed at 7am, then slept then fed again at 10.30am. I think she might have read the book last night while I was sleeping, lol. Only problem is that dd1's sports day is today so I'm going to buy some ready made milk and put it in a bottle for dd2's 2pm feed. Then straight after school dd1 has ballet so we won't be home again until after 5pm this is seriously going to muck things up. Oh well.

Weekend feeding was once again horrendous. Saturday night when we went out dd2 was a little madam and wanted fed the whole time we were at the meal. Sunday I spent most of the day in tears as I was so sore from feeding and I think hormones were a bit haywire since dh goes back to work tonight and the thought of being on my own with the 2 dd's was just filling me with dread. Trying to get dinner ready for dd1 last night was awful as dh had to nip into work for an hour and I was left on my own and dd2 screamed the whole time. She has a dummy for such emergency situations but she kept spitting it out. No idea how I'm going to cope tonight.

Back to seriously considering bottles but will see how I get on tonight. I really want to try and make it to the 6 week mark with the feeding but if this pain continues I'm going to have to stop sooner.

Also has anyone else been told to feed from one breast at a time? I'm wondering if that's why I'm getting so sore all the time. The midwife and the health visitor told me to just give dd2 one breast at each feed. This then leads to getting quite full up between feeds which I think is causing problems with latching on at next feed. with dd1 I always gave one side changed nappy in the middle and then gave the other side. Have decided to try this for a few days to see if it helps the pain of feeding.

Does anyone know, I can't remember from last time you see, if I do start bottles do I just stop feeding altogether and the milk eventually goes away by itself after a few days? I have vague recollections from last time of being quite full up and then I think it all went away.

Georgina what are Chamomila Granules and what are they for?

Hope everyone else is ok, I'm sorry that I just seem to come here every other day to moan but I do feel a lot better for it. Haven't looked at anyones photo's yet but will do soon. Will also try to post a photo of dd2 somewhere as well. Will let you know if/when I manage that.

Hello,
Thought I should check in as well. I just don't seem to have time to post any more but when I do log on, its lovely to read how everybody is doing (erm...except when its not going well, of course!!) I have a very very temperamental DD1 at the moment. Cries at the drop of a hat. This morning we had the trauma of a broken biscuit which was The End Of The World. DS is doing well, weighed in at 12lb 5oz last Wednesday - yikes! We are also embracing Gina Ford and...she says cautiously....it seems to be going OK on the whole..... DS seems to have woken up a bit more over the past couple of days and today we had our first 2 hour stretch of wakefulness - hoorah! However, I have also gnashed my teeth over her sweeping statements - my personal issue was with "none of my babies ever woke in the night due to teething". Tuh.
I would also like to post a photo but will have to wait for DH to do it for me.
Oooh - wanted to say something about going from breast to bottle feeding but can't remember who asked! Linnet? Libb? Anyway, from my personal experience of being rubbish at bf and swapping to bottles , I think you will have to dwindle it down and maybe drop a feed every 3 days or so. My HV also advised drinking less fluid as well. However, please see what other people have to say...
Anyway, hope that everyone has a good day!

Linnet: chamomila granules are labelled for teething, but I was told they were good for colic too. Will try anything me...

Thanks for all the nice messages regarding little Reuben - he is pretty handsome! although looking different already and I think DP is peeved that he looking a bit like me! has DP's yummy eyes though.

I hate to sound out of order but DS seems quite happy at the moment - only cries when needing a feed or a change. (although know from past experience that saying the word happy means trouble for at least 24 hours!). We had what I consider a good night last night, he fell asleep at approx. 12 midnight and woke at 5.30 - nice to feel vaguely human! (although it didn't help that earlier last night I had fallen asleep whilst feeding and tipped a drink over his leg that was in the other hand at the same time! that prompted some major tears!). We also had a busy day yesterday as we went to Norwich to visit family and he was pretty stimulated by time we got home! He tends to lay awake for long periods without grumbling, just watching the world pass by (at 9 inches!) the nosy monkey!

I'm not confident that I'm doing the right thing at times, I feed him on demand and he seems happy enough - hopefully he is gaining weight properly. The health visitor isn't due until the 15th June so will know for sure then. I know this will sound daft but I worry I am being too laid back with him!

Don't want to tempt fate so will keep quiet - you mums with two or more are amazing, I am not sure I would cope so well.

Take care xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Linnet - what a time you are having

The advice I always give is to feed from one breast till baby spits it out, wind them/change nappy if needed them offer other side. If baby doesn't want it then that is fine. If a baby doesn't settle for long after feeds then I suggest feeding from one side, winding etc then putting baby back on same side so that they access more hindmilk. Sounds like you would get on better doing what you did before. Also sounds like you have plenty of milk

Watch what your baby does throughout the feed. Should start off with rapid sucks till milk lets down. Sucks should then become slow and rhythmical. The baby should swallow with each suck. As the feed nears the end the baby will 'flutter suck' which is when baby gets some hind milk and is also stimulation for further milk production. If you have the time this can go on for a while. However, if you have other things to do, after flutter sucking for 5-10 mins, this is the point you can take them off. The bulk of the feed will have been had.
Your nipples should be getting better if the position is right. Make sure baby is facing you and had a good mouthful of the areala. The chin should be right up against your breast.

If you find that you are full and sore, have you tried expressing that milk off and storing it for use in the evening by DH? That might save your sanity. It does all eventually calm down - I think you are right in thinking that hormones and your DH going back to work makes things worse. Is there anyone else around who can take her out for a walk for you?

If you do decide to change to bottles, I would drop one feed at a time to give your body time to adjust. You might actually find that you will start to enjoy feeds because you will feel less pressure. However, remember that it can take up to 3 weeks to get breastfeeding established.

No doubt about it, it can be really hard work in the first few weeks but once you get past that it gets so much easier. You just haven't felt the good side about it yet. Don't think too far ahead - just deal with each day as it comes. You will make the right decision for you I am sure.

I am really sorry, it was very tactless of me to post earlier - please forgive me. I am underestimating how hard it can be at times. (I am sure my turn will come, especially if he takes after me )

I hope you have better nights from now until forever. xxxx