May 2010 - Drooling, smiling, cooing and nearly sleeping through (and that's just the mummies!)

[rachelfruitloop]

Hi Ladies,

I hope you don't mind, I started a new thread as our first one was quite full! I can't believe we're a quarter-way through the first year already!

Ego - nice to see you :) Sorry you're having a hard time with DH, it is difficult when you're exhausted. All your Christmas trees sound beautiful, and wow at your roast last year!

Den26 - glad you've got your appointment, that's great news :)

Carikube - hope you've had a better day today, any news when you'll have hot water again?

Tomlin - DD sounds lovely :) Glad the weaning is going well, it's such fun when they enjoy it! The railway santa sounds great, we're doing our local one as well. I can't wait till Christmas this year!

Pamelat - it's good that you think you can work through it :) It must be really hard, especially timing-wise with your birthday. Hope you feel OK and manage to work it out with him. Thinking of you.

Hoping Memorylapse is OK, don't think she's posted for a while?

Hope everyone starts having a better time with their DHs :)

Re Christmas - advent starts tomorrow, yay! We have a wooden advent calendar like a little house with loads of little doors and I've written out bits of paper with different christmassy things to do on each one so we have something special to do each day (often nothing major, but it's nice :) ). They've got little chocs in as well for DD.

Ego, can I come to your house for Christmas? It sounds magical.

Heffa, I can't wait to make an advent calendar for Darcey. Will an 18 month get it next year? I think this year's a bit young. As well as too close now

Please skip the rest, it's long and I need to rant and it's all me me me. So ignore, but I needed to get it out.

I've just sat here close to tears catching up with all the posts while I'm eating my tea. DH has got a crisis at work (not a Top Gear style crisis btw) so we don't know when he'll be home tonight. We've been having exactly the same problems as it seems lots of people are. Lots of sniping, one-upping, score keeping unpleasantness. It's like it's a competition on who is hardest-done-by.

I'm feeling all resentful that I'm up 3 times in the night now - she won't go back to sleep without a feed, so that's me cornered. And I think he feels resentful that I'm the only one that can fix it. Not that he'd get out of bloody bed to warm some expressed milk up for her, oh no. I had norovirus at the weekend, and he played on the computer and took delivery of our new dining table, while I stayed in bed with the baby. Not even a day off to be sick all day.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject... because I do that overnight, he's taken it upon himself to do the bedtime routine. Which is Lovely, really don't get me wrong. He loves being involved (just not overnight). But he doesn't like her to cry, so it's taking nearly 3 hours for her to fall asleep. Which is why (I think) she won't go back to sleep when she rouses in the night. No amount of shush pat, or pick up put down has worked, but he won't do controlled crying. So because he's not here tonight, I did it. every 5 mins go in, stroke tummy, sing Twinkle Twinkle, set mobile off. 20 mins later, she was fast asleep. Does that make me a horrible mummy to leave her cry like that?

And we're skinter than skint. I know there's only one more month before I go back to work and get more money in, but that month would have to include Christmas wouldn't it? I heart Christmas, but I really wish it would wait this year.

Sorry to be so down. But I did warn you. Off to wallow in the bath until DH gets home now.

Hollyoaks- Hope your feeling better now. How are finding it being back at work?

Ego- Havent tried it myself but have you seen the new Mobile version of MN? Might work better on your phone.
We are going to put our decorations up at the weekend. I cant wait. DD1 is going to love it! She will help decorate the tree with us and has her own little one to go in her room. We make decorations together for her bedroom which she enjoys. Our main tree is also icy colours of silver and white :)

Carikube- Sorry to hear about the boiler. Sounds like a right nightmare!

TT- With you on the internet shopping. Im trying not to go into town now before xmas!
I never got anything from DH after either of the girls. Part of me is envious of others when they get lovely presents afterwards but it the grand scheme of things, its not that important and as you say, being a fab daddy and Husband is much better and more of a lasting gift!
Its so easy to get caught up in the small things though isnt it.

We are off to the local steam railway next week too for a ride to see Santa. DD1 will love it!
She saw Santa the other day at a local garden centre and when asked her name told her her frist, middle and surname and told him she was 2. Bless her.

Den- Great news on the date.. Not long at all really.

Heffa- Advent calendar sounds great. I was planning on doing the same but only realised the date earlier (this year is flying by!) Too late now... Next year!
Oh well she has the Peppa pig one that Nanny bought her. Im sure that will be gratefull recieved!

Dancing- Hope the controlled crying works for you. No real advice as bothe girls take after me in liking sleep! Of course it doesnt make you a bad Mummy!!

Sorry to hear about everyones DH trouble :(
I think we all get times when things get on top of us and things boil up. I think generally people get more depressed at this time of year with the darker nights etc.
I agree with TT about the sleep torture and not being too hard on each other.
I hope everyone gets to sort things out soon :(

Finally got the snow overnight last night so had fun with the girls on the sledge in the back garden. Lucy was abit puzzled by it all at first. Poor DH though got stuck in London today with the stupid trains. Took him 4 hours to get home!

Lucy is really starting to eat quite abit now. She really enjoys her food and eats everything. She really enjoyed fruit bread today. She had lasagne last night as we had proper tears everytime I took the spoon off her to reload it! Little piggy!

glad its not just me being tired but wish it was none of us
we bought the john lewis wooden advent tree for virginia and the delivery was very quick for those interested
dont like the idea of hubbys being stuck in the snow for 4 hours!!!sounds awful. we have no white stuff whatsoever, NOT fair
dancing i couldnt do the controlled crying so im just up all night, heyho, aparently one full sleep cycle for mummy is 90 mins and for baby its 50, so we are stuffed, never mind at least i havent got a back to work deadline looming where sleep is vital
lets hope it all gets better for everyone soon x

Well, it took her 20 mins to fall asleep last night. She woke up about 10pm and was awake until midnight, but just playing quietly with her hands and legless bear in her cot.

Small whimper at 4am, normally feed time, but she fell back to sleep by the time I'd got my dressing gown on. Feed at 8am () then back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Sorry for rant yesterday. I'm feeling about about it today. I've got nowhere near as much cause for complaint as some people who are handling themselves so much better than me.

Ego, I said to DH last night that although we're happy rocking and feeding her to sleep now, by the time we get to the point of not being happy doing it, it will be soooo much harder to fix. I think I'll cope better with a crying baby than a raging toddler.

Pigley, I'm gutted that she hasn't got my sleeping habits

We haven't got a huge amount of snow, enough to get me stuck inside though as I don't have any suitable winter shoes (no treads in any I own, how has that happened?). Nearly went flying yesterday stepping out in the snow. Grr. Can't get anywhere as the little snow we've had has frozen underneath. Seen these that I've asked for Christmas. Fingers crossed I've been good enough this year

Hi ladies just to say am still alive

So sorry to hear everyone's troubles with dhs...it is soooo hard when you're really tired. We're having sleep troubles too!

dancing I feel the same as you that training to sleep now is much better than later on. We do a mixture of pick up/put down and controlled crying. Leave him crying for 2 mins, pick him up and rock him, leave him again etc. He now goes down at bedtime like a dream, but the method doesn't seem to work with night wakings as he just wants feeding...so soon we will be trying to night wean by giving bottles to see if that helps. HV suggested watering down my breast milk in a bottle each night until it's just milk coloured water and he'll stop waking. We'll see!
Ds is 6 months on Sunday so I'll have exclusively bf til then wich I'm quite pleased about.

Sorry not to stop for longer ladies but I'm always reading!
Thinking of molly particularly...this too shall pass x

hi ladies.
all well here, just house trap, because of the half an inch of snow, well, and all the ice, i don't feel very confident going out with the pram, i walk everywhere, and it is so cold, bellow freezing that seem cruel to get the lo out, i bought some tights to put under his trousers, they are red and white with hearts and ribbons, but better than freezing right?
my mil has complaint to dh about my weanning, she had it into her head that i am doing this alone and just all wrong, got a major shock when dh told her it is what we've decided, we being the big word there. let's see how xmas go, i am staying over there for 3 weeks, dh only coming 12 days.
romance not too big here either, but this weekend is dh's birthday so we'll make it memorable, maybe just not in london.
we tried potato, not a big fun to start with, but today he ate quite a bit of it, tomorrow carrot! i am suspecting he likes sweeter food better, i can't imagine who he got that from
sleeping is going well, 9/10 h in a row, just not until 1 am..., we brought it down to midnight for the last two nights...

be back soon, thinking of all of you.

no snow.....no sleep.......no fun

Morning all - I'm determined to do a proper post today. I have a massive to do list and MN up date is at the top of it!

Thanks so much for the support last week - I'm a bit embarassed by the plaudits - I'm no more amazing than any of the rest of us. Things have been better this week although last weekend me and dh were bickering and had a big fight - funny how universal some things can be. It's weirdly reassuring though. I'm surprised at us arguing about workload and family stuff - Molls is our third. I thought I'd trained him by now been through all that already.

But peace now reigns and the house is much tidier, the washing is up to date and dh is doing better re his blood sugar control. I am off next week - give or take a few meetings, a work lunch and one surgery but I'm so pleased. Molls is doing brilliantly with solids but hasn't dropped any milk feeds :( and I'm still having to express all the bloody time. The freezer stash is holding up and only really gets touched at all by Friday. I've left 18oz for today and that should be enough! We're doing blw but she is such a pro and her nappies prove the point. The dogs circle her high chair like sharks and love blw too!

den26 - sorry you've been messed around so much. Glad you have something in the pipeline at last. Hope you're all ok in the snowy north.

pigley - hope the internet shopping went well and :) that Lucy is doing so well. Impressed re the decorating - wow! Sounds fab.

heffa sledging on Dartmoor sounds lovely. Not much snow here which is great as I hate the stuff!

how's work hollyoaks ? - hope you're able to enjoy a few snow days.

ego - we've missed you too. Sorry things are a bit rough with DH. It is such a struggle to have joy with zero sleep - still an ongoing problem here too. And she wants to play at the most inopportune moments! I won't be trying with sleep training any time soon and don't do CC. It will get there, I know but it's so hard at times. Very impressed at your Christmas organisation. Tree already - dd1 would love to live with you. We normally do the tree the first Saturday in December but DH says that it's too early this year!

Sorry about your boiler hassles carikube - not fun.

Hope you're ok pamelat - been a bit concerned about you as on FB you've seemed so low at times. Particularly hard to take at birthday time! Hope the improvements continue.

Hi tomlin - nice to hear from you. I didn't get anything proper from dh for any of my 3! It's just not his way. If you want the bracelet - buy it yourself. I know it's not the same but better than nothing! Your Christmas plans sound just lovely. I've done hardly anything and even forgot the advent calendar - bad mummy!

Hi dancingthroughlife Sorry you're having a tough. It's awful being ill and still having to be mummy. It's so easy to get into competitive tiredness discussions isn't it? Hope you're feeling better today.

Hi cupcakefairy Hope you're getting there with sleep. Thanks for thinking about me.

Hi wltk sorry you're having family hassles. My lot don't dare tell me what to do anymore! Glad that DH backed you up. My mum thought blw was mad but tried (and failed) to say nothing but when she saw Molls get stuck in to a roast dinner she realised our approach is working fine.

Love to all - better get onto the rest of that to do list - have a house call to do first, blooming icy roads - hate it!

i just wrote an enormous post and lost it, just as well, it was a big rant.
family issue- is quite simple really, i only go a few weeks a year home, so i was happy to play the good little daughter role, i then come home and do what i want, so time to show i am no little girl any more. mil is a very strong woman who brought up 5 boys with father always away. sil is a bit of a knowitall and they team together. also other sil going to private paedetrician, very prestigious, but bonkers in my opinion, i won't listen to his advice, so... i.e. he recomends drinking beer while you breastfeed and i do mean at exactley same time, to increase milk production, and putting cereal in every bottle for babies, i calculated the amounts and that would be the full adult amount of sugar for an adult daily, 40 gr. and about 400 extra calories daily, bonkers! ups ranting again. anyway, weanning going wonderfully...so everybody happy, but mil...

i got proper snow now, thank goodness i did a mega shopping last week as no car can come up my street now... mine is park in a suitable space in the main road, 2 min away, just in case we need it in an emergency...

wltk - he's clearly mad but quite like the idea of drinking beer :)

wow molly, i am so impressed at you catching up! put up second tree today, virginia doesnt usually smile at things, just people, but she was beaming when she saw it.

she is also going very well with the blw, i am so so amazed at how easy it is, she is like a duck to water with it, tonight was tomato chicken and rice from the blw cookbook. loved it. a friend commented on her hand to mouth co-ordination yesterday and whilst i cant be sure i do think that hers is so good because she loves food and wants to make sure she doesnt drop any lol

wltk, agghhh at the helpful advice, if ever in doubt i refer to the world health organisation website, it is universal, so no matter what country you are in, the guidance is the same, and who will argue against w.h.o. guidelines?
love to you all xx

Ego - I spend my working day in front of a computer and a lot of time looking at it pumping. I'm getting a dab hand at doing work one handed and regularly phone patients while expressing. Good job we don't have a video phone.

Been crazy weather here and have a foot of snow fall in the last 2 days! Snowed in big time but trekked to the shops for supplies yesterday. DD1 in the sledge and Lucy in the Bjorn carrier.
After DH's 4 hours train ride home on tuesday and more snow overnight, DH didnt go in Wed and today he had the day off anyway. He had today off as holiday as We were meant to be watching DD1 doing a little Ballet show but of course got cancelled. :(
Hes not planning to go in tomorrow either as the trains are still totally screwed!

We have been out playing in the snow which DD1 loved even though it was almost up to her waist!

Dancing- Glad your night went well, Hope she repeats it tonight. :)

Cupcake- Good to hear from you.
We did a similar thing with DD1. At about 9 mths she was still waking for a bottle, however only taking about any oz if that. It was more out of habit than actual hunger so we went cold turkey and swapped it to a bottle of water. The first night she wasnt impressed but stopped wanting it after a few nights. Would still wake abit but just needed resettling to go back off. Monkey didnt sleep through though till she started crawling at 9mths. [yawn]

WLTK- Glad to hear DH is backing your choices.

Ego- Your welcome to some of our snow. We have enough for everyone! Glad the weaning is going well. Lucy too is tucking into almost everything and is amazing me at the amount she eats. She ate almost all of a large bowl of Lasagne tonight. Funny you should say about Hand eye co ordination as DH and I have both commented on how well Lucy does too. I actually just uploaded a video of Lucy tucking into tonights dinner.

Molly- We too usually do our tree the first weekend in Dec. I cant wait!
Glad things have calmed down for you and at the video phone.

Dancing - glad you're feeling a bit better, hope sleep gets better. Don't worry about your rant, we've all been there :)

WLTK - bravo for your DH for backing you up.

Molly - glad weaning is going well :) We're doing our tree this weekend as well probably. I love it :)

Ego - love that Virginia is enjoying her food so much! Corin is the same, he's surprisingly un-messy when he eats and has v.good hand-eye coordination and I'm sure it's because the greedy little thing doesn't want to lose any food. He's starting to get quite chubby which is fab. DD has always been such a skinny little thing.

Bit of snow here now, hoping for more but seems unlikely in this batch.

hi all
bit of an update on mils front, dh has been telling her all oscar eats and sent a few pictures of him, and she can finally admit that he is quite big, he is eating enought and i am not doing anything wrong and he doesn't need to eat any 'supplements' to fat him up. i bet that was difficult to say, but in good timing cos i am flying in 10 days and need to stay there... well, if the spanish air space is open at that point, lots of unhappy people, and i don't blame them.
hand -eye coordination good here too, and interest in food massive, friends have commented how easy is oscar to feed...
dh gone out for his company xmas dinner, and not impressed about it , also needing a break and time to study...yadayadayda.
snow is gone so will leave the house tomorrow, dh suggested going shopping for clothes for me, rather limited selection at home, due to some preg weight remaining, mil's cooking is not gonna help with that, don't get me wrong is delicious but very very high in calories, fat, anything bad...
molly- love video conference, now wondering what my gp is doing when on the phone

another truly horrendous night here, bed at 6.30, feed at 9.30,11.30,1,1.30 (up for over an hour had to go through whole bedtime ritual again to get her back to sleep)3.45 caved in and brought her into my bed, 5.40 (up for day) enforced nap happening as i type.
she is feeding, properly guzzling at every waking so she is hungry not just wanting comfort, i am sooo tired!
wltk, glad your mil is seeing your point now. i am currently reading a book that says that eating fat is not a problem, so long as you cut out sugars and reduce carbs so dont worry too much when at mils.

Ego, I salute you, I would be on my knees with that night-time routine. DD is still up once if not twice during the night, usually about 12ish and then 5ish but has been known to go til 6-30, and I find that bad enough. Do you feed her as regularly during the day as well, or does she go for longer between feeds?

WLTK, that is big of your MIL, it is hard to admit someone else may be right and you could be wrong. Wish my MIL could do that. Hope you have a lovely time in Spain, are you going for the whole of Christmas?

Pigley, we are also snowed in! We were meant to be going to the North York Moors Railway today for the Santa Special, but the road is closed due to snow and ice. Hope they give us our money back. DH couldn't get the car up the hill on Wednesday and had to abandon it on the main road overnight. The local shops have run out of milk, bread and fruit/most veg as no delivery lorries can get into the village (although cars seem to be able to manage ). We still have a foot of the white stuff in the back garden, the pavements are covered in icy slush, and the roads are like a skating rink. We drove to Church this morning, and in the close outside there was 5 inches deep of solid ice on the ground. Can't see that melting any time soon!

We have put up our main Christmas tree and lights today. DS so excited. He has already hung his stocking up. I have explained to him about FC coming on the 24th, but he thinks that is he hangs his stocking up, it will be full every morning! I fear he will be disappointed tomorrow... Just got the playroom Christmas tree (with the handmade tat decorations and sparkly/glittery stuff, and then then small trees for DD and DS' bedrooms, and then we will be done. I am leaving the outside lights to DH - far too cold for me tonight!

Hope everyone else is well x

No, in the day she feeds at about 8am, theen 11,1,4 with solid breakfast at 7 and solid dinner at 5. Come to think of it she does eat a lot! And still dropping down through the chart too. I may just get her weighed on wednesday she MUST have grown.
We still have no snow, although last night was such a heavy frost that our world is white and even with deicer and engine running dh took 20mins to get frost off car!
I used to put little trees in dcs rooms until one year one caught fire, thankfully I was on my way up as dd2 yelled could smell burning and the flames happened as I walked into room so now they just have ecorations in there.
I hope their aren't too many disappointed children wrt santa visits this year, the little ones just don't see snow as a reason not to do anything do they?

Hi everyone,

Sorry for being soo crap at posting, think it's been several weeks now and seemingly missed out on pages of posts, so bare with me, after this message, I'll pour a glass of white and sit back and catch up!

Chloe is just gorgeous. 28 weeks now and really trying to crawl which is hilarious to watch bless her. She's a big foody and so far, hasn't turned her nose up at anything. I'm ashamed to say I havent made much myself, I have a shelf in the cupboard dedicated to Cow and Gate jars for which she has 1 for lunch, 1 for tea and porridge for breakfast. She rarely finishes her bottles now, think she's bored of milk, so have cut one out. She was 16lb 4oz at 6month check so still 50th centile so I'm not concerned.

Xmas tree went up today and she is just fascinated!

Bit of me post - Got onto my PGCE course which I'm thrilled about. Feels strange the thought of going back to uni all over again but cant wait for September. I've started seeing someone which does feel a bit odd because divorce hasnt finalised, but ex has moved on too so feel good about it. Even dtd with Mr New which hurt like hell because that was the first time since having Chloe and my repair op, but he's been fab about it. My confidence has finally taken a turn for the best!

Right, gotta do dinner, but as I said, will come back for a good read later. Have a good evening all!

Hi all. Quick rant here - I have blardy farking nipple thrush again. I know, sorry TMI. But it hurts. :(

Anyway - fab news luceelou - I'm sure with time it'll not hurt at all. After DS and an ordinary episiotomy it was a good while before I was able to completely forget about things and enjoy it. Sounds like the new man is a good one. And well done on the PGCE as well.

Un MN hugs to you ego - I have a non sleeping, hungry girl who loves all food and milk a lot. But we both know that this stage will eventually end and hopefully our girls will be dream toddlers (some hope)

The snow isn't too bad here tomlin - hope you're getting bread and milk now. We did our tree today but I'm also leaving the outside lights to DH.

pigley - very cute image of you, sling and sledge!

wltk glad MIL is coming round and sorry I've freaked you out at the thought of what your GP is doing while speaking to you. I suspect I'm a bit of a one-off though :)

Many congrats luceelou!

Been reading but now finally have the time to post :

WLTK- Glad things are inproving with your MIL :)

Ego- :( on the bad nights. Lucy has started staying awake after a feed too, She will be rolling around her cot making noises for a good hour or two. No amount of settling helps and has started waking early which then wakes DD1 up so Im up and going by 6am most mornings. Im knackered so dread to think how you feel :(

Lucy seems to have dropped a feed now shes eating more. She has roughly 4 feeds a day, plus solids at breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. She eats lots of her solid food too and her current fav is Fruit bread and loves loves loves my banana cake!

TT- Such a shame your railway trip got cancelled :( Thankfully most of our snow has gone now as we have our Railway trip on Thursday which DD1 is really looking forward to. Hope you do get a refund.

We put our decorations up on Saturday. DD1 loved 'helping' Typically though the tree lights stopped working on Sunday so I had to strip my lovely tree and replace the lights then redress it! However the new lights do look much better.
DD1 is loving the little tree in her room thats covered with tat No lights to catch fire though Ego!

Luceeloo- Still love saying that! Having to make more of an effort to call Lucy by her full name instead of Luceeloo or Luce (loose). Hearing DD1 saying 'You Alright Luce' just doesnt sound right!
Great to hear you sounding so happy and positive Yay on the new man!! He sounds lovely and understanding.

Molly- Hope the thrush improves soon! :(

Hello all...

Congrats luceeloo on getting on with your life so impressively and hope it all goes well with the new man.

Molly ouch on the nipple thrush - I had it a couple of times and it wasn't pleasant. BF is still going ok here though DD2 seems to be making it her mission to stretch my nipples as she often really pulls on them when feeding...

Wow to all those of you with trees up already - I think we're going to buy ours this weekend as MIL is coming over for a few days so we can celebrate Christmas together (it will just be me, DH and the DDs for Christmas Day proper).

Things with DH really hit a buffer this weekend and it got to the stage where I suggested that we either get counselling or I move out for a while. We had a good talk; I don't know whether we could really say that everything is back to normal but we seem to be getting on a bit better now than we were.

Also as I had nothing better to do this morning, I decided to go to the Sure Start Stay and Play so DD1 could have a play whilst I got DD2 weighed; whilst there I overheard a HV telling another mum that she should start weaning her child as 'bf babies put on lots of weight in the early days but then it tails off so by 3-4 months they're not gaining as much and should start on solids' . This is the same HV that told me ages ago that I should start on formula topups for DD2 (we didn't, and I got told today that her weight gain is absolutely perfect - still on same centile, etc etc). Just wondering whether she's ever read the official guidelines for weaning etc?

DD2 is loving BLW and seems to have picked it up a lot faster than DD1 ever did. It's lovely having both girls sitting up with us at mealtimes now. However DD2 still hasn't got any teeth so I hope she gets some soon so that she can really start tucking in

Carikube- Lucy has no teeth either. DD1 didnt get her first tooth till 14mths but it definately didnt stop her eating. It amazed us quite what she could manage!

Hope things improve with DH.

I agree with you on the HV's. Do they ever do futher training since qualifying?? They dont seem to be up to date with current guidelines at all do they.

ohhh just noticed the xmas smilies