AUGUST 2010 - welcome to post-natal :o)

[CherryPie3]

I know I'm not around a great deal lately but we don't yet have a PN thread - so here we are.

Love to all xxx

:)

DD threw up again last night :( S slept from 7.30 til 1am ...but we were up at midnight bathing DD again. She's eaten a digestive since Saturday night.

pample it's a manic few weeks til they reach about 12wks ish. Some babies are easier than others. S and I have constant battles with feeding, so I'm not much good with suggestions...have you posted this in the feeding forum? Have you tried letting her suck your finger? doesn't give you much freedom but S has a really annoying suck reflex (right now DH is reading his paper with his finger in S's mouth). He's only happy for about 20 mins tops if he's not sucking a finger/me and he won't take a dummy. Are you happy feeding in public? Baby needing to feed needn't mean you can't still enjoy your coffee. It will settle down, I remember really enjoying feeding DD when she was about 6mths old despite a very tricky start so it does get better but it's very hard until it does.

Hi all

Foxy - no idea about Lily I did check on her about 10 days ago and she had not posted for quite a long time - early-mid August so hopfully she is just blissfully engrossed in her little one - it makes the ante-natal thread feel like unfinished business however!

Well Jamie did not sleep through 'til seven last night but I can't really complain about him waking once at 3.45 for a quick feed. However I'm a bit confused by his actions both at the 3.45 waking and when he woke again at half seven. He did't cry at either time just made fussy noises and sucked on his hands - literally trying to stuff whole hands into his mouth. I wanted to leave him to grizzle at 3.45 to see if he settled or alternatively finally demanded a feed but he was disturbing DH so I picked him up and offered him a breat which he attacked like he was starving. Any ideas why the hand stuffing? He has been doing it throughout today and pushing at his cheeks too. I even checked his gums this morning for teething signs

He's just sitting in his bouncer at the moment grinning away at me as I type! Love him!!!!

Aussie - my Alex always does the hand stuffing when he is hungry!

thanks for suggestions littlemiss

was wondering about lily too, it was agony waiting for lo to arrive so shouldn't really give out about sleepless nights.....

Well as a method of attracting my attention in the middle of the night, it is not quite as effective as a piercing shriek!

omg! I've missed so much! every night for ages now our middle if the night feed has coincided with mumsnet being down for back-up! Grrrrrr.

Sympathies to everyone having a hard time with sleepless nights and feeding issues

Our exciting news is that we bought a new (to us) car yesterday! woo hoo! Proper boot space and no more clambering into the back of our titchy Polo to fasten seatbelts

Having a mare with a particularly nasty 2nd hand cat salesman though over another car we were interested in see here anyone got any advice???

Blueberries - the small claim form is a form N1 and you can claim solicitors costs and reasonable interest. Sometimes just knowing that stuff especially the name of the form is enough to get your money back. Put it in writing, tell them it was represented to you as being a refundable deposit, tell them what action you will take if not refunded, tell them the salesman was difficult to deal with and you would prefer future communications in writing. That's what I would do but I dont mind a bit of a rumble over such things - others would go a bit more softly softly at first, I know.

Congrats (sort of) on the new car. I always find it frustrating when MN goes down for maintenance. I also think it is an odd time - I appreciate that there are probably less people online at that time but suspect some of those who are may be very lonely or desperate.

Blimey, so many of you are really struggling at the moment . I do hope everyone has a better night tonight.

I'm afraid I have no advice on the bf'ing problems, as it never worked out for me. All I can do is repeat the old 'this too shall pass' MN adage. One thing I've found about doing this the second time round, is that however bad it gets, you do have a bit more perspective. I look at my 3 year old DS now and know that S will be that age in the blink of an eye, and somehow that makes it easier not to get too down about whatever difficulties I'm going through with him (particularly as I know this is our last baby, and I'm just desperate to hold on to these early days). But I remember so well from the first time around how difficult it is to live beyond the immediate moment, so everyone has my massive sympathies.

All is going reasonably well here. We had our 6 week check today, and S is growing fast. He's on the 80th centile for height and weight, and the 99.6th for head circumference . It's no wonder he wants to eat every 2 hours. But we managed to get him to feed more like every 3 hours today, and he seems more settled as a result, so we'll see (last time I tried this, he was up billions of times in the night). We've also just started putting him down in the evenings - takes a while to get him settled, but at least DH and I get a couple of hours to ourselves.

Quick personal question - at the check today, I was talking to the GP about contraception, and he was recommending the Mirena coil. Just wondered if anyone had tried it??

No time to reply to everyone, but Vix, those afterpains sound nasty. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, but might be worth pressing for a more thorough check?? Or maybe post on MN about it and see if anyone else has had something similar? Reason I say that is that when I told the GP today that my lochia hadn't quite stopped yet, he wasn't exactly worried, but he said that if it doesn't stop in another couple of weeks, he wants to send me for a scan just to make completely sure everything's ok. So might be an option to set your mind at rest?

And Blueberries, couldn't help laughing at your second-hand cat salesman - great typo.

Thanks Aussie

elusive ewwww at second hand cat! That could turn out a bit smelly! Our first hand cat is bad enough! (must be the only cat that poos in her own garden - most annoying!)

I second what elusive said about perspective - so much easier to know that this too shall pass/it's just a phase/probably a growth spurt (delete as required)

My RL postnatal NCT group were fabulous though - got me out the house with ds1, helped to know others were struggling and we're still firm friends with 3 of the families 4 years on.

second hand cat :)

vix I'd go and see someone else about those pains. I had quite strong afterpains with Sam but none that lasted that long and they were over in about 2 weeks.

blueberries I hope you get your money back, I would threaten small claims etc and see if that changes their minds. You shouldn't have to put up with abuse at all so definitely write to head office about the salesman - he's obviously trying to bully you into buying which is shocking!

Can I just add to vix and pample and anyone else that elusive is right, they do grow up so quickly. I'm finding Sam quite difficult at the moment, last night he was feeding every 2 hours and he cries so much, I feel like I'm abandoning him unless I'm sat there with him sucking my finger so I've completely lost any freedom I'd regained with DD growing up but DD grew up. This time last year I was up 4-5 times a night feeding her and now she generally sleeps through. 18 months ago I was in exactly the same position with DD and yet now she's this gorgeously cheeky little girly with springy curls and a way of kissing me whenever I try and tell her off. It's very hard for some us at the start but now I look at DD and think in a year's time Sam will be trotting about eating the other half of my jaffa cake and I won't be thinking about this stage much at all.

Might not be on much after today, we're moving tomorrow and are spending the night in a hotel tonight cos the movers are coming at 8ish. I might not make it through the night with a toddler and a baby in the same room but if I do, I'll come and have a whinge to you all from Hereford.

Good luck with the move chulita

Quick question. Want to give ds bottle of expressed bm at night. What bottles are people using? F is 3 weeks and 3 days old. He s quite windy and is on infacol.

Going to visit my friend today, she had a baby girl 12days after F was born :)should be fun

Hope everyone s okay today

Hello Ladies

Well, after F being a chilled baby, feeding going ok etc, just the couple hours of colic in the evenings that i could cope with. It has all gone a bit tits up. He is now feeding every 2hrs day and night, the colic seems worse all of a sudden, he is not settling very well to sleep and is in general very much like a grumpy old man! I am exhausted and not really speaking to DH today (i have not had enough sleep to be nice to him, especially since i asked him to take F downstairs at 5.30 this morning, just so i could have an hour's unbroken sleep.)

On the plus side, DD's potty training is going very well with just one accident a day

Must go, F is wailing (again) only been 40mins since last feed

i have mastitis. again. i am not happy.

marzipananimal - :( :( and more :(...

Alice - if you want an hours sleep I am not far away... I can come and hold the fort

chickieno I have tommee tippee bottles with anti-colic teats for newborn plus. I started expressing when Elodie was a month old and she happily took the 5oz I managed to express in one go - no windy side-effects that I could see.

Slightly frustrating night yesterday which I think I brought on myself, as E spent most of the day asleep and I kept on deliberating over whether I ought to wake her but she just looked so contented. Anyway, she fed on and off between 9pm ish and midnight and then I fell asleep still feeding and woke at 2am with her asleep beside me. No idea how ? long she fed for but probably not another solid two hours! On the plus side, she then slept until 6am.

What does anyone else do about daytime sleeping? Should I limit it and wake her?

Sorry, selfish post coming up, but AARRGGHH I need help with potty training!!!! Day 1 today and already at my wits' end. DS was 3 last week, and has always resisted potty training. But a few weeks ago he announced that 'big boys don't wear nappies', so we seized the initiative and told him that today was 'pants day', which he seemed excited about. So.... this morning, duly put him in pants. Trouble is, he is utterly refusing to sit on the potty or the loo. We've only had two accidents so far, and he'd clearly been saving it up - he clearly didn't enjoy the accidents, but he seems less bothered by them than by the prospect of sitting on the potty or loo. And I can tell he's stressed by it all, because he's been a tantrummy nightmare all day. I've tried every kind of bribery I can think of to get him to have a go at sitting on the potty or loo, but to no avail. Trouble is, I'm pretty sure that if I try giving up and putting him back in nappies, we may never get another chance (he's that kind of child). Off to post in the relevant MN topic as well, but if anyone has any tips, bring them on!!

Sorry to all struggling with BFing. It's really difficult to give advice when we can't actually see you or your baby but I would say just keep on feeding! If you can, go to bed with your baby. All day and all night if necessary . It may be a growth spurt, it's so difficult to know but IT WILL PASS! If you have older kids can someone take them for a day so you can just rest with the baby? Just feed feed feed, don't think about doing anything else. Embrace the 'stuck to my baby' stage because it is over so quickly. You can go back to 'normal' life in a few months, Caffe Nero will always be there . There is nothing wrong with wanting to carry on with a semblance of your old life but if you can accept that it might be some time before you can get out and do things like you used to you might find it easier to cope with. I hardly left the house for the first year with the twins cos it was such a pain with the feeds and the nappy changes and carrying them around etc!

I am so cold at night at the moment! I am sleeping in a trackie top and bottoms, vest top and thick socks (with trackie bottoms tucked in of course - sexy!). We are co-sleeping so I hardly have the duvet over me at all so I need the extra layers.

Daniel has been pretty fussy these last couple of nights too and not settling as well as he had been. He has stopped pooing at every feed and now does it every day or two so I wonder if he gets a bit uncomfy. Still waking once in the night but sometimes not settling till after midnight and then awake at 7am (with a feed in between) so I am feeling a little tired atm. But not too bad considering what others are dealing with.

He was weighed today - 11lbs at 7wo so just under 50th centile (dropped a bit below the line, he was on it before)

Bellygazing, I would not let her go more than 3hrs-ish in the day without a feed or you might find she cluster feeds in the middle of the night to catch up. But that's just me, I don't think there is a right and wrong way, just what works for you. My mum said she never woke a sleeping baby but I do it all the time to feed. The more milk you can get in them during the day the less they should need at night!

Elusive, don't get too despondent as it;s only the first day. Are you staying at home this week while you train? I would just say have the potty nearby, try to stay in one room, and when he has an accident just say 'oh you had a wee/poo - you should use the potty when you need a wee/poo.' Try not to make a big deal out of it when he has accidents. Give it a few days and see how he is them. I would forget rewards etc if he is not responding to them. Could he be picking up on your anxiety? Try not to stress about it cos all kids train eventually - he will get there!

Just wanted to quick pop in and say hello! William is 3 weeks today and I can't believe how fast it has gone. I confess I'm getting lots of help at home (am currently relieved of the school run, thank God) but it still is insanely busy with four dc's. William is a mix that I'm trying to figure outsometimes lots of discomfort after feeding and taking AGES to posset or reawaking to do so, and sometimes sleeping peacefully for 4 hour stretches, though that's still unusual. I am smitten, though. He's so absolutely sweet and beautiful and I think that apart from occasional indigestion he's not very fussy at all. So far when we've gone out he's been in the babybjorn but has screamed the entire timemost strange. He also is so gigantic that he already fits into the lowest position in the bjorn, so this will not last us long! I've never bought a sling but will have to find something to fit a bigger baby. As of Monday he was 10lb 14oz, so clearly the milk bar is open and he's in for it. I think he looks rather like a tortoise with his huge, huge eyes and tiny, perfectly formed mouth and chin.

The two eldest dc's are being angelic and gently cuddling him and generally being thoughtful. DS2 is having a rather harder time, waking in the night constantly without need (apart from our attention!), and being a bit physically aggressive. This makes me want to keep the baby separate as much as possible, but that only reinforces DS2's sense of isolation. But this too shall pass! Overall am able to enjoy my entire family so very much, and am constantly reminded of how I do love not being pregnant any more.

Very sorry to read of so much difficulty with BFing. It certainly is something I'll never take for granted again. I usually start off fine and then have difficulty with sufficient supply by 6 months. I'm hoping that with such a large, hungry boy I'll be able to get that far.

A little poll--is anyone able to bother with pelvic floor exercises? I know I need to but I feel so busy that I don't have the time or concentration to remember or to count while I'm doing it.

William has been asleep for over an hour so I must get to bed myself--it can be a bit boring doing nothing else but being exhausted is the worst. Wanted to say hello and let you all know I'm trying to keep up and have been thinking about you all. Sorry for the massive post!

vita we have an ergo They cost a bit but we still use it for DD at 22 months, S in the baby bjorn and L in the ergo. deffo worth the money imo. And odd that you mention PFE, I just remembered I should probably do then and did some right before bed.

neenz I'm going to try and wake S more often for feeds, he's still often wanting feeding every 2 hours at night but will go longer in the day if pushed. Might try and swap that around cos he's very sucky so should make the most of any boob offered!

First night in a hotel down, movers come today. It wasn't too bad except for DD being incredibly excited at about midnight after waking up and seeing daddy a yard away...cue an hour of 'daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, bear, bear, bear, bear, bear, daddy, bear, daddy' very cute but not quite what we wanted! S actually slept from 7 til 11 then til half 3 which was immense he was then up from half 4 so my day's started early...another hotel tonight and then into the new house.

chickie - we use the tommee tippee bottles too :)

chulita - good luck with the big move! and well done on the hotel adventure lol

vita - D isn't super keen on the baby bjorn yet either and he's 4 weeks. it seems to help if you keep his arms inside the sling rather than through the arm holes? he can do about 20 mins in the baby bjorn before he starts squealing but after that i'd better take him out or face the consequences lol Re: pelvic floor exercises - i try to remember throughout the day to do a few but not really bothering quite as much as i probably should. Just happy episiotomy stitches seem to have nearly completely healed up!

neenz - Totally agree, stuck to baby but what can you do? lol I took D to a baby screening at Odeon yesterday with my sister - we went to see Eat, Pray, Love and he obligingly slept the whole way through it! Loads of other mums, babies and buggies there, it was really good fun :) You can b/f there and they don't dim the lights completely so you can nip in and out if baby needs changed or you can walk them round and they all try and make friends with each other - very cute! Def going to go to this at least once a month, really enjoyed it...Kind of like a return to normal life, chick flick, takeaway coffees, nice clothes but baby friendly!

things are going ok for us - haven't quite managed to knock thrush on the head but it doesn't seem to be getting any worse anyway, so can't complain too much.Still struggling with windy/colicky spell between about 6:30-9:30 in the evenings but then we give him his bath at half 9 and a bottle at 10 and he's usually down from 10:30-02:30 and then again from 03:00-6:30 so not too bad sleepwise. And we have a mumsnet meet up to go to on Fri morning!!

so excitied just fitted into a skirt...then Poppy was sick all over it :(

vita I have a kari-me wrap and it's brill - E goes to sleep almost immediately and stays that way for the duration. Looks a bit complicated to begin with but you get the hang of it v quickly. Re pelvic floor, I do them occasionally when I remember...
Thanks for advice neenz I've been trying to do that and I think it may be helping.
LittleMiss That baby screening sounds like an excellent idea, where was that?

And a quick question - do you think six weeks is too early after a c-section to go salsa dancing? I haven't had my postnatal check yet but am feeling better all the time. I was dancing up until I was 7 months pregnant.