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

:)

oh no chulita sounds rough. and moving on top of looking after 2 little ones.....

hope you had a better night. Hang in there

Oh Chulita big hugs from me too!! How are you feeling today?

Breastfeeding still a mare, jesus 6 weeks in will it ever get better? Breastfeeding counsellor's 3rd visit today....also I use a manual pump and express about 2 oz every morning, could I do better? Should I invest in an electric / manual pump?

xx

I'm feeling pretty bad today as well :( My cold has won the fight and is coming out, and Alex has been really upset since last night with very little consoling him :(

Got loads to do today and it all seems impossible with such an unhappy baby. He's usually so happy so I'm a bit lost...

Sorry everyone is having a rubbish time

F is now in 3-6m clothes due to his long body and big feet obviously his fathers son! (DH is 6ft3 with size 11 feet ) Still feeding every two hours through the night, i am so tired. May sound odd, but was disappointed to find out my iron is not too low, i was sure it was, and it was just a case of taking my supplement twice a day for a while and i would feel better, but no, it is just sleep deprivation

I put the whiteboard marker pen in the cheese section of the fridge the other day - was a week before we found it!

Today is our 2nd wedding anniversary. DH handed me a big box containing.............. A A Myla corset and pants!!! I don't care if i can't squeeze in for a while, they are beautiful

Really need to find a solution to F feeding every 2hrs though, can't carry on like this.

Chulita vix sorry about th rubbish times... I don't know what to say really except I'm sure it'll improve.
Alice sorry about the rubbish sleep / feeding. I can only say I know where you're coming from. Scarlett now has one bottle of formula a day and one of expressed breast milk because I became so depressed with the lack of sleep. We're still only getting 1-2 3 hour sleeps a day and the rest of the day comprises of feeding, winding and crying. On a plus side this schedule means I'm losing weight at a ridiculous weight (still on 'no exercise c section plan' but noone mentioned the need to constantly bounce up and down with baby to get her to sleep.....). Still feeling fat though, oh well, can't win.
Now we have the rather ambitious trip to Inverness (from the South) on Thursday as T's aunt v sadly died last week,.... plane with a five week old, what a challenge!
Oh and mucho jealous of the myla lingerie.... yummy. Think my boobs are currently too big to buy anything in the range though!
xxx

The joy with a corset is that it doesn't have a cup size (thank god! currently squeezed into a 34H )

I am now the same size as i was on my wedding day. It took me 11months to get down to this weight after having DD, but F is only 6 1/2 weeks! I wish i could say it was my super fast meetabolism and fabulous healty lifestyle, but sadly it is due to not having time to snack, and running around constantly, just to make sure everyone is fed and has clean pants.

Although i did manage to ride my horse on saturday

Pample good luck for the weekend. Do you have a sling or something to take with you instead of a buggy? With babies you need as much stuff for one night as you do for a fortnight

A bit TMI, but is anyone suffering a bit with piles? I had some whilst pg but never bothered me, they seemed to go after having F, but now are very sore and bleed when i go to the loo how can i get them to heal?

I'm checking in for a moan as well! All 3 of us had a cold last week, which meant that Felicity and I were virtually housebound - talk about cabin fever. DH had a day off work with it, and he never takes time off sick. Poor F is still too young for any sort of decongestant apart from the saline nose spray which I gave her just before her feeds so at least she could breath whilst she was drinking.

F is 9 weeks old today and has her first immunisations on Friday - had to cancel them last week due to her cold. Going to speak to the doctor as well about her sickiness - not sure if it's normal "she's a sicky baby" or something else, don't think it's reflux as she's piling on the weight (75th percentile) and it's not happening daily. At the moment, I'm trying to time things so I don't have to feed her away from the house such is the force/trajectory of the vomit so it's affecting what we can do so I need to get something sorted.

Last 2 nights have been bliss - she's asleep in her basket by about 8pm, then she wakes up at 3.30am for a feed, back down until 6.30/7am - it feels like a real luxury just to be up once in the night and makes all the difference to how you feel the next day.

Caz if you're reading, big hugs to you for all the crap that is going on with SS, I don't know what the truth is - I'm not intruding on your other thread as that is a special place for you and the other mummies who only know themselves what you are all going through, and nothing should be detracting from you talking about your angels on that board. I just wanted you to know that I think of you and Belle often (she and Felicity have the same middle name ) xx

All the troll stuff sucks doesn't it

Nat, it makes me so angry when I hear stories like your HV telling you your LO wasn't gaining enough weight and they'd just plotted the graph wrong! Some are so clueless and damaging to BFing.

For all struggling with sleep deprivation does it help to lie down when you feed? Chulita, it must be a nightmare with the reflux. Will he grow out of it?

Daniel is now sleeping in his own room . He settles about 11-12pm then wakes at 4am, has a feed and is back to sleep in about 20-30mins all in until 8am ish. He is 8wo and it has just improved so much in just the last week so hang in there everyone if you are struggling.

sorry to hear some of you not having much fun at the mo

have missed out on whatever troll stuff you mean I think? does it have something to with a chickenpox thread ??

lcr I don't have much luck with expressing, I use a medela electric pump and the most I manage is 2oz, so depressing! i had visions of being able to give her bottle of ebm instead of formula but no such luck, it takes me the best part of a week to get 1 bottles worth!!

neenz we are going to put Tilly in her own room soon, she is getting too long for the moses basket. So far she's sleeping well so hopefully it'll be not too much back and forwarding in the night.

Good luck with the flight pample, we're off to spain tomorrow- not worrying about the baby, she can just have a mouthful of boob the whole way it's more the 2 and 3 yr olds I worry about!

Alice - yes. :( Horrible piles. I don't know what to do either. Am going to drag myself shamefully to the GP in a few days if things don't improve.

Neez - lame, right? As if BF wasn't hard enough. My MW said she was going to give the HV a call and give her a piece of her mind - not so much for her mistake, but for giving me really crap BF advice as a consequence.

Finally feel like Eli and I are turning a corner with feeding. Now if only he would sleep a bit at nightime. He wakes up almost every hour for a feed, cry or whathaveyou... Zzzzzz....

LCR and GYA I have a tommee tippee manual pump and I manage to get anywhere between 2oz and 5oz, depending on when I do it. I think it depends a lot on your boobs and the time of day. Had a somewhat amusing moment earlier today when I had filled one container and was absentmindedly expressing milk onto my leg, having forgotten to reattach the bottle - my first thought was what a waste . My DH does the 2am-3am feed (I know, how lucky am I) and Elodie (who is six weeks old) usually takes about 4oz.

I feel like I too may have turned a corner re night-time (I see me jinxing myself here). While we still feed lots and randomly during the day, E seems to have dispensed with the late evening cluster feeds - for the last three nights she has gone down at some point between 9.30pm and 11pm, and then slept for at least three hours, then a quick feed at 1am-2am ish, then again at about 5.30am. And she's been down for over half an hour tonight too... Up until fairly recently, we were feeding on and off from 9pm until sometimes as late as 1am. I think I may have neenz's don't go three hours in the day without a feed advice to thank for that one .

Bellygazing, that's great, glad my advice is helping a bit

LCR I have a medela mini electric and find it brilliant. I think you do have to try to express at the same time every day to build up your supply or you may struggle to get much out. Your body only makes enough milk for your baby at that point in time (or your boobs would be like rocks all the time!) there isn't much 'spare' so you have to increase demand IYSWIM.

The troll thing is the chickenpox thread . SS claims to have lost her 4yo to CP in April and has been posting on the bereavement threads and consequently the CP thread in AIBU. But MNHQ say she is definitely a troll (WashWithCare was one of her other names). What no one really knows is was she formerly a troll who has now had this devastating thing happen to her or is it all lies? .

It is shocking isn't it? My first thought was of Caz and how this was affecting her

Nat let me know how you get on at the Dr's, i am too embarassed to go yet

Well, we had a much better night here. F has been feeding every 2hrs for over a week. Yeserday i decided i needed to do something (hibernate in my room with F constantly attached for the winter was my first thought) and although it was likely that it was only a growth spurt, the fact that he puked up the last feed he asked for yesterday morning (bout 6.30 after a long night of feeding) suggested that he probably didn't need as much as he thought. Anyway, spoke to my Grandma (who is a bit against BF tbh but very knowledgeable about absolutely everything!) and she suggested i don't pick him up straight away in the night when he stirs, leave him a few minutes and see what he does. He started stirring nearly 3hrs after i put him down, and rather than pick him up and attach him immediately (i have been feeding him without him waking fully) i went to the loo, came back and he was fast asleep again and didn't wake for another hour. It may just coincide with the end of the growth spurt, but either way, only waking twice, not 4 times is distinct improvement!

Alice, exactly the same thing happened with us - I was feeding ds every time he stirred in the night, but at about 3 weeks I realised he was just a noisy little sleeper Went from feeding him every 2 hours in the night to twice!

One of my good friends gave birth to a little boy yesterday afternoon and he took one breath and then he died. I'm so upset for her cos she had a miscarriage this time last year and now this :( I want to send her something but I'm not sure what, I just wish there was something I could do for her. She lives in the US now so no hope of seeing her.

neenz I do lie down and feed (and frequently doze off!) but it's worse for Sam's reflux when I do. The best for him is to be upright for 30 mins after a feed [blinks in disbelief] so that's what I try. Yesterday he was beautiful all day, hardly cried at all for the first time in his whole life. He was such a different child, I kept saying to DH that this is what he'd be like without reflux. Still feeds every two hours though...

alice yes, yes, yes on the piles and :( although if I'm honest I've been constipated since having Sam...yes, that's over 10 weeks. I think it's a combo of not drinking enough while bfing, not enough veg and no exercise. Makes the piles really painful though! and I've not gone to the doc's yet again

I might try moving Sam into his own room this week, although he still seems too small. DD was in her room at 8 weeks but I had pnd with her so I was more ready not to hear her iyswim. I might be able to leave him a bit longer if he's not right there, I tend to scoop him up straight away before he's even whimpered!

Chulita so sorry for your poor friend, i truly can't imagine how horrid that would be.

I tend to suffer a bit with constipation generally, but am now trying to drink more water and now have fruit juice a couple of times a day too (now F's colic seems to have eased i am not being so careful with my diet) I think it is helping. Also drinking a good few gulps of water at night when i feed.

I also think if you are BF then it is easier just to stick them on the boob if they squeak rather than waiting to see if they are actually hungry. F is a noisy sleeper too.

Really must get my arse in gear, need to go into town. How is it fair that it is uphill on the way home when i have bags of shopping and DD on the buggy board?

Big hugs chulita you're having a tough time of it at the moment, hope it improves soon. Have you tried a baby swing for the reflux? A friend of mine swears it saved her sanity!

Sorry not been around much. Night feeds still mostly coinciding with mumsnet shut-down. boo.

alice so jealous you're back to your wedding weight! I'm such a big hephalump and thoroughly fed-up, but just can't seem to stop eating cake

Chulita sorry to hear about your friend, I can only imagine how terrible that would be.

Chulita hope you are settling in to your new house, I live just north of worcester so not too far from you, I'm sure once you get settled in you will find more things to keep you occupied and meet new people.

Haven't posted for a while but have been keeping up with what is going on with everyone, sympathies to those still not getting much sleep and jealous of those with routines and babies that sleep in the day!!

DD is 8 weeks tomorrow and is having her first set of vaccinations, has anyone breastfeed whilst their LO was receiving the injections? There is some research that says it helps soothe the baby but I wondered if anyone had had any experience of it?

I have a question about feeding, I was purely demand feeding for the first month and then ran into issues where Nina was feeding very frequently, not getting enough hindmilk and becoming very colicky as she was getting too much lactose (according to the BF consultant) she also was diagnosed with a tongue tie. We had the tongue tie snipped and her feeding improved, and we went to 3/4 hours between feeds. Over the last few days she has started doing hunger cues (poking tongue out etc) an hour after feeds and to be honest I was ignoring this until she cried or it was 3/4 hours since the last feed started, I then panicked and thought I was being a bad mummy so have started to feed pretty much as the cues appear however she is now feeding little and often and this morning has green poo, should I continue purely demand feeding or should I go back to trying to stretch the feeds out?

Have a good day all :)

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't posted much recently. S is being a total angel (he's just so rewarding at the moment - most of the time he sits there amusing himself, but whenever I get a chance to bend down and say hello to him, he gives me a beaming smile and a gorgeous little coo in return). He's still mostly feeding twice in the night, but only once last night, so I got a good chunk of sleep. I do wish he'd settle in the evenings, though - he doesn't usually crash out until about 10pm. He's not particularly grumpy in the evenings now, but you can't quite relax in the same way when they're not actually asleep, I find.

On the downside, DS1 is just monstrous at the moment. Constant whinging and tantrums, and just general negativity - every suggestion I make (i.e. 'do you want to go and do something really fun?') is met with a sulky 'no, I don't want to do anything'. It's driving me demented. I dragged him to soft play this morning and once there he had a fantastic time, which was lovely, but of course we then had a 20 minute scream when it was time to come home... I'm trying really hard to remind myself that he's going through a hell of a lot at the moment (new baby plus potty training), but boy it's hard to keep my patience.

Chulita I was so so sad to hear about your friend's baby. It really does put my gripes into perspective. And the reflux is hard. I'm pretty sure that's what DS1 had, though it could have been really bad colic. Whatever it was, it pretty much cured itself by 12 weeks, so hang in there!!! With DS, he basically lived in the sling all day, and we propped the moses basket up at a crazy angle at night (so that he ended up in a slumped little heap at the bottom, sometimes, but it definitely helped). And white noise was very helpful. But to be honest, all of those things only tinkered around the edges - he was still a nightmare most of the time. It will get better soon, but big hugs in the meantime.

Oh, and re piles, I don't get those but I do have a fissure that pregnancy/childbirth makes worse. I did brave the doctor after DS1 was born, and it was a bit embarrassing (having someone poke their finger up your bum is never fun ), but it helped to reassure me that it was nothing serious. I just use over the counter cream (apply each time you open your bowels) and it does really help.

Elusive, I can't get Daniel to settle in the evenings either. He goes to sleep about 7 but only for about an hour, then he is awake for a couple of hours then goes back to sleep. He was asleep by 10pm last night, I didn't know what to do with myself! He woke at 1.30 and 5am so not so bad. I had a lie-in till 8am cos the DTs just play in their room . Sorry you are struggling with your DS .

Chulita, how awful for your friend. Do they know why it happened? I totally get the sitting up for 30mins thing - I had to do that with DS1. I took him to an osteopath and I swear he was like a different child. Not sure that was reflux though. It only took two sessions and it was £30 a go. It might be worth a try?

Alice, great news on the feeding - one of the reasons I like having Daniel in his own room is cos I only hear him when he really cries. It's hard not to pick them up as soon as they start fussing. I am reading a great book during night feeds - Race Of A Lifetime about the run-up to the last US election. It is much better than just sitting there thinking 'hurry up I want to get back to bed'

Daniel had his 8wk check today (all fine) and his first jabs. He was very brave

Anna, I've just switched (at 8 weeks) from totally demand feeding to more scheduled feeding, but every 2.5ish hours. I've also making sure to offer both breasts at each feed - my ds was feeding little and often too. If he's hungry before though I do feed him, but generally 2.5 hours seems the right spacing for him.

If you're worried about green poo/too much foremilk have you tried block feeding? You can still feed as often as your DD demands it, but just feed from the same side for a block of time. So for example from 7am-10am all feeds are from the left breast, then 10am-1pm from the right, then left again 1pm-4pm etc. That way you ensure she gets lots of hindmilk.

Hi Anna, I BF'd both the twins during their jabs - they still cried but I am sure it helped. With Daniel she asked me to put him over my knee so I couldn't BF but I did straight after and it did soothe him.

I would try to feed Nina every 3hrs unless she is really crying for milk in between. Offer both breasts too. At 8wks she should be able to go a good stretch between feeds.

chulita your poor chum must be devastated...looking at my little one lying sleeping here I don't know how I'd go on if he stopped breathing, or how I'd give up his little body if he did. When I think of caz having to do that, I just kind of stop there because it's probably one of the worst possible things I can imagine. Glad you've had a glimpse of chilled out Sam...It hopefully won't be long til he's like that all the time. Can't believe how close to 12 weeks we all are now...seems like yesterday we were fat, grumpy women shouting 'come on, babies!'.

Re piles...oh for the love of Christ, my poor bottom. I've been downing pints of Ribena daily - alas not enough fruit juice & veggies - but the breastfeeding seems to just take the water from my body like a sponge. At my 6 week check on Monday I didn't mention it to my doctor as she's my neighbour and it was embarrassing enough having her do the internal exam & hear that I wasn't likely to be needing contraception any time soon without moaning to her about my botty. Will be trying over the counter stuff if it doesn't improve soon.

Bit :( to hear about all your big, healthy babies...A is still a titch (just into his 0-3 month babygros today) and we're seeing the health visitor tomorrow. I know he's happy & healthy but I'm just hoping his weight isn't an issue..I know someone has to have the baby on the 25th centile but I'm investing so much time breastfeeding him that I wish it wasn't me. I wanted to punch the chav teenage mummy that came out the baby clinic in front of me last week and boasted 'yus, 14 pounds' to her pals.

Oh and re expressing, we must be all crap together as i can only get 2-4oz out at a time either which for us is as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to being useful for giving me a break..he gets the bottle , looks for more & ends up on the boob anyway.

Snap Hector - I can only get 2-4 oz when expressing and so El's night bottle gives me a chance to get in the world's quickest shower and that's about it. It's a bit infuriating given how much milk seems to leak from my boobs the whole time.

Chulita - god, your poor friend. Words can't even sum up how wrenching and heartbreaking that must be. I'm afraid I have no suggestions for something to send, but I'm sure a care package of some sort must be v welcome.

Re piles - didn't know dehydration could make things worse. I never seem to be able to drink enough water at the mo. Have been trying to munch dried apricots and prunes when I remember. Will let you know what my dr says (once I've summoned the courage to go).

6.30 and pitch black outside...bloomin winter is definitely on the way...