September 2010 - we've met our little ones now!

[comixminx]

Or most of them at least - there are some late September ones still to come!

sassy - I had cracked nipples in the early days of feeding DD. I brought a cream from boots that cost about £10. Its name begins with L and its made by lasinoh. It costs more than the other brands, but is worth it. Also I brought some nipple shields. They were a pain to use... but they really did protect my nipples and the relief was amazing!!! I only had to use them for 24 to 48 hours and supprisingly my nipples had healed enough that I could cope again without them. HTH

Belle 5+3

Thats the one I was talking about Cluds! It took me so long to complete the post that you beat me to it!

Thanks everyone. The nipple shields sound like heaven right now. Will definately be looking into them. I am being extra careful with breast feeding.....pushing babies into my boobs so they are not pulling the nipples down when sucking, making sure their mouths are WIDE open and also smothering my nipples in kamillason! I hate the idea of them eating cream, but neither of them has shown any indication that anything is any different. But i have reasoned that in the short term it is better for them than having to switch to formula.
I'm still sore but it is improving- i'm not finding myself gripping the babies in pain quite as much!!!!! (unintentionally obviously)

Just ordered Lansinoh Lanolin on Amazon after reading some reviews. It was £8.85 with free delivery. Can't wait- if it's as good as everyone says! Thanks again.

Well it's official.......I have thrush in my breasts/nipples. Jacob has it all inside his mouth. I asked the consultant when they were 3 weeks old if the white in Jacob's mouth was thrush and was told that it was just milky residue because it was only on his tongue. I'm fastly losing confidence in the medical profession. The doctor today said Isobel doesn't have it in her mouth and has only give me m edication for him, but why then is it in both breasts when i don't swap them over? Put this to her and she said she didn't know. I will be giving Isobel themedicine too, otherwise we can just all keep getting re-infected surely!? The pain is unbearable, nearly jumped in car last night to get formula. If dd hadn't been in bed and no-one to watch her, i would have. Decided to suck chocolate as Jacob does his worst (his boob is double has bad as Isobel's) :(

I think that if he'd had it at 3 weeks sassy34264 you would have known about it before now, baby's do often have white tongues from milk. Make sure that the treatment is working, the first one I was given didn't get rid of the thrush so I suffered for another 10 days before they tried something else. Within 3 days of the new treatment I was feeling so much better and wish I'd questioned it before! I would definitely treat them both just to be on the safe side it won't do Isobel any harm, also make sure if you're using nipple cream you get a new tube as it is very easy to spread and you may reinfect yourself from where you touch the tube. Feel better soon x

So here comes a poo question! Luke has been having poo in most of his nappies until Sunday when he has just done one HUGE one a day, just wondered how this compared to others?

4weeks+1

Cinnamon Not necessarily, it is more likely to be passed on through cracked nipples. If they're not cracked, you don't always get it and you can have it with no symptoms; so i may have had it a while.
10 days!!!! I couldn't have coped with 1 more. I've had it since fri, that's 5 days and i was ready for throwing in the towel.....you most be tougher than me!

Can't help you with the poo situation, Isobel has a poo in every nappy and Jacob is not far off. Oh the joys!

Well I didn't know that, mine were cracked from 10days and I was amazed how quickly they healed once the thrush was gone. I was very determined and I am stubborn! Cried every feed and couldn't cuddle dh for a long time but thought of not breastfeeding upset me too much to stop. When DS1 is being a little bugger and won't give in/except help etc DH always says I wonder where he gets that from. I must really be a pain to live with!

My DP's face lit up when he saw them. They are engorged so look hard and massive! I'm like.....'DON'T even think about it'!!!! Poor guy. How ironic (and frustrating) that your girlfriends boobs look better than they have every done and you can't touch them. Christ, i wouldn't let him bloody breathe on them right now! :o

Hi Banana - yep thats right I am FF - how are you getting on with it? Oliver is now 2 weeks, 2 days and is taking 150ml (5oz) every 3-4 hours. He is a very hungry baby!!

Got in to a routine with the bottles and am making up 4 in the morning and 4 at night. Seems to be working ok! Oliver has a little bit of colic which was keeping us up from about 10pm to 1am - but this seems to have eased by using infacol.

Touch wood - he is realatively good at night!

Chelle.x

Cinnamon - In answer to your poo question... Belle used to poo every nappy. At about 3-4 weeks this stopped and she started to do one giant poo every other day. TMI warning- It was the same colour and consistancy as before but would overflow the nappy... couldn't believe she could produce that much! Anyway she's now 5 weeks and hasn't done one in 4 days! HV said this was fine and bf babies can do this. Apparently the milk has what they need and nothing extra so can all get used with no wastage. As long as poo is of normal colour and consistency don't worry.
They did recommend I up my fluid intake so going to try that tomorrow (leaving it until then as I don't want to be up all night going to the loo!).

Sassy - I'm glad you're getting it sorted and fingers crossed the antibiotics kick in soon.

Belle 5+4

sassy, very glad to hear you've got the answer! Good luck with it improving quickly, I hope.

Re the poo question - Aphra is doing a poo most nappy changes, some of which are pretty sizeable - or as we say here, a-poo-calyptic! At one point she was doing less than that but that was when my bf wasn't going quite as well and I suspect she might not have been getting quite as much as she needed - but yes, we also heard that it's ok if the baby doesn't poo for a few days at a time...

5 weeks + 6 days

cinnamon Jack spent 2 weeks dirtying lots of nappies in a day and then seemed to settle into doing one every 27 hours or there abouts. He baffled me yesterday though by going all day without. He's just released the evil stuff and it's the first time for 33 hours. HV and MW all say not to worry and they can generally go 48 hours ish without needing to poo. I am, unfortunately bottle feeding now though so think this will make a difference from bf.

Does anyone have awake times in the middle of the night. Every time I say to myself that Jack has slept way too much in the day, he is then awake for around 3 long hours in the middle of the night. I'm fighting with myself to wake him up as he just seems sooooo sleepy and I fel like he should be asleep. I'm worried though that he's getting a false sense of day and night.
Can anyone give me advice???
3 weeks + 2

Sorry beaditAli have no idea about your night time problem as Luke is never awake for 3 hours at a time at any time! He starts crying to fall asleep after 1/2hr to 1hr awake. You could try waking him and see what happens if he's more disrupted you can always stop waking him up I'm sure it won't do him any harm, he will go back to sleep if he's that determined to be asleep.

Thanks for your replies to my question. Stickhasgrownup I always drink a pint of water with every feed and my wee is quite pale so I think I am hydrated enough, Luke has plenty of wet nappies so I think that's ok.

Hello ladies. Pleased to report that bf is getting better and Harlyn's latching technique has really improved. He does however seem to feed (guzzle) for ages and ends up being sick after almost every feed. Its like he doesn't know when to stop. Even when he seems to have had enough, after about 5/10 mins, he wants more! Is this normal????

Also, his little cord hasn't dropped off yet and even though i clean it with warm water, it is starting to really smell. How long did it take for your baby's cord to fall off?

1 week +6

Hi beaditAli Maria-Ann will normally wake at 4am and then she's awake till about 9am think this is mostly due to colic. I found that if i give her a bath about 8.30 and then her feed she won't wake till 5am and then she will go back off after her feed.

I'm hopeing this will continue :)
3 weeks + 1

sassy poor you, it sounds really painful, glad you have soneting to ease the pains. apart from that how are you doing feeding twins? I'm finding it a struggle co-ordinating the bedtime feed for dc3 and lucy, never mind every feed. Hats off to you and every day you manage is a huge achievement.
i've given in and got some nipple cream as lucy can feed for ages and even my bra was hurting them. feels loads better now.

Jodey the cord is usually off between 4 and 10 days. if it is smelling then get the mw to have a look at it, if you gently tug it does it look ready to come off or does it bleed?

8 weeks +4 or 2 months old tomorrow

Hi everyone,

beaditAli, Louis generally sleeps quite well from 11pm until around 3-4am, with 1 or 2 feeds. Then he's often very hard to settle unless he's lying on one of us (then he mostly will sleep between feeds). It seems worse if he's been asleep most of the evening, but I haven't had the heart to wake him either. Also, if he's awake in the evening, he's usually cluster feeding, which can be pretty knackering for me. He was having periods where he was completely wide awake for an hour or so in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, but we just kept these times as boring as possible and he seems to have got past them on his own.

6 weeks today

Aaaghh, am soooooooo tired... am going to see if the girls can go a bit longer overnight tonight instead of waking them up to feed... wish me luck!

JodeyLea - my MW said not to worry about the stump smelling so long as the area round the cord (on the tummy) wasn't red and sore looking. The girls' stumps took ages to fall off completely - they still had little black bits attached until last week. I would go easy on washing it tbh - it needs to dry up.

4 wks+3

jodey he's just trying to get used to the speed of your milk and as your boobs are still building supply they are probably pretty powerful he's then trying to gulp down the milk and probably taking in lots of air too, which then makes him windy and likely to be sick, that's why then 10 mins later he wants more cause he's hungry again because he threw half of it back up!!

Try not to get disheartened your milk will calm down and he will get used to the speed and flow, I went through this with my DD and the same is now happening with Flynn, feeding lying down seems to slow down the speed of my milk, also drinking fennel tea and taking acidolphillus (sorry prob spelt wrong!) tablets seems to really help with wind/colic.

You're doing great keep going!!

It's been 3 wks and just catching up with this thread now!

Baby Sebastian was born on 21st Sept after a very long 48 hours in labour and ending up with forceps delivery. He's doing great but I'm still healing.

Have been reading the posts about BF and thrush with interest as we have just been diagnosed today. I thought it was because we weren't getting the right latch and am relieved there seems to be an answer. Off to GP tomorrow first thing to get our RX.

DP is upstairs bouncing the wee bubs as he doesn't seem to stop crying from about 8pm until the early hours. I'm dreading tomorrow morning as we usually do our catching up on sleep between 7am and noon!

So good to hear all the other mums stories. Gotta go, I think it's my turn to walk the floor....

Hi all feels like ages since I posted.
Beaditali - Try not to worry about it too much at this stage. They are not awake at any period long enough to have a sense of night and day. I would only wake him if he starts hitting the 6-8 weeks and its an issue. I had this with both mine so far and Phoebe can be more awake some nights. But I have noticed that she tends to be more awake after every other feed so one just happens to be at night. I tried with DS2 to wake him and it is nearly impossible at this age to keep them awake and they get really upset bless them.
BFing going alright this time round. I have given her a bottle at 6pm tho just so I can get the boys sorted and off to bed easily with little disruption for them. Think in another two weeks I will introduce another bottle or two to half and half for a while. Im finding it difficult balancing breast feeding with everything else. The boys are stil demanding and I feel Im not giving them enough time. Other than that just trying to relax and not worry about too much and enjoy my little expanded family.

Thanks for the advice. I do think, for now, it's a case of just going with his timings as he's so young. (considering throwing the GF books out the window) Thankfully last night DH and Jack slept downstairs so I slept from 10pm til 7am. I was really upset though before going to bed. I think because I feel so guilty for not bfing then tears get worse thinking about the pooch. Not sure if it is a little bit of the baby blues or tiredness and missing doggy.....?
He was awake yet again though from around 6pm to midnight. Just seems soooooooo so long for him to be awake... despite bath time and plenty feeds. Wonder if it could be a growth spurt too as he's feeding more often but less quantity. He doesn't cry during this period just big wondering eyes wide awake.
HV came yesterday and Jack weighs 11lbs already and is 62cms long. I think he'll be 8ft tall when he's 18!
3 weeks + 3

Just another post for you all to giggle at. If anyone read my tale of the ridiculous time we had in hospital...... to top that off when I registered the little man the other day the hospital have recorded a different date of birth! Cue the hour long questioning to convince them I was Mummy! I think our LOs could run Mid Yorkshire Maternity Services with more precision!

beaditali Definately through the gina ford book out the window. 99.9% of unnew mums will tell you it is a load of rubbish. I think the woman is an unemotional crack pot......to put it lightly. She just makes you feel like a failure cos the babies will not co-operate with her bloody daft ideas. (sorry if anyone really believes in her, i just don't)

debs75 The breast feeding was going good until this happened. Praying for the pain to go quickly and then it will be less of a chore and more like the bonding experience it was. I love the fact that i am sustaining my own children and like cinnamon i can be very determind (i prefer that to stubborn, cinnamon:o) when i set my mind to it. Especially if someone has told me i won't be able to do it (which they did when i was pregnant) My eyes narrow and i think......i'll show you. It must be my demeanour or something, people always underestimate me!!! :)