November 2010: Welcome to life on the other side

[bunnygirl80]

Pull up a chair and help yourself to a LARGE glass of wine

Welcome to the dark side the wonderful world of motherhood

thanks fenouille and lainey, i have had a chat with my sis on msn etc, its times like this its shit that she is in manchester :( she is ok as she is going to be.

lainey, merryn also has a cough/cold and its been harder to feed her etc and she only has 20-25oz most days anyway, so lol at you worrying at 18oz, its only recently that merryn has gone up from that as her average!! she is 15lb 4oz at last weigh in a few weeks ago, so it doesnt seem to make any differene weight wise!

i am going to see how merryn goes, have been giving calpol and if necessary will take her to the dr/ th ething to watch for re breathing is if they are recessing when they breathe ie pulling into their ribcage, you can see this if you strip them off, if they are then they are having to use extra muscles to breath and yhou MUST take them to be checked over. ds4 was kept in at birth as he was doing this and he was prone to chest infections when little and had to go to emergeancy drs a few times, fine now tho :) it is awful when they are poorly :(

and lainey it is a bit crap he didnt do anythign for mothers day!! my dp isnt alway sgood but this year he did remember and i got cards, flowers and a new muffin tray!

How awful for your poor sister 4mad, such a hard thing to go through at any time never mind today .

"Regarding sleep I find that we can put her down and she will self settle during the day and first thing at night, but she won't calm down without being fed in the night. That was OK when she was only waking once a night but she's been waking two or three times a night all this week and I'm feeling a little frazzled." Thanks Fen, all I had to do was change he to she and you wrote what I would have said perfectly!

Lottie is still refusing formula, and is now really constipated, I've stopped the solids until the problem's solved as she's obviously really uncomfortable. I'm also worried it's the bit of formula we did get down her that's caused the problem so not sure what to do.

Got home made cards, chocolates and flowers for mothers day, we went to see MIL for the day which was nice, Dh cooked dinner for us all. Only down side is on the way home a large Van crashed into the back of us causing a large amount of damage to our new car. Thankfully everyone was OK which I guess is the important thing, but I could do without the hassle!

4mad your poor sister

hmm and fen I'm glad I'm not the only one with a baby that just can't resettle at night. Had been feeling really down about it as all my RL mum friends have babies that are well on the way to sleeping through. It's nice to know I'm not some sort of bad mother who has created a non-sleeping monster baby

hmm poor Lottie. Will was up from 4-5:30am trying to poo - I think I've over done the baby rice the last couple of days, so he's onto pears, apricots and peas today to help him get things moving again

Hope you get your car sorted soon

Nothing for me for mother's day yesterday, so I assume that means we're celebrating the Aussie version (which happens to fall on the day we land back in the UK so I doubt a severely jetlagged DH will be up to much)

Baby sleep boot camp has started today - so far it's 1-0 to me as William went down for his nap with no dummy and was asleep within 5 mins. I'm determined to have him sleeping better by the end of the week as DH is off to Vegas on a stag do leaving me all alone for 7 days, and there is no way I'll survive on 5 hours broken sleep a night while he's gone

hmm, fen, bunny....sleeping through the night? what is that??? K has NEVER slept through. she wakes up at least once at night for a feed arnd 3am then goes down till 8am.

hmm, hope your car gets fixed soon

no celebrations for mothers day. DH did ALL the nappy changes though. does that count?

"Nothing done for mothers day here. Am childishly upset that dh didn't even get a card from ds for me. Silly i know." Lainey you took the words out of my mouth!

K is 5m old now and still a skinny minny. just under 15lb so hovering at 40something percentile? HV says her growth will slow down and just monitor for a week or so more. and also to hold off weaning her. have resisted giving her baby rice or cereal but have let her nom on apple, pear, carrot sticks. the other day she gave me a fright when she managed to chomp off a sizeable bit of apple (size of melon seed) and refused to spit it out. gummed on it for i don't know how long and swallowed it cos next time i checked her mouth it was gone! i thought they aren't supposed to eat solid bits so soon?!?!

my local childrens centre activities are suspended for gawd knows how long and i don't quite know what to do with her!

So it seems like baby sleep boot camp day 1 was a success - William went to bed at 7:30pm, dreamfeed at 10:30, woke at 3am (wouldn't resettle so I fed him) and then slept until I got him up at 7am.....that's the longest he's ever slept for

The only thing that made me a bit is that all the methods that I've tried so far to teach him to self settle with me nearby just lead to him either getting very wound up that I'm not picking him up or treating it as some sort of game, so I just had to stay out of the room and leave him to it. If he'd escalted from a tired cry to a distress cry I would have gone straight back, but thankfully he never did.....I actually have a suspicion he's been able to settle himself all along and I've just never given him the opportunity.

Here's hoping day 2 is as successful

Hey all. Manic weekend - youngest sister's birthday weekend away at Centre Parcs this weekend, been so excited for ages but on Thursday night found out that middle sister was in hospital... after 4 years of ttc, 2 ectopic pregnancies, 1 tube removed & 1 round of IVF, she had cramps etc & scan revealed no heartbeat at 10 weeks. So gutted - definitely feeling your pain & frustration, 4mad, hope your sister will be ok.

Anyway, we went on the holiday anyway, determined to enjoy it for youngest sister's sake - was good fun and after surgery on Friday, middle sister and her DH joined us for the day - mother's day of all days. She is such a trooper.

To top it all off, I then spent Sunday night with extreme V&D, have been useless with Jessica all day (thank god for my mum being around today), plus youngest sister & future sister in law have both gotten this sick bug now too. Just desperately hoping that Jessica doesn't get it although saying that, fed her at 5.15, put her down for what should have been a quick nap at 6 and she's still asleep now!! Doesn't bode well for a lie in tomorrow morning!

Off to bed now, am shattered! Hope you're all feeling better than me....

Hi all. Popping in briefly to bookmark. Back later I hope.

Hope all mummies and babies well.

So sorry to hear about your sisters 4mad and SGJ. Seems so unfair when you see people who have children that can't look after them properly, yet pop them out like rabbits, when there are people out there who struggle and would make fab parents! Know a few people like that and it's just wrong!

Had Evie weighed today and she is 15.1 at 22 weeks, following the 50% centile thing. Seemed dinky in comparison to the baby next to us who was 20 weeks and weighed 21lb!!!
HV asked what he was eating and his mum said he has 3 meals a day - Breakfast (porridge or something) a yoghurt at lunch with water and pasta for dinner! He's only having 2 bottles a day! Oops :( HV wasn't very
Impressed I don't think and said he should be having a lot more milk and less food! She also said he was off the scale on the centile line and although he was only 20 weeks, would be classed as very over weight! I'd be sooo embarrased, especially as people could over hear!

Sooo proud of my little lady! She's sitting up on her own now and can even reach for toys and steady herself Without toppling over :) she sleeps Amazingly and is just perfect! Love love love her sooo much!............hope I've not tempted fate on the sleep front now!! and of course would love her no matter what!

Vix I did a toy swap for a few weeks with a friend who has a baby the same age the other day so Evie gets to see different things (and I get to listen to different tunes!!)
May help keep things a bit more interesting if there's anyone you could do the same with?

oh SGJ, how awful for your sister :( its heartbreaking isnt it :( heres hoping they both get bfp soon and that all goes well xxxxxxx

bunny impressed at babybootcamp, lol, sounds like you are doing well with sleep.

am afraid merryns sleep has regressed, i think its partly 4mth regression and partly that she had a stinking cold and cough like me, the only thing thats settled her the last two nights is me picking herup and walking around, which at 4am in the morning is not what i want to be doing, its exhausting, fingers crossed she gets over this cold asap! other than that tho she is good as ever, she looks poorly bless her, all glassy eyed etc but she is still happy little thing, smiling and cooing away, but she keeps rubbing at her nose and gets very frustrated that she cant suck and breath at the same time. have just realised she is 4mths old exactly today, not sure on her weight, but she was 15lb 4oz a couple of weeks ago and she seems to have developed chunky thighs, still doesnt drink any more than 25oz a day, generally a bit less than that, but seems happy enough [shrugs]

entertainment wise, i have four entertainers who do a fabulous job, honestly merryn adores her brothers, they get huge smiles and giggles if htey so much as look in her direction, she is captivated by them and they love her, not sure if that will continue once she is mobile and can trash their stuff. and re getting mobile she is really trying to roll over at times now but can still only get onto her side, she is also trying to pull forward to sitting etc a lot, so am sure it wont be too long before she is sitting, she likes being sat propped up on the sofa, cushions etc.

boohoo to those partners that didnt bother for mothers day, shame on them! and i hope poorly peeps get better soon xxx

SGJ such heartbreaking news for your sister I really hope she gets her much longed for baby soon

4mad hope merryn's feeling better soon. Wish I could borrow one of your troupe of enterntainers - I think Will gets bored of just having me to play with the whole time

Sleep continues to be great here - he slept from 7pm-4am-7am last night and I feel like a whole new woman Will seems to be in much better spirits too now he's finally back to getting a good night's sleep. DH is off to Vegas tonight, here's hoping he wins big and comes back with lots of pressies for us

This thread has gone real quiet. Where is everyone?

I'm here! It's like a forgotten wasteland. Can only think that those with older dc are enduring enjoying the easter holidays?

I'm still here....just thought I might look kind of needy if I had two posts in a row

Took Will on his first plane trip today. He was actually really well behave, although he just didn't understand BFing on take off/landing. He wasn't that hungry so he looked puzzled, latched on then changed his mind and pulled off for a look around leaving me exposed for eveyone to see. Add in the arms and legs flailing and kicking the poor man next to me who was already trying to avert his eyes from the gratuitous display of boobage and I might as well have tried to BF a large octopus . Gave him a dummy on the way back instead, which he managed to spit onto the floor, but as it was the only one I had I just dusted it off and gave it back to him. Am sure it's good for his immune system to be exposed to whatever lives on the floor of a Qantas commuter plane

Hello, I'm here too. Just feeding in my office before doing the lunchtime handover. DH gets to spend the afternoon shovelling butternut squash purée into Aino and trying to persuade her to nap. I wanted to hold off with weaning for a bit longer, but she didn't! We're just giving a bit of food once a day in addition to the usual milk but it's going down very well.
We flew a couple of weeks ago and Lufthansa couldn't have been more helpful - the stewardess brought me a pillow and blanket to make me comfortable while feeding and kept bringing me extra water; very good service.
bunnygirl I thought germs were good, builds up a strong immune system, that's my excuse too.

I keep checking in too, just lurking rather than posting!

Lainey, enduring is the right word. Convinced a very reluctant ds he needed a haircut, I've always cut it myself in the past but he point blank refuses to let me near it. Managed to get him in car, nearly at the barbers when it starts pouring with rain, Dd loudly exclaims she hopes the hairdresser doesn't chop ds's ears off, Lottie does a huge poo, Ds starts screaming then promptly falls asleep, we all drive back home sans haircut.

Glad the flight went well bunny, good practice for your long flight back to the UK, when do you head over? I'm presuming it's just for a visit and not a permanent move back? Dh finally turned down the job offer in Melbourne last week, it was such a hard decision and think he really wanted to go for it, but I just feel up to my eyeballs in everything at the moment and a move to the other side of the world just felt too stressful right now.

Glad the weaning's going well Cardi, Lottie's decided she's not that interested so pretty much still ebf here at the moment, , she's 26 weeks now so hoping she gets a better hang of things soon.

bunny glad the plane trip went well with Will.
hmm what a nightmare re hairdressers, but the post did make me chuckle (sorry)
For those of you weaning, how did you know it was 'time'? Finn is almost 20 weeks and I am voth dreading and looking forward to introducing solids, but just not sure when to do it.
He has 5 bottles of milk a day and takes between6-7oz so 30-35 a day. What signs should I be looking out for?
Took Finn to London on my own yesterday on the train. Was a bit nervous as Old trains and not really made for pushchairs, but lovely guard helped me on and plonked me in first class! Met up with Dsis and dbil-to-be as there were over here sorting out some wedding stuff on their way back to Dubai from holiday. First time she has met Finn, so v lovely.
Finn loved the train and was fascinated by the changing light.
I had a lovely man come up to me to tell me what well behaved baby
I have, which also happened a restaurant the other week. I think he was just glad screaming didn't ruin his commute home.

Taking Finn to doctors avout his skin today, though typically it doesn't look anywhere near as bad as it has done. Fingwrs crossed we get something that works as it has spread all over his face and head. Eczema i think.

lainey I felt Will was ready for solids when he started stealing my food The "official" signs to look out for are things like increased milk intake, increased night waking, showing an interest in your food, putting stuff in their mouths. I think I timed it about right as he's eaten everything we've put in front of him, while some of my RL mum friends have battled with babies who just aren't interested, or who still have a strong tongue thrust reflex. I actually enjoy it alot more than I thought I would, probably because it's something to do with him for half an hour three times a day

Glad you had a nice trip to London. It's lovely when people compliment you on having a good baby

I wasn't sure if it was time to wean - had wanted to hold off until 6 months, but Aino had been grabbing for things off our plates for a couple of weeks, and moving her little jaws as she watched us eat. DH was keen to try her on food and as I've been working afternoons and he's been at home it has worked out really well. DH loves cooking, even pureed carrot.
Major feelings of guilt here - we have just been told that we have a creche place, she seems so small to leave with someone else for part of the day.

lainey hooray for the guard (and well behaved babies).

Hooray, hooray, it's injections day! Last ones & Jessica didn't even notice the first 2 as she was trying to backwards somersault off my lap! Now we're home & she's sleeping it off - last time she slept for 2 hours afterwards so I'm settling down with a couple of pastries & a cup of tea, ahhhhh.

Had her weighed at clinic though & she's only put on 2 ounces in 2 weeks, despite starting to feed on both sides at most feeds now! Guess it must be all the rolling she's been doing the last few days. She's now 15lb 3 at 18 & half weeks.

Re weaning, the HV today told me to wait until 24 weeks and then I "wouldnt have to bother with the annoying purée stage" - seemed to me her 'advice' was more of an opinion & as I'm quite looking forward to puree-ing food, we shall be doing a mix of purees & BLW as I see fit, thank you very much!

Yipee, Lottie has finally decided to start rolling, considering she's now 26 weeks she sure likes to take things slow!

Still not getting the whole food thing though, she either cries or just pushes it back out with her tongue . She shows no interest when I eat either, I now weigh less than I did pre-pregnancy due to a little fat breastfeeding monster! Have finally defrosted the freezer though so will be bulk food making soon.

Glad jabs weren't too traumatic SGJ.

Hi everyone, I've been lurking too :)

Glad to hear Lufty treated you well Cardi, we've got to book a weekend soon in Germany to visit DH's Grandma and we'll be using them. Wedding season's starting soon too and we're off to Portugal and the UK this year so lots of flying coming up.

Norry doesn't seem all that interested in food either hmm. He suddenly started taking a massive bottle at lunchtime at the CM and he's 'chomping' when he watches others eat so we were sure he'd gobble food down, but he just doesn't seem that interested. He will eat some sweet potato and pear, but he doesn't seem to like carrot or apple and even with the things he does like he only eats a minicule amount before getting bored. Just taking it slowly and trying a little bit every day.

DH sent me an email at work today complaining that a conference he's presenting at has been moved to the 31st Oct - 3rd Nov and, "Grrr, it's a bank holiday but I'll have to spend it travelling." "3rd Nov ring any bells? Someone's birthday perhaps?" He'd completely forgotten! He did offer to cancel but I think we're going to solve the problem by us going with him and spending the week in Singapore (yay!) and possibly going to Malaysia afterwards. I was a bit though as Norry's birth date was actually one of the conference dates, not like it was hidden in a range of dates, IYSWIM.

Quite jealous of those of you back to pre-baby weight. I haven't lost an ounce since the birth. Even starting work hasn't shifted it. And I'm getting a bit fed up by male colleagues that look at my belly when meeting me for the first time since my mat leave. I suppose it's better than looking at my cleavage but

Very envious of your weight loss hmm. Still got 6lbs to shed before I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight and it appears to be being a bit stubborn! Not sure the reintroduction of wine has helped tho! Oops :)
Been out walking loads this week tho and trying to cut out on my snacking so hopefully wont look too bad in a bikini by the time we go on holiday!

So proud of Evie, she's sitting up unaided all the time now and makes getting her dressed and playtime alot easier! No longer do I have to come back in the room every few minutes because she's rolled over and isn't impressed about being on her tummy! She's 23 weeks and was 15lb 1oz at last weigh in last week so weird to see her sitting when she's pretty dinky

hmm yay for Lottie rolling. I'm now weighing less than I did pre-pg too - must be related to Will having gone from the 25th percentile at birth to the 90th at his last weigh in

fen it's things like that which are the reason why I managed to gain remote access to DH's work calendar - that way he has no excuse for forgetting important dates

babybean can Evie get from lying to sitting by herself yet or do you have to sit her up? William is sitting really well by himself but he tends to launch himself forwards to crawling position and then he can't get back up and he starts crying after a while if I just leave him lying there.

William seems to be working on some new skill when he's lying on his tummy. Not sure whether he's trying to crawl or get up to sitting but whatever it is involves lots of grunting and thrashing of arms and legs. So far all he's achieved is rotating around through 180 degrees while still in the same spot

Oh dear, I'm still a big blob! I'm still a stone over my pre-pregnancy weight. Absolutely nothing to do with all the chocolate I've been eating recently....... Repeats to self, must give up food, must give up food!

Abbie is still not rolling. She'll roll onto her side and then roll back but won't go all the way over. She will wriggle round on her back in a big circle but that's about the extent of her activity. She likes to be on her feet and enjoys spending time in her leapfrog activity pod.

I have no idea how much she weighs as I haven't been to clinic for weeks now. The HV was a bit funny with Ds wanting to play with the toys last time we went. She kept telling him they were for babies. He is only 3 next month 2 so of course he's going to want to look at them. Abbie is a bit of a pickle about feeding. If she doesn't want the boob, there is no way she'll take it until she's ready. It's really hard to get enough into her during the day to help her go through the night which just isn't happening! I have started weaning and she certainly loves her food. I've started with purees but will add finger foods once she hits 26wks.

I've potty trained Ds this week. I was dreading it tbh as he's the sort of child who can be very strong willed and it could have gone either way but luckily he's been fantastic and only had 1 accident on day 1 and 2 and by days 3 and 4 has been taking himself off to the potty or loo and going with no accidents. We haven't ventured out yet. I need to get one of those portable potties as he's not quite at the stage where he can anticipate the need to go. Ie. We're going to the shops, go and do a wee. He can't yet produce on demand.

I'm still about a stone over pre-pregnancy weight too but I know it took me a year to lose it after having DD so I'm trying not to stress too much!
I've been lurking a bit but too busy to post between holidays and James having ear/ chest infections... he's still not rolling, or sitting, just keeps piling on the weight.
Like hmm 's Lottie, James is still pretty much ebf and not really interested in food, so hoping he gets the idea soon as he's 6 months old in 2 weeks. I'm finding it really hard not to compare him to DD who was a dream sleeper, and was sitting confidently, rolling and helping herself to food by this age... guess they just all do things in their own time!
Well done ebb on the potty training, DD is 2.3 and was quite interested around the time J was born, but now won't even go near the potty so I hope she comes back round to the idea eventually.
BTW, have time to post as J has been napping since 11.45 (now 3.30pm)- this must be a record?!