June 2008: new year, new diets, new resolutions, but when push comes to shove creme eggs are still the solution!

[KnittingRocks]

Sorry, couldn't cope with Christmas anymore!

Pain relief - For me none of the pain relief options seemed to suit me, I was put off by possible side effects, or big needles involved (big wimp!), I did use gas and air but that was next to useless as apparently I don't inhale properly. If they had had another option I would have taken it and I can totally understand why people go down the drugs route.
With hindsight the hypnobirthing worked a treat for J's birth, I was blase about the whole thing second time around and only listened to it once, and didn't cope as well. I was sceptical about hypnobirthing to start with but reckoned for the price of the book and CD it was worth it if it helped at all.

Dewin - be glad you had the epidural for the placenta being taken out. My doctor decided, (after she had spent ages stitching me up without enough anaesthetic, despite my pleas, a dreadful experience) that she thought that some placenta had been left behind and spent about ten minutes rummaging around pulling out little bits, incredibly painful and I all I had was useless gas and air, can't imagine what it must be like to remove the whole placenta, definitely an epidural job. She also managed to burst open the stitches while she did it as well so had to redo that.

I had a quick look at the article Neenz linked to on FB about breastfeeding and epidurals and have to agree with Dr J there (although it is an unlikely alliance). A correlation between epidurals and stopping breastfeeding is not evidence that it is the epidural itself that caused problems with breastfeeding. It would be pretty difficult theory to test clinically.

Yes it could be the reason for the epidural eg traumatic long labour plus possible interventions that affect BFing, because they say the drug itself doesn't reach the baby.

The whole guilt thing for childbirth and BFing is depressing, love your outlook Sybil!

I think the whole 'big baby = lots of pain' thing comes from TV/dramas because giving birth to a big baby doesn't have to be painful at all. It's the bits leading up to giving birth that can be so long and drawn out and agonising and that's nothing to do with how big the baby is. That ties in with childbirth being a bit of a mystical/scary thing which some people know very little about! My SIL gave birth to a near 9lb baby with no pain relief - but she just has babies and doesn't even realise she is in labour! Everyone copes with pain differently and if I become a hypnobirthing practitioner I'll try to make sure my clients don't feel guilty if they want an epidural.

All my babies are poorly. The twins gave some sort of respiritory tract infection and Daniel has viral croup (same virus). Just calpol and Nurofen, Dan and Theo seem ok but Esther has taken herself off to bed for a sleep and has missed tea. Goodness knows how long she'll be up tonight now! Last night they both woke at about 10.30pm with a fever - gave them some nurofen and water and went back to bed. Fofr about 2 hours they were singing 10 in the bed and having an argument over whether their cups were orange or yellow (they are orange).

Neenz a vote for size of baby here - I had a 6lb baby and he certainly didn't drop out painlessly when I sneezed!

I'm willing to consider no epidural this time round - here's hoping for a quicker lead-up to labour. But someone might have to give me some unofficial lessons in hypnobirthing! I kind of reassure myself that I actually pushed Iestyn out with very little pain relief; but the bad bit with all the (lack of) dilation was when the epidural helped.

Sorry about the illnesses: I hope Esther sleeps well for you despite her little nap! Iestyn slept quietly last night for the first time in a week. But hurray, DH is coming back tonight.

Sybil I now really, really want a picture of your magical downstairs loo! Bizarre that the fairy theme was decided for a loo!

Loving the fairy themed loo !

Can anyone help me with this please?

I loved my epidural with R, but like Dewin I had been in labour for 3 days before it. I also loved the morphine I had after F, but it meant I look completely stoned in all my day one photos...

I hate the idea of people being judged for epidurals and also for cs's. I was one of three local Mums having a ELCS in Jan, I was however the only one willing to admit it in public in advance, which I think is shocking. Even my consultant when i met him said "so why are you too posh to push then!?". (Sorry, slightly different rant, but I just hate the judgy-judgy birth stuff).

I bought and listened to hynobirthing stuff pre R, not that it did any good in the end. I actually still have it on my ipod/itunes so if any one technical knows any way I can send it to Dewin, please tell me how.

Potty training going ok here, started in earnest today. 5 successes, ie: wees in potty today but a fair bit of laundry too. The real issue is getting R to put his pants back on.

Loved the glitter story. Will the photos be on FB?

I'm getting to sleep tonight! Yay. I have expressed plenty and DH will do all night feeds (we're getting a routine of sorts:midnight, 3am and 7am) so I get a proper night's sleep.

Good luck with the potty training Maya - we had loads of laundry on day one. Within a day or so S was having much fewer wees than he did on the first day.

Maya that's pretty shocking about too posh to push - I would think it was pretty clear why you were going for elective C-section. Is there a big natural childbirth craze in NZ?

Dewin, you are more than welcome to borrow my hypno book and CD - I only have the Marie Mongan one. I did have Natal too but must have leant it to someone cos can't find it. Mongan is fine on its own tho. I would really recommend Ina May's Guide To Childbirth too - I would lend it but I am going to need it for my doula course. I really love the visualisation techniques of hypno and think they speeded up my labours. But you will have had this baby by the time we get round to a meet-up at this rate so let me know when you are free! I am pretty flexible so can fit in with you.

My poorly babs are doing OK - we had a bit of a disturbed night and Daniel ended up in bed with us (I think he was cold cos I had not put as many clothes in him in case he got a temp). it was lovely having him in with us again and now he is older I wasn't as worried about rolling on him etc. It's not something I want to encourage but it was nice as a on-off. The twins woke at 11 and 3 so we gave them more drugs, they stirred at 8am but DH got them back to sleep with cuddles and then they stayed in bed till 11.30 (T) and 1pm (E)! So I went back to bed too when Daniel went for his nap at 11. It was lovely!

That's alot of sleep Neenz.

P is poorly too with a sickness bug. He was begging for bed last night and was asleep by 6.10 and woke at 6.45 this morning. He then said he was hungry, ate a good breakfast, then spectacularly vomited all over the lounge 20 mins later. He was on my knee at the time and I only just managed to spin him round so that I didn't get a faceful. Yuck!

dewin - I have leant my Ina May books too. Sorry. Do buy the guide to childbirth, it's fab.

I killed the thread. Sorry.

P much better.

Sorry - was taking a mn break after getting enraged by all the threads bashing self-employed etc at the moment as tax dogers. I've now hidden politics and in the news. I think I might need to hide aibu and chat too! Is mn a lot nastier at the moment? Aside from us of course!

abdn I think it is more nasty than usual.

I tend not to read the politics threads as they mainly descend into why higher tax rate payers are baaaaaaaad people who should be giving more of their extreme wealth to everyone else on mumsnet. I think lots of people have hidden these topics to be honest.

J has conjuntivitus (sp?) he has screamed the house down for the past two nights and everytime we put the drops in the neighbours must be considering calling the police.

Dh and I are knackered and looking at an 8.30 bedtime - to sleep. We agreed earlier how old and boring we are!

We're off to bed at nine - you're in good company. This weather has been getting us down and ds2 has a bad cold so I'm almost glad to he heading to work tomorrow.

Anyone hear from poppy lately?

Evening all.

I haven't seen any of the self-employed bashing threads (which sounds like a good thing), but I do get annoyed at the 'higher rate tax payers are minted and shouldn't complain about anything' threads.

Been away at friends for the w/e which has been lovely and relaxing. Knackered now though. S continues to be pretty good with the potty, but I think he's got poo ishoos which I hadn't really picked up on in the week. He'd had a couple of poo accidents in the week but with good reason - on the way home in the car etc. but twice this weekend he went on the potty, did nothing, and about five minutes later had a poo in his pants.

Too tired to post much else. Have notice a few people missing (waves to Whinegums who's current MN name I can't remember!!!).

I haven't seen any of the self-employed or higher rate taxpayer bashing threads either. It sounds ridiculous because there is a huge range of people in both categories, some are very rich and some are not!

We had a bad night last night - E up three times and D up twice. At least Dh got up with E twice, tonight I will have to get up every time (unless it gets really bad). I have the Medised ready in case the twins wake up . They have seemed a bit better today so fingers crossed.

Sorry to hear about all the non-sleeping LOs . Fingers crossed for better nights all round.

I haven't seen all the self-employed threads either but would definitely say MN is quite an unpleasant place on a lot of the threads now. Some of the women on here are unbelievable and could start an argument in an empty room .

PT good start today - one accident and four poos/wees on potty . M showing huge interest too so maybe do him next week!

Oh and poppy coming over to vist tomorrow so I'll tell her she's been missed .

keepcalm we're still intermittently having similar poo issues, i'm sure they'll get it eventually. C announced at bath time yesterday when I asked her if she needed to use the toilet before her bath that 'no, i'm keeping it in my bottom'

knitting well done A and M, would be great if you could them both out of nappies in a oner!

abdn there have been some nasty threads, I hide a lot of them. I get irked with the my doctor is useless therefore so are all doctors ones!

neenz and spider hope poorly ones are better.

D's cradle cap has almost gone after a 24h course of steroid/abx cream. It had got a bit inflamed so the hv got the gp to have a look on Thursday while she was having her jabs. It was like a miracle cure - no more bodies on her little head!

Bogies not bodies, that would be different!

Lol biscuits - yes that would be weird!

I'm with you on the doctor/NHS ones, they drive me mad. Had a huge argument with a friend about the NHS last week - something I'm passionate about!

Biscuits and KeepCalm we have slight issues with withholding poo here. That's just Iestyn, actually, DH and I are fine. But we tend to have multiple trips to the potty/loo until he's willing to 'let go'. Not seeing it as something serious yet.

And Biscuits my mum told me I should do something about Iestyn's cradle cap last week - so I did, but yes, he still has it at 2 and a half! (Admittedly it's straightforward and not infected.)

I think C is witholding too, she rarely seems to do a 'whole' poo but does it in three or four goes. This is really putting dp off the potty training (and he has her 2 days a week so he's the crucial link here), he has poo issues as it is; though if he's changing pooey nappies anyway he might as well be changing pooey pants I suppose.

Not too concerned about the poo issue yet, but will definitely be keeping an eye on it and trying to encourage him to use the potty. Thankfully he's not trying to hold it in, he'll quite happily poo in his pants and exclaim 'I had a poo in my pants!'.

Glad day one went well Knitting - hope today is equally successful!

We're having a lazy day here. S has been getting over a cold and we were away all weekend so decided just to stay at home and cancelled various plans to see people. I might regret it by mid afternoon, but right now we're in our pj's and S is playing with lego while half watching toy story so we're quite happy atm!

Day 2 total disaster .

Not one single success on the potty and he has not had a wee or poo since he got up at 2pm. I assume this means he's holding in cos he can't possibly not need to go .

I am hating every minute of being indoors, despite the lovely spider and poppy coming over today.

May give up tomorrow if does not improve.

After spending most of the afternoon on the potty he's just got off and gone behind the curtains and weed everywhere.

I'm assuming I'm wasting my time?

Don't despair knitting! Has he had much to drink since he got up? For the first few days S had big stretches in the afternoon without a wee.