March 2011 - we made it!

[Muser]

The waiting is over, the babies are arriving. March 2011 mums, come on in your time is up.

Hi sam! Enjoy your holiday.

Hey Sam, it's great to hear from you again. How was flying with Cassie? We're off to Spain too in 2 weeks time and it's going to be Anya's first time - I'm dreading it. Nice to hear BF and all is going well. Great admiration for you to keep going while you are on your own with Cassie and your DS. Still find that even though Anya only feeds for 10 to 15 minutes at a time she then sleeps in my arms for 40 minutes and if I put her down she wakes up again. I couldn't imagine doing that and looking after another child.

Hello all and nice to hear from spilt, too imm (via spilt) and sam. Spilt and tooimm you have often been in my thoughts. Spilt enjoy mat leave. Don't worry re: breech E was from 31-35 weeks and sec midwives said she was stuck that way but she still turned. At 9lb 4 and bad 2nd deg tear sometimes wish she had stayed breech.

Flying - Tis fine - typing this from Florida. Everyone else asleep but just finished dream feed. Plane was fine - feed or dummy for take off and landing. Time difference - we just started her day again with new time once on plane.

Must go - will check in properly when back. Hope all are well xx

Wow Jupiter, you are brave i'm not sure i could have flown to America!! But agree with you on feed or dummy for landing and take off, i'm sure it will be fine!! They are still so little and don't know yet that they can get down or move around and what baby isn't going to be happy being held for 2 or 3 hrs solid cassie was fine and it was only a 45 min flight anyway so she pretty much slept thru them!! Does anyone know what happened to the lady stuck in america when she had her little boy early?? have tried to find the thread but to no avail! Well, glad to have found you all again thanks for being welcoming!! Cassie got her 2nd set of jabs this morning 4 weeks late due to Drs cancelling them as nurse was sick, which in turn has meant haven't taken Cassie swimming which i really wanted to do when she was 12 weeks old!
Oh well, will go this weekend instead!!
Have good day xx

Sam according to the immunisation booklet the nurse (who gave Anya her jabs) gave me, babies don't need to have had their jabs to go swimming. I went looking because I wanted to take Anya - now the only thing stopping me is that the little swimmers nappies don't seem to go small enough for her - oh and I haven't bought her a costume yet.

1Catherine1 i didn't realise that, if i had known would have gone weeks ago!! When DS was little we were told to wait! Well, cassie had her jabs this morning and oh how she screamed!! Bless her cottons, even boobie juice wasn't going to console her after that!! Still, a screaming fit, feed (eventually calmed down enough) and 2.5ml calpol = 1 sleeping baby!! I should use this time by doing useful jobs i.e the ironing, hoovering or bringing in the washing which has been on the line for 2 days ...[embarrassed] but a cup of tea and choc biscuit is far more enticing....

Hi Sam it's nice to hear from you again!

Is anybody doing slimming world and breastfeeding? I need to shift 3 stone but am scared of dieting in case milk supply is affected.

I noticed the library is doing baby bounce for small babies tomorrow it's only a 20 minute session am debating whether to go as will take twice as long travelling there and back up a hill! I guess will see how tomorrow is whther E is having a cluster feed day or not.

Is Anyone's lo still in Moses? E is but he literally fills it now and looks very squished in there, am wondering whether the time has come to transfer him to his cot but am worried it may upset his sleeping pattern.

I am very grateful that E just wakes once in the night but I do wish I could have some time not needing to hold and feed him all evening I am stuck on the sofa for hours cluster feeding until he falls asleep around 10pm my body is exhausted. I don't want to sound resentful though as I love him so much and am lucky to have a healthy baby and it won't last forever. It just hard sometimes.

the swimming thing was from when the polio vaccine was an oral vaccine and could get into the water and affect non-immunised people (usually the elderly), but now it is given by injection, it isn't an issue. This from my HV.

EA is still just in her moses basket, but the cot is built and she's transferring very soon. Just once I tidy my side of the bed :)

me Elijah is still in his cradle- as it's bigger than a moses basket. But he is a very long baby so we bought a cot bed on the weekend. When it gets delivered I think we will have to transfer him soon, but not looking forward to it- it's nice having them somewhere where they look cosy. Will have to be done though!

Sorry your finding the evenings tough-I guess it's swings and roundabouts. My OH can take turns in settling E after a feed in the evening and/or rocking him and amusing him in his little chair in the evenings but I'm still waking and settling him back during the night 2 or 3 times. E seems to wake at 4am at the moment and be wide awake and think it's day.

I think he may have his night and day mixed up. He's currently fast asleep and has been since midday (so 2 and a half hours and counting) he sleeps a lot! We were at a mother and baby group this morning that took me a bus ride and an hour's walk to get to, but was worth it. He was very stimulated by it all!

I mean I'm feeding and settling him during the night.- not waking! That would be madness!

don't worry about moving him to the cot - he might love it. Anya wouldn't sleep anywhere else after I put her in the cotbed - she just loves it. I think she is still cosy as she sleeps in a sleeping bag but loves the extra room it gives her to throw her arms about.

Anyone else still feeding to sleep? Anya is 12 weeks today and still only falls asleep on the boob (well occasionally in the car too). When should she be settling herself? Still getting nothing done in the day as I have to hold her even while asleep but last night she fell asleep at 9pm and didn't even wake up at midnight when I changed her smelly nappy, put her in a sleepsuit and her sleeping bag and put her in her cotbed.

ok - she's awake and crying, must go :(

Arthur doesn't really fall asleep after his daytime feeds and its a real battle to get hi to nap. Fine with his night feeds/sleeping though - phew!

me23 I am also pinned to the sofa feeding from about 6pm-10.30pm (sometimes later!) when I really would like to be asleep myself then!

We had no problems with the shift from Moses basket to cot, didn't make an impact at all. We are also still feeding to sleep at night, I think all our babies are still young for self-settling. Keep doing what works!

I've been doing slimming world for 3 weeks me and have lost 5 and a half pounds so far. You get extra healthy extras for the breastfeeding. I think you'd have to really starve yourself before it affected your milk supply. Think of all those women in poor countries who breastfeed and hardly have any food. It certainly doesn't seem to have caused me any issues.

Thanks for the replies will try the cot soon though in a way I don't want to as will feel as if he is no longer my tiny baby!
Has anyone watched this breastfeeding song on you tube?

Sent from my iPhone

petty Not sure if you want to or have tried a dummy but Hannah was exactly the same. Happy to return to sleep after our many night feeds but so hard to settle for a nap. At the weigh in today she was 15lb so its getting hard to rock her and she just won't feed to sleep for naps or at bedtime either. At first she wouldn't take the dummy but I tried again yesterday and its worked like a dream! I can't believe I wasn't sure about giving her it before. Feed, chat, cuddles and bed tonight worked. Its half 7 and shes asleep! (I hope)

me23 We did a baby bounce and rhyme at the library today, Hannah loved it (as did I) Shame its so far away though for you, thats a pain. I got Hannah a library card today and we took home some pop up books too. You could do that too to make it more worth your while?

split Nice to hear from you! Enjoy mat leave. Please keep popping in and letting us know how you are getting on.

muser Well done on the weight loss!

sam I think the 4 month sleep regression is when some previously good sleepers start waking more in the night. As far as I understand it, it is because there are lots of developmental leaps between 4-6 months.

catherine I'm sure feeding to sleep is fine at this age. I wish Hannah would at bedtime! If you want to teach her to fall asleep without a nipple in her mouth though you could check out The No Cry Sleep Solution as she talks about that.

Hmm. What to do with myself until the apprentice at 9??? Speaking of which, I hope she doesnt wake up until its over!

Also me23 love the video. Especially when she dances with the cabbage leaves and breast pump!

Halo we are using a dummy here but the little bugger angel still won't drop off in the daytime without a fight (although he was really good today!). I don't know what he thinks he's going to miss

Hello from Center parcs, it's treat here but they really see you coming, we've spent a fortune already!! DS loving it though. Ducks come right up to the lodge and the first time DS saw a coot he said "mummy, a penguin!!" Lara obviously doesn't know what the hell is going on, but we've taken her swimming twice here now and she seemed to love it (until she started shivering!). She's 11 weeks on Friday and looks SO cute in her little cossie!! Catherine the swim nappy is quite big on her too but the cossie kept it all close to her and we were only in for 15 mins each time as she got so cold!

me I think we'll go up to cot soon but Lara is still in Moses basket for now-I'll be sad when she's not in it any more! She seems so big already.

There's a lovely book called Sleep Sense that says babies don't really have memory for bad habits before 4 months (hence I think that's what happens with the so-called 4 month sleep regression - because this is the age they might start to learn you come when they cry etc? Not sure how babies can really "play up" though!) so I'm not uber-flogging the self-settling yet. Having said that, I do try to put Lara down to sleep drowsy rather than totally asleep if I think she's in the right zone. Usually only works for first couple of naps - she still only catnaps really so she's too tired thr rest of the day. I'll leave her to grumble for a few mins (I often have no choice if dealing with DS) but as soon as it's a proper cry I go straight to her - I think it's just pointlessly traumatic at this early point to leave them crying. She always feeds too sleep at night, goes down at 7, she stopped settling with us downstairs very early, around 4 weeks. She's a very alert baby. It is fab having evenings back but we are lucky with how she is at night - at the moment she only feeds once between 7pm and 7am. Waiting for it to change though... They keep us on our toes!!

PS I did finally try Lara with a dummy. She spat it right out at me and cried even more!! DS never took one either unless I held it in for him which seemed a bit pointless. He went on to suck his thumb but she isn't showing any signs of that, sadly!

She's still not taking a bottle either. Only tried twice - wonder if I've left it too late?

well, i'm afraid that cassie is fed to sleep most of the time and shes 16 weeks!! except strangely first nap after getting up in the morning and bedtime, i have bathed her and fed her every night since bringing her home from hospital and she goes down very drowsy and mostly she grizzles for a couple of mins and then thats her, occasionally she thinks its a nap and wakes after 40 mins but i just get her out and feed her til shes dozy again. I have done the pat and shush on her and it did work for her and it has helped her to self settle during the night if its not feed time!!! Re the moses basket, i didn't put her in til she was 13 weeks as like Lozario i was sad to transfer her as she is my last which is probably why i let her feed to sleep and let her sleep on me if we're home..which isn't often!! To be honest when i did put her in the cot it made no difference to her at all!! She's in her cot at the bottom of my bed so perhaps she knows i'm still there??
I put Cassie on a bottle of breastmilk each evening from about 9 weeks as i wanted her to be able to take a bottle just in case and also if i want a night out!! Not that i have yet! I now give her 3-4oz formula as well as boob at her bedtime feed ..trying to stock her up for the night!! I have tried Dr.Brown & Avent but the best one for us is tommee tippee it really does look like my nipple as my nipps are short and so is the teat on the T,T bottles!!!
I do feel for those of you who have cluster feeders, i was very lucky as Cassie seemed to have her cluster feeds between 4-7pm then would go down til 12ish, although i did try hard to dream feed so i could get a stretch of sleep when i wanted to go to sleep not early evening but she just wouldn't take to it

still can't complain as she does do 7.30ish til 4-5am ish!! Everything is "ish" with babies isn't it

i have ordered a couple of bikinis from next tonight for my holiday next month...that'll be good for a laugh hey!!! ( as she say's with her hand in a minstrels family pack)

it could be worse Sam - today I went to pick up a buggy I bought off e-bay (need a cheap one for trip to Spain) and I had told the woman I could pick it up any time as I'm on ML. When she gave it to me she asked "When is the baby due?"

Catherine!!! :) Even worse, I weighed myself at the gym yesterday and realised I gained 2 pounds since giving birth! AND, when dropping my babes off at the creche for the first time, I cried a bit though he didn't! Pathetic...

When we transferred him to his big cot at 1 mo, it worked b/c of his sleeping bag. We have a harder time putting him down for a nap during the day in his big cot and still need to use the cozy fleece in the pram, which he is about to outgrow so need to think of a strategy to get him back in his big cot for long day naps soon! He also pops his dummy out a few times but I find that stroking his hair or cheek/neck or nose soothes him, too.

Lozario, thanks for book rec, must get prepared for 4 mo sleep regression! :(

Sam, so true about the "ish"! :)

Um, can the sun come back out, please?

Did a big post last night which then got lost! Humph

Anyhow I know we are ticking all the naughty boxes!

Put ollies Moses basket away last night only because I have never once managed to get him to sleep in it (or really tried!!) and at 17.5 lbs at 14 weeks he def wouldn't fit!

Also feeding to sleep here, tucked up in bed with mummy! But then he sleeps from 7.30-12.30 before needing another feed.

During day it is feed to sleep or sling. If really really full I can sometimes settle him on my shoulder in a few minutes but that is quite rare.

Got ollies christening in 2 weeks - v excited - feels almost as important as my wedding! Fingers crossed I can squeeze him into his christenig gown. Accidentally joked to vicar it was the only time I would make him wear a girlie White dress- forgetting the vicar was in his White cassock!

Anyone else got christenings/naming ceremonies planned?

I keep meaning to share a beautiful poem my mum put in my christening gown box before she passed away ( she made it years ago knowing she wouldn't be here to cuddle my children - a real labour of love) - will dig it out and post later. There was a beautiful poem on here a month or so ago too....(gets all emotional)

Still fighting mastitis but think I've got it licked.....(so to speak!)

Catherine for u at ladies comment!

We're not religious so not having a christening, though I do love the idea of welcoming a child into its community. I think we'll have a big party at her first birthday instead.