April 2011; springtime arrivals - blackbird, song thrush, mistle thrush, nipple thrush, nappy thrush...

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Here we are, our new thread and this time we all have our babies !

I thought we were getting thrush again, but then realised I had let ds's latch get sloppy. He was constantly clicking and tutting at the breast but I was too distracted to notice.

Ds and I made butterfly cakes together this morning, ds got to choose the colour of the buttercream icing ..... It is a very lurid shade of pink and they are covered in sugar strands. You can never have enough sugar!

Gosh, thanks ladies. I'm feeling a bit better about the feeding conundrum today. It definitely helps to get it all down.

Ali I've had thrush previously, which I treated (had it after birth as he was on antibiotics for 5 days in NICU and got oral thrush, which of course he passed to me) and I'm pretty certain I don't have thrush now - don't have any symtoms, which is a bit of a miracle given how many antibiotics I've had. I've been taking a good probiotic and also garlic capsules that are supposed to be helpful in preventing it so maybe that's it.

I felt all empowered this morning and gung-ho about carrying with feeding but then I sat down and thought about what it would mean for everyone in the family if I got another bout of mastitis and I've realised that I need to wind it down. It can't just be about what I want to do and although I'm sad I can't see how I'm not going to get mastitis again given that I'm so scrupulous at preventing it but am still getting hit by it every couple of weeks. It's just a certainty. My plan of action is to drop the 10.30am and 2.30pm feeds over the next few days and replace with with EBM/formula (and eventually just formula) and then see how it goes with just two breastfeeds a day (6.30am and 6.30pm -he doesn't feed at 11pm any more so I just express at this time). If I get mastitis again I'll then just chop out the last two feeds and move wholly over to formula. It should be quite easy to drop just two feeds from there so I could do it quite quickly. What do you all think?

Petal music association sounds good. We have a specific sleep routine that I follow every time and the associations do seem to help. I don't think it ever hurts to put routines/associations in place for where you'd like to be as you do get there. It's all about repetition and habit with babies I think.

Star sorry to hear about your blocked duct and milk blister. Have you popped the blister and cleared the backlog? I did it myself and whilst an emotionally exhausting experience it wasn't painful. I just used a super-sterile needle and just nicked a hole in the blister skin. I then hand expressed the milk out of the duct. It came out quite thick (). I then bathed the nipple in warm saline solution.

Right, must go and intervene. My daughters have been watching CBeebies for hours.

14 weeks

kits I think your 'winding down' plan makes perfect sense. Even if you wanted to stop altogether you'd have to do it gradually so makes sense to pause halfway to see how you go with morning and evening feeds. I'm on my 'last chance' for BF too but I was thinking if I have to give up obviously fully BF I might see if I can maintain a first thing / last thing feed ( they're the nicest anyway)!

My attempts at getting back to exclusively BF are going slowly but ok. I repeated my experiment on Friday - no BF all day, just pump whenever she feeds. Last week I got about 30% of what she ate, this week I got about 50%, so now I feel hopeful my supply is moving in the right direction at least. She has been taking less top up after feeds on average too, especially the first fee of the day when my supply is greatest. However she's still taking a lot of top up in the evening when I seem to have mostly dried up. So working on that next!

arch how did your wedding g? We went to one yesterday where she was cooed over and cuddled by all and sundry. Was lovely but we didn't make it past 10pm - the band came on and was really loud and I was worried about her little ears. Very PFB !

natzer about you missing your baby. I miss mine sometimes too when DP is on night feed duty and I haven't seen her for hours! Although I do LOVE the sleep too!

By through way, J is 11 weeks. I would find it useful to know ages too. Perhaps if we weave it into conversation it won't seem so Un-mumsnetty

After 11 weeks of bottle refusing S has finally taken a bottle!!!!

Well I had the best sleep ever last night! I obviously switch off when I'm sleeping with DH(actual sleeping) as he wakes with the slightest of whimpers from B.

We are now of day 5 since his last poo. Thats the longest he's gone, and is beginning grump quite a bit. I'm not really sure if we should do anything to assist things or just wait it out. When this poonami comes I fear for our neighbours!!!

Ecuse, when youjust pump whenever J feeds is it formula she's taking? i only ask because I've recently found out that babies need more and more formula as they get bigger, but because BM changes to have more fat content between 1 and 6 months the intake volume of BM should stay the same, somewhere betwee, 21 and 30 ozs a day. An 11 wo FF baby generally would take 5 feeds of 6 ozs=30ozs/day. B hoovers around 25ozs/day. So if you are comparing what you pump to the amount of formula she's taken it might give you a false comparison. Please let me know if that makes sense!

Kits only you know the impact of BF on you and your family. I understand the guilt you are feeling too. I think I'm trying to make up for taking the painkillers when I was pregnant by BF. Someone gave me a great piece of advice on one of my many expressing threads, every feed is a bonus. You have put up with so much to get to this point, a lesser mortal would have thrown in the towel ages ago. I'm sure your LOs would much prefer a mummy who was well and healthy rather than one who struggled through BFing miserable and in pain. Make your peace with stopping and carry on being the best mummy you can be :).

That shoud be hovers not hoovers, although, hovers is probably a good description of his feeding technique!!

hoovers/hovers bloody iPod

Ooh that's interesting, Lis, thanks. I did know it would be less BM than IF but didn't know the amounts. When I'm pumping only she drinks whatever I can pump topped up with IF. Over 24 hours I pumped 440ml (so just under 15oz) whilst she drank 840ml roughly half EBM. Interestingly that's less by volume than last week which could be down to what you say. She's still small for her age too, hovering around the 20th percentile so may not quite take the average. First pump of the day I get about 5oz but by the evening I'm lucky to get 1.5. Oh well - my glass is almost literally half full

Well, the blocked duct seems to have cleared. I followed your advice about the blister Kits and it seems to have helped. Fingers crossed that I caught it in the nick of time and that it doesn't turn into anything worse.

DairyBeetle - thanks for the nursery/childminder info. We'd not thought about lots of those considerations, so it's given us lots to think about. Excellent news on the bottle too - it just proves that persistence can pay off!

[wibble]

Now, I've been going stir crazy with this baby business. That day at work the other week was flippin brilliant.

But I've just had an email from the childminder asking about taking F over for visits. It's all just got a bit real. I'm actually going to have to leave the screamy, sicky little bugger with someone else. I think secretly I might be starting to like swanning around watching daytime TV and going out for cake. And I think I'm starting to enjoy my time with F. In fact, I think I... love him

I am actually mental, aren't I. You know, to even be surprised at this realisation!

Oh well. Better make the most of the next 7 weeks then.

Oh Petal - hugs my lovely. It took me a few weeks to fall in love with T. I think I was so preoccupied with DS1 that I really was just taking care of T. But once we were getting a bit more sleep it is so much more enjoyable. He is just the loveliest, smiley, gorgeous little chap :)

I really take my hat of to you lot going back to work soon. I couldn't do it when my year was up (partly because I hated my job and the thought of going back definitely made the PND worse). I gave DH a boot up the backside to go out and find a better paid job to make up for my loss of salary We were bloody lucky that he was able to actually and I thank my stars every day.

kits - that sounds like a good winding down plan. I wonder whether you pumping to try and keep your breast clear is actually contributing to the problem because it is encouraging increased supply? Will you plan to reduce your pumping as well as the feeding?

We took the boys swimming this morning - it was exhausting but T loved it. There are loads of water jets, fountains and a bit that is like a river with a current - it is fabulous but there is lots of splashing and he really enjoyed it.
I have also put away a whole load of 3-6 month clothes today and got the 6-9 month stuff out I sobbed and sobbed while I was doing it, I'm really not coming to terms very well with the fact that we're not having any more babies :(

Ali - 6-9 months? Good grief, what are you feeding the child?!

petal - Un-m'netty hugs for you. Maybe it'll be a godsend and you'll enjoy the time you have with him much more?

Question: I know this is one of those things everyone has a different opinion on, but how much do you lot consider too much when BF? Have shared a bottle with DP tonight which is about the upper limit of what I think of as a pleasant sleep-inducing, colic-reducing kind of intake. Much more and Id start wondering about a pump-and-dump strategy. But I don't know much about the science of how much passes through to breast milk. How much do you lot consider ok? Also once heard from a friend that if she went on a boozy night out she'd pump, freeze and carefully label it 'boozy bM' for use in a sleepless child emergency . Anyone else do that?!

ecuse that is a fabulous idea by your friend!

I generally reckon that half a bottle over an evening is absolutely fine. When we had friends here a couple of weekends ago I had a couple of glasses at lunchtime and then probably half a bottle over evening which is about the same because more spread out. Obviously if you gulp down half a bottle on an empty stomach there is going to be more alcohol in your milk than if you drink it over an evening with food etc!
There is no real need to pump and dump - unless you are uncomfortable or are trying to increase supply so you don't want to miss a pumping session. The alcohol metabolises out of your BM at the same rate it does out of your blood, so if you've had 4 units then 4 hours later your milk will be as if you had had nothing to drink.

I did once feed DS1 when I was really pissed. I had expressed but he had drunk it all and woke at 4am wanting a feed. We were at my Mum's and so there was no freezer supply to fall back on, I had no choice but to feed. It isn't something I would do regularly or by choice, but it did him no harm whatsoever, he was no sleepier the following morning and behaved in exactly the same ways as he always did.

Think I need boozy BM :). Insomnia strikes again! Why???? Is it them pesky hormones again? AF arrived the other day.

Has anyone else noticed MN is a bit weird today? Might just be the threads I've clicked on.

Now that is really helpful thanks Ali - I had thought once it was in your BM it was in, didn't realise it would 'self-cleanse!

Well that was a bizarre night!

H crashed out at 8.30ish and wouldn't stir so I out him down and went to bed at about 10. He woke at 4 went back to sleep at 4.30ish then woke again at 5.45ish, slept again at about 6.30 but only on me but then didn't wake until 8.

Not ideal clearly but he woke up giggling instead of crying and is smiling away while kicking in his chair now. Bizarre!

I didn't get the rush of love when H was born I just knew he was mine and, Petal, I too have suddenly had the oh my God, you're amazing rush in the past couple of weeks. I spent an hour the other day just holding him close and realising I'd fallen head over heels!

Quick question for those of you that have moved your babies into their own rooms. Did you notice any deterioration in their sleep when they moved out?

Just before P moved into her own room, she did almost a week of really good nights (8 - 10.45ish, dreamfeed, 11.15 - 6.30ish). However, she hasn't slept through since she moved into her own room. She's been waking every night (last night was particularly rough) and I wondered if it could be to do with being on her own?

She's only 10 weeks, so I know it's unlikely that she would be sleeping through at this stage but am just wondering if it's pure coincidence that she's gone back to waking up again now she's not in her own room. She's too big for her moses basket now, so moving her back in with us isn't really an option anyway but am just wondering if anybody else has noticed the same?

Yeah ecuse what Ali said! I was a victim of "pump n dump-ing" in the early days because I didn't read her advice soon enough!! I was distraught afterwards since I was only expressing and had thrown away the guts of one feed because I thought it would be riddled with wine!!

Sassy I have a quinny buzz too (not sure if it's a 1 or 2) and was a bit baffled by it the other day, R is also now too big for the carry cot, but she seems positively lost in the buggy part!! Thought I had the XL seat bit on rather than the smaller one but we didn't, it's just a bit big for her yet! Think we'll just be using the car seat for a little while until she's a bt bigger. Also another thing we discovered is that the whole thing won't fold down with the buggy seat in parent-facing position - was a bit disappointed by that!

Thanks for all the info on child care. I wasn't planning on needing any as my mum works in the same line as work as me so we could arrange our shifts to fit around the other. Also my dad works offshore so is home for 6 weeks out of 10 and also DP just works Mon-Fri so if I was working weekends he'd be at home for R. However I'm beginning to think it might not all work out as easily as it sounds, also my dad isn't keeping as well as he was and maybe needs a knee op in the near future so was thinking about putting R into nursery just for 1 day a week, the propblem is I don't think my work will accomodate that, ideally I would work every Thursday so that the day at nursery was worthwhile but they're not known for allowing set days so am going to email them this avo. Also I'm aware that if I want R in for January I'm going to have to contact the nursery asap, we only have 2 to choose from so don't think it'll be too difficult!!

Lis I know what you mean about he sleep thing, except I just never sleep properly ever! I seem to be constantly in a state of half-awake/half-asleep. Even on Saturday night, DP was doing the night feed and getting up with R first thing so I could try and have a good sleep and a long lie. Turned out that I still woke up with R at each grunt and snuffle and couldn't sleep past 9am! Grrrr! Will I ever sleep again??

Well R's cold seems to be shifting now, she still has a little cough which she keeps choking on! However sleep seems to be improving slightly again, last night she went down at 10 and slept til 4.30 when she woke up coughing but I didn't feed her at that time and she slept on til 6.15! Yay. She then got up at 8.30 and I've taken a leaf out of DPs book and am not feeding her until 9.30 as it puts us in a better routine for feeding and getting her to bed earlier.

She still isn't taking a great deal of formula - averaging about 23ozs a day, which is less than she should be taking for her age (12 weeks today) so I'm trying to decrease the number of feeds she has but increase the amount she takes at each one. We're trying to go from 6 feeds to 5 but won't drop it any more than that.

We've had a couple of bizarre nights. In the end I've just been bringing him in with us but he sleeps like a starfish so we have no room! When we move I'm taking the 4th side of the cot down again.

I'm officially back at work next Monday. No teaching but that doesn't mean no work :( I'm hoping M will be well-behaved and let me do some research/writing up otherwise I'm going to be very screwed.

kits what everyone else said re: BFing. You've done so well and if you want to keep going then do but don't feel guilty about stopping.

Babies do sometimes experience disturbed sleep when they go into their own room. I think it's the quietness which freaks them out - there's noone breathing away next to them anymore.

I think M is 12 weeks, maybe 13. Probably 12 and a bit?

I think B slept better when he went to jus own room. He could sense we were there and woke all the time wNting to play. I really help dh too as he is a really light sleeper and barely got a wink those first weeks when b was in with us! All babies are different I suppose.

11 weeks

Thanks ladies for all the wise words. I've started to wind down the 10.30am feed which should mean by the end of the week I'll just be feeding at the morning and evening feed (and expressing last thing at night). Re: the late night express I hadn't thought about how it might be overstimulating my supply (I have loads of milk) and contributing to the mastitis so that's one for the brain to mull over.

star glad you sorted the milk blister. I read on Kellymom (I think) that bathing it in mild saline solution before every feed can help keep the blister area 'soft' and open. I also use lots of lansinoh after each feed to encourage the skin to stay soft. No idea if this has helped but I haven't had a milk blister in my last two mastitis attacks. By GOD it's grim. I didn't have any of this feeding crap last time - just sailed blithely through doing half-hearted expressing and tossing in the occasional breastfeed. Ironic that in doing it full time I've had a whole WORLD of pain this time around.

How did I miss the stuff on booze?!!! I'm so annoyed as I've been chucking loads of breastmilk away if I have two glasses of wine (been out for dinner a couple of times and gone craaaaaaaaazy and had more than one glass!). God, I'm annoyed. So if I drink three glasses of wine my milk will be fine three hours later (presumably if I drink plenty of water also)? Does this also work for a gin and tonic as I'm DYING to have one of those. Odd, as I don't normally drink gin but for some reason it has been burning a hole in my brain for the whole of pregnancy.

Frak good luck with the return to work on Monday. I'm officially starting again in October. Three days a week. I'm not sure how I feel about it but having worked after the girls were born I know I'll make it work. My mortgage is calling so I've got to.

Star I think as Frak said babies' sleep patterns can shift when they move into their own rooms. It's probably adjusting to the noise. Just be consistent and give it a week or two.

This time 14 weeks ago I was writhing around on a birthing ball sloshing meconium all over the place feeling as if I was being disembowelled. Call me insane, but it's actually a really happy memory.

14 weeks

Hi all

Apologies for lack of name checking, I have been keeping up to date though.

Had a hectic weekend. wedding fri. First time I've left s with his grandparents and I was surprisingly fine and I think they loved it. Sat had a barbe. And yest a baby shower. S stayed with daddy. Think dh has his first insight into my world! Quiet day today.

Hugs to all

Ps we will need a new name soon.....

Hello all :) Well, after the poor sleeping, waking up with wind problems at the end of last week we increased the belly massages - at least 2 a day and it seems to have resolved itself! :) I hadn't realised just how effective the massage was. I'm much happier with this solution than giving gripe water or infacol.

Petal Hugs. I hate the thought of having to leave Megan and go back to work and I'm not even going back until March. Will I get used to the idea by then? I can't imagine I will. I've had one of those build ups of baby love too. I wanted to get her out of the crib for hugs when we went to bed but resisted as she was fast asleep.

On the wine and feeding front... our wine consumption has been creeping up again but it's rare I have more than a (large) glass. I felt really crazy when I had 3 halves of cider at the pub last Sunday afternoon. It's the most I've had in one go in about a year :o I have fed M while having a glass of wine in hand - is that really bad? I figured it has to get through my system before it reaches hers and it can't be as bad as the brandy I was given at 3 days old by the hospital!

We're 16 weeks.

The best time to have a drink is while you are feeding, because then there is the longest time possible before you feed again. But really, if you are only having one or two glasses then there is no need to worry about what it is doing to your milk.

Kits - yes you can have gin!