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!

Morning all.

Frak that is rubbish for you :( Is he forces? I hope you manage to have a good day today anyway.

Jen that does sound exhausting. T doesn't settle until late, although once he's down then we do get a decent stretch of sleep from him. Last night it was 1am before he was down, but he slept until 7.15.
If the hospital do try to discharge your uncle, try asking them about a community bed. My grandma went into the local 'cottage' hospital for a couple of weeks after a hospital stay as a sort of rehabilitation period before she went home.

I have a snoring DH here too. I just thump him until he rolls over and if it continues then he gets booted out

T is actually laughing now, it is brilliant :):) He loves being held up in the air above us, and is ticklish under his chin, he does a proper little chuckle
I didn't get the same rush of love instantly with T as I did with DS1, maybe something to do with it not being a new kind of love (ie. I was already a mum). But I have really bonded with him now, he is just adorable and it is so lovely watching his personality develop already :)

Happy Birthday Frakk, I hope you can enjoy today after yesterday's shitty news.

What drink did you have Lis? I had a lovely glass of wine last night.

Night times seem to be getting into more of a pattern at last, thank the Lord. I had more truffle pigging from I and snoring from dh last night, it drives me up the bloody wall. Grunting in stereo at 5am is enough to tip anyone over the edge, it's like I am being mocked. We're both asleep and you're not!

Ds was in his new bedroom last night. We've got blinds up at the window and I said to dh that we should also get some lined curtains as the sun rises on the side of the house is window is on. Dh poo poo'd the idea and this morning we 'daddy, daddy, come and get me' at 6am - an hour earlier than normal. Ha ha ha, karma for the fecking snoring and for not listening to me!!!!

Maybe it's the curse of the Daisys - S rarely goes longer than three hours at night either! Although he glugs much more calmly and efficiently at night, he rarely stays awake to have a good go at boob 2. Torn between concerted effort at waking him up so he has lots more to eat and therefore might sleep better, or leaving him to be sleepy so he eventually forgets to wake up at all. Both theories seem convincing and I'm totally dithering as to which one will work. Or of course neither - maybe that's just how he is!! He will often sleep well in the evening - but then after the 1030/1100 feed it's generally 230 and 530, at which point he is WIDE AWAKE!! Eurgh.

Mmmmmmmmm, delicious beer...

H is napping in his vibraty chair and making kiss sucking faces in his sleep, is hilarious

Am off to sing in a bit, is meant to be a BBQ but weather is looking decidedly rubbish. DP is being armed with a bottle of milk and is watching H for me. Feels a bit weird to be doing a me thing.

We didn't have a great night last night 9.30-1.15 2.20-6. Good chunks but he didn't nap well yesterday and I tried to keep him up later but he just crashed out. I couldn't get to sleep for ages then DP woke me when he got in from a boys' night out at 11.30. Bless him, he really tried to be quiet but my hearing is super tuned at the moment.

Oh and ladies, the restaurant was a Carluccio's and I recommend the one in Ealing for baby friendliness. Normally you leave buggies in a set place but I asked to keep mine with me as H is still so tiny. They gave my friend and I a four-person table with a chair missing so I could fit the pram in and have always been super lovely and accommodating. A waiter even brought a glass of water unasked last time because I was BFing! Lovely!

Happy Birthday Frak!

And I'm always up for an April Gang Protest :)

We had a night of two halves: F slept an almighty 6 & 1/2 hours from 21:00-03:30, so I woke up with mega boobs, fed him from both thinking 'brilliant, he'll sleep another 6 hours after that lot'. But no, we then had from 4:00-4:50, and then lots of grizzling, ending in F coming into our bed where we all had a nice dozy lie-in.

However, BFing has gone a bit wrong. He's refusing to latch, getting upset and pulling away. I have to let him suck my little finger till he's calm enough to quickly switch and shove a nip in his mouth. Then sometimes we get persistant delatching throughout the feed. I can't feed in public any more because of the screaming boob-squirting nightmare.

It's been fine till about a week ago, when this happened for the odd feed, now it's every feed, he's 11 weeks old tomorrow. Any ideas?

Frak really sorry to hear that - sounds really crap and frustrating. Get it all out on here. Is there any hope of a review or at least feedback?

Jen I'd like to say I'm stunned at the checkout lady but actually I'm not - some people just relish it don't they? She probably keeps her eyes peeled for new mothers just so that she can impart her wisdom. And a family bag of crisps is NOTHING! She needs to take a look in my shopping trolley...

Sleepy boy today so my routine has gone slightly awry. Oh dear!

Daisy - J sounds almost identical to S. Last night was a good night as fed at 10.30 then not again until 3.45. However didn't go back down until 5 and then WIDE AWAKE at 5.40 for rest of day. J very rarely sleeps past 5.30 and never past 6.15. I think the reason J went until 3.45 was because she had loads to eat at 10.30 feed- normally she is too dozey to feed but when I changed her nappy she peed everywhere which resulted in an outfit change and her being wide awake. Think I'm going to try and wake her properly again at 10.30 tonight.

On the plus side she is starting to go down well at 7pm and even managed to self
Settle so I need to look at the positives. And she is one of the younger April babies at only 7 weeks. daisy how old is s?

Happy Birthday Frak

Lis yes I may well take G with me to visit my uncle as I'm sure it would really cheer him up. I will just check with the ward first if its ok. He is on an acute surgical ward at the moment, but I'm sure he will be transferred off at some point as he is no way fit for any kind of surgical treatment. I will also try and get dd to draw a picture for him. She wants to draw a giraffe but doesn't know how to draw the long neck and little ears, so asked me to do it for her, kind of defeats the object of her drawing a picture really!!

Absolutely peeing it down with rain here. Off to visit BIL and his family in a bit. Dd loves seeing her cousins and they have a massive house so all the kids can run around madly and we don't get a totally trashed house like if they visit here!!

Happy birthday frak

petal s does that when he needs winding or is pooing during a feed. Maybe try infacol?

Daisylulu yes, S is 8 weeks, so very similar! He does seem to be getting better at napping during the day so hopefully we're on the way to better sleeping all round. Let's hope!

Miserable day here, cold and wet, feeling very Sunday bluesy....

Well another not so good night. Couldn't manage to wake J enough at 10.30 to get a good feed despite nappy change so J woke at 2.30 and then again at 5.55 for the rest of the day!

Ladies, those of you whose babies sleep a decent stretch... Did they just suddenly do it or did the gap between night feeds get longer and longer ?

j had first projectile vomiting last night since starting reflux meds so feeling :( on top of being exhausted. Got doctor for 6 week baby check up so hoping they can help.

Daisy, H just suddenly started doing the five-hour stretches at about eight weeks. He still occasionally has a bad night and he doesn't toto sleep at the same time every night. It did coincide with him starting to nap properly in the day though.

Henry is 10 weeks tomorrow and is in a 3-6 months babygro today he's been in 3-6 month sleep suits for a week or so.

Anyone got recommendations for what looks like eczema? E45 cream seems to help a bit but H is getting it all over

Daisylu, as cycle says, F suddenly started sleeping longer a couple of weeks after getting the daytime naps & feeds sorted. However, it always takes 2 hours to get him settled (7-9pm).

He'd then wake around 3 and then 6ish.

Except last night, when we managed to get him to sleep by 7:30, and then he woke at 12:00, 2:30, 3:15, 5:20 and finally woke at 7am. He was very good at going back to sleep, didn't even feed him at the 5:20 wakeup.

Cycle F only managed about a week in 0-3 month stuff, he's been in 3-6 month sleepsuits to a few weeks now. Except it's his body that's long (like his dad), so the sleepsuit feet flap around!

Thanks to the infacol advice. He was horribly grumpy yesterday, but we persisted yesterday and so far today he's been much happier. Already had first poo of the day.

Cycle try a tiny amount of hydrocortisone 1% cream or ointment on the v inflammed areas, twice daily. People are v wary of using steroid creams but if the skin is very inflammed and you only use small amounts for short periods of time eg 1-2 weeks, it will really help. Otherwise if skin just dry then apply liberal amounts of emollient (moisturiser), we find doublebase gel the best for dd who has eczema as it rubs in really easily (on prescription as quite expensive), emulsifying ointment is a greasy moisturiser which is useful for really dry areas. Some people also use things like oilatum in the bath but I don't think there is actually any evidence from studies that bath products for eczema really help much. Definitely avoid any bubble baths though. You can wash H with Aqueous cream instead of soap, or wash with just water. HTH

Daisy - DI who's a very good night sleeper, 12.30 to 8am today, started at doing 12-3/4ish and then back to sleep for another 3/4hours for first month, then about from 4weeks old, slept till 6.30ish still with another 3 or so hours after and since about 6weeks moved that to 7.30ish so it's been gradual.

She doesn't sleep much during the day, usually 20/30min cat naps and occasionally hour nap sometime, if she's in her Pram she cam conk out for a 2-3hours.

She is really little tho, 8 weeks Thursday and just 7.3pounds, she is growing steadily on the .4th centile so Dr seems happy and said as long as she doesn't drop under looks like she will just be little, we need to get her weighed every 2 weeks to keep an eye on her, she is still in tiny baby clothes !

Does anyone else have a small baby ? She feeds well and sleeps wells and is a very happy, smiley baby so I think she is fine and go by if she wasn't getting enough food, she would cry a lot and not be giving me dirty nappies and not sleep well.

I do feed her pretty much every hour or so during the day, but as she sleeps so well at night I don't mind.

On another note, mumsnet talk is available as a free app now ! I'm using it now and makes reading threads so much easier ! Once downloaded use your sign-in & all your watched threads are already marked !!

Going to Festival Of Taste on Thursday, I'm praying this rain goes away !! Can't wait to eat myself silly and maybe have a glass of bubbly !

Aussie I too have a small baby. She's on 9th centile but is happy enough and eats and sleeps ok. Feeding could be a bit better as she's struggling on breast at moment and my supply not great despite trying to boost it.

Anyone got any ways of boosting milk supply, I'm already taking fenugreek but so far not having desired effect!

Hi Sassy, how can you tell what your supply is like ? Do you mean amount or quality of milk ? I assume when she is feeding milk is coming out and i sometimes give them a squeeze after and see milk. I only have the hard, leaky boobs in the morning. Does that sound normal ? Its so hard to know when it's still all new !

Frak on your behalf. That's awful news. Hope it didn't overshadow your birthday yesterday too badly.

Jen I'd say DS was a more laid back baby than S is too and he never stops now and is very noisy! Wish he had a volume switch as he definitely needs to be turned down. I had been wondering though how much of this is down to the fact that DS had my undivided attention. All I had to do was watch out for his sleepy signs and tend to his every whimper. Poor S doesn't get the same amount of attention so maybe this is why I feel like she's not as laid back as DS was.

DH had his first night back in the marital bed on Saturday night. He's been sleeping on the sofa bed as he needed his sleep for work and is rubbish at getting back to sleep once he's been woken. Also I'd prefer he gets better sleep too if it means he's better at helping out when he is home. Two grumpy, tired people is worse than one I figure. Anyway, I think his heffalump snoring disturbed S as she was awake every hour from the 2amish feed onwards. Basically would take DH an hour to go back to sleep after S woke, then he'd start snoring and S would wake again. Repeat until 7am. Exhausting for everyone involved. DH is back on the sofabed but I'm left a bit as don't want this to be the permanent state of affairs.

In other mopey news, DS now has impetigo. I was blissfully unaware this condition even existed 2 weeks ago. Anyone know how to stop a toddler worrying at his face apart from using a straight jacket? One patch gets better just as another comes up. We're on our second lot of ABs but doesn't seem to be clearing.

Petal it's not thrush is it causing F to go a bit doolally on the feeding front? Sounds exactly what S did when she had thrush in her mouth even though she didn't have the telltale white coating. Hope not for your sake though!

Aussie S is small too. Maybe we need to eat more caramello koalas for them . I just went out yesterday and bought her 'New Baby' sleepsuits as she's finally grown out of 'Tiny Baby' but the 0-3mths ones we have still swamp her. She'll be 8wks this week. I'm going on thigh wrinkles though and I'm sure she had a new one last week so I think she's fine . She's feeding, sleeping, pooing, weeing etc so I'm not worrying. And not getting her weighed either as that will stress me out I think.

Caramello I did wonder about thrush, I read loads on Kellymom yesterday when F was being a nightmare. Neither of us have any symptoms other than his fussiness. And he seems to be back to normal today. I'll bear it in mind and see how we go this week.

I think girl babies are generally smaller than boys. F's always been bigger than girls months older than him. But he is a bit of a chunk!

Great that F is better today petal, unlikely to be thrush then as you'd expect the fussiness to get worse. Phew.

Birthday wasn't too bad although M was a nightmare in the afternoon and again this morning. DH being home seems to grow any routine out completely. I have a new baby friendly watch so I can tell the time again

I'm facing up to the fact I have just over 2 months before I have to go back to work so I need to sort childcare. And we're still moving on August 6th

petal could well be thrush. M was exactly like that and his only sign was nappy thrush for weeks. Apparently it can hide in the throat and make swallowing agony.

Can't help on the small baby front as M is in 3-6months and has been since 6 weeks. I put away all the ickle newborn stuff that he fitted for about 3 days earlier and it made me all broody! Already!

Bugger M just woke - I thought I had him away with the dummy (in place of boob) but it looks like he's sussed.

Cycle I got some Diprobase cream on prescription for C as he had very dry skin. It has worked well but I do think his was dry skin rather than eczema.

Daisylulu, I agree that getting enough daytime sleeps seems to help the night. I do a little bedtime routine every evening of a bath and then maybe some soft music (Rockabye Baby on Spotify is a favourite) and a bedtime feed with not too much noise or distraction, then I put C down in his basket upstairs, as close to 7pm as the day allows, and he goes off. Sometimes takes a few tries of him waking up and having a bit of a yell but we go up, check he's ok, tell his it's sleepytime and leave him to it. Seems to work. He still wakes up around midnight/1am and then sometimes around 4am for another feed but he wakes, feeds and goes back to sleep.

This morning I put C down for a nap in his cot as I think he's going to outgrow the moses basket pretty soon, so wanted him to get used to the new space. He was quiet as a mouse so I thought he was asleep but just popped up to have a quick look and he was wide awake admiring his new mobile. Then he saw I was peeking in and started crying. Now he's asleep in the good old vibrating chair.

Hope you're ok Frak, sounds like a tough situation, I am sorry and hope you enjoyed your birthday.

Petal I can't offer much advise but C does that with feeding all the time. I would have taken a punt on reflux but it would be odd to only start at 11 weeks, I don't think that would make sense. C is a nightmare and sometimes screams every couple of minutes throughout feeding. I've tried Infacol, Colief, Gripe Water and Infant Gaviscon. The Gaviscon worked quite well but completely bunged him up and we had a very angry little chap until poonami. I am thinking of trying to get the proper reflux meds, does anyone using them have an opinion on whether they also have the same effect as the Gaviscon? I guess it makes sense as it's essentially thickening up everything to keep it down. I keep hoping his sytem will just mature and it will all get easier but I feel as though I have to keep trying to solve the problem though nothing I've tried makes a real difference.

Still waiting on real smiles too - he's corrected age of eight weeks now. Surely soon?! I have to remind myself that it's even harder with a prem to know what stage they should be at and it will all happen but I REALLY want him to!

Hmmm, will make doctor's appointment for H is get a definitive decision on eczema/dry skin.

H just had his jabs He screamed for the first one then did the heartbreaking bright red crumple face for the second. He's now home, has fed well and is a little clingy but kicking happily away and waving his bumblebee wrist rattle. Fingers crossed he'll forgive me.

I jokingly said to the nurse that if DP had taken him he'd have run out of the door with him when he saw the needle. Texted DP to say H was ok and he replied that he wouldn't have let them do it! I know him far too well

Not sure what's going on with P at the moment but all of a sudden each feed seems to be taking forever! She's definitely swallowing and not dozing on the boob, so not sure what's going on. I thought babies were meant to get quicker at feeding, not slower!

She's nearly six weeks now and I'm wondering if she's having a growth spurt. Can they make babies want to feed for longer rather than more frequently? I know all babies are different but how long does an average feed take for you?

Aussie I too have a baby who doesn't believe in napping in the daytime. Thankfully, she's not too bad by night. It's a nightmare to try and get anything done by day (I'm either feeding her or holding her) but I suppose it's a price I'm willing to pay if it means we carry on with a reasonable night sleep!

Frak that is crap about DHs work. Glad your birthday was ok though :) I am joining you on the broody front, except I have been like that since about week 3!!! Just can't imagine never doing all this again. DP, however, is very strictly in the no-more-babies-ever camp!! Will maybe stop prattling on about it for now in the hope he changes his mind, although I do find it unfair that he's only changed his mind since R was born!!

Daisylulu I can't really help as R has always slept really well overnight, i.e long stretches at once. But I don't see any improvement beyond that and probably won't for some time, I think I should just be thankful we're not getting up every 2-3 hours overnight! She went down at 10.30 last night and slept til 4.15, then got a bit disgruntled after her feed and wouldn't go back down til 5 and then slept til 8.50. She's now sleeping again and has been since 11.30 Hope I don't pay for this later!!!

Aussie Is the mumsnet app you mentioned just on i-phone as I can't seem to find it on android market for my phone, would definitely make keeping up a bit easier for me as keyboard on laptop is kaput again!! Really need to just buy a new one I think (keyboard that is, not laptop!)

Starshaped R used to be a quick feeder but seems to have gone back to faffing about over feeds at times, think it's probably pretty normal?? Sometimes she'll just take a few ounces then doze and then an hour or so later want another few ounces so I've been trying to make sure we're busy or out and about doing things to stretch the time in between feeds in the hope she'll take a better amount. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't!

Quick question, do most of you make bed time a set time? We had been making it between 10-11pm as we know that when she goes down then she'll sleep til around 4 am but I've noticed some of you are putting LO's down a lot earlier than this just wondered if I should be doing the same, although R doesn't always sleep from 6-10pm so don't know if that would work?!