August 2011 - a place to wAit until the rest graduate !

[MrsVidic]

Hi,
Thought I would start us a postnatal thread. Were still in hospital, here till Tuesday monitoring dd (now named Eva) and giving her the anti biotics. Im missing dd1 loads as I only get to see her at visiting and trying to contain a toddler on the ward is tough.

Hi there, I have been lurking but not posting but felt compelled to respond to you wishwales. I have had two refuxy babies. DD now three weeks old and DS is two years old. I haven't felt an immediate, overwhelming surge of maternal feeling towards either. For me it is a slow burner as they become less miserable. I can emphatically say I feel such an intense maternal love for DS now though and I know that will come with DD too as I get to know her. Reflux and colic are buggers!

wishwales hang in there you are not alone, my ds was a very miserable screamy baby, it was a complete shock to the system after my dd was so good, he was lactose intol and it took a long time for him to grow into a happy baby and for us to be able to enjoy him, I vowed id never have another after him but here i am with dd2 who is as quiet and as good as her big sister was!

DP came in and apologised for being such a wanker!! thank god! and he has been much better i was too tired to talk much last night but at least theres hope!

Im feeling like a huge milk monster, id managed to express 1.5oz and dp gave it to her last night, she wolfed it down from an avent bottle i was impressed, ive done another 3oz today so i may be able to get a bath in tonight? The evening cluster feeding is almost impossible and she was feeding every 2 hours all night and this morn, and sometimes its every half an hour, when does this calm down? Am even wondering about giving her a bottle of formula at bedtime so get a bit more sleep but is that a slippery slope to stopping bf? aargh its good but so hard!!

Wishwales just to reassure you I have similar feelings to you. Definitely feels like a slog at the moment. This is my 1st baby so have nothing to compare it with. I am taking heart in that a lot of women I've spoken to have said they felt the same way. My baby doesn't have the same probs as your little one but I too am finding the constant feeding, changing & lack of sleep tough!! I would kill for a decent uninterrupted sleep, love to go out for diner and polish off a bottle of wine, feel jealous when my partner swans off to work & want my boobs back!!

wishwales you are not alone in your feelings for Morgan. DS1 was an extremely colicy baby, he would scream for hours on end, usually just as DH came home from work, so I felt like I'd failed DH somehow too, to lumber him with this awful baby. Colic DOES pass, and things do get easier, I would never have had DS2 if things hadn't got better! The love I have no for DS1 is immense.. so hang on in there X

Leo is being a good baby so far, he does get quite grumpy in the evenings but I am trying different things to ease this. NO idea how much weight he has put on as HV's annoy me immensly so I avoid them at all costs! He has just started to do proper smiles, but it is hard work getting them out of him! I love him so much :-)

wishwales nice to see you here! must be hard with all the reflux colic & everything, hopefully all that settles down soon so you can just enjoy her. im sure its normal what you're feeling

thought i would stop by and say Hi!

Evie can't believe you had a girl! So convinced was gonna be a boy :) lovely to see root and winter too and your getting on so well.

I love not being pregnant! everyday I am thankful for not puking, no heartburn, not weeing myself, being able to sleep, to do housework, walk at a normal pace, cope with life in general.

Harper is a cutie, she has everyone round her little finger :) Maternity leave is like a holiday for me really. OH isn't working at the moment so its been great both of us here all the time. I don't know how you would cope on your own with getting anything done! I am expressing milk and bottle feeding (or breast feeding, depends what the little madam wants, quite often both, bottle from Daddy then boob). I do get out the house everyday, and often on my own. Even if its just to Tesco its quite nice. Deffo helps to keep me sane (and OH too).

Had some colicky bouts so now on Nuk bottles/teats, infacol before feeds and gripe water if needed. Also discovered orange juice is to be avoided at all costs! Jeez, the other night was bad but driving round town listening the Annie Mac soon put her to sleep.

Finally had my first health visitor check at 5 weeks as again "no onetold us you had given birth". pffft. Harper is now a stonking 8lb 5oz.....6lb1oz when born, lost 9% of body weight by day 3 (plus had jaundice) but day 8 was 6lb 3oz, day 13 was 6lb 8oz........she is now into newborn clothes :) buying girls clothes is fun!

hope your all getting a bit of a lay in on a sunday xx

Hi ladies, good to see how you're all doing! Benjamin is a week old and already back to his 9.1 birthweight...he's growing so much everyday and it feels like the time scales in the books don't really apply to him-I don't know if thats because he was 2 weeks overdue?

I'm still waking him up in the night for a feed after about 4 hours-mainly because I'm swimming in milk by then! I'm struggling a bit with feeding and my nipples are just starting to heal after a week of cracking and bleeding-seems far less painful if i can express a bit first to get the milk flowing to avoid the strong sucking.

Any ladies who had an episiotomy...my cut is quite open at skin level (maybe 2-3 mm) with tighter stitching lower down. Is this normal? I just cant see how it will heal but I guess it's healing from the bottom upwards?

Hormones are a bit all over the place, I tend the have a low period at about 4pm where I try to get DH to take over. It's crazy how one minute I can be staring at Ben and crying tears of sheer joy and a hour later just feeling completely overwhelmed by it all. I feel pretty guilty but DH says it's perfectly normal at this stage-when should the hormones settle down?

Right well DH is on baby duty so I going to take advantage and do a bit of mindless Internet surfing!
Xxx

We have changed up Morgan's feeding routine again. Now we add carobel (food thickener) to every feed, she gets an antiacid (ranitidine) every 8 hours and lactalose every 12 hours. In addition, we are keeping her sleeping surfaces at a slight angle and keeping her upright during feeds and for about 30 mins after. There had definitely been some improvement with her colic, reflux and constipation in the past few days :) Thank you for all the support ladies.

thats good news wishwales, its deffo a case of just trying everything to see what works best for you.

i swear the vibrating/rocking chair we bought is the best purchase ever. saves me having to go out for a drive with her so much!

Pleased it's getting better wishwales

Well DS has his 8 week check and injections this afternoon, along with my post natal check .. Hopefully they'll be happy with his weight gain and give us the ok

We have our 8 week check and jabs on Thursday.

Alex contiues to be a dream. He sleeps for approx 9 hrs a night and we haven't had an interupted night for over 3 weeks - bliss. We took him to a basketball game yesterday and he was exhausted last night and slept from 10.25 to 8.45 this morning - a new record! He has such a podgy tummy though (he is over 13lbs) that some of his 0-3 clothes are a bit tight around his tummy. Hope I don't get in trouble at his check up!!

wow hersetta he is such a good sleeper lucky you!! one day rafiq did 12.30 til 5.30am so i was pretty happy with that
hopefully they dont tell you off about his size, if they do try to make an issue ask them to do the length cos he might also be tall? then they back off a bit. my ds2 i remember the dr was really suprised at his weight at his check but compared to his height it worked out okay.
i got rafiqs check booked for in a couple of weeks, finally got round to registering him in the dr today although we are about to move house again so hardly seems worth it really
glad to hear things are improving for morgan wishwales

He didn't cry they are pleased with his progress, on his corrected age he's tracking 50th line so very happy with that. Got to have another check in 4 weeks when he has his next jabs and if all ok we can go on our merry way

Morning Mummies!! I notice this thread is a little quieter than our antenatal one ... are we all busy by any chance???

All is well with us although I am KNACKERED today. I should be waking the girls up to play for a while now so they go down well for their lunchtime nap but really can't motivate myself. Other than the lack of sleep I am loving being a mummy - it is even better than I'd ever imagined. The girls are two months old today and are little poppets. They still haven't quite got the hang of smiling yet and aren't hugely interactive with us but they will be 5 weeks behind schedule on that obviously. They do sleepy and windy smiles though which are just beautiful - can't wait for the real thing!

Had some problems with Sophia throwing up a lot, and I mean a proper projectile job not just 'possetting' (I hate that word). But we've sort-of taken on Gina Ford's routine of eating / sleeping and I think the spacing of feeds has helped as she doesn't seem to vom as much now. Perhaps I was overfeeding as I'm so keen to get them to pile weight on! Other than the routine I think Gina Ford is mean, mean, MEAN. She doesn't allow any time to actually enjoy the babies, or for that matter, go anywhere!! I didn't have children to breed sleeping and eating machines but that's all she seems to think they're good for. Horrible woman.

Haven't had them weighed properly for 3 weeks now but I put them on my Wii fit board yesterday (as it is gathering dust!!!) and Madeleine was 9lb 4oz and Sophia 7lb 12oz... just about the size of "proper" newborns now! Bless them.

Anyway, hope you're all well and babies are thriving.

Annie - my hormones seemed to settle themselves down at about 3ish weeks I think but that period could have been prolonged for me as I was in hospital for the first 2 which created additional hormonal nightmares for me. Hope you feel better soon though and get more periods of crying-with-sheer-joy rather than sobbing with overwhelm-ment (I'm pretty sure that's a word!!)

Wishwales - So pleased to hear things are getting better for you and Morgan. We have been so lucky that our girls have been reasonably healthy and not crying round the clock so I can't say that I've shared your feelings but I can well imagine that I would if I were in the same situation. I have a friend from NCT who was much the same as you though as her daughter had awful colic and constipation and I think she was ready to hand her back to the hospital at one point. The times when my girls have been really grizzly or crying and I've been tired myself have felt unbearable and it is all I can do to stop myself from shouting at them to put a bloody sock in it. I hope Morgan continues to get better and the medication works wonders so you can get on with properly enjoying her.

NatashaBee - I have the exact same dilemma with Sophia (except that they spotted the tongue tie at SIX weeks in my case). My HV said the same to me about not having anything done about it at the moment as she feeds fine from a bottle. I am just keeping everything crossed that it turns out fine - particularly since she has the name Sophia and our surname is Stevens... one of my worries when we named her was that she might end up with a lisp and would call herself TH-ophia TH-tevens!! I might ask my HV again when I see her tomorrow and will report back afterwards if she says anything different.

Sarge - hilarious Sainsbury's story. Bless you! Sorry to laugh at your misfortune, but the breast-pad-falling-out-bit just made me chuckle!

wishwales glad to hear things are getting better

theonlyhb2 - Hello! glad to see you... I should have guessed a girl after all that sickness etc - I was very sick with DD1 too. I am so chuffed as I think no words can describe how gorgeous she is (of course I say that because I am her mummy). I think it's cute Harper is into newborn size, I think Grace was never in newborn!! maybe a day or two. She is just so slim and long everything is baggy and too short!!

mrsstevo - Gina Ford makes me shudder and yes - so busy!

hersetta wow what a sleep! thats great :). Grace is also growing out of some 0-3 months clothes and she is only 4 weeks on Thursday - except th problem for me is her length!! I am taking her on Thursday for a weigh in and I will ask them to check her length as I am sure it is over 60cm now.

In other news we went away for the weekend, (hence not mumsnetting) I know crazy with a three and a half week old but it was okay. We live near Edinburgh and we went to Newcastle to visit family on Thursday night (2.5 hours in car with a 30 minute stop to change feed etc), then on Saturday wento to Manchester to see DH's family (2 hour journey and she was fed/changed before we left and she slept the whole way!!). Then travelled back on Monday almost a 4 hour journey and we did 2 stops as I wanted to make sure she was out of the carseat plenty. I expected the travelling to be worse than it was. I was getting up twice a night while we were away - but in the grand scheme of things thats not bad.
I'm confident about our week in the lakes when she is 8 weeks old now.

Last night she was a bit unsettled and was pretty sick. She had bad wind and I think she guzzled too much milk.
Today she fought sleep all day, having only we 20 minute snatches here and there and was getting quite antsy, until I put her down on her front and she slept for a good hour like that - do any of you let them sleep on their tummys?

My stretch mark sore is healing now thankfully.
Tomorrow we meet three other yummy mummies and babies for lunch (ladies from my work - all who had babies in Jun and Jul) so I'm looking forward to that.

I am having a nightmare trying to get an appointment to have a coil fitted, after the fuss about them telling you to think about contraception straight away, you'd think it would be easier to sort it. I have to wait until 14 Oct for a consultation appointment - then I can make an appointment for fitting which is about a 6 week wait again - Grace will be 13 weeks by then. And even though I am still too tired - I should think we will want to resume by 13 weeks and I am not risking getting PG when BF it is way to soon!! Is it so difficult in other parts of the UK?

Anyway - I best sleep - sending you all sleepy baby vibes so you all get a good one tonight.

Evie DS has slept on his tummy since he was a week old. Mainly because in the hospital he'd flip from his back to side, then side to tummy on his own but in doing so gets taffled up in blankets so for us it was much safer to just put him on his tummy to start with. I must add tho that from the hospital he was able to push his head of the mattress himself

often have to sleep Harper on her side as she doesn't like her back. Mum said I always slept on my side as a baby.

Evie, I am impressed with you going away! Do you think its easier as you have done before or does it all feel like the first time again?

Been expressing breast milk and bottle feeding since hospital stay, and thought would have trouble getting her on boob......but she seems to prefer it sometimes! Even wanted boob when we were out last week rather than bottle, I thought this was quite unusual?

Sargesaweyes DS has started with colic too, its mild during the day but ramps up at night :( only place DS will sleep is either on me or in our bed. Its not a habbit I want to get into but he is just so stressed after his night feed. Ive got him on colic drops but if they dont have much of an affect Ive got to go back to the GP for something to help.

Sarge and Winter My DS2 has colic too. Rather grumpy most of the day when not being cuddled, but really notches up a gear at night :-( He will only usually settle on me in bed, not in his moses basket. Like you Winter it is not a habit I want to encourage, but DS1 had awful colic too, and it DOES pass.

Around 3&1/2 months my DS1 had the night from hell, so bad we called my M-i-L at 3am to come and help out before we killed him, but that did seem to be the peak of it and things got better from there. Within a fortnight he had settled into a bath/bottle/bed routine and was sleeping from 8pm to 5am.

Having gone through it all the first time, and worried myself silly about routines and habits etc, this time we are just "going with the flow" until the colic passes, and will establish a routine after that. With colic it really is about survival, for both you and your DP AND the baby. Please don't beat yourself up, things will get better :)

Thats what im doing, I had to keep a feed diary for the nurses/doctors of DS and I stressed myself out about it soo much. Found out at a check up that they didnt need it, and wasnt too fussed with seeing it they just wanted a rough estimate as to how much he was feeding.... guess what I did with the log yup it went in the bin and now I feed DS when he's hungry, put him for a nap when he's tired etc etc and its sooooooo much better. I am still jotting down his feeds when I remember but if I forget oh well lol

avoid orange juice! I found this out the hard way last week. I got some Nuk bottles and use infacol before each feed, deffo helps, you can use from newborn too :)

Yes - I too have found orange juice made Grace a wee bit grouchy and her poop was slightly different.

We were out all afternoon today :)

theonlyhb2 - I think it is easier because 1) I'm calmer, 2) DH is a star and helps loads, 3) I'm older and les inclined to panic- also have seen a baby projectile vomitting baby before and all you do is clean them then cuddle them and 4) I have an easy calm baby.

I found going away not to bad because I planned ahead and made sure I had time for stopping if thats what I needed to do.

Oh and I am also bad - when Grace wakes (between 3 and 5) I feed her and cuddle her and end up getting comfy and sleepy so just keep her in bed with me. I love it though.