October 2011 - Let the poo obsession begin

[PenguinArmy]

Come chat, moan, boast (by stealth of course), vent, rage, relax, worry and be reassured. Welcome to all the new babies. Stats thread here

It is hard - and it's okay to feel you're struggling. DD1 was a nightmare baby and I really didn't find it at all easy to adjust to motherhood as a result, even wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake, wasn't cut out for this etc. But the baby stage goes so quickly and mrsh is right, it does get so much easier. She is now an absolute delight and I look back and the hardest time seems so very short.

I hold on to this when we have awful days here! I do feel I'm neglecting both the older DC and our relationship is suffering but L will start to nap a bit better soon hopefully so I can do more with them and it'll be fine.

I forget what age* everyone's babies are..

groovy that's lovely

. I think now aswell that she is smiling and much more aware of things, if I'm feeling in a shit mood, I just need to look at her and she beams. It brings a tear to my eye and it makes me soo happy and proud of the little baby i created (with the help of her dad obviously!).

Goodness, think I'm filling up here!!! Lol x

Aargh I'm having the worst week ever! Lost my purse cancelled all my cards then found the damn thing (not that it matters ad don't get paid till thurs and I'm skint)
Add to that my boiler has now broken down I have no heating! Home emergency ins won't cover it as it hasn't bn serviced! And Scottish gas won't touch it as it's an Italian boiler!! What do I do!

Awen/scheh hope you're ok, we've had a few days of horrors too - yesterday the girls collectively slept for 30 minutes during the day! 30 minutes!!! And screamed all day unless they were held on one specific position! I had nursery with ds which is always a stressful experience for me and by the end of the day i was exhausted I was sat alone at the dining room table having my dinner (cold) after ds was in bed and everyone else had eaten and just sobbed. Thankfully today is a much better day and ds and I went shopping for Xmas trees and decs (I spent a small fortune on christmas crap but bless his face when we picked it all up) and girls have been lovely, relaxed and smiling all day, cannot believe how my mood had flipped so dramatically! I hope you get a flip an have a great day tomorrow xx

Cry and eat Toblerone Edward!
or fudge.

I wonder if you are having the week I had last week Awen and Sheh. Constant crying and never seeming to be happy baby, giving feeding cues, then not feeding, just crying etc etc. I cannot remember who said it could be a "wonder week".

It has passed though, so hang in there ladies, P is back to her happy self this week - until the next "phase"

Oh the fudge, I've still to make it. Mmmmm

Do you know anyone that can have a look at it for you? I had a dodgy old boiler in my old house (not that yours is dodgy) and our friend (who is a plumber) managed to get it working every time (until id had enough and just replaced it!) x sorry about your crappy week (I've done that with purse many a time and it's so annoying!)

Gosh bb3 I have nothing but respect for you; twins! I can't even imagine. To be honest, part of my Problem is that things aren't even that bad. C sleeps 4/5 hours in a block at night and is generally very easy to settle to sleep with his slumber bear. I have a wonderful dp, and no other kids, just a very needy patterdale terrier!

Hi guys, Awen, Sheherezade and Edward am joining you in the crappy week just really tired and DP and I cannot seem to communicate at all we seem to just misunderstand each other everytime we have a conversation, plus dog is on heat, one of the cats has become incontinent and pissed all over the brand new nursing chair plus I have raging soar throat. All would be manageable if I wasn't so tired.
What's a wonder week?

Hello ladies, I've been away for a few days - first trip with A, to my old university town - and it went well. He slept on the plane there and back, was generally well behaved, and slept even better in the portacot than his moses basket so am wondering now if he is too small for the basket so should move him to the cot as it could have been a concidence but he slept better than he ever has, even 8 hours two of the nights!

One trick for packing light that worked well was taking some nappies but buying the bigger packets there - totally recommend that engels if you are worried about space in the car!

Sadly though his cousin (10 months old) has rotavirus so spent a lot of the trip really sick, we spent a lot of time with him so am now worried my baby will get it. I guess I'll just have to see - my poor nephew was so sick, I felt terrible for him. I do wonder though - at A's age (9.5 weeks) can you tell the difference between actual sick vomiting and just regular milk vomit?

Sad to hear some of you have had bad weeks and terrible weather.

wonder weeks are when they have developmental (brain) spurts. Generally they are more unsettled, sleep worse and cry more etc. On the link look at the top red bar for 'mental development', go to 'first two years' and you can access info on all of them. This stuff only started coming out in the 90's so hasn't progressed to HVs etc yet. It's responsible for the 4 month sleep regression which can be a killer (babies that slept through, stop). There is a chart around somewhere that lists them all, I'll see if I can find it.

It's fair to say we've had one this week which fits as DS is 9 weeks on Tues. We had a horrible night of inconsolable intense crying, was drained and rather emotional the next day.

I've been reading 'Why Love Matters', thoroughly recommend it, although being on my second DC it can be hard going in places.

Pene I would say you can tell a difference as they won't be right in themselves if ill.

Here is a chart for the wonder weeks that Penguin mentions above: www.thewonderweeks.com/images/stories/Book/WW_info_chart.pdf

D fits into those too. It's actually quite a consolation knowing this stuff. I feel less like I'm doing a rubbish job!

I'll have a look at Why Love Matters. I'm reading Playful Parenting which is really great!

thanks mpops if you scroll down to the end there's a bigger version. Also remember these don't include the physical developments (rolling, crawling, walking) hence bad bits can blend together for ages. Sorry to be doom and gloom and it won't happen for everyone. Just I've seen a lot of parents getting shit advice around 4 months so figure better to be prepared (e.g. you need to wean)

my next book I'll get in will be 'my child won't eat' to help calm me and ignore MIL with DD, but I'll look out for 'Playful Parenting'

I'd say the why love matters book would be useful for those who feel under pressure from others about making a rod for your own back and feel guilty about lots of holding, soothing straight away etc.

Oh yeah, that'd be us then. The HV is always blaming everything on that!

I will join you in the crap week, exactly matching what you described cheshire. Feeding cues but not eating, then screaming, then finally eating, then screaming some more. It has calmed down now and she is sleeping quite well yet bizarrely it is now that I feel very emotional and down in the dumps. Maybe it has just all finally caught up with me. I am sitting here feeling very worried about how I can possibly bring up a child successfully.

We have put up our christmas decorations now though so the house looks very pretty. Still haven't done any shopping though, doh!

Yep we'll join u all on the rubbish week, have now got mastitis just back from out of hours who have given me some antibiotics...I have not felt this bad in a long long time!!! Not only that but it was ds1's birthday party this arvo so had no choice but to carry on regardless. Now can't wait to get him into bed and die on the sofa!!!

Oh and thanks for advice on slings...will have a look at recommendations once I am feeling a bit better.

Maybe it's the weather getting all our babies this way, ayse's a nightmare!! It's always when there is calm and quiet that I feel upset too as it's when I start to think about everything and reflect on the day and it's when the tiredness hits you like a slap in the face x

I put the decorations up today - we now had two trees as ds and I went shopping and he fell in love with the real trees (i already had the artificial one out the loft so now we have both but have spent a fortune on new decorations! Why is it that you always need new lights for the tree?!?! My intention if I can stay awake is to get all my cards written tonight an posted in the morning and maybe some presents wrapped but I can always do that another day if I fall asleep don't get round to it!

Oh Dannid ouch! Hope you're ok, lots of rest!

Yeah now the party is out of the way I feel I can relax a bit, just feeling so run down at the moment. Don't suppose anyone knows if it's safe to take vit c wen breast feeding?! On a plus note tho I'm pretty sure we had our first 'real' smiles today!!!

hey everyone, and sorry for those of you having shitty weeks. J has just had a good day and i feel quite good - i find that my emotions are so changeable based on the night i have had, and how he has been over the past few hours. sometimes it really just seems too much, and other times it all just clicks into place.

based on your recommendations we tried putting him in a sleeping bag last night instead of swaddling which i really didn't like. and so far so good - although he really scratched his face with all of his arm flailing so he is back in his mitts.

my dh did his first 'night' last night. although we are ff i have done all the nights so far, and i said on fri night that i thought it would be fair to split the weekends. my dh managed to have the worst night, by not feeling/winding him enough as he wanted to get it done as quickly as possible so i was awake the whole time (and the next few hours) but at least i didn't have to get out of bed and i figure he will be better next weekend...