November 2011 - early birds, just in time and late to the party, all welcome!!

[TwoJackRussellsandapumpkin]

Hi all,

just starting up a post natal thread for all the due in November peeps on the antenatal forum and anyone else who would like to join in too, hoping to see my arrival by the end of the week, so officially an early bird I hope :)

waves can I join here?

Ds was born on 24th nov at 14:08

He's a good boy really just trying to get him to gain weight at the moment :(. I'm bf and expressing and a little formula to top him up.

Can't believe how little I get done in a day!

Oh is back to work on Monday and he does shifts 6:30-18:30 or the opposite 4daya 3 nights then a few days off. I'm not nervous about the baby but
more about my sanity....

OMG, I'm sure it won't be repeated but I'm just going to have a little whoop as DS had bottle at 10:30, fed at 1:30 then didn't wake again til 7:30

Welcome *Glitternanny^

truffkin yes, that sounds like normal breastfed poos. I miss the sweet smell . I'm on the comfort version of formula and good grief does it make ds poo and farts toxic. Very eggy. Currently preferring smell of dd's which is saying slot ESP if she's had baken beans!

Good night, ds feed at 9.20pm,3.30 and 7.30 so good night sleep for me (as DH does 3.30 feed).

Am counting down to next Friday when DH finishes for Xmas break - woo! Also count down to Christmas has started for me. Nice to look forward to something. Just received some cute christmassy pjs for DD from tesco. Bargain at £6 each and on 3 for 2.

Just got cards to do and final few prezzies to wrap.

Hope everybody and babies are well today.

Yippee got two 3 hours stretches of sleep last night and little one took breast milk and then nearly 120 ml of formula top up this morning. Of course things couldn't last wetland as I came back after going to the loo to discover he had projectile vomited. Poor soul had to have a bath and is now sleeping. Poor mummy has the washing machine back on and needs to have a shower! Holding off shower until I am certain he is ok.
Alicat v jealous of your long sleep!

Dh has done 2 night feeds since we came home from hospital. How many does your dp do?

Moosey at the smell. Glad it is the formula. I have been blaming that but I was concerned it might just be a smelly baby!!! Still at least DS now poos and winds easily. Reflux is much less too. 5 straight hrs sleep in his cot last night. Little steps in the right direction ......

Truffkin totally agree! Never thought I could care so much about another person's bodily functions lol!

cookie DP has done 2 night feeds since we got home, he just can't get to sleep after and is then a zombie at work. But, he stays up til midnight and does that feed (I go to bed at 10pm!) then I do the 3am feed. Also, hope LO is ok and that there have been no more projectile voms!

So much respect for those with more than one child... DS is certainly keeping me on my toes. Especially with his 3 hourly feeds which then drop to 2 hourly as soon as DP gets home and then go to 4 hourly at night! Decided to not even attempt any kind of routine until after Christmas as we are going to be round relatives' houses and any progress/routine is bound to go out of the window anyway!

I have posted this on a sleep deprivation thread but thought it might be helpful here too, I found this white noise clip on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOrSuWZeM which is an amazing 12 hours long (so can play it all night if you wish)! Have whacked it on this morning for DS as he is a nightmare when it comes to daytime napping and after 30 mins he was asleep (with no crying beforehand, just alert and looking around his moses basket) and he slept for a solid hour, complete with adorable little snores. Also, might help for any mummies and daddies who can't sleep when given the opportunity. May be worth a try before forking out on CDs (and also in the middle of the night when putting the hoover on isn't always an option lol!)

Sorry for the mega long post!

Welcome glitternanny :)
Oh no cookie, hope there are no repeats of that!
Well soph is back to her birth weight, which is good to know as it's so difficult to judge how much she is getting! Also hearing test was spot on so am a happy mummy. She clearly needed to catch up on sleep as she slept for 6 and a half hours last night. Lovely but my boobs were killing this morning. Ive never got them out so quickly in my life so desperate I was to have her feed!
Hibernating now until I have to go for dd1 as the weather is awful and set to get worse. Hope our babies and ladies in Scotland are ok, please try and persuade that weather front not to head to the north east and to leave you all alone!
Take care everyone :)

Jees, how are somew of you getting so much sleep? I'm on 4 hrs a night! Argh.

Just - you are not alone. At just 9 days old Erin finally slept in her cot for periods of 2 hours. I was so grateful as I didn't get my evening nap last night due to visitors. I was so pleased with her. She really settles well in her swaddle pod. Brilliant invention, I bought another one today. I know its only 2 hours but I'm so happy!

Just My big sleep was unprecedented - DS usually feeds something like 8:30, 10:30, 1:30, 3:30, 6:30! 10:30 is bottle from DH so I usually get to sleep from about 9:45-1:30 as my main sleep

I'd say I'm probably getting about four hours sleep a night too, and like Ali my main sleep is from about 11pm to 1am. But it will pass.

DS likes his milk, he really does, and although only six weeks he is now on over 150ml about every 3 hrs. But.....150mls in = loads out and he is peeing his way through his nappies, so every time I go to change him, I'm having to change his vest too, and sometimes his outer clothes as well. Its crazy, and naturally its at its worst during the night. And changing his pjs during the night really wakes him up, so he is harder to settle than if it was just a quick nappy change and feed. My beloved washable nappies have been defeated by his peeing, so have Pampers, Sainsburys own brand and Huggies too. I mean, the obvious answer is that he needs changed more often, and thats fine during the day, easy to do, but I'm getting little enough sleep at night without having to set my alarm to do a nappy change every hour and a half. Arrrgggh!! Never had this problem with DD, but I think its a plumbing issue - he just pees straight through the front part of the nappy, whilst the back is relatively dry.

Is anyone here using a soother/dummy for their lo? Dd seems to want to suckle to settle. I'd hate to see a wodge of plastic in her mouth but thought it may help. Thinking that its better than my finger!

never Yes, because it;s better than the thumb - Abi uses it to settle at night, and to calm down before feeds. It's totally normal for them to suckle to settle, and dummies are more practical and sterilizable than your finger...

Ah thanks cali. I'm so new at all this....

never I use a dummy too, for the same reason that Cali said - I prefer the soother to thumb sucking, because I work on the logic that when they are a bit bigger you can take the soother away, but you can never take their thumb away! We used a dummy with DD too, and it was all ok, we got her to stop using it when she was a toddler and there were no major issues getting her to stop.

I have dummies lined up but am going to wait until I've been to La leche drop in tomorrow to see if I can sort latch out first.

Has anyone used a cranial osteopath for their little un? I'm wondering if the wind ans patchy snacking and bad latch could be helped with a couple of sessions with the osteopath? As William was back to back for 2 hours of pushing and his head was extreme conical I wonder if there is something not quite right. Anyone any experience?

Pam I've been wondering about it too for Abi - she was so bruised around her head that they sent us home with paracetamol!

Well, 7 weeks old in 6 hours time - and she put on 250g in one week! Despite bitty feeding! This lady will have her father and I hanging by our nerve endings for ever, methinks.

I took DS1 to a cranial osteo but he hated it & I wasn't convinced she had enough experience with babies. I then tried a chiropractor who specialised in babies & he loved her & enjoyed the sessions. I was going because he has reflux & was generally quite unsettled & cried a lot & I felt we did see improvements after going. It was our chiro who gave us the confidence to push for a consultant to assess his flat head as it is so easy to get fobbed off. In the end he didn't need a helmet & I'm sure this was partly due to the chiro's efforts. So I'm guess what I'm saying is that I think it's important to go to someone who does a lot of baby work.

Those using dummies, which are working for you - I bought tommee tippee to 'match' bottle but he doesn't like them & I think they're too big / long so looking for something diff - maybe nuk?

Well I had my 1st night out tonight for my wotk's Christmas do & had a lovely time (mainly catching up with the other mummies - our team of about 20 has 3 on mat leave, 1 just returned & 1 about to go!). Didn't make meal as it was 6:30 so a bit much to ask DH to have DS2 while doing bedtime for other 2 so just went for a lemonade - rock & roll. Did find a random skirt & non bf top lurking in wardrobe that fitted & managed to squeeze my knee length boots on so didn't look too much like a sack of spuds

pam yes, had cranial osteopath At the weekend. Went to my chiro who specialises in this. Absolutely brilliant. Found quite a few things that needed tweaking. Found he had overactive bowel, was twisted to one side and some other things. Made feeding much better and he is not struggling with trapped wind as much as he was. Bowel movements are far better :) she did work on his head and 'rounded it out' as had a bi of a skislope at front from birth.

I would def recommend to anyone who had quick pushing stage, forceps, feeding issues ie bad latch, colic.

Cali sorry missed your previous post. Glad abi is not scared of bottle. It's more a sign of colic as scared of feeding.

dummy I personally don't like dummys but I've been v lucky that both babies are good at at settling themselves and never needed one. Quite a few people I know have needed to use them and found, if using to settle to sleep, if it fell out it would wake up baby. They actually preferred their babies to thumb suck as they could do this themselves at anytime.

snooze blimey, Thats impressive. At just over 4 weeks ds is on 180ml or 6 ozs every 3-4 hours. He's only leaked through once and that was because I had it too loose at back. I'm using size 2 nappies in pampers newborn. Had to upgrade to size 2 as quantity of poo was not contained in nappy .

Had to move up to 3-6month baby grows already, and they are not looking huge on him either

Thanks for osteopathy thoughts - I'm really convinced it will help DS so going to get recommendations from the consultant mw.

On a huge plus my angel slept from 7pm to midnight, a quick snack and slept through to 3:30h. I went to sleep at about 11 so feel very refreshed. he then woke at 6.30 but has been be gorgeously awake and alert. How my heart melts in his big brown eyes (when I'm not too knackered).

nappies i'm using biodegradable ones from Boots and Waitrose - Natures Beauty by Naty I think they are called. I'm still on size 1 and I think they are brilliant for boy widdles. Very few leakages on a piddle front but we do get poo leakage now he does one huge gassy dump at 4am. The leakage seems to be directly proportional to the amount of gas and force. Not sure when we should move up a size. I used huggies newborn for a few days and they leaked about 50% of the time - Naty has way more padding at front.

We had nappy leaks more or less every poo with ds, regardless of what we used. Dd not so bad yet. But shes only 2 wks.
I think our big sleep problem is once she's up at about 3 or 4, she cant resettle till about 6. She's just wide awake. Cant convince her otherwise.

How are you guys calculating feeds? Abi is 7 weeks, 5.3kg and dietician said at the most she should have 160ml every 4 hours...

We use Naty nappies, too - no leaksies so far, and they breathe better due to being made out of cornstarch.
We're changing over to re-usables after xmas, though.

Was recommended to use almond oil in Abi's bath instead of baby products - such a great idea! She comes out sooo soft and smelling of marzipan...

Like the almond oil idea as have been using olive oil so been making turkey basting jokes.

cookie

Cali calculating feeds - when starting on formula I went by what is on the box. However after first week ds was not drowsy after feed, he was v alert. So we upped next feed by 1oz and he was drowsy and didn't throw it back up immediately. I've just changed to medium flow teat and he has a lot less wind issues and feeding quicker. He doesn't always take 6ozs, he takes what he needs.

I'm using grape seed oil at moment. Have to remember to rinse out Bath afterwards otherwise lethal for next person to use shower!