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 :)

I think Santa may be delivering lots of baby gyms this year. E has added it on her list too.

Oh has just come back from driving her around as we have been.trying to settle her to bed since 7pm. She went down for 40 mins initially, I thought we were on to a winner. How wrong was I! Tried her on 4oz of formula just to see if it makes any difference but it doesn't seem to.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy lots of Christmas snuggles with your Lo and the bigger ones of the family :)

Happy Christmas all!
Poor old snorty daughter is all bunged up and coldy for her first christmas. And her brother is oozing snot too. Nice. She's BF - finally had the giant four day poo today - had my brother's family over for christmas lunch, fortunately his partner managed to hand her back to me just before the leakage began. Which means I now only have TWO tops that fit me that I can BF in, but still, it meant she didnt have to go round coated in poo water for the rest of the day.
Anyway, hope you all have a lovely lovely day tomorrow, that our new babies begin a lifetime tradition of happy christmases and that we remember with love those that cant be happy this christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone, hope everyone has a wonderful day with their newly enlarged families.

Thinking of Chip & Caz & their beautiful angels.

Santa is a buffoon! He delivered the much wanted presents but didn't check that we had the right sort of batteries in the house. Next year, Mrs Claus will be in charge....

Happy Christmas to everyone and i hope that all the babies enjoyed their first Christmas. Hope everyone is also well and getting over colds if you or babies have them. Also thinking of you chip and caz at this time. We dressed Max up yesterday in a father Christmas, he looked great!

Anyone having issues getting their babies down to bed at night? My nearly 8 week old doesn't go to bed till between 10.30 and 1am every night. He has been like this since he was born, least its not 3 am for us any more! Every night i try to put him down any time between 6 and 8 depending on what time he woke up in the late afternoon, but he likes to nap in the evening and then just cry till he's exhausted, then he will get over it and be smiley before he settles down! Its driving me crazy, i try to limit his sleep in the day but he gets so tired from the night before and you cant wake him. I try again each day to limit his sleep and try for a little routine. In the day Max goes to sleep nealry all the time by himself. I looked at the (gf ford book,ssshh i know!! Well i skipped through it and liked the chart where they get up at 7am, nap at 9am, lunchtime sleep at 12 till 2ish, nap at 4 till 5, then bed at 7pm, i hate to say this but that makes sense, obviously noting when baby is tired to adjust this each day!) But why doesn't my baby go to bed at night? Ive tried the theory where if they sleep well in the day then they will sleep at night? I look for his yawning and after 2 yawns i try him for a sleep. He just used to cry all night, that's a little bit better some nights but just doesn't go to bed! I rock, sing, walk the rooms, try to leave him if hes awake/dozy, bouncy chair, swing etc. He also has silent reflux so sometimes they gagging and choking startles him and then he cries after i have just settled him. We did think it was colic, it may still be but I'm running out of ideas. Ive also posted on someone else's thread in sleep as their baby is having similar sleep issues.

Thank you for reading this really long post!

Happy xmas all, hope you all had a good day as a new/expanded family :)

MrsA. like everyone else hope you get your money back, shocking that you didn't get the support you were supposed to, but good that you are both ok.

Free, I've had issues with J sleeping but I think in part it's due to being away visiting family and being over stimulated and a growth spurt, so glad to be home again today, just us and the dogs - peace reigns once more :)

Loving the poo stories, I don't really have any, there is just plenty of poo going on here, but no comedy episodes to accompany am afraid!

Happy belated Christmas! We had a wonderful day, Willow wore her first ever dress (slummy mummy keeps the poor child permanently in babygrows), and she even slept through dinner so i could eat my sprouts two handed! Jacob meanwhile at 28 months totally got it for the first time this year and our festivities were largely sponsored by Thomas the Tank Engine. He loved his books the best, followed by a rather surprise balance bike he got from his loaded aunt and uncle!!
Free I think at this stage babies aren't actually supposed to sleep through the evening. It's actually one of their busiest times when they should be clusterfeeding to boost your supply if you're BFing, and to ensure they have enough food in their tums to get through most of the night even if you're not. From what I remember of DS there was no point in putting him to bed before we went to bed until he was about 3 months old. So with DD we're not bothering. She has a bath with DS and gets into her night stuff with him, so she has that part of the bedtime routine, but then we take her downstairs with us and she dozes and feeds all evening til we go to bed. It's worth noting if you're going to use that book by she who must not be named, that she hasn't actually ever had a child of her own. Much of the way she writes makes more sense if your raising other people's kids for a living and therefore you want them to fit in with you to make your job easier and more predictable, than a parent who is happy to be more adaptable and fit in with what the baby wants to do - because they have an emotional bond to the child and they're only having a few children so know that this super demanding stage really doesn't last long at all - not raising dozens and dozens of other people's. I remember trying that book with DS, for all of a day or so til he wisely got colic and taught us to read him not 'gurus'. Certainly I wouldn't touch her BFing advice with a 20 ft pole and always found her sleep advice hopelessly optimistic. That said, if you have a placid, fairly easy baby I think GF could give you a good structure to your day. But then if you BF you don't really need to know in advance when feeds are going to be so don't really need that structure. Our routine is more of an order with no times but a set pattern. It goes Willow wakes, we give her one of her dozen or so meds, change her nappy, put her to the boob, she falls asleep. Repeat....

Hope all have had a lovely Christmas and I too am thinking of chip Caz and bluetinkerbell and their angels x

It's good to see others in same position as me. E goes to bed when we do but feeds and naps until then. We do a bedtime routine though. Bath feed bed. She is now sleeping from about 11 to 2am wake feed sleep for 2 hours and repeat. That's good enough for me. I couldn't have a daily routine as I'm out and about so she will sleep in car etc. She is adapting quite well.

I think some people do make to that theirs sleep right through. I understand that now as its so tiring keep on having to explain why she isn't. I just can't be bothered!

I have just over a week until oh goes back to work then the fun begins. Right snuggled up on sofa watching wizard of oz. Ooooo scary witch. Eek.

Hope everyone had a good day yesterday. E has slept through now the last 4 nights, by fluke and her nature as oppose to anything we have done I think. In the day she sleeps when she wants...I'd find it hard to have a timed routine when out and about and doing different things. She has a lot of alert awake time in day now which is prob why she sleeps on a night. Then we do bath and pjs before 10pm feed which we do in near darkness and then put her down to sleep. Then she'll go through to 6:30/7am. I'm getting used to leaving her sleeping upstairs with video monitor now although I then spend most of the time just watching monitor instead of tv!!

DD stays up with us too - sadly that means a bedtime of between 12 and 1, then generally she sleeps till 4 - its getting her back down after that that we struggle with. Wish we could shift her pattern a few hours earlier though.
She's still horribly bunged up and uncomfortable, a four week old shouldnt have a cold, its just not fair.
I too made some attempt at gina ford for DS. Just not for us at all. Now, we have pattern but no schedule.
Speaking of which...

I've not read Gina Ford, I'm scared of it. I may either love it and feel guilty for it, or implode with righteous indignation.

We go to bed together as a family, and get out of bed together - she wakes up for a feed in the night but we do it and then curl up together again.

Having problems keeping the food down atm - not reflux possets but small vomits - I'm getting tired of being covered in it. At least she's not screaming after them.

Hello, hope it was a happy Christmas for all.

I am struggling this week, DS has stopped going to sleep on his own and is getting overtired and having a screaming meltdown at least once a day. I'm trying to get him to sleep after two hours of being awake but it's not happening.

DH has been working over Christmas so I've been on my own a lot which hasn't helped. I broke down tonight after DS was still awake after 2 hours of trying to get him to sleep and the Christmas dinner I had cooked for DH and I was left to go cold. Even when DS does sleep he wakes when I transfer from me to his Moses basket and has to be re-settled again.

I can't stand all the crying and worry that he is still hungry, feed him and then he is sick so I don't think he is hungry. He is very obviously tired, tired eyes and yawning but won't sleep!

He is managing to sleep in 3 hour stretches at night but it's very hard getting him back to sleep after the 4am(ish) feed and then for the rest of the day and evening.

We have no routine and I feel like I'm not doing a very good job of this.

mashpot Routine or no routine, he'd scream if he wanted/needed to scream for two hours.
What have you tried in regards to soothing? If you've tried everything you may want to take him for a medical review - babies this age often scream that consistently and intensely for a reason. I was told Abi had colic by midwives, health visitors and other "clever clogs" so many times before paediatricians finally diagnosed her with Milk intolerance.

I'd concur with what Cali is saying, I had lots of comments from medics that the fact Willow wouldnt settle in her cot but would on me was down to me spoiling her. It wasnt til she was admitted and the nurses had a go, and were still trying at 5.56am that they admitted yes she really could only sleep on me and something was up. The next night they gave her paracetamol, then ibuprofen and finally codeine, and finally she could sleep. Turns out some of the symptoms of acute zinc deficiency are very painful. Free I'm sorry I missed that pit in your earlier post about the silent reflux. Did you have heartburn when you were pregnant? That's pretty much what silent reflux is - horrid for us, but even more agonising when you're tiny and don't understand why you're in pain. With Willow we found she liked to sleep very upright indeed, hence liking to sleep on my boobs, but only really got any relief with meds. She's now on omeprizole and domperidone and we really notice days when she sicks up her meds as sleep and feeds go haywire again. Trying to instill a routine without fixing the reflux sounds incredibly difficult.
To be honest though, with those worrying about routines full stop, at this stage I'd say don't stress about it. J settled into a predictable pattern of sleep and feeds - I'm not calling it a routine because it was his pattern not mine, which slowly altered over time as he dropped naps etc, from three months. I tried getting him into one before then, but realised it was pointless, and with Willow, I'm treating the first three months like the fourth trimester and not stressing about routines. It's much easier, and I know it won't spoil her. J is a dream sleeper these days - even over the sounds of his sister bellowing over midnight nappy changes etc - and that was despite us ignoring the advice of numerous published experts.

Thank you Poppet for making us first timers feel better. I'm just going to take the lead from E. X

Cali I've done a lot of reading on reflux and allergies etc but he sleeps well at night - in fact is rarely sick at night, just during the day - and he can lie on his back happily then. Plus he has a grizzly cry and another cry that I've thankfully only heard once when he banged his head which I think means he's in pain and I think his crying is grizzly because he's tired. It took me more than two hours to get him to sleep tonight but he is in his moses basket in the bedroom on his own for the first time! Monitor is own but I still have to keep popping in there to check on him.

And he didn't have an afternoon nap. I took him out in the pram after his feed and walked miles but he didn't close his eyes for more than ten minutes. It's exasperating and I hope this phase doesn't last long. I spend all his awake time fretting about getting him back to sleep and all his sleeping time fretting about when he will wake up again.

Oh well, I've just got to roll with it, sorry for all my moaning!

That didn't last long, he's up again.

Merry xmas all. DS is now 3 weeks and so like DD in the evening. i second what has been said - until he is about 3 months, he won't go to bed on his own. We include him in DD's bedtime routine and get him ready for bed but take him back down with us and either settle him in his basket if we are lucky or I hold him/wear him in a sling as he cries and cries from about 8-10pm.
DD was same. DS is trying to cluster feed bless him. If he'd just go to the boob, he could but he won't and we are on slippery slope to ff.
I don't get stressed though. Babies remember what happened when they cried (ie comforted or ignored) but not the crying. Ignore anyone who tells you you can spoil a baby at this age. Rubbish IMO - babies need lots of attention and cuddles.

I have had a nightmare with feeding. See here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/1361189-4-day-old-after-c-section-and-not-really-sure-what-Im-doing We ended up in hospital on day 7 as he lost so much weight and had no wet nappies. I've had so much bf support - I'm doing nothing wrong, latch is fine etc but he just will not suck enough milk out. Whenh the bf was affecting DS's health AND DD's general well being, I knew it was time to admit defeat. I'm still expressing but I reckon we'll end up ff 100%.
Oh well. We did BLW with DD and it was very healing, so we'll do it again with DS. Feeding on demand too, so he is controlling his intake that way.
Had cranial osteopathy and he is ok but has a twisted diaphragm so needs more sessions.

I'm recovering OK. Was a bigger section than DD, so still get very tired and breathless and my taste buds haqve been affected by the general! Diet coke tastes pants and i ;loved it before!

Still bleeding too, which is a pain. It went away but came back with a vengeance due to me doing far too much over xmas.
Dreading next week when DP goes back to work.

What else to say. DS sleeps OK some nights (went 11-5 the other night) but others he is up every couple of hours. With midwives, health visitors and xmas, i haven't had a chance to sleep when he does, so at least I can do that once DP in work and DD in nursery.

And finally - anyone up for a meet at the trafford centre? I can't drive for a few more weeks but maybe mid-January?

MsA Def up for a meet!

Hi all

I am in agreement with not being able to routine babies until after the magic 3 month mark - I found with my other 2 they naturally settled into a routine and everything got easier at that stage. Having said that ds2 (fully breastfed) slept through from 6 weeks 6pm - 7am no idea how we did that, think it was just him and nothing we did - he still at age 6 is not at all bothered about food and could go all day without thinking about it, we have to make him eat.

Luke has fitted into our routine but does the cluster feeding 6-10 where he naps and feeds a lot. It seems totally normal at this age so I am going with it.

I would be up for a Trafford Centre meet - we are 5 mins drive away, in fact am going there with my mum this morning - dh has taken the kids to Alton Towers' Splashlandings waterpark for the day, we have passes and they love it there and go a lot.

Thank you for all your replies, i do need to just chill and take each day as it comes to be honest. Poppet i think thats half my issue, ive always looked after babies and they have always come with routines. So now i have my own baby i just assumed i would find a routine! I know, put the books down! I had acid of some sort where you burp and taste bile whilst pregnant so yes i can imagine its horrible for Max. We will get through it, i also just assumed that the doctors would say yes of course there's something we can do, rather than he will grow out of it!

I have been reading up on Blake's problems and I think he suffers from hind milk/foremilk imbalance - in the evening he cluster feeds but more than that - he will come off the breast and howl when my let down reflex kicks in, then he'll get really upset for about 45 minutes before I can settle him to feed again. Only symptom he lacks is the green poo but he does have bad wind / watery pops a lot. DH has no patience with this/him and just goes upstairs which is a shame as I think he would have a much better chance of settling him not smelling of milk. Ho hum. I gather that this issue will soon resolve itself as Blake becomes able to cope with more milk so I will just watch films with subtitles of an evening and be v v grateful that DD sleeps through the racket.

I would be able to attend a meet up at the Trafford centre and would love to go!

Well, another low - apologies in advance for the self-absorbed moaning about to commence.

Abi is back to refusing foods - at first I thought she may be teething as she was furiously trying to chew everything, and suck on her fists. But now we're back to how it was on the double dose of Gaviscon, and I am seriously thinking something is surgically wrong. She's having problems swallowing, coughing and spluttering, and wheezing which I guess is the food going down "the wrong way" as it piles up/comes back.
I've got an appointment with the paeds this afternoon, but I have no clue how to face it - I know I'll be told it's colic and I just have to live with her fussy eating, and to starve her to "get her into a routine".
HOWEVER - they don't have to live with a child constantly crying with hunger. I've just fed her at 5.30 - same story of crying, screaming, coaxing, pleading, bonjela if it's something in her mouth hurting her, gripe water if it's the acid reflux, sobbing helplessly with baby in arms as DP tries to calm me down - in the end we tried to settle her to sleep, but I had to get up as I couldn't lie there looking at my child trying to eat her dummy, whimpering and clawing at her face as she's not had enough and is starving, but can't/won't eat any more.

I'm out of ideas, I'm out of steam and I can't face the paediatricians today - I will probably get thrown out of the hospital if they tell me to "persevere"... I will most likely lose it and explode.

Oh Cali that is hard. I have no advice I'm sorry but I understand how frustrated you must be. Can someone else go with you to keep calm and help you explain?

sasaunde do you think your let down is very fast? Have you tried feeding at different angles to reduce the flow? Sorry, I'm sure you've tried it all. DH doesn't sound too helpful! With me, I have a hard time settling DS as he can smell my milk but won't latch on so it's a vicious circle!

So I'm still bleeding after 3 weeks. It's still bright red but not stupidly heavy - I use say 3 pads every 24 hrs. When should I worry? I remember things being a bit like this with DD but not as bad. Oi think its possibly cos I hads such a deep incision.

Bless you cali, ive just read your post, i do feel for you. I dont know what your going through but good luck today and hope you get some help. Max has just found his hands and chews them angrily, i read its something to do with colic or acid? I try to give him his dummy after a while, i go through the same ideas as you when hes crying. Not much really helps apart from walking him around.

mrsa do you have any clots? maybe just ring the hospital or your m/w and see what they say. I know you can bleed for a little while after especially if your up and moving around?

Hope everyone else is ok.