May 2005 babies - New Year, new thread

[logic]

Happy New Year!

Thanks everyone for your sympathy about our dog, I know we're doing the right thing for us and him, I just still feel sad and guilty about it. Sorry about your chinchilla Madison. We had a chinchilla for over 7 years when I was a teenager, they're lovely animals and I know how attached you can get to them, I hope your other one is ok. I did hear that they can live up to 10 years so hopefully she'll be fine for a while yet.
Its good to hear how all the babies are doing, they all seem to be learning so much at the moment.

Hi, I'm glad the milk seems to be doing the trick SHHHH and I'm sorry about your dog LittleB, it must have been a really tough decision. I have a problem with one of our cats but DH and DS love it so I guess I just have to put up with it. I used to love it before I got pg but now I can't stand it. Hey Ho.

DH and I have now just had the sickness bug, I thought it was just morning sickness at first but I'm never that bad. Thankfully it seems to have passed quickly.

hi everyone

hope everyone thats been poorly are feeling better now

sorry to hear about your dog littleb and your chinchilla maddison.

ds has been crawling for about a month now and pulling himself up and has just starting moving around the furniture. he seems desperate to walk and thinks he can just let go and walk but soon finds he can't when he goes bump on the floor. but he loves walking holding my hands and walks along with his walk behind walker.

we have two teeth now one on the front bottom ones and one of the ones next to it. he's has some nasty nappies but nothing too bad and he's not sore thankfully.

he's gone off his food abit, he still drinks most of his bottles but has decided he dosen't like lumpy food, i think he just get fed up of having to chew, and pefers the pureed stuff. he likes finger foods like bread sticks, biscotti, cheese toast and chocolate buttons (i know he shouldn't but he looks so cute chewing them and he only has them ocasionally)

he still only goes to bed at around 10, he has two sleeps in the day which is find but then he likes to sleep at about 6pm for an hour or more so then isn't tired till late. i should try and keep him awake but its hard coz he's so tired and gets really grumpy, if he didn't sleep then he probley would go to bed earlier. any ideas?

take care all and love to all babies x x x

booge hows the pregnancy going..? How are you managing to cope with having a little one as well.?? This is my main concern although hopefully when we are expecting dd will be a little older than yours..Have you found it a struggle.?

How's things today littleb.? I know it's different circumstances but (not sure if you remember) we also lost a family pet in Nov. Our cat died quite suddenly. DH & I were very attached to him as we got him when we were going through such a terrible time with m/c's about 4 years ago. TBH there was a time when I thought he would be our only baby . But he gave us such comfort etc and I am glad he was here to see dd born, sounds mad but I think he thought "well I have been here for a reason and now they have someone who needs them more..." He was a siamese cat and so placid around dd that I do wish he could have lived till she was an adult . I sooooo want another one but dh couldn't deal with the upset. When our cat died,devastated was not the word.

Didn't mean to depress anyone....

I hope you feel cheery soon littleb..xx

Hi mm,Crossed posts!
Sounds like your ds is doing well.

On the sleeping side...well dd sleeps from 7pm till around 7-8am. She has 1-2 sleeps aday. Very occasionaly mid morning for 30min-1hr but always afternoon for 2 hrs. Usualy around 2pm-4pm. She is then awake till dh comes home, he has play time with her,gives her a bottle and then bed. TBH this routine suits us fine as a family. I tend to "go" with dd..if she wants to sleep during the day brill, if not then no worries. Also sometimes it's hard to let her sleep if I am out shopping etc. She then tends to grab naps when she can.

Think the thing is to try and go with ds if you can but still try and keep to a rotuine if thats what you want.

I wasn't fussed over a routine as I'm a sahm and I think this has been a good thing as dd has fallen into her own pattern.
HTH. X

We've still got our dog at the moment so it hasn't really sunk in, we've got to wait until the RSPCA home that we got him from have got room for him, they said it'd be about 2 weeks, so it could be any day now. I think taking him in will be the hardest thing. If any of you saw 'its me or the dog' last nigh, he's alot like tha except that he does get walked every day and trained and is getting worse. He also almost treads on dd and has scratched her and shoved her, so we know its for the best.
Dd developed her own routine, now she sleeps from about 7pm until about 7am. Has a nap late morning - usually about 30mins, then another about 3pm for about 30mins, although a few times lately she's napped for longer late morning and gone without an afternoon nap. She was occaisionally staying up until 10, so we decided to put her to bed whenever she was sleepy and it was feed time after 6pm, we did this at about 3 months and she's settled into 7pm happily. She also naps if we're out in the car or the buggy, if she's napped alot during the day she'll stay up later until 8ish. Hope this helps you matthewsmum, I think you just need to do what you and ds are happy with. Sounds like he's doing really well with his walking and crawling too.

Thanks for asking about the pregnancy SHHHH to be honest it is tough at the moment, I am absolutely knackered and feeling really sick most of the time. I'm worried that I'm not giving DS enough love as I'm so out of sorts and surviving the day at work can be tough. Having the tummy bug on top the other day was really horrible. I'm feeling optimistic though as I am 11 weeks on Sunday so surely I should start to feel better soon. I'm really looking forward to the lovely middle bit!

matthewsmummy, DS has a couple of naps (1 hour) during the day and then we take him up for bath and bed at 6. He is usually asleep before 7 and then goes through till about 7 the next morning, although it can be earlier. Not too bad for us as we have to get up for work but at the weekends I sometimes try and keep him up later in the vain hope of a lie in. Having time with DH in the evenings is lovely though.

He is sort of crawling but I don't think he can really be bothered, he would prefer to walk if he could. He does look funny standing on his chubby little legs though. We think tooth no 3 is on it's way, he would love more finger foods so roll on some more teeth.

Sorry you're finding things a bit hard booge, I couldn't imagine how tough it is with a young baby and being pg, even though I would like another (like now!!!) DH's operation is in 2 weeks and we think that will reduce the chances of us having more kiddies so I'm not going to get my hopes up, we'll just go with the flow and if i get pg again it will be lovely, if not then thats okay too, I'm just thankful that I have 2 beautiful healthy boys

Had a really bad night with DS2 last night, I put him to bed at 7:30 and when we went to bed around 11pm the dogs woke him so I was up with him until 2am, he slept until 5 when we got up again and fell asleep again at 7 until 8:30. Luckily DH is off work so was able to take DS1 to school and DS2 for a walk so I could go back to bed for a couple of hours but I was still shattered when I got up. I'm not used to these sleepless nights lol!!

He usually gets up between 6 and 7am, has a long sleep mid-morning then a shorter sleep mid afternoon then has a bath, feed and goes to bed at about 7:30, again he has pretty much fallen into this routine himself. He also doesn't seem to like chunky food unless it's finger food which he will happily munch on for ages!

For those of you who's babes sleep from 7 - 7, do they sleep 'solidly' through? The problem I've got is DS2 goes to bed at around 7:30 and between then and DH & I going to bed I can be up there 4 - 5 times settling him down due to him sometimes waking up and sometimes just crying. A (usually) quick bf sorts him out but I'm just getting a bit fed up with running up and down stairs all night! Partly my fault I suppose because very early on I fell into the trap of bfing him to sleep and that's how it is every time he goes to sleep. I don't mind the odd night feed (thank god I haven't had a repeat performance of Wed nights antics) but it would be really nice to be able to put him to bed and then have some undisturbed time to myself or with DH. Sorry for the rant but feel better now I've written it down.

Also forgot to mention that DS2 had an eye test the other week and he has a slight astygmatism (sp) in his right eye. Apparently it could correct itself as babies don't use their eyes properly until they are at least 12 months old and he hasn't got a 'lazy' eye, it's just the shape of the eyeball isn't quite right. So we have to go back in 6 months and hopefully it will have sorted itsef out by then. TBH at first it was a little upsetting someone telling me my beautiful boy isn't perfect He's still perfect to me though

Hi Maddison,
I'm new to this thread adn have a dd born 18th May 2005.
She only just started sleeping through in the past month.
Basically she sleeps from 7pm til 5.30 or 6am.
She often does wake at least once overnight ( often around 11pm) but I've been letting her cry for a few minutes and she invariably goes back to sleep in about 5 mins.
I had been rocking her to sleep until she was 6 months old - very time consuming and hard work. Then decided to try controlled crying which worked like a dream within 3 days.
We've had the odd few days where she goes back to crying before sleep and usually does grumble for a few minutes but generally it's been great since.
Not sure how you feel about cc, I guess it's not for everyone.
But it's worked for us to get rid of the "prop" she needed to get to sleep.
If you are BFing when he wakes he is getting positive reinforcement to wake up and also spreading some of his daily calorie intake into the night instead of having it all during the day.
I know though that BFing is an easy quick option when you're knackered. I did the same on a recent trip overseas and DD woke 4-6 times/night (she certainly put some weight that trip!),I just had to bite the bullet when I got home and have a couple of bad nights.
Have you tried water instead of a BF?
Anyway, good luck.
PS DD has a small hole in the heart but she's perfect to me too

Booge, when my second was 9 months I fell for no. 3 I didnt have much sickness but I did have overwellming tiredness especially for the 1st 3 months and the last 3 months, the effort to do anything was like wading thru custard, but their worth it

Sorry Madison cant really help with the night waking, Luca does wake occasionally but only to look for his dummy then goes straight off again.

Hi yummymummy, my ds was born on the 18th aswell.

Hi Missblossom,
18th was a great date to have a baby!
It's nice to have found this thread as it's great to be able to share stories, advice and support with others with babies of the same age.
I'm in Oz so am a bit out of synch with chat but hey ho.

Hi there do you have just the one?

Hi yummimummy, its good to have you join us.
Madison,dd sometimes wakes during the evening and at night, and for a while wouldn't go back to sleep unless rocked to sleep in my arms and would then often wake when trying to lie her back in her cot. We did a 'gentler' form of cc. I called it controlled grumbling, if she was just grumbilng, I'd return to her cot to settle her, just tuck her in, rub her back and give her her muslin(its her comforter), and stay in the room with her, returning 2, 4, 7 minutes apart etc.until she was asleep. If she was full on crying I'd pick her up and soothe her properly. I was happier doing this and it seems to have worked well, as she generally sleeps through and usually if she wakes I just give her her muslin and rub her back without picking her up it only takes seconds. Hope this helps you.
I've got slight astigmatisms in both eyes and they don't really make any difference to my sight, if I'm really tired, my eyes are sore or I've got conjuctivitus the eyes swell and make the astygmatisms worse and I very very occasionally get blurry vision with objets further away. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.
Have most may babies had eye tests? dd hasn't had one yet, should hse have?

welcome yummimummy!!! It's nice to have you on board..All of us on this thread are uk based (I think!!!) so you can make us all jealous by telling us what lovely weather you are having in oz!! .

Maddison,dd sleeps from 7pm till around 7am but I have no idea how we managed it !!! She does wak sometimes during the night (going through this stage now) and it's killer so I know exactly how you feel. Usually she wakes for her dummy though. She also has a "cusky" which is a comforter..does your ds2 have one..? It may help him as dd's apparently smells of me as I slept with it while pregnant so I guess it comforts her??!! Also do you use a dummy.?? Personal choice but we find it works. Lastly,it may be that ds is "using you as a dummy" iykwim..Maybe he wakes and gets a bf which comforts him..Maybe using something from above list may help..?
BTW welldone for keeping up the bf you are doing well.
It's your choice but I have the opinion..if it works then why not..!!!!!!!!!!!!

Evening everyone and welcome to Yummimummy, DS2 was born the day before your dd

He started sleeping through from 8:30pm - 6/7am when he was 9 weeks but started to wake through the night again at around 22 weeks. He only wakes through the night maybe once or twice a week now, which doesn't really bother me, it's the waking and crying before DH & I go to bed, I just feel I'm not getting much of a break.

LittleB, I like your technique of 'controlled grumbling'! I do leave him sometimes (depending on his cry) and an odd time he will settle himself, but usually he just ends up waking himself up and I end up traipsing back up the stairs anyway. The problem with cc for me (apart form me being soft - I hate to see him crying knowing that I could fix it in a matter of seconds) is that I also have DS1 (aged 5) and I really don't want him to wake once he is asleep (he was a MUCH worse sleeper than DS2!!).

Shhhh, I've nothing against dummies but DS2 has!! DS1 had a dummy for ages and loved it (what a fight to get it off him!), but DS2 just does not like them. I've tried to give him a dummy a few times but he just seems to gag on them nomatter which teat they have. TBH I think a lot of the time he's just using me as a dummy. Also, what is a cusky? I've never heard of them before. We are going into Newcastle tomorrow so I think I'll have a look for a comfort blanket. I'll also try giving him water aswell.

I think I may try cc in the Easter holidays so it doesn't matter if DS1 is woken through the night.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone

Hi Yummimummy :-)

Maddison, dd has phases where for a week or so she will sleep through completely and then she will start waking for a feed either at 5am or at 2am which is a killer. Then she goes back to sleeping through. Bizarre.

Booge, being pregnant with your second is much harder than the first. You get tired much more quickly I found and nobody cuts you any slack if you've already got a toddler. Stuff the housework and rest as much as you can!

Dd has had an eye test because of her haemangioma. She is due another one at 12 months but they aren't routine. (Some of you might not know, dd has a strawberry birthmark by her eye.) Try not to be upset about his eye, Maddison. You do go through a bit of a "grieving" process because you child isn't perfect but tbh, I wouldn't change dd's face now, it's her! Still get strangers commenting though and family members airbrushing it out of photos

Hi Ladies,
Thanks for your welcomes!
I have 1 DD ( 18.5.05) ( hopefully planning another soon when I stop BFing) and an Aussie DH and have lived in Oz for the past 3 years.
Shhh: I'm afraid the weather here if pretty good, but actually the weather is one of the things I miss about the UK
Really.
Amongst other things like family, friends, the pubs, the British sense of humour, and lots of other things I could go on and on and on about!
Anyway, it's nice to be a part of your thread, even if I can't reply in your time zone.

Hi Everyone and hello and welcome yummimummy,

I hit 12 weeks on Sunday and the sickness is begining to go.. hooray!! I'm still a gas giant and easily tired but it's an improvment. Missblossom I'm glad you said it's worth it as sometimes I wonder if we are mad and how we'll cope. We are selling our house and buying something cheeper so I can take a years maternity leave this time and not do to many hours when I go back, I may even take a career break. The new house will need an attic conversion and an extension so it will be a bit hetic for a while. Hopefully we can move and get everything done before baby arrives.

Maddison I used to bf DS to sleep and to begin with it was diffficult to get him to go back down if he woke with out bfing. We started by keeping him awake to clean his teeth after the last feed at night and putting him down awake. Then when he woke up going up and cuddling him but then putting him back down again. DH had the most success with this as he didn't smell of milk. Now he sleeps through most nights although he did wake up starving the other night and need a feed, it must be a growth spurt I guess. DH has an astygmatism so we are keeping fingers crossed DS won't need glasses as well. Not too bad if he does though, I remember some of the coolest boys at school wore glasses.

Logic is your dd's strawberry fading? DS's is not such a vivid red now and less startling. He has a small one above his right eye and a large one on his leg. I know what you mean about not changing his face now, although I worried to start with. I would be most upset if anyone airbrushed it out. I met a little girl who had a large one on her forehead just before Christmas and it had completely gone by her 4th birthday. All the kids at her school were very interested in DS's but in a curious not unkind way.

Glad you are feeling a bit better now Booge. Having said dd sleeps so well she had me up four times last night between 11.30pm and 3.30am. I think its mainly teething, although the last time at 3ish her nappy had leaked and her clothes and grobag were wet through. Does anyone else have this problem? dd is in cloth during the day but I put her in a disposable at night as the cloth nappies were getting too wet when she slept through and she was getting nappy rash. They don't leak often but this is the third time its happened and its been different nappies, tesco, boots and pampers. Anyone got any suggestions? I can only imagine she will wet more as she gets older. Although the nappies do look big on her as she's in maxis now. Any suggestions appreciated.
Tried dummies with dd too (when I gave up bf) but she wouldn't have them. She adopted the muslins as her own comforter as I place them on my shoulder when I wind her after her last feed and she snuggles into them and hangs on to them when I put them in her cot. its handy though as I've got lots and they're easy to replace. My sister did the same and I used my quilt as a comforter when I was a baby, didn't have dummies either - must be a family thing!

hi Booge, Dd's birthmark has definately started to disintegrate, parts of it are fading to grey but most of it is still a very vivid red. It's a deep component one so she has a blue lump underneath it which doesn't seem to have shrunk. I can't see it going any time soon :-(

Logic to family "airbrushing" dd's birthmark....Thats disgraceful. DD has a birthmark as well..well kind of one. She was born with what we were told is " a stork mark": apparently the mark the stork makes as it carried dd to us ..Wish it was that easy .

There is a red patch on her forehead,eyelid and nape of her neck. It doesn't worry us atm as told it will fade BUT when we went into hospital recently we were asked so many questions about it that it made me a bit annoyed..as though we have injured her in some way iykwim..

Maddison heres the link for a "cusky". We were bought ours by a friend when I was expecting. It was from Daisy and Tom (Manchester) so I think they can be bought in most baby places. We recommend it 100% except when it needs a good wash and stinks like hell!!! DD has it in her mouth,ears,eyes,over her face etc..!! HIH.
\link{http://www.bumpto3.com/product.aspx?DISPLAYCAT=sleep&CAT=Products&CATGRY=Sleep_accessories&PID=AE103\cusky}

ym,I keep saying to dh I would love to move to aussie but I agree, although I would love the sunshine I would also love the snow we have in the uk..!

BTW for ym can anyone remember where the "may thread" stats are saved..?? It may be good for her to have a look at our backgrounds and to see when our ds & dd's were born...?? Just an idea.Seen as we have known each other for over 18 months , (WHAT..!!!) it may allow her to catch up iykwim..!! xx

I have started a new thread as this one was getting quite long....
\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?rn=61575&topicid=2330&threadid=155154&redir=61575\may2005babies}