Jan 2012 - Higgs Boson Gang pt1

[Oeisha]

Link to antenatal thread for convenience

Not a very good title, but it will suffice 'til we fill this one in record time!

Congratulations to all that have popped so far!

Looked for wonder weeks at waterstone's today. Shelves full of Gina Ford books (don't need, MIL bought me as soon as I was pregnant, grrrr), but didn't see TWW. Did you get off Amazon??

Did buy French children don't throw food. Thought I might find it amusing?!

Yip, amazon

Sorry to change the subject slightly, but is anyone/everyone beginning to see the emergence of some sort of feeding routine? T is just over five weeks: currently he cluster feeds in the mornings and evenings (i.e. feeds once an hour); afternoons he tends to go for longer (often sleeps for a long stretch then) and nights are ok too (three/four-hour stretches). Should I be trying to get him on to three-hourly feeds in the mornings/evenings too? All advice gratefully received!

capy I've tried 'routining' Abi and it just leads to vomiting and spitting up feeds...She just gets fed when she's ready. Whether it's the right thing to do or not, I have no idea. But it saves us fighting to get feeds down her and causing us all stress (which can't help the feeding). Abi's not underweight or poorly, so there's not way I'm waking her to feed her.

Capy - I keep thinking we get something but then it changes. I'm hoping something will emerge. We are 5 1/2 weeks.

I second oeisha's advice. DD has almost exactly the pattern you describe, too.

I also tried getting DD on to a 3-hour feeding routine around 5 weeks. Gave up eventually as it seemed to just exacerbate her chronic crying jags. She's now 7 weeks and still feeding on demand. She's pretty good in the day at going 2.5-3 hours but definitely cluster feeds in the evening. Most of the time she'll go 3-4 hours at night but once we get her to sleep and it is anybody's guess when that will happen. Last night it was 11ish (after 5 hours of crying). She then was awake to feed at 3 and 6.
we have our third osteo appt today so hopefully that helps, we did notice improvement after last week's so fingers x.

Well dd1 is 16 months, and I still feed her on demand :o don't plan on doing anything differently for c!

C slept from 8pm - 4am last night! Unfortunately I didn't get to bed till gone midnight :( Well

Thanks Oeisha, Ghost, Consort and Parsley - that's reassuring :) Ghost, interesting that your DD has the exact same pattern. It's not really inconvenient - I just relax in the mornings, knowing I'll have the afternoon to get things done (or sit on MN :)

Oeisha - I'm hoping to get a referral to a physio specialising in female bits although I'm not convinced there are exercises for broken nerves. I saw the diabetes mw last week to be signed off and she said that needing to wee without warning can be a sign of uti. Guess you might have other symptoms if it was that but thought it worth mentioning. I'm bit paranoid about it as not going can cause one and presumably I wouldn't feel it either. My body is so crap at pregnancy - a 3 hour labour should be cause for smugness not bashed up baby and ripped nerves and I still have to avoid looking at bf'ing mums as can still cry at my second failure. And breathe...
Cakes and Oeisha - I'm still banging the drum for the osteo - great for helping to settle colic and general grizzliness so if you can find someone local really consider a session. I'm sure that dd2 had a constant headache as she's so different and smiley now. It was her 2nd and last session today and the osteo said the fluids in the base of her skull are now flowing more freely (well her explanation was more detailed but that's what I absorbed) but all I know is she's napping in the day at last and much happier. I've also noticed that she moves her head more freely which may also be because of the love nest pillow we're using. I was lucky to have a 4 week baby massage course at my Surestart centre. Neither of my babies impressed by massages but they do a whole section on colic relief to do 3 times a day. There is a website, I'll try and find it.
Addictediam - we're on Nutramigen feed - wonderful stuff but so stinky! Is your feed stinky too? She settled to it from bf within couple of days but the poo makes me nervous every time. Sometimes it doesn't smell so I miss that she's gone and she gets a bit sore very quickly.

Capybara we've settled into a feeding pattern (my 'Jan' babe now an oldie of 10 weeks thanks to early induction) roughly based on Ford but mostly due to the necessity of getting up for the school run. Neither me or dh good without sleep and the 7am start and regular bedtime seems to lead to a routine quite quickly. Might be helped by ff I suppose although my sis and did same approach with hers who were both bf. My inlaws have their pre-school kids up sometimes past midnight, then sleep the morning away - does my head in to think about it and will be miserable if they don't change it before school starts.

Duh - apologies for hugefied post, am making the most of being awake and dh not beating me to the laptop!

Dd1 was on nutramagen for about 2 months. And that does smell bad. I got used to the small, other people commented on it, but I didn't notice after about 6 weeks.

knittie i have just booked me and Jago on the massage course at our local surestart. Hope it's good-starts monday. Really impressed by the cheapness £2.50 per session.

I had a bad night-Jago didn't, he did is usual 2 & 5 feeds. I just never slept between feeds, have a lot on my mind and finding myself getting stressed over the non settling phase. He simply will not be put down by me if were home during the day without props (ie white noise and swingy chair) he will sleep for hour and hours when were out, I was in town for 5 hours yesterday and he was asleep for 3.5 of them. The second we get home we wakes, the second I put him down he wakes. This morning he has fallen asleep in the swingy chair with my hairdryer running but surely thats costing me a fortune running the hairdryer all the time and the laptop doesn't get loud enough so I cant use the white noise website upstairs. It also means i cannot get a nap myself on days like today when i really want one.

Peed off a bit because DH had planned to try give me a night off tomorrow but
hes finding it tough because he's getting stressed because Jago will not settle on him and gets very screamy and distressed-this means I cannot do DD's bedtime & story and she so desperately wants me too and Jago will not take a bottle all of a sudden so any plan I had for night off are screwed. I have also been invited out for girls night on 23rd-I was only planning to pop out for 2 hours but it's not going to happen-I cannot bear to think of Jago being so unsettled and it's not fair on DH because he is doing everything he can-the boy just wants me.

DH is also going for hypnotherapy to stop smoking today so i'm also super proud of him too. But we are a bit terse with each other at mo because of the baby days and baby ways.

Hope everyone is feeling ok and in strong spirits-this too shall pass xxx

Fish - do you have a smart phone? I use the white noise on the mn app which is fab. Extractor fan is also good.

cakes sadly not. Getting one in april when I upgrade.

He seems to like his white noise really quite loud too.

Well I can turn the volume up pretty loud on my samsung and put it behind baby cakes' head - it's pretty effective!

i'm using this simplynoise.com/ at mo on the desktop-hes asleep in his bouncy chair while I plan next weeks dinners.

fish I went for stop smoking hypno on 23 July 2008. Not had one since I hope it is as successful for your DH.

I'm still lurking here - just being kept busy!

I haven't seen GiraffeAholic around for a while, hope you're ok giraffe

Just marking my spot which I seem to have lost. Didnt realise that I hadnt posted in soo long. Been lurking too much.

RL has kept me really busy this week not to mention that DS has put himself in to training for the Poomaggedon contest. Luckily he has managed to keep things contained, but only just.

Dd is being a nitemare, her way of dealing with things not going her way is to scream and shout and hit me. Tiredness is her main trigger but its soo difficult to get her to nap these days.

hope your all well x

sho not sure if this will help but my friend's LO had similar issues when his brother was born. She gave up on "nap" times and re-labelled it "quiet time". She made him lie on the sofa on his own under a blankie, curtains drawn, cbeebies on low vol, with a snack and a drink for at least 30 mins. No getting up allowed. Sometimes he would fall asleep but usually at least had a rest and was less tired and better behaved.

sho I know how you feel.................ds is the same with the shouting, screaming and hitting. His I think is attention though as he's getting used to dd being around still. It is getting less thank goodness but we have our bad days (like today and yesterday :-( ).

parsley that's what we used to do. However, nowadays she can't sit still for more than 5mins. Even when she is ill! It's tough isn't it blue, we seem to have good half days, never get a full day of good behaviour.

Today she slept for about 45min in the car but was in full force when we got home. She took a swing at me but didn't realise she was soo close to the wall and so hurt her arm off it. Muppet. She was fine btw.

That's what our days are like at the moment too sho never a whole good day. I hate telling him off all the time. He has been a bit rough with dd when hugging and kissing her too (on purpose) and nothing I say makes a difference. It it tough. He punched me in the eye the other day because I wouldn't let him do something because of his behaviour. He's shooting himself in the foot all the time.

Hats off to those of you juggling toddlers and infants. I'm tired out from trying to be a mother to a 14 year old and an 8 week old, but of course the 14 year old doesn't need me to physically do very much for her. In fact if anything she often can help me. Even baked us a cake today. Bless her.

In other news baby DD continues to think that sleep is for the week. Have tried every method known to man to help her get to sleep tonight but she's not having it. She did briefly drift off but it only lasted 15 minutes and now she's wide awake again. Very tiresome to go through this every night. It is definitely wearing me down. Thank goodness for Bach's Rescue Remedy, seems to help me cope a bit better.