Post-grad Brookers book in here!

[TooImmatureTurtleDoves]

Thread 2.

Also scarlet, I was told after a warm bath/ shower makes it easier and looking at your DD makes it easier to get let down. I couldn't express anything at all with DD with a hand pump. I'm using a double medela electric jobby now, its a winner, so easy (hospital grade, borrowed from a playgroup mum who now wants me to buy it. Hey Ho, not much choice, but i hadn't realised it was £280 new and she wants 150!) . I was also told to persevere as your body gets used to the pump too.

DT1 has just woken up after going down at 8:30, yay!! 4.5 hours :) Sadly i was up at 10, 11:30 with DT2, and after finally settling him at 12:15, up at 12:45 with DD, who dh has now taken over with while I see to DT1...

And I feel really bad now, I had DD in bed with me on my left feeding S on my right as nowhere to have them both in her room and she was upset, and she wanted the duvet over her too (she's in a sleeping bag) & snuggled in and was so sweet and dh (rightly) came in and took her back to her cot and she's still crying... :(

DS2 did not seen to get the memo about going longer between feeds and instead just seems to be feeding more and more frequently. If he keeps getting feeds closer together he's going to need to feed from both boobs at the same time .

Dream - yay for DT1 - that's a sterling effort . I know it's so so hard with the constant demands in your time BUT it is definitely a step in the right direction. And at least you're getting into bed between DT2 waking up? I mean this is far far from ideal still but it is moving in the right direction? These teeny tiny victories will add up as they get a bit bigger and hopefully they'll both be doing decent stretches of sleep .

Is DD poorly or often up at this time?

WTF? I can't get back to sleep now after that last feed

You have to be kidding me?

I'm kind of awake too biscuits. perfect transfer to crib appears to have been achieved and I'm still here.

just worrying about DS1's nappy i think.
after the above mentioned nap missing incident, he fell asleep in the high chair after a snack and i couldn't get him to stay awake when i woke him up. so i just carried him to bed thinking he'd wake up. nope, sparked out so i am anticipating a nappy leak/early waking disaster...

poo DS2 is stirring and squeaking, hope he's staying settled.

night night!

plus DH is snoring and I'm mentalling about how to get to a 9am hospital appointment with this lot in tow!

Every two hours again. SIGH. I feel like maybe I shouldn't feed her every time but she does feed so must need it?

biscuits - love the feeding from both boobs at the same time! I find three thirty an awful time for going back to sleep.

dream - for dd1. Having the toddler awake when baby sleeps is a little soul destroying I find. Yay for s though!

Not even talking to too about sleep

i think i wondered the same with DS1 pomme, but in the end i found feeding him if he seemed to want it much easier than any messing about. it's the nights when they don't want to feed to sleep that i found hard, singing and jiggling etc at stupid o'clock is a bit soul destroying for me.

it doesn't appear to affect sleeping throughability, i fed back to sleep at night for as long as it worked.

i didn't stop feeding at night till he was almost 2 and i was impatient to get pg. he didn't wake v often then anyway.

why am i still awake??

Agree that getting them back to sleep is so much more soul destroying Jaggy. It's annoying but at least if you're reasonably satisfied that they will go back to sleep after a feed you sort of know how it will go, and you get to sit down! I found the having to stand up when my legs were aching at night really he'd and you've no idea how long it'll take them to drop off. And then if you're tired you always try your luck and try to sit down or pop them down too soon and they wake up again and off you go again.....

Mind you pomme I guess you just want dd to sleep a lot little longer between her feeds? How often (ish) does she feed in the day? I always feel slightly 'cheated' (?) if ds2 feeds more often at night as if he should really be able to do the same interval at least. But it's hard work say if she wakes at 2 hours and you're trying to get her back to sleep for so long that then it's practically the time when she would be waking for a feed anyway iyswim?

What I try to do is to give it, say, 5 mins before I trot off to do the change / feed thing to see if ds2 seems genuinely hungry or seems like he might settle down (unless he can convince me one way or the other more quickly). I noticed yesterday during the day that he woke, did a few minutes of head bobbing and trying to eat my collarbone and then settled (still awake) into a sort of cuddle. Now at night, at the first sign of the head bobbing / sucking, i would have fed him. And that just got me to thinking that sometimes they might give hungry cues out of habit when they wake but perhaps aren't really as hungry as they thought!

I should add that in the instance I mentioned about yesterday, I actually ended up feeding him an hour after he'd done the collarbone eating. And he'd been perfectly content for that time.

But how would I have entertained him for that time if it had been the night time? He might not have gone back to sleep so then you're stuck. In fact he had some time last night where he was just awake without being windy or hungry but not wanting to just lay in the dark while we slept what a meanie. You end up feeding them in the hope they'll just go back to sleep don't you.

Welcome back Fishcake, I hope all is well?

((((hugs)))) Dream and Pomme sorry to hear you've both had another bad night. It feels relentless doesn't it.

Dream thanks for the pumping tips, I might try the shower thing. Bath? What's that? Not had time for one of those in weeks. Just had a funny flashback of a super stressed DH bringing a wailing newborn DS into the bathroom for a BF while I was in the bath.

I had a better night last night. DD cluster fed all evening until 11.30pm, then slept until 3am. Then fed until 4am and slept again until 6.30am. I'm still knackered though! DH is taking this afternoon off so I'm counting down to 1pm. So far today DS is being good, but then he has only been up for 2 hours.

I think DD is coming down with a cold DS has been snotty for a week or so and has kissed her a few times. She's a bit snuffly and her poo this morning had slime in. I imagine we'll be having to snoterate her later That's a job for DH!

I had an interesting night with D. He went down in his basket at 9 so I had a bath,watched a bit of tv and went to bed at 10. D woke at 11 and 2. He then decided he wouldn't sleep again until 3.30. He was quite happy to just lay in my arms. At least we had the bed to ourselves . It was a bit of a shock to the system after being used to having 4 or 5 hour stretches.:(
My sister is coming over today with her 3 children who are finally well enough to meet Dexter( they have have coughs and colds)

Fishcake!! I missed your post, and you actually! How's it going?

Last night after the 3am feed A went to sleep until 7am and dd1 was asleep until 7am too so got a slight catch up sleep there - phew! Agreed - when they don't settle after a feed I get a right panic on, that's the awful bit, the hour of pacing, jiggling, attempting to stuff a dummy in and rocking.

Hope you got back to sleep jaggy and hospital appointment goes okay.

Pomme you just perfectly described my nights too! When she doesn't fall asleep mid-feed, suddenly you have at least an hour of pacing, jiggling, patting and singing looming ahead of you, and its so soul-destroying when you're too tired to even get out of bed!

My heart goes out to everyone who's been woken by older DC when the baby is (or babies are) finally asleep!

The weather is pretty gross here too, v cold and wet. Autumn and I are meeting the NCT ladies for lunch, and all her pretty clothes are light summer dresses. Can't decide whether to ignore the weather, put thick tights and a warm long sleeved vest on A, and let her wear one of the light pretty dresses. Or be sensible and put her in a drab warm top and trousers that I don't like and will make her look kind of unisex. Summer dress in the rain it is!

Hooray for Fishcake's return! I hope you've been okay?

Scarlet fingers crossed DD manages to shake the cold before it really takes hold. Poor DS and DD. (Yay for DH's half day though!)

Biscuits that's a great tip about waiting five minutes when they wake at night. I also tend to get my boobs out before I've even opened my eyes! I should try and settle her without milk first.

Gotta go get ready! Catch you later ladies!

Gosh, you lot were chatty last night/this morning! Just nipping in to say that we're heading off for the weekend to The Land That Time Forgot, otherwise known as my dad's, where there is no WiFi and you get funny looks if you want to use their computer. So I will be AWOL until lateish Sunday. Have lovely weekends, one and all!

M did 8 hours again last night, btw. [smug] I know you all hate me!

Too have fun!

Scream a woman working in Boots gave me a great tip about getting to use the summer dresses, as I was pondering the fact that she's been given loads but the weather means she's not getting to wear them. She said to put a plain sleepsuit on DD, then put the dress over the top. It looks like she's wearing tights and a long sleeved vest but shes probably more cosy. I've not tried it yet but I may do over the weekend if we go anywhere.

I'm trying to put DD back in her moses basket if she's still awake after feeding to settle herself. 50/50 success rate so far. When it works I hear her fussing a little but not crying and she eventually falls asleep. If the fussing turns to whinging I get her up again and usually end up getting my boobs out again until she falls asleep. I can't be doing with the pacing and jiggling about in the middle of the night. I wake DH up to help me with the transfer as I always seem to bugger it up on my own. He holds her legs still as I lower her in then quickly covers her with the blanket while I try and get my hand out from under her.

just a quick update, appointment went well and i seem to be responding well to steroid treatment as my platelets are back to normal already! got to stay on medication for a while and get weekly blood tests for now. glad i asked on here and got to the doctor quick!

Hello thank you for the hellos, it's lovely to be back with the brookers

Things here have been busy. the mega move hit me more strongly than I expected, and I was pretty miserable about it anyway. I was really sad to leave and we know no one here. For the firstfew weeks I sort of didnt really want to talk to anone but obviously dd1 needs me to get out and meet people so we have had a fairly full schedule of toddler groups- one for nearly every day of the week and now I am beginning to see some familiar faces which is hopefully the first step to making new friends.

Dd2 is lovely and very cuddly. Which is a good job as she will not tolerate being put down at all. For the last week or so she has tolerated maybe 10 mins or so in a bouncy chair but other than that it's the sling or a lap or possibly the buggy (although I keep a sling underneath!) she will sleep the first bit in the Moses basket (about 11-1.30) and then generally she is in with me until 5ish when she gets really restless and dh takes her. She feeds at half 1 and half 4 with no sign of wanting to drop either feed. The one occasion she did skip the half 1 feed but dd1 woke up instead

She has also been quite colicky in the evenings with painful wind but that seems to be a bit better this last week. really hope she is growing out of it! dream dd2 was a week or so older gestational agewise, wasn't she? Hope this means your boys will turn a corner next week.

jaggy glad to hear you are responding so well to treatment. Must have been pretty frightening there.

scream lovely to hear about you getting out and about

Sorry thought post was going to vanish- scream I meant after you were stuck inside for so long!

musical are you all settled in your new house?

biscuits we have some collar bone chomping at times here, too. Dd2 usually let's me know quite quickly if it's genuine with a wonderfully outraged howl and a very sad face. Like scream, I am usually to sleepy to wait and see in the night, though.

How are all the big brothers and sisters doing?

Dd1 doing ok but with some definite challenging moments. Hard to tell what's baby related and what's because of the move.

yo fishcake was just thinking about you the other day wondering how you were getting on [mn obsessed saddo emoticon]

we managed to do a 1.30 and a 6.30 last night which was amazing compared to the rest of the week. hmm wonder how tonight will pan out. f is still in our bedroom but DH and i are in the spare room until he wakes the first time. ridiculous. i think we are going to move him into his own room this weekend and hope that this helps the sleeping. he is five and a half months so we are nearly at the six months mark... someone reassure me that it is ok for him to be in his own room now...?

oh and DS1 is having some challenging moments too. think it is part of the toddler ness but also he has found the potty training quite tough emotionally.

give it a little while and i'm sure she'll settle down fishcake change is bad! where have you moved to in the country? perhaps there is an mn brooker nearby!

hawthers - A went in her own room at 11 weeks and dd1 at 8 weeks! dd1 would have been a bit later but we moved house and so I decided to do it then. I did sleep on her floor for quite a bit of the night for a few weeks though! It is quite funny that the baby relegates you to the spare room :)

fishcakes - did you say you were moving to the coast? Hope it's the one near wants and I - we could have a meet up :)

Oh what a day! D has not been happy unless he is on th breast! He is pulling a lot at my nipples too so I am feeling really sore. I have only managed to eat a piece of toast and a cereal bar and drink 2 glasses of squash which is not ideal with the amount of feeding!DH will be home at about 10pm, I am counting down the hours now.

Fishcake, lovely to see you! Sorry the move hit you so hard, but the multitude of toddler groups sounds like a great idea - hope the familiar faces turn into friends soon :)

We're all settled thanks! DH is decorating our spare room/study as I type. New kitchen and patio doors being fitted in the next couple of months - only issue is a plumbing related problem (previous owners either tiled, patio-ed or extended over the main drain - fools!) but hoping we'll get that sorted soon. I have the same problem with regard to no 'friends' in the area (none with kids, having only recently moved into the area renting before we bought), so researching baby groups in the area to get out and meet people.

Jaggy, that's wonderful - glad the steroids have helped so quickly! Fingers crossed it continues that way :)

Scarlet, I have the exact same attitude with regard to night wakings. I feed (and change nappy if absolutely necessary), cuddle, repeat if necessary until she drops off, then give her a bit of time before attempting The Transfer. Can't be doing with jiggling and pacing. Am also rubbish at transferring at the moment..

Also, the sleepsuit advice is some I'd echo Scream! I'm not sure if I'd have thought of it, but a couple of weeks ago we were taking DD to visit lots of friends and family but the weather wasn't great, and DH cunningly dressed her in a short sleeved vest and dress to ensure she'd be warm enough. We've been layering sleepsuits with dresses ever since! Means we get to ensure she looks girly at least some of the time . It also means you can jazz up the less interesting sleepsuits!

Too, jealous of the 8 hours! Hope DD is so well behaved when she reaches M's age :)

Biscuits, I often go by the head bobbing to tell if DD needs feeding . Or headbutting as I tend to call it - she's pretty strong! I have ignored it before though, when she does it when I've just put her in the sling, and she tends to drift off eventually. In those circumstances she's normally been fed fairly recently though..

Wants, sorry your hospital visit was quite scary. Glad it's something that will heal on its own..

Dream, poor DD :( But I'm sure she's forgiven you :) Glad DT1 slept for a bit longer at least, I'm sure DT2 will catch on soon!

Reasonable night last night - however it seems that DD has given up sleeping in her moses basket. Kicked up a fuss whenever she went down (even with a muslin or blanket underneath), so ended up co-sleeping. Think I'll try the hot water bottle trick tonight (Too, is it you that that works particularly well for?).