Post Grad Brookers - we're in here....

[Biscuitsandtea]

New thread - t'other one got full up....

So, Pomme what toxins article was this?

I think like last time, I'll probably start to introduce formula at about 6 mths in the day to reduce the need for minging bras and boob-wapping-out. I also want normal bras back . Then I'll probably drop the morning and night ones at 8-9 months? See how they're going though and if ds2 is sleeping through or not? If he isn't I'll keep the feeding going for ease at night I think?

Google Florence Williams and the guardian biscuits. I'm unconvinced by claims on the feeding board that formula contains just as many toxins. The 30 per cent for a year figure has me running scared...

True on the feeding at night though, if they wake just as much but have to do a bottle annoying. Although bottle, carton and scissors could work :)

but then they get older and start eating the same food as us and get the environmental toxins anyway, seems not such a big deal to me over the benefits of bf?

I'll prob just carry on like last time, avoiding as much bottle washing as possible! i had to do one or two a day plus pump bits when i expressed back at work and that was too much effort!

no idea when I'll stop, i kind of accidentally weaned DS1 while bloody impatient trying to get pg. it was good in a way because he did it by himself without me having to work out how. he was about 2 when it tailed off completely.

i so wish I'd had a sling like this for DS1! wee R is loving it.

i am sorting through mountains of clothes here, DS2's new presents and have got DS1's stuff out of the loft. i need the 3-6 month vests and sleepsuits cos he's getting too long for the 0-3 stuff already. need to swap it all round and put more small stuff away.

Found you!

Another shit night here. Back to the Landing Vigil with DD. In fact worse, lying (as so tired) half in and half out of the room trying the gradual retreat feeding S in a draught on the floor when the poor little tike has a terrible cough anyway... It's been a week with DD... Just a blip right?! And I was incandescent with rage when after my ridiculous efforts and i had to sit up quick as Seb coughed til he vomited cue more screaming from DD, and dh came to take over that he just went straight in, picked her up again, all my effort wasted...

Saw scarlets post and remembered fathers day. Phew. This involved getting the card DD and i made at playgroup out

And oh, jaggy, the clothes!!! I hate sorting baby clothes... I need to do it too

Hurrah, new thread!

Had an on-off night. Four wake ups, with one being a long, fussy one. I kept a log of our night though, and realised that DD's waking quicker when she's only snacked for 5 minutes. Any tips for keeping her more awake during night feeds?

Sorry about your rubbish night Dream. I'm sure it's just a blip. How frustrating that your DH just breezed in and picked her up though - does he know what you're trying to do?!

Biscuits, glad DS2 was well behaved for your Ill Advised Journey! Hope DS1 isn't too much of a handful today...

Having a good day here. We went out for brunch as it's Father's day. Got back and not only did DD nap, allowing me to tackle some of the paperwork pile most dating back to when we moved house - and then DH found the drain we had been looking for, by only breaking one tile! The plumber's coming round first thing tomorrow to work out how we can plumb in the washing machine when we have the new kitchen fitted. Hurrah! A huge weight off of my mind - until the plumber comes round at least.

DD now napping on my lap while I contemplate dong some work...

honestly my house is like a rummage sale. 3 big Ikea storage bags on the kitchen floor. one lot of 3-6 stuff in the machine and one waiting in front to go in. (would have maybe not washed it as it all smelled quite fresh, but we had 2 little field mouse invaders about a year ago who nibbled the storage bags. they didn't get in, but we transferred the stuff to new bags without washing it.)

my bed has piles of different sized stuff since i washed the presents and i still need to go through DS2's drawer and the boys wardrobe to sort stuff. i am going to have to beg both sets of gps not to buy any more clothes!

it's been handy to have a bit of new summer stuff for the wee one as they were born in opposite seasons, but it's getting out of hand!

MIL was on about buying DS2 a jacket, apparently she's bought him a jacket for now and some sort of bigger one for winter from baby Gap. she buys beautiful things but they are often from wee local designer shops - hand wash or no tumble dry etc.

Gah too many thoughts to reply am sure I'll miss stuff....

Way back there was some sling chat. I bought an ergo which I hope wasn't knock off but was rather cheap... Anyway It's been great with f. When he was really fussy in the early days I popped him into the insert and he'd go off to sleep nicely. I could take him out of the sling but leave him in the insert and he'd stay asleep. Now he is big enough to be out of the insert he is as happy as Larry in it.

Tv - when you've got a toddler the new one tends to see rather a lot of tv.

Potty training is actually mostly done (dare I say it!) The poos clicked last week and since then there has only been one poo accident. He does tend to hold his wees for a worrying amount of time though.

Had an ill advised trip of our own to a flower market today. Total disaster and the low point was having to bf f on a packed london bus going through very rough parts of south east london...

I do have the shred dvd but can't seem to fit in the time to do it. Am slowly losing the chub now down to the last half stone to pre pg weight. It's only really started working in the last month though.

Glad people have been enjoying Fathers' Day. We went out for lunch, followed by ice cream sundaes. Yum! And on Friday I went to a paint-your-own ceramics place and put DS's footprints onto a mug for DH. Except it won't be ready till next week - oops. It was really fun, actually - I'm thinking we might go back for Christening presents for the Godparents. And you can make baubles at Christmas, so there's the grandparents' presents sorted... :)

Dream hope you have a better night tonight. In fact, I hope all those suffering have better nights.

Pomme I too miss wearing dresses. Then again, I wear them so rarely, and the weather's been so rubbish, that I think I'll be able to live without them this summer. :)

DS has fed better today. He's consistently sleeping from about 8.30pm to 4.30/6am which is wonderful, but I'd love him to stay asleep till 7...

Jaggy I'm too lazy now to wash the new clothes before they're worn. And I'm rapidly becoming less enraptured with tiny little hand-knitted cardigans that require hand-washing and take forever to dry...

Hawthers that's great with the potty training, and I'm seriously impressed by the bus-bfing!

Musical to keep I awake during a night feed, try stripping her off, tickling her feet and squeezing her neck/shoulder when she starts to doze. Let us know if you get her to eat more tonight...

I've calmed down somewhat now and have decided to stop venting all my sleep frustrations on bf now think ive got pmt

I am probably going to start mixed feeding in the next few weeks and wind up the bf around 6 months.

pet - you can go and join too in the 'people that mustn't talk about sleep' corner

I'm doing first night feed now really as she totally conked out at six so I put her to bed. Reckon they'll be at least two more...

Wow on the bf on a bus hawthers!!

pet we're the super sensitive skin family so can't really get away with not washing stuff. DH came out in a bad rash wearing a new t-shirt years ago, so we're just in the habit now.

mumsnet has almost cured me of ironing though, i am mastering the shake and fold. seems to work on all but the most resistant of items. i reckon lowering my standards will help lower stress, hate ironing!
Hearing about all this I'm tempted to get an ergo or similar after R grows out of his stretchy wrap. i can see it being quite handy doing stuff with DS1...

Just marking place, be back later.

Oh yes, Jaggy , shake and fold works for me! The only ironing in this house happens about twice a year when DH needs to wear a shirt, and then he irons it himself. If DS has to wear a shirt for school uniform I think I'll designate ironing that as man's work! I long ago stopped wearing shirts when I realised I would then have to iron them...

Took me a ridiculously long time to realise that no one was posting on the old thread because it was full! Here you are!

Pomme, that article actually made me shake with rage. If there are so many pollutants in the environment that our milk is being affected, then the solution is to ban the chemicals, not bf! Also, many of those studies seem to have been carried out in America and I have an unsubstantiated feeling that chemicals are more prevalent in the US. There is no way I am stopping bf at 6 months because of one article. And what made me even more p*ssed off were the comments underneath, which were mainly of the 'boobs...hubba hubba/drool' variety from idiots, rather than concentrating on the issues raised in the article. Anyway, all the studies showing that breast is best show it despite the toxin issue.

I don't iron much either, only a few clothes that look funny crumpled (ie, 5% of my total wardrobe). I do DH's shirts only for things like weddings, funerals or other formal events, and job interviews. Pet, doesn't your machine have a handwash cycle? All M's hand-knitted cardigans are going in either the handwash or wool cycles on my machine.

Hawthers, you are ace, bf on a bus! Also the tale of weight loss inspires me with hope. Am on Day 3 of a v low carb diet (lots of calories, just not from carbs) and it's a bit of a rollercoaster. We had roast lamb with mashed cauliflower at about 5.30 yesterday and it filled me up so much I didn't eat anything else all day. M woke up at 3 and then at 6.30 and at 6.30 I felt ridiculously ill - boiling hot and shaking. I had to go get breakfast almost immediately (full-fat Greek yoghurt with mixed seeds and blueberries, raspberries and blackberries) because I felt so bad, which meant I messed up The Transfer and M didn't go back down until 8. I napped from 8 to 9.30 and felt so much better. And I ate lunch at 10.30. I think my body is finding it hard to go cold turkey off sugar.

Oh bugger, FIL just phoned and they're about half an hour away and I haven't managed to clean the bathroom yet as M has been refusing to sleep anywhere except on me. She had a hairy fit when I went in the shower. I had really thought she was out for the count, but no. She's lying on me looking really sleepy but it's too soon to do the Transfer. Oh, and I wanted her to be awake for her grandparents! They're only going to be here for an hour or so - are 'popping in on the way' from Preston to Oban. Yeah, because Edinburgh is really on the way.

Am I the only person managing to wear dresses? I wear dresses with straps rather than sleeves, and when I want to bf I just slip my arm out of the strap (and cardigan, usually) and pull down one side of the bodice. Works fine.

Damn, despite my ramblings M is just re-awakening. Grr!

3am DD finally went to sleep last night, up again at 6 and then 8. I've got D & V so we aren't having much fun here at the moment. Will try to catch up properly later if I get a long enough stretch both not in the bathroom and not feeding

Hmm. A is dropping down the centimes now. They said if she's still at that level or less in 3-4 weeks time I'll be told to wean early. That's not a massive worry for me as I weaned dd1 early very carefully after doing a lot of research so I'm fairly knowledgable on all that. I hate being told what to do so I do know a lot of stats around the guidelines :)

However, I'm not a natural bf-er really and I certainly do not enjoy it or believe in it enough to have us all sleep deprived, me a shitty mummy to dd1 and 2 and dd2 lose weight because of it. I'm going to start doing a formula nighttime bottle soon I think and then probably phase out boob over a 6-8 week period.

Too - Are you sure low carb is okay with bf? HV's are always asking me if I'm eating enough carbs.

I was always an anti iron person. I iron dh's work shirts and nowt else...except recently dd1 has some really cute clothes that look better ironed. So I iron them. Including a pair of flipping pyjamas!

too - certainly in terms of fresh produce the USA has very lax pesticide and micro standards compared to the uk.

My feeling is that I can't change the environment quickly enough for my breast feeding career and I'd rather have my toxins in me not a. But as I said above I'm not a big bf fan really, it takes very little to turn me against it :)

at Oban via Edinburgh! Hehe.

i wear a dress maybe once a year, so can't comment there...

Yikes Jen, not good :( Hope you feel better soon...

Pet thanks for the keeping awake ideas! I sleeps in a sleeping bag, so didn't try the stripping one (also because I'm not sure how successful it would be in the dark!) but feet worked, as did hands and ear. Forgot about the shoulder squeezing one! She ate better - but still up every two hours. She used to do four and a half! Suspect even more feeding may be required so will try the squeezing tonight.

It is you Pet who does some Baby Whisperer bits and bobs, isn't it? I've been doing the patting (as in, shush-pat, but without the shush!) for the last three nights or so, and it's worked wonders! DH has also gotten her down to sleep much earlier using it. Very pleased! There's been some fussing, but she's still only tiny (a month yesterday) so I can't expect wonders. I've been keeping track of her eating and sleeping, so after a few more days I'm hoping to analyse that to get a better idea of her schedule, and then adapt around that.

Too, I've done dresses too - though not all the time I must admit! A lot of my dresses are wrap around type things, so I can easily BF in them. Hope you get to do the cleaning you want to do - though I'm sure all will be fine without :)

I must admit to doing rather a lot of ironing - DH wears shirts for work, and I tend to iron quite a few of my things too. What's this wonderful shake and fold of which you speak? Got half the ironing done earlier while I was napping in the sling, but not sure I'll get round to the rest before the end of the day - we'll see. I actually don't mind ironing, especially with something on Iplayer to keep me entertained!

I haven't read the BF article, but have read about it on various threads. From my point of view, I may not be able to have formula due to the cow's milk element (both myself and DH are lactose intolerant), so unless I get soya milk formula on prescription I'll probably stick with BF until the end! If the chemicals are that bad, surely we should just avoid them - surely from pregnancy onwards! - to ensure super healthy babies? (not that I'm suggesting that, but if they're that bad then surely they're equally bad while PG!).

Quiet day here today, to compensate for busy days yesterday and another coming up tomorrow! Had a super healthy lunch (halloumi and salad wraps, with carrots and houmous on the side) to kick start healthy eating..! Out for lunch tomorrow though, so it probably won't last..

Jen d and v with a new baby sounds pants. :( get well soon!

Jen hope the D&V clears up soon. Life with a newborn is tough enough.

Dream was last night any better?

Thanks for sharing about the Ergo Hawthers I didn't get chance to try mine out at the weekend and I now really want to. I just need 10 minutes to sit and concentrate on the instructions on my own, without having to hold DD at the same time and without DS in my face wanting to "have a go" with it. Very impressed with you managing to BF on the bus!

Pomme sounds like a sensible decision. It kind of makes it easier to come to that conclusion when you can see that it will benefit DD2. I introduced a night time bottle of formula just over a week ago for DD. I didn't mention it previously as I wanted to see how it went for a few nights first before I came on here saying it had gone well/bad. So far so good. She's taken the bottle no problem and has been BFing fine the rest of the time. She's also been having a small top up after a BF once in the day, usually early afternoon. It got to the stage where she rarely seemed satisfied and this one bottle and small top up have made her much more content. To be honest I think this is probably the start of me winding down BFing. I'm in no rush to finish immediately and will probably spend a few weeks gradually coming to a stop. But I've done better than I thought I ever would already and I'm now at the stage where I feel DD needs more than what I'm providing.
I'm not telling anyone (except DH) in RL yet though. I'm sick of my Mum asking "are you still feeding her yourself?" every phone conversation which is usually every other day. I snapped at her yesterday and asked her why she's so obsessed with it. Obviously a sore subject on my part but honestly it's like everyone can't wait for me to stop, I just don't get it.

Sorry Pomme, I didn't mean to take my bf rage out on you! It is weird - I find myself having v strong opinions on bf like nothing else I've ever experienced. Don't know why it gets me so much! If A is dropping down the centiles then you've got to do the best thing for her. Just a thought, though (please don't think I'm trying to stuff bf down your throat! I'm trying to make you feel confident in you and your body) - if DD1 also dropped centiles at the same age it may be just a natural fluctuation in weight as your children hit an age where their mobility increases. How low are we talking? The HV told me that many babies slim down when they start crawling - perhaps A is just doing a lot more wriggling etc?

I'm doing a paleo/primal diet, based on recommendations by a Dr John Briffa. I found this on his website and I think so long as my total calories don't drop then it shouldn't matter if they're coming from carbs or healthy fats. I read his book Escape The Diet Trap and a lot of what he said really resonated with me. I had a kidney and liver scan after DD1 died because I had some odd blood test results and it showed nothing 'wrong' with me but they noted that my liver was quite fatty (the shame!). Fatty liver is a marker for a lot of health problems and in my case, it can't have been alcohol causing it as I'd just spent 9 months off the drink, so it must be diet. I added that to the fact that M isn't supposed to allow herself to become overweight due to only having one kidney, and came to the conclusion that DH and I need to radically overhaul our diet. Having said all that, if my milk supply seems to be affected I'll stop! So far so good, though.

Jen, that sounds rotten. Hope you've got some help - is your DH still off? Coping with a newborn and D&V does not sound like something you should be doing alone.