November 2012 - babies are here at last

[StuntNun]

This is the post-natal club for graduates of the November 2012 intake.

Your mum is so right Stunt!

With regards to weight loss, yes, if you weigh a nappy when a baby has wee'd, you will easily get over 30g in them! Weigh a dry one first to compare the weights!

It is how Scbu work out the urine output when required to! They weigh them! 1g is equal to 1ml of wee!

So it is very easy for weight loss to seem 'excessive' as lets face it, the average newborn is 3.5kg, so anything above 350g is classed as 10% weight loss and 'unacceptable'!!

Thank you voices of reason and sanity...

I think Evil is right about the hormones raging, up and down is about right. I had a doze and a friend brought round dinner so I am feeling more rational again. I think I felt I had to tick all these boxes and couldn't keep up.

I worked out that if L had been 60g heavier the other day we wouldn't be going through all of this. I should have surreptitiously taped a dairy milk to him.

That made me giggle blonder! You clearly haven't got the size of dairy milks that I have

Expressing is going ok. Im not killing myself over it. He's always less settled after a bottle of breast milk though?

Hoping Monday to discuss nipple shields. He tried feeding off one breast for a minute today!! Proper sucking milk pouring out other boob. Then he started crying. Guess it doesn't come fast enough.

I also think I'm happier currently feeding half breast half formula with the weight thing. At least everything is written down and they can't ask for more than that!!

Glad you're feeling better blonder lol at the dairy milk

Not 100% pleased with expressing today. Might be the new pump? Or that I'm not expressing enough so my milk levels r not increasing. Any tips from those expressing? How often are u doing it?

Hello all,
Baby evil, is awful at night, last night he would only stop crying if he was asleep on my chest.
Tonight same pattern happening again,but I had to go for a pee, and by the time I came back baby evil had stopped crying!

I hope his is ok for a 4 week old. I can hear him whimper, but it's a miricale compared to last night. I know he is not hungry as he awoke for a feed and nappy changed.
Evil

Expressing should be 6-8 times a day minimum GT if not breastfeeding in between. It should also include overnight, as this is when the milk production is at its best.

You need to try and do it 2-3 hourly if you can, to get optimum levels. It is difficult with expressing though, to keep up with babys demands, as their demands change!

Fingers crossed you get a good night Evil. My Lo is nearly 6 weeks but having similar. issues. I am sat here scoffing biscuits to give me energy for the night ahead.

Also GT milk levels are at their lowest early evening so if you express then you will get less milk than e.g. first thing in the morning. Also prolactin levels are highest in the night so if you express milk (or breastfeed as the case may be) through the night then you will actually produce more milk in the day.

Wow so I gota do it a lot more! Do midnight n 6 am count as night time expressing? Lol I'm very bad at staying awake. Just about manage to feed LO n burp him, alot of respect for u mums who spend hours bf all night.

Tonight is going to b no fun. DH is out with his mates "wetting babies head" which means very drunk DH. His pillows r already in spare room . But means I get no help at 5am feed . Suppose I should get used to it before he does his nxt lot of night shifts !

BabyN is having a very bad night I'm praying she goes to sleep after this next feed for a few hours

Omg LO won't sleep. Fed him hour ago n he won't go bk to sleep. Or let me put him down. Or stop rocking him.

Argh. Finally got to sleep at 3.30. Just fed him again. So tiered. DH picked perfect night to go out.
He stumbled in at 2 ish n didn't even mk it to spate room, passed out on sofa. Just heard him get up now n move to spare room.

If he thinks he's getting a lay in he better think again!

GT sorry you've had a bad night. It would be awful for your poor DH if next time yor LO is due for a feed he's woken up by a grizzly baby to do I am not an evil person I swear

We've had a bad night here to, don't even want to think how much little sleep I actually got

Oh, this is where everyone is.

horsey think detectives cranial osteopath idea s a great one. It sounds really similar to what I went through with my first and I gave up trying to bf, then was at a coffee thing, and I was talking about my problems and this woman who was a cranial osteopath said she wasn't surprised she wouldn't feed as her head was wonky which affected her palette/jaw area(DD1 was breach and properly wedged head wise). This made me feel slightly better but I wondered why other people in the know hadn't spotted it. Latterly the HV did and we had a couple of scans to check if her skull was realigning by itself.

Ps she is not particularly wonky any more

nervous have thought about it. However DH is such a heavy sleeper he wouldn't wake up! Spesh when hung over.

Any thoughts about pump cleaning? In particular night expressing. Trying to work out if I can express at night n not sterilise pump. Could I just rinse in warm water before nxt use. Don't really wana leave my bed at 2 and 5.

Yes I am extreamly lazy. Maybe my boobs n my baby know this about me which is why I can't bf? although one of my reasons to bf was so I didn't have to wash more stuff up

Sophia thanks his head was twisted so I'll look into that and nipple shields.

Gt I don't express overnight. I know hormones are highest etc but unless he's awake and fretful, I just miss that express. Yes it may well affect my supply but I'm doing all I can. I'm not going to feel guilty about it any more.

He's here to be loved, cuddled and looked after. I am doing that to the best of my ability without killing myself. If I expressed as well at that time overnight I'd get even less sleep. I personally would want everything sterile before use.

My main aim is to try to establish breast feeding I'm giving it 4 weeks of all options then leaving it in the pattern were in.

I don't want to look back and regret feeling shit about my sons first few weeks. He's a week old today!!! This time last week I was just being admitted to the labour ward!!!

I don't express overnight either. I get little enough sleep as it is. I don't function well with less than 8 hours sleep a day which is obviously hard to come by at the moment.

Breast milk is not like formula as it is bug free. I used to (and plan to) express, put lid on milk container and covers on pump, put all in fridge. Next express, usea pump with fresh bottle, and repeat. You do not need to sterilise each time, I used to do it daily. Do not pump warm milk into chilled milk, but when milk is chilled, they can be transferred to the one container.

horsey I am amazed nobody has mentioned nipple shields. I hope it would work for you.

Jacob is getting weighed today. I am loving the bed rest, but still anxious about weigh-in. It is very funny hearing DH manage everything. He was very good overnight, getting up to help me, and actually feels less tired for it. I still feel like shit, but not as bad as yesterday. I was really frightened yesterday thinking I was gonna have a stroke. That would really complicate things!

Horseylady you're right. This is a special time and will go by so quickly. It's such a shame to spend it ferling stressed and guilty.

gt when my little one was in the scbu I was expressing every 3 hours for a couple of weeks and that did seem to up the amount of milk that I was getting and I find massaging the boob beforehand and during seems to get more milk out and try to empty the boob as well. Now that I'm home I'm doing what I can when I can with expressing but definitely doing the 2am. I'm trying to bf before every bottle feed and he's doing really well sometimes not even needing a bottle feed. When I was initially expressing during he night I was pumping and dumping so I didn't have to steralise the stuff properly but then I got dh involved and he would wash the stuff and steralise it for me. Apparently you don't need to steralise bf bottles and expressing equipment. It just needs a good wash with hot soapy water but I steralise all of mine. I think I'm going to go the drugs route as I had a couple of days this week that we had to be in the hospital overnight, LO keeps having these jerking episodes and I wasn't able to pump and my supply has gone down a bit. I have a prescription for domperidone that increases supply and I used fenugreek with ds1 and that worked well.

Seriously vq? So I don't need to worry about taking the steriliser to mums? How fast do you need to cool breast milk?

Thanks for that tip vq Will get a container for the pump to go in fridge.
Hmm poured pumped milk in to chilled milk last night. . I'm sure I read somewhere it was ok. Will chill from now on.
Going to aim to pump every three hours today. N with all the bits going in fridge that will save me time. Will just have to b strict if we have visitors and excuse myself for 15 mins.

LO looks SO cute in his crib. I wana pick him up n cuddle him in bed .

Vq were doing nipple shields Monday with the bf councillor. He will sit at my breast really happily now and play just won't feed. To be honest I'm happy with that progress.

I'm feeling more relaxed about things today. Probably because I have no mw visits and he slept 12 - 2 then 3 till 6 then 7 till 9! Happy with this routine and it was night two of doing it!!! Plus no screaming from 11.45!!! Just mewing!! Swaddling from midnight helps then he's unswaddled after his 6am feed.