October 2012 babies - over here nobbers!

[Smorgs]

This really will be the thread where all our babies start sleeping through the night... right?!

Sorry bora ... What I really meant was I never had any will power... now I'm making that sound like a bad thing so I'll quit while i'm only slightly behind

Yay Zara!!! Ireland misses you!!!!

Sorry to hear 12 week madness has hit. Just when things seem settled, BAM! Hope he settles again soon. Poor MIL. U gotta feel sorry for her. Son and grandson departing. Totally understand that your patience gone tho!!!!!

When u travelling home? Great u hav DH this time!

Well here we are feeding post 8 hr sleep! Yay! Fingers crossed for some successful pumping in about 10 mins too. Have 2 good friends coming today. So glad not facing them on 3hrs sleep! One bringing 4 yr old, great entertainment for DS! and scary child germs....

Hey Firsttimeforeverything thanks for very accurate help!! DH got home just after I posted and fitted it in 5 seconds...... My spatial perception has never been very good and it makes me incredibly useless sometimes!!! Hate to be beaten by such things!

Didn't help that when I looked at their site it was showing it as forward facing only!!

Squid DH has had plenty of good Irish wind and rain on face and babygro legs! But seriously, it was pissing down yesterday and he was doing my head in. Fresh air (via) plastic conked him in 2 mins!

5oz!! Woo hoo!!

Wondering how Bella got on with KIT day?? Took me ages to work out what you all kept talking about KIT.......! Is this a normal part of maternity leave? Is it obligatory? Self employment =never being out of touch!

Hope u weathered it well Bella!

Olives on weaning, I would politely inform that breastmilk is full fat milk, very high in calories, not watery at all, and ask how pureed fruit could possibly be be more filling than full fat milk? Hungry baby milk and baby rice is a con too, it contains no extra nutrition but fills baby for longer because its harder to digest. I have a relative who is like this and the pushyness is more about justifying her own choices as a parent, rather than supporting me to do whats best for my baby, so I let it go over my head.

olivess nod and smile, do your own thing and maybe start lying about how long your baby sleeps?

Nice one Wantan. I'm getting it too from MIL. Very matter of factly. "he will need food. He is very big. Of course he will need fed." DH keeps telling her he is very well fed. But that is very helpful. Full fat milk. Of course it is!!!

Breast feed coordinator in hospital made it v clear why not to use hungry baby milk or follow on milk. Poor little guts given sluggish marathon at every feed.

I'm beginning to think MIL thinks I'm bf for some sort of selfish reason. Christ almighty, Again, it is the hardest thing I've ever done!!

But seriously, among ourselves. What would make us wean a bit earlier? I'm more than happy to go to 6 months. Tho I expect when I go to work we may end up with 1-2 formula bottles during day, depending on how expressing goes. But what signs would baby show to make me change? As I'm hoping for BLW obviously he needs to be old enough to work out what to do, so earlier feeding would mean purée or dare I say it baby rice??( I know nothing about this, just heard relatives go on about it!)

If there's one thing I've learned about being adamant about something before you actually experience it (ie, childbirth! Breast feeding!) it's that you cannot profess to know what you are doing until you've done it! Thus I need to be more open minded to the possibility of failure!

Yep. People at groups def lie about sleeping. No WAY do many babies in one group sleep through the night.

And how they all turn up with immaculate hair and make up.....

I think they must have live in help.

Personally I've never appeared in public with baby spew. But that is because huffle snuffle is so darn greedy he has barely lost a drop in his frantic feeds! And thankfully no flashes of boob yet tho I often feel the sensation of plastic clasp on tummy and realise I've not clipped the bra back up....,, letting it all hang loose!

Sorry. Ok Wantan. So baby rice Is just bulk too? Right. Suspected that.

Stop multi posting and tidy house for visitors Huffle. Don't let the slummy mummy reality show!!

Yep that's me Smorgs, Mary blardy Poppins!

Ha to live in help Huffle, you do make me laugh!

London, of course she doesn't hate you.
Can you try and have a day or 2 where you force yourself not to worry about timings, frequency, amounts etc. and just immediately give up if she refuses the feed? Then try again say 20 mins later? I think you have to make yourself stay calm and not panic. Easier said than done, I know.
You're trying so hard and care so much, no one could ever say you're useless!

Well done on the sling feeding Bora, I've not done it yet. Can't even figure out how I'd get my boob out. I usually pull up my top layers. Did you have pull down stuff?

Had a busy day today. We're going to a fancy hotel this weekend, with a dinner show thing so I need something other than jeans to wear and none of my go-to dresses are suitable for bf, so I had to go shopping. Had DS in the pram and couldn't try anything on, so bought shed loads in the hope that something fits.
Then I visited my friend and her 4-day-old baby in the hospital. She's soooo tiny, I can't remember DS ever being so small! So nice to have tiny baby cuddles again. DS looked huge in comparison.

DH out tonight, so I will get an early night for a change.
Looking forward to doing nothing other than packing tomorrow.

smile I know what you mean, it can be a common misconception and I know you didn't mean any harm :) For me, that was part of the problem - I liked food too much, hated throwing up and so it was kind of self inflicted torture.

Anyway. Onto nicer things. Feeling better about DS and me. I got myself into an awful state yesterday thinking that I wasn't the best thing for DS. I kept thinking all he wanted was my love and all I wanted was space. Went to DH's gym for rehab, DS had cuddles with the other coaches, I spoke to DH and then the three of us went for a walk and DH rationalised it all for me.

Bora massive respect for feeding outside with the BJORN - I could never figure that one out!

London she does not hate you. I had kind of the reverse with DS - thinking he must think I hate him, and I was terribly upset. But I've had similar anxieties about feeding and I posted on the food boards - had some very good advice, maybe that would help?

Same, smile I know you didn't mean any harm. Again, it's common misconception, but it's important to remember that Eating Disorders are mental health problems (and Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all mental health problems).

Hurray Zara! Glad to see you back

Ooh, I can't remember who asked now, but I was wearing pull down stuff in the sling.

We've had jabs this morning. I made DH take the morning off work to take her in as I cried last time. Didn't help, I heard her screaming from the waiting room. I think poor DH was traumatised - he thought it would be a special baby tiny needle. "Oh my god, it was massive! I think it must have gone into the bone!"

london how are you feeling today lovey?

Also thinking of bella's KIT day.

hi everyone from our holiday! wondering if we're going to be snowed in here and unable to get home

lots going on so can't reply to all as on my phone. hugs to those struggling - London my ds does unpleasant thrashy feeds much of the time too. had 2 days here where he fed every 90mins like he was dying of starvation and since then he's barely fed. Fed 4 times yesterday then twice in the night, and two really difficult feeds so far today (we're an hour ahead)

on weaning there was a really interesting article on baby rice I found via the breast and bottle feeding forum - was shocked by how bad it actually can be for babies. apologies can't link as on phone but it was on a thread about early weaning. lots of people wean at 4 months because babies sometimes start waking more frequently in the night then but there's a fair amount of research that indicates their sleep is actually disturbed by cognitive changes and learning new skills, and giving solids makes no difference to sleep. as orange says, full fat milk is much more satisfying than fruit or veg.

anyway

went up the mountain yesterday to take ds1 sledging. he was decidedly unimpressed at first but cheered up and enjoyed it eventually. he is loving the snow but finds walking in it frustratingly challenging. ds2 is mostly experiencing his first holiday in the Moby! it's bitterly cold here so he stays nice n toasty.

not getting much sleep tho - my dad's flat has very thin walls and his upstairs neighbours watched tv loudly until 4am this morning. they were playing computer games until 2am the night before. fucking bastards is all I can say.

trying to figure my future out. don't have a job to go back to as my last one was fixed term contract. do I want to be full time sahm? can we really afford it? are there actually any jobs anyway?? gah.

let down reflex - mine is always strong and uncomfortable. kind of like when your saliva glands really go for it. and yes I get it at random times, less so now.

rather random post there! catch you all soon! x

Smile, we introduced a dummy at about 5 weeks as DD simply wouldn't sleep during the day unless sucking my finger. Popped the dummy in and went straight off for about 2hrs! We just use it for getting to sleep, think she has learnt it is a signal (or I'm hoping ) I wouldn't have thought it would be to late but I'm expert. Think we were very lucky she took to it so easily.

Never gave DD baby rice - partly for reasons crazy mentions, but also because you generally mix it with milk. No way was I bothering to express more than I already had to...

You can probably guess that I'm not a Gina Ford fan. However, she's written a recipe book that was really useful when I was bulk-cooking DD's little meals. Most of the recipes are cheap and DD gobbled them up when they were defrosted and microwaved. I do recommend it for the awkward stage between bananas/avocado etc and 12 months, when they can start eating food with added salt - ie share most of your dinners.

We fly back at the start of Feb! First day I'm back I need an Irish breakfast... definitely have cravings! And I've run out of my supply of Irish tea arrrgh!!!

Yes definitely people lie about sleeping through the night. For the past month DS 90% of the time does what you might call "sleeping through the night". Down to bed between 6.30-8pm (depending on his mood), sleeps through till 5/6am. BUT most of the the time that includes have to get up to reswaddle him/tuck him in, rock his cot gently so he doesn't wake up. So it's not like I'm sleeping through the night. Last night, weirdly, was the first night he did a full 12 hours with no extra work from me. But anyway, yes people stretch the truth a lot when it comes to sleeping through.

Aargh, someone has replaced my lovely calm baby who you just put down for naps with a monster! Had a lovely morning singing songs at the library but it's obviously sent over the edge, resulting in 4 screaming meltdowns. Cheeks are red so could be teething but this is horrific!

Are you all putting your babies in another room for a bedtime around early evening time? I only ask because while what we're doing is working - AP style downstairs sleeping in my arms, then up to bed around 11.30, sleeping through until 8.30/9am - I worry because it's very routine-less and he does wake up a few times for feeding/changing/cuddles before my bedtime.

I dunno. I like the AP approach but I worry I'm supposed to be actually putting him to bed.

Thanks wantan and others for the advice. I will put DM straight next time she mentions it. Thing is it upsets me a bit because in every other way she has been so helpful and supportive. I think I will stop talking about the sleep issues with both DM and MIL who is also full of what I'm doing wrong....very frustrating.

Today we had a much more successful baby massage DD only cried at the very end! Then I sorted all her 0-3 months clothes and put them away! Can't believe how quickly time is going.

Had a quiet evening just the two of us. DH is in London til tonight so about to put DD to bed then I'm going to have a cup of tea and do some knitting.then an early night. Can't wait!

That's what we do. She's on one of us pretty much all the time, and we co-sleep. It's fine and works for us. What's AP?

oreniishi we have started to put DD to bed at around 8 pm. It doesn't really help her sleep better but I am really enjoying the little bit of quiet time I get watching tv or reading/drinking tea etc...I think it's quite good for me mentally and emotionally before we have our night time madness.

Orenishii - DS goes into his cot (well his portacot for now) in our bedroom to sleep at his bedtime (7pmish). He stays in there for the rest of the evening, we go in and check on him occasionally before we go to bed, or if he does more than a little squeak or won't resettle himself. I started doing that when he was super screamy in the early evening at 6 weeks (bath-bottle-bed routine) to try and establish some kind of order! He would wake up in the living room and howl, which is why he stays in his bedroom!

But don't worry about what you "should" do etc - if it's working and you're happy with it, surely that's ok? The only advantage is that DH and I get the whole evening to ourselves and we can have friends over for dinner etc. But we do miss DS in the evenings too, which is a downside! You could always try putting DS in his bed in the early evening for a few days and see if it works for you.

Eep, weaning talk already. I hadn't thought of it yet.

Though I would like to buy the following things in the next few weeks: bumbo or equivalent, cot, highchair (to sit up and watch us, not to eat), baby monitor. I am scouring ebay...

Orenishii Had an hour's snuggle with boyfriend and Jess instead of getting up for workout this morning and it felt really good - thank you for words about exercise yesterday. I'm dropping down to every other day. I do loads of walking anyway.
londonmrss hope you had a better day, baby does not hate you, you are baby's life! Maybe a cold/growth spurt?
Thinking of all those working, cannot imagine it, am so impressed bella huffle smileyhappymummy

Had a better baby group experience today after allowing myself LOTS of time. Left home at 10.30, wandered around town/parks for a couple of hours, bought some lunch, had it and a cup of tea in an icy lovely wintery park while jess slept in pushchair, went into a museum to do a leisurely feed/change (recommended - lots of big benches, I fed in an art gallery, no one pays attention to where you are as it's all free, lots of baby change)... then on up to baby group (yoga it was), arriving 10 minutes early. Girls at the group were nice, v interested in my reusable nappies!! Jess seemed to enjoy it and though she missed her morning nap she slept for the entire walk home (a lovely hour through snowy parks). Snow is coming down thick and fast here.

Orenishii (again) - I go with what works!! We were putting jess to bed but last couple of weeks she's not self-settling any more so we just hold her till she falls asleep. She still sleeps fine. it's all fine. There is no "should"...

I don't think I could bare to put her in the bedroom alone - we live in a flat so not worth us paying for a monitor for next door, but without it I would be checking her every two minutes still wakes up in the night to check she's breathing

She's about to out grow her Moses basket which we put her in for part of the evening in the lounge. I don't know what to do! In fact I might ask on wider MN...