October 2012: onwards, upwards and rolling over?

[YompingJo]

Is this part 5 already? Where did that time go?

yomping I would struggle with cutting out all those things too- Oren you are superwoman! I tend to believe that diets evolve, same as we do. That said I really try and avoid really refined stuff and definitely no ready meals and stuff like that. I cook everything now with a slow cooker as it's the only way I have time to cook from scratch!

It helps that we started before I was even pregnant. Breakfast is scrambled eggs or a "porridge" type thing of ground almonds, flaxseed and crushed nuts, desiccated coconut and almond milk. Or something like blitzed butternut squash with coconut milk. Lunches are soups, homemade frittatas or sweet potato jacket potato style. Dinners are slow cooked, curries or quick things like steaks with quick steamed veggies.

I get the convenience element, i really do. For months i moaned about how difficult it was and it was harder while at work. Then suddenly it became no more harder to whip up some scrambled eggs than to make toast or porridge. It suddenly seems a lot less hassle.

We basically just eat lots of meat, fish, veggies, eggs and nuts in various ways.

Very quick hello to add to the madness. Not been posting, semi reading. If this is wonder weeks I wonder when the hell it will end??? Most of week has been shite night of waking almost exactly hourly from 12 to 7. Quick feed then sleep but not for long. Last night succeeded in 3 of those being rock back to sleep. I am fucking miserable and exhausted. Day time naps happening only in pram on walk or carseat. Feeds all over place. Might be an hour or 4 ( except night). Almost totally refusing dodgy side.

If you hav nothing good to say Huffle, say nothing at all! So I will shut up!

Have half read. Sorry so many having 'wonder weeks' but is oddly reassuring. Hopefully it will truly fuck off and pass soon. And I was thinking of going back to work tomorrow until recently?? Thank god I changed to March.

Crazy sorry about your godmother. That sucks.

Lisbeth........ Tissue paper??????? Is your house like Benetton?! Holy moly.......

Zara hope u got home without too much stress.

No rolling here. Very little independent play. Clingy baby. Very little time in floor tho as back is a mess. Glad to discover he is happy in pram. Bad mummy has no choice. Lots of lovely cooing and chat and shouting tho!

I will come back when I have nicer things to say and have more energy to keep up!

And I wish the world was educated to the possibility of developmental leaps causing fussiness and sleep regression. If one more person tells me he is hungry and needs a bottle or spoonfeed I will shove some unwanted unnecessary food down their gobs. I sincerely and truly hope this phase passes and sleep returns just so I can say "I told you he is getting enough friggin food already!!!!"

That is all.

Oh!! I knew there was something nice!!! Yay Mr Bella!!!!!!!! Brilliant news on the job!!!! Such a relief. Delighted for you Bella. X x

Yomping Sainsburys do a gorgeous dairy free ice cream- its called Swedish Glace. Its even better than normal ice cream and a fairly reasonable price too- so no need to stop the ice cream either.

Crazy Sorry about your Godmother. Thats shit. Is there anyone that can give you a hand? Xxx

Crazy so sorry- life is crappy sometimes.
Huffle, had been wondering where you were- sorry the sleep is a bit rough. Tell anyone who gives you unsolicited advice to fuck the fuck off. This too shall pass love. I've had an angel baby all day- fed perfectly, napped perfectly, played independently, self-settled... until about 20 minutes ago when she refused to feed and has been screaming at me periodically ever since. So much for my day of smugness... it never lasts. None of it.

Smile how did you get on? Watching with interest - DD has skin folds too and has to go for X-rays in about 6 weeks. Hoping all is well with both beans! If it's any consolation there was a mum at baby group on Fri with DD in hip brace - only on a few days. Looked like something from the Tower of London BUT her bean was quite happy! She could also sit up really well as it jutted out at sides a bit like stabilisers on a bike :) She said the biggest pain was changing nappies through it and not being able to bath - so just topping and tailing. At least you are getting seen early - think we have to wait until 6 months :(

Crazy sorry to hear about your Godmother. Totally shit :(

Wonderweeks is an interesting idea but based on due date wouldn't work for us. Mini Angelico was born at 38+4 but seems to be hitting all the phases based on birthday rather than due day.

Hey Huffle sorry the sleep thing is so shit :( It passed in 2 weeks here so hopefully you haven't long to go, fingers crossed x No rolling here yet although haven't been doing any tummy time so not much incentive to roll frankly Think I'm making life too easy for her!

Oren am full of admiration for your diet - was just saying to DH I want to go back to eating the way I did with gestational diabetes as I actually felt fab when I cut back on carbs / sugar etc. Like Yomping I don't know how you get the time as I remember it seemed to take ages cooking things. Think I need to be more organised, set alarm in morning so I can get up before bean does and cook breakfast. I also had to avoid pulses when she was colicky as they were the one thing that made her more windy - this was a big loss as beans and lentils were brill for keeping blood sugar stable with GD.

Comedy interlude of day: had bean beside me on bed, she was playing and I was reading. Found old CD player and turned it on, realised there was CD in there I'd forgotten about. It was a really good rock compilation one called Supercharged. Anyway, Nickelback 'This is how you remind me' and Stained 'It's been a while' are on it. DD was getting crotchety so I picked up her Mothercare Bedtime Bear who performed some interpretive dance to those songs, including some slow head banging to guitar solos. DD laughed her ass off :o It also had the happy side effect of tiring her out enough to have her nap, hence I have time to type :o

Ooops it's Staind not Stained. Was trying to find the there so you could imagine a pink bear with a nightcap dancing to it...

(It was very soulful)

crazy, so sorry about ur godmother. some of u ladies r really having a tough time with the lack of sleep. hope this phase passes quickly for u. paleo/less carbs can be convienient but expensive. i microwave my veggies and cold chickens thighs or do stirfry veggies using those ready to fry packs and have with chicken/prawns. u can chuck fish in the oven & bake it. i snack on smoked salmon, chicken, dried fruit & nuts. u can season stuff with chilli/soy sauce. i still have carbs for brekkie and morning snacks :-)

Just had v quick scan, sounds like a lot of us are having a wonder bloody week.

oren we put to bed in cot upstairs around 7.30 and then do a dreamfeed around 10.30. He is generally sleeping through.

crazy so sorry to hear about your godmother, is there any way you can get to see her?

I have entered me and Dp in a 10k run in May - will definitely give me something to aim for. However, at this rate it will take me about an hour and a half! I kid you not, I was hardly a storming athlete before pregnancy ruined my body.

Anyone else with a super long baby? DS is 69cm which puts him way off the chart at 15wks. Only just measured him as got grief from hv that he is now at 85th percentile (born around 50th) on weight - I said take a look at him, he is not fat but tall (if you can say that about a baby , long maybe). I'm not worried about his weight and this confirmed it, although I am now thinking that he has inherited donor's height!

ha ha October- hurrah for your tall baby! Do you get to know lots about your donor?

So sorry about your godmother crazy. That is really shit.

Keep sending out "hang in there" vibes to the poor poor sleep regression peeps. It does pass!!! Jess is going down effortlessly again, 10 hrs a night - just two weeks ago she screamed till 1am. I was so so grateful to whoever warned me - I just repeated to myself "this is normal, this is correct, she is just developing" and whilst I was tired and stressed... I never worried.

I eat pretty healthy, and imaginatively... possibly not such a disciplined philosophy as Orenishi - very impressed! Everyone told me I wouldn't have time to cook with a baby, but I try and make time. Eating real food is important to me, especially squid, haha! This evening I made grilled lamb with almonds and capers and couscous and mint and tomatoes. Stuff like that. and wine

Big sympathies to those cutting out dairy. I LOVE yoghurt and would find that really tough (though I have tea and coffee black and don't care much for cereal... but the thought of not having a wee slice of cheese with my wine )

I need to get back into exercise... I can't find the energy. It's been a week or two now. I do plenty of walking, but I was running and doing weights in the early mornings and I just sort of stopped (I blame the snow). Jess is going down too early but we are baby-led, sigh, so she sleeps from 7pm till 4am - not complaining cause that is a great sleep, but I think the 4am starts are tiring me out. Also I swear she is taking a lot more milk these days! I am hungry but I can't seem to convince myself to eat more than I've always eaten, 3 healthy meals a day no snacks.

Mondays are good for resolutions right! Weights or running tomorrow morning before boyfriend goes to work. I might swing by baby massage tomorrow too, and I'm seeing some mates tomorrow afternoon. Baby sensory Tuesday, and then I'm going down south for a few days for my grandma's funeral, but I'm not upset about it, it will be good to be with family.

BTW, totally random, but has anyone got diastasis recti? I hadn't considered it but the yoga teacher was talking about it at Baby yoga last week. During pregnancy your abdominal muscles can separate (it's more likely with a c-sec or multiple pregnancies) and if they are separated it's best to avoid ab exercises until they have come back together again.

You can test for it by lying on your back with your knees bent and then raising up your head and shoulders. Feel in the midline just below your breastbone - you should be able to feel a ridge with a gap -if it's more than 2 fingers width you have it. I think there are some exercises you can do to help, or it resolves with time -anyway I convinced myself I had it today and made poor boyfriend lie down and checked his to compare! It was the same so I think I am fine - much like the pelvic floor with running, I was suddenly worried I had done myself damage with crunches/situps/whatever.

Just thought I'd mention it. I think there are some exercises you can do to help the muscles come back together, but you should avoid ab exercises until they have.

I'm sure that's of no interest to anyone, but just thought I'd share! I know people were talking about 30 day shred etc and that has ab exercises in it.

Hahahaha I think I've misadvertised myself as this amazing wonderwoman who cooks up these amazing paleo meals. Or maybe it's just the misconception that food not containing bread, pasta etc are time consuming to make. It's really not - they're really not. I got a recipe book called the Paleo Blueprint - super fast meals and they're literally just regular food, just without wheat, cereals, grains etc.

One is just fry some salmon in sesame oil and cayenne pepper, chuck it on a plate after two mins, put in pak choi and cashew nuts and cook for five mins, re-add salmon and cook for a further two mins - Bob's yer uncle, all done!

Although DH is obsessed with getting meat from local farm and grass fed meat and stuff, I'm not sure paleo is really that more expensive. At it's base is protein and vegetables - so making a paleo stew is no more expensive than a regular stew, I'd probably just swap the white potatoes for sweet potatoes. By definition, a stew or casserole made from scratch is "paleo" anyway...What you don't spend on cereals, porridge, bread, pasta, noodles etc just goes towards meat and veg :)

Really paleo is also like...living in fear of the next lion to enter the room and not having day to day stress, or sitting in chairs all day long or whatever. Paleo eating is just...going back to basics, really.

october thanks - so a dream feed...you just get them sucking in their sleep? Do they not wake up?

crazy sorry to hear about your godmother :(

squid interesting about the abdominal muscles..I'm too afraid to try but must give it a go! Hope the funeral is OK, as much as it can be.

huffle hope this crappy phase passes quick - i live in fear of this 4 month regression!

ALERT ALERT DH and I dtd TWICE today!

Happy to report that there has been no throwing up today and mini yomping's cold has finally gone after nearly 2 weeks. Maybe the vomiting was her trying to get rid of the mucus. She has been a bit happier today but very edgy and easily startled. I am dreading tonight, don't know how I'll cope tomorrow if it's another terrible night. I am so cheap when I get enough sleep. Surely after 2 shite nights and 2 pretty bad days, she'll be so exhausted she'll just sleep for hours? . Sending positive vibes to my sleep deprived Wonder Week buddies! If it goes on due date then as mini yomping was 15 days overdue, she would have been 17 weeks on Friday just gone so maybe this is nearly over...

Has anyone else's baby's latch got lazy? It's all gums on the nipple here, really uncomfortable, but if I take her off and relatch her she just does it again and as I'm feeding her to sleep at the moment because it's the only way to get her to sleep I'm having to grin and bear it - but worried when this week passes and things are more manageable again, she will have developed a really bad habit I am then unable to correct.

Angelico, I like the pink bear's taste... that's my kind of music!

Mickey thanks for the ice cream tip

Um, I'm crap on not much sleep. I'm not cheap. Nobbing autocorrect.

Oren I do dream feeds- just pick her up and latch her on. she sucks and never opens her eyes. they are the best feeds we have- she wiggles and fights me when she's awake, but these ones are lovely and peaceful

squid I can't even find that ridge! does that mean my abs have gone completely?

Marking my place for a catch up tomorrow but wanted to let you know the journey went well.

Woke DD up at 4am for feed and loaded her into the car. She slept for over 4hrs so we got to our normal halfway stopping point. An hour break there, then stopped again 2hrs down the road, finally arrived 3hrs later. She was as good as gold and enjoying cuddles with her Grandad now makes it worth it

Hope your all ok, catch up tomorrow.

london seriously you pick your sleeping baby up and she feeds and does not wake??

I have become way too afraid of this sleeping thing. We creep around him for fear of waking him, something we said we wouldn't do. But it's so hard!

Weirdly she would wake if I held her on her back, but i pick her up and hold her upright on my shoulder and she stretches but she then rests her head on my shoulder and stays sleeping! I couldn't do this during the day, anything would wake her up, but once we've done out nighttime routine she seems to go into deep sleep. I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone, but I just have the kind of baby who is easier to feed when she's sleeping! It's really nice for me because she absolutely won't be cuddled when she's awake, it makes her grumpy if I'm not walking with her or playing, so it's nice to get sleepy cuddles.

Worth a try. I tend to do these feeds lying down too.

london the donor is a friend, so we know lots about him.

squid someone mentioned the separated abs to me but I didn't know what to check for and frankly was a bit scared to find out. I feel as though I have no core strength left and sometimes feel it getting out of bed, but I'm not sure what is normal post pregnancy. Will check, but not sure I'd find that ridge beneath my flab!

YAY Bella!

I'm back home!

It's actually bizarre to be back because I left when DS was 4 weeks old and I was in a completely different (read: freaking out) headspace. It's like stepping back in time and it hit me as soon as I got home what a fragile state I was in for the first 6 weeks or so. So proud of myself for how far I've got. I'm so proud of all of us Nobbers, actually!

Flights were great. Took no pics as I suggested because DS slept all the way to LA with no feeds (woohoo!!!) so I got 8 hours of sleep myself on the flight, bliss. He was a bit more unsettled on the way to London and was so tired by the end he was just sleeping in my arms on the last flight to Dublin.

Had the most disgusting poonami/poo bomb from DS on the plane though. He didn't do a poo from Auckland until London about 24 hours later. Literally just as we were touching down at Heathrow he did the biggest red poo face ever. DH and I looked at each other in horror. Oh fuck! By the time we got to the gate and seat belts signs were off, I jumped up and took him straight to the loo, but it was too late. A slick of green and yellow fermented baby poo oozed out of all edges the nappy to cover him from his back and neck neck ALL THE WAY down to his knees. I used half a pack of baby wipes (not metaphorically, I mean I literally used up a pack of wipes that was half-full) to clean him up, and tissues and hand towels! And Dettol wipes to clean his change mat. Wish i had had scissors to just cut him out of his clothes! I had to take him out of the bathroom in just a nappy and it had taken so long to clean him all the other passengers had left!! You could smell his poo EVERYWHERE. Ewwwwwwww.... Cabin crew were nevertheless suitably amused and they all wanted turns to cuddle DS (who smelt like baby wipes and hand santitiser by that point) while DH and I got our bags together. DH said I should've just left the vest and babygro in the loo and not bothered taking it home...

Nevertheless I have to say I now know what it is like to have both of your hands completely covered with shit.

Oh god and just to add to the poo horror: DS was actually lighter and his mid-section softer after the poo bomb!!