March 2013- here we go....

[Oodsigma]

Welcome old & new to the other side!

I'll start with a stats list!

Ood -ds 7/3/13, dc4! Elcs

If anyone wants to add any more details feel free!

christi they can entertain themselves from a fairly young age, you don't have to wait until the first one's ten or whatever. Although it's handy if the first is big enough to fetch and carry for you - first nappy I ever changed was my younger niece's, and her older sister (three at the time) made it much easier because she knew what to do and where everything was.

I'm thinking two or three years would be a good age gap, but have yet to persuade the man of the joys of two. He was an only child until he was 23 so doesn't really get the benefits of siblings. On the plus side, at least I'll have a niece or nephew right across the road - brother's girlfriend's got her 12 week scan on Wednesday.

Oops sorry Stormy! We have the same issue - George's middle name is Reuben, but people seem think it's fine to spell it Ruben. I shall remember the dots

Ill be making a drs appointment for a week tomorrow then. I will not entertain the notion of using condoms. I think we'll aim for a 3 year gap until the next one, mostly because I am not doing that again anytime soon want to go back to uni part time in 2014.

Christi it sounds like you're coping really well - I remember you being similarly upbeat on the antenatal threads. Well done on the feeding routine etc, I reckon you could easily cope with another

Worst we had was in the bank, plonko - the name on the baby's account has to be exactly as on the birth certificate, but Lloyds TSB's systems think accented characters are spaces, and spaces aren't allowed. On the other hand, constantly having to spell my name to people never did me any harm, so I'm sure Zoë will cope too.

Bugger condoms. Condoms are for people who don't get thrush every damned time they use them.

Well, I'm all set - I have a cuppa, I have a film on the telly, the milk's ready to go, but will this baby wake up? No, she will not! Ah well, at least if she's asleep she's quiet.

Not that I'm even managing with one LO at the moment, but somehow using contraception feels like a strange thing now - we went through so much to get pregnant that stopping it from happening seems wrong, does that make sense? Of course getting pregnant now would possibly finish me off, it's purely a psychological block! I'd love to be able to get pregnant naturally. MWs kept saying 'see you in 18 months' (a bit soon surely?!) and telling me people fall pregnant more easily after having one baby, which hurt a bit because I'm aware I probably won't.

16 days in and LO was still awake and crying at 3am this morning... He can definitely stay awake much longer than he's supposed to be able to Only sleeps in the sling now which I've decided isn't working fir me, so I've ordered yet another different one! Someone suggested gaffa tape, could work!

Grandpa's coming (my DF) to meet LO tomorrow and all I can think is that I'll miss my nap We're going to register the birth to get outside for a bit when I have help to get the pram down 3 flights of stairs - that definitely stops me venturing out much, I tend to use the carrier if we go out at all, but my back doesn't last long so basically I've stayed in for days now. Plus not being able to put LO down to shower/eat/wee/get dressed. I BFd in front of a friend yesterday and found that quite easy, but being out without the pillow and easy access to all my paraphernalia? Well done to you ladies who have that sussed!

He's had a day of infacol now but no joy yet, hoping to get to see the doctor tomorrow if they'll let me book in before he's registered and then do the registration at the same time... I tried the boob this morning as normal but it was so painful I had to stop expressed but milk supply isn't as good so barely got 3 oz from both - any ideas why? I'm expressing more if anything and feeding from the boob more apart from today. Scared it's drying up.

Finding these nights with OH at work really tough, he comes home at 6am and actually holds and kisses me when I'm standing in the kitchen with a screaming baby fumbling about with bottles, which he hasn't really done for months, I wish he was home with me more. 5 nights off from wednesday though when I'm starting teaching at home again so lots more family time then wondering if the teaching is a stupid idea, but seeing as I've spent loads more than planned on bottles and slings etc that suddenly became essential once LO arrived, the cash will really help! It's only an hour a day max.

I've hung a mobile of swallows above the changing table and although it's quite high, LO can definitely see it - he peers up at them with a really funny frowny expression that makes me laugh. In fact his little personality really keeps me going during the long sleepless nights

Chrislass I read your post and think its time to ditch the boob and get the bottles out. It was so much easier with ds1 as I knew how much he had. Going to try for one more week and if still no routine then boob shuts down. I know where I am with bottles and routine and she's had a good start! Not one f these people who can deal with feeding on demand!

It is true about the first being helpful. My litte boy is 3 and a half and will go fetch simple things which helps a lot. But it is tiring as they are on the go with no naps all day so number 2 with no routine doesn't work. Little miss is 6 weeks on Friday so change starts then!!

leni where is the pain? Have you checked for thrush? Expressing isn't a true sign of how much is in there. I am feeding 2 but can't express much ( can soak through clothes though )

You can start the mini pill (cerazette) from day 21. The combined pill it depends on if you're BFing, weight, risk factors for DVT etc. I have great plans of getting a mirena coil put back in as soon as I manage to get round to it and be period free again! I hadn't had a period for 8yrs before having it taken out to TTC and didn't cope well with them while we were trying for Bubs!

Bedtime here and I'm on my own for all bubba care tonight, the man has a big day at work tomorrow. Also got to be out of the house earlier than normal to go see a friend so expecting a horror of a night! I can't believe some of you are getting 5hrs plus sleep!!!

leni mind if I ask about what you went through to get pregnant? I'm a nosy person, feel free to tell me bugger off. We had a stupidly easy conception - the man said "I suppose you can come off the pill now, if you want," and six weeks later we got the positive - but even so it's weird having to think about contraception. It's been so long!

I have to say, these post-birth periods are a bugger. Have had to explain to the man that "big tampons" does not mean "super tampons" as they actually come several sizes bigger than that. Going through them in two hours flat.

eig I'm still not convinced about feeding on demand (mainly because my baby just didn't bother demanding, and look where that got us). Are you a routine veteran? How does it work? I feel we should have more of one, although I don't know why because to be honest we're ticking along quite nicely at the moment. Although that may not last - the man's on 12-9 shifts for the next fortnight and the days are really going to drag - I may go completely insane.

High point of today was the teatime feed. Got her up, changed her nappy, sat down with milk. She started fussing over it pretty much straight away, and then I noticed a delightful aroma wafting up from the nappy end. So we paused and had a burp and a nappy change, then back to the bottle. She continued fussing. A few minutes later, another lovely smell comes wafting up. I am clearly a terrible mother, because I handed her to her dad for the third nappy in ten minutes, and buggered off for a smoke. But afterwards she decided she wasn't sleepy, and spent an hour just lying on me and examining my face. She's brilliant, I still can't believe I made her.

Stormy...... i will keep that in mind re a wee helper :-)

Plonko.....
yes I'm coping very well seeing as i had an emergency section and I've been on my own up in Scotland since he was born 5 weeks ago and hubby has been back home in Wales to tend to our farms for the last 3 weeks ,

Eigmum......
I've not breastfeed since day 3 , he's on formula .

Hey stormy, well with my first I had a routine mainly cos I am a control freak and after about 6 weeks of things being a bit random I wanted a bit f control. I am not a Gina believer as I don't think babies as young as 4 weeks can be expected to go through the night I kind of did a mix of baby whisperer and Gina. With my first I started with a 6, 10 , 2 routine at about 5 weeks. Basically I woke the baby if te bay wasn't awake at those times, always changed nappy, then fed. In the day I then kept baby awake or played until about 1 hour to 1.5 hours after they woke, then down in cot. So day went like this. Up at 6 am, bottle then bsck down to sleep by 7am latest as night time feed. 10 am wake baby ( if baby awake earlier do nappy change etc slowly and try to get close to 10 am) top and tail baby, feed and then play time under baby gym. In early days down for lunchtime nap by 11.30. Nap til 2pm. Baby up by 2pm, nappy change and feed. By 3.30 go out with buggy and run errands etc. back for 5pm, split feed so half bottle, then 30 mins in bouncy chair watching baby Mozart or cbeebies, then bath, then other half bottle, then bed by 7pm. Dream feed at 10 then 2. Start again. At 12 weeks ( baby should weigh more than pounds) I dropped the 2 am feed so no longer wakened and move 10 feed to 11. At 16 weeks ( provided baby weighs more than 16 pounds) drop 11 pm fed. Worked for my son. I found the waking to feed worked as then they didn't have to cry out with hunger, I was meeting the need before they real used it. The thing I am wondering now is that ths worked well because DS is an easy baby and easy child - he still has the same bedtime routine at 3 except the split feed is now dinner, bath, cbeebies and milk and sleeps 7 to 7 pretty much every night. He might have adapted to anything. Dd seems to be harder already but going to give it a good try!

Christlass you are doing great and always so upbeat! I am going to try and be more upbeat tomorrow, my hormones are driving me mad!

Stormy, if you are doing ok don't worry about routine if you have a good rhythm going. It was good to establish a lunchtime nap and some sort of bedtime routine as kids like predictability. Whatever else you do around that depends on the baby I think.

Dd and I are still here but we're taking our time catching up on all your news. Page 6 so far! Excited to see another home birther wing defence....
But what I need is one of those pages you get at the start of jilly cooper books that give a summary of all characters for ongoing reference. Eg:
OOD glamorous mother of 4 prospering in the face of c section, haemotoma, drugs and crutches. Qualified enough to be a bf counsellor: she's feeding two at the same time! Has secret dreams of home birth...maybe for dc5 :-)

I'll be back when I can do this for everyone and therefore able to contribute appropriately.
Meanwhile we're still at routine for bedtime, ignoring the elephant sounds during night (thanks for reassurance about that) and total chaos during the day with absolutely no routine whatsoever. Feeding however is going well and we're getting out plenty. Three weeks on tho and pooing still very painful. No stitches left so maybe it's something else. Yuck. Lactulose is currently my favourite tipple.

eco Love it , not at all very glam though!

I wrote a huge post and my phone ate it

I don't want to tempt fate but last three nights I've actually got some sleep! Managing to get baby asleep by midnight, hes only waking once at about 3 or 4 for a feed, then sleeping until 6ish. It's the most sleep I've had although for some reson I feel more knackered. I think because I've started getting up after the early feed so I can get dressed, wash bottles etc.. when he goes back to sleep after it. I find he's always wide awake after the 10 feed so if I wait til then I'm not dressed until 2 when he finally falls back asleep.

He's got his check up with the docs later so I'm hoping I can get him weighed. He seems to have grown loads in the last couple of weeks. Already he's grown out of nearly everything. I had no sleepsuit to put him in this morning as he'd been sick or peed on everything and it was all on the line. I've ended up putting him in a weird fleecy dungaree outfit someone gave us. Hope he's not too hot. He's napping in the shade while I sit in the sun with a cuppa. Bliss.

I'm glad everyone seems to have had a good weekend. I had a look for a grobag in tkmaxx but they were all to big or girlie for him so think I will have a look online. I might sneak in an order for a sling too. I bought a stretchy one when he was born which is great when I can get him in but he's not a fan of me pulling him about for ages trying to get it right so I'm thinking I'll try a mei tai instead as it's less messing to get on.

I Need to get a monitor sorted too. Has anyone got one of the angelcare ones with the movement sensor thing? Every review says they're great but its a lot of money just for a monitor. I want to know if I can also use it without the movement pad thing then I can take just the monitor downstairs during the day and use it if I go out in the garden.

www.tribecapediatrics.com/TPeds/book-excerpt/sleep/

This really made me laugh. The site is pretty good and has lots of good advice! Doing better today, trying to go with the flow a bit more!

Hello ladies!

Well, I've finally managed to catch up. DD 6 days old now, and, obviously, utterly gorgeous. Feeding problems got a lot better when my milk came in and at the moment just building up confidence... (I've tempted fate there, I know it).

Today I'm wearing normal clothes! Granted, from the forgiving end of the wardrobe, but still. Waiting for boobs to settle down so I can buy proper bras - wearing bravado sleep bras for now which are great, but not hugely uplifting, and as I had overly large norks before pregnancy (34g...) and they're now about the size of a small country, getting them hoicked up will make me look/feel so much better. Any recommendations on feeding bras for the humungonorked that actually give some shape?

Also, can I ask a daft question? How do people store expressed breast milk? I tried expressing today (got discharged w pump and bottles as could only express for about half feeds at that stage) as I wanted to have the option as a back up in case problems came, and it went well. So I now have a bottle of ebm in fridge, but don't want to use it as don't want to mess with the fact that DD and I are still learning how to feed.

So I guess I should freeze it - but what in? I only have 5 bottles; can buy more but seems like an expensive way of doing it - are there bags or anything?

It made my boobs a bit less sore so can see myself doing it fairly regularly.

Also: when I do get feeding more established (touch wood) it wld be nice to pass say one feed a day to DH so I could sleep. If I missed a feed now I'd end up with the world's sorest boobs and wettest top -will that pass? Please...

I know there's a special feeding board and can try posting there, but I 'know' you guys... And one of the few advantages of DD's late arrival is you're all so much more experienced than me!

There's bags you can buy like these Kellymom advice

Hot milk bras are pretty good. I'm currently tight in a GG so I know what you mean about needing support!

The dropping/soreness gets less as feeding gets established, but missing a feed will leave you like that unless you express at the same time which doesn't help for sleep purposes!this will settle eventually though

Hi :) I was on the March thread but haven't posted in ages.

So DD1 turned out to be DS1, interesting turn of events and the midwife didn't want to say anything, but the whole time I doubted it was a girl.

So Wilf turned up on 2nd April, weighing 8lb90zs. Labour started Easter Sunday night, I thought I had a uti. I woke up at 5am on the monday with a sudden need of a wee, my waters broke on the loo! I wasn't sure at first, but it became more obvious when I had a contraction and a gush! We phoned the hospital and were asked to go in at 9am to check it was my waters as I wasn't contracting. Shortly before we were going to go in we got a call from the community midwife to say as I was booked for a homebirth she would come and see us. I happily informed her that things had definitely started and I was contracting.

By the time she turned up they had stopped again. She left and told me to keep active, eat lots and try and get things going. Over the course of the day I got to 6mins apart on 4 occasions, but once getting there they would drift off again.

At 11pm I felt ill and we went in for a CTG and a checkup. I was given the all clear and sent off home with the words "you won't be having a homebirth, you will be returning for augmenting at 7am, go and get some sleep". We went home and sadly packed away the homebirth stuff we had. I went to bed at about 1am and had a BIG contraction. Needless to say sod's law kicked in and labour kicked off with a bang. No sleep was had by me, I didn't tell DH as he was sleeping in the spare room due to my SPD. He woke up to me screaming through a contraction at about 3.30am and he phoned labour ward. After I had a contraction and threw up on the phone they invited us in. Contractions were 3-4 mins apart and severe.

We got to the labour ward and I was checked and at 5cm dilated. I was pleased to hear that! They encouraged me to try the gas and air, it was the worst thing I have ever experienced. I was running round the room screaming "make it stop, make it stop, make it stop", I hated the feeling and as I was hyperventilating it didn't go. They eventually calmed me down, by which point it was 5am and the monitoring got strappeed on. My SPD was dreadful and they allowed me to sit on a ball, it didn't help.

At this point I asked for an epidural, my contractions were spacing out again, probably due to the adrenalin, but the midwifes tried to suggest pethidine. I agreed to it reluctantly, then another midwife turned up and said no! She told me if I couldn't stand the G&A then the pethidine would be worse. So I asked for an epidural again, and again, and again. The pain of lying on my back with my SPD and the contractions with no pain relief was just beyond what I could cope with.

At 7.30 shift change happened and I got a new midwife. This one agreed to call the anaesthitist. After being told to "woman up" by the previous midwifes and to be quiet, this was quite a relief! Eventually the anaesthetist arrived and set everything up, then disappeared. At 10.30 I finally got my epidural, it was bliss. I was 7-8cm when I got my epidural, I feel quite proud that I got to that point pain relief free, but it wasn't what I wanted!!

As predicted the doctor insisted on me being augmented when my contractions didn't go back to 3 in 10mins by 1pm. That was fine, I could feel the tightenings, but nothing else.

When that didn't produce sufficient results they turned it up, a lot. At the same time the midwife decided to reposition my ctg bands... and knocked out my epidural.

So no-one realised she had done it, but i reported feeling more contractions which was brushed off as pressure... but they agreed to get the anaesthetist to check it anyway. He confirmed what I suspected, it was out. I was over 9cm dilated and in agony with no breaks in between. I wanted someone to kill me!!! He didn't want to replace the epidural, but I think I scared him and he did.

A few big boluses later and things went back to being ok. Not that long afterwards the midwife started getting busy, baby was on his way! I could feel the pressure and was able to push him out in 40 mins. Resulting in a 2nd degree tear.

So all in all quite an eventful labour, but all done and dusted by tea time. A night on the postnatal ward and we got to go home.

We ended up readmitted on day 5 when he lost 14% of his birthweight, and I now have an infection in my stitches and my SPD is still playing me up, but I have a baby that sleeps through the night, feeds well now and is gorgeousness.

We'd like another two kids, but knowing now that G&A is not an option and how bad my SPD was during labour I am not sure when we'll make the decision to do it again.

Welcome Sundae! That sounds like a fretful few days but glad to hear you're doing ok now. I cant believe the midwives told you to woman up, thats just not fair. Personally I loved G&A but that second shot of pethidine really finished me off - I still felt wrecked 24 hours later. Hope the infection clears soon, that certainly doesn't sound good! Has the spd eased off or are the postpartum hormones seeing you through the discomfort?

Does anyone know what a growth spurt looks like? Ood I'm staring in your direction

Feed,feed,feed, sleep really heavy in between, feed,feed, feed

Cue HV saying 'baby has put on 1/2lb in 3 days' or dressing baby and being unable to fasten clothes they wore the day before.

All fun and games.

Repeat after me 'this too shall pass , this too shall pass' and it does.