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!

Hey sundae! I was just wondering earlier today how you were getting on. Sounds like you had quite an exciting time. "Woman up" my arse, I think I would've throttled that midwife, or at least thrown every expletive I know in her direction. They were probably right about the pethidine though, if you don't like gas and air it's best avoided.

zigwig do you not have anywhere you can put him while you're getting dressed and washing bottles and so on? Mine spends an awful lot of time having a wriggle on her changing mat while I get stuff done (the mat's on the kitchen table, handily).

Good day so far today - went to my parents', baby drank a whole four ounces in one go (well, three goes, she had a couple of five minute digestive naps) and then fell asleep on the sofa. And when we got home she was snoozing in the buggy/pram/whatever so I got to sit outside and have a smoke and a cuppa. Only problem today is she's being a bit sleep resistant - about two and a half hours in total since 8.30 this morning. In theory she's now napping. In reality she's hiccuping and watching Top Gear.

Can't wait for the man to get home at 9.30. By which time I'll've been on duty for 19 hours. It's a long day today...

Sundae! Congrats I wondered when we would hear from you! Brilliant news and well done!

Stormy, like your top gear comment, at 3pm Dd was having "awake time" aka sleeping under baby gym so she can party all night again!

DD tried sleeping under the baby gym thing earlier today too. I say "tried" because hiccups got in the way again. She had them for half an hour. Only managed to get rid of them in the end by giving them to me!

She finally fell asleep a bit before 7pm, so I wandered outside to gossip with the neighbours. Now have two bloody great mosquito bites. I'm sure it was winter a week ago...

Yes stormy I have a play gym for him that he's just started to tolerate. It's only really been the last few days he's happy to lie there having a kick about. Usually he hates being put down when awake and screams the house down. Hopefully he's getting a bit more confident I'm not just going to run off and leave him, so I can run off and leave him for a few minutes Although weirdly he prefers kicking about on his changing mat than the play gym.

I have parking stations in most rooms - pram carrycot is Moses basket for lounge, bouncy chair for lounge or kitchen when more awake, Moses basket in bedroom and cot in nursery. latter is currently wriggle zone, and where I put him to have a shower - bathroom right opposite. don't have a baby gym but have wondered if should get one, any recs?

hi sundae - glad to hear you're the other side and generally ok though infection and spd sounds grim.

Morning all and hi to sundae - gosh your birth experience sounds difficult but glad you're out the other side now. Don't let it put you off having more though - try to get a debrief (can't remember what they're really called) to go through what happened and help you understand why your care was the way it was.

We have sleep/feed fail tonight. Kept DD up till 10:40 feeding her so her 3:4 hr stretch would go later into the early hours but instead she bloomin woke at 12:30 :( I ignored her loud straining noises till 12:60 and have been feeding her since except she's v tired, probably because she's woken earlier than expected? Will try to put her down again soon.

It's made me more Feed to introduce a bottle in the next few days but I'm thinking of getting a pump so that DD only has to get used to the bottle with my milk in as opposed to both a bottle and then formula - and then we'll introduce formula in it at night after she has hopefully got used to it. That's the plan anyway - ask me again at the end of the week...

Excuse typos. Damn tired-middle-of-night-one-thumb-typing.

I meant it's made me more determined to introduce a bottle (for DH to give).

Wing, my dh gives a bottle of expressed milk at 10 ish and it works well. I have to pump at the same time but I pump then sleep whereas it takes him longer to feed and settle! Baby gym is good, I have a fisher price jungle safari. My ds lived it for about 12 months it was one thing that got alot if use.

Hi Sundae, glad to hear that after a start you wouldn't have chosen or predicted you've ended up with a beautifully behaved bubba!

Well MiniYo was an absolute horror all evening, basically did nothing but scream & feed from 3pm to 9pm. Took her to bed at 9.20 & she fed very noisily with lots of pulling off until 10.45. Was all set for a horror night & she's just woken up at 3.30. That's the longest sleep I've had since she was born! Now we'll see if that's it for the night....Ood I highly suspect this is going to prove to fit your growth spurt description!

She's also just started liking the baby gym, we've got a lovely Skip Hop one but it was £££, we bought it with some left over wedding vouchers!

Right, off for some serious burping action to see if we can get some more snoozing from Miss Madam.

thanks eig.

wing we finally made the shift from cup to bottle today for miniPuds top ups - cups were getting so messy now he's so much stronger and it was stressing us all out having them accidentally flung across the room, esp when it was precious EBM. I have invested in a Medela Calma bottle (not least to go with Medela pump which has a great deal on Amazon right now if you are on Family - I just have a note to cancel in 3 months ) but because this is supposed to mimic breastfeeding. having had to work so hard to get it established and doing so much to increase my supply (i am awake therefore I itch!) I was prepared to pay the price to try and retain it.

had one rejection at first feed of the afternoon, but at early evening feed got it and fx ok since then. much calmer experience for all of us, less washing and he can leave anything he doesn't want by simply stopping.

Thanks all. pudtat the HV suggested we try in the afternoon but I may go for early evening instead then and I will probably go for a walk around the block. Having been such a fan of ff last time I'm actually dreading giving DD a bottle because the bfing is going so well but I know I really need to introduce it now else she'll most likely refuse it later on and it's only one a day, right? I'm not really planning on bfing past 3-4 months anyway but we shall see...

Has a rubbish night with sleeping, which is v annoying after the last few good nights. She went down 1:45ish but woke up 3:30ish (well, made her crazy noises which means I have about 20 mins before she needs feeding), then I fed her and snoozed on/off from 3:50 till 5 and DH changed her and put her down. Then she woke again about half hour ago.

So not really 2 hours between feeds. :( Still, we actually have no plans today apart from the MW appt at 10 so I plan to do sod all apart from perhaps sit in the garden or watch tv and sleep if I can.

Hope you all have good days

Wing defense a bottle a day at 9.30/10 hasnt interfered with the feeding and she is used to it now and dh likes his time with her. We started the bottle at 3 weeks. My aim was to feed her exclusively for 6 weeks and then see how I felt but as I'll be back at work in a few months I wanted her to take the bottle without a struggle. My view was she'll have lots of things to learn in life, might as well get the hang of two ways of feeding early!

Wing defence we are similar as I was a fan of ff last time too and can't really believe I am still feeding her. Can't do it in public though ( have huge let down) so it means I am pretty house bound or have to visit other mums, go to another room etc.

Oh god why is it morning? I feel like a corpse.

Baby slept wonderfully yesterday evening - woke up briefly for a feed at 9 but otherwise was asleep from 7pm until 1am. I went to bed at 10, her dad brought her up at 1.30, she went straight back to sleep (despite having been wide awake for that feed). She was fine until the 5am fart-fest. Got a sneaky two ounces down her while she slept, then 7am she was awake and bitching. Fed her, she announced she was still tired, and then refused to actually sleep. Oh, the flailing of the arms! When will she learn to stop smacking herself as she falls asleep?

I was very brave yesterday, and managed to trim her thumbnails. Must do the rest today as she's scratched her nose and drawn blood.

Does anyone's else's baby have an uncanny ability to read their thoughts? Example, at 8am, baby in basket, everything quiet, "Great," I thought, "with a bit of luck she'll have a nice long snooze until half nine or even ten..." Ten seconds later she woke up.

Our 'stations' are one of those bouncy chair things, the moses basket, an old handmade playmat blanket thing (was DP's, like a babygym but without the, er, gym) and in desperation, the car seat. I think he's starting to enjoy the bouncy chair, and it means I can eat 50% of meals in peace if I sit there jiggling it about with my foot.

Stormy get yersen back in bed, or on the settee, or just any horizontal surface and get your head down!
Wing and Eig I love that your BFing is going so well. It's good to see some success with it, makes me more optimistic about trying it again with the next baby. Can't really offer an opinion about introducing formula, I did it when I was at my wits end with BFing, so hats off.

We got through A LOT of milk between 4.30 and 10 pm last night (I think about 13oz in 3 or 4 sittings), and then woke at 3.30 for another 5oz. There was a lot of screaming when we weren't feeding him, but the long sleep he had makes me doubt if it's a growth spurt - I wonder if it's harder to tell when they're not on the boob? I stupidly googled this and read every bad piece of advice going - e.g. don't feed more than every 4 hours, FF babies don't have growth spurts, there are other reasons babies cry... Needless to say he took just over 5oz at 8am, and almost 3oz at 9.40. He's also getting through nappies a lot quicker than usual. Actually I hope this is just a growth spurt!

And he's finally asleep so I'm going to risk having a shower

Hi all ..
Could someone please explain to me about Dream Feeds what it is and how its done
Thanks :-)

Thanks ood - will get some ordered. And some more breast pads and lansinoh, I can't imagine life without them and want a back up!

Hello Sundae congrats!

Midwife popped round about 10 this morning. I was still in bed after feeding DD. Amazing how quickly all shame lost - happily came down to talk to her in my dressing gown, and then took her up to my unmade bed, strewn with biscuit packet and empty water bottles to check my stomach.

Stormy time to get horizontal!

Stations - I need to get thinking on that. At the moment we have a Moses basket downstairs and the bed nest in our room, the sling, and two of us at all times. But will need to start deploying other methods before DH goes back to work. Trying to relax about that and remember that as he's taken holiday as well, it's three weeks away, the baby is only a week old, so relatively speaking we have forever.

And yes, can I second christilass's request for dream feed info? Anything that increases sleep has to be worth investigating.

Re dream feeding we don't set out to do it but tend to get to ds just as he starts to wake so is fed half asleep and the milk sends him back. Only do emergency nappy changes between 11-6 ish

Hi Sundae :)

Loads of messages since I last looked - they all seem to happen in a flurry around whichever time of day I'm not checking!

Stormy - we had IVF. I did an AMH test on a whim because we weren't really ready to start a family and OH was still unsure, and it came back so low I was advised that unless we acted immediately we'd never conceive. Therein commenced a terrible few months of me waiting for OH to agree, in which time I had (failed) heart surgery, we escaped as our house was burned down in the riots and were made homeless, and whilst we were living in a Travelodge I had some cysts and endo removed. The NHS refused us treatment so we used our insurance payout to find private IVF (we still don't own any furniture). Our relationship was tested to breaking point but we made it through, and after the first failed IVF cycle we finally got 5 eggs, 4 of which fell victim to some dick at the clinic putting them in the wrong solution, so out of our 5 mature and healthy precious eggs, only one fertilised. Luckily that one became LO, who I still can't believe is here!

I've given trying to make my Babylonia rong sling work - LO just falls over to one side and the fabric slips through the rings all the time, basically completely useless and more stress than it's worth. Have today hired a Caboo and a Boba Wrap and the Caboo is brilliant! Really stretchy and easy to get a screaming baby into after a feed.

We also went to the GP this morning (had a disaster trying to get him into the Babybjorn as the new slings hadn't arrived yet and turned up 30 mins late, so the receptionist told me off and I almost burst into tears) and I have boob thrush :( meaning LO has it in his mouth too and I also have raw sores down my cleavage where I've scratched when feeding him. Have a multitude of creams and drops for us both, plus infacol and colief for his awful painful wind. I have to wear him in the sling all day now otherwise he's completely unable to settle. Fine for doing housework, but sadly not great for me getting any sleep or having a shower... another TMI from me - a bit bunged up and have, ahem, split my bottom shall we say. Lots of blood and tears in my eyes!

My DF came and met him yesterday, he drove us to get him registered finally and was actually really helpful as he can happily make stupid noises at LO and jiggle him for 10 hours straight. OH swapped shifts to be at home last night as I was going loopy, so he's working tonight but at least I'm a bit more rested. I still can't get LO to bloody well burp properly

I'm having the same issue with bras - mine now look like tiny triangles on the top of a mountain... they are the XL Bravado nursing bras. I look like I have 3 heads. Weirdly I've not had any leakage even though my supply is still really good (now able to express 5oz per boob in the mornings and 3oz later in the day). Having a couple of days to settle the thrush so on to bottles because the pain was so horrendous. After buying loads of Boots bottles to fit the MAM teats we now have to have the Dr Browns anti colic ones, which luckily LO seems fine with. So we now only have one we can use. Is my baby the only one who drinks 4 oz happily at 18 days old?!

Zigwig mine also is fine kicking half naked on changing mat with his bots waving around, but anywhere else is a no go. The one really easy part for us is that LO doesn't care if he gets formula, boob milk, bottle or nipple - he seems totally cool with any of the above :)

Apologies - just realised this post is an essay...

Eco allow me to help you on your quest...
jojo bonkers mother of one 6 week old DS who sleeps through from 10pm-9am with one (short) feed at 5am.
Delivered by ecs after a slightly distressing 48hr induced labour including fetal heart rate concerns and a hefty amount of blood loss!
Dreamily wishing she was pregnant again due to missing her bump badly despite the mid pregnancy surgery to remove one ovary and the cyst attached to it. Happy to report all baby weight has gone and am back into normal clothes and have dropped a dress size.
Hmmm. I think that's everything!

Stormy I'm liking your turn of phrase in your posts :-)
Leni and JoJo you sound as if you've faced massive challenges and I salute you for dealing (love the way my phone wanted 'dealing' to be 'fecking' on predictive text...what does that say about me) with all that plus now your babies.
JoJo thanks for your jilly cooper summary! Can't believe you broody already. But there's something delicious about a sleeping or post-feed newborn isn't there? JoJo is by the way name of my nieces spirited and beautiful pony :-)

Dd and I had our first good daytime today. There was sleep and there were consequently jobs that got done. Was able to proffer bathed baby and dinner on table to dh when he returned at eight. And homemade flap Jack. This won't happen again until winter probably but it was nice whilst it lasted.

Dd currently making elephant noises post feed but going to try popping her back in basket now. Sweet dreams everyone.

ha ha, love the 'dealing' issue, made me sniffer so much DS unlatched!

hi jojo glad things going well for you after tricky start.

leni wow, LO is lucky to be so wanted, he was obviously meant to be. well done, and hope life cuts you guys some slack for a bit now.

finding the irony of my supposedly low supply being combined with such prolific leakage a bit much. just getting bottle together ahead of this feed and had to have one of my regular pauses to scratch my poor shins and calves and ankles and knees and thighs and was terrified to see drips landing on the floor - wondered how on earth I'd managed to scratch hard enough to generate that much blood when realised it was simply the effect of having 2 pressure washers in my top and bending over . must speak to bf counsellor tomorrow about whether this bodes well for us reducing formula. is local bf group tomoz as well, so may try and get to that.

leni thought of you yesterday as our microwave packed up in the middle of the night and my wobbly sleep deprived self had to rake out the Milton again - with just the one bottle atm (another due to arrive tomorrow but wanted to try before investing ) it turns out I'm not finding that easier than microwave steriliser . so off to buy a new microwave I went - hard with a newborn, had to ask for help in shop as couldn't manage box plus baby - still find myself trying to work life out like a version of the puzzle with the sack of grain, the fox and the goose crossing the river only there isn't always time to implement a solution.

minipud registered yesterday, so all official - we were also given his library card, they like to get 'em young here .

today must include proper manicure for minipuds devil talons nails. have tried with an emery board but turns out not enough judging by the fact he's drawn blood with his flailing at my chest when blobs won't behave. anyone else's LO also got the knack of grabbing their nips hard just after coming off a feed, with an occassional bonus twist to make it super eyewatering and really test mummys attempts to stop swearing now before it mayters?

hope all having good nights.

lol - sniggers not sniffers and boobs not blobs though poss more accurate right now!