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!

Infant gaviscon = the best thing in the world EVER.

We've had two totally fuss-free feeds today. Three ounces each time. Only issue seems to be she's struggling with the flow rate. Gaviscon thickens the milk, right? Those who are using it, any suggestions for teat size? I can't keep sticking pins in there, we'll end up with colanders instead of teats.

Sorry for tmi but should I be worried about passing lots of blood and clots when having a bowel movement? I have a fissure (beyond agony) which splits every single time but clots?!

Plonko - clunk duly administered... DH once again 100% onside. I pity the poor bloke actually. I go from 'it's fine, don't you worry your sweet little head about anything I can cope', to 'where the HELL were you [demon stare]' at the flip of a hat. He'll be home at 6pm, when I am well and truly clocking off .

The GP called to cancel smallest person's jab, so that leaves me with another week to stress about it (although on the upside she won't be sick and cranky over the bank holiday).

Stormy, that's the best news ever, I'm so pleased. Here's to many more happy dinner times

Leni - I still have the odd clot at 8 weeks, which is apparently normal. Super. Just super.

Worsester - unfortunately I didn't mean vaginal clots - from the back passage

And toilet bowl full of blood... had it on the tissue plenty of times from a fissure but never pouring out this much. I read clots are from higher up in the bowel which isn't good

Quick post. stormy it doesn't thicken the milk until it hits their stomach so shouldn't matter about teat size for that. Maybe he's just a fast drinker and needs next teat up or you could try a variable flow one. They just have a cross in them. Hurray for gaviscon!

Leni you need to go & get that checked out, especially as you're feeling tired & unwell with it. Probably is just the fissure but you need a Dr to have a look & check you over (nice!). Just when you thought you'd regained your dignity from childbirth......really important you get it checked though although very very unlikely to be anything too sinister. Could be internal piles or something like that.

Leni, I second that given your other symptoms. Better safe than sorry.

Lunchtime fussiness, I turned the bottle over and gave it a damned good shake and not a drop of milk came out. Squeezed the teat, nothing came out. It's ridiculous. No wonder she was fussing that time.

leni definitely get checked out. Clots from the rear end don't sound good at all.

Gp tomorrow then. To think I'm put off going purely because it means ringing up at 7.30am which is right in the middle of my only bit of sleep time...

Mr farty pants is grumpy as hell today, even in the sling he's writhing and crying. Ye gods, why has nobody invented baby hypnosis?!

I hate that GP system Leni, it's a pain in the neck. Hope you get seen pronto, you can be doing with that on top of a newborn!

Just been for a lovely walk in the park, so good to get out in the sunshine and give the Maclaren a good battering in the mud. Decided to trim the bushes on the front when we got back as the baby was fast on, and a bloke walked past commenting on how lovely it was to see people busy. I gestured to the buggy and mumbled something about the small one. Never have I been run so ragged as now, but I managed to not chuck my shears at him. Rewarded self with custard cream.

Stormy I think you need new tears duck.

That sounds horrible Leni. Make that call - definitely worth giving up a bit of sleep time to get it sorted.

I am now the world's biggest convert to plastic tat. DD is absolutely enthused by her garish play mat with mobile thing, and is happily kicking and thumping various bits of it in the corner. The tasteful concord rocker selected by DH has been resolutely rejected, but anything that might offend an aesthete's eye, bring it on. I like her style!

Teats! Damn iPhone.

New tears? Made plenty of those yesterday. Strangely, they did not improve matters.

Got new teats in two different sizes added to my dad's tesco order for tomorrow. Hopefully they'll help. She's still being a bit fussy today but is at least managing to eat semi-reasonable amounts.

So, seventies ladies going back to work for feminist reasons. Was pondering that one in the bath a little while ago. You can't exclusively breastfeed and go back to work at the same time unless you can take your baby with you, so there is an obvious inequality there. And it's entirely possible women of that era went with bottles to allow them the same freedoms as their partners were enjoying. The thing is, though, we're talking about women choosing to do things to maximise their chances of equalling men in a male-dominated world. I'm not sure one should get too many feminism points for that. There's a reason men do better than women in so many aspects of life - it's because the entire system's geared in their favour. Bottle-feeding in order to go back to work is just improving one's position within that system. It does nothing to help implement a more truly equal system.

Anyway, I'm rambling, and it's all a bit hypothetical for me personally anyway, as I'm neither breastfeeding nor going back to work.

Some new tears here this afternoon. DH working extra shift on Sat so had taken tomorrow off to compensate. LO refusing to sleep today (payback for his 7hours last night) and I'm knackered and trying to put both of us down for a nap when he calls to tell me they have a crisis and he needs to work a half day tomorrow - didn't really go down too well...

stormy completely agree but you've got to get near the top to help change the system! Maybe not a task for this month though...

In the park with lo having afternoon nap. Had ice cream as a treat to prepare myself for witching hour!

And immediately after hitting post I thought of a way to put that far more succinctly. Such is life! To succeed in a man's world, you have to act like a man. And men don't breastfeed.

Ice cream in the park sounds like an excellent plan for the weekend. Hope the sunshine lasts.

DD is currently in the bouncy chair, cooing and chewing on her bunny. Seems happy enough. Meanwhile we are being greatly entertained by her lengthy and bubbly farts.

Until men can carry babies there can't really be equality, can there? There's apparently some support to enable women to express at work, like employers providing a private space and separate fridge for storing breast milk, but surely that only works if you're in an office? I was trainee manager of a wine warehouse - and IF I go back ill most likely be a part time delivery driver (due to hours available). Can't really say I'm in love with the idea of fitting a delivery schedule around expressing.

It's great in theory but far too impractical. And mines not a job that can be done from home. I'm at my employer's mercy wrt to working hours as they can refuse my application on business grounds. Best don my pinny and get baking I suppose!

True, plonko, but equality doesn't mean we all have to be the same. If we only measure success and status by earning capacity, then women are always going to be disadvantaged - even if we could somehow persuade men that actually, staying home doing the washing up and cleaning up shit is just as important and valuable as going out to work, we'd still be stuck with the whole business of pregnancy and breastfeeding. So the only way to achieve equality is to change the value system. And if you do that then it takes the pressure off to dedicate your entire life to making money, and taking time off to breastfeed becomes less of an issue.

If carrying babies were considered just as important as earning the money to pay for them, then there could, theoretically, be equality, with men and women performing different roles that are equally valued. The trouble is, to get there you have to persuade men that the system that privileges them needs changing, and that's bloody hard to do.

You said it far better than I could, Stormy, but we're singing from the same hymn sheet

I struggle not to erupt when I hear people commenting on our 'choice to have children', as if they fell down from the sky instead of their mothers carrying them. Putting it in blunt terms, all we really leave behind is the next generation, so our current job being mothers is literally THE most important one, all the stuff we do at work is fluff in comparison. Obviously that's a very simplistic approach, but it's easy to lose perspective, after all, people judge you if you don't have children, yet now there's talk of relaxing laws that prevent employers asking women about their baby plans at interview, so we're supposed to a) decide before applying for any job (?), b) not earn if we're planning to ever have children so we can be judged for living off the state or having babies we can't afford.
My work does have a sort of medical room where BFing mums can go, with a fridge etc, but it's just one room that's shared by all first aid, pregnant women and anyone expressing or administering meds of any kind, and there are 31 floors of workers... Had I been forced to tell any employer my baby plans, I could have been unemployed for years because we didn't know we would need ivf or how many cycles we'd need either.

I'm pretty bullish and I just carry on doing what I want to regardless, so far no employer has argued because I make myself indispensable, but if it were made easier to care for your baby and go back to work, we'd all be better off.

I keep losing my thread due to lack of sleep... DS hasn't stopped howling all day - not a single nap. Very stressed OH has gone to work now and I'm facing another entire night of hell.

Another slight concern is that we tested out the post-natal sex yesterday and completely forgot to use any form of contraception. Obviously because DS was ivf there's little chance of anything happening but in my head I'm imagining how horrific it would be to get pregnant now and have to make awful decisions knowing we can't cope with or afford another baby straight after DS! Might get the morning after pill from the gp tomorrow just to be safe...

Stormy the theory you expressed regarding equality in a man's world is exactly that expressed in a fantastic book called "The Politics of Breastfeeding: When Breasts are Bad for Business" by Gabrielle Palmer.

This is a really difficult topic as I think its always a case of the grass is greener - my DH really felt the inequality built in nature that I got the privilege of being pregnant and now get to breastfeed. Of course he has a very different but equally important role but I think we should not underestimate how lucky we are to be women and able to have these amazing experiences!

What interesting points you've raised in this debate. I particularly like this To succeed in a man's world, you have to act like a man. And men don't breastfeed. It's true and a d

Argh!

It's true and a difficult one to square if you're a career woman. I remember going back to work after DS and a colleague telling me that if I have to leave, say, at 4:40 each day to pick up from nursery, never to say that in a meeting but just say ' I have to leave at 4:30'. She reminded me that men never give childcare reasons for such situations and we shouldn't either. Sadly, it means that we become like the men as opposed to celebrating the fact that we are mothers in the workplace.

Has anyone seen the new weetabix biscuit advert on TV? The woman's manic morning before work with two children is shown in reverse and then the male boss comes in and says some thing along the lines of 'good job you're having breakfast as you've got a busy day ahead'. She rolls her eyes...

leni you're brave on the post-birth sex front! I'm waiting until after I've had my 6wk check up so I can discuss contraception. And I'm worried about leaking while doing it - that would put me right off!

Good luck at the GP about your bleeding

pud and leni, hope the crying stops and your two give you good nights!

My DMum saw something on Watchdog last night about a FisherPrice cot light & noise toy that sounded like something mentioned upthread. I can't remember the deltas but apparently the battery section can overheat and catch light! :(

I took DD to the HV clinic today to be weighed. She was 7lb 15 when last weighed 2 and a half weeks ago so DH and I thought she'd be perhaps 9lb today. 9lb 10oz!!! I couldn't believe it! The HV thought the fact she was sleeping well at night definitely was the reason for her feeding like a monster when awake. And she's come out in the most awful spots these last few days which I thought was baby acne and it is. So unattractive, poor DD.

Right, better get on and keep feeding her...