April 2013 - We've all had our babies now. Let the (hard work) fun commence!

[HadALittleFaithBaby]

Thought I'd take the liberty of starting a new thread since the last one filled. So mark your places, get comfy and prepare for a few sleepless nights!

In particular we think of Empress and little Sam - hoping and praying he's coming home! :)

Hi all been catching up on all the posts. Glad you are all doing well - and welcome home empress! - Me and baby kitten have had a couple of rough days with lots of unexplained screaming, random feeding and grouchiness, we seem to have gone a few steps backwards! Methinks maybe due to tummy pain/over tiredness and then me getting stressed! Tbh still have days when I find the whole motherhood thing overwhelming which is not helped by constantly wondering if I should be following one routine or another or none then feeling like if I don't do something am going to have issues later. Maybe not. Maybe going with the flow will work itself out? Currently starting a bedtime routine and will soon attempt to start teaching baby kitten to self settle. Hope I don't fail miserably at that second one...

Been interesting reading about everyone planning holidays, think we might try one ourselves. I'm enjoying the sunshine and could do with some more!

kittenmummy- very weird- I could have written your entire post including random screaming, random feeding, 1 step forward 2 back, not knowing whether to start a routine and the need for a holiday / sun!

I don't think P is 100% well- I wonder if its the antibiotics I'm taking. He's not fed much today, and when he has its been very erratic - and he's slept most of the day which is really not like him. When he wakes he's still tired- lots of yawning, unsettled ness, then has just fallen asleep in my arms. Poor little mite!

Blake had his first swimming lesson today and it was fab, he loved it! We went to a water babies class held in a private pool in Upminster, highly recommend! Only had one freak out-when he headbutted my earring and he had a bit of blood on his lip, bad Mummy, felt awful and I had a little freak out when he was dunked under water by the instructor-on purpose, but he was fine!

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

Hope Teapiglet is sorted soon, these things are sent to try us!

Empress, you sound like you're doing remarkably well, especially over red book-gate, nothing worse than a jobs worth, but I'm sure Sam doing so well puts it all in perspective, he's a little trooper, think of you often.

Hi.

Long time since been on the thread. Little lady is now 8 weeks old and a little gem, but the first minutes of her life must've been stressful. Ended up needing a c section due to pre eclampsia as they feared for her and worried I would fit - had all the drips of the day in me.

But on april 6th, 3:49am she made it all worthwhile :)

Had a few troubles so breastfeeding, expressing and formula feeding at the moment. I don't know how she's doing with my breast as never full on it, so that's why kept her on formula.

She's a little diamond with the sweetest little personality and the most beautiful smile.

I hope everyone else is having an amazing time with their little 4 to 8 week olds :)

Congratulations April! Sounds like you're getting on well!

wishful poor little P, I hope he feels better soon.

Essex that sounds like fun!

Anyone heard from Fluffeh recently?

We've had a nice weekend - saw DH's best mate/man and his GF yesterday, he was asking loads of questions about BF! Today we went to church then chilled at home enjoying the sunshine :)

Birthday buddies with my LO April!

Posted this in the 'sleep' section- would love to know what you all fo...

ATM we really have no routine- baby naps when he's tired, either in carry cot downstairs / wherever we are out and about / on me...

Over the last few nights he's got really grumpy at about 7.30 ish, we've generally then spent the evening trying to calm him down, it doesn't work until we go to bed, about half 9 ish, and I feed him to sleep in the dark and he goes down in is moses basket. This suggests to me that we should aim to do the feed to sleep in the dark bit so he's asleep at half 7 and avoid the 2 hours of screaming / angst. Question is, where should I put him to sleep? If I put him in his Moses basket in our room whilst I go back downstairs is this is SIDS risk?

Do you have a video monitor wishful? I stay in bed when H falls asleep but mainly because he rarely sleeps for long so have to get my shut eye when I can but I would leave him for an hour or so upstairs on his own if I used our video monitor. I think the advice is that they should always be in the same room as you when sleeping for the 1st 6 months but personally I would be happy to be downstairs for a bit with the Monitor on and am hoping it won't be long before he sleeps a bit better and I can sit downstairs with DH for a bit!

wishful we've been working on this and so far, so good. We moved Faithlet's bath then bottle to about 6.30 and I take her into the darkened bedroom (blackout material) at about 7. She's feeding for less time each night and settling earlier. Bedtimes Fri/Sat/Sunday have been 9.15, 8.45 and 8.30 respectively. I have gone through to the living room and left her with the Angelcare monitor on but we are in a bungalow so only a hallway away from her. It's been wonderful actually getting a bit of evening just the two of us!

Personally I wouldn't leave my baby upstairs and be downstairs without a monitor but it doesn't have to be a fancy one (I inherited the Angelcare from my sister).

We moved H's midnight bottle to 11pm tonight as we were having to wake him at midnight and he wasn't taking it all so thought its a sign he's ready to go a bit longer! Lets hope! Midnight-5 is good but 11-5 would be better!

No one has posted overnight, hope this means sleep for you all?

We are having our postnatal check soon, late at nine weeks. Were any of you asked to take a soiled nappy?

*Ellies+ we sont get another check now until 3 months (last one was at 6 weeks). I guess the nappy is to check the stool is normal?

We had a good night! Settled at 8.30, woke at 12.45 and fed for an hour then just woke at 5.45! Hoping she'll snooze again after this and I can express about 6.45 when DH is leaving for work.

Anyone else finding bowel movements have changed? Faithlet used to go every 5 days or so, now it's most days and twice a day! Not used to all the poo!

How did it go trish?

Our eve at the mo is that we bath Lucy at eight and feed her afterwards, so I'm normally in bed at twenty past, even with angelcare monitor I'm not happy on going downstairs so watch tv in bed. DH comes to bed t nine to keep me company. On hours were both in bed at eight with her. Rockin in our household :)

So last night the dreaded crying returned, 7.30-12.30am of just relentless screaming. It was horrible, a bath stopped her while she was in it but was only short lived relief. Eventually a bottle of expressed milk calmed her down and she slept. (She was too hysterical to feed from boob from 7.30 onwards!).

HV this morning for 6 week check, will mention it but I don't expect her to say much if weight is ok since that's the thing they worry about.

She isn't settled again either, fell asleep on me then woke during transfer, I need to buy milk to offer HV tea & OH is sleeping grrr.

trish how did it go?

faith we used to have poo every feed but now 1 per 2-3 days, I think it's linked to the crying, she is very farty!

How often do all your little ones poo? Baby yummy is now on day 9 of no poo but apparently this normal for a baby that's fully breastfed... We have plenty of wet nappies and she passes wind from both ends like a trooper and she's eating fine, tummy is soft and squishy not hard, so really is this normal!?

Morning everyone, we got 11-4 in the end so it didn't lengthen his sleep! Just moved everything forward by an hour!! Lol!

Got H's first check at docs this morning (he was 9 weeks yesterday) then they will book his injections for next week I think x

ruddy Hope H is a bit recovered from his cold? E is no worse, and it's mainly a problem on settling to sleep, and she's a little bit more fussy on feeding, so not too bad, just more of an irritation! I tried the saline solution with DS and it just made him wail, so not bothering trying that this time (we all survived his colds without it!) but might she if she's big enough for the infant olbus oil, as that helped DS...

Wishful E also has sleepy days, so it may not be any form of illness - normally E's proceed a growth spurt permanently feeding day, so I've learnt to make the most of them, as I know it would last!

Kitten a lot of baby behaviour is out of our control, and will be a phase, it's just learning when that's the case, and you'll work out your own baby over time... I spent so much of DS's infancy trying to work out what was up, and I now realise that I have forgotten a lot of the good times, because I was stressing out about a lot of things that sorted themselves in time. But he did have a lot more issues than E, so maybe it wasn't just first time worries!

Faith - E used to go constantly, but now we are on one big poo every 1-2 days... DS used to go once every 3-5 days...

Yummy - big gaps can be fine as long as you are getting lots of wet nappies. But be prepared for a big one at the end of it all - I remember reading about a baby who waited 15 days, and the mum described the eventual poo as being like a chocolate ice cream machine, it just kept coming!

I keep hearing about EASY which I believe is baby whisperer and was interested in reading the book, but looking on amazon there seems to be loads of baby whisperer books, is there one recommended key book? Lots of the ones I saw were top tips. Will be to go on my kindle if that makes any difference!

Hi all, sorry I'm really struggling to have time to keep up either thread, I'll try to do better from now on
Alex is still not sleeping but other than that is the happiest boy ever I think, he spends all his time gurgling and looking when he's not demanding food. He had a check up this morning and all is good his sats were 100% heart sounds were fine, and he's even getting a tiny bit of baby chubbiness around his belly. He is so beautiful and I'm so proud. He did once again pee all over the dr though ever single time......
He got his first sight of London proper at the weekend and kept trying to throw his head back out of the sling, my brother took him in the end and he was happier with the higher view!
I still seem to be spending my days grinning insanely I keep waiting for reality to hit or something....but am still on a total happy kick as my dd calls it.

Wonderful to hear from you empress, so glad you and sam are home

Mama I am finding the same. Really struggling to keep up. Parents are here at the moment which is great. They adore Sam and are really great with him. Just means I am too busy chatting to them and getting out and about to do anything else!

So glad Alex is coming along well. I do understand that feeling very well of everything going really, really well but feeling that somehow fate is going to throw something else, even though there's no reason why it should! Sam is also growing. He is so chubby now he even has a double chin! I am longing to get him out of his newborn babygrows and into the 'up to 1 month' and I reckon in a few days they might be a decent fit. He is developing well as he is kicking a lot and smiling, and responding well to people. My dad was whistling to him and Sam was pursing his lips in imitation -so cute! What really breaks my heart and what I try not to think about is that if he develops infantile spasms it's likely each bout will undo some of the progress and set back his learning .

To add to the wee and poo discussions, Sam is a wee-machine at the moment as he's on diuretics. I had to give up on the reusable nappies I'd bought as they just got totally soaked and he'd be sitting in damp nappies. After his checkup today it looks like they might take him off them soon. As for poos he does about 2-3 in a 24-hour period, usually at the least convenient moment. No idea what is 'normal' but I think as many people have said it can vary a lot and might be influenced by the amount of growing and the amount of feeding.

Thanks for the update on Sam, great to hear how he's doing! Good that you had your parents helping out!

Great news empress :) my best friends little boy was diagnosed with infantile spasms, he's now 2 1/2 so it's now called west syndrome but he is the happiest little boy. Yes his development is delayed but he is getting there slowly he has just started to sit up. Fingers crossed that sam continues to improve he's such a little fighter
It is kind of a feeling like that, as if I'm just waiting for something to happen, think it takes time to adjust.

Is it too late to join in? My dd was born on 10th April but only just came across this thread