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! :)

Oops fat fingers posted too soon!

...clothes that fit post baby body. (I don't think pre-preg clothes will ever fit again - I have no idea how my hips got so wide?!)

Our shopping trip turned into 'how many different places can baby be fed in' trip.
Gave up after 3hrs. Fed in 2 different Starbucks, M&S cafe and a TK Maxx changing room! She'd feed for ~20mins each time then fall asleep, then wake up 10mins later screaming to be fed again!
Fed again for 30mins when we got in, finally fell asleep on boob then napped for 2hrs!
I'm going to give up on the pram until we can use the seat instead of the carrycot - she's so much more settled in the sling!

empress so happy to hear you have Sam home :)

Hi All,

empress great news that you are all home together

Things are okay here, Isobel sleeps well most nights, with the odd hellish night thrown in saturday she didn't sleep until 3am, from waking at 3pm the afternoon before to keep me on my toes.

In the day though she gets sooooo overtired, and miserable, any ideas on how to solve this? I have tried walking in pram, sling and feeding to sleep and putting down awake - with no success! I have not persevered with any method, but would be happy to if I knew which would work!

We don't have a routine -DD is 6 weeks on Thursday. I am BF on demand, which I am struggling with, and think about mix or FF at least twice a week. We are persevering, but it is hard. my nipples ar cracked and absolute agony and I am still not positioning her properly . however, she had a tounge tie snipped today and on Friday I am going to try to attend BF clinic - although getting out of house in the mornings is difficult. I hope I can make it, and really hope the TT being snipped makes things easier.

I will admit to feeding to sleep at all times, which is mostly laziness . I am keen that she self settles though. Can those of you doing this and EASY give me some tips?

We have our 6 week appt on Thursday. Not sure which contraception to go for, also keen to not use hormones as body has been through enough!

Great to hear what others are experiencing it really helps to know we are not alone

Hi everyone, I finally found you!

Immy is now 3 weeks and totally lovely!
I however am totally covered in a red very itchy rash, all over both legs and my tummy and a few have started to appear on my boobs, think it is PUPPS has anyone had this before? It's driving me mad! I'm not ill and they look kind of hive like. Yukkkk! They itch like crazy to the point I made myself bleed.

Any advice?

angel I feed to sleep most of the time! Only alternative is in sling/car/pushchair. I read this which reassured me massively! Faithlet is 6 weeks and figure self settling will come in time.

I hope your nipples improve now the tongue tie is fixed.

wishful you poor thing, no wonder you got upset, fingers crossed will be fixed soon and will just be a bad memory.

I wish I could feed to sleep, feeds end in tantrums only, baby username self settles in the day and gets rocked to sleep in basket at night.

keys I had a hormonal eczema in the last 2 weeks of pregnancy on bump and legs badly, arms not so bad. Was given various ointments, best thing I found was e45 anti itch cream plus an anti histimine at night. I believe the hormone related itchies are quite short lived, I remember I stopped itching as soon as I gave birth.

Oh and the reflux: started vomiting after every feed, more than a bit, especially when laid down soon after feeding,
breath smelt acidic a lot, got quite fussy, would only lie down if very asleep, wanting to feed incessantly even if she had been sick and had acidic breath. With the gripe water and now the gaviscon she already seems more settled.

angel sorry you're finding the day times so hard. There's nothing wrong with feeding to sleep, but if you're keen to teach her to self settle then there are tons of ways to do it. The key to all of the methods is doing it before they're over tired. I failed dismally at this with DS (I think of the poor thing as my practice run at motherhood ) but I'm better with dd. If I time it right I can put her down in her basket, walk away and she'll go to sleep, if I get it wrong she'll scream like a banshee for ages.

I do EASY, so when dd wakes we have cuddles for 5 mins or so, then I feed her. Then she plays on her mat etc for a while. After she's been up for about 45 mins I start to watch her like a hawk. At some point she'll start to loose interest in her toys and to whinge. She also starts to turn her head to one side and stare off into the distance, and if I watch her blinking her eyes stay shut just a little bit longer than you'd expect. They're her early tired signs, so I put her down ASAP. The easiest method is to have them in a moving pram or sling, because the movement will help settle them. You can then gradually reduce the amount of movement as they learn to settle, so I started out walking with the pram, then just rocking it, then just jiggling it, and now I don't move it at all, it's just a convenient place to have her. I'm happy to accept a little bit of tired crying for a few minutes, but if she gets hysterical then I'll pick her up, and usually go to the back up option of the sling.

No cry sleep solution is well worth a read, although it works lots better if you use the techniques before you've got major sleep issues

We seem to have moved on from Evan's tummy bug and temperature although to crack it I had just 90 minutes sleep last night as he was so fretful and just could not be out down. I think the trouble is that it seems much worse in the night as we live in a terraced house and his screams seem loud enough to wake the neighbours. In the day time, I am pretty sure he hardly makes enough noise to be heard in the next room.

So DP took today off work so he could have all the DC this morning and I managed 3 hours sleep before DD2 woke me by shouting/screaming about something!

I am feeling much better though and even though tonight is DP's night with Evan, I will probably end up doing the middle-of-the-night feed and will let DP sleep through!

We still have nothing that looks like a routine and Evan is fed to sleep and rarely finishes his bottle at any time of day as it sends him to sleep and he won't be woken. He then has to be held upright for at least 20 minutes after winding to stand a chance of staying asleep once he is put down and his moses basket is raised at the head end so he never actually goes flat.

I am actually thinking that the only time I will be able to think about getting him into a routine will be once DD2 starts full-time school half way through September.... Evan will be 6 months by then (4.5 months corrected) so I am hoping he will be amenable to getting into routine as it will be just me and him each day whilst the girls are at school.

Still, I am not going back to work until January so we will have a few months to sort it. We are probably going to have to get a nanny to meet our childcare needs this time now that we have 3 DC to sort out - so there is a bit of me that is not at all worried about Evan's routine as a nanny will be able to fit in with him (or will get his routine sorted!)

He suffers from 'third child syndrome' and just has to fit in around everyone else right now!

Oooh so chuffed was all ready to give up

Posted too soon!

Give up on breastfeeding took baby yummy to get weighed and she's put on 14oz in two weeks! So I'm determined to keep going!

Marking my place...

Well done little yummy impressive gain!

I have a snoozing baby on my chest :) I could put her down but I
like to have a little toddler free time to snuggle just the two of us and really connect with her rather than just caring for her then putting her down/in the sling to rush off and do something with DD1 or unload the dishwasher etc.

We had her '6-8 week developmental screen' today by HV. She is 8 lb 8, exactly same weight as DD1 was at birth, she has slid down a couple of centiles now so I know GP will refer us to Paeds for poor weight gain. Feeding is going okish but she really fights me at times, arching back, fists flying and is then really sick. It has crossed my mind that this is either reflux or CMP allergy (probably) I don't want to try gaviscon as she is already an infrequent pooer so will discuss a trial of dairy free (for me) with GP or possibly ranitidine.

Both my girls have been able to self settle pretty much from day 1. I got lucky there! I do have a comforter that smells of me in the corner of the cot and use Ewan the dream sheep at night. It was a present for DD2 (I was skeptical) but she loves it & falls asleep much more quickly with him. I don't think I'd be too concerned if they were needing feeding to sleep at this age though. They are so small and frankly whatever it takes to get them to sleep!

Well, I hope the growth spurt doesn't last too long! Have fed P for about 10 minutes out of every 30 since 2 ish. Trying to keep him awake to feed for longer but he just crashed out! In officially exhausted x

Baby enjay slept 12 till 4 yay! (Sorry to those getting less sleep ) 5 weeks today and it's getting better as it will for all of us who have adopted hourly wakings to feed for the last month or so!

Empress - glad you and Sam have made it home from hospital! I wouldn't worry about needing to bf to bond - my two have tended to stare at a fixed point under my arm, and all the latch/painful nipple issues don't exactly help bonding! In a few weeks time you'll forget you had ever worried about bonding!

Sleep wise, it's not too bad here - E has ceased to wake for a dream feed, but she tends to go through to about 2.30am, after falling asleep by 10pm. She then lasts till 5.30/6am... So can't complain! But she did feed religiously every 2 hours yesterday, which will be tricky if she does today, as I have DS at home for the next two days! Fun fun fun!

I think a lot of these sleep patterns are luck more than anything else at this age. Sure there are things to try which might help, e.g. I feed DD loads in the day to try to minimise night waking. But I get the impression she is just naturally a better sleeper than DS was.

DH has some old friends of the family coming over today. They are fairly awkward and tbh am dreading it. Must must must get DS out early so he will nap before they come at 4. Hopefully DD will just fit in!

DD is eight weeks old today! She is starting to take a real interest in the world around her. So much to look forward to. Newborns are cute but it's great when they get more interactive!

Yummy that's brilliant! Well done baby Yummy and you for persevering! I found it so tough BF at times but the weight gain is the reward isn't it?

I think with sleep Faithlet is responding to cues we give her like bath time and going into a darkened room in the evening (we have blackout material). However last night she didn't settle til 11 last night! She did sleep til 3.30 though. She cluster feeds every night. I do look forward to getting my evening back at some point!

Ellies I hope your day is better than you anticipate!

too sorry to hear about baby's weight loss. I hope you find the cause soon and things turn around.

We're just enjoying some skin to skin before we get up. Scrummy! :)

Marking place as find time to read but then not post and keep losing you! Will catch up properly later, my mum is up from Wales which is a huge help, but I actually end up with less time to get on the phone for mn!

We had our first good night last night (she is 6 weeks) and slept from 9-6, waking at 1am for a feed and then back down. It was probably a fluke but feels great and at this point in time the sleepless ones have faded into insignificance.
yummy I am set to quit bf every week until she is weighed and that gain spurs me on another week. My LO has gone from 7'12 at birth to 10'9 but due to be weighed today.
Any wonder cures for cradle cap? We have been slapping on grapeseed oil which is helping a bit.

yummy that's great news, weight gain can be a real motivation

empress I find bf a hindrance to bonding in honesty, I feel like am just dinner then all the happy cuddle times are somewhere else, especially now every feed ends in tears.

Have emergency gp appt today, dr made it clear when she called back she thought it wasn't urgent but in fairness just because babies problem isn't urgent my sanity is clinging on by a thread.

We messed up our feed times though, going to take expressed bottle with me I guess as dont want to feed at doctors, in theory doing a breast feed in front of gp would help her see the problem but she sounded a bit busy!

too I hope you get a bit more weight gain soon, at least they are taking it seriously and doing your referral.

I hope I can get through doctors without crying, I been good all week but today been tearful since waking :(

Thanks everyone for sleep advice

Last night she wouldn't sleep until 1am then up at 4am, back down at 5am until 8am, so 2 x 3 hr stretches. She is now asleep on my knee, I need to do some housework, shower and sleep, and get some shopping in, but don't want to wake her by moving her (clueless!!!)

Well done Yummy with BF. I take each feed as it comes; morning is usually very painful due to engorgement, daytime feeds then not too bad, but by evening when she cluster feeds, my poor nipples and I are thinking about giving up!!

Thanks faith its so nice to see them get so big isn't it!
angeltattoo I tend to express on a morning before I feed her as I can't feed with engorged boobs it chokes her! Poor thing!
emmie10 I found rubbing her head with baby oil leaving for 2 hours then circling all her scalp with a baby brush and brushing out all the bits then giving her a shampoo with johnsons baby shampoo and rinsing well with water brushing with baby brush then rinsing again, this worked for baby yummy
What time do you all put baby's to bed for the final "bedtime" before you sleep?

Well we went doctors, got gaviscon for reflux, think she has wind issues too so got gripe water. Currently sitting in park in cold as got home and her crying was a bit much for me, outside its easier to cope with.

oh user i did same today... the boys crying was doing my head in so i just packed them into buggy and walked for miles!