May 2013 thread our new and not so new arrivals

[BeauticianNotMagician]

Hi ladies

Just thought we could all really do with this. Rather selfish a its mostly for the thousand odd questions I have and things I'd like to share/ vent that no one else would understand.

We've all been together so long I even talk about you all to DP

Bunny so pleased to hear that, hope the pain goes v soon.

Elly I did the same with pottery painting for Father's Day. Did some mugs for the grandparents as well. Her tiny feet are sooo cute at the moment, it's lovely to preserve a bit of that so we remember how small she was!

Thanks ladies love the pottery painting idea for Father's Day. It's grandads birthday on Wesnesday as well so think ill get a mug with footprints on for him as well. I've booked to go somewhere tomorrow

What a brilliant idea! I've taken dd1 before (but not to do footprints). Now thinking a mug with both kids handprints on. Awwwww.

Sorry to hear about people struggling to BF, by all means get support and try to continue but if you have to switch to FF it really isn't the end of the world.

We've really been struggling here. DH and I have been arguing loads and DD1 is cutting 3 back teeth. B turned from being a chilled happy baby to being really unsettled and generally miserable. We tried her on DD1s lactose free formula which has made a big difference, expect because its SMA it made her constipated, she spent over 3 hours crying and being generally miserable last night. Anyway she had some water and a huge poo this morning and has been fine since. Plus DHs boss gave him a £100 bonus for doing extra hours while they were away (he worked 51 hours last week) on the condition we have a takeaway and treat the DCs rather than spend it on bills.

That's a lovely gesture seven! Enjoy your takeaway!!

Can I ask how folk split nighttime care of their newborns? I do all nighttime waking and all daytime, so I'm on my knees. My DH goes up to bed at 10 and I sleep - ha, I stare blearily at the incredible non sleeping baby - on the couch downstairs so he is not disturbed. I'm really not sure this is sustainable for longer than another week at most.

My DH's idea is to ask his parents to look after our DD for a couple of hours in the afternoon as a one off... The absurd lack of logic baffles me. A couple of hours isn't even going to scratch the surface. Plus, his mum really loves a good gossip, she bitches about his brother, wife and children to us and I'm trying to get him to understand that that means she will have no problems with bitching about us to them either. As well as this, his mum thinks the fact that our DD isn't a great nighttime sleeper is something that needs to be looked at by a doctor, she just cannot remember looking after tiny babies - or she can and in her day you put a baby in a room and shut the door on it...

I don't want to ask my mum for help because she's only interested in DD providing she can buy her outfits and essentially play dollies. I can imagine her ignoring any wishes I might voice and instead dressing a crying, red faced DD (hates being dressed/undressed) up in a variety of dresses and frilly outfits. My stomach turns just thinking about it.

Does anyone have a better set up than me that is working well for them?

Purrpurr I think the only thing is to get your DH involved. Is there anyway he can do a couple of hours in the evening, or prolong his bedtime to say 23.00? Then you could sleep from say after dinner till his bedtime and then at least have had some sleep before you start a sleepless night.

Good luck! I hope you come to some sort of solution soon, or that your little one becomes a magical sleeping baby :)

I do all the nighttime waking and feeding too, but am really lucky as at the moment she only comes every 3-4 hours... might have to punch myself later for saying this as I am sure it won't last.

Purrpurr you are doing an amazing job! That is tough that you are not getting much support from your DH and your DM and DMiL sound challenging. At this stage, friends and family need to realise that the best thing they can do to help is to give you a bit of time to have a shower, eat and sleep and generally regroup. Or helping out with cooking/cleaning.

If your PiL can help out (initially) as a one -off then maybe you could tell them how massively helpful it is and what a difference it makes, to encourage/guilt them into doing it more regularly?

DP and I have a system for nights where he changes every 2nd nappy and helps me wake up for feeding. I feed sitting up in bed with a wrap around pillow. Then DP nods off back to sleep. I think that it makes it a lot less relentless and easier to manage having that extra help. If you can convey that to your DP, every little bit helps.

Good luck!

Does anyone have any matchsticks?

I have two clothes line props...

mermaid and babygeek thank you both so much for your advice, I've agreed with DH that I will go to bed after tea and get up at 11 to do the night shift. So I should in theory start getting at least 4-5 hours of sleep in one block every day. DD sleeps for 4 hours in 2 hour blocks between midnight and 5am so I could be looking at at least 8 hours :o my brain might work again! I'll be able to walk in a straight line and not collide with things!!!

pur you've had some great suggestions. It's a phase. It won't last. Fingers crossed it'll be short lived.

A had her second lot of jabs today. I've had to give her calpol as she has been so upset. It's worked a treat (only 1.3mls due to her teeny size).
Now 5lbs 1.5. Her weight gain is definitely slowing. I'm going to be much happier when she gains better. Seeing some of your mahoosive gains on fb makes me realise how little she's putting on.

nofork I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset anyone. I'm sure you're well aware though that it doesn't really matter where they are on the chart (or even if they're off the bottom of it) as long as they're consistently gaining, and every oz will make her stronger. FWIW DS wasn't a big gainer, he'd often only gain 2-3oz a week so I do understand.

purr could DH do the nightshift on his day off so you get at least one proper nights sleep every week?

My baby is also struggling with pooing - not constipated but struggling to poo :( I gave her cooled boiled water one night and she peed all over the nursery twice when changing her. Also gave her some infacol but I'm not sure if it helped. She has been all agitated and angry :(

I've also got thrush on my nipple and mastitis in one breast. I've put her back on there today and I'm hoping she will feed from it happily. She has got used to having expressed from the bottle. I also gave her a dummy two days ago when she wouldn't settle. It has been a very very difficult few weeks for us, I never expected it to be 'so so hard! :(

Poor A nofork, a had her first jabs today and apart from absolutely screaming when the nurse did them, she has been fast asleep since, thank goodness. Has HV said anything about her weight gain? I am going to get A weighed again tomorrow, after a slowish start she has had a big growth spurt this past couple of weeks and is now almost out of her newborn clothes!!!

I tend to go to bed early, leaving DH to do the last feed then he brings her up to bed and I do the other feeds through the night. Occasionally, if he isn't at work the next day then he will do the early morning feed, but he has a nasty habit of talking to me so I can't go back to sleep anyway

purr I have nothing useful to suggest, but you do have my sympathy. And my DH seems to sleep through anything. except me deliberately waking him up occasionally

Ds seems to constantly feed all night, and sleeps during the school run. Which doesn't help me get any sleep in the day. nap when they nap, pah ha ha ha. might invest in your clothes line props.

seven don't apologise! A is under the dietician, Elly and has started some even higher calorie formula this evening. And it's ready made stuff so I don't have to stick to onzes which means I can add a little extra. She's on about half formula now.
Still very grumpy. Not sure whether to give more calpol. Elly, we never had a problem with the last lot but this time it's definitely upset her. The little plasters marked with blood have upset me!

House is a tip! And I haven't got some of your excuses of toddlers at home (dd1 in full time nursery for another couple of weeks) and baby crying all night. How do you cope?

Re BF:

Hi all. We're working through mastitis, on second to last day of ABs and got blocked ducts back on one side. crossed fingers this clears and doesn't prolong the infection!

Reading through all the discussions on BF from the last few days, I can add my experience from DS1. I got severe mastitis really early on, and was in loads of pain for weeks. I pumped and gave it to him from the bottle for weeks, as I couldn't face the thought of having him on the breast. Loads of pain both in the breast (blocked ducts/mastitis) and really really sore cracked nipples. And over-pumping I gave myself oversupply and had a really forceful letdown. But the long story cut short is that we got through it and fed successfully until weaning, and continued with morning and night feeds until about 13 months. It did get better, and was not at all painful once we got there. I found the advice on block feeding on Kellymom really helpful. And religious use of Lansinoh.

I totally agree with the mantra "happy mummy = happy baby" and you should go with whichever feeding method works for you. But if you're struggling with BF, don't think that pain now will automatically be ongoing pain.

Now, while hoping we'll get over this bout of mastitis, I'm longing for the day when the forceful letdown calms down. Don't you just love it when the pumps go on in the middle of nothing, and you are left randomly winching in front of strangers.

I'm bottle feeding with dd this time for a few reasons but I breasted with my son last time. He didn't latch on properly for the first few days and it caused me to have big cuts, the midwife nicely put it that I may as well have rubbed my nipples off a cheese-grater for a few days! Every time he fed after that I was in agony, he needed fed constantly and I hardly got any rest. I dreaded every feed as the pain was so bad and was completely exhausted with all the irregular constant feeds. Every time I tried to leave the house too I would leak through my breast pads and all over my top, I was miserable. Then slowly everything just fell into place, it stopped hurting, ds's feeds became much more regular and less frequent, and I didn't leak over everything either. I started enjoying breast feeding and loved the bonding time I was having with him with every feed. Hang on in there those that are struggling, it's still early days and it will hopefully get much easier for you all soon .

I had my first weepy moment today, dp and I had been arguing and afterwards I burst into tears, he tried to calm me down but I just kept repeating through big sobs that he was really mean bloody hormones!

purr at the moment dp is on paternity leave so we share night time feeds but he goes back to work next week and our plan is that he goes to bed and I stay up later with baby and give her last feed at about 12/1am then go to bed, I'll get up with her during the night and then he'll get up earlier about 6am with her before work so I get some rest before the school run. I'll then have her during the day but he'll try and help out in the evening when he gets back home.

rhienne just noticed your post, I started typing mine out and then dd started crying and I had to come back to it but have just realised you've posted a similar story too .

Re sleeping:

On the startle reflex- I swaddled my LOs with their hands up by their faces, so they could still suck their fists, but their elbows are held in. Maybe that will help?

DS2 is just now finally getting to about 3 hours between feeds overnight. Thank goodness. i have been getting to bed after midnight, then less than two hours before each next feed. As we're BF, I have to be up for the night feeds, and I figure one of us needs to have had some sleep, so I try not to wake DH unless I really need to (ie poosplosion and DS1 awake and crying, as we had the other night). In order to cope, I stay in bed until 11 or 12 am. DH gets DS1 up and ready and takes him to daycare. In a week or so DS1 goes down to 4 days a week at daycare, so the one day he's home with me will be more challenging.

:) Tiger.

Re DH/ nights

DH still off work for Another 10 days ( 4 wks total- mix
Paternity and leave ) he has slept in spare room and had undisturbed sleep since DS2 born but he is up 7-8am daily with DS1 who he essentially has
All the time at mo. I do all feeds day/night with DS2 but as I'm BF there's no hoice! Can u believe he clearly feels miffed at no lie in for last 2.5 wks! I wish! ;-)