The 5th Gemini luxury bus - the one with babies!

[FrustratedSycamoresRocks]

As we have all our gorgeous babies now, welcome aboad the 5th Gemini bus.

Drinks and previously banned foods supplied in bulk, Car seats installed, slings and prams at the ready, as we head into parenthood, and all the excitement, and sleepless nights our little ones will bring along the way.

jojo don't think of it as sending ds1 away, think of it more as ds1 is having a lovely holiday with nanny (without you).
But it is good that your dm will have him whilst you recover.

lib do you take her off and put her back on when she clicks? I know the clicking, but I can't remember why they do it. Will look on kellymom later.

We're starting to get smiles

Smiles already? Wow! We get some lovely windy faces...

I know he'll have a fab time! He's never really bothered by being away from us. People keep telling me that's a good thing but I'd quite like it if he showed some signs of missing me just a little! She's talking about taking him on a train for the first time. I fully expect him to come back ridiculously over excited & shouting 'wheels' & 'train' constantly! He's obsessed with wheels!

jojo theyre tiny little smiles, only when he's wide awake which is rarely, and I'm sure they're not quite conscious smiles yet. But his eyes smile.
Not windy smiles, we get some lovely windy grins, usually followed by puke.

I'll take "train" and "wheels" over "party!" Unfortunately "party" can mean, party, birthday, present, disco, balloons, invite, card, wrapping paper... Etc

You were all busy last night!
I too was awake but just to tired to register anything, the lack of sleep is really getting to me, it took me 2 hrs to get her down last night, so til 9 I didn't go to sleep til 11 as expressed milk then, she woke at 2 which I thought great that'll be the only feed. Dh gave her the bottle but she polished it off wouldn't sleep so I had to get up and feed her again and she eventually went to sleep at 3:30 then she was up at 5:30 I wanted to cry!
That's 5 hrs sleep for me and I can't nap because of dd1, it's been like this for nights, she's either good as gold and goes down straight away after each feed and had one at 7,10,3,7 or is full of wind and it takes 2-3 hrs to get her to sleep, the other problem is not knowing how much milk to give her, I'm expressing twice aday to make enough and give her 4oz, if I give her more I get really anoyed if she leaves it as I think it took me half an hour to make that but if I don't give enough I have to get up and do it anyway!! I think I should just maybe give formula for that feed to go easy on myself and just express occasionally to have as a back up in freezer or use it majority and formula if I've not got enough but because I gave dd1 just bm I feel like I'm not doing her justice and feel guilty like I'm doing her a disservice!

Oh by the way Jojo with both mine I've often had to lie them down flat for 30secs pic them up and the wind comes up straight away, ( believe me after the horrendous colic dd had I'm an expert at every method) I used to try and wait rubbing ect and sometimes it'd come up straight away but if it didn't the short lie down always brought it up

Hey kitty don't feel guilty about how you feed dd. at the end of the day you need to function. I have little cartons of formula in the cupboard. Dd1 was ebf, dd2 was 1/4 formulakhtbzthfftyr

That's a toughey, think I'd say what were you writing etc that's very clever sweetheart but you must ask mummy for some paper if you want to draw and write because we want to keep them, you mustn't write on walls!? Or something like that?

Ooh sore boobs again today. I think since ds started feeding more my supply has gone up and they're massive again. Also leak ridiculously as soon as he goes near them. We're both swimming in it by the time he latches on.

Ouchy for you. Have you soaked through a breast pad yet lor? The more they feed the more you make. .-I'm getting through at least a change of clothes a day due to leakage.

Not quite soaking through clothes yet. Just gushing out once I go feed him. How long does it take for this to even out a bit?

I'm better than I was to start with. But I think it might be after 12weeks, as I remember it being much easier and more convenient to bf after that growth spurt. I'm pretty certain I didn't wear pads until 18mths (dd1). Not sure about the milk in face issue.

Oh and DH just had to remind me that it's payday this week. Duh, how could I forget that?!!

Phew, you've been a chatty bunch today!

I have to skype with the MIL and then I'll be back.

Ok. So that was fun. I love her, but she can be so over the top sometimes.

Right, so sounds like the headaches are probably hormonal then. That's a relief. Also good news that they'll eventually stop. Yes, Lib also getting crazy dreams. Not really nightmares, but some pretty wacky stuff. If clicking during feeds, definitely take her off and restart. It's from her tongue skipping across the nipple (OUCH) and not creating a full seal. One thing you can try is suck-training. Have her suck on your pinky finger with the nail-side on her tongue before latching her on. You should feel her tongue "cup" your finger and it should feel like she's pulling it in further when she sucks. If she starts chewing or clicking while sucking, lightly stroke the roof of her mouth until she starts sucking correctly again and then try latching her on after it feels like she's gotten the hang of it. You might have to do this with every feed until she gets the latch and sucking down.

Jo The beginning with 2 kids is so daunting, but I promise you'll figure your way through it. A few hards times, but it's only going to get easier once you find your rhythm. It sucks when other things are way more exciting than mum, huh? My boys so don't even care that I'm not doing much right now. They get loads of TV (a rare thing) and dad-cooked meals which means only the things they'll actually eat instead of me making them eat healthy stuff.

Kitty I know the temptation is so strong as this point to go for the formula. It sounds like she's already having some nights where it's harder for her to digest, and the thing that would worry me about adding in the formula is that you might get even more nights of gas and painful digestion for her because the adjustment from easy-to-digest breastmilk to longer and harder-to-digest formula could mess with her system.

Oh I feel for you Lor!

Nice Skype bring

I've been driven mad by the dcs today.

Thanks bring, I hadn't thought of that, I'm feeling abit less desperate now anyway as dh let me have a nap while he had dd1 but it is getting me down, ill keep going as I know ill feel guilty giving her the formula anyway, I'm allready at 5 wks and there digestion really improves by 10-12 so I'm practically half way through
< clutches at straws>
Lor my boobs settled down quite quickly but as frus said I'm sure later on there's a point where you don't need to wear pads, I can't remember either though! At the moment when I'm feeding I put a breast shell in the other side to catch milk or if I'm out apply pressure to other nipple to stem the flow, it does work, to be subtle you can just bend your arm up and and just pull it into your body so it's applying pressure to boob/nipple, I find my pads only get a few drops on them by the end if the day

Thanks kitty. It's really mostly gushing from the one I'm feeding from. It just goes all over ds and my feeding pillow. Startles him when he starts sucking too.

Still suffering a bit of baby blues too. I think I get blood sugar dips in the afternoon and it makes me really weepy. It's all still a bit overwhelming. Fortunately my dh is amazing and wonderfully supportive and my mum is here now to help as dh goes back to work tomorrow. Must keep snacking in the afternoons!

So glad you were able to rest kitty. Babies usually go through another growth spurt at around 6 wks of age where the nights will seem endless, but it will start to get better! Have you noticed anymore patterns with your diet and nights that were more difficult than others?

Ugh frus I know what you mean. I love those monsters so much but with having all of this relaxing time with dd, they are like tornadoes when they come in my room. It feels so stressful! Roll on normal life choas again soon.

I think I remember the crazy milk supply settling down at about 2 wks. I leak like nobody's business so I also do what kitty said and press the nipple in when the let-down hits. I had breast pads until about a year with #2 (we bf until 1 month shy of age 2) and #1 switched to formula at 7 months (biggest parenting regret of my life as now he's got a horrible dairy allergy)....so we'll see what this time ends up like.

Dd's cord stump is falling off and stinks so much. Ew.

Def keep eating and drinking lor. Sorry it's feeling that way for you. Are you able to get in afternoon naps?

I'm usually getting an hour in sometime in the afternoon.

DS2's cord stump smelled awful too bring. It was a bit weepy as well & didn't fall off until day 9/10. Thankfully the MW came round on day 10 & said it looked normal so we were less concerned about it being infected. It's still a little gunky now. We get tiny smears of blood/pus looking stuff on his nappy. The awful rotting flesh smell seems to have cleared up though! I've still not heard from the health visitor but I know they do a weighing clinic on Tuesdays so I'll pop along to that if it's not looking dry by then! I don't know what it is about the cord stump but it's the one thing I really can't handle. I usually have a sick fascination with all things icky but DH had to do almost all the nappies until it fell off & anytime I had to do one I felt quite queasy! I'll happily do nappies now though!

Oh wow, her's fell off really quickly then. Yeah, as long as it's not actively bleeding or appears red and infected, then it just stinks and looks like an eyeball

I'm having my first feed that doesn't actively hurt. Don't know what we've done differently this time, just a subtle shift in position I think.

Yay lib now to figure out what's different.

You know you're tired when... You repeatedly try to feed ds from the boob he's just emptied.

I only leak from one side during the day.

lib That's awesome news!! Let's hope for more feeds like that!

Haha, yes frus that's a very good sign you're tired.

Little miss had her very cute newborn photoshoot this morning and pooped and peed all over her props. This photographer is absolutely amazing and she's working on her portfolio, so we got a great deal on the whole package since we were her first homebirth. Excited to see what she posts on facebook tomorrow!

Urgh. Headache! I think I'm probably dehydrated today. Everything was going so well. Got DS1 down for his nap, fed DS2 & was just getting ready to have a nap when DS1 woke up screaming! He usually has to be woken from his nap at 4 but this was before 2! I tried ignoring him & hoping he'd settle. He didn't. I tried bringing him into bed with me to sleep but he just wanted to watch videos on my phone. I tried calling DH & he did calm down for a couple of minutes but kicked off again as soon as DH hung up. Eventually I gave up & dumped him back in his cot & left him to shout. He was obviously over-tired! After a couple of minutes he went quiet & we all slept for another 2 hours! My headache still hasn't gone away but thankfully DH is on his way home & all I have to do for dinner is turn the oven on & move the defrosted fish pie from the fridge to the oven! Soooo glad we spent so many weeks making double quantities of things & freezing meals!