JULY 2014 - WE HAVE BABIES

[justhayley]

Well it's only mid June but I hear we have our first July 2014 baby - congratulations MrsC, also hear there is one going to be joining us very very soon so thought it was time to start a postnatal thread! Wow can you believe it's that time already!!!

I hope to be joining you on this thread in the next few weeks - have no desire to get to 40 /42 weeks in this heat thank you.

For now congratulations new mummies xxx

Love that analogy ismarah. Definitely felt like a grueling marathon for me yesterday when I was pinned to the sofa for 8 hours breastfeeding!

It's nearly 5am and I haven't slept yet. She's just dirtied her nappy again so will wake up when I change her and this need to be fed to sleep again. Right now I hate breastfeeding.

What ismarah said. Great analogy. Bf has been going relatively well for us - but it's still relentless!

kiwi sorry, that's crap :( Hope you're able to get some rest later somehow.

Bad mum alert: I completely underestimated just how cold it would get last night and so I realised at the 5am feed that bean was freezing! After the 2am feed, I fell asleep with her on top of me while she was burping so she was at least warm and snuggly then.

plate please don't take this the wrong way but great to hear from others also feeling like not coping. I feel like that some time most days...

blue ds also has some spots everything I've read says to leave them!

ellie thinking of you and ds4 hope all goes well

kiwi I have sat topless many times- especially last night when ds appeared to have emptied a boob in 15mins!

ismarah well done for persevering you've done really well

mupperoon I feel same about failed birth plan and am great full that can breast feed. Your right that it's hard when people are dismissive. Keep talking about it if you can. Big hug

Right think am caught up. Sling is great for getting ds to sleep however I've not mastered getting him out and staying asleep which is slight issue!

plate ds is stuck to me 24/7 too... I thought if I managed to express enough then I could have a couple of hours out with friends but I can't put him down long enough to express enough. Add to that the fact that he spends most of his awake time crying I feel like a failure especially when I see how happy other babies are.

Had a bath with him last night and fed him in the bath to try and relax him before bed which worked til we got out and he screamed so not sure it's going to work.

maggie and plate today DS is a total limpet baby. He screams if I try to do anything but hold or feed him - tell a lie, I managed 5 mins in his bouncy chair while I grabbed toast, tea and a breast pump - but other than that I'm still in my pyjamas and I don't see how I'm going to get any more expressing done today or anything else for that matter :( don't have enough for a feed yet so if I don't get any more done this morning was a complete waste of time!

This would be fine usually but our cleaner comes over on Mondays and I want to be dressed when she gets here!

Feel so fed up as really want to get expressing regularly so that I can actually go out without him for an hour. Just been on the phone in tears to DH.

maggie DS loves being in the bath but hates getting out - however we find feeding him once he's dressed again calms him down v quickly, so we're making a sort of bedtime routine of feed, bath, feed, swaddle, bed...

Limpet baby here today too. And she's still feeding all the time, plus looks like she's picked up a cold, which I guess explains the clinginess. I'm shattered.

Trying to get the house tidied today as I can't stand the mess but doubt that's going to happen. Friend is bringing her Moby over sometime this week for me to try but wondering if I should just bite the bullet and buy one.

Have a stupidly busy week: SIL and her fiancé are staying tonight (arriving at 10pm or so). PIL arrive tomorrow to stay for a night. And Aunt-in-law is coming to visit on Wednesday morning. Then SIL gets married on Saturday, so there's a rehearsal on Friday evening. We have to travel 1 1/2 hours to get to the place they're getting married so we'll be doing there and back two days in a row.

I really need a maid. And a wet nurse.

And when I get her into her bed asleep she coughs or sneezes and wakes up. Nightmare.

Sorry for being so whiney.

its sometimes he likes baths sometimes he hates them so thought I'd try and get him used to water by taking him in with me which he seems to be better with esp if I feed him. But I can't seem to get him dressed fast enough.

Have been reading about pat and shush and I've kind of been doing something similar by coincidence - making room dark and quiet, swaddling, feeding then holding him fairly still until he goes to sleep and if he wakes when I put him in his crib putting my hand on his belly and shushing. He goes down fairly well with this as night though may take a couple of attempts but doesn't work in the day.

kiwi ditto about the maid - there are jobs that haven't been done for months and the mess is getting worse as I never have time to do anything properly.

ickle yes it does really help to know we're not alone in finding this tough.

I'm going backwards rather than forwards with limpetism - other than essential forays for food and bathroom I never get off sofa unless DH is here to take over baby holding. Last couple of nights not even bothered to go to bed, just slept in situ - DS sleeps on me if I'm in bed anyway. How do hell do I start breaking this behaviour?

maggie like yours DS is rarely just awake - he's either sleeping, feeding or crying. I had 5 mins today of plain wakefulness, feels like first time I have seen his eyes in days.

limpet day here too ...well mot days are

i'm worried about breast feeding. Feel like it has all started togo wrong again. DS was BF for 40 mins every time to start with. That came down to 20 mins fairly quickly. Now he is only doing it for 10 mins but has about 8 feeds in 24 hours. Any idea why he is not feeding much???

Must be National Limpet Day! And she's been so easy up until today.

Everyone - thank you so much for your kindness and your good sense . I found the ante-natal thread a real comfort even though my pregnancy was relatively trouble-free, and I'm glad you are all here still because this is sooooo much harder (even though it's also sooooo much better in terms of the end result).

ismarah You're right about the marathon training. The formula is a means to an end while I try to build some sort of milk supply and avoid the little one chewing my nipples into tassels - that's how I need to look at it. And if I never get to full BF, it's like climbing Everest with an oxygen supply, rather than trying to be Reinhold Messner and doing it without.

The HV came today, looked at my nipples and said "they're not meant to look like that". Well, I know that!!! This is the first time in 42 years they've been covered in scabs! Then it was "breastfeeding isn't meant to be painful - it's meant to be pleasurable." I look forward to that. Perhaps it will come with practice and more milk.

At least after a weekend of 2 hourly boob + formula, the beloved one is nearly back up to birth weight, so hooray for small BIG victories!

Coco how many feeds did DS have in 24 hours when he was feeding for longer?

DD doesn't feed for very long - during the night last night she averaged 6 minutes per feed. The health visitor came today and I was asking her about it, and basically she wasn't concerned at all. She said to bear in mind that sometimes the baby is just having a drink/snack. But the main thing is that if the baby is putting on weight and has plenty of wet and dirty nappies, then everything is fine.

Crossed posts mupperoon. That's great dd is almost back up to birth weight! Sounds like she's doing brilliantly!

In terms of breast feeding not hurting - I've luckily got on with breast feeding fairly well so far. But I've still had scabs on my nipples at some points, and always dread dd latching on as the first few seconds make my toes curl. Plus if she's not fed for a little while my breasts feel tender. So I wouldn't call it pleasurable! Maybe it will be at some point?! But doesn't sound like your HV was being very helpful!

coco have you noticed any difference in nappy output? Does he seem satisfied after feeds? It might be your milk is coming through faster/he's got a more efficient latch.

On the flip side I worry that DS sometimes feeds for 40mins per side and seems no happier afterwards.

fox DS has been having minimum 8-10 feeds in 24 hours since he was born but the feeds have gone down to 10 mins from 40 mins. He is putting weight on but not as much as i would like. he does plenty of nappies

Fox she was actually very nice, very non-judgemental, and was lovely about the c-section and my feelings about it, having had a similar experience herself. But she did have a talent for stating the obvious in the nipple department!

I know what you mean about the toe-curling first moment!

Plate YES to 40 min feeds each side that leave pixie girl completely unsatisfied. She seems to enjoy it while she's there, but that's not really the point is it?

Oh that's good she was nice then mupperoon. It's nice she was able to relate to your experience too

Well plenty of nappies and gaining weight sounds good coco but I don't know any more than anyone else, so if you're worried I would call your health visitor just to put your mind at rest. Mine said to call any time and seemed very genuine when she said so

I'm never going to catch up with this thread

plate if you figure out how to break the behaviour please let me know!

coco I agree that ds is probably just more efficient at feeding or doesn't need so much atm.

DS is cluster feeding tonight - less than an hour between feeds since about 4 and this last stint has been on boob for 50 minutes! Don't want to interrupt in case he cries!

Does anyone else follow the bump and baby hub on Facebook? I started when I got pregnant but the posts on there really sadden me and make me think there must be some really bad midwives and health visitors out there with some of the questions people ask!