October 2014 (including some september early arrivals) the wonderful and crazy newborn days

[fedupofrainydays]

Thread to share the newborn news and support each other through the 'eeek what do I do?' When the baby gets home and you stare at it in the car seat and think - help!!

Puppy complaining on FB or here ALWAYS brings better sleep for us, as does bringing the sling upstairs - its like some form of sympathetic magic.

I haz a vair hot toddler - think we'll still try to go out to the local farm if only because staying in with a crabbit toddler = fate worse than death!

Both kids slept til 9.15 old time (ignores fact they were up 5 times between them in the night) I feel a bit more human.

goats re sterilising no don't dry them afterwards just wash your hand well and dry with kitchen towel or freshly washed tea towel then just pour the milk straight in the bottle.

Had a bad night too r is just sleeping all day and then up for a party at night am going to try and poke him awake a bit today hmm wish me luck with that one!

Is anyone else struggling a bit to get their heads round their births? I've not really been able to talk about it to anyone things went a bit wrong and I keep trying to tell myself that everything turned out fine and we are both ok now but I'm finding it really hard to even think about it. Am crying now just typing this don't think I'm just being hormonal as I've felt like this since it happened.

munday I had forceps and an epis and have had some issues, thankfully only one or two wet accidents but when I need to go for more I have to go there and then! Awkward with one bathroom when my parents were staying, there were a few close calls!

missus hope you weren't up too much last night? DH was doing the night shift so I got from 12.30 to 7am only stirring when he got back into bed and going to the loo once. I hope no one hates me too much, I only had 2 hours the night before!

Glad to hear there are other guzzling ff babies and we've not just bred a piggy .

Can't believe our baby is a week old today. I'm getting a chocolate sponge out of the freezer later... wishing I wasn't on so much medication still, dying for a glass of wine.

pregnant yes I'm finding it tough, I've written down the basics and today dh and I are going to write it into our baby journal. I'm struggling with the fact I was so out of it on the epidural/ diamorphine and everything else that the moment she was born is all so hazy and I really want to be able to remember it.

Try writing it down and find someone to talk to .

Morning everyone,

We didn't have too bad a night's feed and sleep but boy am I tired today. I've decided to stop expressing too. My milk is not coming and the one tablespoon I'm getting is not worth the stress I'm putting myself under. Besides, I think I was FF fed vs my big sisters bf and I'm fine. Now to tell the MW tomorrow gets lecture

Re nappy changing: my bubba is very sleepy, so I nappy change him mid feed to wake him up. Saying that, no sooner have I changed him then we hear SPLAT!
His nappy rash is also looking better so thanks to yellow for tip of drying him after wiping him. Makes total sense now.

Binky - happy one week anniversary to you and bubs!

Pregnant & Munday - sorry to hear you're struggling with your births. I was given a leaflet by my hospital of places where I could go & discuss a problematic birth. Perhaps you should contact your hospital and ask?

Most hospitals offer an afterthoughts service now.when you're ready, contact them and you'll be able to discuss what happened, why, the likelihood of it happening again and solutions for next time if the likelihood is high.

pregnant I had this with my first birth. I kept crying about it. Somehow I felt I had let my baby down by needing intervention. I felt everything was my fault and had bad dreams about it. I was offered a birth reflections service and was able to go through everything that happened in my notes with a midwife. It was really helpful. And I was able to have some kind of acceptance with it all - I highly recommend you do this if your hospital has this service. Not necessarily right now but maybe in a month or so. But sooner if you think will help

pregnant my birth was one disaster after another. Not going into too much detail but I was contracting 3 in every 10 minutes right from the off but I wasn't contracting effectively. My blood pressure went sky high, so no pethidine, 4 attempts at epidural and b2b. Drips and monitors coming from ever where. By the time I was 10cm his head still wasn't low enough so after 16 hours they did a c section. Still hard thinking about it.

Mrs and pregnant - same here pretty much although I didn't ever get to 10 cm had a great chat to the midwife who discharged me from hospital and that really helped. Maybe just think, it was for the best for the baby??? Less stress etc??

Missus you gave it your best shot. If your milk isn't there then you don't have a choice - don't beat yourself up. Baby will have got goodies from the colostrum. Am sure your MW will understand and frankly if she doesn't she's in the wrong job.

Those with traumatic births - you can get post traumatic shock from a difficult birth, maybe seek talking therapies and give yourself time to process it. And ignore all the woo birth shit about your body being able to birth any baby you grow, and being able to breath baby out if you visualise correctly - worldwide maternal death rates do not bear this out!

I was umming and hawing about introducing an expressed bottle but remembering from DS he'd ditched it at 10 weeks so frankly I've decided for us its not worth the faff of sterilising and expressing for the next month. Sleep was much better by month 3 last time so I've got my eye on the long game.

Our birth experience was not as we hoped. I plan to write it up and maybe share it, not sure if mrsthedog plans to. We're not over it yet, but also not racked by bad thoughts or ruminating thoughts.
For those really really struggling with it please don't worry that you are going to experience long term PTSD

Being traumatised emotionally by a traumatic event is normal and is part of how you get over it. My feeling would be talk about it when you feel the need but talk to peers not professionals. I guess that if it went wonky you had enough of those :-) later it may be helpful but if you can share with friends and family and online peers that's helpful too.

A normal response to an abnormal situation.

Also sorry I haven't posted more anxiety stuff, I want to do it properly and I haven't been on my laptop yet.

Share your stories as much as you need.

I feel a bit dramatic saying that I had an hour of not being sure I would see my wife and baby again. The situation was not that dramatic but I didn't know that at the time and it was the worst moment of my life when it 'SHOULD' have been the best.

Sorry for spelling mistakes

For those with wailing babas during nappy changes we've found having a hair dryer running in the background (on the floor) sends him into a trance. Then during the stripping off of bodysuit when he is naked I turn it on him a bit (can only do this with two people) and he seems to like the warmth!

Glad to know we are not the only ones struggling with nights. Last night I gave him formula for the first time at 10pm and he certainly slept more solidly and so did I even though I ha to wake up at 1.30am to express some milk from my sore boobs. He took 100mls and then wanted a bit of breast so just think he is a hungry boy. He was also awake 8-10pm when notmally asleep so that may have contributed to it to.

It was a difficult decision (to do formula) but i've been struggling with depressed feelings and the sleepless nights were very difficult. Hope i've made the right decision!

Pregnant - my labour and delivery weren't as planned, resulting in EMCS and PPH. Later on during that day, a team of doctors came round to see me and gave me a quick debrief which definitely helped i think. The hospital also offer a full debrief but they don't tend to offer it until 6 weeks or so after the birth to allow you to process everything.

If you're struggling and it's getting you down too much, can you speak to your MW?

Does anyone else miss having their bump/ being pregnant/ feeling their baby wriggling round? Not sure if I'd feel different if I went to 42 weeks though and i definitely don't miss heartburn!

I don't miss anything about being pregnant.

I wonder about my birth experience too. It wasn't traumatic per se, but had 24 hrs of horrendous back to back labour before epidural then eventually a section for failure to progress. I had a section for ds1 and was really keen to try for a water birth for ds2, I had such a vision in my head of a good and easy birth, more fool me.

What troubles me is not knowing if I was just being a wuss about the pain of the contractions. There is no way of knowing if that's the level of pain everyone has, and I should just have got through it, because maybe if I'd not had the epidural I wouldn't have needed the section. I don't know why this is bothering me so much but it is. Maybe because this was my last child so now I'll never experience a normal birth? I don't know.

Anyway, it's a rhetorical question really since there's just no way of knowing!

Strangely, my most traumatic birth was easily DD1 - not because of the pain (it was easily my least painful birth) but because I was very ill at the time and pretty scared. I also found what happened afterwards very hard, because I had had a serious infection I only saw her for around 20 minutes in the first 5 days - for a good couple of years afterwards I couldn't look at anyone's photos of them holding their newborn directly after giving birth without crying.

DS was painful, but I only started thinking about it more in the run up to DD2s birth. DD2 was actually the most painful of the lot (hypercontractions and then she came out back to back) but I think I felt such a sense of relief that it was going to be the last time I gave birth that I've not really thought about it.

I'm pretty lucky though, despite very nearly having a CS with DD1 (was being prepped for CS in theatre when someone checked and realised I was fully dilated and needed to push) and two inductions afterwards, I've had three normal vaginal deliveries with no intervention, and only a small episiotomy with DD1 and a small tear with DD2 which didn't require stitches. But I never want to do it again.

Hate the thing where we start off with a great latch and then 15 mins in he slips back or pulls back. Then I delatch him so I dont get painful nipples and
he is not interested as in sleep mode. Then 15 mins later he wants the rest of his feed just as I want a nap!!

Ive found some jelonet :) Those of you who have used it are you covering the whole nipple? I have two cracks one above and one below the nipple.
Im still getting a awful burning in the left side of my breast post feed to theres no redness and im not feeling poorly so its not mastitis im only feeding on it 3 times a day as its all I can stand. I have the docs tomorrow so will mention it again its been going on for 4 weeks now.

Gun yep I cut about a postage stamp sized square of Jelonet and just cover over the nipple. I put Lansinoh on first, then the Jelonet square then a pad. Changing my feeding position from cradle to rugby ball hold also helps but jeez I'm pretty rubbish at manoeuvring us both into position for the rugby ball hold, I need cushioned up to the hilt, think my boobs are too wee . I can understand having the crescent shaped crack at the top edge of my nipple but dunno how I managed to get a wee crack/hole just off centre??

I bought some jelonet from amazon. So far lansinoh has been enough for any issues I've had, but I just know that it'll be 3am on a Sunday when I need to bring out the big guns, so I want some in the house.

I've done some stitch investigation today and found that what I thought was just stitch tightening twang type pain, is in fact a pile. Nice - avoided them through pregnancy, get one from labour pushing! So, despite the concern about stitches prior to birth, they really haven't been even noticed during my recovery. Everything else, including the new pile, has ached and been sore but stitches nope. Weird!

And yes tory I wonder about my pain threshold compared to other people too! Throughout labour I couldn't actually believe that that level of pain is considered acceptable! Judging by the screaming from other rooms, I imagine that I wasn't the only one finding it a bit over the top. I genuinely believe (and I'm sorry, this is sexist, but my boyfriend agreed), that if men had to do it, childbirth would be far better managed. Why hasn't there been loads of work in developing pain killers that aid the process as well as blocking pain for example?

And I had a pretty positive birth experience (which in hindsight I put down to my doula's help and advice)... if I hadn't, I can't imagine how I'd be feeling about the whole thing.

Kirsti has it bought your crack together?
I'm alternating between standard position and lying down feeding on the bad boob the most comfortable is lying down but I'm worried I will be squashing some of the breast and not draining it properly so are forcing myself to feed in different positions

goats I'm totally with you there. I love, love, love not being pregnant any more.

badger I can walk properly, wee more than 10ml, poo properly without spending half an hour thinking about it, eat anything I like with no heartburn, eat a decent sized meal, breath without having to sigh to get enough air, breath through my nose for the first time since January, the veins in my leg have gone down, my boobs aren't resting on anything, I'm motivated to do stuff, I've got my sense of humour back, I'm actually interested in the news again, libido has come back (ok, can't do too much with that yet).. it's ace. Don't even mind the pile and the nip pain or the jelly belly.

Goats hells yes on how different labour would be treated if it were blokes nether regions involved! "Oh we're just going to cut this to get baby out" . And putting women through trial by induction rather than elective CS very often resulting in EMCS just makes me - it can't even be more resource efficient (and it can be brutal)? But then I don't think blokes would beat themselves up for using analgesia and hold natural childbirth up as a medal of honour in the way that women do.