November 2014 - newborn thread!

[Greenstone]

Welcome to all the November 2014 babies! Let all the post partum rejoicing and angst begin...

ohmjh, I found that having a warm bath before I tried to go to the toilet really helped the first few times. I've heard people say that holding a clean pad over your stitches while you go can help as well.

DS is booked in at the Drs at half 4- he's full of cold, which is no surprise really, as DS, DH and I are all snuffly too, but since he's so young I can't give calpol or vapour rub, I wanted some advice on what to do to help him. He struggled with sleep last night because every time I laid him down, he started making choking noises, so ended up spending a lot of the night on my chest as it helped him to breathe

Anna such a shame your hosp stay wasn't more supportive, our nurses were stretched but they helped as much as they could. They also weren't set up for cosleeping but because of my section I popped her between my legs so I could just raise the head and feed or change her.

1st trip out today, bit of shopping, realized I'm not quite as strong as I thought, still very slow and achy getting around.

pink I hope the docs can help.

After feeling a bit smug with my dairy free diet and very calm baby for the last three days, today has been a nightmare! Baby has thrown up 3 whole feeds!! 2 in her car seat (which now smells really sour). I really thought we'd cracked it with the dairy free so have no idea why there was so much vomit today. Maybe I put her in the car seat too soon after a feed? Maybe I didn't keep her upright long enough? Was it the paracetamol I took yesterday? Reflux maybe? Is it because she hasn't poo'ed for 2 days? Either way she's shattered now but just won't settle.

I shall never feel smug again!!

Can I ask how long your babies spent on the boob in 24 hr at roughly a week old?

Sensing some doubts from DH about how long M is on me for.

Come to join you guys finally! :) Due date was 13/11, DD finally arrived after an induction on Thursday 28th. Big baby 10lb 4oz!

Pretty much constantly at times Amy. I just fed her on demand which would sometimes be every 20 minutes or every 3 hours.

amy - just looked back on the app we're using and from day 7-9 it was 2h59, 2h20, 3h20.

Hiya Ihate!! Congratulations on your new DD!!

Congratulations ihate! Same story as me...I went 15 days over and dd was 10lb3oz!!

Welcome and congratulations to all newcomers.
Get well soon to poorly babies who are full of cold.
We are going to attempt a trip to town for Christmas shopping tomorrow. I haven't taken her many places or attempted feeding in public. In my head I am planning a route round the shops we need to go to and identifying cafes and coffee shops where we can stop for feeds.
She has slept on and off all day today, waking mostly to protest that I have had to put her down, which doesn't bode well for sleeping tonight. I have been taking the path of least resistance and letting sleep next to me at night, but I realised I have 25 days until we sleep at my parents. Due to number of family staying there, DH and I have to share a room with both girls with DD2 in Moses basket. The double bed there is not big enough for her to sleep in with us, so I have to convince her that the basket is a good place to sleep (and stay quiet all night so as not to wake DD1, hmm wish us luck with that!)

Hello all. Baby Malory was born on Thursday morning at 8 lbs 12oz. He came via a very off plan forceps in theatre birth with an epidural. 3rd degree tear with episiotomy. That all seems to be healing well. We only got home last night.

Malory fed non stop last night and would not be put down until 6 this morning. Had some bitching baby blues which have included so much adrenaline I can't sleep even when I have had so little. He is down stairs asleep with OH and I am lying here trying to sleep and can't. x

Re feeding in public- primark has some Jersey snood loop scarf type things for £3 which have been very good for covering up at the start of a feed, while she's getting latched on. I am using breast shells, so that's nigh on impossible to sort out discreetly! and then at the end of the feed I'm needing to put a bit of milk on and then lansinoh which is almost impossible to do without having nipple on display. I've even pulled the scarf over mine and the baby's head to get started off :-) then when you're done it's just a normal scarf. I'm hoping once I'm done with the special nipple attention I'll be much more relaxed about it...

Congrats catg on your son - lovely name!

Hey catg you really went through it hey? Wonder if that addsnto the baby blues, I've suffered too, just easing off now and I kept dwelling on the parts of my birth that I was most unhappy about. Really do feel much better now so hope it passes for you too.

moggle love those scarves! I've been way more relaxed about nips out than I thought I'd be. Fil is the only one I've not done it in front of really.

happy I'm trying to strike the same balance. Did will feed laying with me then I pop her back in the basket but during the afternoon she'll only settle sleeping with me or dp. So no afternoon plans for a bit! I've heard john lewis and debenhams have lovely feeding spaces.

moggle- which app did you use? We are using baby day book and it seems great at the mo but always out for new tech!
ladydolly- may well be. I was completely beside myself at times today, hysterical tears, unable to explain why. Urgh. I feel more human now but aware 4.30 am may not feel like that. x

Using "babyconnect" - I am in love with the graphs it produces! It syncs across mine and DH's phone so when he's back at work (tomorrow, eek!) he can see how she's feeding (and pooing...)

Evening all Congrats & welcome to new mums!

Amy - just checking back on my app, we average about 6hrs a day latched on to the boob and have done throughout Can't believe that's twice as much as Moggle!! Apparently using nipple shields can make feeds longer, though J is a bugger for dozing off at the boob.
We're using Baby Feed app, which also does awesome charts I love a statistic! So far it tells me that our average feed length is 44mins, and average time between feeds is 2hrs 55mins, and he eats on average 8 times a day, wees 6 times and poops 5

What's everyone else's total feed time in 24hrs? Ish? Everywhere says to feed 8-12 times a day, for as long as they want if they're feeding on demand, but it never says how long all together is normal! Interested to know if he's a big slow coach or just greedy like his mum

Feeding every 1-3 hrs here mostly every hr seems to be always on. In 24hrs we prob feeding for good 8-10hrs of that!! Each feed is 20-30mins on each boob!! We are day 11 now.

Nighttime we can have anything between 45mins to 2hrs sleep between feeds with 2hrs happening once in a night if at all.

I remember from ds 1 it being the same but by 8weeks he fed on demand in day n then 7, 12,4 at night anything after 4 sleepwise was bonus, by 12 weeks was feedings 7 and 4 and by 15weeks was feeding at 7pm down at 8 til 6am and went in own room then n soon slept til 7. Was exc bf as well.

Total feed time here now (20 days today) is from 3.5-5 hrs. She is fairly efficient though it seems.
God I wish she'd sleep in her bednest :-( cosleeping is beginning to wear thin. She's not got a cold but always gets a bit snuffly at night and I feel like I hardly get any sleep with all her noises. DH back to work tomorrow so the nights are mostly going to be down to me now. No more extra few hours zzz while he takes her in the morning :-(

After some very unsettled nights my new trick with J is to hold him after a feed until I know what he's going to do before trying to put him down. If he wants more food he'll perk back up, but if he's sleepy he nods off and I'm waiting 20mins or so til he's properly deep asleep before putting him down in his Bednest.
I think before I was putting him down too soon so he'd stir & cry, and night have slept otherwise but IVe ended up feeding him again... Probably going to cause me problems with getting him to self settle later, but it's working for my sanity now!
Good night - slept 11-2:30, fed for an hour then snoozed on me and put down at 4, slept til 7.
I'm still silly levels of tired though My body doesn't seem to realise that that's about as much sleep as it's going to be getting from here on in!

Plans for today put on hold. We have second urgent GP appointment in less than 2 weeks. We went last week about her terrible rash. This morning she passed quite a lot of red blood in her poo. Dr Google says that could be anything or nothing. She seems otherwise well, although now I wonder about the sleeping all day yesterday especially as she also slept well last night, so hopefully it is nothing and I will just feel bad about wasting the GP's time again.

Good night here too! Fed at 10 for an hour, then DD slept until 2:00, just over an hour feed then slept 3:15-6. All in the Moses basket too! I know it's still a one off at this stage because she's still too young for a pattern but yay! I was shattered after a couple of restless nights and hanging onto my emotional equilibrium by my fingernails.

Think MIL gave DP s bollocking for leaving me alone with the baby all day every day when he's meant to be on paternity leave - he has just refused to allow me to get up so I'm feeding the baby in bed while he's making me a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich. This is a good morning!

X-post there, hope your LO is just getting her systems into gear happy, let us know what the Doctor says!

Why does my phone capitalise Doctor? 'The Doctor' makes me think of Doctor Who

Eastmids you're my hero to achieve that sleeping with your ebf ds1! I'll be looking for tips in a few weeks! Dd1 was okay until 12 weeks then horrendous until about 6 months then okay again but had at least one quick night feed until 12 months.

Middling night here, not as bad as the previous night. She did short stints in the sleepyhead all night so it was a nice break from her being in bed.

The 20 minute wait is key, Nessalina! Tiring but worth it!

I usually fall asleep during the 20 min wait! Good to know it might work if I can just stay awake!

Dr had a really good look at DS and decided that it is just a cold, but his temperature was a little bit high, so she's prescribed calpol to bring it down. She had to get a book out to work out how much he could have based on his weight, and wrote a very detailed note to the pharmacist explaining how much to give me. The pharmacist read it with a face somewhere between this and this , then went away and came back with the tiniest little syringe I have ever seen, and a diddy bottle of medicine!

I haven't been taking much notice of feed times after the first few days, so I'm not sure how long in total he spends on the boob, but he can go anywhere between an hour to about 3.5 hours in between feed times. If he's not too hungry, he'll sometimes feed on just one side, then want the other side quite soon after, but if he's starving, he'll have both sides at once, the go longer before the next feed. This cold has buggered things up a bit though, because he's finding it hard to stay attached for long- cue lots of very short feeds, with very small breaks in the middle. Am just reminding myself that it's only a phase, and he's probably doing a lot of comfort sucking too, because of feeling rough.