November 2014 - the one where we all get a good night's sleep

[moggle]

Here's hoping, anyway...

HAHAHA! Where did you get the rainbow things?

DS sadly wears far too much blue at the moment as we've been given a ton of agressively "Boy" clothes like denim dungarees and little blue nautical jackets. Oh well, he'll grow out of them soon enough.

Boys clothes are shit though aren't they? Its all either dinosaurs or tractors or "tiny tweed waiscoat like a mini country squire" WTF??

What pisses me off is that you can't even buy things in the girls section on the sly as even the jumpers invariably have some stupid frilly detail that gives the game away!

The legs are tights from jojomamanbebe. DH thinks I'm bonkers but he's comfy and it makes me smile!!!

mamalloyd that sounds very scary. I would have rung them too. Your poor DH must be feeling rubbish. My OH scratched DS with his watch the other day and was in tears over it.

Thanks for all the advice on the bottles. I know it will take time. I just don't want to turn feeding into a stressful time for him so I think I give up too quickly, as does OH.

Oh yeah...before he was born DS was born he wants going to wear blue. Fat chance of that. All the boy stuff is blue or very "Lord of the manor". I cope with the primary colour stuff with the dinosaurs etc on but the pale blue stuff other people have bought him is pretty bleugh.

Sent you a message twigletfiend

I'm not a girly girl so really didn't want babydolly in pink all the time but we got all her clothes from my very girly sister so there's been a lot of floral. No dresses as yet though. I like strong colours but you don't get much of that. and I'm too tight to buy new clothes when we have bags of free stuff

Completely ladydolly. We were very lucky to get some donations from friends. Most of it is fab (including his bright pink muslins he seems very attached to) but the baby grow with "mummy+daddy=perfect" does not leave the house. x

We've got a couple of vom-inducing frilly pink baby grows that DD wears when I suspect we may be due a poo explosion. So far she's only done that in the baby grows I like cowbag little darling that she is.

Today she is determined to see all of today. I can only hope that means big sleep tonight.... Yeah I know wishful thinking etc but I need a small bit of hope lol.

I hate living ontop of this sodding massive hill. Makes you feel a bit cut Off with no car ( needs fixing and DP is doing bits as and when he can) and not being fit enough to push the pram up the hill let alone shopping etc as well. I really want to go to the bumps and babes nct group on Tuesday but I think it might be a little while longer. The dogs going mental with her crap walks poor thing.

We didnt have any donations, so I had bought everything unisex and neutral, but once DD arrived she was given as presents lots of pink. Hey ho, as they say in my country of origin - one should not check the teeth of the given horse. So we use them, but I am content whenever DD grows out of any pink stuff.
Meanwhile i have moved on and am buying her clothing for later on sales. Got about 20 items for £60 from Mothercare. DD pretty much has everything for up to end of 2015.

Oh cat that is just delicious isn't it?? No word of a lie we have at least 10 babygros with different designs of 'I love mummy' or 'I love daddy'. That's my sister all over though bless her. She also gifted us the travel system, moses basket, bouncer, beanbag and a load of maternity gear (also pink and floral) so I won't look this gifthorse in the mouth. Long may her donations continue!

After a few difficult days babydolly has been asleep on either mine or dp's chest for over 3 hours. I actually think this might help her sleep later because she's been massively overtired the last 2 nights.

Re gender and clothes: we didn't find out in advance what we were having either time (we have 2 girls), and I hate girly pink and princessy and cutesy slogans. DD1 had very few pink clothes as a baby, some lovely dungarees and dinosaur clothes and mostly fairly gender-neutal stuff. Now, at the age of 3 and old enough to express an opinion, she much prefers pink and girly, so don't expect your non-girly clothes choices to last for long. I also have the in-laws who keep buying pink things and frilly dresses. i wonder where DD2 will wear 2 short-sleeved frilly, flowery dresses in late winter/ early spring anyway.

We have had 2 days of almost continuous crying here. We get about 1hr each day of happy smily girl, little bits of sleep if held, demands to be fed every 1 or 2 hours and a lot of miserable crying. This afternoon, DD1 also cried for no particular reason/ because she couldn't get her coat on while messing about/ "because the baby is making too much noise". I almost cried to at that point. :(

I don't know what is wrong. It could be anything or nothing, but the options include feeling ill after her jabs or reacting to me eating dairy. I tried asking DH what he thought about the dairy, but he, helpfully, said he couldn't remember if there had been any noticable difference when I wasn't eating it. He thinks I should give it up again and see if she seems happier (he doesn't believe that it takes at least 2 weeks for the dairy to leave her system as he can't find any scientific proof online). 10 days return to dairy eating makes it even more apparent what I'll be missing out on, and this time I think it might be forever as long as I breastfeed her. 4 weeks seemed prtty terrible but at least there was an end in sight. I breastfed her sister for 2.8years until she chose to stop, and it wouldn't be fair to deny DD2 that, although DH and all my family think I should give her formula if it is going to be a long-term thing. Looks like I too could be living off jus-roll pain au chocolat and 70% dark chocolate from Aldi and mourning the lack of cheese in my life now :(

Sorry this is such a miserable post and I am too tired to correct all the spelling mistakes/ typos.

happy Is there any way you can try out formula for just one day? With you expressing? Cos if it is a dairy the difference when you take it away is dramatic. Do you have an agreeable GP who would write you a presecription just to try it?

And if there's no difference then just keep on BFing.

Just realised no-one responded to katie76 about her abdominal pains - Was it a C section, Katie?

Twiglet I meant to ask you - when you bring the baby into the bed at 6am how do you do it? DS will only settle with his head on my shoulder all snuggled in, but then I'm terrified to go back to sleep!

Yep all mothers of girls have warned me that everything will be pink and sparkly once they can choose themselves.

Oh yes, katie I didn't reply because I had a cs and subsequent infections so all pain has there. Now infection has gone I do have aching muscles, although possibly from rocking a 12lb baby for hours every day...

Anna, I lie in my side with my arm up under the pillow so I can't roll without moving it. I pop DD on her side facing me, nose level with nipple, and hook my 'top' arm over and around her butt. She latches on and off at will that way, and being squished up against my belly seems to be comfortable enough for her to sleep. I have little boobs so do gave to tilt a bit to get my nipple where she can reach, but I just adjust my position so I'm comfy while she's latched on that first time and then its all good. I never put her between me and DP though, only ever so that I'm in between them. He's a heavy sleeper and I'd be too nervous he would roll onto her in the night.

Dairy free ladies, the brand Lactofree do a cheddar cheese that tastes similar to the real deal and is absolutely fine on/in stuff too. I like their milk in my tea too - am cooking with almond milk but it just doesn't cut it in tea!!

Just wondering if anyone else still has hours of cluster feeding going on every evening? DD hasn't really stopped this since birth (now 8 weeks) and I am beginning to wonder if it will ever end!

Only 5 weeks here but we've had one hell of a day of it and she's been feeding on and off since about 6! Finally got her to fall asleep on my shoulder but it's one of those times you know she's going wake up as soon as I move. Argh.

twiglet people keep telling me about the lactofree cheese, but when I looked at it, it is not dairy free. It is only free from Lactose, not other cow's milk proteins, sadly.

DD has slept from about 9pm until about 3.30, so will hopefully feel a bit better after that. Hopefully I will too, and today will be a better day even without cheese or the chocolate mint yoghurt which I didn't get round to eating yesterday.

Oh poop, thanks for correcting me, happy! I'm off the lactose rather than CMP as think the wind issue is just related to gut maturity - no other symptoms of intolerance, just excessive gas! Will double check with doctor on Weds though maybe.

I have found that white noise puts our LO to sleep much faster than silence. There's a YouTube video thats 10 hours of white noise so now have that playing all night. DD now awake for the second time tonight, which is really not bad for her. She did 4 hours earlier then another 3 until now, so am feeling really quite zen about things at the moment!

Barmy, DS cluster feeds nearly every evening from about 4 through to 9 or 10ish. It's exhausting but the trade off is that he tends to do 4 solid hours to the next feed from whenever he stops. I leave him with DP and try to get some sleep because he then wakes up every hour or two hours from then on.

Anna - I do same as Twiglet if I bring dd into bed with me too. I'm not bf anymore but feeding laying down was her favourite position so if I can't get her settled I pop her in next to me laying on her side with nose level with nipple & she grabs hold of me with her hands & snuggles in. She just seems to like the closeness & will go right to sleep every time. I still cant work out which was is worse to lay - with ddon the outside where she could potentially fall off the bed (its high) or in the middle where dh could potentially roll on her. I curl around her so like to hope she is protected enough from dh but I feel like I have to sleep with one eye open just incase. So its not quality sleeping time!

Well after a wakeful night on saturday, she slept a lot of yesterday (again) so thought we might get another wakeful night. She fed at 6.30pm, 11.30pm & 4am, was a bit unsettled 7.30-9 last night but otherwise slept all night & is still zonked out now!

Thanks Thisis, glad it isn't just us! I am hoping it lessens soon.. Good idea to get a break after that so you can get some sleep.

DD is still only doing 2 1/2 hour stints of sleep at the longest which is exhausting me but hopefully that will extend soon.

Omama, I roll up a blanket and pop it behind DD so she can't roll off the bed - for me that is the safest option as it's not something that can fall on or cover her and DP is such a heavy sleeper there's no way I will put her between us! It doesn't have to be a big roll either, DD not able to roll herself over yet so no chance she's going to push herself over it.

DD2 is much happier this morning, which is a relief as DD1 woke up vomiting. We are all sat in front of CBeebies in our pyjamas. I worry for DD2 catching it as well as her sister keeps touching her and playing with her toys. I could really do without all of us coming down with a vomiting bug. She is complaining she is hungry despite being sick.

Ah, i bought the Lactofree cheese the other day & have eaten it twice! Oh well.

Not a terrible night by our standards - the usual feeds at 2.30 and 5.30. But the best thing was that he didn't get unsettled till 7.30 which was fantastic. And even then when I picked him up be was soaked through his clothes so it might have been that instead.

When he was changed I brought him into the bed to feed him and stretched him under my armpit to feed and it was fine. I'm just going to have to be stricter about not snuggling him up on my shoulder nose to nose.

By the way, he's just got soaked through again - two nappies in a row! They're the Pampers dry ones - dry my arse! We'll have to get different ones this morning as he plainly doesn't fit them right.