June 2015 - our adorable babies are here!

[comeagainforbigfudge]

Right, I'll start us a post natal thread that we can gibber on.

We had vomit sunami X2 yesterday. One just before our dinner, which necessitated a quick bath/hair wash (which toots hated til sat her in the water then she was happy -ish). 2nd was about half 11 and all down her dad, took. But since then she slept for four hour stretches and been much more settled.

We formula feeding on demand (anywhere from 30ml to 90mls) but I don't know if we fed too much or didn't wind properly. But she is pooing for Britain so no problems that end.

Pas... Is the pain in your boob or in the nipple?
If its in your boob it could be that your letdown of hindmilk isnt quiet triggering as it should as your nipple isnt quiet stimulated enough due to the shield, this can cause milk to be retained in the breast and can cause mastitis.... Try massaging boob whilst feeding and any lumps if you push them should release the milk.... That might help the pain.
I do this all the time whilst feeding to ensure my boob is fully emptied before swapping sides.
Zah... Yay small victory... He will get used to it, its just a slightly different technique needed for nipple than shield, if he starts to get worked up pop the shield back on and dont try to remove it if hes worked up to begin with... I also avoided removing at night at first as she was lazier when tired.
5 1/2 weeks now and not using the shields at all.
Thanks for letting me vent! I actually feel abit better for just writing it down! I know some ppl are having much tougher times and i do know its just hormones, just hitting late this time i think.

Hi there, can I say a quick hello? Dd was born on 8th June 2 weeks 'early' so is 4 weeks now. She was v sleepy and contented in the first few weeks but has seriously woken up to herself now and have just had probably the worst night so far.... Up at 345 for a feed and she was really wakeful, couple of big sick ups Andy unsettled, she took another 60ml about 6 then finally settled on me 0630 and I dosed only to have to get up at 715 for my older 2. Just wanted a moan, I don't do well with lack of sleep..... We also had our first bout of inconsolable crying after school time yesterday til evening which resulted in a crying mummy too, hoping it won't happen again today!
Anyway she is gorgeous, I feel very blessed but my goodness I find this newborn bit hard.

iwant hello and welcome! I feel your pain with the trying juggle a newborn with older children! My dd1 is 6 and dd2 is 5weeks so have to make sure both girls are settled at same time usually which is quite hard but we are getting there slowly now... It will pass, and being teary and emotional is completely normal so don't worry if you have to have a good cry every now and then! Hope you have a better nights sleep tonight

Thankyou, and congratulations to you and everyone else. Amazing how I can go from amazing rush of love and happiness about this beautiful tiny thing to complete despair and tears, and back, within a few hours. I've found the first 10 weeks or so hard with my other two, am trying so hard not to wish it away this time and enjoy the snuggles, but am also relieved we're 1/3 of the way to the magic 12 week point (which has always been a turning point for me before)

Congratulations IWant, I think I remember you posting on one of the old threads a while back? I remember your username I

Hi all. Just reading all your comments and how everyone is getting on has made me feel better. My little one was born 24th june after a 4 day induction and a rather traumatic emergency c section with a postpartum bleed for me and a rather panicked hubby left holding a baby outside theatres for 3 hours waiting for news on me. Suffice to say we've needed some time to get to grips with each other!

She's 2 weeks today and I really do think it depends on how much sleep I've had as to how the day will go. Today is dh first day back at work and almost as if dd knew she slept beautifully all night between 3 hourly feeds and is still asleep now. Yesterday was a completely different picture; both of us cried all day and the only thing we managed to do was get snot on daddy (both of us) and cuddle through the tears. I-m really hoping today is a small step in the right sirection and not an anomaly.

Oh and it's also nice to read I'm not the only mummy with a formula fed baby. The guilt and expectation I had around bf has added to my tears and upset!

Congratulations rugby, sounds like you're doing brilliantly after such a traumatic start. My tearfulness peaked at about 2 weeks, then I turned a corner and had the first day without tears, and now at 1 month it's only every so often. You will cope with your DH back at work and hopefully get confidence and a sense of achievement with that. I totally agree about how you're feeling going with the sleep and I can be up and down day to day.
Try your best to resist the negative feelings about ff, it's completely fine. I've been there and felt awful about dd1, it was the right decision at the time but a few weeks in the reasons for my decision blurred in my memory and I questioned if I should have 'tried harder' but it really isn't that simple. Now on dd3, I was hoping 3rd time lucky and bf would click into place but it just didn't. At least this time I can look and my 7 and 4 year old dd's who are bright and healthy and remind myself that ff did them no harm!

Thanks so much for the kind words iwant. It's good to hear from someone who has been there before, this is my first and because we wanted and waited for her for so long I think we overlooked the fact that one day she would arrive and we'd be left with the enormous task of raising her!!

Good luck and best wishes to you all on here!

Hello new people!!

How are we all? I just wrote a lovely long msg. DD woke up demanding food and when I came back to finish msg, Internet had crashed! How annoying is that

Anyway. So far today I have managed to polish living room surfaces AND somehow managed to sort pushchair one handed!! It's meant to be easy enough to do that but I hadn't mastered it. Until today

Ah rugby. I have to ff because of mess I need to go back on. There are many many reasons people can't or decide not to bf. At the end if the day, you need to do what works. I tried to bf, despite knowing I'd need to switch to formula anyway, it was an epic failure for many reasons (tiredness/traumatic birth/lack of mw support) BUT my DD is putting weight on, sleeping fairly well and her head control is fabulous to watch. Even the HV has commented on it!!

Try not to let it get to you too much. It's not easy I know. DD is my first. She's 4weeks now and I'm still having teary days/bad days then a good day.

The good days are slowly starting to outweigh the bad thankfully!!

Hello and welcome rugby, your words resonated with me. I waited for so long for DS (having had 2 previous MCs) that I didn't really ever think it would be possible to have a baby here with us.
I am slowly progressing with weaning off the nipple shields. I still use them during the night, or if DS gets irritable, but I have managed a couple of entire feeds without them.
Are any of you thinking of going on holidays with your new babies? I will be travelling in about 1.5 months (so when DS will be about 2.5 months). It will involve a shortish flight (1.5 hours) and then 3 hours route... Starting to worry about the logistics of it all...

Thank you comeagain and zahaziland. Knowing where you're at at 4 weeks is really encouraging. I have now been introduced to infacol which appears to be sorting so many of dd's problems so that helps make everything feel a lot more comfortable.

The weekend is here so fingers crossed two sets of hands on the job for a couple of days helps spread the load and share the sleep!

Hello ladies

I've come across from antenatal page, my little boy is just over 2 weeks old. Really interested to read about using nipple shields as I've really struggled with feeding as he hasn't latched on well and I've ended up so shredded I got infection in both nipples! Now trying to express whilst recover in the hope to re establish feeding. Almost ready to try again but I'm really nervous!

Just out of interest... Are you babies happy to be put down when they are awake? And how long for?

Hope everybody is getting lots of rest this weekend x x x (no visitors for me yippee!!!)

Hi all... Just catching up during night feed... We are at my parents' this weekend for dd's birthday; ds's first trip "away"

Zah, we're going away mid August when ds will be 8 weeks and it's a similar journey length - 2 hrs flight and about 5 on train. We did it with dd at the same age. It was planned like a military operation but was feasible!

Roly ds will only be put down in his bouncer in the day, and then only on special occasions and usually plugged into a dummy!

Oh good lord. Spent nearly 2 hours trying to get DD to sleep last night. She wasn't crying the whole time. Just every time she looked like she was out for the count, eyes would open! Did finally succeed though!! Thankfully!

Overtired wee thing. Think its time to start a routine for daytime. Researching that today!

Hi roly I have to put my DD down when she is awake. She likes to kick and wave arms around a lot. I found lying her next to a windows also helps. She seems to like the light.

I do feel like Im supposed to "entertain" her more but have no idea what I should be doing. I just mimic her wee noises and pull faces at her. Oh and try to read stories. In between feeding, nappy changed and trying to get her to sleep of course!!

comeagain how old is your DD? I have no routine! Feel like I literally have no idea what I'm doing.

pas glad it's not just me!!!

Good morning

roly: for me nipple shields were so useful - I suspect that I would not have been able to breast-feed if not for them. I used them from the beginning and only now starting to wean off (at 4 weeks). They made it possible for DS to latch on and feed, and I had no pain or discomfort.

pasbeaucoup: glad to hear that it is possible to travel with small baby (and survive!). Any tips welcome...

comeagain: I had the same reaction as roly, I have no routine, no clue what I am doing, and have often spent 2+ hours trying to get DS down. For example yesterday DS slept quite well during the day and late afternoon, and of course then had no interest in going to sleep last night. He fed around 10pm, and then he only went off to sleep at around half past midnight. I spent all the intervening time, trying to either put he down, cuddling him after a while as he would cry, trying to offer breastmilk, etc, etc...

DD is just over 4 weeks roly

I have no clue what I'm doing either. I'm completely winging it most days. But for my own sanity I feel it's time to look into a simple routine. So yesterday we tried the eat, play, sleep routine. Tried to get her back to sleep about an hour after feeding. To varying success. She'll sometimes sleep for 30mins or an hour.
We still very much feeding on demand though as she quite often only takes 60mls then refuses the rest even after being burped.

She did manage to sleep for at least one 4hour block last night though!

Hope you all managed to get some rest last night.

We also have no routine yet and are very much led by DS. He generally wants feeding as soon as he wakes up then might be happy to look around or let us make faces at him or talk nonsense, then feed again until he falls asleep. Sometimes he spends his whole waking time feeding and seems to fall asleep but as soon as I move he wakes and signals that he wants more food again.

Well done on the 4 hour block last night come. I remember falling asleep just after midnight and then woke up at 6:15 this morning when he started wriggling a bit. It felt amazing to have that much rest in one go, although my boobs felt like over-inflated water balloons.

pas you give me hope, we are going away in mid August for a couple of days to spend time with the ILs, involving an hour and a half on the train.

Dd is also still quite random (5 wks today). She lasts pretty well between feeds normally (3-4 hrs) as long as she's taken a good amount (90-120ml) so I guess once we've had the first feed I know roughly how the day will pan out. I try to feed her between 9.30 and 11pm then she'll usually just have one night feed between 2 and 3.30am. Sometimes she'll be fast asleep again within 45 mins, other times she might have some happy awake time then squirming etc get really tired and fight sleep and can be awake 2-2.5 hrs with some 10 minute dozes. Problem with that can be that at the 2/2.5 hr point it's tricky to know if she's unsettled with tiredness or is hungry again! (Tho feeding again before 3 hrs normally seems to result in a sick up!)

No hope here of putting her down awake yet, has to be fast asleep and gently lowered and sometimes there are 1 or 2 failed attempts! Of course there's no telling when the long awake times will happen, had a few nights on the trot where she was awake for a couple of hours at a time at night which was not fun, thankfully last few nights She's been back asleep in her crib after about an hour & more awake in the day but know it can be different every day. She spends a lot of time in her baby bouncer as have 2 older ones so not much baby entertainment going on here!

zaha I have just used the shields and I'm so excited I was able to feed him! Not totally without pain but much much better.

Sounds like our sleep routines are similar to all of your experiences...although 3 hours awake last night was less of a pleasure!

Oh my poor colicky baby. I have bought gripe water as infacol not really doing the job.

Anyone else using/used it?

come in use both for Mabel and luckily for me they Are doing the trick.. I've also switched to the tommee tippee anti Colic bottles which also seem to be helping... Gripe water does help her do really big burps and she calms down quicker with it too, hope you have the same luck.. Colic is just awful for them

Come I'm off to get gripe water tomorrow to celebrate ds's one month birthday. (Funny kind of celebration!!) I love the stuff and still use it if I have a sore tummy!! My current bottle is out of date though...

Gripe water great for us too. He seems to quite like it and burps and/or fills his nappy as soon as he's had it. Tastes just as I remember from when I was little.

We have had real smiles this week, which has been amazing to see.

I have started co-sleeping with DS as it seems to be the only way we get to both sleep overnight, otherwise he falls asleep on me and I try to stay awake so I don't drop him or he wakes as I put him in the cot and starts rooting for the boob. The latter has carried on all night until I give up and put him in the bouncer, because it's practically day time, and he then sleeps for a couple of hours. However the co-sleeping is making DH very anxious, to the point where he is waking every 30 mins to check on Charles.