March 2016 - I can't think of a pithy title because I'm too sleep deprived :/

[DomesticAnarchist]

New thread?
Sorry, really couldn't think of something humorous!

Ring out of hours, mags. Don't muck around with mastitis (the farmers round here certainly don't!)

Agreed, get yourself some antibiotics ASAP. Poor you!

Magpie Milk blister and exactly the same pain I had before when I had mastitis.

Seriously considering giving up breastfeeding - this is getting a bit ridiculous.

Oh tri you sound really, understandably fed up. Have you got yourself some antibiotics this time yet? I'm sure you know all the tricks but I've just had a scalding hot shower which made hand expressing from the soreness slightly less horrific, worth a try?
Please be kind to yourself, you have BF your lovely baby for 4. On this despite all the bad luck you've had with it, that is amazing.

Thanks dom and swear. You are of course completely right and that is what I would tell anyone...BUT DH is away so I'm home alone with 3 children, so I'm sweating/feeding/expressing it out dosed up with ibuprofen overnight and GP in the morning (with them all in tow) if no better. DH rarely goes away and it often goes wrong when he does...remember my Swine Flu week in Feb anyone?! I'm generally very capable but seem unable to remember healthy when he's away

Oh no magpie what shitty timing. Is there anyone who could sit with the children for you? When is your dh home?

trijo I totally understand why you might want to stop, you've had a bad time of it. You've done nearly five months, that's amazing! Only another few weeks and you'll be weaning, and the thought of feeding them something other than breastmilk will seem less odd. But if you do want to carry on, then I'm cheering you on, you can do it! You've got past this before and can do it again. Take the antibiotics, take it easy, and look after yourself. You'll be better before you know it.

Sorry to everyone who is suffering with painful boobs. When DS was born I tried to breastfeed for the first week but he was jaundiced and sleepy and it didn't work out. As a result they got so engorged and it was absolute agony.

Poor DS has not had a very good day today. Naps have been a disaster, he had three but none of them lasted longer than 30 minutes. It's such a struggle to get him to nap then when he finally does they are often really short. Yet, he goes off to sleep beautifully at bedtime. I don't understand!! Also I think his teeth are bothering him. He had his hands stuffed in his mouth for a lot of the afternoon and was dribbling loads. I've got some of those water filled teethers in the fridge so hopefully if he's bad again tomorrow they might help. To top it all off, and probably as a result of poor sleep and hurty teeth, I took him out for what I thought would be a nice relaxing walk and he had a full scale meltdown in his pram. I kept stopping to see what the matter was and he was grinning and laughing at me, then as soon as we started to walk again he would get all upset. We literally ran home and I have vowed never to go out anywhere ever again!!

Oh dear! Please may tomorrow be a better day!

Ah, Tri and magpie, your poor things. This repeated mastitis you're having is utterly udderly? Too soon? shit.

As Swear says "Take the antibiotics, take it easy, and look after yourself. You'll be better before you know it."

I've been reading about the nap struggles this week and realised I don't really pay attention to daytime naps. DS2 often has somewhere between 20-45 minutes at a time, and is rarely awake more than 1.5 hrs at a time. Other than that there's no real routine to it.

We used the pushchair today and he was a bit grizzly. Usually he's in the sling and sleeps for hours.

Our real issue is DS1. He was fine for most of the day but on the way home became totally OTT unreasonable. You know when they're watching you whilst doing something they know they shouldn't waiting for you to tell them off so they can laugh in your face and just carry on? We had that. About anything and everything. And every single thing took multiple requests so that every little think ended up with us shouting and shrieking at him as the first however many reasonable attempts were ignored. Why do they do this?

Ugh.

So I'm making a timetable with him tomorrow. And a meal plan. And we're going to try to stick to it in the vain hope that some routine and structure will be better for everyone.

I guarantee we'll be 'off-plan' by 3pm tomorrow. (This is not the first time I've tried this).

Good luck today dom large for if the plan doesn't work.
Sympathies to all the painful boobs - must be awful
We have no bumbo but my maternity pillow zips into a circle for him to sit up in so use that. fs so jealous rthat you got the nemo jumperoo, I wanted it so much. We got a regular fisher price one from Gumtree but ds hates it so selling it on as seems a watste.
We are sleeping 7:30-6 with feeds at 12/1 and 3:30/4. He's still in our room so I'm saying this is pretty good going (though I'd love a sleep in!)

Sorry to hear about dodgy boob issues tri and magpie. Hope it gets sorted soon. tri as others have said you've done amazing to get this far with all the issues you've had. It might be worth checking if you have a breastfeeding network drop in local to you (i think you can search on the bfn website) to see if you can talk to someone knowledgeable about bf who might be able to help work out why you keep getting blockages. Have you tried breast compressions during feeding? I've had to do them with both my children as often would get blocked in the early days and it really helped.

Sorry to hear about your shitty day and baby meltdown dotty. Could it be a developmental leap? How old is your DS again? We've just had a few weeks of nap refusing and poor sleep coinciding with the fourth leap on the wonder weeks app (if you don't have the app it might be worth investing in!) And last night dd2 slept through for the first tine ever from 6.30-6 which coincided with the app saying we were out of the leap, going from waking every three hours to sleeping through so its a bit of a shock to say the least! Probably just a one off but at least i know she can do it - dd2 didn't start sleeping through till she was well over a year old and even then it was irregular.

Yay to the sleeping through marmite!

Dotty we had a bad day yesterday too and ours was definitely teething. Poor DS was out of sorts the whole day despite me throwing everything at him - anbesol, nelsons teething granules, water filled ring (he doesn't seem to like this!), non-water filled ring and eventually, when i was about to lose it around 4pm, Calpol, which finally cheered him up a bit. In desperation I ordered a Sophie the giraffe off amazon so we'll see if that helps today.

On the upside DS "slept in" (how my perspective has changed on what this means!!) this morning until 6.15, hallelujah! Somehow the time starting with a 6 instead of a 5 seems so much better!

me and dotty sounds like we had v similar days yesterday!! Here's hoping for a better one today.

marmite I'm so jealous!! Fx it lasts.

Sorry to hear of the dodgy boobs :( I haven't had mastitis so far but I've had plugged ducts which was bad enough so I really feel for you! And can understand why you'd want to stop bf. You've done amazing to get this far!

Good luck dom, lots of for you!

dotty that sounds like my life at the moment. Yesterday was unusual as I managed to get DS to nap for 1.5 hours, 45 mins and 2.5 hours. I thought, great, he'll be in a much better mood! But no... And he was still screaming (in DH's arms - we don't leave him to cry) for a good 20 mins before going to sleep at half 8, then awake 30 mins later. Wish I knew what we were doing wrong. No doubt 'experts' would say we've brought this on ourselves by rocking/feeding to sleep :(

We're off on hols on Friday, I should be looking forward to it but I'm dreading it.

The Nemo jumperoo is cool Q but at least you were sensible, especially as your DS hated it!

FS you've done nothing wrong, some babies are just like that. Just luck of the draw . It will get better. That's what I tell myself!

By all accounts I was the baby from hell, screaming all the time and waking up to 14 times a night . However I was an excellent toddler, child and teenager

Morning!

Good luck with the timetable today domestic.

Marmite, my DS is 18 weeks and 4 days. Funnily enough I stumbled across the wonder weeks app last night! It's saying we are in the 4th leap and there are 30 days until we are out of it so this should be fun! Wow to last nights 6.30-6, that's really good!

Me, sorry your DS was struggling with his teeth yesterday too. I'll be interested to hear how you get on with Sophie. I was looking at amber teething bracelets last night but I'm not sure! Yay for the lie in! It makes such a difference.

FS, you're not doing anything wrong it's just babies! They were good naps he had yesterday, it's a shame he was still grizzly afterwards. I must admit DS is usually fed to sleep for a nap as it's the only way to get him to sleep, but at bedtime he will happily self settle. Odd baby! I think I get too het up about his naps to be honest, maybe I should just go with the flow. Where are you going on holiday?

We are off to mother and baby group this morning. To be honest, yesterdays shenanigans really knocked my confidence and I would happily become a hermit and stay at home until DS is 18! It doesn't help that as I was trying to get home, other people walking nearby were offering not so helpful suggestions and one person even laughed. Need to get out though otherwise I will turn it into a thing when it's not.

FS actually one thing you could try - putting him to bed earlier? Especially if he doesn't have good naps in the day.

Bedtime here improved a thousand fold once we started putting him to bed at 6 - I know it's stupidly early but he goes down no problem 9 times out of 10 since we started doing it. I used to not believe he could be ready for bed at that time but apparently he is. Gone out the window since teething but never mind.

To those feeling guilty for feeding to sleep - don't!!! I'm really jealous of you as DS will not fall asleep on the boob ever (except for his night feeds). It won't be forever, why not do what works?

I HATE teething. The stupid thing has been poking through the bottom gum for nearly 2 weeks now and it still hasn't grown at all! I feel worried about how much medicine I'm having to give him, is that a concern? He's had either calpol or neurofen every day now for about ten days, sometimes both. Within proper dosage limits and no more than 3 doses (altogether, not 3 doses calpol & 3 doses neurofen) per 24 hours. But still, it's a lot. But nothing else seems to help him.

Thanks everyone! I definitely wouldn't worry so much about naps if he wasn't so overtired and upset all the time. So he definitely needs his naps.

maybe it is definitely something we need to try. We come up at 8pm now and start trying to get him to sleep, which usually involves me feeding him lying down. This sometimes works then he'll wake 45 mins later and feed back to sleep. But more often than not it doesn't work and he gets upset. I think the 45 min wake up is what puts me off getting him down earlier. I just can't imagine that he'll not be wide awake again soon! But maybe him being overtired is the problem.

I'd rather not say where we're going (paranoid) but needless to say it involves a 3 hour flight.

Sorry to hear of teething woes. I have no advice but am interested in the calpol question.

FS if he's overtired that could be the cause of him waking only 45 mins later. I would experiment with an earlier bedtime - nothing to lose

DS thankfully asleep but a dose of neurofen was the only thing that took the edge off. Poor love.

me dotty teething playing havoc with naps yesterday here too. Everytime DH had her she seemed to descend into wails. We can see a couple of bottom teeth just under the gum and she is red chinned from sucking and chewing anything in sight. She did sleep 10-8 with one wake for a feed at 4 and she is much brighter today - though her new rolling ability is making changing and drssing a challenge.

marmite great sleepthrough, hope you got a good sleep too.

tri and magpie hope you are getting boobs sorted. A friend has had mastitis twice and a milk blister, sounds awful.

You people with babies sleeping through need to give me the secret - DS wants feeding every 1.5-3 hours at night. V v annoying as I know he can go longer - he's gone 6 hours in the day without boob! Im trying to get him to feed more and more often in the day but he won't.

maybe i had similar issues with dd1 feeding frequently at night and less so during the day. I ended up having to set a limit of not feeding her if it had been less than two hours since her last feed at night. Dh had to try to rock her to sleep and after a few nights she did improve and feed more during the day. Im not sure I'd recommend it though as it was tough and her sleep was still terrible. We never really got longer stretches than 2 hours but that was an improvement on her waking hourly. Also, it contributed to her to have a rocking to sleep association that we were stuck with till she was 18 months old! So basically i have no good advice, sorry

As nice as it was dd2 sleeping through i didn't really benefit from it as so used to being woke up three times a night i kept waking and getting paranoid and checking she was still breathing! Hope she does it again so i can actually benefit from it next time!

FS I'll second maybe's suggestion of earlier bedtime. Until a couple of weeks ago I'd been mucking about with T downstairs till 8 while DH did DS's bedtime and cooked us tea. She really wasn't settling well, so now she goes up with DS at 6pm and has a bath before he does. By the time she's dry and changed, DH is home and puts DS in the bath while I read T her bedtime book and feed her to sleep. She's usually soundly asleep by 7pm and I can extract the boob and sneak down to eat.

maybe effing teeth, eh? T's one is still just a sharp dot poking through. I think it's waiting for the rest of the gang to catch up. Luckily she doesn't seem bothered.

tri, swear - I had recurrent blocked ducts like marmite for the first couple of months feeding both kids, and that compression technique while feeding really helped keep them clear.

T is now going in the buggy without screaming! Huge huge step forward here. I've got the seat mostly upright and the little nosy madam thinks that's great. As soon as she can sit independently, she can go in the big extended rear facing car seat which is much more upright than the baby seat. I'm hoping that will crack the car issue. Some better luck with the bottle and formula yesterday - she isn't sucking but did take a little. And she grabbed a roast carrot off my plate on Sunday, so I guess we'd better start thinking about weaning. It's all kicking off! I feel a little jealous that DH is going to get all the fun/cool stuff when we swap in September, but then I think about how hard it is to clean dried pasta sauce off the wall ...

Timetable is working so far.

Dotty I wouldn't bother with amber teething bracelets. There's no evidence that they work. But if there was you'd be giving your baby an uncontrolled, unknown dose of something (I think the claim is its salicylic acid?), as well as putting a choking hazard on your baby. Try a well researched and controlled dose of calpol or nurofen instead. Much safer and more effective.

I've had the "helpful" suggestions with DS1's penchant for dramatic tantrums. I don't always manage the smile and nod and have occasionally been known to explain very shortly what the real issue is.

Ooh, good tip about earlier bedtime, maybe! I start putting DS2 down at about 6:30, he's usually asleep by 7:30. (He will then wake up after 45 minutes as if to check if it's really night time or just a nap, but usually goes back down quickly!)

And YES to feeding to sleep! If it works, use it. It will likely change as they get older anyway. DS2 doesn't often feed to sleep. It was foolproof with DS1!

Sympathy for sleep, maybe. DS1 wasn't great either but he does sleep beautifully eventually now!

Ds has just had his 2nd 1.5 hour nap of the day, I'm in shock, this is unheard of. Doesn't usually go longer than 35 mins. I'm not prepared for this and clearly have not made best use of the time at all.

Just spent 2 hours trying to get DS to bloody sleep. Nearly lost my rag entirely. I know he's teething and in pain but it's just so frustrating!!!!

Sympathies for all those with teething babies. Yesterday was awful for us with J just screaming before and after each nap. We've been out today so he's been a lot better.

Interesting about the earlier bedtime. I might give that a go. Does it mean an earlier wake up though? Currently J goes down 8ish and awake sometime between 5-6.

Mship we've had grabbing food off plate too. Will you start to wean now or wait? He's grabbed some cucumber and I just watched to see what happened. He licked it for a bit, then shoved it in. It was quickly removed but think he must be getting close. He watches every move when we eat with a look of sheer longing!