July 2016 #2

[Bluebell20]

A new thread as we (hopefully) move towards longer sleeps and lovely little smiles!

Ruby I am also encouraging Ruben to find his thumb! He is a comfort sucker for sure - better his thumb than my boobs!

Anna glad you survived! I bloody love beauty and the beast. Saw the stage show about fourteen years ago at Birmingham Hippodrome and it was totally magic - especially the transformation at the end!

primary yeah Selasi is the v laid back black guy. Love him! We hadn't had a TV licence for ten years, but got one this summer so DH could watch footie at home while I was heavily pregnant rather than getting tipsy in the pub. Just in the nick of time, it seems, as we watch quite a few progs on catch-up.

Mrs rolly and julfin, Ruben does the walking thing too! It cracks me up.

Cookies I am soooo sorry about your husband's job. What a thing to happen. Really have fingers crossed for him on finding something new.

Indians grr to your DH - especially as you are feeling poorly. Dr Bluebell prescribes some sort of treat for yourself to reward yourself for all your hard work. And no corresponding treat for DH!

I just had my first successful night time breastfeed, 5am till 5.45 (including mid-feed nappy change). To say I am thrilled is an understatement! DH has just got to the point where he is refusing to help with all three night feeds (previously he did the bottle and nappy change - though I warmed the milk, sterilised it after, and pumped for the next round!) - so breastfeeding for at least one of those feeds is perfect for me as it reduces the palaver.

Now, Ruben is asleep beside me and actually not doing his Straining Babe routine, so I'm going to sleep too! Night night! Xx

Night night Bluebs, sleep well! Glad the night feeds are going better.

We had a 5 minute mini-feed and then did lots of squealy piglet impressions. Now feeding again. Fingers crossed for sleep next...

julfin yes! Adams belly is massive, he's a proper wee podger! I've been told though that it's because all the organs are growing I. There and there's not all that much space for them so the baby gets a bit of a beer belly!

cookies sorry to hear about your dhs job. Fingers crossed something comes along soon that is for him.

indiands hope your dh gets a kick up the backside and realises it takes 2 to make a baby!

We're away visiting a friend for the next few days, just me and Adam. I'm terrified, he's never been away from home before and it's a 3 hour drive!

Sock - we've done 4 journeys of three hours each (for Isle of Wight) including ferry, and only one of them was problematic if I recall correctly. The others he was asleep pretty much all the time. You just need to make sure you head off straight after a feed. The car zonks them out so they last longer than normal in my experience. I only had to feed on one (the one when he didn't sleep all the way). We also didn't need to change nappies at all which was fine because he was asleep. Good luck! It'll be nice when you've got a long journey under your belt!

Still awake too then julfin. It's been a reflux nightmare for us this morning. Not sure I've even had 3 hours total sleep. And it's been like this for the last 5 nights. Am finding it difficult at the moment without sleep.

12 weeks is how old they specify for swimming sessions at our little local pool but I could take him from 8 weeks to the big council run pool. I just prefer the local one as they heat it up more for the baby session and I might be able to meet some other mums.

Nice to hear you are making progress with feeding bluebell

Not done an updated photo of Adam in a while! 10 weeks 3 days

Cheddar Gorge? Rolly that's impressive, good work lady!

primary we'll have to do a Bake Off report for you weekly, you can eat a themed sweet treat and we'll run you through what has happened. Or was it just pictures of Selasi that you'd like

julfin and sock what are the coping strategies for longer car journeys? I got stuck on the motorway by myself the other day with a crying baby in the back, possibly one of the most distressing experiences of my life.

High five on the feeding bluebell

Baby clothes sizes are ridiculous. H is still in some newborn stuff (mainly John Lewis) which now fits perfectly, although according to their size guide he's too big, Mothercare stuff all seems really wide, and either he's got stubby little legs or all 0-3 clothes expect babies to be like little giraffes

Just downloaded the wonder weeks app as suggested by a few of you, good shout. H seems to have a really exaggerated startle reflex from the 2/3am feed onwards, am now thinking that is developmental. Something to justify it while I'm being kept awake from 3am, I guess.
Anyone else find that they feel worst from a coping PoV between 4-5am? I literally lose all perspective at that point.

Sorry about the sore throat and DH Indians and good luck with jabs today, am not looking forward to tomorrow.

We start baby groups this week too, mother & baby yoga tomorrow which is me pretending to do some exercise and a baby sensory thing on Friday. What are others doing?

Aw, sock, look at that little face and the fab shirt! What a cutie

cookies I'm so sorry to hear about your dh. Fingers crossed something comes along soon.

bluebell hooray for the successful feeding! Your dh is refusing to do a night feed - your baby is his too! I know I'm lucky that my dh does a lot (including some night feeds). I was up for ages last night though and his comment when I eventually got back to bed was "you should have woken me". That was after telling me yesterday evening that he couldn't do the night because of a big work commitment today. Consistency would be nice.

ruby I've got one of those little giraffes! The waistbands on 0-3 and 0-3 tops are too big but the leg length is good. 0-1 fits but the trousers only come down to meet the top of her socks! With you on 4-5am being the hardest. That and 2am when they've been up wide awake since 11pm.

Funky shirt sock!

We're also off to stay with my mil this week. It'll be an 8 hour train journey - could be interesting with a 7 week old. I also think that the seats we've been allocated are in the quiet coach. At least it'll be a bit more free flowing on the train than on a car journey that would take the same amount of time. Wish us luck!

Tams - I would ask to have the seats changed! And be prepared to do a lot of walking along the aisles...

Has anyone else started talking to themselves, in the third person, even when they're not with their baby? Eg "What's mummy going to have for lunch today?" I'm worried that I'm going to start doing it in public too

Ha Julfin! I was looking for my DD in Aldi the other day, getting quite annoyed before remembering my DH was off and she was in the car!

Thanks julfin. I'll ask about the seats when we collect the tickets tomorrow. Not looking forward to manky baby changing on the train though. Hopefully it'll be ok. I've got everything crossed that the motion of the train keeps her calm and happy/sleepy. Think in reality that she'll get fed up and treat the other passengers to her crying - probably at foghorn volume. Maybe we can test the acoustics in different carriages. Dd crying and me wailing singing Old McDonald. All together now, old McDonald had a farm, eieio, and on that farm he had a platypus, eieio, with a what the hell does a platypus sound like umm, never mind, twinkle twinkle little star...

Guffaw! Love the singing Tams! I swore I'd never inflict my glass-shattering singing voice on my poor baby, but needs must - and he's very polite about it either that or he's laughing at me. I expect baby will be lulled by the moving train. Take lots of warm clothes for added doziness. Yes, sometimes I wish we could wrap ourselves up in a soundproof bubble with me wearing earplugs so that we could be hidden from other people. Baby changing facilities - ooh er - I've experienced a couple of really grim ones. I've also used the floor outside the toilets in a restaurant/cafe that had no facilities. Their problem, I figured.

Rolly - my dad was unwell last night, and had a dream that Jasper was kicking him in the stomach! I reckon he (Jasper, not my dad) is going to grow up to be a cyclist like his father - he also loves bicycling on his back and then doing a massive poo.

That wonder weeks app is great - thanks ladies for the recommendation. Jasper is in a "sunny" phase at the moment

7w+4d

Has anyone tried one of those pouch things that you can put an expressing machine in, so you can express while moving around the house? I find it such a time-consumer, and sometimes really unproductive, but I really want to get it cracked, so that DH can do some feeds and bond with Jasper (as well as letting me get some sleep).

Also, how much are you able to express during one day? On a good day I can do 100ml (3.5oz) in an hour. On a bad day, just 5ml per hour. Do you manage to feed the baby at the same time? Or do you fit it in between feeds? Do you run out of milk? How/when do you do the cleaning/sterilising? And do you heat the milk, and if so, how? Thanks in advance!

That's genuinely how songs are going in our house julfin. She seems to love music though so our neighbours have heard plenty of out of tune singing.
The floor outside the toilets sounds grim. Hope it was a huge poo and you then asked them to put the nappy bag in the bin. Maybe that will shame them into providing facilities. My dh's big bug bear at the moment is places that aren't dad friendly (e.g. only have baby changing in the ladies toilets and other assumptions based on traditional parenting roles). I can see his point though because a friend is a stay at home dad and he's now limited in where he can take their baby out.

Can't comment on the productiveness of boobies given my poor excuses for mammary glands. When I was expressing, dh fed dd in the night while I expressed and he put the bottles/kit in the microwave steriliser. I never bothered to heat up the milk because I didn't even have enough for a whole feed so I'd leave the expressed stuff on the side until the next feed (at that point it was every three hours). Dd will take milk either body or room temperature. If I took something straight out of the fridge for her I'd stand it in hot water to warm it though because she isn't keen on really cold milk.

Thank you for all the sizing advice ladies.

Flossie love your DHs sleep talk

Eliz I'm actually pretty rubbish at baking. DH is the one with baking skills in our house . However, I'm on the whole gluten/dairy free thing at the moment so I'm going to be attempting Jamie's gluten free Christmas cake this year.

Sophie super farty baby here. He stinks.
I haven't had to change tests on the comfort milk still on first size ones.

Anna I'm always in my phone during night feeds. I have to look at something so as not to drop off. Currently looking at new phones and sourcing the best deals during the night. I have an iPhone but sick of iPhones now

Ruby wow your poor friend. That's an impressive weight.
Your mother wow just wow. I don't have a great relationship with my parents so I get it.
I would love to do baby groups but haven't made it to any yet.

Sock ahh so lovely that you've been asked to be a bridesmaid at such a special and intimate ceremony. You must be a great friend.

Bluebell I'm loving bake off. Selasi to win. Candice is good I loved her sticky floored pub but her make up choices scare me a little.
Pleased to hear that feeding is getting a little easier for you.

Cookies so sorry to hear about your DHs job. I really hope he finds something soon. If he's anything like my DH he gets fidgety and white unbearable when at home for too long as he likes to be on the go.
Still having pushchair issues. I've sold the vibe and trying a buggy board but Teddy keeps whinging to get in the buggy.

I'm not coping very well here at the moment. Today has been horrendous. I feel like I just haven't been able to enjoy MB at all. I'm hoping that now that DH is back to work that I'll get into a routine and things will get easier.
Pretty gutted that I had to cancel all my planned baby classes as we are absolutely skint. This is my last and I have only lived here a year so I really wanted to get involved. I had to cancel buggy fit and baby massage . I just couldn't justify them after DHs sick pay and paternity leave.

I remember a few of you on here talking about a pacapod or backpack style change bag. I am using a buggy board and the change bag has nowhere to go other than my shoulder which is a right pain. Are the backpack style any good? How are you getting on with them.

8+3

julfin Okay, having done a motherload of expressing I might actually be able to help here!

1. How much. Mine varies depending on time of day, but in 10 - 15 minutes I produce about 100ml from one boob and 30ml in breast shell collection from the other. At night time I get more - about 150ml. When I was expressing round the clock (every 3 hours) I got 1.1 litres in 24 hours. I think I have an over supply of milk though!

2. A good time to start expressing in my experience is when your baby does their longest sleep stretch. Ruben usually sleeps for 4 - 5 hrs in the evening so if I express bang in the middle of that then I have one in the bank. Say he then gets hungry at midnight - DH feeds him the expressed milk and I express around the same time to replace it. However if you were wanting to use the milk to get extra sleep, your DH would feed the expressed milk while you slept, but then obviously you would have none left in the bank.

Another thing I do instead of expressing is use the breast shells during breastfeeding to collect any leaking milk - as primary suggested yonks ago. In the 13 hrs I have been doing this today (since 5am) I have collected 170ml! Obviously this will only work if you are leaky. I was a bit worried that doing this would make up a feed that is too much fore milk, but my health visitor said the thinking about fore and hind milk is outdated - as said the article that Speak posted. The hind milk comes through much quicker than used to be thought, so using the leakage is fine. (Interestingly though I have noticed the layer of fat is distinctly thinner on my 'collected' bottles compared to my expressed ones.)

3. Sterilising. I use the Medela micro steam bags which take 3 mins in the microwave, and I sterilise everything between each use. However I was told by my Boob Guru that I only needed to sterilise once every 24 hrs, and that in between I could just wash in hot soapy water. She said that they only sterilise every time in hospital for special care babies - as I was in transitional this makes sense. However I would rather be safe than sorry so have continued to sterilise every time.

4. Heating milk. Should be done under a hot tap, eg around 37 degrees, but the midwives in hospital told us it would take forever that way - so to stick the bottle in s mug of freshly boiled water and swirl occasionally (don't shake - I assume this would make breast milk butter!) for a couple of mins until it feels room temperature warm. The swirling prevents hot spots.

I have however served Ruben chilled milk (put it from the fridge I to an insulated bottle pocket without thinking, and then went out for the afternoon - the pocket kept it cold). He drank it with no complaints.

Once I have warmed milk from the fridge I make sure he has had it all within 4 - 6 hrs (depending on room heat), otherwise it has to be chucked which would be tragic. I have actually set an alarm for myself and woken him in the night to feed him the last 50ml from a bottle before now!

Hope that is of some use!

Beaut - I have a backpack but it's not a baby specific one just a nice backpack with lots of useful pockets I brought a fold up change mat from jo jo and we are away. It's working really well for us but Raff does spend most of his life in the sling as oppose to a pushchair so was the only sensible option. I have also had more offers of help to carry it than I ever had with DDs changing bag
Sorry you are struggling you have so much to keep on top of, you are doing amazingly. I am sure Monty-Beau feels very lucky to have such a wonderful mum!

Bluebell I could kiss you that is exactly what I needed to know re expressing. I have been lazy and haven't at all yet but really want to get on with it to let DH feed and stockpile some for my bday in Nov (the big 30 and DH is absolute that we must do something - which is very sweet but I gave out my foot down at a night away from Raff as I think he will still be too little although I'm sure my mum would be delighted to have the opportunity)

PS If i express too soon after a feed, i don't get much milk at all. I leave it at least 2.5hrs before expressing.

Beaut I'm so sorry about your money worries. I have the skip hop backpack and I love it, but if things are tight could you take the changing mat from your current bag and use it in an ordinary backpack? You are such an organised lady I'm sure you could put together an amazingly well functioning bag without having to buy a pricey one! Xx

Indians argh, poor Hallie. We have jabs tomorrow. Am a bit scared! Well done you for telling DP what's what. My DH and I had a massive ding dong yesterday, over cleaning of all things. I suggested getting a cleaner so that the house is nicer and we don't have to spend all our free time doing housework. DH felt I was accusing him of not cleaning properly (ok I was), bridled at the prospect of spending money, and promptly spent the whole morning cleaning to prove that we dont need a cleaner. Frankly it was worth the argument!

mrs r glad to help! My brother plays in quite a popular band (your DH is a musician too right?) and I want to go and see him play a big venue in October, which will entail leaving Ruben with DH - so I am stashing away milk in the freezer in anticipation! Woohoo!

Thanks we will survive I'm just feeling sorry for myself today. I'm wondering if my period is on its way. I have an irrational fear that I'm going to get pregnant again. DH has had a vasectomy, we are using condoms and MB took 13 months to conceive so highly unlikely.

Indians we have the dreaded jabs tomorrow. I've changed Teds childcare hours as didn't want to take him. I think he would find it upsetting.
I hope Hallie is ok.

MrsRolly thank you. Which sling are you using. I don't feel wonderful at the moment. I think maybe my baby blues have hit late. I don't feel like I had chance to think about my fm feelings with everything that happened.

Bluebell I've been looking at some cheap ones on eBay. Things will look better next month when DH has some overtime under his belt. It will feel like Christmas.

So I've covered T in a thin layer of steroid cream before bed. I've never seen supposed eczema quite like it. My poor poor baby. His lovely soft skin covered all from ankle to thigh and wrist to shoulder in big red bumpy spots and dry sandpaper feel patches of skin.

Not looking forward to the dreaded jabs tomorrow. Ours are quite late 4pm so probably be a rough night.

Beaut, our jabs are 3.30pm tomorrow. Anticipating a crappy night too!