March 2007 - even though it hasn't actually arrived, some of us have (iyswim)

[CallieNewMum]

Here we go girls - Amie, Kiwi, Dixia, Flannelettepyjamas, we can start comparing motherhood notes on this one and wait for the others to arrive one by one. Although I suspect the other thread will be our home until there's critical mass. To those of you still waiting to join the post-natal people - get a move on!!

Just popping in from the April AN thread to say a particular hi to Mossie.. Bertie is just too too cute!! Can´t believe he´s a week and a half already.. give me hope that mine too will eventually come out (and I´ve still got 4 days til my due date to go!!). Good luck with dh and the ´routine´.. speaking as one novice to another (i.e. feel free to ignore!).. maybe your dh does just feel like he doesn´t have a say over anything.. could you negotiate to leave the routine a wee while longer in exchange for some baby thing that he can be in charge of?? Just an idea..

Callienewmum - I don´t know if you ever saw a random message I left on here aaaages ago but my SIL also had a very premature baby called Jordi.. was such a coincidence when I saw your news... he is 1 this month and such a happy smiley lovely little boy.. like a long piece of spaghetti he is on target for height and slightly under on weight but doing brilliantly.. Hope you get your smile soon

Hasan just fits into the noisy, higgledy piggledy routine that we already have, thank goodness...there's no way I could arrange life around baby...it has to be the other way round. He seems to enjoy storytime and songtime. He's been hearing them for a long time from inside me too I guess.

Last night he fed at 9 and fell asleep, I put him in his pop up bed and watched ugly betty. He fed again at 11 when I took him to bed, then 2.30 then 5 then 7.30. I was up from 4 to 5 trying to settle ds1 and I'm up from 7.30 with dd. would have liked a lie in!

Dr who is at 6.35? Ooh must watch it!

oops trying to settle ds2 that should say!

Lunar that's a cute toy how sweet that Toby is playing already! I must dig out some toys for Hasan soon.

Maveta, all the best with the labour! I hope you have an easy peasy one.

rosy-i just pmsl at the mental image of you tucking a 6ft teenage lad into bed

maveta-good luck with labour+birth.

i think ive got my AF,but it hasnt brought with it the great joy that it did after the last 2 babies

i just want my body back to normal.

lunar-i think you may have a child genius on your hands there

Fantastic baby vests/tops age 3-6 months and 6-12 months available here...

Lunar that toy's dead cute! I have loads of toys given to me but he is still too tiny to pick them up yet!! I got some of those black and white baby books off Amazon the other day, 'cos I felt like I should be doing something with him, but I doubt he has a clue what I'm doing! I sit there and show him the picture, think he just likes having the cuddle tbh!!

Maveta hello! I have been focussing my time mainly here but I'm not ignoring the April gang, I get all the email updates! Not long to go now... and this week and a half has gone so quickly! I think that sounds like a great idea, to give him something he can choose instead of this routine. But what? He is right to some extent, I have made pretty much every decision, so I'm not sure how many there are left to make!!

Diva ikwym, if I had other children I might have to be a bit stricter routine-wise, because it wouldn't be fair on them just to focus all my attention on the baby, but I'm lucky this time 'cos I have only him to worry about.

Think it's a good idea about waiting to start the routine until he is a bit more established in his feeding habits.

Dh is just worried that if we don't start a routine now, then he'll never fit into a routine and one day we'll have a two year old who still can't sleep through the night, or something like that! I wish I could reassure him, but mil tells him he's right, and she's the only one he'll listen to.

And to be fair, she is right about lots of things, but on this I disagree.

Will just have to find a way to persuade dh to drop the routine thing for a bit..

Suggestions on a postcard please!

Mossy you guys might like the baby whisperer book. Do you have it? If you like I can send you mine. I've got as much from it as I'm going to get I think, it's too tight for me but my sister and my good friend both found it really good.

Diva ds1 is a great help but alot of the time he is just like a toddler too! Though I don't tend to tuck him in nowadays

Lunar - that toy looks nice - impressed that Toby can play with it. Inspired by you I bought Monti huis first toy today - a dangly squeaky dolphin to hang from his buggy, TKMaxx

Rosy - we have a sort of organised chaos here too

foxcub - "playing" with it just means waving an arm vaguely in the right direction so it moves and rings the little bell inside when it's hit. But just doing that is keeping him happy for quite a while.

mossie-if the routine is your dh's 'thing',then why is it you whos upstairs with the baby every night?

in a few weeks(which will fly by,trust me)your dh will be able to do loas with the baby,like playing,giving him a bottle of EBM(if youre planning to do that).its difficult for men to get involved when babies only want to feed,sleep and poo.

no,scrap that,tell him he can change every nappy as you're giving every feed!!!he wants to be involved,right?

do you put bertie in bed with you at night or do you put him straight back down after a feed?

Mossie my DH keeps on about a routine too, although I'm not sure you can impose one on a 4 wk old, any thoughts?
This period is hellllllll!!! feel really guilty that I should be loving every minute insteaad of wishingthis stage away.
Teddy still wants to feed every two hours and strains badly when he does with wind, burping a baby can be hard!
Just joined NCT to meet other mums as I am feeling down and talking to DH is rubbish, but my HV is fab.

Well... shh, keep it to yourselves but I think I have managed to get dh to scrap the routine for a bit. I've said that for now the only routine we'll have is for him to go to bed when we do... then as time goes on and he gets older and his feeding is a bit less frequent (i.e. not every second he's awake like it seems to be atm!) we can start putting him to bed a bit before us, then lengthen that period slowly.

We'll see how it goes. I think Bertie will be happier - I certainly will! As you say Diva, I wouldn't mind so much but it's me who feeds him atm, so it's me who has to go upstairs with him really.

I do plan to express and have bought a pump, but I want to get him sure about feeding from the nipple first before I introduce a bottle of EBM.

If dh is in the bed with me I put Bertie in his moses basket, if not, I try to put him down after a feed but sometimes the only way to settle him is to cuddle him in the bed!

Rosy I do have that book. Somewhere. I bought it when I first got pg as I heard it was a nice compromise between total chaos ... and swmnbn! I don't know where I've put it though... will have a proper look and dig it out, I didn't read it all at the time but I do remember it had some basic routines in it.

Fil came over today with his dp, and... he got on like a dream with Bertie, even managed to get him to doze off when dh and I couldn't! (Didn't feel comfortable bf in front of fil!)

Sil is over tomorrow... I will have to apologise for my outburst to dh when he was on the phone the other day, feel a bit now about having a tantrum at the age of thirty ffs!

MOSSIE - GLAD YOU AND dH HAVE COME TO A COMPROMISE (OOOPS, didn't mean to shout)

I had a tantrum with a school mum on Friday and embarassed myself - I kind of threw a mild strop and marched past her when she spoke with me as I was annoyed with her about something. What made it more embarassing was she| rang me to apologies afterwards - so I had to apologies for my strop

Rosy - did you watch Dr Who? (oink, oink)

Boaugh DS1 an inflatable goal post/balls today - he's so happy - specially as he's better at scoring a goal than I am!

Chocolatepenny - just when you get the hang of one phase they change suddenly and go into their next phase!

Montipine is getting longer periods of waking now, and is hungrier but keeps smiling and gurgling at me. He grabbed his foot today with his hand but I think it was mistake rather than a developmental milestone

mossie-if it makes you feel any better i just stomped around the house for half an hour,slamming doors etc,cos dp gave dd2 chocolate after i'd bathed her,cleaned her teeth+put her pj's on.ok,i had a right to be annoyed,but to act like a stroppy teenager...and im a month older than you

chocpenny-sorry to hear you're feeling down.what does your HV say,has she advised you to see your gp or anything?
small babies are very hard work,i think its easier when they start getting interested in looking around etc and stay awake more during the day.i would say from about 12 weeks things get easier(plus its easier to get their wind up when they can hold their heads up properly).

baby whisperer fits us, used it loosely with dd and used SWMNBN book as a doorstop/firebrick/missile

Finn is def a 2.5 -3hr man during the day (and often night ) and he does eat, awake then sleep. I had a re read yesterday and today we tried the dummy a bit more to try to settle his sucking (he sucks on me he gets bellyful more of milk and chunders everyhere) so this worked and no sickies, he took bigger and better feeds and also the 2 hrly feeding for before bedtime worked well last night.
I do put Finn down awake in his crib in our room, darkened after wash/bath and long cuddle and breastfeed/song/story (read gobbledigook or whatever dd is reading if she is going to bed the same time)
He usually cries, we pick up soothe and pop him back down and he is off within 15 minutes at worst. Never let him really cry ever - I pat him and talk softly to him (total crap btw) and he goes off really well.

I am a bit mental about bedtimes as ds1 was APPALLING sleeper and I nearly wanted to seriously harm him at times.

FWIw I find it easier to sort the bedtime from early on than later on, but we never started til Finn was 3 wks as he started nodding off of his own accord 7-8pm and would sleep on one of us or in the pram til 10.30 so that's when we started.

Well I fell off my chocolatefree wagon and scoffed a maya gold (slurp) and it was totally delicious I've got as much will power as a big push over!

Dr who was only brilliant! but now I'm left hanging til next week! ds1 says the darleks look a bit crap he just doesn't get it!

Hasan keeps hanging on to me by my hair! ouch

rosy - as I said "oink, oink!!" - have eaten masses of choclate today too

Ah well, stuff it Foxy, it's hard work all this bf and broken sleeps. let's not beat ourselves up, we're doing great

Well, wine's my chocolate

Hi everyone,

Well yesterday we took Deanna to a studio to have some proper pictures done.They called today to say they will be ready to pick up on Tuesday and they are absolutely beautiful....why do I get the feeling we will be spending more than we thought lol.

Today was my birthday and we had a birthday party/meet the baby party.Deanna got loads of presents of clothes,teddies,rattles,mobiles etc.The turnout on DH side was great but most of the people I invited never come but we enjoyed it anyway.Deanna was really well behaved.

Still very impressed by Deanna,she slept from 10pm to 5am last night then 5.30 to 9.

Well time to go to bed now....shall read posts tomorrow

Happy birthday for yesterday Shanks!

Diva / Foxy - glad I'm not the only one pulling tantrums then! It's these hormones, y'know?

Piffle I think if Bertie does start having really long sleeps of an evening we may start putting him upstairs for a bit.

Shanks happy birthday for yesterday!

My digital camera has a facility where you can order prints online. Much easier than going to Boots, but the trouble is, instead of someone saying "would you like one set or two?" you can choose loads of different sizes of prints for each photo in addition to things like mousemats, mugs, etc.

I went online planning to get my photos printed with a few extra for mil.

I spent nearly £30! And yes... a mug plastered with Bertie's face is on its way here.

Kitty I had a glass of Shiraz yesterday, I wasn't able to touch red wine throughout pgcy as it made me feel sick... so last night I had it with an ultra rare steak and it was lovely! Have already scoffed a whole camembert, too!!

Rosy / Foxy ... you know you should go over to my Doctor Who thread and discuss last night's episode.

Last night was much better for scrapping the routine, he fed for ages between eight and ten, then slept until midnight (I kipped on the couch!) and then woke three times in the night for a feed, two long ones and one quick one. He's still asleep now... but I can hear slight nuzzly sounds on the baby monitor so I had better go and check....

See you all later!