May 2007 - The babies are arriving!!

[aprilmeadow]

Thought i would start the offical May 2007 thread as it is May and we have now had our first offical May baby - even though we have 6 naughty babies who queue jumped and arrived in April .

Probably be a while before there are many messages but a least we have a thread now

Sky, glad to hear you're on the mend. Sounds like you've had a heck of a time. I still have slight afterpains but the blood loss has almost stopped. Scar's very sore still too- underwear choice takes ages still as I ponder whether it's likely to rub!

Am fairly happy on another note though as I saw my Mum yesterday and I quote: 'you don't even look like you've been pregnant'. It would seem that constant bf is a great diet. Still got saggy skin and some podgy bits but my stomach's almost flat again. Legs and boobs are a sorry state in comparison, but my tummy's looking halfway normal. Except for the stretchmarks of course.

Sorry you have been having such a rubbish time SKY-was thinking only this morning that hadnt heard from you in a bit...hope things on the mend a little now..

lol at Mathilda SOH..probably is the weather..will she take cooled boiled water at all?Or is she a bit little?Cant remember any of this stuff from DD Dont you come on here talking about your flat tummy you rascal..

Well done on the routine April..we never had one with DD either and we suffered for it..this baby will be in boot camp by comparison , if Mummy can keep the effort up..I dont fair well at that when sleep deprived as I recall, hence DD's lack of discipline!

Hi to all other Mums and Babes..

We have seen a lovely house today and since we sold ours can put an offer in in the morning..so then all we will need is our second daughter to put in the third bedroom...
C'mon baby Scoot...this is getting ridiculous..am 9 days over today and my knees are starting to buckle under the weight of the child!

Have just read Dejags' thread..poor Carys and poor Dejags...so

Sky, good to see you. Sorry you have had a bit of a time of it. Glad the bf'ing is going well.

SOH, good to see you as well. Ella has fed a few more times today mainly down to the heat. I see that you too have transferred from the pregnancy brain state to mother brain state! I am always on my way to get something and then forget what it was that i was after. We had people round last Sunday and i offered to make a round of tea, half an hour later after being side tracked into printing some photos off the computer i remembered that i was supposed to have made tea.

BBC (Baby Boot Camp) is still going well. Ella now been asleep for 3.5hrs.

Off to bed and feed E now. Fingers crossed for a good night.

Scoot if your legs are buckling then go with it. On the sofa, refuse to get up and demand that DH brings you sweet things. Are you past being comforted by phrases such as 'you're making such a good home for her she doesn't want to come out'? Will you slap me?

House situation sounds fab. Hope it all works out this time.

Don't want to give water to Mathilda as she's exclusively bf and it could affect her weight gain and latch. I think I'm going to have to ride it out and hope that I'll grow some new nipples at some point. I may have a flat stomach but I still have swollen fingers, I get no more than an hour's sleep at a time and I haven't brushed my hair for 17 days. Honestly, I look like a scarecrow.

Now, go and give birth to that baby. This dragging out of your pregnancy is nowt but attention seeking.

AM, 3.5hrs? You jammy devil! I can't even imagine what a routine is atm, I'm incapable of getting myself dressed before noon. I'm hoping she finds her own routine somewhere amongst all the clutter that used to be my house. Thank God for slings. And Lansinoh. Now can I have my replacement nipples, these ones are knackered...?

Why I oughta....(shakes fists whilst shuffling after SOH)

Good home, pah!

Plus I dare not eat anything sweet..the baby will already weigh about 30 pounds by now anyway- its been in there so long..it doesnt need any more doughnuts...gaah, my last solace, (doughnuts) have been denied me...

Okay which one of you will own up and be responsible for keeping me up 'til this time trying to catch up with you guys hmm?

Glad to hear you are doing okay. George is doing fine he now weighs in at 5lb 14oz and I can not believe he is 2 months old today. He has to have his first lot of vaccinations tomorrow and they have warned me as his legs are so skinny there will probably be a big bump where they do it .

I get the laptop off DH tonight and think I will have half an hour catching up and then think will have another half an hour as George might be due a feed shortly and what does he do? Sleep for England - I have opened but not read the trumping link as he is lying next to me popping. I can not believe the poo a small baby can produce, and wee; well it shoots all over the place it is no wonder men wee every where. He actually managed to wee in his eye the other day.

Sorry I have not been around. Finding the time is one problem but I have felt a bit down as you can imagine and did not want to burden you all with my miserable moaning.

I have had the boys DNA checked and it turns out they were actually identical. This makes me and as I will always know what Benjamin should look like. Apparently they must have split really early on to have 2 placentas and sacks - it panicked me a little as I thought there might also be something wrong with George if they were from the same embryo but the consultant has reassured me they have had a good look at Geroge and he is fine.

Anyway as I have not gone to sleep yet do I wake him up or let him sleep? I think I will let him sleep as he gorged this evening and probably has enough milk in there to last all week. He seemed to be permanently attached this evening - he slept all morning and then fed all afternoon/evening. The only problem is as he is still relatively little he tires easily and drops to sleep when feeding and I have been trying to wean him off his bottles of ebm as I can not be doing with all this sterilising faffing about.

Anyway I hope to catch up with you all a bit more over the next few days and hope all you stragglers will be moving in here soon. Will we be having a weekly pn thread do you think so I know where I am up to.

Ps I have missed you

Hi charley,so nice to hear from you!Have been thinking of you..
George sounds like he is doing great...

ssh..{whispers)Im not really allowed on here yet..am trespassing..hopefully will be able to come on legit in a few days..(sneaks off back to the desolate antenatal thread)

Morning all.

So lovely to hear from you Charley. You've been missed. And you know that half of what we do round here is moaning, so please don't think you'd be a burden. x

SOH - Great to see you back. I was wondering about you.

I had a great second night with Aoife. Kept her swaddled and fed her about every 2 hours from 11 til 7 and felt like I got some sleep. Got up yesterday, got her washed and dressed, myself washed and dressed, hair straightened, make up on. Baby fed and put down to sleep ready for PIL arriving at 10am to visit.

A midwife came at 1-ish to do the new baby check and had to wake her from a post-feed nap. Baby NOT amused. Check incomplete as they need to be relaxed to check the liver, spleen etc. Anyway, midwife said baby seemed very tense and unhappy, which I had to agree with, becuase she's only happy when sleeping or feeding. She's not happy to just be "awake". M/w suggested cranial osteopathy, which I had thought of too, as her head was in the birth canal for a long time. Also said her sucking relex wasn't great and that it was probably due to the couple of bottle feeds I gave her. Guilt, guilt, guilt. Then she said, "but, there's no point in feeling guilty."

M/w was quite a bossy type and between her manner and a crying baby and her saying my baby was unhappy I started bawling. Really sobbing, couldn't stop. Having gone from feeling really pleased with myself that I'd got some sleep and even managed to slap on some mascara, I was a quivering wreck.

She then asked why I was only letting her feed for 10 mins or so on each side and I said it was sore otherwise, but didn't get around to saying it was sore becuase she was asleep and not willing to be woken again and just sucking and chewing at me - not feeding. M/w said I wasn't letting her get at hindmilk, but then in same breath said that my milk hadn't come in. I thought that colostrum was colostrum - no fore/ hind milk til your milk came in? Anyway, then had m/w showing me how to latch her on - did it a different way to the way their own leaflets say and totally stressed me out. She did that you know, grabbing the boob and her words, not mine, "slam-dunking" the baby's mouth whilst it's open. Granted, a couple of times she did latch her on more comfortably, but I was so tense from the agressiveness of the technique that I can't imagine it's good for the let down reflex.

M/w also said she found it "worrying" that I'd had (had being the operative word after all the sobbing) make up on, was obviously trying to overdo it, why were there visitors here, who was I trying to impress, was it "him" (DH)...

Crawled into bed for the day and sobbed. DH is pretty annoyed.

She did make some good points, but between then and now, I can't help thinking she did more harm than good.

Going to call the alternative medicine place tomorrow about the osteopathy and if I feel like I still have breatfeeding problems I'm going to hire a lactation specialist for a couple of hours. I can't be doing with the conflicting information you get. It's upsetting enough having blsitered, scabby nipples without being told 5 different reasons for it. Gagh!

mNot such a great night last night, but Milk came in, which is good. Now air-drying nipples in prep for lanolin application.

I think I might go up the road to the shop today and road test Aoife in her buggy. I think I'll get cabin-fever if I stay in all day.

Going to catch up on the thread now...

AM good luck with boot camp, I am sending A back to hospital for retraining, he was doing 4 hourly when in and he is doing 1.5hrs now grrrr - every hour in the evening, also we only iron when we need stuff, I do dd's everyday in the morning but as I have to have A's ready I have been doing a pile of his stuff every few days, and have been tempted to do everyones all in one go - but i I am a freak in that I love ironing I dont want to overdo it and ruin the pleasure lol

Sky hope you infections clear up soon, I am still getting the odd afterpain 2 months on, and with dd i got them for a year, but i was butchered with her and got an infection

SOH I have got a coorie, not got fleece lining and its still to hot atm, but A loves in he goes all fetal and looks really cute and snug

Charley good to here from you, glad George is doing well, do you still get people saying isnt he tiny, we are all here if you need to let out some of your feelings, hugs to you

TYG Grrrr at your m/w, how infuriating stupid woman, what does it matter if you have make up on - well done you for even managing to get dressed, 2 months on and i still have days where the hair justed gets thrown in a scrunchy

Dying to know how AM's boot camp is going!!

Thoughts with Dejags, hope Carys is ok

Any tips on getting A to go longer between feeds?? every 1.5hrs is not good!!

Have a good day all and enjoy the sunshine

Good morning

Hey Charley, good to hear from you. So pleased that little George is doing so well.

TYG, at your mw! What a horrid woman. I get dressed and do my make up everyday, it makes me feel human and i dont see how doing make up and straightening your hair can be over doing it......

BBC - went well last night. She went down at 7.10pm wrapped in blanket (from under the arms only) in her basket. I woke her at 10.45pm and she fed until 11pm. Put her back in basket at 11.15pm. She woke at 2.20am and went back in basket after feeding. Woke at 5.30am and i fed her in bed lying down. Got woken at 5.45am by dh calling me - cue very funny story! - he said that he had a probem......... He had gone into his grandad's utility room where they keep the fridge at 4.45am as Jack had woken up - caused by g'dads snoring - somehow the door had shut behind him and he had been locked in the utility room for an hour. Jack had gone back upstairs to get his phone (bless him) as shouting for Bill hadnt worked! He had tried calling their mobiles but they were both downstairs. He didnt have the house number on his phone but thought that i might. I dont so i had to call BT to get it! I called the house phone for 45minutes and it didnt wake them! In this time dh is busting for a wee and jack is getting more and more distraught that Daddy wont/cant open the door and can only look at him through the cat flap! We both tried to get him to go upstairs to wake Bill but he wanted Daddy to go with him Jack then tries to climb through the catflap to get to Daddy..... and manages it! They have big cats! So all is well in Jacks world as he is with Daddy even though they are still stuck in the utility room. Luckily they were due to be leaving the house at 8 and at 6.45 they wake up and come to let them out, 2 hours after getting stuck in a freezing cold room! We are both really cross as it could have been really dangerous with Jack being on his own and able to get to god knows what! ANYWAY, topped Ella up at 6.30am to get her back to sleep and wake up at 9.20am!!!!! Not sure if i can re-create this tonight but will give it a go!

Sorry for the massive post x

As texted TYG..midwife is clearly a loon and is NOT doing her job right..it is not her job to criticize or make you feel guilty or as if you are doing anything wrong..(unless of course you were hanging the baby upside down out of the window and feeding her ice cream or some such)
You sound like you are doing just great to me..I would request a different midwife..you are well within your rights to do so..

I had a witch of a midwife like your one after DD and she made me feel a)very bad, b)confused as to what to do with the baby....neither of which was her function..the other midwife I had was livid when she heard about it!

Blimey April..they must sleep like logs!
Good for Ella re last night!

Hi everyone, I'm back. Dsis wedding was fantastic - all that worrying about her being a soggy bride and the weather was bloody boiling! Ds looked sooo cyte in his page boy outfit, he was the best boy in the world. So well-behaved and charming everyone in sight. Him and his cousin danced for about 4 hours solid, we had to drag them off the dance floor when it was the 1st dance!
R is still very unsettled. She seems to cry so much. She's still feeding well and sleeps well once she's gone but it's the in between bits that worry me. As someone else said earlier in the thread, she only seems happy when she's asleep or feeding. Ds used to just lay there awake and taek everything in. She just cries when she's out down, it's really tiring. The dummy is still working to an extent but it falls out so often it's tiring going backwards and forwards to stick it back in! She ok in a rocker chair or car seat because she's more upright but it falls out all the time when she's lying flat. I think it's just been such a busy few days and I feel exhausted so it's getting me down a bit.

Morning all, blimey its getting busy on here now

Scoot, get that blinkin baby out will you woman great news about both houses, send some of your viewers down here for me will you?

April, sounds like boot camp is working a treat, your poor dh, what a story. Fwiw, I am a total fascist mummy and we are big on bedtime routines, so J has his bath every night after the other two and then a good feed and then down, usually by 7.30/8 and he seems to go down well but still is waking every 2.5 hours, ho hum.

SKY sorry to hear you have been having a tough time, I hope you are starting to feel better.

TYG, I am quite shocked at what the mw said to you, you do as much or as little as you feel ready for and I'm sure you will find your own best latching on method that suits you both.

Charley its great to see you posting and that George is doing so well, we are all here to support you when you are feeling blue

Right a brief synopsis of my day yesterday goes something like this:
I wake up feeling not too bad, and determined to try driving, so dh says leave J with me while you 'pop' to Tesco. I drive to Tesco in the next door town, enjoying my newly found freedom, get 90% of the way round, then dh calls to say J is yelling and yelling so I quickly shuffle through the checkout and hurry home hoping to avoid any emergency stop procedures. After smugly telling all that J sleeps alot during the day and that dh is an angel, dh and I have a massive row and J wont settle all day. Dh goes out, I have to get the dc their lunch with screaming baby, guilty mummy moment as they ask for mummy's tomato soup and have to make do with a sandwhich and packet of crisps instead. Dh comes back, takes the dc out, leaves me in tears (not his fault) so J and I go for a long walk to get rid of tears and calories, see a friend who is 7 mths pg with twins and looks far too glamorous, prevent myself from buying a chocolate boost, buy some tomatoes and go home to make the tomato soup. Here I sympathise with SOH, as I try to blend the soup with J yelling his head off over my shoulder and the soup comes flying out of the blender all over the kitchen aaaaagggghhhh. Anyway, the soup got made, J cried all day, I finally stopped crying and went to bed.

Today is a much better day

I girls can i officially join the post natal thread.

I had my baby last night well early this morning after going into labour on Fri night.

Archie James, 8lb 3oz, 2.36am.

Will do a proper birth announcement soon.

congratulations Julie and Archie! Welcome

Hello lovely ladies - have stolen DH's laptop to post this. Finally got birth announcement up and will read through to see what everyone's news is.

Love to you all

tam xxx

Birth announcement for Tilda

Congrats to Julie!Cant wait for birth announcement..
And to you again Tam..

Have got sunburn..I'll swap it for some sort of contraction or ANY sign of imminent labour..anyone?

Hey Scoot - I'll take your sunburn

Sunburn, that's a classic pre-labour sign if I ever heard one

Congratulations to you all Julie, you were right then on Friday.

Dejags, have posted on your thread but thinking about you and really praying for Carys to make a speedy recovery.

Charley, lovely to hear from you, so glad George is doing well.

SOH, still cracking me up as usual even if you are in a half wit state of mind. Oh the joys!!!!

TYG, I had similar comments from my MW last week when she was not impressed with Jorjas 50g weight gain in a week. Not long enough on each boob, lardy lardy la!!! Actually, I have to admit she has been much better since not swapping her too quickly. Have also started taking her off when she is not feeding this seems to wake her up and then she'll feed again. has dropped our feeding time from an hour ish to about 40min. Much better with two other monkeys around.

AM, BBC sounds like it worked well, hope tonight is as good.

Hey tam, glad you've posted, welcomeback

SKy hope you feel better soon. Poor you, not fun.

Jorja has a cold. She is a snot filled snuffly, sneezy buba. Poor thing, we had a bad night as she can't breath or feed easily. Have been squirting endless amounts of sterile water up her nose which she is not impressed with but it does help her.

Brain frazzled now, sorry if I've missed anyone.
xxx

Evening all,

TYG - your MW sounds like a nightmare! She's supposed to encourage and support you, not give you a guilt trip, stress you out and give you bizarre info. I thought like you did - my books have said colustrum doesn't have a fore and hind type, it's all the same.

All going okay here. S is sleeping well. Actually, that's not strictly true. He's sleeping really well in the daytime (2-3 hours), but then it all seems to go wrong overnight, when I'm feeling every 1-2 hours. Usually 1 hr. I've decided that what i'm doing wrong is running to him as soon as he wakes up and starts fretting. I'll leave him for 5 mins in the daytime, but am so terrified of waking DS1 up with his cries, the first sniffly noise and I'm rushing to the moses basket. It is an extra stress when you are trying to create a semblence of normality for other LO's, isn't it?

Hope you all get lots of sleep tonight

WooHoo! Congrats JW... hope you are getting on ok.... Charley - great to hear from you and do post especially when you are feeling blue - thats what we are here for!!!

Tam, great story, particularly like the idea of a CS playlist and the pic of Tilda flying the flag!

Am beginning to look forward to a London meetup with the little ones...think we should start planning for beginning of July...

L keeps having clingy afternoons where she feeds then cries if I try and put her down or DH tries to cuddle her. Finally tried the baby whisperer thing today where you put them down and if they cry, pick them up for 3 mins then put them down again. It worked, but DH had to do it - when I tried she just wanted to feed again...not sure what i'm going to do this week when he is properly back at work [Hmm]. She also keep coughing whilst feeding but doesn't latch off to cough which means she stops breathing whilst inhaling the milk - anyone know what causes this... its a new trick in the last couple of days and is scaring the hell out of me as she goes a bit blue for a couple of seconds until I get her breathing again .

Right, time for supper.

xx