Septermber 07 poppers.....please meet here!

[dal21]

Hi ladies - cannot see a thread for the sept ladies who have popped. Thought I would start one (hope I havent been totally blind and missed one already set up)

we can share our trials and tribulations of our LO's here!

Hello all,

Well, its been an adventurous week to say the least! The good news is that Cerys put on 3ozs and she has been more settled (apart from yesterday and today for some reason!?). She's taking 3-4 ounces per feed now which is reassuring but she's still being sick every night as she seems to have an 'episode' of the reflux bless her. DS(13) had a trip up to casualty and stitches in his leg because he decided to launch himself from one bench to another at school and he missed! It was DH's birthday and he managed to not be miserable this year which was good. DD1 has also hurt her ankle but not seriously.

Thank you for all your messages of support, I guess I had to have a wobbler at some point or another and I'm glad it happened before her operation and not during our hospital stay. Speaking of which, I'm gearing up for that slowly (its this Tuesday!!!) and I've decided to take the laptop and re-watch the whole of LOST to keep me busy while Cerys is sleeping. You are all so kind and loving and you'll be pleased to know I'm feeling much better about being a mummy. Although if I could reserve membership for the crappy mummy club for next time I throw a wobbler, that would be great!

kinki - I'm amazed at your typing skills while under the influence, even moreso your ability to write such encouraging words, thank you so much! So pleased your camera was given back to you, those kids sound lovely! Can't believe the hv was so clumsy, you're right that she is talking a load of bollocks!!

twit - how did it go then, how exciting! DH and I met in the January, decided to get married in the July and got married on August 16th (5 years ago) and I was exactly the same about getting a ring/dress. Hope your day was twit-tastic!!

Edie - hope your tonsils are easing off on you Is dp back yet? Hope you survived with him being away?

emj - Hope you manage to flip the days and nights around - keep persevering, it'll be worth it!

HIWBB - How did the 6 week check go? Think of you all the time and hope you're feeling better xx

MrsFish - well done on your car ride! Glad Ben seems to be settling down...

Mrsbumblebee - How's Paul doing now? I mixed fed for about 4-5 weeks with all of mine as my milk supply was never much but I really wanted to get some bf into them too. I started cutting out one feed for a few days, then a few days later I'd cut out another one on the opposite side of the day (if that makes sense?). So, I'd give up the dawn feed for a few days, then the late afternoon one. HTH?

laksa - uni sounds like fun!

kyala - your 6 week check sounds lovely! Glad you got time with DH! The bread sounds yummy - hope you enjoy the fireworks and survive them without being hit.

cupcake - grandparents can be a nightmare can't they!? It might sound awful but sometimes I'm glad DH's mum lives far away as that means I've only got my parents to deal with, which can be enough sometimes! Glad DS is settling...

acm - yay on the weight gain!

Holly - hello and welcome back!

Chatty - thank you for your text messages, looking forward to meeting you soon xx. Hope Alex's cord heals up soon.

Nicki - I personally don't like to leave Cerys to cry unless I have no choice i.e. I'm making a bottle up or something; but then I'm rather paranoid with her so it could just be me. Hope you find whatever suits you best.

Hello dal!

Well, I'm off to drop the kids to their dads which means we have got a quiet x-factor night. DH has had raging toothache the last few days so I've been learning to do things myself with one hand which has been fun!

I'll make sure I post before we leave on Tuesday for the operation...

Thank you again all, you're all so lovely xxxxx

Love and hugs, PLP xxxxxxxx

Evening all.
Paul has thankfully been quite a lot better since we started the formula top-ups at each feed. Still not a totally contented little baby, but we usually get a couple of really good 'playtime' sessions each day now, and he's much more consolable when he is having a cry (usually in the evenings). The challenge now is to get him to sleep a bit better, as I think he's overtired quite a bit of the time. He's not yet capable of falling asleep without a lot of encouragement, and he quite often goes four or five hours without a nap (during the day, thank god!), which makes him very irritable. On the weaning from the breast thing, I'm amazed how quick and easy it's proving so far. The first couple of days I felt very engorged, but since then things have progressed very quickly. I'm reducing time at the breast at each feed (rather than dropping a feed at a time), and already I'm down to five minutes on the right hand side at every other feed, and pretty much nothing at all on the left hand side, just the occasional bit of hand expressing. The closer I come to finally stopping, though, the more I realise how much I'm going to miss it, in spite of all the problems I've had. I know it's impossible to read babies' minds, but I can't help feeling he's going to miss it too .

PLP, thanks for your thoughts. Really glad Cerys is putting on weight, and hope DS is feeling better .

Chatty, I'm planning to start on the grobags soon too. What do you put on Alex underneath? At the moment Paul's wearing a short-sleeved vest and a babygro under his blanket, but I wonder if that will be too hot? (I already have a constant battle with my MIL, who piles him under coats, shawls and hats whenever my back is turned .)

Kyala, hope you have a fun (safe) fireworks night. Paul and I will be trying to watch some out of the window!

Nicki, I don't leave Paul to cry, partly because I find it difficult, but also because I'm fairly convinced it wouldn't do any good. He's pretty hard to get to sleep even when he's in my arms being rocked and shushed, so the chances of him crying himself to sleep in any reasonable amount of time seem to me to be zero. I know I'll have to tackle the issue at some point, but at the moment my HV says that 'you can't cuddle them enough', and reassures me that I won't spoil him by not leaving him to cry. I hope she's right and I'm not storing up major problems for myself!!!

Hope everyone else is doing ok. Have a lovely fireworks night!

Mrsbumblebee - just to answer your question Alex wears a vest and cotton sleepsuit under his grobag and the room is 22 degrees! I'm in pjs and under the duvet and i'm not too hot! Glad the feeding is going ok xx

Hello everyone, just wanted to pop in and say hello and I haven't forgotten you all. Been terribly busy, and I think Luca has gone through a growth spurt during the last few days... he's been cluster feeding like mad during the evenings and quite fussy and sleeping loads during the day. He's gorgeous though and his big smiles make it all worthwhile! I hope everyone's well, I haven't had a chance to read everyone's news but will definitely try.

take care
xx

Afternoon all, hope you're all having a nice weekend
The bonfire last night was lovely, although I do feel a little guilty for drinking mulled wine, but it made Lucy sleep until 5 am, and then she went on to sleep until 10 am this morning so I got a really good lie in with DH, Yayy!

The fireworks were lovely, although I don't think there was as many as there has been in the past (maybe there were less people this year, everyone brings some fireworks) but it was still really cool.

Everyone was cooing over Lucy and couldn't believe that I'd brought her with us (not sure what they expect, maybe that I stay at home?! )
Lucy was put in the bag for the duration and slept throughout the fireworks, and woke as soon as we got back inside LOL I expect that she knew she'd be fussed over and wanted to get out and be passed around, that's my girl

DD1 had a brilliant time, although I think the noise started to get to her, so it's earmuffs for next year then! I hardly saw her for the whole night, I think she spent most of it with Granny and Granddad, whcih was a big relief for me as all I had to do was sit and cudlle Lucy in the warm, which was nice.
DD1 was very intrigued by the bonfire and talked about it the whole way home too, that's my girl, she'll be dancing round it nekkid next year

DH has taken her out (to buy one of those nicotine inhalers, for him I should add) so that I can sort some stuff for Ebay, but, as you can tell, I'm now sat here typing , well it didn't take me long!

Anywho, nothing much else to add, everything's pretty boring round here, good ol' countryside, nice and quiet!

Have a good one
xxx

Morning all! Wow everyone must have had a busy weekend, it has been very quiet
Well, Arben had his first injections on thursday and what a brave little boy he was No side effects and a good nights sleep was had by all, well 4hrs straight have to go back on tomorrow tho for his check.
we have been getting on not too badly, feeding every 2-3hrs during the day and 3-5 hrs at night, so it is improving he is becoming more active and awake during the day which is great fun, loads of smiles, gurggles etc, he is a very tickly young man
Glad to hear you enjoyed your T'Ting and bonfires, we stayed at home and saw what we could thro the window!
Have a good week and fun with your LO's xxx

Hello everyone

No fireworks here other than a few seen through the window on saturday. Had a good day saturday, went shopping with my aunt and cousin, then a lazy day yesterday, dh did Bens morning feed so I managed a lie-in till 10am

Yesterday with Ben was the best day yet. A 5oz feed at 8.15am, 5oz at 11.30am, 6oz at 4pm then a whopping 6 hours still his next feed at 10pm where he had 4oz and then one feed during the night at 3.30am with another 5oz I had lots of sleep and feel normal again. I wonder how today will go...

Off to see my mum today, she hasn't seen Ben since the first week and its the first long drive I have done, so hopefully I will be ok, hope everyone has a good day

hi everyone - quiet on here. had a rough friday/ sat. ryan had been fairly grizzly thurs/ fri and we then took him to ireland on sat for one night to meet his other granny. involved 4am start - huge huge huge mistake. we returned the most shattered we have been since ryan was born. i always return from my mums incredibly well rested and i guess i had similar expectations from visiting MIL this weekend. doh!
thank goodness ryan was a poppet last night, so although not feeling great this morning am heaps better than yesterday.
Made DH and i realise just how much my mum does for us.

god this is tough. sorry for the me post, but needed to get it off my chest. tell me we turn a corner soon. pleeeasse!

Hi all. Blimey dal, all the way to Ireland for one night - you're brave. No wonder you're done in. Hope you recover quickly. We were planning to go to Ireland last week for a wedding, but would have gone for a few days. Just before booking we found out the dc weren't invited so we obviously didn't go. Did think about just me going with Liam (have to take him because of bf) but it was strictly no children so couldn't. It was a shame because I would have loved to catch up with the family and show him off. But we'll go another time, hopefully not before too long. Did you fly or ferry? Flying's easier, but you can't take as much. We'll probably go car/ferry when we go.

Well Liam likes fireworks. We went to the school's display. He was in his pram gazing up at them completely mesmirised (?sp). He wasn't put off at all about the noise. Guess that's not surprising considering the noise generally in our house.

And about feeding, we've had a couple of busy days where we've been out and about a lot. When we're on the move Liam sleeps a lot - be it in the pram, car or carrier. We've had 2 times where he has slept for 7 hours before waking hungry. So we now just have to convince him he can go that long during the night. That would be great. Imagine, a whole nights sleep!

Take care everyone. Special hello to Cerys. Good luck this week, we'll all be thinking of you. You too plp. xxx

hiya - we flew. easyjet were amazing, they basically let me through earlier so i could bfeed in private and also be first on the plane.

i am glad we didnt go for longer - ryan despised the travel cot there. i wont be doing it again though. Told DH that my MIL needs to get over her reluctance to book wheelchair assistance ( london airports are just too much walking for her now), otherwise she wont be seeing ryan as often as we would like her too.

plp - thoughts are with you this week.

Hello all,

Can't type long - I'm only home for a couple of hours! Bit of a change of plan and things have been really hectic! As you know Cerys was scheduled for surgery this Wednesday morning...

She was getting breathless over the weekend when she was feeding and also sweaty so I called the cardiology ward in Southampton yesterday morning (as advised if this should happen). They said to bring her in and that she would probably just be given medicine (diuretics), observed for the night, then sent home. They did a chest x-ray as routine as well as an echo (heart scan) and the good news is that the holes in her heart are getting smaller.

This morning, they said that they were happy for her to have her operation on Wednesday morning and that they would then schedule for her to have a simple procedure done on the tube on her heart that hasn't closed over. She would apparently have to be about 5kgs for them to do this. HOWEVER, the chest x-ray showed up that her heart is quite big so they did another echo and decided that the tube that needs to be blocked (called a PDA) is much bigger than they thought and that it needs to be operated on sooner rather than later because it will put too much of a strain on her to wait until she puts on weight.

So, she is having heart surgery tomorrow morning!!! They'll cut into her under her left arm to do this!!! Also, her other operation (on her bowel/bottom) will now be early December when she has fully recovered from this.

We are of course worried but I have to say that she is surrounded by babies who have had much worse problems and I have been told that this is quite a simple procedure in the world of cardiology.

So, we'll still be in hospital for the next week or so (apparently its the same kind of recovery time).

DD1 is distraught bless her, not sure how DS has taken it just yet - he's gone all quiet...

Sorry to have to dash off but I've got to pack everything and get back to her!!

Chatty - I haven't had any credit but I'll have DH's mobile so I'll send you an update when the op is done (probably tomorrow afternoon). I've saved a couple of other numbers into my phone too so you might get a text from me!!!

Love from PLP xxx

Hello everyone, glad to see so much going well on this thread!
PLP, all my best wishes for this week to all of you and especially Cerys.
I've been offline for 3 weeks relocating to another part of the country, and shouting at BT about the Broadband connection... which is now back (obviously). Josephine has a touch of colic but is still very chilled. She slept right the way through the removal men dismantling the house, rowing with me, etc...
DD1 quite likes her new school, but thinks she can browbeat us into returning to the old one if she refuses to eat school dinners. And I've at last seen a decent physio and moved on to crutches, bye bye wheelchair and zimmer frame! We've got carers coming in to do various essential things, notably the school run . But we'll get there... Might even be able to take J for a walk in her (too expensive) pram before she outgrows it!
Right I'll stop blabbing and go - best wishes, will try to catch up on posts this week!

Morning All

PLP good luck for the op I will be thinking of you and sending Cerys get well soon vibes!. I am sorry you are going through all this but I think you are doing amazingly.

Dal a trip to Ireland for 1 night that was brave!. I think your right to make your MIL come next time.

Toadstool I'm glad the move has gone well and that you are getting some help.

Well my parents have been visiting this weekend and are leving today. It was nice to see them but it keeps you constantly busy and Poppy has slipped out of her routine a bit which is annoying. We had an awful night last night with her doing her 11:00 feed and being wide awake until 01:30 when we just decided to put her in her cot and cry it out!.

Anyway must dash she's crying now, have a good day everyone.

xxx

Thinking of you and Cerys over the coming week PLP xx

Well Ben decided to be wide awake after his 1am feed, took me till 3.30 to get him back to sleep, then he woke me up at 4.15 and again at 6am [yawn] good job I had lots of sleep the previous night, hopefully tonight will be better. I have had two days of only 5 feeds for him though, and yesterday he downed a 7oz bottle he's only a month old, fat knacker long may it continue

plp - much love to you and cerys.

toadstool - welcome back. glad you are all moved.

nicki - i hear you on routine. when i was at MIL, i still woke ryan at 7.30, even though he had had such a bad night. i refused to let him disrupt his night and day. he cried for about 15 mins and you could see my MIL didnt agree with what i had done. 'he must be tired poor little mite' she said to which dh and i both responded that he needs to learn when sleeptime is. 15 mins later he was gurgling and playing happily and fortunately routine wasnt thrown. when grand parents are around for a few days though - it can be tough.

mrs f - ben sounds as though he is doing really great. well done you and him! ryan has gone from 8 feeds over 24 hours to 7 feeds. is going 5 hours after dreamfeed (although still waking after 3 out of habit, but i just give him dummy and he goes another 2 hours), then goes another 4 ish hours. has done that past 2 nights, so fingers crossed it lasts. hoping he eventually realises waking at 1 is not worth it.

he is also starting to be able to suck his thumb (when he can find it). spends a lot of time frantically hunting for it, so i think dummy days are numbered and i have a thumb sucker on my hands! like mother like son i guess!

hugs to everyone else. will text hopey to see how she is.

xx

Morning all

Have been away for what feels likes ages with broadband problems, hopefully sorted now. Millie has also been having a massive growth spurt and feeding loads during the day but then goes for long periods at night so I am very grateful to her for knowing the difference between night and day - took the DTs months to figure it out!

Purple - will be thinking of you and Cerys tomowrrow, hope it all goes very well, sounds like you are in very good hands at southampton. A colleague has twins, one of whom had a PDA which was operated on at 4 weeks, and the twins were 5 weeks prem so the little tiny girl was still very wee (think it was a big hole) and she improved amazingly straight away, with much better breathing and no longer had bluish lips, she is 8 months now and doing fab. Take good care, will be thinking of you. x

Twit - hope you had a fab day and are enjoying being all legal and married and suchlike.

Hi to everyone else too, missed you

The DTs were three yesterday and DH was 37 on Sunday so we have had a lovely family couple of days, pottering out to parks, going to soft play and having a nice meal out all together(Millie was an angel and only woke up demanding food as I was finishing my desert - I think she understands how vital sugar is to her mummy).

Very impressed with those of you with any sort of routine - am hoping Millie will find one at around 3 months or so that fits in with the other girls, at the moment she is feeding like a demon and getting chubbier by the day, hope this growth spurt settles soon - DH asked if my legs still work properly as I spend so long slouched on the sofa BFing and demanding drinks and remote controls and issuing orders to the DTs - they work well enough to kick him ha ha.

Hi all,
Just popping in quick to say "Hi!" and stuff
Dal21: I don't envy you! There's no way I'd do a trip all that way for one night, must've been really tough, don't do it again!

PLP: Good luck for Cerys's op

I had an amazing day yesterday, had my doc's appt in the morn, coffee with a friend (our local BHS has got a new coffee lounge and does fair trade really cheap too), and then went to see another friend for lunch and spent the whole afternoon relaxing, DD1 had loads of fun drawing and playing with her DS's toys.
I always come home from her's really chilled and kind of wishing that I could stay there, it's such a lovely atmos, oh well, will just have to cook up the Chai she gave me and spend today totally chilled

DD1 has decided that today she's going to do the opposite of what I ask of her, she's going to get a shock in a minute, I'm sending her back to bed so that I can concentrate on my plans for next summer (whilst at my friend's house we decided we're going to team up and help each other out with an up and coming local event that she hosts, so hopefully I'll be getting some extra cash before long, Yayy!)

Had a hellish night last night (after such a lovely day I was expecting it LOL)
Lucy was restless all evening and would not go to sleep once I'd taken her upstairs at about half 10
I then spent 2 hours rocking, shh-ing, whispering and allsorts, gave up, left her crying and made myself a cup of tea!
Heard DH go into my room and she instantly was quiet
After 2 hours of me trying to get her to sleep all he has to do is rub her tummy (which I had tried) maybe it was because he doesn't smell of milk

Anyway, she's now crying and DD1 is being a pain too so I'm off
Byeeee
xxx

Don't know if I'm too late but good luck Cerys and Plp for tomorrow - thinking of you and hope all goes really well xxx

Hi everyone else -hope all going well ?
I managed a trip to Kingston yesterday with Eloise - bless her slept through the whole thing ! I went into baby room in John lewis to feed her and had nice chat with another bf mum - i had wanted to go to coffee shop but chickened out of the public bf experience !!

I went to my NCT group Baby massage class last week and Eloise really loved it - it helped her sleep well afterwards too . She is a girl after my own heart - obviously loves a bit of pampering !

have a good day ! xxx

hi all!

hammer - glad to hear millie is going good stretches at night.

kyala - dont woory i wont. you fellow mnetters are too polite. you say brave. i say stupid. dont worry, it is a trip that both dh and i agree will not happen again.

amyclara - brave the bfeeding in public! i have done it a fair few times. a good table, combined with strategic positioning of pram combined with muslin means no one can see anything. i bfed this weekend in starbucks at luton, cafe at belfast airport and then at front of queue for easyjet flight. no one batted an eyelid even though it was fairly obvious wha the grunting, sqeaking and squirming bundle under the blanket was doing! once you do it a few times, it really builds your confidence.

have heard back from hopey and she seems heaps better!

lots of interesting debate on the bfeeding threads on todays research released!

question - is everyone going for all vaccinations for their lo's? i am, just interested if anyone is opting out.

Hi Dal

I am opting out of MMR for Poppy. It is completely individual decision and a tough one but we discussed it before she was born and decided to not have it.

Both of DP's parents are special needs teachers and used to run a school and they were very unsure of it and so we have decided against it. We will get her vaccinated for measles, mumps and rubella but seperately the (old fashioned way!) privately.

Yep, Liam will be getting all his jabs, the other 2 did too. Mind you I am happy that my surgery do them later than standard - iirc they are at 3, 5 and 8 months instead of 2, 3 & 4. They may be even later than that, I've not had my letter through yet and he is 10 weeks old already. I can't remember the reasoning behind delaying them a bit, but the surgery is very holistic / complimentary / homeopathic orientated.

Hello everyone

Dal21 - hope you're feeling more recovered from the Ireland trip! It's not uncommon fo lo's to hate the travel cot at first it took a few trips to get ds1 out of our bed and settled in the cot! Nice to hear you were looked after by easyjet. I may brave a flight with dc yet! And yes we're having all vaccinations as did DS1.

Kinki - A;ex loved the fireworks too- we just went outside for a bit and looked at other peoples fireworks but he gazed up wide eyed with us!

Toadstool - nice to have you back and glad the move went ok. Am i right in thinking it's Reading you've moved to? I'm about 40mins from Reading town centre!

Nicki - i hope things return to normal quickly and lo's routine isn't upset too much!

Hello Hammerheadshark - nice to hear millie is doing well and Happy birthday to the DT's. My ds1 is 3 next month!

Kyala - lol at dd and her opposites! At i know the frustration you must feel at lo settling for dh - i've had that happen too!

Amyclaramum - i agree with Dal, brave the bf in public it's not as bad as you think!

Not much news from us, Alex has been permanently hungry today so growth spurt me thinks! His umbilical hernia is looking worse so i'm going to pop to clinic tomorrow for an opinion - does anyone know anything about umbilical hernias?
I've had 3 job offers now for childcare work where i take ds1 and ds2 and still get paid my full rate so debating whether to go for it or am i taking on too much!

Hi again,

Thinking of you, PLP.

Chattyhan, yes we are indeed now in Reading! In fact we experienced the famous Reading traffic problem on Saturday, when it took us 40 minutes to get out of Tesco car park... I'm quite glad not to be driving for the moment! No doubt we'll get used to it quickly - are you N or S of the town?

Dal, I'm going for the full immunisations after hearing that whooping cough is widespread among adults (the jab wears off as the disease is weak in grown-ups), and LOs can get it very easily as a result. We chose single jabs instead of the MMR for DD1, and paid for the lot, but never got the one for Mumps - it turned out it was no longer being produced by the manufacturers, and demand had rocketed in the UK because of the MMR scare, so supplies had run out. It's worth checking in advance on availability of single jabs. In the end I went for the MMR at pre-school-booster stage and haven't regretted it.

Hi guys - will cross the mmr bridge at 12 months. my GP offers all the jabs, including the separate ones so will see. Its just that there are other options for the 5 in one jabs with parents taking thw 3 in 1 instead to avoid over vaccinating their children. Have a consultation with ryan on thurs and will decide then - although am pretty sure am going to go for all the standard ones.

I am wide awake a stoopid o clock. Ryan is learning that he is no longer getting 1am feed and am starting to stretch him out to 3/4am...last 2 nights was easy - tonight he has been fighting it a bit and has involved going back in a few times to shush/ pat him. Figured it was better to get up and remain calm and deal with it as opposed to nodding off and then being woken (and grumpy) again.

Another question - is anyone still bleeding? I have very very light bleed and am nearly 9 weeks postpartum. Is not even enough to lightly stain a pany liner but when I go to the loo and wipe, there is a little blood (and is bright red) - is this something I should see my GP about?