June 2020 Babies - newborn snuggles, recovery, milk and night feeds!

[LillianFullStop]

First post natal thread for June 2020 babies! Looking forward to seeing our birth club thread members here soon!

@SRS1311 I start bedtime routine at 9.30/9.45 which is dim lights quiet voices and I always put Ewan the white noise sheep on
I bath her, do baby massage read her a book then big feed usually one side only she will then sleep for anywhere between 3 and 5 hours the second half of night is never as good I'm working on this

I have realised past few days she has been having upto about 4/5 hours of awake time before a solid nap so come evening she is so pissed off and over tired from tomorrow I'm going to work hard to get her to sleep as once they get past a certain point they struggle right et themselves off to nap going to ask hubby to push her out in pram just for 10 minutes the motion and fresh air usually gets a good 2 hour nap apparently more sleep in day equals more sleep at night

@mrssunshinexxx I have also been struggling to get baby to sleep much during the day. Today was better than the rest of the week so far, but it’s hard to figure out. When she first came home from the hospital she would just sleep all the time and so suddenly having to work out when she needs the extra help to sleep is really hard. Thankfully she has been sleeping well at night so far. Once we get her down - which goes much better if my husband does it, I think she can smell the milk on me and won’t settle - then she wakes every 2.5 - 3.5 hours for a feed which isn’t bad. She’s only 18 days old today. I’m not planning to try to implement a nap schedule or anything for a while yet since we’re still in that fourth trimester period, just trying to follow her lead but her lead seems to be to want to stay awake all day... she gets grumpy every evening which makes me sad for my husband as it coincides with him getting home from work... so he experiences most of the crying hours!

@UKtoSK SNAP my husband works off shore mon to thurs so even worse he doesn't see her for days then she's so grumpy and only wants to cluster feed which obviously he can't help with

she seems to be in a deep sleep now since 11.15 but I really had to work at getting her down fingers crossed she has 2 or 3 hours then feeds and I will try to have a short play and then get her back down

Can I ask if any one else's baby has really dry skin? Ivy has on most of her body, I don't bath her every night only twice a week and I use Aveeno cream on her along side child's farm I think it's called and her skin is still dry especially her forehead and legs. I'd appreciate any recommendations x

@Busylizzie85 snap! Exactly the same with Grace her forehead and legs are very dry. We also aren’t bathing her too often and are using aveeno! I’d welcome any tips also!

@mrssunshinexxx we found that evenings were such a battle when we let Freddie be awake too long in the day, he now sleeps after pretty much every feed but only really when on someone, just embracing the cuddles for now to make sure he gets enough sleep, have seen a massive improvement by not letting him be awake longer than 90 mins at a time. Went to the pub yesterday evening so he ended up awake for too long and we paid the price with 2 hours of him screaming 

@Busylizzie85 @Gigitree my little one has really bad dry skin as was 2 weeks overdue, we bath him most evenings using just water then do massages with coconut oil which has cleared it all up and makes his skin so soft

@Busylizzie85 breast milk is the best thing second thing for me is extra virgin coconut butter

@Cornishbumpkin sorry you've had same issues but you sound v similar .
Day one of trying to make her nap more has gone well she slept 11.15-1.20 , 2.40-3.15 and 4.15- just waking now ish

So will see how the evening goes but usually by now she's kicking off
Luckily I can get her to nap not on my often I leave her on me to cuddle as it's lovely but sometimes I have to do housework
Her next nap this eve will be on mummy :)
Fingers crossed she doesn't get sad tonight it breaks my heart x

Really struggling today. Grace has screamed through or after every feed and she has barely slept except for 30min naps on me the whole day.
She’s current asleep on me but she doesn’t seem to be talking into that deep sleep like she normally would. I’m shattered and I just want her to sleep in her cot for a couple of hours 😩

We haven't had any naps in the crib yet so if you've managed any I'm impressed!

All naps are on me or DH unless she falls asleep in the buggy. I figure that's a challenge for a later stage.

We've had some challenges with deep sleep too- am having to resettle as she wakes up after forty minutes even when napping on me!

@Gigitree sorry to hear your struggling. We have been on the comfort formula for 2 days now and Theo is more settled. Hes less gripey and in pain and not throwing up as much..therefore it's easier for him to settle / sleep. Might be worth a go?

It's hard to know what's considered "good" for sleeping and naps, day and night. I think I put too much pressure on it, when I do put him down I feel constantly anxious he's going to wake up. So far he will nap 2 - 3 hrs of a day in his moses. Sometimes we will use sleepyhead too which he likes. Our nights have been more difficult. Tuesday was his first night of sleeping 3 hr blocks but he wasnt as good for me last night ( I was awake the entire night). I think my husband is better at the routine of feeding / winding / soothing. It's such a rollercoaster, sometimes you'll have a good morning then a bad evening .the ups and downs are mentally draining.

Are you all managing to get out and about much? We try go out of an afternoon for a walk or to the shops. The motion of being in the car / prame always makes him sleep. Feels like cheating though

Hey ladies. It's been a while. Seems like most of us are suffering from the same things. We are still going with colief in the daytime and infacol at night for colic. Working well.

Just thought I'd post something important I realised today. I went to the effort of pumping and storing some breastmilk. Was hoping to build up a stock so husband and other family members could look after baby if say I went for a meal with friends. I defrosted some today to make sure baby was ok with it, and I kid you not, his face when he tasted it ???? Absolute disgust! Refuses to swallow the stuff.
I did some research and this is actually a thing. Something to do with the lipase in the milk makes it taste soapy when its been frozen and defrosted! Some babies will drink it, some won't. Anyway, thought I'd mention it here in case anyone was religiously freezing milk. Do a taste test now!

@Missgemini that’s good to know! I’ve not been pumping but sometimes when I feel too full I’ve been hand expressing some out and freezing it so as not to waste it.

Just got a 20 minute nap out of baby in her day bed before she woke up crying so now I’m holding her again. At least I got the washing in the tumble drier and did the washing up in that time...

Picture from earlier when she was calm and happy before she spit up all over herself and me.

Hope you have a better day today @Gigitree we had a screamy day last Friday. Think its where they're having a brain surge and can't switch off. Once they get a bit older they have these surges where they don't sleep and then start crawling/ have a new word/ skill.
Dd is 2 months old today. No idea how thats happened!! She's definitely not as routined as ds was around this age but he made his own routine and thrived on it!

As to evening screaming we had this with dd between 630-830/9 and I realised she was just exhausted from the day. I now take her up for a bath at 545. Milk at 6 and in her bed by 630 with minor screaming which is amazing. It also means I am able to do ds a proper bedtime (bath and book) as when DH working evenings hes just been watching netflix in my bed whilst i deal with her and quite often just falling asleep in my bed which makes me feel bad as his worlds been turned upside down!

It does mean shes up around 6am but hoping over the next couple of months we can slowly push the bedtime back , though once im back at work we need to be out the house at 10 past 7 so 6am probably isn't the worse wake up

@AndddddHerewegoagain do you then stay upstairs with her from 6.30pm? X

I’m with you ladies in staying awake too much in the day . J was awake from 2pm till 10 last night . Screamed unless he was on the boob constantly from 5pm he was so over tired . Slept In crib from 11 till 4 then 5-7 & is asleep again on me now .
We’ve managed to get a virtual assessment with a tt private practitioner today hopefully they can help.
Here’s a picture of j’s tongue tie , cause sometimes I managed to convince myself the nhs is right and ‘it can’t be that bad because he’s still putting on weight ‘🙄

@AndddddHerewegoagain sounds like you have her in a good routine. Does she wake much after you put her down at 6.30?

@mrssunshinexxx no. She has the sensor mat in her crib and I have the baby monitor on loud. Shes such a snuffly baby and wiggles even when shes deep asleep I'm able to keep an eye on her. I go and check her regularly as well. I know it goes against all guidelines but its exactly what i did with my son. To be honest i think never leaving them is a bit extreme, and impossible especially when you have more than 1 child.

@SRS1311 i feed her around 1030. Sometimes she wakes up for it sometimes its a dreamfeed depending on how shes fed during the day. Then she has a feed around 2-3am and then 6-7am depending on when she wakes up so a pretty nice routine.

@AndddddHerewegoagain not judging was just wondering my husband works offshore mon to thurs so there are occasions I have to leave Nelly and just crack on ! I have never left her upstairs when I'm down stairs yet but wondering if in a few weeks I should try bring her 'bedtime' routine forward to 6.30-/7 at the mo it is 9.30/9.45 as I don't want to go up any sooner myself or it's just a long long night

Didn't take it as judgement at all @mrssunshinexxx sorry if it came across like that. I just think the safe sleep guidelines to be next to your baby 24/7 are completely unrealistic!

A lot of it is bollocks I think us mums know best and there is no guidebook we all just find what works for us x

Forgot to tag @AndddddHerewegoagain

Thank you @Pegase @SRS1311 and @AndddddHerewegoagain

We’ve had a much better day today. I’m starting to think she has just been getting over tired so u need to work on getting her to nap, even if it’s just on me, so that she will have longer stretches of sleep and then actually be really hungry for her milk rather than fussing with it.

Glad to hear the comfort milk is working for you @srs1311 we will deffo be trying this next if things don’t improve

That really makes sense @andddddherewegoagain about them having brain development changes that causes them to become screamy! I noticed today she’s not settling down for a sleep well because she’s looking around every where so perhaps now she can see more she’s becoming over stimulated.

@Gigitree I would definitely agree with you. I think when they are first born, the 'problem' is always hunger but very quickly it becomes hunger or tiredness and then hunger, tiredness or overstimulation. Naps will become an obsession for all of us for the next three years

I definitely think Jia’s evening screams are from over tiredness. Yesterday evening she was crying for a while and I let my husband have a go at soothing her because she just kept trying to feed from me then crying every time she got the nipple in her mouth... he got her to stop crying eventually and then accidentally scratched her leg doing up her pjs and it started all over again. But I swaddled her up and cuddled her and she slept on me for ages before having a good long feed and then passing out in her crib for the night (with the usual nightly feeds).

We gave her her first bath this morning and it went well! She seemed to like the warm water. Maybe it feels similar to being in the womb again? Followed by a good long feed and now she’s napping on me again. I don’t mind being pinned down if it means she’s getting a good long sleep in.

I did some middle of the night shopping 🙈 I ordered this to see if it will help LO settle in her next to me crib for the whole night instead of part.

Has anyone else tried one of these?

LO is 6 weeks and 1 day not sure when it will arrive hopefully in the next week then I thought I would wait until after her 8 week jabs as I fear if I do have success just before she will be so unsettled after the jabs that she may just regress again for a few days