December 2007 - Santa's come early for some of us...

[Housemum]

Thought I'd start off the new thread as I've never started one before - congratulations to those of you who are on here now - hope I'll be joing you in the not-too-distant future!

clairybee we have started to wake millie at 10.30 for a feed as she was still waking at 2 and 5am. (she had started going from 7.30 to 2.30 and i wanted her to drop the 2am not the 10.30pm!) that wasn't enough- she wasnt taking much at 10.30 so i feed her some before bathtime and only a top up afterwards- so she is hungrier at 10.30 which has worked for us

Pecka - yep - having some off days too - remember your hormones take a massive dip at around 6 weeks so expect to feel crap My Older sis gave me the best piece of advice ever when I spoke to her the day after Freya was born -

"REMEMBER HOW GGOD YOU FEEL NOW, WITH YOUR NEW LITTLE GIRL, AND WHEN YOU FEEL LOW JUST THINK BACK TO THIS MOMENT"

As I had PND last time I've been paranoid every time I feel anything but fab yummy mummy, but when I do, I really have tried to think back to how amazing the feeling was with a few hours old little bundle in my arms - and IT WORKS

Speaking feeling crap though - getting stressed up here in bonny jock land as DH heads off to Andorra for a long weekend tomorrow and I'm driving down to Sheffield to my folks - great in theory but as there's more snow here than abroad and weather forecast is s**t for tomorrow feeling a tad apprehensive to say the least - also haven't packed yet - and DH is doing his usual bugger all packing - why do blokes assume things get in bags themselves????

Re. weight wise things are all over the place aren't they - I was an 18 (pushing that to be honest) and a 38B pre preg and although can just about fit back into a couple of pairs of jeans they're not exactly the comfiest and were big ones at that - boobs are a pain aren't they too - why can you get loads of nice Maternity clothes but none that are good for BF?????? I need at least a 20 on top (even though only gone up to 42DD) but even then most things don't go anywhere near - I'm sick of layered stretchy T-shirts and cardies I've also got the issue of the 2 stone I didn't lose after DD1 (let alone the stone I put on before her!!!!!) so long term weight loss I think - trying to be sensible and not snack etc but it's difficult when you're so conscious of eating enough for BF - interesting though that Weight Watchers allow and extra 10 points if you're BF - as the average daily allowance is around 20 points that show's you how much they reckon extra you need if feeding even though you're trying to lose weight - I was surprised anyway - not sure when to really start trying though but we also have a wedding in the summer and want to be less than pre Preg by then if possible.....ramble ramble ramble - sorry

Anyway - won't be on line for a week or so, so TTFN and hope you all have a jolly week

Just can't believe Freya is 8 weeks old tomorrow - how exactly has the time gone that quickly??

beanster - know that feeling about blokes packing, we've gone to the swimming pool before and dh has been supprised his trunks and towel aren't packed for him! obvioulsy he failed to see me getting myself and ds ready to go!
and thats such great advice from your sis - I had PND before and will be using that one

not much going on here, had a busy day with ds (actually its just the weekly shop took hours between feeding and nappy changes but it was nice wandering round tesco, you forget how manic life with a toddler can be and ds1 was with child minder today)

hope everyone else is doing ok

I'm getting worried about my bleeding, I'm having dark brown/red bleeding which started again last week and I have dull period type pain aches - any ideas what this is??? I made a doc app today for next week but think I'll try n go tomorrow

Lizzer, Ebay selling is good in principal to bring some cash in, until cash in paypal account = free money to spend on Ebay buying more crap back into the house

Suey at the moment that's what Fin is doing - waking at 2 and 5 (ish), I'll try waking him at 10.30 and see if it makes a difference.

Ambi LOL, that's what I did just before I was due, sold loads of really good things but have no cash to show for it as went on to buy loads more!

Insy I am having a bit of browny discharge now and again with some very weird dragging pains as well. I think mine is due to the caesarian. Hope yours is sorted out soon.

Beanstermummy hope you have a safe drive down to Sheffield and enjoy your time with your folks. I saw a thread on MN about someone moving to Scotland and wanting snow and most people were replying saying it's all a myth and we don't get snow - PAH, I'm sooo fed up of it snowing here! We've had more days of snow than I've had hours sleep in January!

Without sounding stupid, how do they know if you have PND? Is it at your 6 wk check they decide?

clairey - can you give me some tips on "handling" the washables? I have disposable liners that can be washed down the loo. So in theory, open up pooey nappy remove paper liner and flush down loo then pop rest in bucket, clean up bum and on goes the new one right?

In practice, open up pooey nappy, look in horror at mess with most of it NOT on the paper liner, take liner to loo, come back to find DD2 has dipped her feet in the poo, use 3-4 wipes cleaning up enough to remove soiled nappy to bucket, inevitably find some has escaped onto towel on change mat so now have wash that too...you get the picture!!!

Yes have moved DD out of Moses basket completely now. She starts night in cot thru to feed around 2/3am then goes back to sleep next to me in my bed.

Only prob today the 7am poo squirted out the sides onto my duvet cover! Imagine my washing today...

Loucee, my hv got me to fill out a silly questionairre before my 8 wk check-up to see if PND is an issue. They also do it again at 16 wks.

insywinsyspider my loss stopped and started for about 6 - 8 wks. You aren't passing any clots are you? I would def get an appt tomorrow - if only to put your own mind at rest, but it sounds ok.

Knew the other night was too good to be true - ds is back to 2 hourly (or less!) feeds!
He as feeing much yesterday morning, sleepy but not actually sleeping, and then snacking most of the afternoon and evening. He was doing the same this morning, cries, pop him on he sucks for a few minutes then falls asleep. 10 minutes later repeats itself. I guess he is cluster feeding again...

morning all
off to work today . the joys of eing self-employed. Have to go and give an appraisal to a member of staff who isn't doing well. Not my favourite job! Also just have to show my face every week to make sure everything is ok. It is horrible to feel the old work anxieties creeping back in. I thought i would be able to be distant until may at least.

BeachBunni - I'm ff, Ethan takes 5oz of hungry baby milk every 4 hours or so during the day and is normally going about 6 hours after his bedtime bottle, then back to every 4 hours.
What about you?

With regards to weight, ive always been a size 10, 34c. Im back into my normal clothes but ive haad to buy loads of new bra's im now 34dd.

I've been kept wake all night by the winds as well, i havent slept much at all and now have bright red eyes, its a very attractive look

Bturtle, it sounds like DD a few weeks ago, comfort suckling, luckily the dummy resolved that so she took a good feed the next time and then lasts again for a few hours, but some babies don't like the dummy do they, not when Mums nipples are just so damn tasty. I hope you manage to resolve it cos it sounds like he's permanently attached, which isn't always a good look when shopping/ironing/driving Loucee I love snow on the first day, but it really becomes tiresome and awful after that. The storms were terrible here too last night, we live next to a field which the wind comes screaming up until it hits our poor house, the rain is bad enough bouncing off the conservatory but we had hail too, I thought we were being attacked!

Weight hmmm, well At my heaviest a couple of years ago I was a size 20, 14.5 stone , but got down to a size 16, 12.5 stone just before I was pregnant, yay go me. I didn't put on too much weight whilst pregnant, which I expected to and I ate like a pig too(at least 3 stone), but I had a range of my fat clothes to wear whilst preggers. The last weigh in during pg took me up to 14stone which scared me something rotten so I didn't weigh again. I bought some size 18 jeans 2 weeks ago, which I squeezed into in the changing room and now they fit with a little room spare, I'm now 12.9 and hope to be around 12 again by the end of next month, then I can lose proper weight and be nice and slim for the first time in my adult life, hurrah, (yummy mummy daydreams)

Suey, work yuk, hope you don't have to stay too long.

I'm having a can't be arsed day today (can you tell will all these posts!) I think I'll slob around all day in my dressing gown watching Jeremy Kyle, ok not that bad, but I still don't intend to the ever increasing pile of ironing smiling at me. I must get dressed before DH gets home otherwise housewife guilt sets in, ie when I've not made his lunch or got dinner ready in time even though I'm "at home doing nothing" all day!

today Im just bloody exhausted and spent most of the night, awake feeding thinking about going to mothercare first thing today and buying whatever they sell - bottles, formula, infacol, gripewater, straightjacket (for me)

I am managing to stick in with BF but have tried a bottle a few times at 10pm - a couple of times it worked beautifully and the rest of the time no difference.

Last night put her down at 10, then she was up at 12, 1, 2, 3.30, 5 then 7 up for the day.

She was sick a few times in the night as I think I was just latching her on willy nilly to get her back to sleep.

ahhhhhhhhhh it does get better doesnt it????? remind me of WHEN!!!!!!!?

Fifi - Alex is about the same, taking about 4- 6 oz every four hours, although sometimes decides to snack by taking about 2 1/2 every 2 hours which does my head in as you've no sooner finished than you're starting again. He usually sleeps bout 4-6 hours at night, altho last night it was the 2 hr thing, but dad helped so it wasn't too bad.

With regard to weight I'm back to pre-preg weight altho the tummy's still a bit flabby. Boobs unfortunately have also gone back to what they were before. Got used to the nice full set I had while bf. Very unfit now tho as I was on full bedrest for five weeks before the birth and couldn't do much after my c-section. Can't wait for the weather to start picking up so me and monkey can get out and about more.

Suey - must be awful going back to work
Talking about boobs - mine seem to have headed a bit more south.

mornig all.
we're on the 11 to 12, 2 to 3am, 5 to 6 am feeding schedule too, although the past 2nights dd has been really reluctant to take the ebm in a bottle that dh has been giving at late evening. and the grizzles 45 mins after feeding are back. we've stopped the infacol, as i forgot to give it most of the time, but dd now bellows for ages after feeding. hmm. maybe should get some more.
tried gripe water last night but think i forced it down too close to a feed as she brought nearly the whole feed back.
anyone got any ideas why dd would suddenly start rejecting bottle at 5 weeks? she wrigglesand cries while sucking on teat, and dh says she's dribbling alot of milk out of her mouth cos she's sort of crying and sucking at sametime. any ideas?
re massive bosoms/bums/bellies, was 10st 6lb a fortnight ago, so 8 to 10lb to go before back to normal. suspect most weight is in bosoms, which are currently 34j. look on my norks, ye mighty, and despair...

dundee millie did this when she was 4 weeks old- i changed her teat from newborn to 1 month+ (avent) and that sorted it. I think the newborn teats are very fast flow so you LO may be pulling away if it is too fast.

Dundee - dd2 was like that a few nights ago and we thought it might be caused by either taking toomuch too quick or wind (or some other totally random thing). Anywy I have now ordered some MAM newborn teats to see if that helps. I thought the flow was slower the smaller the teat but then again I know nothing....

Suey - a friend of mine ran her own company and had to go back to work very soon after her son was born too. But to make it worse, her husband is in the Army and was sent to Afghanistan 2 weeks after the baby was born....I have NO IDEA how she coped but she did! And now she's pregnant again! Mad thing!

Pecka - I know EXACTLY how you feel about buying things to try and make life easier. Even if it doesn't work at least you feel like you are doing SOMETHING which gives you some control back - I think the hardest thing about having such a small baby is the total loss of all control. I have bought what I call my "emergency kit" for when my DH is away from next week - two dummies, some formula, baby Olbas and some saline drops for dd2; a new nightlight and some kiddies magazined with lots of stickers for dd1 and lots of chocolate and red wine for me

BTW it DOES get better and hopefully very soon for you. I saw a big improvement around the 5/6? week mark and now she seems to be sleeping longer at night - last night she did 10 - almost 3am, although it then took me 1.5 hours to get her back to sleep (grrrr) - in the end I handed her over to DH and he got her back to sleep quicker than I would have done.

Pecka how old is your little one now?
I agree with Clara, DS is 6wks on Sunday and these last few days I've seen the feeding getting better and he's gone longer at night.

Clara, love your emergency kit!

Buzzy I am a complete slattern when it comes to nappies! I don't use liners atm because like you, I find runny poo just escapes them anyway. Basically I open up nappy(sometimes folding it over onto itself depending on how much is in it), lift up ds' bum and wipe then chuck the nappy and wipe (complete with poo) into the nappy bucket. His poo is still completely liquid so comes out in the wash.

I found paper liners were good at that inbetween stage (eg when you start weaning) for dd-where the poo is thickening up but is still not solid cos then I could just chuck most of it down the loo. Now her poo is mostly solid I use fleece liners and the poo just plops off them down the loo. I change her in the same way though-wiping and removing dirty nappy from under her before going to flush the poo away as otherwise you do end up with poo everywhere! But I'm afraid that anything liquid just gets put in the wash- I do not spend time scraping poo!

Isn't it great how when you have babies you can devote two paragraphs to talking about poo?!

Pecka things always seem worse in the middle of the night don't they? And I have also bought things just to try and do something-the only one I've had any success with is the sling though! DS will be 8 weeks on monday and I was beginning to despair when we passed that supposed magic 6 week mark but I'm starting to see light at the end of the tunnel (sometimes!).

But I do think you should all shut up about how your babies are only waking at 2 and 6! Is ds really the only one without a pattern yet???

Clairey but you realise we'll then be back to the "what happend, they were doing so well at night" in a day or so!

Ambi - ds has a dummy, he does use it a lot, but some reason he decided to be velcro baby yesterday!

Clairy - lol at poo conversation!

Suey - Hope you get done soon, hate doing appraisals because I'm too soft!

Someone from my AN class (had a meet up today) suggested doing a dream feed, so going to try that tonight.
We were going to do a Fit to Push thing, but it was so horrible out (snowing!) and we were put off by the fact we may have had to do exercises we stayed in one of the ladies houses and talked babies!!

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Thankyou, that's better.

Well after a nice night (2 wakings at some point- my ds has no routine either claireybee) its turned into 'one of those days' Velcro baby, feeding constantly (BT-I feel your anguish!), napping for few minutes on me. I've had a bowl of cereal and a slice of bread, only half buttered, to eat today. Nothing done in the house, no clue what's for tea.

I decided to put ds into seat whilst i washed the breakfast dishes (ie hardly anything) He cried so hard he started choking on his own tears! Seriously. He was put down for not even 5 minutes. I mean what are you supposed to do other than pick him up and stop him?!! And we had such a lovely day on Wed, i thought we'd turned a corner...

Suey, that's horrid you have to engage work brain, hope it went ok..

Claireybee, I think i'm going to be like you when we go onto reusables-in fact your method has given me hope that i can actually do it!!

Clara - love your kit, especially your section

Ambi - aha, I see that happening to me too with ebay, the vintage bag section is just far too tempting for me

I think the newborn teats are slower than the slow flow. If it's too slow she could be sucking a lot of air into her stomach and causing wind. We had the same problem with Alex fussing at the bttle a couple of weeks ago and not taking what he used to so we had to move to the medium flow and it seemed to fix the problem.
I've heard a lot of people say that infacol worked for them but personally it didn't for us but like it's been said - you'd really try anything.
Clareybee - there's stil no routine in our house either. Some nights Alex is great and sleeps for 5 or 6 hours, other nights like last night, he was up feeding 11,1,4. Then at 4 thought it was morning time and time to get up. I really don't care though as it's better than the horrible, colicky stage he went through for weeks where he screamed inconsolably for 6 to 12 hours solid.