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!

Thanks Clairey. I think that's good advice about the liner. Will drop it for the time being and save the hassle. Am trying to break in this student nanny ATM and need to simplify things for her too otherwise she will be doing everything but change nappies which simply isn't right!!! Actually she's doing quite well considering she's only 18 and this is her first job

I would hate to say we've cracked it but I can def see some patterns. Wed we spent the whole day at the beach with DD2 basically sleeping/dozing in the buggy the entire time, didn't wake properly until 10pm then refused to go down til 1am, up again 3am, 5am, 7am.

Yesterday she had a much better cycle of sleep 45mins, feed, awake for hour or so, sleep again, during day, then awake and a bit grizzly from 4-7pm, down in cot and miracle of miracles slept thru to 4am. I think its the combination of getting a reasonable amount of sleep and food during the day then a decent period of wakefulness early evening that does the trick.

Just realised I sound like Gina Ford!

Beachbunni - we are mixed feeding. Still managing to give her about 75% EBM but supplies are diminishing. Know what you mean about missing big boobs - think I will try to keep expressing even if its only a bottle a day for as long as poss just to retain some shape!

buzzy - we use reusables and I used liners last time but haven't bothered this time at all - much easier

loucee - no idea how they tell if you have PND - round here you have to pretty much figure it out for yourself and ask for help, for me, dh was the one who marched me to GP and asked how long 'baby blues' was going to last ds was 6 months old at the time

clara - love the emergency kit too, friend expecting baby in April its tempting to put that kit together for her as part of her present

evie has gone from being almost perfect newborn to having a not good baby routine which involves lots of morning sleeping but waking every 2-3 hours at night - hum!

and i think i have a haemorrhoid (yuck yuck yuck)- which i told my gp about at mt 6 week check trhinking she would want to check but no she didn't!

am drinking my 29 year old port - it is yummy. dh bought it for my birthday but as i was still pregnant i couldn't drink it...now i can .

hope you are ok....must read the rest of your messages...

Oh and I meant to say, in my experience if you're getting milk leakage out of the side of the mouth it means LO has gas - even if she doesn't appear to be in pain. This is usually caused by gulping at the beginning of the feed but could also be caused by ferocious sucking if the teak hole is very small (i.e. newborn size) causing frustration. The only thing to do is to remove the bottle, make sure to wind effectively (may take a few minutes) then try with the bottle again.

We have been using both the Avent variable flow teats (on size I) and also the size 2 teats (which I think are supposed to be 3m+). I have found the size 2 to be best, but make sure to have the neck screwed on fairly tightly.

morning all - just catching up on thread as I haven't been on for ages!

things settling down now with dd (she says with fingers crossed) we seem to be quite consistent during the night (has feed at 9pm then generally sleeps til 5/5.30am) and feeding roughly every 3 hours in the day. colic seems to be wearing off although we do have bad days when nothing will settle her. i am in awe of all of you still bf & feel at how short a time i lasted!

can't believe i'm reading about people TTC again! dh has said we can only have another LO if I can guarantee a boy .

at those of you almost back to pre-pregnancy weight. i lost 3 stone on weight-watchers for my wedding in 2006 & then put all of it back on again with dd i can barely look in the mirror at the mo - will HAVE to do something about it.

met with some local mumsnetters last night which was nice. hearing their stories makes you realise how normal what we're all going through is.

evening all,
just checking in, my it's been a bit of a quiet day.

Buzzy - that was very useful re: milk coming out of the side of the mouth.

Lizzer - hope you've had a better day today

DD2 6 weeks today, so waiting to see if the magic will happen tonight and she will sleep better...

evening all,
just checking in, my it's been a bit of a quiet day.

Buzzy - that was very useful re: milk coming out of the side of the mouth.

Lizzer - hope you've had a better day today

DD2 6 weeks today, so waiting to see if the magic will happen tonight and she will sleep better...

My DD celebrated her 5 week birthday by sleeping from 11pm to 7am - what a good girl!!! Of course got up at 2am to check her and cat woke me another time but still!!

Having wakeful period in the evening definitely seems to help - although it did make her harder to put down again, took nearly an hour from when I first started trying at 10pm. But I put some of that down to wind.

Sending you all good sleeping vibes }}}}

Buzzy - I am very of your dd's sleep, ds is over 5 weeks, and still waking up every 2-3 hours!
Last night, ds and I went to bed at 9pm after I fed him. DH gave him a dream feed at 11pm, but he only took a mouthful. DS then woke up at 12.30am and he had the rest of the bottle. He then woke up for a feed at 3am, he had a nice long feed and nappy change, went down at 4am, but then woke up at 5am, 6am and 7am!!!!
He did something really cute today, I'd just fed him so was winding him I had straddled across my knee, with my hands under his arms, and he reached and stroked my face Probably a random act of arm waving but he is also very good at hitting my boobs

Evening folks. Well i made the epic journey from Stirling to Sheffield just about in one piece on Friday - really odd driving down the A1 (which was bloody windy) as I had shades on coz it was sunny in front but behind in the mirror you could see all the crappy weather closing in - and only had to get out twice when DD1 decided she needed a wee - amusing when quote "my bum is too cold to wee Mummy"- solved it by using the porta potty on the front seat Still had to get out to strap the little beastie back into her car seat though

Now at my folks which I can honestly say is great - my Mum is fab as she is so much help - mainly with DD1 who is a complete nutter which gives me time to sort DD2 out when needed. Add to it all that my Dad only got out of hospital on Thursday after a couple of minor ops whihc are linked with his prostate cancer (which is poo in itself when you see him with my girls and wonder how long we'll have left with him - fingers crossed ages yet). But anyway - all in all, I just needed to share that for all the occasional hassle and frustration with parents, I can honestly say mine are fab (at the moment anyway)

DH has phoned from his skiing holiday a couple of times - can't work out whether it makes me feel better or worse really - just glad again I'm not on my own.

Loucee - for me with PND it only really kicked in at 5 months but had probably been surfacing for a while - the 'Edinburgh Test' is the questionaire they do at around 8 weeks and when they repeat it at 16 weeks or so they compare the scores - mine were a tad different which gave it away that my marbles had rolled away - not sure if they all ever came back but touch wood so far things are going well.

Not going to mention routines and sleeping pattens as DD2 seems to have got herself really sorted at the moment and I don't want to sound smug - or tempt fate as no doubt it'll all go tit's up soon

Anyway - off to have a glass of wine and be forced to watch parent type TV - just about managed Vicar of Dibly last night - not sure if I can cope with Miss Marple again though!!

All that remains to say is
GO WALES

Pity Scotland didn't do quite so well today but hey ho. (Confused nationality up here as my Mum is Welsh - hence the loyalty to Welsh Rugby, Dad is Enginsh and married to a Scot - very confused.

Hope you all have jolly weeks and all that and will try and log on soon (can't believe my folks finally got broadband so I can do this internet lark while here)

Glad you had a good journey - certainly is an epic one.
Sorry to hear about your dad , good to see he has the opportunity to spend time with you and his dgds.
Mum has (finally!) got her webcam set up, so she was able to see ds for the first time since her visit when he was 2 weeks old And he even waved at the camera as well!!!

hello all, gosh is quiet on here today - makes it so much easier to catch up with messages

beanster - glad to here journey went ok and parents are being fab, its lovely to have them looking after you isn't it? my mum maintains that her grandchildren are her reward for not killing her own children

buzzy - great news on sleep, we had 8pm till 4am last night and then till 7am, although like you I was checking him all the time!

had a good weekend, ds1 has decided he wants to use the potty he's 20 months and I have that 'oh god not at the moment' feeling about it all but one out of nappies is so so appealing! he's doing really well too, he doesn't say much yet but we have a potty 'sign' and he 'asks' for it, only one accident today and all poo in potty I have no idea what I'm doing and don't know if I'm brave enough to take him out in pants yet....
anyway bed before ds2 wakes up (I expressed tonight but put a no 4 teat on his bottle by mistake - big mistake it took ages to figure it out we wasted about 2 (valuable) oz's and he got full of air no idea why I picked up wrong one, think I need to sort out teats and put the larger ones away out of reach so I don't do it again!)

Beanstermummy glad your journey went well, hope the return is just as hassle free. Sorry to hear about your Dad, that's really sad and I do hope you have many more years with him yet.

Insy what a star sleeper your wee one is! That is so impressive, if you have any tips please do share because I totally jinxed our good nights and now back to 2-3 hours. Your DS1 sounds very clever with the potty, DD (2 next wk) knows what the potty is for but hasn't asked not to be in a nappy yet, I really need to read up on what are the signs for being ready to start training.

Buzzy wow what a lovely wk b'day pressie your DD gave you! Ditto what I said to Insy - do share any things that you think might have helped.

DS is 6 wks old today so I decided to try him with a bottle of expressed milk (it's been in the freezer since we came home from our extended stay in hospital and I've been eager to use it). He didn't really take the closer to nature bottle very well but did drink some milk which then came back up and out in projectile fashion! So then I popped the last bit of the milk from that bottle into the Tommee Tippee bottle with a Nuby teat and he seemed to get on much better with that. So I think it was a success! DD refused bottles (can't remember when we tried etc) so I think I'll try and keep up this one bottle, even though it seems like such a faff to think about when to sterilise the pump and when to give the bottle/pump etc. When do you all give your expressed milk? Bouncing - does your DH always give it around 11ish? Do you all pump when you miss that feed or just pump at another time of day?

Loucee, I tend to pump after a feed, on the second breast first, then the one Ive just fed on. Then I figure that they have 3 hours odd to fill up again. Having said that I only ever get 2 - 3 ox, which is not much, however it tides her over for a few more hours, every little bit of mummy sleep time helps.
Does anyone have any wonder tips on winding; it would be nice to add to my repetoire of over the shoulder or sitting on my lap, supporting her by the chin? She tends to grizzle for ages after a feed, Infacol helps but not a lot.

Also does anyone elses baby have spots, Matty has really got lots of red ones all over her face; hv says they are normal and will go away but they look horrid. I emailed some photos to my mum, but she doesnt look her most gorgeous in them.

I went swimming on Friday, have been trying to have a good walk every day, I have 1 1/2 stone to lose, and I cant stop eating.

loucee, I'm sure all babies are different but for us its now very clear what helps with night sleeping - and its making sure LO doesn't sleep too much during the afternoon / evening - i.e has decent periods of wakefulness (over an hour at a stretch). My LO can be quite hard to wake tho when she wZnts to sleep! I now give her a bath around 6pm if shes been sleeping most of the afternoon. I think the other prob with too much daytime sleeping is that she doesn't get enough milk and wakes up hungry by about 2am.

Not sure whether any of the above applies to your LO tho!

The other milestone we had today was that she didn't immediately ask for milk on waking from morning nap at 9.30am (having been fed at 7am). Apparently this is a sign that she's starting to regulate her appetite rather than exercising the survival reflex to demand food on waking.

thingamajig - yes loads of spots. Hormones from milk apparently. I understand usually appear around 3-4 weeks and fade by about 8 weeks.

Loucee - Dh gives the EBM at around 11pm or 1am, depending on when I'm awake. I'm asleep when he gives it. I express during the day, in between feeds and also express on one while feeding on the other. Best results are in the morning.
Thingamajig - ds doesn't, but my friend's baby is a bit spotty.

Really struggling with ds's sleep/feed pattern. First half of the night he is fine he normally has a feed around 9pm-10pm, then between 12am and 1am then around 3am. He settles to sleep straightaway after these feeds. But then from 4am onwards he doesn't really settle, wants feeds or cuddles, and never really falls back to sleep. Then we do get up, really struggle to put him down long enough to get things done. I guess maybe it is because he sleeping too much during the day, how do you keep your babies awake during the day?

loucee I express just before bed. DH gives millie a bottle after bathtime, and the middle of the night feeds are from a bottle mostly. I find presonally that i get the most late evening- around 200ml/ 6.5oz from each breast . I sometimes express first thing in the morning, depending on when she last fed. Basically i try and express as close as possible to the bottle feeds.

thingamajig millie has spots too- and very itchy poor mite. I asked the GP about it and she said that it is almost inevitable in winter babies- they find it difficult to regulate temperature and overproduce sebaceous fluid.

beanster sorry to hear about your dad. Hope that they have caught it early enough- my understanidng is that if there are no secondaries it should not limit life expectancy? But am not a doctor.

buzzy i still had my size 2 teats in the wrapping and they say 1 month plus.

Oh that's useful Suey thanks. All my teats were pre-used so didn't know the age recommendation. Explains why the #2 size works best for us then!

I find it very hard to keep DD awake during the day if she doesn't want to be. Today was fine as she was quite alert but yesterday she hardly kept her eyes open more than 5 mins. Changing nappy, having a bath, bright light are all techniques I have used with only moderate levels of success. But yes am convinced there is a link between sleeping during the day (especially afternoon and evening) and sleeping at night.

Sleeping - I agree with Buzzy, best to try and keep them awake if possible during the afternoon/evening. Not always easy, although in my experience this is when babies are often awake and unfortunately crochety anyway. I tend to try and keep Martha awake after a feed for about 45 minutes, usually by putting her in her vibrating chair and smiling at her a lot, or putting her under the baby gym or her mobile on her changing mat. This is all very well in theory but when dd1 is around I am more than happy if the baby stays asleep!

Spots - yes we have them and perfectly normal. She gets them particularly badly when she is crying and her face is red. NOT an attractive look, bless her.

Potty training - Insy and Loucee, we are having a right 'mare with this one. DD1, who is 2.4 years, is more than ready and can tell me when she is going to pee/poo, is dry at night etc. But for whatever reason she just doesn't seem like she wants to leave her nappies behind. She is half way there and will sometimes with a lot of encouragement, use the potty but prefers to use her nappy (even asking for me to put it back on when she needs to poo). I suspect the recent arrival of the new baby into our lives has partly caused this. But she is a stubborn little thing and will no doubt do it in her own time, when she is good and ready....

Beanster - sorry about your dad, I am glad you and your dc's are getting to spend some time with him. My Dh is away all this week too and I am off to my parents on Wednesday for two nights and CAN'T WAIT. I hate being on my own - next week I will be doing five days and four nights on my own and dreading it.

Interesting to read all the sleep theories, last night I started charting ds' feeds/naps etc to see if I can find a pattern. I was getting a bit embarrassed with people asking me how many feeds he has or how often he feeds/sleeps and me not having a clue! Also dd was self settling at night (albeit with a dummy)by now and had a definite pattern so I'm trying to see if ds really is completely random or whether I'm just not seeing the pattern.

Only thing I have been able to pick up on so far is that if he sleeps well during the day (eg has at least two decent length sleeps)he is far easier to settle in the evening and will be in bed by 7/8pm. Only problem then is he tends to wake up loads from midnight. If he doesn't nap well during the day he screams non stop until 10pm or so, will drop off a couple of times but jerk awake again within minutes etc-the upside is that once he is asleep he will usually only wake twice before morning...

Last night I changed what we had been doing slightly-had been bathing him then bringing him downstairs to feed him while dh bathed dd. I wasn't putting him down awake, but letting him fall asleep on me or in the sling. Last night I kept him upstairs in our dark bedroom then put him in bed awake and miracles, he took the dummy. I tried a bit of PUPD and had to pick him up 3 times, replace dummy 5 times, then change a pooey nappy before he finally settled-only took 1.5 hours though which is better than I was expecting! He then woke up 5 times between 12 and 6 though

hi everyone

things ticking along here, still having periods of despair but its all worth it.

DD has just for the FIRST TIME EVER dropped off to sleep in her bouncy chair! This is pleasing me immensely as last few days the ONLY way to get her to sleep is long and tedious rocking!

DD will be 5 weeks on Thursday - can I ask others who are similar ages how content they are when awake but not feeding. It feels like we get very little time when she is not hungry, in pain with wind of tired.

Pecka, if it any consolation, ds is the same as your dd!

Thanks everyone for sharing when you give the bottle/express the milk, I find the expressing/sterilising a faff and find that although I am usually dead on my feet by 9pm and looking for a nap during the day I am coping ok on little sleep and find it easier to feed DS myself without the expressing/sterilising etc but it's more for the long term affect where I hope by giving DS a bottle a day from now he will accept one if I need to be away from him for a hair appt or night out etc (planning to take the year off work so not worried about that as he'll be on cups by then).

Anyone else noticing and enjoying the days getting longer? It was getting light here at 7am and last night it was 5pm and not too dark at all, makes such a difference to how I feel when I'm in the house most of the day and means that the Spring is on it's way which is just fab cos it's my B'day next month and means better (hopefully!) weather! If we have another baby I will definitely try for a spring/summer baby!

Pecka great your little one fell asleep in the chair, DS hasn't done that yet, he doesn't really like it nor the swinging chair but I still put it in it for a short while every day!

Does anyone else watch LOST? I remember when the last series finished and it seemed like months and months away until the next series and thinking "I'll have my baby then!" It's flown in

hi everyone,

just a quick one as ds is not in the best of moods. haven't been on in ages as i've been quite ill with a second bout of mastitis and a horrible bug but much better now and silver lining is that i lost loads of weight and can now just about squeeze my jeans on, yaaay

have read all messages and seems like most babies are finding a routine. ds often wakes just once in the night now, if he can stay awake long enough to take a decent feed. he is such an easy baby to look after - it is my dd who is driving me mad with constant tantrums. i think she is really put out by milo's arrival although she is lovely with him, i keep telling friens with one child not to have a second because it's so hard and as for trying for a 3rd insy !!!! but i second what clairey said about having sex before ovulation

clara - poor you on your own with two - i would hate that too - wine and choc is def the way to cope

think BF is finally becoming ok - think it was def thrush and seems a lot better. just need to master one-handed feeding without cushions now

hope everyone is doing ok