January 08 - shiny new-year babies!

[Naetha]

Thought I'd start this thread now as I think there's already a couple of people to go on it, and I know there'll be an awful lot more!!

Will update when I get a chance

Its funny isnt it how some of them are good at certain times and some are good at others.

Charlie is super during the day feed play sleep feed play sleep etc then between 6-12 can be really fractious windy then gets overtired etc then sleeps pretty much 3 hourly through the night and goes back to sleep almost straight after she feeds.

Anyway she is only 5 weeks so hopefully over the next few weeks she will start to get better and go 4 hours then sleep through the night hooray.

only good thing is once she goes down in her cot she does stay there all night. Its really hard to know if you are doing ok isnt it. thats why reading on here that everyone has similar problems.

WOuld be up for a meet up but i am in south east london so north east is probably abit far at the mo.

ANyway well done to everyone.

gingeme welcome to the bottke feeders - i feel much better now.
ALthough apparently although have now got rid of infection in the fanjo area it looks like my episiotomy stitches might be too tight - so hope that they will get easier as painful if long walk sit in certain positions etc otherwise back for corrective surgery!!!

hello everyone- hope you are all OK, have been reading through and seems like we are all in the same boat at the moment!
Little Ruby is golden though she is 5 weeks 2 days and after a growth spurt at the beginning of the week where she spent every 3 hrs feeding all day -she slept through the night last night (10pm until 7.30am) although after the growth spurt my boobs where about 10 stone and nearly smashed on the floor when I tried to get out of bed this morning, I ran to the kitchen to express and managed to get 9oz and also fully feed Ruby, I am like a milk machine! Have put a few more pics on my profile!
Naetha - I sympathise about your feelins, I had a slight meltdwon on Wednesday, my mom suffered post natal depression with me and I have been frightened to cry since Ruby was born incase I 'caught' it which actually made it a lot worse. I was coming back from town after a lovely lunch with my sister and could not stop crying so pulled into the cremetorium- strange I know but I was passing it and my dad who died 2 years ago is rested there- I then stood at my dads grave for nearly an hour sobbing outload, the men cutting the grass stayed well away as I cuddled Ruby- who may I add was fast asleep!- What brought me down to earth was the moment Ruby let out a humoungous fart which reverberated around the graveyard, which resulted in the biggest poo ever, the grass cutters then watched me change her in the back of my car while laughing my head off- we will all have strange days and I also worry about SIDS, Feeding, Hygiene, Loving her enough, Strangers touching her face in the street, Strangers children wanting to touch her face, mouth, eyes etc the list can go on... but when they do little things like filling the pooiest nappy I have ever seen, I can only smile and remember that as crazy as I am giving up my nights out, boozy weekends, fags, life in general, I tried for 2 years to get this little bean and she only has me and my dh, and because of that she will love us both unconditionally, I'm getting all emotional now! Christ!

I would love to mention every indidivually the way that some of you guys are so pro at but seriously I am the woman who has locked myself and a newborn out of the house, not once but twice!

Love to all xxx

oh I am also a dummy fan, Ruby gets a bit mardy about 40mins before her feed so I give her a dummy and she pummels it until she is due her feed, and then she has worked up such an appetite she feeds like a dream.. !

My tip although I may be doing it completely wrong, is that she goes down in her moses basket when me and dh go to bed, so about 10pm, I give her a dummy, we both give her a kiss goodnight and then while me and my dh have a little natter for ten mins she is off in the land of nod!

I have tried not to be too routined in terms of times etc but she has just fitted in with me and my dh, although unless she is having a growth spurt I do try and make her wait for 4 hours, but as we all know she only does what she wants!

bluebell - what a lovely message It's easy to get down, and your post reminded me on a hard day how special this really is. thank you.

Good afternoon ladies. lo had his 6-8 week check today and is a strong healthy little lad
Had a brill night last night. He had a bottle at 10 slept till 2. Another bottle followed by a massive pooh resulting in a full body wash down . Had the rest of the bottle then slept till 7. Lovely.
Ah bluebell you made me smile with your post. Kids do crazy things to us from the time the test turns blue. Thats for sure

lovely post bluebell.
Feeling very very guilty and awful, DD1 wouldn't go down for her mid afternoon nap today and DD2 was crying at the top of her voice. Felt so under pressure that I shouted at DD1 which made her cry. Feeling like the world worst mother for losing mcool... Kept kissing DD1 while she slept as I felt so bad..

Amani - from what I've heard, this happens to everyone. I found myself at 3am recently saying 'what do you WANT? to tiny dd in a horrible way. Felt so terrible but after enquiring on here I realised how common it is. Don't plan to do it again but I think it's forgiveable.

Give yourself a break, sweetheart.

hello ladies, have escaped to the internet cafe, so another quick post.

Am defo up for the meet up, it is in the diary. Just got to figure out the logisitics of two children and public transport, btu should def be there.

Ediz and Sami are both doing well and remarkably we are managing to get out every day bar one where we normally have a lazy indoors day, but am really forcing myself to do it and are normally out by 10 am everyday, but stairs pushchair and sling just dont go together.

Amani - I do things like that all the time, dont feel bad, we all have to vent and sometimes it is the children that get it, I shout at DS1 regularly when he just wont do what I want him to do. Thanks for passing on the message by theway.

Hey to everyone,.

Hi all...I'm having one of those days, mainly due to lack of sleep and the fact that Tamara is being unusually whingy today DS has got a heavy cold which I suspect he has passed onto her, which might explain it...anyway, I'm knackered after another pants night (not helped by dh getting up at 5.30 to go to Lisbon for work until Sat night/Sun morning and ds continuing to have bad night terrors) but ds has gone to stay with my parents tonight so its just me and Tamara until tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully a bit of time just to focus on her, and being able to sleep whenever she sleeps, will improve things for both of us [hopefully emoticon].

Bluebell - thanks for your post, really helped to make me smile

Amani - you are so not a bad mother, its really tough with 2 and I'm finding it a real struggle not to snap at ds when he's just being 'normal' toddler grade difficult. DD1 will totally forgive you a lot sooner than you forgive yourself ((hugs))

MixedMama - welcome back!! Really looking forward to meeting you and both dc's on 19th...hope the BIL isn't being too much of an arse?!

Nicky - about the epesiotomy...shame that there's a few of us who seem to have been stitched badly - maybe we need to set up a support group? Definitely worth getting yourself a gynae appt as soon as possible to get everything checked if you can get your GP to refer you? Sorry you can't make it to the meetup, forgot you lived saaarrf!

OK, dd sleeping so this is when I'm supposed to lie down for 30 mins...catch you all later xxx

ooh Beller nursery sounds great let us know how you get on , i would love to have a nursery.

Gingeme glad George check went well , he and you soud very happy now. Your doctor is obiously very cleer not sure on the logisitics of doing that

Fluffy hope you get a better night with Tamara tonight.

Fruitful how do you work that out? I have no idea now however some bleeding here today so may be period which i didn't expect as still exclusively bf

Nicky the stitches sound painful hope they ease fpr you , it's not good really when you think there at least 3 of you on this thread looking at more surgery. Charlie sounds like a dream baby.

Bluebell what a lovely post am at you locking yoursel out i thought i had locked myself out of the car at baby massage but eventually found my keys at the bottom of my mary poppins bag i need to clear it out!

Amani been there , done that, your not on your own, but agree r/e the guilt afterwards it awful. When the dc's are in bed i often think back on the day and wish i had handled things differently, but hey they quickly forget and we are only human

Susie been there done that too

Hi mamachris how are things going ?

Wow mixedmama out by 10 every day if only, dd almost part time at nursery now !

What has everyone got planned for weekend ?
I got lovely bunch of flowers of dc's (dp) for mothers day and they gave me their card too , they were too excited to wait They also brought cards home from school and nursery and ds brought home a lovely poem his class had made up for mothers day , brought a tear to my eye. We going to sil for lunch with mil after i have been to the cemetry with flowers for my mum It will be first time of going with Martha so will be quite
I am also going out Sat night with all the girls who live on the street so really looking forward to that will be the longest i have been away from Martha so am sure i will miss her too. So am hopeful i will get a lie in Sunday morning!

Hope you all have a lovely mother's day

at all typos i will use tiredness as an excuse

evening

trip to london went well thanks. had an okish night, then went shopping on kings road with ds2 in sling, he slept the whole time. then met up with some people for lunch - tho they were funny about me feeding at the table . and got train home with dh as he finished early. missed ds1 lots tho, felt really strange for us to be with just ds2!
my mum coped very well, did nappy changes, bath, bedtime, breakfast and driving to and from nursery. (nearly let him get run over by not holding his hand tho taught her a lesson!) she was knackered tho and went to bed at 9 last night, heehee.

ds2 had a 4hr sleep from 8-12 last night, am trying to be hopeful....

gingeme - sounds like george is v settled now

bad news to all the stitches problem ladies, am about it happening at all to even one woman.

re mother's day - ds1 made me a card at nursery, i have bought some bits from cath kidston for mine as she'll be here (normally just send a card or maybe flowers). oh and told dh i expected him to do something from the boys

(((hugs))) for lily for sunday.

bluebell - loved your post too, will try and keep it in mind when i'm on my own with 2 and losing it!

amani - already been there and sure i will be again soon....

hi mixedmama we have to get out every day too or ds1 goes stir crazy. thank god for nursery days

no periods here, in fact i (whispers)think i may have stopped bleeding today. anyone else bled for this long? 5wks+3? def didn't for so long last time and was told that c-s means you bleed less not more????

right, still trying to sort out meetup plans, will get on that thread in a bit.
just had fish and chips - mum went out to get them, yum. thinking ben and jerrys in a mo

Hello, haven't posted for ages - time flies by! Have skim read posts so here are some sort of responses:

However you feed your kids they'll be fine (when I say however I obviously mean BF or formula, don't think they'd be fine on vodka...!!) - better to FF and be chilled than to be a resentful mum struggling to BF.

Bad mummy - I sterilise the dummies sometimes, but if I need one I check it's clean and stick it ib a mug of boiling water while I make a cup of tea, figure that will kill most germs - after all, I don't microwave my boobs!

Bad mummy - leave nappies a lot longer than I did with DD1 or 2 (unless using washable). She has had no signs of nappy rash or even soreness

Bleeding - mine stopped just before my 6 week check.

Still exclusive BF so can't comment on periods

of those with more than 2ox expressing - are you all electric pump users? My hand pump gets absolute max of 2oz. How much do your LOs take at a feed? DD3 had 4oz the other evening as I went out with some friends to the local all-you-can-eat-buffet Chinese - yum!

Public transport - how old are yr kids? DD2 was doing some photos in London at half term (she's 4) so put DD3 in the Baby Bjorn carrier and went train/tube - dead easy. Though helped that I'm BF as I only had to take a shoulder bag with nappies/wipes/dummy/spare sleepsuits. Would have been a little more awkward if I had to take bottles of water and a powder dispenser.

Slings - it took me until DD3 (OK I didn't try with DD1 and didn't use it much with DD2) to realise that I should put on the sling THEN my coat - with DD2 I used it for the first time and was absolutely sweltering in the shops and couldn't take my coat off without taking her and the carrier off! Durrr...

Mothers' Day - took DD3 to local pottery cafe to get coasters done with her footprints on for the grandmothers. DD1 has made cookie dough (she's 14) - it's chilling in the fridge and DD2 will cut out heart shaped biscuits from it this afternoon. I'll knock up some buttercream so they can sandwich them togwether with jam and cream.

Katy - where did they expect you to feed - n the loo??? I managed to feed on the train last week - after actually getting a seat! It really helps that she doesn't fuss tooo much - once she's on I don't even particularly look at her in public so it just looks like she's sleeping.

Long post as it's my first for a while!

Topic not mentioned much - possetting - how many of you have pukey babies? She quite often dribbles up the last bit, and if I wind her well we get curdy smelly cottage cheese puke that comes up with the burp - so I don't wind her. what do you all do?

Sorry, not a real post, just wanted to let you all know that Radio 4 Womens House, today at 4pm (but can be downloaded from bbc website as well) is all about motherhood with focus on 2 main subjects:

1. Difficulty of adjusting to role of mother rather than individual, and the emotionally tough bit of adjusting to motherhood esp first time and how normal this is...and how little it gets discussed
2. PND - triggers, causes, ways of coping, how normal it is, how little it gets discussed etc

Todays segment is repeating the discussions aired on Weds and Thursday - I caught the second part of both and they were really interesting and I found them quite helpful. OK, off to feed...again!!! Hope you're all having lovely weekends, xxx

Housemum, I would let the cottage cheese come back up, it is less uncomfortable for lo than trapped wind and all the food your lo needs will stay down. Nathan is very much bothered by wind, but he is such a greedy feeder he produces lots of it. He makes a very excited 'heep heep' sound as soon as we are getting ready to breast feed and I can usually hear the milk gulping down. Ten or 15 mins later he comes up for air with a drunk look on his face and a guilty dribble of milk down his chin.

Greedy monkey was weighed by the health visitor yesterday, he put on 500grams since leaving hospital 8 days earlier and at 4 weeks weighs 9lb having been born at 7lb4! He now has a chubby face and chunky thighs and his hands have grown!

And he smiles at me . Not just with his mouth, with his eyes too. Now I believe even less that he is blind...

i put up a new picture of nathan...

Fantastic! Surely if he is really smiling at 4 weeks he must be able to see something? One of the things they start checking if your baby is late to smile, is eyesight.

I love that drunk "full-of-milk" look.

Madmouse - so glad to hear that Nathan's progressing so well. It's absolutely lovely to get smiles isn't it!

On the wind front - Ben had terrible trapped wind until I went to see a cranial osteopath - cost £25 and got it completely sorted so I'd definitely recommend it

Finally getting moving on the tongue-tie - it's getting snipped on monday Whether I actually go back to breastfeeding though is another matter - I'm actually really enjoying bottle feeding him. I like the eye contact, and the fact that DH can do some feeds and give me a break. I also like knowing exactly how much he's had. I have kept up with the odd breastfeed since I've been expressing, but only one every 2-3 days. He still goes on fine (well, within reason!) when offered a boob, so no real reason why I couldn't go back to BFing. Last night was quite funny - I was watching a TV programme that had a crying baby in it, and immediately I got a let-down. Ben was dozing on my lap, but must have smelled the milk and started going frantic - rooting and trying to turn his head into my boob! He only fed for about 5 minutes, but it obviously satisfied his booby urges!

He's still mahoosive - was measured last monday and was on the 75th centile for head circumference, 91st centile for weight and 98th centile for length - weighed 12lbs 10oz at 7 weeks. He is almost too long for the 3-6m babygros/sleepsuits at 8 weeks. He had his 8 week check and everything was fine which is a relief The problem is, he's also getting two big for his moses basket - we have about 2 inches at each end. I can't see it lasting another couple of weeks, so we're trying to get him used to sleeping in his cot. We're also trying to wean him off the swaddling - he's currently having a nap in his grobag with his arms inside - seems to be effective in stopping the moro reflex which usually wakes him up, although it does look rather cruel! I'm sure there's a market for baby strait-jackets! The question is whether I'm ready to have him not sleep in the room with me! We can't fit his cot in our bedroom, so it's either leave him in his own room (which is right next to ours) by himself, or I sleep on the spare bed in there with him.

Whoops - started this reply at 3pm and it's nearly 10pm - better get it posted asap before I get too far behind!

I'm going to be brave and try a permanent straightener on my hair tomorrow - using the boots one www.boots.com/shop/category_new_template_content_rich.jsp?classificationid=1042646 and hope for the best! I have terribly frizzy hair so hopefully it will make it more manageable. I'm still saving up to buy some GHDs - are they really that much better than bog standard straightening irons, or is it just something people say to justify the amount they spent on them?

I know I go on about how cute Ben is, but I took this awesome video of him the other day - makes my heart melt! s7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/ldticp/Ben%20Llewelyn%20Thackray/?action=view&current=MVI_0292.flv

Right, off to bed to get some shut-eye! Hugs to all

Naetha - my ds was 99.6th centile and my dd is too...so I know exactly what you mean about outgrowing sleepsuits and cribs!! Good luck with the move to the cot...it will be ok, honest . Tamara is only 4.5 weeks but ds had outgrown the crib by 7 weeks so I'm not expecting to get much more use out of it this time either - planning to start putting her down for daytime naps in the cot next week so she can get used to it. We started half-swaddling ds at 7 weeks and he responded really well to having his arms out once he was in the cot and wasn't hitting the sides of the crib every time he moved - Ben might be having the same problem and be happier with a bit more space around him? Ok, off to bed - not much point since I'm feeding T in 45 mins but every little helps
Night all

Sorry, should have said 99.6th for length (ie they both go off the chart!), not for weight...ds was 50th then dropped down to 25th (tall and skinny!) and dd is sitting pretty on 75th for weight for now

happy mothers day to all Jan mums new and existing xx

I am getting a fry up and a bag of pampering stuff... card made me cry though.

Happy mothers day - I got a lie-in

Hi all!

Bad day yesterday, visit to MIL, and despite being resolute that I would stick to my parenting style, was meek when she started telling me I shouldn't feed him everytime he looked hungry (am bf on demand) and gave in to her saying I should just let her soothe him. Horrible to hear him cry, and resulted in a screaming fit in car home in a traffic jam. Had to wait till we could pull over to feed him, and arrived home feeling awful for starving my baby. How do you deal with "advice" from well meaning MILs?

Naetha, fluffy - Daniel is also on 99.6th centile (or was at birth, though hv dismissed this by saying midwives don't measure things accurately). But he's bigger than other 4 week olds I've seen, so am inclined to think midwife must be at least half right.

Naetha - got Daniel's tongue tie cut last thursday. Dramatic difference in (my) comfort levels bf - it's actually painless most times now - really great Good luck Monday.

Happy Mothers Day. Got 3 lovely t shirts, dh done quite well this year and a home made card from ds4, yes I was in tears too.
lo being good today. Roughly 3 hours between feeds. Just seems like he doesnt want to bring his wind up in the early am. Think Ill get him some gripe water.
Going to have a pub dinner today. Thats if we can get in anywhere.
Have a lovely day all xxx

hey folks, was it you naetha, that your DS didn't want to sleep anywhere but on you at around 3 / 4 weeks?

I am feeling a bit neurotic abou this at the moment and have posted "here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/8/488573" about it.