December 2007: It's all worth it for the smiles.

[claraquitetirednow]

I've never started a new thread before - has this worked?

beanster- i used a suppository again the next day as she was uncomfy and we were about to go on a journey. She pooed on her own the following day and just a little today. My GP said it was not normal not to poo for 5 days. He suggested the suppositories and some sugar water- a teaspoon of brown sugar to 100ml coll boiled water. He also gave me a prescription for a laxative, but advised that i use it only if the sugar water/ suppository route did not work.
I have decided to start giving millie some cooled boiled water every afternoon to try and stop it happening as she seems to have on/off problems.

hi girls

baby wise mathilda doing good - happy and gurgly in alert times and sleeping quite well but having a feeding mare

have posted about it here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1364/488667

any thoughts anyone ?

Happy Mothers Day everyone. I got a really sweet card and box of Roses and I've eaten half of them already - bf makes me so hungry! I've had a mixed day today - my mum and dad were here and dd was in a lovely mood (lots of gurgling and smiling) but tonight it took ages to get her to bed as she kept being sick and I could feel myself getting a bit tearful so dh had to take over. Is anyone else's baby sick a lot?? I've always found it a struggle to get my dd to bring up her wind and she is often sick as soon as you lay her down after trying to wind her for ages which is really frustrating. We've tried infacol but I'm not keen on that and have been using colisynthis (sp?) granules but I don't know if they're doing anything. Does anyone have any tips for winding or getting her to bring up her sick?

Happy mother's day everyone-oh officially it isn't mother's day anymore is it? Mine was completely disasterous and i am glad its over to be honest It started with dp saying ds's present was still in the post but would get here next week sometime , included lots of car troubles and driving great distances with ds screaming in the carseat, then having a lovely afternoon but ds crying a lot made the evening unbearable and dp has been ill so can't deal with him very well....

To top it all off (and possibly the worst bit) I left the chocolates dd gave me in the car we had borrowed for the day (as ours needs fixing) We will get them back eventually, but i wanted them NOOOOW!!

Rant over. I'm now enjoying staying up really late on my own and chilling out finally, had some wine but now going to make a hot choc to compensate for missing chocolate (it was a huge box too)

Pecka,i read your thread, i hope you get something sorted,if it helps ds was on fomula and bm for a few days when i had mastitis, it took a while but we got back to bm fully. That said i still keep formula in for every now and then when i think he's still hungry. I think we'll only drop bottles completely when he starts to wean on to solids..

Louise76, i hope you get some answers perhaps it could be reflux? Don't know an awful lot about it btu hopefully someone will come along soon with some better info...

Decided on a namechange, bored of Ambi.

checking profile moved...

Morning all

Lizzer - Sorry you didn't have a great day yesterday. We had the same problem with the car seat and dd screaming yesterday but she's always like it. In fact the day we came out of hospital she cried all the way home. Can't believe you were up so late but then I'm not usually in bed much before 1am these days myself. No wonder I'm knackered

Louise - DD isn't particualry sicky, she was the first few weeks but seems to have settled now but she often has times when shes really happy and smiling away and then she'll seem really upset and can't settle her or stop her crying. I'm still putting it down to colic as they can have that until about 12 weeks or sometimes longer. We used to give her infacol which I think helped but then she got bad again so stoped using it. DD never settles before 10pm and usually find myself or dh walking around with her, she just won't be put down. It is really frustrating though.

Skid - Back at work already? I must admit I do like the sound of a few hours to myself as well

Love the new name Anastasia

Right can someone please tell me how to get dd2 into a good night time routine because it just isn't happening. Won't settle before 10pm and now started waking from 3am onwards but doesn't want a feed What can I do?

Right must dash, hope you all have a good day

morning all, am typing as i express - have got 4 oz in the time it has taken to catch up with messages....

had a lovely long weekend away in a cottage in devon, near totnes. there was an indoor swimming pool there, which dd1 loved. took dd2 in for her first swim and she just looked terrified, poor mite. Perhaps it wasn't quite warm enough! Anyway I can thoroughly recommend a few days away to anyone feeling a bit down - as they say, a change is as good as a rest.

My Mother's Day was an interesting one. I got a lovely card and box of chocolates presented to me in the morning by dd1 (who then expected to be able to eat the chocs herself...) but we then spent about 5 hours driving through the Somerset countryside looking for somewhere to eat and ended up in the wierdest pub in the middle of nowhere. It stank, the food was rank (deep fried parsnips anyone?) and it was full of the sort of locals that looked like their mother's were their sisters IYKWIM (no offence to anyone from Somerset - I think this was just a very strange place!). Still we endured it as I thought it would be a funny story to tell....

I can't believe all the good sleepers in the Dec 07 postnatal group (babies, not mums, although I am sure we would be good sleepers too given the chance). our routine goes something like this - bath approx 6pm, followed by a feed. usually get her to sleep 7ish - but then she wakes up again and is cranky until anytime between 8 and 9pm, when she will go back to sleep - but only on one of us. feed her at 10pm, she sleeps until about 3am, quick feed and back to sleep until anytime between 6 and 7am. she usually sleeps again about an hour after waking, so i have a shower etc then

claireybee - just out of interest where were you living when you got pregnant with dd1 - i think you said your dh was from nigeria, is that where you were. i am just being nosey!

sorry to hear about everyone with possible pnd, i hope you find talking about it on here helps.

amani - i have lost it a few times too - i think it is totally normal. i can honestly say that there have been times when looking after the two of them is the most stressful thing i have done in my life. especially when the baby is crying and dd1 is demanding something at the same time......

dd1 had her first night out of nappies last night..... so proud of her!

better go, sorry would like to reply to lots of other posts but baby needs feeding, hair needs drying, expressed milk needs storing, house needs tidying before letting agents come round to assess it's potential to let!!!

A friend had a little baby boy yesterday, on Mothers day.

I'm broody!!!

Mathilda also had her first night in big girls cot and has learnt the art of independant sleep! I put her down awake, put her music on and she gets herself off - so proud of her.

Clara- your nights seem identical to ours, except we often have another wake up between 3 and 6am. Am knackered.

Am lucky in other aspects though. DS is an exceptionally good traveller. Sleeps in car seat every time, slept on plane, sleeps on trains. Perfect. Good at feeding too. Am almost exclusively breastfeeding now and he's gaining weight well after all our initial troubles.

Our mother's day was nice. DH took me for a pub lunch. DS was smiley and well behaved throughout.

just wondered how often everyone is getting theur lo's weighed- i am currently avoiding baby clinics and health visitors cos the stress of having a little lo (tracking 9th centile) was getting in the way of everything else, and what with all the buggering around we had with not fitting centile charts before she was born (and was absolutely fine, so there) i'm really wary of weighing and measuring now. she is gaining weight, and growing out of clothes, and is alert, smiley and is lively/sleepy at appropriate times, and during the day rarely goes for more than 2.5 hours without feeding (mainly bcs I'm paranoid about her being so wee). am i being irresponsible if I don't get her weighed every week/fortnight?

Yaay! DS has just got himself off to sleep in his cot for the first time. Usually I've had to rock him or hold his hand or stroke his head or something. This time the door went and so I had to leave the room and he's now asleep rather than the usual screaming.

Hope he stays asleep, he's been chuntering and low level moaning away all morning.

Dundee, I was advised every fortnight upto 3 months then every month upto 6 months. Only because I asked though, the info wasn't forthcoming from HV.

Dundee - you're the same as me then. I gave up worrying about going to health clinics for DS's weight. Had so much trouble the first 6 weeks with his lack of weight gain and conflicting and unhelpful advice from health professionals that I gave up after that. Now I only get him properly weighed when he has his routine jabs, (that was supposed to be today but he's had a cold so they told me not to go in). He's looking fatter, growing out of clothes and is happy and alert so stuff the growth charts.

ooh clara, I have just booked a cottage with a swimming pool near totnes, what was the name of your one? DD looks so surprised and her eyes go so wide in the bath that I can't imagine her swimming.

Dundee, I don't know if there are hard and fast rules. My DD was at one point put on daily weighing by a paediatrician and I was freaking out. It was actually the HV who, once she could see that DD was eating fine, advised to save myself the worry by just weighing monthly. As wizzska says, looking fatter, growing out of clothes (so crazy, there are some she never even got to wear!)... all good signs.

Furryfox- DD doesn't go down in the evening but stays up with us till we go to bed around midnight. We found this the best way to stop her waking up at night. She has little short kips in her chair, but mostly lolls about on DH's lap (which he loves) and clusterfeeds ("tank feeding", someone called it) from me. We keep things pretty lowkey and quiet and dim though. She then sleeps through till 7 or 8 on the whole, though you can never be totally sure and in the last fortnight she started one day at 5am and the other at 3am . So I don't take it for granted! And it does make it difficult to get much done in the evenings.

Pecka- DD was entirely bottlefed at one point for a whole week when I was ill. I then, with MN advice, managed to get bf going and now she has bottle top ups after all feeds after 2pm. That works out at about 15 oz a day formula and the rest boob. The way I did it was just to put her to the breast at every possible opportunity- pretty boring as she can go on and off for hours at a time. Sometimes she rejects the boob but there is no pattern- she might change her mind just 10 mins later or in a different room or a different chair. Don't know if that helps you or not.

Went to see my mum yesterday and she advised me not to let myself go- "remember you are a wife as well as a mother". Argh I am less than a stone heavier than usual and was wearing make-up and everything! Anyone else wondering about the risk of slovenliness?

Thanks Skid, you always seem to know what to say to make me feel better!

Am with you on the night feeds too (well at least the ones where it's just a feed then back to sleep-not too keen on the ones where I spend the whole night settling and resettling or pacing up and down!). For one of my friends getting them to sleep through is the be all and end all but it's not that big a deal to me- I figure it will happen someday! That said I hadn't counted on dd still having milk in the night at 21 months and am hoping ds won't be the same!

Pecka have posted on your thread. Otherwise it sounds as though things are going really well for you and Matilda is settling down-do you thinks that persevering with EASY has helped her? I tried for a teeny while with ds but found it all too stressful so gave up but I do sometimes wonder if persevering would have been woth it in the long run! We seem to finally be finding our own routine of sorts though.

Clara our nights are a bit like yours-dozes through evening but will usually wake if we try to put him in bed, goes to sleep for night between 9 and 10 then wakes at 1 and 4(ish). He'll either then wake again at 5.30/6 (boo!), or aftr 7 (yay!).

Thanks also for saying about your dd rolling over, ds isn't there yet (well, has only just started having floor time in the last couple of weeks!)but it was a good reminder that I should be careful about leaving him on sofa/changing mat/bed from now on! I didn't know dd could roll until she rolled off the bed (just as I didn't know she could climb stairs until she fell down them )

Oh and to answer your question I was in Botswana-dh is half Motswana and half Nigerian (although his official nationality is Motswana cos they don't allow dual citizenship). We are meant to to be going back for his sister's wedding but she has inconveniently (!) chosen to have it late October so flights are extortionate due to half term...just don't know that we can afford it

Furry I'm starting to think your dd and ds are alter egos they sound so similar. He also screams in car and can go from being happy and smiley to inconsolable in under a minute. He is slowly getting better though and like you I'm hoping he will grow out of it. It's tough though isn't it-I try so hard to be a responsive parent but when he screams no matter what I do I sometimes wonder why I bother and feel like just leaving him to it!

Dundee I think your attitude to weighing etc is perfect! I havent had ds weighed since the hv came and did it at 8 weeks.
Also that's interesting what your gp said about pmt-I seem to have cycles where I am stressy for a few days then fine again and wonder if that's it. Am crap at working these things out though (hence ds!)so can someone tell me when I'd be due a period-ds was born december 10th.

Cazzy that's only cos I only go to the cheap groups

We went to a lovely Greek restaurant for lunch yesterday, my parent's came too so I had a bit of a rest! Both DC's were VERY well behaved, and ds didn't cry at all the whole time we were there-he more than made up for it in the car on the way there and back though!

Wizz that's great! ds has started to occasionally settle himself in the day but it's not consistent and he won't at night.

Wobbegong, my mum said to me a few weeks ago "You are very domesticated and brilliant with your children but you don't put your husband first". Mothers eh? (whoops we are mothers!)

Hope everyone is set up for a good week!

Baby groups - all mine are free except the NCT one which is a voluntary donation, same as the coffee groups as well, though haven't been able to get to one of those recently as they have been clashing with something else.
Went along to the Bfing group, left it very upset. There is only one other mum who goes regularly and she is really patronising, that is when she bothers to talk to me at all. Feel very excluded and unhappy, no support and the only reason i kept going was in the hope some new mums come along with little babies (this mum has a 1 and a 3 year old), that I can discuss bfing issues with. I feel I can't in this group. Then she made me feel really shit when another of the staff came in asking us about what we wanted from groups in general (they are overhauling them all) and she made this disparaging comment about how calling it a bfing support group put her off as she didn't need support (well bully for her ) and she didn't want a load of mums whipping their boobs out and nattering. Well I've had to feed ds at every session (that's what demand feeding is about) and up until now have had no problem feeding in public, but with that one comment I felt really sh!t. After she let I saw one of the staff who helps out and told her I wouldn't be coming back, I was really upset (I'm oversensitive atm) and we had a chat. She's going to ring me about it and I'm going to try and think of how I would like to see this group go. Fortunately this woman says she'll be stopping bfing shortly so hopefully she won;t be attending this group much longer, plus National Breastfeeding week is coming up so they will be advertising the group more widely.
Sorry for the long post, just had to vent, have had a really sh!t weekend thanks to my dad but that's a whole other story.

bouncingturtle - sorry bfing group not good Am lucky here i think as friend has a 6mo dd and i go with her.

Ended up with an extra surprise mummy day pressie... a giagantic nappy wasnt hard poo so he wasnt constipated. He has done another huge one today. MIght have another 5 days of non poo tho . Can belive he is already 9 weeks. He chuckled at me in bed this morning. Absolutely thrilled

Awen, yes ds has been laughing at me - it's a non vocal laugh - big cheesy grin while he flaps his arms about. He's quite chatty, coos and shouts a lot, he always lets me know when he has had enough of the bouncy chair!

Wobbegone - this is where we went www.longcombe-cottages.co.uk/ - would be very wierd if it was the same place! Would definitely recommend a trip to Salcombe while you are there, we ate at the Winking Prawn www.winkingprawn.co.uk/ restaurant which is right on the sea front, really nice. Although it was very sunny so we were able to sit on the deck outside to eat - it might not be so attractive in the rain! I hope you enjoy yourselves.

Claireybee - how lovely that you were in Botswana, somewhere I would love to visit. I am going to be nosey again - what were you doing there? Your poor dd falling off the bed - very easily done! I hadn't realised how strong dd2 was until my dh started putting her on her tummy a week or two ago and then she suddenly rolled over! Has done it a couple more times but today showed no interest, although is pushing herself up very well.

BT - that woman at the BF group sounds horrible. If she doesn't want women breastfeeding why is she at a breastfeeding group? I hated going to groups when I had dd1 and had to really perservere. There were hardly any other babies there when I first started, but eventually more came and I made some really good friends through it. It is really hard at the beginning though as it's so hard to start a converstation. It gets easier as the children get older though - for some reason I find it much easier talking about toddlers than babies!

PS I can't work out how to download a picture onto my profile - anyone know? I get as far as browse, eneter the pic then name it and press send. It all whirs around for a bit then I am left with a blank page and it doesn't seem to have downloaded....

BT - that's unfortunate about your bf group - I'm puzzled as to why that woman goes to the group if she doesn't need support and doesn't want to see mums feeding their babies!! I definitely don't think you are being oversensitive. I hope things improve next time you go.

Wizz & Dundee - I used to get hung up on dd's weight and got her weighed every week for the first 6 weeks and then I think you become a bit more confident that your baby is OK because they are feeding and growing out of clothes etc. If babies are bf (as mine is) I've heard that the growth charts in the red book are inaccurate anyway as bf babies tend to put on weight less quickly than ff babies.

Still no poo since hospital on Thursday going to Docs tomorrow for laxatives I think - Suey - I'll ask about the water and brown sugar bit - a few people have said that - we're still on diluted apple juice but nothing doing. she doesn't seem that bothered but her morning feeding patter has gone completely to pot. She's more or less sleeping through now (which is fab) but if she wakes at say 6:30 and feeds, she still wants her usual 7:30 to 8am feed. She's also now only sleeping an hour after that and wakes up screaming for more food - today was again at 9:45 - then chills and again still wants her 'normal' half 11 feed. After that she goes until 4 easily then 6:30 and bed - I really can't tell properly if she's feeding fully each time and can only assume she's not which is why she want another feed so quickly afterwards?? Will speak to HV tomorrow too and see what she thinks - maybe it's coz she's all bunged up still? Or my milk is tailing off a bit? All confused really as if my milk was - why is it in the morning only when she has extra feeds and how come she's started sleeping through - when DD1 started needing more than just my milk it was in the afternoons and night when it changed? blah....blah....blah - sorry for rambling

Louise56 - we actually found the Colasynth granules made Freya sick and the Infracol worked for her better. I suspect just like us, what is good for one isn't for another baby though. Have heard good things about Colief (think it's pretty pricey but you should be able to get it on prescription)

BT - what a silly old bag! I know how you feel about groups though as I went to one with DD1 for exactly the same reasons - fortunately not the same outcome as for you though. Keep going though (if for no other reason to say up yours to that woman!) but you'll soon find others come along too - and as you say if it's going to be advertised more that should help. One good thing about Scotland I think - for years now (unlike only recently in England and Wales) it has been illegal to complain about anyone feeding and I can honestly say when I do feed Freya when we're out no-one ever seems to even bat an eyelid. I'm not one of these 'just flop them out' sort of women and always still make a bit of a deal of trying to hide my boob etc

Anyway - Jamie Olivers slow roast lamb is cooking away merrily for tea - should have been for MD's but ended up in Frankie and Benny's instead!!! At least I got a free box of roses from them! WOuld have thought the hint to DH of "I've ordered your Mum some flowers on the internet" would have been a good hint but not to be! Maybe next year?? Not really bothered I suppose though - two twirly girlies giving me hugs (well one sort of flopping on me and the other body slamming!) makes up for it all

Shit shit shit. Just typing slow roast lamb suddenly made me realise once the oven is up to max temperature you turn it down really low for the 3 hrs to cook the lamb - slowly. Hence the name. Arse and double arse but I have now cremated a lovely leg of lamb as I've just nuked it at max for 2 hours - bum!!