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

[claraquitetirednow]

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

wizz, are you still doing GF?

Pecka, grr at those dreadful insensitive cows ladies. I would be gutted about spilling that much EBM too (mind you, would take me a few hours to express that much). You are doing such a good job though and Beanster is right, BFing is not for everyone and sometimes its the babies who don't want it. I had a friend whose LO would not feed from her and she expressed for 6 months so all he had was EBM. In my book that still counts as BFing and so does what you are doing so please don't beat yourself up about it. You are doing everything you can

Wizz, I'm sure your DS is not too small, Evie was just huge when she was born so had a good head start! She is gradually dropping down the centiles though (same as DS2 did) so I bet by the time she is a year old she will not be much different in weight from your DS.

Bouncing, Evie hasn't had her 2nd injections yet but she had lots of explosive and more runny than usual poos after her first ones and I know Diorhea (sp?) is a side affect listed for one of the injections, can't remember which one though.

Well, last night I took the HV's advice and didn't dream feed DD. I put her down awake at around 10.45 after feeding her and she settled herself (first time I have left her to do that in dark room although she will settle in the daytime). She slept through until 6.15 this morning! I'm sure it was DH's alarm which woke her too. Will see how she goes through tonight before I start counting any chickens though! Bought some of the Mother's Helper tea today, it doesn't taste too much like straw bad with a bit of honey in it (especially if you drink it fast ). Will see if it makes me make more milk or not!

question - with the growth spurts, have your los been more sleepy?

suey - has only just occurred to me that dd's renewed tetchiness and determination to sleep all afternoon might be growth spurt .
re. waking at 5am - happens with us too, dunno what to do. she's been going 6 hours from dream feed at about 10, then waking at 3 to 4 am but not really taking the ebm my poor dh tries to get into her, and then re-waking at about 5 wanting boob. it makes me want to run from the housing shouting HELP. but that would certainly alarm the neighbours.
tonight i am having a massage hurrahhurrahhurrahhurrah at half six, so dh is doing bedtime, and i'll give dream-feed at usual time and also do the night shift - it's the only thing we could think of to get her going a bit longer for her second stint of sleeping. watch this space (and avert your eyes if you see demented creature running around at scary o'clock...)

bt thanks for asking- dh's jersey has been baptised 3 times now! just this one no others (of course his fav) and went straight into a cold machine wash to emerge unscathed

dd just fed - for about ohhhhhhhhh 45 second then cried but she fed, she fed, she fe4d

Pecka - that's fantastic! A step in the right direction.

No I'm not doing GF by the book any more. Am vaguely trying to stick to a daytime sleep routine which seems to suit him, nap in morning and afternoon and a couple of hours over lunchtime. Otherwise he seems to need far more feeds than the GF routine for his age says, but I guess all babies are different. Have come to the conclusion that whatever I do will make no difference to DS's night time waking pattern, although I've yet to try the boiled water instead of boob to settle him in the night. He has gone back to sleep after his 5am waking for a couple of nights, but only by DH settling him in his arms and then putting him in our bed with us. DS is always such an angel in the mornings you can't help but forgive him though.

am I being cruel trying to get her to settle sans dummy?? she's had a bath (all be it not a quiet relaxed affair as she shares with her sis - and DH!!), lots of boob milk and 3 oz top up so am hoping she'll settle herself - wondering whether the waking in the night isn't helped by the fact she usually settles with a dummy??? Also trying to see if big feed now and quiet dream feed at 11pm will help her go longer.

Pecka - jollies all round. Occasionally Freya decides she's soooo upset and traumatised by having to wait for me to sort out etc before feeding that she won't latch on at all - Took me ages to work out that if I gave her a bottle first she calmed down - usually only takes a few sips then will latch on to me - although saying that she seems all at sorts with positioning the last few days - I remember with DD1 forgetting that as they grow bigger the holds you have got don pat have to keep changing! Finger crossed for you other feeds this evening too

Ah well - 3 mins later and not settled yet although does seem to be quietening down a tad. all confused now too as we've worked out the cot will just about fit in our room and now wondering whether better that way than into the nursery - not as good with DD1 though as well as it does mean she can't come in when DD2 is asleep etc - or we can't have a shower as the en-suite is bloody noisy!

Oh dear - seems to be having some sort of apoplectic fit - best give in and let her have a dummy!! She is only little after all - and I'm a soft touch and hate to hear her crying !

Oh hang on - all quiet now - is she testing me?? devious little buggers babies aren't they

Pecka - well done your dd!!!

BM - I don't blame you for wanting to try anf forgo the dummy, sometimes ds wakes up in the night and I give him his dodie to settle back to sleep, think if I hadn't have given him it in the first place he wouldn't need it now. But i suppose if I hadn't given it to him I'd probably have no nips left...
Thing is he doesn't always need his dodie. IN fact he is a sleep right now without!

Hello everyone, I've been on holiday for a week and tried to catch up with everyone's messages but have given up - there are so many!! DD settled quite well while we were away but was a wee bit unsettled when we got back. I suppose a week is a long time to be away when you are only 13 wks old! She had her 2nd set of immunisations yesterday and they didn't seem to upset her too much. She is now going to bed at around 7.30 pm and sleeps until at least 6 am . I don't know how she knows the difference between day and night but she has slept for 5-6 hrs over night since she was about 3 wks old so I know we are very lucky. I should make the most of it as I'm sure she'll wake up during the night when she needs weaned and when teething starts

Pecka, I think there are some things in life sent to try you. I have a friend who had no probs BF with first 2 babies, third wouldn't have a bar of it. BUT was a very easy going baby, good sleeper etc and evetually she accepted the bad with the good. IMO self-settling is a fab thing if you can achieve it so well done you.

My LO is pretty good at self-settling - which is just as well as she seems to be quite a light sleeper. With DD1 a freight train could pass thru her room and I don't think she would hear it, with DD2 I creep in there for a peak and she starts thrashing around waving her arms and kicking her legs! I'm very glad we started using a sleepsac weeks ago!

Hi Louise, hope you had a nice holiday.

Beaster, I was a dummy convert but LO seems to have dropped the habit of her own accord so we no longer use it. However if I thought it would help her settle better I'm sure we still would be!

Clara, that does sound very heavy. I'd see the GP pronto if I was you just to make sure its not an infection that could be cleared with ABs. I stopped expressing altogether (we made it to 10 weeks ) a week ago but have not had a period yet.

Lizzer, hope the growth spurt passes quickly and you get some more sleep.

Macdoodle, could she be making up for when she was poorly? Glad to hear she's much better. How about you?

good job pecka! hope it continues- i really admire you fro sticking with it, i don't think i would have managed myself.

BM my LO has a dummy at sleep/nap times, unless she is already asleep. I am restricting use at other times if possible. I am less worried about it now the SIDS organisation actually advises it. Also she doesn't need resettling if it falls out unless she is upset for another reason. She is certainly less keen on it than she was before, so i figure she will probably reject it in her own good time.

buzzy and others - thanks, bleeding seems to have calmed down so hopefully just heavy period.....

Chareq - there was no chance you could have been pregnant and this is any early m/c? But perios are heavier after childbirth...I am always mortified when I have to go and buy the super duper extra duty tampons. My periods haven't returned - I think they returned aout 9 months with both the others.

Evening everyone, I have gone back and read some of the messages that I have missed

Pecka - I am disgusted by the behaviour of those women in Wetherspoons!! The whole bf thing is so difficult and us women should be sticking up for each other rather than being judgmental. I am still bf (dd is 14 wks now) but it was touch and go for a while. At 10 weeks I gave her some formula with a view to giving up bf but I had a change of heart. I feel as if I have been through the mill emotionally about bf and could certainly do without complete strangers passing judgment. It's such a thorny subject isn't it?

As for periods, I know I'm being a bit dim but when should they come back?? My dd is 14 wks and I am bf but she sleeps for up to 12 hrs some nights and I have to express milk in the mornings so there is a long gap between feeds. Should I have had a period by now?

louise i think the conventional wisdom is that you don't start your periods until you have stopped exclusive BF independent of time between feeds.

Good Morning. Thanks Suey. I thought that might be the case from looking at other threads and posts.

Louise - I think it also varies with every woman. Some women don;t get their periods back for months after they stop BF and some (like claraq) get them back early even though they are still BF very regularly. The longer we can stave them off the better I say!

pecka - well done and crossed fingers this is the beginning of the road to more and more breast feeds. I can't believe how well you have done and you should be very proud of yourself, never mind those silly women

Speaking of insensitive women - here is a conversation my mum had with a complete stranger in a cafe (told to me by my mum)

Woman has baby who is crying at next table to my mum

My mum: why don't you just feed him?
Woman: well I don't really want to give him a breast feed in front of my colleagues
my mum: well if my daughter was here she would just whip her bosoms out and feed him

I find this conversation shocking on SO many levels - why is my mum telling her how to look after her own baby, why is my mum telling her what i would do, why is my mum using the phrase 'whip out her bosoms' and most of all why is she making it sound as if I would BF this woman's baby??!!! She also reported the conversation to me in terms of, well you'll be glad to know darling that I said... oh dear

Skid PSML at your mum
Well Lily slept all night cluster feed from 5ish to 7ish down at 8 with a bit of a struggle....went to bed at 11:30 could not bear thought of waking her for dream feed as she looked so calm and settled and next I knew it was 6:30am am little anxious as last time she did this was because she was ill and we ended up in hospital....bust she woke up lovely and smiley had a good feed play in bed with me and big sis and went back to sleep and IO can just hear her waking up now Can live with this routine
Happy Easter weekend everyone

good job macdoo! It must be really difficult to leave her be given your recent experience- great that she's thriving now.

that sounds great macdoodle - how lovely for you to be getting lots of sleep as well. FWIW I can;t bear to wake DS up for a dreamfeed either so often end up doing two night feeds

A question now for all expressing Bf-ers: when you express and leave the milk for a while and it separates - what percentage (approx obviously!) of the milk is the fatty hindmilk and what percentage is the watery foremilk? Mine is almost all foremilk but someone at my NCT class worried me by saying hers is more than 80% hindmilk - percentages please!

well that is the first decent sleep I have had since she came out hospital 2 weeks ago - think she has been restocking/growth spurt and I have been anxiously waking her to feed.....
As to expressing no idea as I haven't used any of mine yet have just frozen it straight away I could leave one out today to see ...I wouldn't worry anyway skid am sure it is fine after all she has been thriving on it for 3 months already
Can I boast a bit - I can now express both breasts in less than 20min and get 5-6oz from each side - I have a whole drawer full in the freezer but am yet to try her on a bottle - going back to work in 2 months so after easter break away next week am going to give it a go and then may even get an evening out and back to gym

Well done Mac on the expressing and sleep front
DS has gone back to waking every couple of hours but I assume it's because he is having a growth spurt so not too concerned.
He was unsettled last night, kept rubbing his head, and yes he has had another patch of eczema on his scalp! Have put some more hc cream on this morning.
Seems okay this morning, slept quite late and is now sat on my knee watching me type! He doesn't need much support to sit up now, just a hand on his back - pretty good for 12 weeks old [proud] does tend to flop when sleepy though!

Skid - I think mine is approx 20% full fat and 80% skimmed - no idea if that is how it should be or not but I always give it a good shake before feeding her so she gets it mixed up.

And lol at your mums conversation. Did she really mean you would feed the other woman's baby or your own??!!

BT - seems like you do have a strong little boy - probably all the feeding!! Dd2 i also fairly strong, as was her sister. I think she will be sitting unsupported before long. We have dug out the Bumbo, which she seems to like.

Becklespeckle, Macdoodle- something similar here on dropping the late-night feed. Last night DD moaned a bit at the usual feeding time (11pm). I ignored her as it was pretty intermittent moaning, and I was chatting to DH who had just come in from work and also was waiting for bottle to cool. And then it all went quiet and she shocked us by going back to sleep until 6.50am! So it just goes to show that she can live without that late night feed now. Still- I don't expect it every night!

She has quite a pronounced flat head now, and very wonky as she prefers to lie her head on one side. HV recommends turning changing mat other way round and lots of tummy time. I have also dug out the bumbo, which she adores- sits in it like a little Empress. Don't know why I didn't use it before.

HV also banging on a lot about fixed nap times- we have nothing like that in this house, oh dear.

Mac I am very very impressed by your expressing- I am so proud of even 2 ounces that it gets passed to DH to admire!