March 2008 births

[MarchNowFebMum]

Welcome March Mums (and late Feb/early April Mums!) from the March 2008 threads.

PQ I know its really hard when you want to bf but it doesnt go to plan, but remember ALL bm you give him will do him good even if it is not enough to fill him up. Dont give yourself a hard time about it - these things happen. Enjoy the time you have now with your lovely little boy - it passes so quickly and in the long run ff wont do any harm. That may be easier said than done - I felt so bad when I couldnt bf my dd.

Thank you c4it. To cap it all - Matthew has developed constipation so the doctor has prescribed him lactulose and i've switched his formula from SMA Gold to Aptamil which isn't as rich.

I feel a right twit for asking this, but how many layers of clothing should babies be wearing when they are outside?

Today Matthew had on a vest, sleepsuit, bootees, hat and a larger fleecy all-in-one on top. As I transferred him from car seat to his sling at the supermarket some woman came up to me and said that he wasn't wearing enough and that he would be cold. He didn't feel cold but was she right?

PQ - I would say that woman was a bit confused! He should be fine with all those layers on though it depends on how snug your sling is. LO is completely enclosed by my sling, even her head is covered so I put her in the car in just her vest and sleepsuit with a blanket on top, and then pop her into the sling when we get where we're going. If it's freezing and windy I close my coat over the sling to keep her warmer. But with this mild weather we're having, I'm sure she's more than warm enough with just vest, sleepsuit and sling. So it sounds like your LO has got plenty of clothes on.

Besides, if he was cold, he'd cry and let you know!

PQ - My DS usually goes out in vest, sleepsuit, woolie cardigan, beanie hat and socks/bootees. If he's in his pram then he has his cosy toes over and under him so he's nice and snug, and if he's in the baby bjorn then I usually just fasten my coat over as much of him as I can and being close to my chest probably helps a lot with warmth as well. He always seems fine - certainly doesn't cry. That woman was a bit of an interfering busybody if you ask me!

Oh my god...the three week growth spurt has turned my angel into boob-obsessed maniac. He is having what appears to be 4 oz every two hours. I have been expressing every other feed as DH is about and can help...am filling up so quickly it's mad...anyone else get this? As a result my bleeding has come back too...

Thank you for your answers - I did tell her that he had lots of layers on. Then she came out with the ultimate patronising comment - 'Is this your first baby?'. I walked off after that - after telling her to mind her own business.

pq - was it an old lady? in the 'olden days' babies used to wear masses of clothes. if babies feel warm on the back of the neck then they are warm.

any suggestion on how many naps, for how long and when a 7 week old should have?

have escaped from the ironing for 5 mins to come on here!in laws are coming up today for 3 nights so trying to get the house in order. which would take a team of cleaners a month! Ismay is 4 weeks tomorrow! got her weighed yesterday and shes gone from 7lb9 birth weight to 9lb10. hence why her newborn stuff is not fitting anymore.

sleep wise shes not good as dd2 who would settle off to sleep by herself, she does on a night but gets upset and cries during the day unless you cuddle her. any ideas on how to encourage her to go to kip by herself? im putting her down as soon as shes asleep and if she cries then as soon as ive settled her i put her back down again bit at the minute its not making much difference.

slings are fab, i havent used mine in the house (yet) as i dont want her to get used to being carried around but ive used it when weve been out and about. its a triclot slen(sp?) only thing is you have to put it on before you get in the car as it would get filthy if you tried to put it on outside as its so long.

i can sympathise with the jelly belly comments, mines horrible. i find having a bath or shower traumatic as i cant stand looking at myself and then im grumpy for the rest of the day! its my own fault as i ate loads when pregnant and put on a massive 4 stone, ive lost 2 stone 4 so far but its all come off my top half so my bum and thighs are now massivly out of proportion. im going to start doing sit ups but its finding the time to do them.

has anybody elses bleeding not stopped yet? iz is 4 weeks and mines still going. it stopped earlier then this with my last 2 dds so im just wondering how long it lasts for.

yes, please tell me how to get dd to settle herself! She just doesn't sleep during the day unless we're out in the pram. Ok at night, but yesterday she slept a total of 1 hour fom morning unitl 10pm not counting dozing on the boob. grrr...

I think DD is officially having a growth spurt. She wanted feeding avery 2-2.5 hrs yestd. night which has led to 2 very grumpy parents. It's amazing the difference 30 mins makes to a sleep pattern. She's still very unsettled today.
Re bleeding, I'm at 3 weeks and still going and I thought it was supposed to be tailing off by now? the hv is coming this afternoon so i might see what she says. tmi alert but it's still red- does that mean it's new blood.
oops screaming coming from moses basket

piggy- 5 hours a day. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, big sleep lunchtime is what we do. HTH

On the encouraging sleep thing, it's probably not a good idea in the long run because DS needs to learn to get to sleep himself, but my BIL gave us a white noise/womb music CD they had used with their two and it seems to work a treat with him at the moment.

I just put him down for a lunchtime nap and he was a bit cranky at first (probably my bad singing of the only lullaby I know!) and then when I switched on the CD he calmed down immediately and was asleep within 5 mins. I'll post the name later when he's awake and I can get it. It sounds like the fuzz of an out of tune radio so you could try that! I've used it successfully for his post-bath sleep at 7pm for the past few days and now trying it for lunchtime as I want those to be his two main sleeps of the day.

The lady was in her sixties, I think.
I slept like a dog last night but only because I left Matthew in his Moses basket with his dad and went upstairs for a nap at 11.30pm. Next thing I knew it was 6am and dad had taken over the night feeds because I was so knackered .

I use the Bravado tank and it's fairly industrial - am a 36G.

PiggyP - your schedule sounds like ours up until about a week ago and I too am struggling with schedules. Did a survey of the books and at 6 weeks we should be moving them to 4 hr stretches at day and 5-6 at night if possible. One helpful thing I read is that babies shoul;d sleep 7 hrs during the day and 8.5 at night. That said, at 6-8 weeks, which is where I think you and I are, there's still meant to be a lot of vairance. I was on the scheudle you mentioned and then magically LO has started migrating to a 6:30, 9:30, 2, 5, 8 and 11 feed and sleeping longer at night - or only getting up once, which is an improvement over the every 3 hrs. Unfortunately it's usually gas that wakes her up first these days so have limited my diet to air and bread to see what's causing the trouble.

We had immunisations yesterday! Went well and I didn't cry :.) She screamed bloody murder, then went to sleep and didn;t wake up for a few hours. She was a bit whimpery last night but slept well. Gave a bit of Calpol at night when I found fever but she was better by the 2AM feed. Came through unscathed!

mfnm - Thanks for that - we are on a similar schedule, does your dd sleep after each feed? Mine seems to sleep well at night, but still feeding at least every 3 hours in the day. She's got her jabs next week - nerve wracking!

ps my bleeding ended at 5 weeks so maybe there's end in sight? (vag birth)

just flyihg past - hope all well - thanks marchnowfebumum for comments - going to call her...your advice is wise and I agree she's so practical I just know she won't tell me silly stuff!

You're all sounding so sorted - am most impressed.

love to all and to anyone struggling! We all have good days and bad and then in my case I get a cheeky smile that melts my heart and i know it's all worth it!

Been lurking since the birth but have found it incredibly useful to hear how everyone else is getting on and hearing that I'm not the only one coping with crying, not sleeping, irregular feeding etc etc etc... Also loving it but feeling a bit lost much of the time. Good and happy thoughts to everyone else surviving these first few weeks!

Don't know if anyone has the time to answer, but can anyone advise on a night time routine for a 6 week old. I want to get into the whole bath-breast/bottle-bed routine but at what stage do you start this? Ie: bath her when... she's just fed, or yawning and sleepy or when she's just woken from her last sleep? Also how and when would it be a good time to get her to start going to bed for about 8pm (any earlier and DH wouldn't get to see her awake at all), rather than 11pm when we go to bed?

Any advice much appreciated. I just can't seem to make sense of the bedtime routine thing.

On slings, I love the Baby Bjorn.

hello m27 & imjin, long time no hear!

No idea on the routine thing, asked one of my friends and she said they started at 3 months as prior to that the colic made it pointless...
At the moment I tend to stay up until midnight-ish until LO's had that feed, then go to bed, and he'll sleep through then until 4 or 5am. Not sure what he'll do tonight as he's fed an hour early but guzzled down a whole 5oz.

Health visitor weighed him today, 10lb 9, that's 8oz heavier than 6 days ago, the porker! Mind you, he had just guzzled some milk so 2oz of that was probably expelled an hour later

Feeling accomplished, have just been to Asda for a big shop with DH and LO asleep on the trolley thing in his car seat. He stirred once during the outing, screamed a bit when we got back to the car but conked out as soon as the engine got turned on. Very weird sitting in the passenger seat at the moment, esp since DH is only a learner driver! And my FIL took my car and had it serviced and MOT'd for me today since i had a great excuse not to go.

Damn, getting too talkative, must be the wine since i haven't had any for ooh, 15 months or so

DD is now 9lb4 - a whole 1lb2 since she was weighed two weeks ago! Little whopper she is now. Good job really as we both have a sickness bug so she'll need her fat reserves. It can happily hack away at mine!

Had a bad evening, see my AIBU thread here if you're feeling nosey!

Regarding routine, I am following the Baby Whisperer which seems to be working well so far (touch wood it stays like that!). So I feed DD at 6:30pm (formula as am mixed feeding), Daddy bathes her at about 7ish and then she has a breastfeed and then tends to nod off. Wakes again at about 10:30 another bottle and then sleeps through until about 6am. She is a "sleeper" by nature though so I am sure that helps a fair amount. She then tends to sleep for a couple of hours in the morning and has an awake time over lunch and a big afternoon nap. Hope that may be vaguely helpful (she is 4.5 weeks by the way).

My bleeding stopped at 2 weeks but I think that was probably because I had a cs - they must get rid of most of it when they're rooting around in there! Was told it can last until 6 weeks.

Am starting a running club for beginners on Monday night, am very very scared but so sick of my icky stomach that needs must and all plus have a booked a holiday at the end of August with my impossibly thin and beautiful girlfriends as a treat prior to going back to work in September (eeek, don't like thinking about it).

flying visit to say mmh and glammammaformelyknownas5handsetc i hope you are both getting a bit better?

all thanks for slings and numb tum info.

sorry so brief, really REALLY busy with, well, stuff

piggyp I think you are doing well with 3 hrs during the day and good night stretches, at least it's the right way around! Sometimes she sleeps during the day intervals, sometimes she doesn't - and it's really variable - like sometimes 30 mins, others are 2 hrs. She does a big one in the morning but the rest are pretty spotty. I seem to only get a big afternoon nap if I've taken her out and she's fallen asleep in the pram/sling. Also depends a bit on stimulation - like if my annoying MIL is over, she sleeps less. Grr...won't go there except to say she's gone home and I am very happy about it.

m27 I have been trying to do feed, bath, sleep but bath, feed, sleep works much better. Timing depends on what schedule you are following but I start this at about 6:30-7 which is when she's yawning and sleepy (ie she would have previously fed at 4. She is usually sleeping by 8 and then either wakes up at 11 or 2 for the next feed. She's 8 weeks now and this last week she has been skipping that 11 feed and going until 2 which has been nice. (I need to now move her to doing that long stretch 10-5ish a la MMH). I certainly think you can try routine at 6 weeks knowing that it might not stick until 3 mos (or maybe more!)

Apologies for talking about good sleep nights for those who aren't having them! A friend of mine told me never to assume consistency - ie good sleepers can turn into rotten ones and vice versa. encourgaing if you are having a bad night, a cautionary tale if you are congratulating yourself for a good one!

new name - i was (piggyp) because;

1. don't have pigs anymore - a bag of food has gone from about £4 to about £8 - and they get through several a week, just too expensive!
2. don't feel like a pig anymore!
3. really looking forward to summer!

mnfm - your dd sounds exactly the same as mine, reassuring!

m27 - i'd been thinking about bath time routine too, till my mother said 'but you don't have to do it in the evening, I could never face it then'. So now I just do it whenever (generally in afternoon / evening?). She sometimes hates a bath so i coose a time when she is jolly and then she loves it.
i've got 3 months in mind for changing to a proper bedtime routine and going to bed earlier. there's no point till the evening screaming stops! i'm going away for a week around then, so i shall implement the change when we get back.

new name - i was (piggyp) because;

1. don't have pigs anymore - a bag of food has gone from about £4 to about £8 - and they get through several a week, just too expensive!
2. don't feel like a pig anymore!
3. really looking forward to summer!

mnfm - your dd sounds exactly the same as mine, reassuring!

m27 - i'd been thinking about bath time routine too, till my mother said 'but you don't have to do it in the evening, I could never face it then'. So now I just do it whenever (generally in afternoon / evening?). She sometimes hates a bath so i coose a time when she is jolly and then she loves it.
i've got 3 months in mind for changing to a proper bedtime routine and going to bed earlier. there's no point till the evening screaming stops! i'm going away for a week around then, so i shall implement the change when we get back.