March 2008 births

[MarchNowFebMum]

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

We had crusty ears too until the day before DS's Cranial Osteopath appointment. I gave them a good scrub with a flannel and soap which seemed to shift what in our case appeared to be dried regurgitated milk. The shame . Regular washing seems to have sorted the problem. I'm not for one moment casting aspersions on anyone elses's standards of hygiene, just saying what the problem was in our case.

I can't remember who asked about nappies at nighttime {apologies]. I use Pampers during the night and Sainsburys during the day. The Pampers have not leaked and they're on for 13 hours (hurray!) Obviously everyone's bottom is a different shape but those nappies work for us.

Right better dash as the list of chores gets longer the longer I sit here and it's nearly bath time.

turtle (you are going to hate me for suggesting this) starting the day at 7 am and cramming in feeds (swmnbn style) every 3 hours or so (to encourage a better feed, taking more milk) can help with babies that feed almost constantly not taking much quantity in the day and then make up the rest of their intake at night.
But feel free to dismiss this as you know your lo best

I have to scrub wash behind ears and rub a lttle cream in to prevent crusting but this applies to dd as well and she is two.

'When breastfeeding, you should eat well and freely'

I read somewhere. I feel like the only woman alive to say this, but again, I'm putting on weight. Did with ds1. I am so hungry when BF. Nothing like when pg, this is intense. And I am really eating well now. Can't eat any better or I'll be in the kitchen the whole time and socisal services will rescue the kids from neglect/obesity.

Thank you for all your kind words about Matthew. He is gurgling and cooing away in his cot right now. Took him to the clinic for his fortnightly check-up yesterday. I told the health visitor what happened and just bit my lip while she lectured me about the importance of safety in the home.
But the big development is that Matthew slept through from 8pm to 5am last night. I'm so giddy with excitement but I'm sure this won't happen again until he's a teenager

hi all. Been to see gp yesterday as been feeling really low and looks like a bit of pnd. MIL visiting now which has been great- my house is sooo clean! (She's ironing the babygros as I type ) Basically, just want to feel better soon and enjoy things.
So, despite the tears and my own sleeplessness, DD slept from 8:30 (sleep feed at 11) until 7:30 this morning! She actually woke at 5:30 but I just reswaddled her and she went back to sleep.
Second the suggestion to wake them at a certain time in the morning in order to get enough feeds in during the day. I aim for 7:30 at the latest and it seems to work so far.

littleducks...My day starts at 630 and he eats at least every 3 hours already!!! Thanks though.
Sorry to hear all the bad and sad this morning. Hope verything looks up soon. xxxx

dirty little secret! lo just fell off the couch - was a split second i had put her down and was grabbing the muslin. omg!

she fell onto thick carpet and appears to be fine but pq what checks did they do at the a and e? ie what were they worried about?

Oh e14mum - {{{big hugs}}}. You have done so brilliantly with Hero - you've had a much rougher ride than most of us - and I really hope you start to feel better soon. Yay for MILs - sometimes they can be just fab even if they do mad mad things like iron babygros...

At the moment DS seems to be going backwards in his sleeping pattern and it's really disheartening.

His pattern has always been 5pm feed, bath, 7pm feed, wake and feed at 11pm. He was taking 5-5.5oz then (his only bottle of formula) and had pushed his nighttime feed out to 4.30am-5am pretty consistently between 4 and 6 weeks and would only take one breast before going through until 8am. He slept through about 10 days ago (at just under 7 weeks old) which was great but since then he has stopped taking as much formula at night (back to 3.5-4oz, and that's a struggle) and is waking at 3-3.30am. Last night I tried dreamfeeding for the first time at 11.15pm and he took 4.5oz easily which seemed like progress, but then woke at 2.45am which was the earliest for weeks and weeks and needed to feed from both breasts. He then woke at 6.15am which is 2 hours earlier than he was doing and so feels like 2 night time wakenings again

At 4 weeks I thought I might have a baby who would be sleeping through by 8 weeks but now we're actually at 8 weeks, his sleep has gone backwards. We don't seem to have been doing anything differently because he got himself into his own day and evening routine and that has stayed the same, and the only thing we ever 'imposed' (11pm feed) has stayed the same as well. The only thing that changed was we moved him into his cot in his own room 2 weeks ago - but he slept through after that move so I don't know if that is really the cause.

Any tips on what I can do to get him to take more at 11pm and how to get him back to sleeping through longer?

A paediatrician checked him all over for injuries. Because Matthew cried when his chest was pressed he was sent for a chest X-ray which was clear. I think it was the doctor's cold hands that made him cry. They also quizzed us about how he managed to fall off the chair to make sure there was nothing untoward going on.

When I was pfb'ing ds1, I ALWAYS ironed:

babygros
baby vests
muslins
little coats
blankety things
bed sheets

Yes, I was that muppety.

but I still iron ds1's outer clothes, on the grounds it makes him look so loved. am amused to wonder what i'll be doing when ds2 is ready for proper clothes.

e14mum BIG hugs to you.

HV advised sudocrem for ear crust, and she didn't say anything about my obviously low hygiene standards! Seems to have been really effective after just one treatment. Dd2 (a rather chubbly little baby) developed her own vintage of neck cheese, which was definitely a hygiene issue, very very tricky to clean between the fat folds when she didn't want to look up. (The fat folds and neck cheese are now a dim and distant memory now she is 4).

Merryberry - I too am not losing weight even though exclusively bfing. But I didn't with the other two. I lost quite a bit to start with (but never got down to pre pg weight, then it gradually crept back on. Only when I stopped feeding at about 1 year did it come off, and then within a month lost a stone. Currently not actually putting on any weight, but I'm walking about 15 miles a week, and being reasonably sensible with what I eat during the day. Unfortunately evenings are my time for grazing stuffing my face. So I know what to do, but tiredness/boredom in the evenings is leading to excessive face stuffing.

We have stopped moving the moses basket downstairs during the day and it seems strange to not have him around all the time. Also slightly concerned that when back at school next week, if he is having a nap at 3 ish that I might forget to take him. Might have to set reminder on mobile!

HQ - ds is getting quite reliable at going from a feed at 10.30pm through to anytime between 4 and 5am. I had been expressing so that he took 8oz of ebm at 10.30 (which he took really nicely), but I wasn't very well last week and couldn't be arsed to express. I bf him instead at 10.30 and he went through to 5.30. Have dropped the expressing and just bfing him and he's fairly consistent with his waking time. Do you wake your LO completely for dreamfeed or is it literally a dreamfeed? How about trying a bf instead of bottle?

e14mum - glad you are getting help, and what is wrong with ironing babygros? Should I be ashamed of my ironing habit ?

MrsP- nothing wrong with ironing babygros, it was just a shock event in e14.
We have neck cheese here- and she absolutely hates having it cleaned off!
Thanks for the hugs guys.

have to shamefully confess to forgetting GG once on the school run. got to the end of the house row. haven't told dp. was mortified all day. boys probably wondered why i wouldn't stop hugging them.

oh yes, evening eating for entertainment is a bad thing. also the minstrels keeping me company as gg watches me break build a wood dolls house for ds1

Ohmigod! Just had the most horrendous poo explosion yet! Heard a bit of a noise and thought "ooh better go and change that but i should be able to watch the end of neighbours first" and within about 5 seconds I suddenly felt something very warm and wet and sticky on my hand... It was all up his back - right up to his shoulders - and barely any had stayed in the nappy! It didn't bother DS one bit - he was happily smiling on his changing table while i tried to remove the clothes without coating the rest of his body in it. He was also very amused at being dunked straight in the bath by a squealing mum. The clothes are probably not salvageable which I'm upset about as it's my favourite babygro - they're in the wash now and I'm praying for some above-and-beyond-the-call type cleaning activity from my crappy washing machine

MrsPhas3 - thanks for the thoughts on feeding. I'm a bit scared of going back to a breastfeed at that time as he hasn't had one since he was about 2 weeks old. I had real problems with establishing my milk supply and he had poor weight gain in his first month and the bottle then was the only thing that saved my sanity and kept me breastfeeding the rest of the time as I was close to giving up completely. Having said that, if the formula isn't really making him sleep longer I'd be interested in trying to go back to bf at that time. Is it as simple as just trying to feed him one night, or do I need to start doing something first - perhaps trying to express at that time for a few nights to kickstart supply?

Re dreamfeed, I had been waking him fully with nappy change but he was then resisting because he'd rather be sleeping hence not taking much and it taking ages to get anything into him. Last night I just picked him up and shoved the bottle in his mouth and he wolfed down 4 1/2oz without stirring. I think I'll persist with that approach for a few nights while I think about psyching myself up to try a breastfeed instead.

HQ - those one squirt poos that require 15 million wipes are always a surprise. I've learnt to hold babies flat, without touching nappy region following the sound of a wet fart - damage limitation on poo dribbling down leg, on to the only pair of jeans that currently fits and on the floor. My SIL was here when that happened and was worried that ds had a really upset tummy - she'd never seen breast milk poo before (and judging by the look on her face she never will again!).

I'm no expert on the re-establishing bfing thing, but after his bottle try popping him on the boob and see what happens. Isn't there a theory that babies can bf asleep but can't bottle feed when asleep (not sure if I have just made this up - sorry if I have).

MB - your secret is safe with us.

Rain and half term - what a perfect combination

Poo explosions...isn't it amazing how they stick to everything except what you're trying to wipe it up with, when you just end up moving it round to somewhere else on LO's or your own body?

Hay festival was fun in the end, abolute nightmare getting there (45mins to find a parking space as only accepting 4x4s in the usual fields due to weather). Had Lo in the baby carrier on my front and he behaved most of the time...cried a bit during the one talk we'd paid for, but standing up and jiggling him round calmed him down. Just cried every time i sat down after that so had to spend best part of an hour dancing like a loon at the back with him They had babychanging facilities with free moltex eco nappies and eco wipes and everything...though don't think the chemicals in the toilets were very eco
Better go check on him now, he's been asleep for the last 3 hours and it's too quiet!

Now I know why my housecleaner irons things -- thought she was mad! :.)

LOVE TO E14!

LO ok, just scared from the fall. Was laughing and smiling about 10 mins after I wrote that message. It was a short distance between couch and carpet so no harm done it seems. Perhaps she'll be a gymnast someday. I did tell DP but he didn't freak out thankfully!

My aunt is here this week - she's not doing ironing but I went out this afternoon and came back with dishes and all laundry done, picked up house and baby asleep. BLISS.

ps to hq - having exact same frustrating situation with LO. was sleeping through for about a week and now her schedule is completely out of whack. doing a 7pm big feed and 11 dream but after that it's different each night!! even when she wasn't sleeping through the night at least she was regular - it's really making me tired. I have no idea what's caused it or how to fix it. sorry. am just going to keep going how i am and hope it evens out or is just a stage.

anybody have any ideas?

It would appear that a lot of us are having the same problem! We finally had a "predictable" night last night after a ew nights of completely random and soul-destroying sleep patterns. Am hoping for the best tonight as LO has clusterfed like a madman and gone straight to sleep. I think the best advice for any of us is just to remember that this too shall pass.

BTW...is mine the only child who is incapable of a dreamfeed? Maybe I just haven't found the right window, but when he's asleep he's GONE and there's no way I can feed him. I can't really even wake him between 9 and 12 as he is just comatose.

we've just got througha 3 day feeding frenzy, with added evening feed and earlier night feed and 4, count 4, feeds in 3 hours on waking. plus 4 in 3 hours before bed. from this mornings nap, i'd say we are through to the sleepy side again. hope we go back to predictable now.

definitely having the unpredictable nights here. I think it makes me sleep a lot worse because I'm half-listening for her as I don't know when she'll wake up. So big hugs to everyone going through it!

unpredictable again. On the night nappy front, I have yet to find anything to contain LO's massive wees for a whole night. I changed him at 7, 4 and 7 and yet he was soaking down to the sheets. I guess I shouldn't worry about him eating enough...

Haven't posted for ages and have just had a read-through to catch up - {{hugs}} to all who need them and well done on those coping well/in routine etc!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one trying to get in a dream feed (impossible without waking LO up, which can only be done when in REM sleep) and also unpredictable feeds at night. Went from 11pm to 4am then 7.30am last night, so maybe we are starting to get into a good pattern again.... fingers crossed! HQ like you - we had regressed from 1 waking to 2 again in the night - my LO is 10.5 weeks old now.

turtle I've found that Pampers Baby Dry nappies (says on packet they last up to 12 hours) go through from 11pm feed to 7.30 in morning..... use regular pampers/huggies in the day but the "dry" ones for night-time.

turtle - Moltex work wonders for me. My DS soaks his nappies between every change - they are so heavy - but he is never ever even clammy himself and his clothes are never wet. We only ever have the occasional problem with poos (as per yesterday's post!) They will easily do 11-7 and have done 7-7 the last two nights when he has been dreamfed.

DS currently screaming in his cot. We came in from HV clinic and he woke up crying so I tried to move him to his cot as he is clearly so tired and he just screamed and screamed. He then divebombed my boobs so I offered more food even though he only fed an hour ago and instead of eating he just chewed my nipple. So I took him off, and tried a dummy instead. You'd think I was poisoning him instead of trying to soothe him, and he started screaming blue murder. I've just had to leave him to cry as we had a bad night as well and I can't take it any more at the moment. It makes me feel like the crappiest mum in the world