March 2008 births

[MarchNowFebMum]

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

{hugs} to those in need of sleep and lots of arnica to any with bruised heads (glad they're ok!).

Feeling very happy now as DH has just passed his driving test at the 8th attempt! He was supposed to do it before I gave birth, but better late than never

HQ- tried them...he wets them through too. really wanted to stick with cloth, but nights are just impossible. He must drink his entire day's worth in the evening. Hope your LO takes it easy on you today.

aw, hq, you are not a crap mum you are a good mum! i think leaving them to sort themselves out can be the hardest of all things to do. I loathe every second of it, thankfully gg does have a shouty scream before settling but never more than about 7 minutes.

when we went out this am, i was a DD cup. byt the time we got back, (4 hours later and 5 hours between feeds, gg was that sleepy) i think i must have been a G cup! blimey, spilling over my bra cups I was. never so happy to apply infant to breast. it hurt to walk!

DS screamed for 12 mins on his own before shutting up. I hurtled down to kitchen to make my dinner and he started again I ended up putting him in the baby bjorn and eating over his head while he screamed. he eventually exhausted himself 10 mins ago and i have managed to transfer him to cot where he is still passed out and looking like a cherub . off for cuppa and cake and feet up now...

Sounds like you deserve cake! Am thinking of starting to take DD to Gymboree in either Wimbledon or Surbiton if anyone local would be interested, link here.

hello all - sending love and hugs to all those of us struggling to keep eyes open, and congrats to those who are discarding the matchsticks in the eyes!
We're doing fine - nights are totally random, dream feed and then anywhere between 2.300 and 5.30 - i can't work it out at all as it seems to be just random in why it's earlier! Days are all good except the young master has decided he doesn't enjoy his two hour sleep and he'd like to wake after only one hour despite his obvious exhuastion. It is so frustrating (HQ I'm with you!) the screaming when they are just so tired. The serious annoyance is I then know the rest of the day wil be hard work with an over tired baby but hey ho, next week it'll be all change no doubt and something else will be keeping us on our toes!
bless you all and keep smiling, or glugging the wine -whichever works for you!

just wanted to check that giving DS a bottle of formula in place of one evening breastfeed won't wreck my milk supply at this stage... DS screamed until 4.30pm (got as far as making my cuppa at 2.30 and then he started screaming again so i ended up drinking it cold ) and then fed from 4.30 until now. i'm exhausted and DH is about to arrive home so I'm planning to hand the baby over for the rest of the evening. i haven't got any expressed milk so was going to give formula. i've had a dodgy supply all along so a bit paranoid but i'm assuming my body can cope with one less feed for one day, right? if so, then i'm doing as imjin suggested and hitting the wine bottle (and finally putting my feet up!)

HQ - i've been led to believe missing one feed doesn't impact on supply - the key is not to do it twice...so go for it...as I hope you have by now!
personally i've put the baby to bed and now i'm off to bed myself. I need the sleep!
enjoy the wine.

Big hugs to everyone having a hard time, and to all of us with random babies. Or rather, I presume they're ours and not that random, but hell - where's the predictable pattern????

HQ - fantastic breastfeeding counsellor said there was no problem with giving a bottle of formula at night or evening while breastfeeding, and that was when DD was only 4 weeks old, so no worries about it messing up your supply now.

Anyone got any advice? DD only feeds once in the night, somewhere between 4 and 5am, which is great. BUT - she wakes between 2 and 5 times before that from 1.30am onwards. If I give her the dummy, she goes back to sleep pretty quickly so I know its not food that she needs. But being awake for large chunks of the night is doing my head in, not to mention putting the dummy back in several times while she loses it before falling back to sleep again. Its a cursed thing, the dummy, but the only thing that gets her to sleep so I can't help but love it.

Is there anything I can do that would help her not wake so many times? Already doing a pretty sucessful dreamfeed at 11pm-ish - she is asleep when she takes the bottle and can basically sleep through the whole thing while taking about 75ml.

m27 - poor you. we went through similar. have you thought about changing dream feed and actually waking lo properly to feed. forgive me - you've probably done that but it seems to be working for us.

night night all, good luck with our nights,

Random nights continue chez MNFM...and after the 2:30 waking I could not go to sleep so have been up since then - actually not tired for some reason and getting tons of stuff done. will be face down by mid morning I am sure!

The dream feed mystifies us here as well -
LO also hates dream feed and is very hard to wake. I hate it bc it hasn't yet made any difference to her sleep schedule.

Random nights continue chez MNFM...and after the 2:30 waking I could not go to sleep so have been up since then - actually not tired for some reason and getting tons of stuff done. will be face down by mid morning I am sure!

The dream feed mystifies us here as well -
LO also hates dream feed and is very hard to wake. I hate it bc it hasn't yet made any difference to her sleep schedule.

MNFM - I hope Sanam crashes at the same time as you this morning so you get a chance to sleep!

I think the dreamfeed might be dependent on catching them when they come into light sleep. DH just happened to go in last night as DS was stirring and it made a big difference to how well he took his bottle - an easy 4oz rather than a 3oz struggle... However that's based on a completely non-scientific sample of one night which, as we all know with babies, probably means absolutely nothing...

I'm feeling much better today - handing bedtime to DH meant I got to cook dinner which I haven't been able to do in ages, despite it being one of my favourite ways to unwind. DS only woke once at 3am and fed and settled well before waking at 7am. Plus DH starts his summer Fridays today - his company closes the office at 12.30 so everyone can have the afternoon off - so I only have to be on my own until lunchtime today. So it's a slightly better day chez HQ than yesterday so far. Hope that is the same for most of us today.

Leo is obviously developing a clear sense of what babygro fashions he likes and dislikes. He has just pooed all up the back of the same babygro that just about survived the horrendous poo explosion of 2 days ago, necessitating a major clean-up operation yet again. I love that babygro but he clearly doesn?t...

HQ glad the day has begun better for you - mine was also shit yesterday and already better personally! My little angel slept till 7.00 from the 10.30 feed - quite a remarkable turn around as previously it can range anywhere between 2am and 5.30 - anyway - only one night but blissful after 10 weeks of the night time wake ups!
by the way - in case anyone needs another idea to try I was advised to breast feed at 6.15 before bed and then top up with bottle (I express in the morning and use that as the milk is richer but you could do formula) - having finished breast he still managed to take about 3fl oz of bottle as well. I hear that it's the last feed before bed that is crucial and the dream feed really is just topping them up so it doesn't matter so much waht they take. what do I know but it seems to have worked for us - he only took 2fl oz at the dream feed but slept through - tomorrow may be different but anyone looking for new things to try!
I'll sign off now - sorry to have reappeared so suddenly!

imjin - don't go! we like having you around

Such good news for you! Did you sleep, or were you checking on DS to see if he was still alive (we did this the one time DS slept through so we were knackered the next day!).

I might try your EBM feeding before bed approach. I've always thought I have really low supply at that time and yesterday DS fed 4.30-6.30 fairly continuously and then he still drained a 5oz bottle from dad at 7.30 after his bath. So clearly he does want a lot at that time. Off to express now...

Hey ho everybody,

Supportive thoughts to everyone having hard days at the moment

Another one just popping by. I sometimes come on and read some of the thread, so I am sort of keeping up with how you guys are doing. I never seem to have time to read this thread and then post on it, even at its much slower post-natal pace. I've seen the pictures of your gorgeous darlings (those that have put them up) and they're so lovely.

We'd never have managed for so long with one thread in the ante-natal days

DD is 10 weeks old today. Same age as spugs's DD3.

On the sleeping through front - around 2 or 3 weeks ago DH and I were laughing about how when she was 30 she'd be ringing us up at 3.30 in the morning to wake us up as that was her nightfeed time from the time she was about 1 week old. Suddenly she stretched that out to around 5am and more recently she's started going until 7am some mornings (although not all).

The first 5am night I got no sleep as I was just lying there waiting for her to wake up and kept going over to check she was OK. Same with the first time she went to 7. I woke up at 5, heard some noises, went over to the cot and just noticed at the last moment before I picked her up that she was still asleep.

imjin writes:
"I hear that it's the last feed before bed that is crucial and the dream feed really is just topping them up so it doesn't matter so much waht they take."

Can anyone confirm this? We've been having a mysterious reduction in the amount DD takes at 10.30 when DH wakes her up. It's not a dream feed, just a normal one but it's the last feed she has before morning now. I thought she'd start to take more as she slept longer, but in fact she's drinking less and less (69-70ml down from 110 or so).

It's the only feed where we have amounts as I'm breastfeeding and expressing for that feed, so I really have no idea how much she has at other feeds and have just been assuming everything is OK.

We're having a very cranky week this week. DD has been really unsettled and very windy and feeding her is kind of a nightmare. Not really sure what's wrong. She's down for a nap now, but keeps waking up, squawking and then dropping off again.

Baby calls. Nice to hear how well you're all doing and that the babies are giving their mothers plenty to do.

e14 - hope your ok today, its horrible feeling down but it does get better.

hq - your not being a bad mum, a screaming baby is horrible and sometimes the best thing is to leave them to settle. izzys been off the past few days, it was either wind or her cold but she was fairly horrific foe a couple of nights. basically screamed non stop and wouldnt sleep for longer then 30 mins. sometimes you cant take it anymore and you have to have 5 mins to yourself, nothing wroong with that.

im selling my reusables, ive tried them a couple of times and they only last a couple of hours, plus no time to wash/dry them! we use either sainsburys or asdas own nappies and they work just as well as pampers, plus there cheaper. im not doing my bit for the enviroment but its either that or mounds of washing everywhere! if your using reusables then i found that minki huggles and a wool wrap works really well over night. the nappys huge but does the job.

i havent found that dream feeds make much difference to when iz wakes up. she either refuses it or still wakes at 2/3 am.

have develped a blanket addiction!! cant help myself ended up buying another one from m&p yesterday, which brings it to 5 pram blankets plus the m&p ones aint cheap. dh didnt help either by suggesting getting it!

ds1 says he was feeling 'wackered' before his nap, after his farm visit.

'oh i'm whackered mummy!'

hopefully that is a simple coruption of knackered and he's not heard the version where the c is replaced with an N.

Preggers (sorry i can't remember your new name!)

Flame is looking for you, she can't remember you email and wants to know how the babies are

funny i am whackered as well! int observation though - that block of sleep
i had the other night for 5 hours was better than 8 hours interrupted. we did 11-5 last night which was progress.

am off tonight to have a dirty lovely overnight with dh at an unamed london hotel. aunt is staying with lo as anniversary present. yay!

Happy anniversary MNFM, enjoy the dirt

Took LO into town today for first time to see how I got on manoevering through shop doors etc. Even got to go up the escalator with the Xplory - I love the looks we get when people see the back wheels collapsing in for this purpose!

Had DH with me as well for part of it as he wanted to practice driving and parking in a multi-story. Had a nice late breakfast then fed LO who proceded to have a massive explosion in his nappy which escaped out the side! Didn't get any on me, but he had to come home wearing oddly stained clothes as I hadn't bothered to pack spares

Guys - after BDF posted, I wondered where preggers was and did a quick search and found this thread
Does anyone have her email address to find out how she and her family are doing and send our love?

HQ- I don't, but prob best not to email her in RL until after she has spoken to her DH as that would be a SHITTY way for him to find out...

Oh no poor preggers. Hope she is being well supported by her DH and family now.

I am so pissed off today, LO seems to be teething, loads of dribble, rosy cheeks and foul tempered. P was out DJing at his boss's daughters birthday party last night, he couldn't find a single minute apparently between 6:30pm - 11:30pm to drop me a text or call . He then thought it appropriate after I had spoken to him at 11:30, told him I was pissed off and hung up on him he called me back at 1am and woke me and DD up and now he is back we just keep arguing about it.

DD is very grumpy, lots of crying and general whinging. Still sleeping ok but not great and is very challenging when she is awake.

I am exhausted. I am starting the Cambridge Diet on Monday to try and shift this baby weight and shift it fast. Never get a chance to eat properly anyway so hoping this will be the solution to me being properly nourished too.

Will be back with my happy face on soon.

Just been watching the news about those children stabbed, so terribly sad and very nearby, must be v.near you turtl. Terrifying how frequently these things have been happening lately

Turtle - that thread was nearly a month ago so I'm assuming she's told him by now. I wouldn't have suggested we email if it was more recent.

MMH - oh poor you! I find it's bad enough when the baby is grumpy, but to have an argument/niggle with DP at the same time just makes it so much worse. Big hug to you.

DS has been very smiley today, so we're preparing ourselves for a rough night as he's not yet been able to string a full 24 hours of loveliness together In the meantime I'm off to watch Britain's Got Talent and have hamburgers for dinner!