Hi all, just checking in
Well, we're doing okay here... Leo had his tongue tie snipped a week ago and feeding has been better since, though still not perfect. Have given myself a day off today and fed him expressed milk in a bottle for all his feeds bar the 7am one. I've had a rotten cold all week and feel knackered and just couldn't face BFing him directly today.
For those asking re bottles, we introduced EBM in a bottle at about 4 weeks. Before we had the tongue tie snipped it was just so painful and I needed a break. Initially we used an Avent electric pump someone lent us but it broke and so we bought a £25 manual avent one from Tesco and for some reason I seem to get more out with the manual, which isn't the way I think it's meant to work but hey! I also find it easier to move around with the manual one - just shifting positions etc and not having to constantly search for where I last had the power cable. Leo hasn't displayed any confusion between the two that I can discern, and he put on 14oz this week so he seems to be doing okay with it My volume expressing has definitely gone up so keep going, and pump for at least 5-10 minutes after you think your boob is empty and you often find a shedload more! Also try massaging your boob whilst expressing, that's helped me sometimes...
Re leaving them to cry: we leave him initially for 5 minutes and then reassess. WE can generally tell now if he's winding himself up or down with the crying; if he's winding down we leave him to settle himself but if he's just getting in more and more of a state there's really no point.
For those of you whose babies need to be held: have you tried swaddling? We swaddled Leo because he kept whacking himself in the eye and scratching himself and he definitely sleeps better swaddled, though I'm trying to get him used to a grobag now too, esp on the hot days. The other day I had him swaddled in a turqoise sarong with hot pink flowers on as it was the coolest thing I could think of - very masculine!! i took a photo to embarrass him with when he's older
Lastly, routines. We're still doing GF and it's still working well for us. He only needs one feed in the night and that's getting later and later so I don't think it'll be ages before he drops it. Our basic schedule, which is somewhere between her 4-6 week and 6-8 week schedule is:
7am feed then social time
9am sleep
10am wash, dress, feed, social time
12noon sleep
2:30 feed then social time
4pm sleep
5pm feed, social time, bath, feed
7pm sleep
10:30pm feed
Night feed generally around 4-4:30am now
It's not going to suit everyone, clearly, because nothing does. And there are definitely days when he sticks to it better than others. On the days he doesn't, I just try to work out if he's short on feeds, sleep or wakey time and adjust a bit later in the day to compensate. And right now I have him asleep on me in a sling, which DEFINITELY isn't part of it but DH (who isn't so dear to me right now) nearly drowned him in the bath an hour ago and both Leo and I needed a bit of calming. He's fine now but I'm still a bit shaky, so the sleeping in sling thing is definitely for my comfort, not his... but right now I couldn't give a crap!!! So yeah, the bare bones of it definitely help us but we mix it up a bit as we need to. It's definitely helped psychologically for me to be able to see the progression to him going longer between feeds and slowly move towards sleeping less in the day and more at night.
But your mileage may, and will, vary!
What else? Oh, I bought one of these on ebay: www.closebabycarrier.com/ and it arrived today. So far am loving it. Leo's still colicky a fair bit of the time and so prefers to be upright - now thanks to this I have arms again!!
OK, longest post ever, sorry