July 2008 - Living in the Twilight Zone of never quite enough sleep to be compus mentus

[libralady]

Just thought I'd better set up another thread as the old one is just about to run out.

CilC, I did a fab MSc at Birkbeck - Organisational Behaviour. They have a distance learning option which is all on-line plus 3-4 weekends. It was really good. Don't know how it would work with having a baby though, I finished it just before getting pg with DS1. Which bank were you at? We might know some of the same people as i did Training too as well as Generalist and Grad Recruitment (hideous job that one).

Bebe, you sound just like me with DS1. I am very fair too, as is my mum and we'd been told the same thing re skin sensitivity. The shields really help, as I'm sure you know. Avent do different sizes and I have the small ones - they seem to be better than the standard ones. Also, Lansinoh helps the shield stick to your boob. You're doing a fab job and every feed makes a difference but if you have to give up, then you shouldn't feel bad - what's best for you is what's best for baby. I gave up at 10 weeks with DS1 - it just got too hard cos he had reflux. It's much easier with Logan cos he's a good feeder and no reflux but it's still taken a while to get to this point.

Right, off to make a gargantuan chili.

Rumpel, I think I have heard the word 'sponsor' used for a non-religious godparent.

We will be having a christening at some stage, though I am not really religious, dh is and takes dd1 and dd2 to church most Sundays so I can have time to myself. I'm meant to be doing useful stuff while Bryony sleeps but once again I've 'just popped on to Mumsnet for a quick look' and now I can't seem to leave. I feel I should try to tackle my addiction but I just enjoy it so much!

Minkus-Party sounds Fab! What about Mentor, Guardian,guide parents, Supporting adults. any good?

Disney- You sound like a fab mummy! and coping admirally IMO!
We are always here for you!

Ponto- Glad you had a nice night out

Donut- Well done you on the exercise! I really should get down to some too and tone his flabby belly.
She says eating a bag of wotsits!-

Packed away all my maternity clothes yesterday. Fitted in my normal clothes a 2 weeks so making room for lots more clothes.... I feel a shopping spree coming on!.

Having a lazy day today. We didnt get dressed till 11am and plan to loaf about watching the F1- Dh is a huge fan.

Minkus we had a non-religious 'naming ceremony' thing for DS which we organised and did ourselves. Friends read poems, we lit a candle, that kind of thing, everyone said 'we name this child ...'. There is some useful stuff on the humanist website here - it's a bit 'one of us' but you can take what ideas you want from it.

Also there is this kind of book for readings, ideas etc which I think we got from the library.

Think we will do one for P but not until later in the year when my parents are in the country (a rare event!!).

No such luck on the sleep last night, she woke every 3.5hrs - still not bad I know!

bf ladies advise please

even though i have had to ff sam as he cant latch very well i have always persevered with him and tried to bf him if he cant i have expressed i still have loads of milk and have always managed to express quite a lot
mainly as he is going to be in hospital many times i want him to have the comfort of being close to me especially after the operations
question is my normal pump is so tiring and not doing a good job i have seen the medela? not sure on spelling,will this be any better for me do you think

Hi Disney, heard good things about the medela but I found it noisy - mind you that was nearly five years ago and it may be better now. Am using the Avent IQ electronic pump and it does a good job - don't feel too much like a milking cow with it. Can the hospital lend you and industrial strength one?

Evening All,

DISNEY - meleda is noisy but very good.

MINKUS - spiritual guardians/advisors, loving guardians? Sounds fab - I do hope the weather is lovely for you - lets us know the date and we can all do some positive thinking for you

DONUT - what are the x-pat folks like so far?

JODIE - DD loved the dancing (not allowed to go in to see her dance due to child protection etc although I do have a full disclosure it is the schools policy) but she dances all the time. She was singing today in the car - really funny, fist time I have heard her - she sings all the words she knows so it goes - la la door la la shoes la la juice la la booby etc in a very tuneful manner

CILC - email me at [email protected] and I will post them to you - dont want paying.

I am starting healthy eating tomorrow bought a few sainsbury healthy ready meals (probably not very healthy) but I thought it would kick start me - so I do not need to think about what to eat - I can just bung em in the oven - daily allowance of 3 jaffa cakes and a mocha and ordering an exercise bike.

Me and Dh had relations last night dressed up and everything Then today I got my period!

Calvin has a cold so is very snuffly at night and he has been really windy/farty in the moring form 4am - 7.30 although he is sleeping much better and looks healthy now - his skin is all clear and he is so fair - huge chubby cheeks! he has grown out of his 3 - 6 months babygrows and vests! Such a long body. He has his first lot of jags on Thursday.

Well must go take care all

TWINKLE where are you?

xxxxx

Rumpel - dressed up?!

Expat folks all very friendly and like a chat although saw one woman at school today who looked at me a bit funny. Maybe I'm paranoid or maybe she was an alien in disguise...

Off to a mum and baby group tomorrow with one of my neighbours and planning a meet up with another mum i met on here, I think, or maybe babycentre. Anyway, she seems really nice. It's odd though, making friends all over again - although my two bfs and their families are coming out in november and in march but I realised that this is such a fab opportunity being out here and I also realised i don't care what anyone else thinks anymore so can't see the point in being shy like I was when younger. Blah blah blah..

Pigley - pah! am only exercising so I can fit in my normal clothes when they turn up from fecking Dubai where my shipment is stuck waiting for a transfer to Bahrain. V you can already fit in your normal clothes.

DONUT - you know sexy stuff and Dh even squirted on some Jean Paul Gaultier (I have been known to follow men in shopping malls to surreptiously sniff their downcurrent when they are wearing that)

Are you loving the Arabic food? I adore humous, tabbuleh, mutabel, shish taouk and especially Arabic buclava - yummy!

LIBRA and I were brought up in Kuwait for a while. The reason I ask about ex-pats is that you do meet some absolute wankers!! People who had not much in Gb but when over there they have more money and get that horrible @it makes me better than you' syndrome when they are really impolite to people and just rude! My Mum had a terrible time in Kuwait when we first moved there. Are you going to take a trip to Oman or Abu Dhabi? TBH Dubai is pretty horrible now - loads of building sites and unless you can afford to stay at the Jumerah beach then you can't realy walk anywhere or do much except shop. Although I did go to a couple of bellydancing classes when I was there CASS!

After me boasting about Calvin's skin he has scracthed himself and drawn blood!! Incidently mu laptop has no working apostrophe (after i dropped a pint of water on it!) hence sometimes my grammar it terrible as opposed to my usual fingers typing too quick and misplacing keys spelling!!

Am off for a bath with Norah Roberts - she is getting on my wick a bit in this trilogy of novels - all virginal untouched vunerable women and big strapping bloke with experience stuff! Not really my scene.

nite allxxx

Rumpel - and at the sexy stuff and relations, even is one of us mentions the s word, B will wake up. B's skin cleared up too at Calvin growing out this 3-6 month babygros too he's going to be a tall boy. Oh DD1 started her dancing too am your not allowed in to watch it, I stayed with her for a bit then went outside to talk to another mum followed by DD1 who told me I have to buy her the sparkly tap shoes.

Donutmum - glad you are getting out and about and meeting new friends

Disney - I second or third the medula pump, I've had mine 4 years now, it is noisy but great. I got over 4 ozs out in about 5 mins today. I'm trying to build up a stock. Sam's nursery sounds lovely too

Minkus - your party sounds fab, I think we will be getting B christened Feb or March next year, definitely before she's a year. DD1 and 2 were "done" together when they were 3 and 18 months and it was so stressful. I'm not at all religious but DP is and goes to church most Sundays.

DP got a personal best today at the half marathon so he was delighted, B has been really unsettled today just given her the 4ozs bottle and think I will have to BF her. DD2 is terrible she thinks B is hers she told DD1 that she could look after HER baby until she had her hair done! She is always over at B kissing and cuddling her too much, poor B.

Cilc There are bad days and shit days, (there are also good days) and Friday was definatly a shit day... I've been really lucky in the sleep department so far (fingers crossed) and Thursday night was horrendous, but this was mostly down to DS1, Sam was fine.... Which is why I'm very about all those first timers!!!

Disney Hope Sam is OK, he's been in my thoughts alot over the weekend, I really hope you are both OK.

Had a good night last night, Sam went from 11.30 (when he only took 2 oz on his dream feed) until 5.30 YEAH, unfortunatly DS1 was up then, so that was it. Took DS1 to Socatots this morning and he loved it, it's quite structured so I;m hoping this will help with attention span.

Hi everyone else.. was thinking of Jacobsprincess and Shortshafe today, are you OK? (aswell as Twinkle)

Right just a quick catch up as going to bed in a mo as it's a big day tomorrow, my little 'man' starts big school. Hope I'm not the mum blubbering at the school gate. If I do, do you think I can still balme it on hormones

disney glad you feel a bit better today. But still sending you virtual ((((((((hugs)))))))) as hugs never hurt anyone and always make me feel better.

Just wanted to say what a lovely thread this is. As some of you know I do post on the June Thread as Luke was born in June. Unfortunately there is a bit of a debate going on there at the moment re personal replies to posts. Some people are leaving the thread due to lack of responses and unable to keep up with the chat.I think I may have made things worse. WDYT?

My response was this:

'Just putting my 5 pence worth in on the individual replies. I don't think sophie is speaking generically about the posts, but when someone asks for some specific advice and a 'solution' is offered by anyone, I think it is only common courtesy to respond with a word of thanks to that person for taking time out of their day to try to help.

I am a serial lurker as to be honest I don't have the time at the moment to comment on what everyone has been doing. However if a question is raised and I think to myself 'oh that happened to me and this is how I dealt with it so maybe it could help xxx' then I will post it. For example the ugly word of redundancy raised it's head the other day and I hope I have managed to give some advice on that topic. I know I did have some replies of thanks, which did make me feel of some worth iyswim.

I hope I've put a different perspective on it and haven't offended anyone.'

We don't seem to have any such problems on this thread thank goodness. It was nice to have some thanks for setting up this thread, but the name wasn't my idea so don't want to take the credit for that. Sorry can't remember who it was, but thought it just summed us up and we were rapidly running out of posts on the old thread.

Hope I'm not going to open up a hornet's nest on this thread now. (LL slinks away rapidly)

Sounds like a possible lack of sleep, makes us all a bit titchy...could be catching up on everyone. Your reply seemed fine libralady.

I think we have great empathy on this thread, quite a few of is know how it feels to have hard pregnancies, some of us do not have family around to support us and there is a good mix of new nd experienced mums. But most of all I have found people here to be very thoughtful, very honest, exceptionally kind and non judgemental.

I try to thank everyone - but I am sure I sometimes leave people off. This is probably due to my foggy brain... TBH I had not thought about being thanked for my advice - I find helping other's helps me more (a good distraction from my own little issues).

Tnaks CilC

I agree we are a friendly bunch and we can all empathise with each other having all been through pregnancies with varying difficulties but we all have the same wonderful end result - a beautiful baby - or in twinkle's case two .

Right have now got to keep DS1 occupied until 11.30 for his lunch and then get him off to school!

I think the message was fine libralady. Just good old common sence and courtesy really. I think we all do understand each other pretty well on this thread - It has been a real lifeline for me, so it's great that there is no petty squabbling on here.

Have been thinking alot about Twinkle too Jodie. Id so hope all is OK with them.

Good luck to all LO's starting school today. Mine are both back now, so just me and Rory (and of course DH on crutches)

libralady - aww good luck to your little man starting school, I will have the same thing next year and I'm already dreading it, doesn't seem 5 mins since they were the size of the babies.

I think your reply was fine, sometimes you get personal posts sometimes not, I would never think oh so and so never thanked me for that advice for example. It's hard enough getting 5 mins on here nevermind remembering everyone.

Right older 2 at nursery B asleep time for housework I think have my friend and her 2 boys coming for lunch and a demolition play

Libralady I think what you said was fine. It's a bit silly to get huffy about it really. I've never really thought about it. Oh well, each to there own. Glad we're not all arguing on here though I couldn't cope if this thread started to fall apart, my DH jokes when I say 'my friend says.....' he alsways adds, a real friend or a MN friend.. I usually reply MN friends are real!!! and that you offer the best life line, better than any of my RL friends as we are all going through the same thing at the same time IYKNIM. Sorry for being soppy!

Thanks for your messages. It looks like it is calming down on the June thread, and we are now discussing weaning!

Just catching up whilst DS1 has his monring snack (apple and cheese with a glass of milk) as he will have to have his lunch at 11.30 in order for him to be at school for 12.30.

Luke is 11 weeks old today and is still asleep in his cot! He did sleep from 8pm last night, had a dream feed at 11 and woke again for another feed at 7am and has been asleep since 7.30. I'd better go and wake him, give him another feed get him dressed so I can concentrate on DS1.

Catch you guys later.

At least we won't get wet walking to school today, weather is most definitely better than the weekend here today

libra-glad things are calming down... hope u all had a goodnight, and have a good day today...

i cn see sunshine...wohooo!!

Just dropping in to say hello and wish you all great days with your LOs!

Charlie is wailing in the background and we are about to head off to our 'Pushy Mothers' class. It's hilarious, 15 mums with prams walking around the park and doing exercises! I love it!

Gosh, I would hate it if people bickered on here - I hate conflict and always find MN a real sanctuary of lovely people.

xx

Peanut, have just applied to do pushy mother classes in Bushy Park. Let me know how it goes...do I need to get a new pram with bigger wheels? Whoops...I mean buggy! Everyone laughs at me when I say pram...

Thought I'd share my new method of settling Poppy to sleep.

I sit her in her bouncy chair by the washing machine and tumble drier and she nods off to the whooshing noises.((Perhaps it's a bit like the womb?) I think she also likes to watch the stuff going round in the drum.

She's there now; better do something useful!!

Hello all!

Rumpel- I too got my period back this week. Boo Hoo! Really didnt miss them
Dressed AND relations!!- Blimey!

Libra- Just stick with us if they ar going to be funny.
I enjoy coming on here and chatting with you guys...Nice to see how everyones getting on and supporting each other.
Hope your little(big!) guy enjoys school.

Peanut- Those pushy mother classes look great fun. Sadly theres not one near here

Clic- I too keep saying Pram. To me a pram has a flat carrycot (like mine) and a buggy is a little umberella fold stroller type.

Had a mad blitz in the kitchen today with the bleach... so the house stinks like a swimming pool now.
Think ive earnt my sit down with lunch.
Theres even sunshine outside so be able to get some washing out in a bit-- makes a change!

Hope no-ones been effected by the floods

isaidno- My mum said thats what she did with me.
You can buy tapes/cd of noises like that.. called white goods noise i think.

Well that's it. PFB safely delivered to school for his first 'day'.

Peace and quiet in the house as Luke is asleep in his pram in the garden so I have some 'me' time.

Now what to do. Housework , sleep or sit on the sofa and watch a video in peace . Oh and catch up on MN. No brainer really.