Sept 08 - Is it day or night?

[lollyheart]

Hope no one minds me starting a new thread?

ninja your DD's look exactly alike!

Thankyou meglet - I think so too. It really surprised me as me and my sisters look NOTHING alike! I was very fair as a child and my mum was asked if one of my sisters was a vietnamese refugee.

I can't see your photos meglet

ninja - I think they do, and DD1 really looks like you!

Debs what a lovely moment. And uplifting for us to read.

Starlight thanks a lot for the links, they will come useful. I intend to purchase the pumping guerrilla kit tomorrow, including MW steriliser. Will report progress.

Hopefully, have given D a teaspoon of cooled boiled water. Still no poo explosion. He has been a very unhappy chap all day today, so gave him a bath (which he absolutely loves, although it's not great for him because he's got very dry and scaly skin), then fed him and put him in his cot for the night. I don't know how long he'll go for or how many feeds he'll need tonight, but I sure won't mind changing the whole be in the middle of the night if he produces the much expected poopathon. Will report on this too.

Good night and good weekend my lovely MN friends. xx

People do say that sunflower although I can never see it - she's FAR prettier. She looked just like her dad when she was born which had us all worried for months (the homer simpson look isn't good on a girl!)

OMG Some of you need to give yourselves a break.

We are ALL struggling to be good mums, deal with the guilt or perhaps not being, try to make sense of having a newborn, struggling with various contraptions, straps and feeding equipment.

Things are 'probably' not quite what they were at 2 weeks, but they are stil tough and we should all recognise that a large part of our lives are still about survival.

People like hopefully need to aim for a routine of a sort to be able to feel a little in control of things and make the world more predictable. People like me get by from one hour to the next not really sure how they got through the day and not thinking too much about it. If you ARE getting through the day, doing whatever you are doing, please don't worry about changing things UNLESS they are really not working for you.

imoscarsmum You sound like a fab mum to me from all of your posts. 'She just sleeps anywhere she can* is fine, if it's fine with you. How does that make you a bad mummy? I promise, that as they get bigger they'll natually have longer periods of being awake (and asleep). You can worry about nudging them to your convenience then. Also, some babies are more easily persuaded into a routine than others. If you were your lo would you be thinking 'mum's rubish I'm not in a routine', or 'what a lovely life I have, snuggling lots, feeding on demand and having lots of lovely cuddly naps'? Life only gets harder from here on, so why not let them enjoy it for a bit?

hopefully alcohol is at a peak in your milk about 1 hour after you have drunk it. At this point there will be as much alcohol in it as orange juice. Enjoy!

Lovely story debs DG 'boob and baby may have reached an agreement today' PMSL

ninja I like b) or

c) just ladies with babies now!
d) novelty has worn off and we're worn out!
e) 2 little eyes, 1 little nose, 10 little fingers, 10 little toes!

Goodnight and good weekend to you pacita. Let's hope we all have a good one.

I like c)

So we need votes - b) or c) or another suggestion.

You're right Starlight about getting through the day

Debs I love your story! [smile with a tear in my eye]

In Zoe Williams's Anti-natal column this morning she wrote "There's an early Doctor Spock that says you should "try to relax while breastfeeding, perhaps with a beer or a cigarette" " !! When was that written?!

ladies, i vote for c) Just ladies with babies.

I've uploaded some pics of the just baby, by the way!

I like
b) routine or no routine, that is the question
Because that is exactly the question I am struggling with at the moment!

pacita Diego is v cute. And he has the same cot book as DD (she loves it too).

pacita Gorgeous! Love the little red suit on him too, so cute!

LOL Ponymum foxy I've graduated! I'm now out of my learner sling (close) and onto the tricot slen which for some reason I now find easier!

Just took Baby Starlight in the sling to a firework display with DS who thought it fairly interesting at first but spent the rest of the display with his fingers in the front grill of the car that was attached to the crepe stall, and poking it's tyres! He was especially facinated with the headlights that were on and liked to put his face right up against them!

meglet I can't see your photos!

This is a great thread perfectly timed for us lot. thanks imoscarsmum

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/640774-Can-I-just-ask-was-I-unusual-in-hating-almost?msgid=13098152

Much as I'd like a routine, A isn't having any of it - if he's hungry, he screams until he's fed and I refuse to hold out on him (much as I'd like to when it's only an hour since the previous one).
Read an article in some parenting mag today on getting your baby to sleep (turn to p87 NOW!!! it said). Apparently you shouldn't let your baby feed to sleep, but no hint on how to stop your baby going from glugging to asleep in an instant. And to feed him before his bedtime - but I can thwap A's lips with a nipple or bottle as much as I like, and if he's not hungry yet, he's amazingly able to ignore it.

So no help there. Any ideas on how to stop him creaking and making poo-straining noises for hours starting at 5am? I thought bf babies didn't get constipated? The poo that comes out is normal so I don't think he is constipated, just really noisy! And how is it that bf poo is an amazing bright yellow, the same colour the EU is making illegal in food?

Nystatin is 1% alcohol, so a bit in milk can't be too bad.

i'd spotted that thread before - it's so true how difficult it can be.

nc i get those noises at that time too - pita isn't it. i recommend an earplug! (in your ear rather than their )

Ponymum - my mother has that Dr Spock book in her bookcase from when I was a baby (beginning of 70s though book may be slightly earlier)

hi ladies, just popping on to see how everyone is doing - glad to see you all are enjoying your babies. Jessica is doing well putting on loads of weight and will be 5 weeks old next week. DD1 loves her, she says that jess is her best friend

We try to get out everyday too, although it can be hard with a 3 year old who wants to run everywhere! Jess is BF and as with DD1 i'm not bothering to even try to express, what i did with DD1 was if i really had to have a break (like you do sometimes before you go completely mad) or was going out for an evening then we would give a bottle of formula. Only down side we found to this was that my boobs got a bit uncomfy but i would make sure that she was fed as soon as we got home. If its just occasionally then i really think imo that it makes no difference to the amount of milk you produce - provided that BF is well established anyway.

Jess generally settles not too bad and has a dream BF during the night, but i have found myself in tears at 4am still trying to get her to sleep. what makes those moments worse is the certain knowledge that DD1 will be up by 7am and will not rest all day (thank heaven for cbeebies)

For those who are having the occasional moment of stress just tell yourself it will get better - chanting this may help

giving cool boiled water to such a sml bfed baby is not advised - though a tsp full won't hurt. i can't see how a tsp of water or even more would help a bf baby poo. their poo is almost all water anyway.

water to a tiny excl. bf baby can upset their electrolyte balance causing water intoxication.

well T did reward me for my day of drama by settling (slowly, for dp) after his 10:30pm feed and sleeping until 6:30am. Annoyingly i think the top up is helping, but he's getting so stressed having even an oz shoved down his throat when he's already full from a BF that it's taking an hour to settle him.
I'm going to pump tonght, but then leave it, and hope that the pumping (i've been doing it at 8pm-ish) has increased my supply a bit so he'lll get as big a feed as possible at 10:30pm and at least start making it beyond 5am - it's too stressful sitting there listening to him yelping and choking at dp downstairs!

notcitrus i think it's quite often the poo-straining that wakes t (and us!) up rather than hunger at 4am, as he'll often settle after only a 10 min feed, so obviously isn't starving.

Re cot books - does that mean your babies spend time awake in their cots? T wakes up crying almost without fail, and then once i've brought him downstairs we tend not to go back up till nap time...

alcohol: a few glasses, yes a few, won't hurt at all. getting rat-arsed is not advised, not because you'll get lots of alcohol in your milk but because no one should be that drunk and be in charge of a baby.

v. little alcohol gets into bm even when quite drunk.

another dr spock baby here.

well paid a bit for the sleepy day yesterday - fed 10.30, 12.30 (and awake for an hour), 4.30, 6.30, 7.30,

it's been 4 days since a poo and bless her poor M is really squirming. i think she'll be upright in the sling today to try and help it along.

votes for thread names anyone??

hopefully that's some great sleeping! Hope you're feeling better today!
ponymum if you are considering routine (you've mentioned it a couple of times now so I guess you are!) then you might like either the Baby Whisperer, or Baby Wise. Both are based on the eat, activity, sleep structure. There's no times given so there's no sense of 'OMG its 7:01am I'm running late already' they guide you towards giving your baby full feeds, having awake time, and putting them down for a nap. The whole cycle repeats itself all day and gives you both some structure and predictability, without rigidity. It helps them organise their feeding and sleeping and sort day from night (this is what I'm finding particularly invaluable). You read your baby's cues to see when they're ready to move onto the next thing, but with parental direction (it makes sense if you read it!!) Anyway, those are the books I like fwiw.
Enjoy the weekend everyone!

while i have no problems with parents finding their way into a routine with their babies, I would like to make others aware of the history of babywise as there has been concerns with it in the past. see especially the link from the AAP.

it is not v. well known outside the US (and in the US in many places) so only highlighting it here because it has been mentioned.