September 08 - Just ladies with babies

[pacita]

I thought I'd start a new thread before we run out of space...

sagecat poor you! Not the same, but I had to have a teensy bit of extra work done at my 6 week check, and it really wasn't nearly as bad as I expected - didn't hurt to pee or anything afterwards, and I'm still on the lactulose/fybogel so no worries there either. So if you need to get anything done, better to do it and get it over with rather than suffer in discomfort (which is what I was doing, and it was instantly improved at 6 week check)

Rather excitingly, T went (almost) straight to sleep after his 4am feed this morning. He woke a bit earlier than normal (4am, not 4:30), but was back in his cot and fast asleep by 5:30, so I got another 2 hours sleep! It's not nearly so awful having to do a night feed when I get a reasonable sleep before and after. One thing I did do yesterday was make sure I only put T down for his naps when he was actually tired, not being tempted to rock him to sleep etc. I have a theory that it's actualy possible to rock him to sleep before he needs it, meaning he has more sleep than he needs during the day and therefore needs less at night. He actually only napped for about 3.5 hours between 8am and 7pm yesterday, and it was one of his happiest days ever - he smiled ALL day!

I have the worst cold ever
becaroo it really is possible to relactate. i did if you want to email me i can tell you my story and the advice i was given, i hope it helps you. lollyheart81 hotmail com.

sagecat - sorry to hear about your stitches. Mine also 'burst' ('gave way'?), but only the next day. As it was first degree, no one thought it was worth re stitching. The only thing that helped was 'salt baths', which sound painful but aren't really.

Fill your bath with a couple of inches of warm water and pour in a decent amount of table salt. Squat lengthways in the bath and splash the water up to the perineum so it hits your tear. Obviously, spare a moment to enjoy how sexy, glamourous and dignified you look.

Once i started to do this (didn't ike the sound of it at first - salt on wound), it healed pretty quickly - prob a couple of weeks. But obviously you should probably check with a HCP first, esp if your tear wasn't first degree. Good luck!

Oh, and try and do it at least twice a day!

lol at sexy, glamorous and dignified! Isn't everything about motherhood?

Speaking of glamorous, T just did the most monstrous nappy explosion I have ever known him produce. It absolutely stank and came so far out of his nappy it nearly reached his nipples at the front and his shoulder blades at the back. naturally it happened 5 minutes after another nappy change, and just as I was putting him down for his nap.

sassyfrassy C is 8 weeks old. It's not that she won't go in her cot, she's a really good sleeper and will go down for daytime naps in it on her own and sleeps there all night from 11pm.
in the evening she just will not settle anywhere - even being held and rocked etc. I think it's mild colic, as she does not scream non stop but has a huge urge to suck for comfort (and is not hungry)but cannot keep her dummy in.
I am torn between just keeping her up with us and holding her or putting her into her cot and keep settling her. I am given mixed messages from other mums as to what to do.

ninja sounds like a great idea re cinema. i can get to trafford centr easily (and I was born in Rochdale!) I live nr Chester, which is where I go to fr baby sensory. The lady runs it in Chester and on the wirral but I think it's a nationwide franchise (www.babysensory.co.uk).

Gota go out now but i'll be back later so we could swap emails and arrange a meet up - how fab!!

Wow, had an OK night last night. Used a sleeping bag for the first time since an unsuccessful attempt at 3 weeks, and it was brilliant! So easy to pick her up for a feed and put her straight back down, with no worries about tucking in blankets properly when I am half asleep. I am going to buy some more today!!

And just to update, I am still doing the dance of the dummy (you know, in out in out etc!) but I have decided I am happy with this as it is all part of positive progress, and seems to be less of a fuss now. Without it I would probably still be sat up in bed half the night holding her to sleep. Thanks to the dummy she is now sleepily pretty happily in the basket next to my side of the bed, so I can get some sleep and so can DH. And the basket is at perfect arm's length reach for popping the dummy back in on sleep auto-pilot when needed. Works for me!

lolly thanks - have mailed you! Hope you are feeling better soon x

ponymum I LOVE sleeping bags - we have used one since day 1.

Well, bit of a nightmare already this morning with Tobys bottle teats - they keep collapsing (his milk is very thick due to speical easy digest formula) and I have had to get him the next size nappy - size 3! - as he has had 3 leaks already this morning!

Mum coming this afternoon then got to take ds1 for his flu jab - cosmic.

Sleeping bag users, do you not have the flailing arms problem? i have to swaddle t before even beginning to settle, or he just flaps his arms and can't settle. it's a shame, as i'm sure he's beginning to aim his fist at his mouth occasionally, so he might be able to start comforting himself if i could leave his arms free.

starlight glad you're managing to go to bed the right side of midnight! do you get a good stretch from then? t is ever so slowly increasing his post 10:30pm feed stretch, slept for almost 4 hours last night, up from 3.5 a week ago.

Imoscarsmum, I'd just do whatever is easiest for you, don't worry about what other people think.

imoscarsmum that'd be great - I think they're on thuesdays at the trafford centre (I can't do next week as M has a hip scan)

my e-mail is abigail dot bown at virgin dot net

did you decide to go to the meetup by the way? I'm going and i think you have until sat to book if you wanted to go

we had a terrible night, normally elli settles for around 11pm, which he did but then woke up at mid night and was crying quite loudly, and disturbing dh who is working today, so i took him down stairs in a hope to calm him but he was wide awake wanting to play also wuldn't let me sit down so spent over 2 hours on feet rocking/jiggling and ssssshhhhhing. a good job silence of the lamb was on so kept me awake.
but too jiggered to go to baby group this morning, why cant they hold it un the afternoon?

Barnpot I am sure another one of us was awake like ypu last night. It happened to me 2 nights ago.

Sassafrass Starlight was looking for a summer wrap, I think the Gypsymama sling would be ideal. Let her know what you think when you get it. I love the Iris one, lots of colours.
I used the "Buggybrolly" today for the first time. THE BEST INVENTION EVER. It was raining a lot and I did not get wet when I went to collect ds. Ds got on the buggyboard under the buggybrolly and loved it.

It is great because it was impossible to go out with both kids when it rained.

Hullo all - barely get time to log on these days. Great to catch up on everyone's posts.

Here baby stuff is all going fine, but having horrid time settling dd2 into new nursery. She is now so upset she is wailing and screaming when I leave . Have ended up weeping myself as soon as I'm out of the doors for the last few days.

She's 3.5 and is only doing 3 afternoons, and I know she'll love it once she settles. She's normally such an outgoing, feisty, sociable child. So it's awful seeing her so distraught.

Am off to eat large slab of chocolate flapjack to cheer myself up!

Hopefully Robyn does flail about a bit in her sleeping bag but she isn't that bothered. Do you use the 0-6 month size and if so is it the right size? I only ask as we are using the 0-3 month size as she is so small she slipped out of the 0-6. The trouble is it is only 1 tog so we are still having to have a blanket and tucking her in. If I don't get her in the next size soon she will be so used to being tucked in the bags will be a waste of time.
Are you still using a moses basket or cot

Poor you pidge - just try to cling on to how much fun she'll have when she's settled. Also, my mother said she used to cry when my sister used to trot off into nursery without a backwards glance, so probably you can't win either way!

I have been waiting until T is verging on overtired before putting him down for his naps today and yesterday, and he seems to be staying asleep much better. I feel awful, as he grizzles for 5-10 mins (I cuddle him during this, put him down when he's calm), but it means he sleeps so much better! I don't know if it's also impacting on his night sleep, but he settled really quickly after his 10:30 and 4am feeds last night. Maybe I just wasn't tiring him out enough? Who knows!

About these mother and baby screenings. We have 4 different cinemas in Hull so have been checking websites.
They don't mention a mother and baby screening specifically
They all allow babe in arms in for free
They don't mention breastfeeding policy
So have emailed them to see what they say
i've asked if i can tajke an 8 week old breastfed baby to any certification who is breastfed.
Will let you know what they say.
The cinemas are Vue The Reel Odeon and UGC

thanks for the happy birthdays everyone

we went to a nice italian restaurant for lunch then bought a v. chocolatey cake from sainsbos so dd could sing happy birthday.

still eating cake.

i am still feeling under the weather but not too bad.

dd2 just waking up on my chest. I am still thirsty despite drinking loads of water so far today.

off to feed her again.

hopefully - you can swaddle and leave their hands free. Bend T's arms at the elbow and then wrap the blanket over so that JUST his hands stick out the top of the blanket.

Then he can reach them with his mouth!

aaaah, have just got DS down for a nap after 2.5 hours of yawning, comfort feeding, rocking. his last nap was 8:30-10:30 this morning.

oh bugger, he's up again. typed too soon.

Hello all - haven't been here for a while so glad to see everyone is well.

Hopefully I'm also still swaddling DD as she has a very strong moro reflex even at 12 weeks and will wake herself up if I don't. Do want to get her into sleeping bags soon though.

We had a very frightening experience the other night. I'd been out with my NCT mums so DP gave DD a bottle of defrosted breast milk. When I got in he said she seemed a bit unhappy and hadn't slept. We took her up to bed and I was a bit tipsy so didn't hear her but luckily DP did and he leaped out of bed. She'd basically projectile vomited all over herself and her crib and had been choking on it. He grabbed her out of bed and brought her in with us and over the next half an hour she was sick every five minutes until she was just bringing up bile. Then she went very very pale and a bit limp so we called NHS Direct and they sent an ambulance and paramedic. They checked her over and her temperature was quite low (35.5) so she went to hospital with DP while I stayed here and looked after DS, who had gotten up while the medical staff were here. I was so worried - it was the colour of her more than anything that was so scary - but DP called a couple of hours later to say she'd been checked over and was fine, although still being sick occasionally, and they were on their way home. She slept with us that night and retched every so often but wasn't sick again and by next morning was totally fine.

Anyway, I then took her to clinic the next day for weighing and her weight gain has really dropped. She's always been a titch but she's gone from above the 9th to just above the 2nd percentile. She's only put on 4oz in the last four weeks. I talked to the HV and she advised me to give her at least one feed with forumla a day and come back for a further weighing next week. I tried last night but she's never had straight formula before (she's had it mixed in with some expressed breat milk) and I think that, especially after the night before's incident - it was just too heavy for her, so she struggled to eat it and then threw it all up. I'm going to try another mix of expressed and formula tonight but am really keen for her to start gaining weight at a good pace again as I was comparing her red book with DS's and she's 3.5lbs lighter than he was at this stage.

Anyway, apart from that things are going pretty well. She's still sleeping well and the interaction we get from her now is just brilliant. When I opened the hood of her pram yesterday to get her up after she'd woken up from sleep she gave me the most beaming smile - it was wonderful and my heart melted

Sunshine How terrifying for you, glad she is feeling better and home with you. Regading the weight gsin, it was bound to be klow with sll the vomiting.
Try not to compare with other dc. DD1 was 75 th then quickly shot to 99th percentile for weight. Her height wass off the chart by 1 year. She is 12 and 5'7". DD2 is on the 9th, as long as she feeds ok and stops being so sick the weight will come on

sunshine how horrendous. You must have been so scared. I'm sure her weight gain will pick up again soon, the vomiting must take an enormous toll on such a little body. She is looking rather gorgeous (assuming the photos on your profile with your DS are her!)