September 08 - Just ladies with babies

[pacita]

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

ninja i hav finally got around to sending you an email - perhaps we can have a go at arranging to meet at the trafford centre one thursday.

hopefully have only skim read posts as last few days very hard. just wanted to say that I've been following your posts as T is same age as C and you seemed to be bf so well, and I hope things have got better for you. Whatever you decide to do i just wanted to say that you should be very proud of yourself for bf for so long - this country is not very supportive of new mums and feeding and we are supposed to just get on with it, so you have given T the best start you could. if you do go onto formula top up, don't beat yourself up as it's not bad for him.

Also, if T still has colic (C does and evening's are still very hard) have you tried colief? It's a tiny bottle from Boots and costs £10 but C seems to be settling slightly better tonight (we only bought it today) and you can give whether bf or ff. As to routines, we gave up settling C in the evening weeks ago as we were up and down all night with her. Now she just stays with us until 11pm and we do whatever it takes to settle her (generally cuddling) and DP and I eat one dinner after the other.
It did mean that we went out on Saturday night to a friend's house - 4 adults and one baby meant we all shared the cuddling when she had colic and DP and I had quite a fun night out (although cue the said friend's 16yr old DD cooing over 'it' (her words), with me thinking 'don't touch her...'). we're thinking of going to a restaurant with her next.......fingers crossed.

hopefully, sorry to post lots but C is asleep atm and I feel for you as sleep depreviation is awful.
Agree with foxy about getting out and about if you can. c sleeps so much better after long pram walks that she sleeps through. combination of fresh air and movement does it i think. i read BW and it doesn't do it for us as c likes to play ('A') just before her feed, not after. At the moment she sleeps in her cot at night, so I don't care where she sleeps in the day, as long as she does sleep regularly (car seat, pram, on DP's chest after work etc).

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

double arghhhhhhhhh, clearly.

imoscarsmum thanks so much for the support - it makes such a difference to read things like that.

So, who is going to explain to me why i'm persevering with night time bf when it's making everyone miserable? When T has a bottle (either ebm mixed with formula or straight formula) for either his 10:30 or 4am feed, he feed quickly. settles easily and sleeps well. when he has a breastfeed (at either of those and the 6:30pm feed) he can't settle and grizzles/screams for anything up to 90-120 mins after the feed before settling. he is then overtired and frequently wakes earlier or has a very restless sleep.
I know giving him formula for the 10:30 and 4am feeds is the beginning of the end of bf, as i wouldn't be bf for almost 12 hours (I could pump a few times, but presumably this wouldn't save things), but at the moment i can't see how this would be a bad thing, as he and us are miserable.
He also won't take any top up after bf, so it either has to be entirely bottle (formula and/or ebm) or entirely breast.

Maybe i should try pumping several times in the evening and night? i might get enough for one ebm bottle feed, and the other could be formula... although i don't know if i'd ever get 5oz if ebm

carrieon
I really want to structure dd's day far more, particularly as we have very busy evenings. ds has activities and we collect dh from the station almost every night around 6.45ish. So it would be great to be shot of these grizzly evenings.

But I've broken all the sleep training rules by bf her in bed (as I did my ds) and doing quite a lot of demand feeding.

But I do put her in her cot for a morning nap and she settles herself if she's really tired. At night we've had much less success putting her in her cot and leaving her. She just screams the house down! I think she's just too tired. But last night we just left her to cry and went to reassure her every 10 mins or so and eventually she went off in her cot.

It just means I get my first bit of night (before her night feed between 2 and 4) without her in the bed!

I just don't know how much crying themselves to sleep is ok? Do other people let them yell for ages? I find the books so unclear about this. dd is largely trained to be bf in bed and to be fed to sleep! So any shift in that pattern is going to produce a major battle. I just don't know how much screaming, honestly is ok. Some nights I'm tougher than others, and she really doesn't seem at all traumatised by it. But some nights it just breaks my heart and I give in. But it's this inconsistency that screws it up, is it?!

sorry for long post, I veer between one extreme and the other and would like to be in the middle somewhere....

Hiya all,

Sorry to hear the sleeping woes , I have no pearls of wisdom unfortunately. I am sure someone will be along soon.

E was two months yesterday and I can't believe how time is racing by. It was my Grandad's funeral yesterday and it was all very sad. I left E with a relative as she may have cried during the service, and just did not feel appropriate.

Anyway hope you are all ok, better go as E stirring (probably knows I am on here and wants me all to herself!)

Take care, KGx

Well we have completely lost the plot over here at Camp Hopefully. I don't know whether it's over tiredness, but I have just failed to settle him for his morning nap for the first time in bloody ages. He has finally given up the ghost in the baby bjorn after yelling in it for 20 mins.
I am going to try to 'force' his sleeps again today by taking him out in the pram. it's hugely depressing though, as I was planning to brave the mother and baby group today, but if I have to keep walking for his entire lunchtime nap to keep him asleep I can't really go.

Hopefully..would a bottle of formula last thing at night be the end of the the world?

I knew someone who did this for a YEAR and bf during the day very sucessfully and happily....you have to do whats right for you and yor child, not what it says in the baby books IMO. (Perhaps you could also pump more ebm if you "missed" that feed?)

Toby didnt go for as many hours last night (as I knew he wouldnt - no two days the same here at casa becaroo!) - but he did go from 10.30pm til 4am but was VERY unhappy between 8-10pm

...he is 8 weeks old tomorrow Cant quite believe it!

becaroo we're trying to keep it to one bottle with formula in for a few more days, to see if we can get him back on track, as he's already having formula at the 4am feed. However, I am going to get up for a few minutes at 4am and pump (quite sore this morning from not feeding), so possibly I'll manage to pump enough between that and the pm pumping that he'll be able to have a bottle of ebm at 10:30pm tomorrow.

I am sure either SL or Foxy can help you with some advice here, but I would think that if you missed a feed (at whatever time) you would be able to pump more IYSWIM?

Mind you, I only ever got 1oz and that was from both breasts!

Hope it goes well for you tonight, sleep deprivation is not used as a form of torture or nothing, is it? x

Tell me about it!

hopefully- am I right in thinking you can mix formula and ebm in the same bottle? So then maybe you could express as much as you can and add a couple of oz of formula to top it up to a full feed.

We seem to be making progress with the evening sleeping. DS2 has done 8-10pm 2 nights ago and then 8.00-8.45 and 9.15-10.00pm last night in his crib. I'm happy we seem to be heading in the right direction and hoping his next step will be a long sleep in bed in afternoon.

Off Christmas shopping in a min, hoping it won't be too stressful.

Hi everyone glad to see you are all having the same woes as me.
Robyn is 2 months today and we are celebrating by passing our cold germs around. Spent most of yesterday spluttering and feeling shite until dp sent me to bed with Robyn where we slept and fed in our bed whilst he made tea. It was bliss and it meant we had no early evening feed fest and a restful night.
Woke up this morning and nose has gone from dripping tap to the can't breathe stage(which is weird as i can not breathe through my nose anyway) and Robyn is all snuffly. She posseted on my friend 3 times which is the first time she has ever done that, she is usually too greedy to part.
She has her first injections on Thursday but should she have them if she is still snuffly?

ipanemagirl I think you're spot on that the inconsistency means it won't work - and you know that!! I don't think any screaming is healthy, but crying down is very different (its a pathetic 'i'm tired' cry rather than rage!) I bf ds in bed every night for about an hour once dh is back from work and playing with dd, I love those cuddly times. Ds often falls asleep and I have to put him down for a few minutes for him to wake up and realise that he hasn't finished. At the end, when he's pretty zonked I put him in his babygrow and sleeping bag, which wakes him just enough that I'm putting him in bed awake, but not wide awake, so he does effectively self settle. Every baby is different though and some would totally wake up and not settle, but you know your own child. HTH.
hopefully I really feel for you, its so hard when babies are overtired and you know that sleep is the only thing that'll fix it but they fight it. Hope you get some lovely fresh air and enjoy your tour of the neighbourhood, tomorrow is a new day!! Debi's idea of pumping as much as you can and topping up seems to make very good sense. When we had dd I expressed all her feeds for weeks, so while dh was giving her the bottle, I was pumping the next feed. Could your dh give the bottles at 10:30pm and 4am, while you're pumping for the next night, and top the bottles up with formula if you haven't expressed enough? That way you're still stimulating the breasts and hopefully not jeopardising your milk supply for the day.

help!
which one do you like the most: the green one, no. 19 here

or the orange or gold one. here

i am quite dark and suit warm shades

thanks starlight will check her temp

no 19 here

Well I can eat now, even if I can't open my mouth to get the food in neatly. This howvere, means that my plans to be back in pre-pregnancy clothes will have to be put on hold

I have to take poor M for her Jabs today, she's been asleep for all but about 1 hour this morning so she should be well rested. Can't say I'm looking forward to it though.

Hopefully topping up your EBM does sound like a good plan, but surely pumping in the middle of the night defeats the object. I've thought about mentioning it before, but I don't know how easy it would be. Does T feed on both sides? When DD1 was little I would feed her on one side and pump on the other as she would then stimulate the let down for me. She was a bit older so I even once did it while she was in her bouncer but I have done it while she was in the rugby ball hold and so well supported and away from the pump. I found I could get more this way. However, if T takes a long time to feed then it's likely you'll take as long to express. An idea though.

Anyone wanting colief, Elli gets it on prescription, it works quite well comparing to what he used to be like but doesn't take away all the symptoms.
we were up again until 3am, however i have started a night time routine of bath at 8 boob in bed the hopefully sleep, for 9pm. although it was only the first time last night he slept on and off til around midnight. but was then wide awake. I'm reasured people are going through the same thing, just keep saying to yourself that this wont last forever.
hes spent all morning asleep in his chair.
DH is coming home early from work today to get elli out for a walk, I just cant face going out of the house.
has anyone heard fron eandz she sounded quite down last time she was here.

foxy I like the gold one

no 19 is BEAUTIFUL!! Alos like the burnt orange - but LOVE 19

Foxy I like the orange best
Feel for you Becaroo, things will get better, we all promise!!
Worrying about eandz, she hasn't updated her facebook for a few weeks either (facebook stalker alert...). Hope she's too busy having fun with her bubba to be on MN!