Dec 08- Must keep chocolate & cheerfulness near, teething time is nearly here!

[pmk1]

Right.... back to post the link now!

booooooo! The dark blue scum (no offence intended to LadyT and other people from that part of the country) won the boat race. Bum and poo. DD got very excited but even she was distraught by the end.

Has been such a madam the last few days - up about 5 or 6 times during the night, and then refusing to nap and ending up in a real state (and that's just me ). Hopefully the walk to church in the fresh air will persuade her to have a bit of a snooze...
Catch up with you all later

spot P was up loads again . I completely lost track of time and couldn't even work out whether she was hungry or not, so kept offering her the boob and she'd suck a bit then get upset again. I really hope my milk's not the problem. Her feeds seem to be getting shorter, day and night. Feel a bit like I've lost my way with it and am not sure what I'm doing any more. Have considered FF for last feed before bed - do any BF babes do that? Does it make any difference to sleep? Although she refused ebm from a bottle so might not be an option anyway!
the weather here is gorgeous . Dh is marking books, P is asleep in my arms and L is out at a party so for the moment peace reigns!
I really fancy a chinese tonight.
tomorrow is head measuring day for P to see if she's still a pea-head!

Trace I started giving my DD a bottle of formula before bed around 5 months (she fought hard never to take a bottle but eventually we wore her down!). Hard to say if it improved her sleep but it did give me a break.

Apologies but have not had to time to catch up properly so hope everyone is OK.
Felt very overloaded this week-MIL still in hospital recovering from the ruptured appendix. Was horrid seeing her on the morphine as she was so paranoid and spaced out. She drives me nuts usually but at the moment would love to see her back to her bossy self! Also have our house on the market so we are having to keep the place tidy for all the viewings. Then we have FIL and BIL round all the time, plus the usual day to day organisation of three kids aaaaah.

trace DH has been giving expressed milk (if available) or formula at 10pm for the past three weeks and it hasn't made an iota of difference to DD2's sleep. Sometimes she sleeps, sometimes she doesn't. She's been very grouchy today so heaven knows what tonight will bring . Just been making fairy cakes with DD1 one though so am basking in domestic-goddess-type glow at moment ... can smell them baking...

Hello everyone!

I go away for a few days and come back to find a new thread with 9 pages already! Boy you ladies have been busy! I hope I can get caught up with what's going on with everyone.

Lots of new things going on with us!

Went to the US Embassy and Judah is officially an American citizen! Just have to wait for his passport and social security number to arrive!

DH was offered a job at an Art Gallery in Camberwell. So looks like we'll be moving in September to the south side of London. Which is a good thing for DH... but I am a bit sad. I really like our flat and I've just started to feel like I'm making some friends here and now we're moving... AGAIN! I keep trying to tell myself it is a good thing and that maybe we'll find an even more awesome place to live but it is a bit hard.

Possible jealousy alert
Don't be mad... but DS has been sleeping through the night for the last 4 nights! We've been putting him down at 9pm and he starts stirring around 6am and is fully awake at 7am.

Sorry about the very me post. Will try to catch up with what's going on with all of you lovely ladies and return shortly!

Hi i'm still feeling i'll with a cold, but managed to drag myself out to mothercare as I wanted to get a Bumbo - so far loving it!
Trace / I've been giving a bottle of EBM at about 9pm and he's been going down for the night after that, but this last week he has been waking early at about 0430-500, and I was thinking it was due to having late naps at 6pm ish but now I'm not so sure as last night I gave him even more of a bigger last feed. I stuffed about 7 oz down him - which he quite happily scoffed, and he didn't wake until 7am - well (6am before clock change) so I'm going to keep giving him that much and see what happens! I was advised by HV to def give him a bottle of FF last feed if I have trouble keeping up the expressing - or give him the EBM bottle during the day at some point to keep his weight up if he gets fussy again on the boob and feeds keep being so short.
Major or anyone else who does a bottle last feed - how much do they take in the last bottle?
Spot Glad you had a nice time last week. Loving the things you've learnt while you were away! Especially the body scrub one!
JJ I watched the race too My DH was very pleased for his school, however I was sure your lot would win since they had an Aussie on board!

x-posted Kim great news on the sleeping front!! And on the passport - B got his yesterday too!
Sorry you'll have to move, but if you are South you won't be too far from me! Well I'm SW - where would you think about living?

Verso Domestic Goddeess for sure! Well done - I can't even contemplate baking with ONE child to look after! I've started making dinner during the day if he's napping as things tend to go tits up early evening at normal dinner cooking time!

pmk, ds2 has 7ozs in his last bottle as well. He's only just gone up to that though & he's still unsettled through the night!

Ros Good to know - how old is he again?

He's nearly 4 months now!

oh so roughly the same as B (10/12)! How did you know to give him more, was he crying for more after his bottle?

Yep, generally if he's upset after finishing a bottle, or tries to keep on drinking after its all gone then we know its time to move up an ounce!

That's great about the sleeping, Kim, but sorry about the move (even though it's good for your DH). But hey - you will still see the friends you have made now and may make some new ones as well. When I first moved to London, sometime in the depths of the Bronze Age, I lived in North London and couldn't CONCEIVE of ever living in another part of town. But when I moved to West London I totally and utterly changed my mind.

Jump, don't worry, I'm for Cambridge anyway

Welcome back, the Spot! I'm with you on the buggies in country lanes, it's treacherous and drives me nutty. I was only whinging about it to DH yesterday.

Bought some jeans in M&S yesterday. Ok, they are a size 16, which is absolutely shocking. But at least they fit, and because they fit, don't look too bad. They will do whilst I am fat. I got the kick flare ones and some dark, Roma ones in Per Una. They are all discreetly stretchy and exceedingly comfy. Recommended, for any fatties in need. I felt a bit rueful about getting excited about M&S jeans, because the stitching is always a little naff, whichever sort of blue you get, is not quite right. But they look tons better than the maternity ones I had been wearing.

I'm eating roasted wasabi peas. Are they bad? They are in the M&S Eat Well range but looking at the ingredients - salt, sugar, palm oil, cornflower, sticky rice - I strongly suspect they are baaaad.

Then I will stick with the extra oz for a bit then!
Lady Wasabi peas are yum! And no - not too bad at all.... well, compared to chips crisps at least! They go great with cheerful bubbles!

OK, big confession time. I'm finding it increasingly hard to cope with DD and the thought of having no help with her at all tomorrow is filling me with dread. She seems to be going backwards rather than forwards in terms of waking up all through the night, needing to be fed to sleep/walked around during the day to nap, and lacking patience before a feed - she's gone back to her old habit of screaming for a feed within moments of waking up. Coming back from church just now she woke up about 3 minutes from home and was shrieking, there was absolutely nothing I could do (apart from sit down in the street and feed her) and I ended up shouting at her to be patient and couldn't she just wait a moment?

Night times are shite because she's having her first waking earlier and earlier, and the only way to get her back to sleep is attaching her to the boob, bring her into the bed with me so I can go back to sleep with her and she's usually still sucking half an hour later (which is getting painful), if I try and take her off she yells. If I sit up to feed her she wriggles and kicks and pushed herself away all the while complaining because she's not latched on properly and is filling her tummy with more wind. And the windiness is waking her up again crying (which supposedly they're meant to grow out of at 3 months) whereas before she's been able to sleep through it. This is happening every hour and a half. There's very little DH can do to help during the night, and he needs his sleep for work. I've tried expressing so he can do a bottle now and then and managed to get 3oz after half an hour last night

Tomorrow he leaves at 7.45 and won't be back until after DD's bedtime. The same happens 3 times a week. It's the 24 hour nature of the thing that is killing me, plus knowing that I have to deal with her from first wake until bedtime on my own so often. The only way I can guarantee more than an hour and a half's sleep in a row is by going to bed at the same time as her but that would mean hardly ever seeing my husband. I'm so effing tired and it seems I spend my whole time during the day trying to get her to sleep when I want to be able to enjoy playing with her.

My own moods are so up and down, I'm becoming a horrible person to DH and yelling at him as well, he just soaks it up. He's at church at the moment (different services as our normal one means she gets to bed far too late) and I just know when he gets in I'll be horrid to him.

What can I do? I know this is an appalling whinge and lots of you are dealing with the same situation, what do you do to cope?

Lady we get our wasabi peas from Chinese supermarkets a they are actualy healthy. I have a very misguided belief that Chinese super markets are a bit like health food stores, so everything in them must be healthy. Please don't tell me this is wrong.

Oh JJ x-posted sorry I can't post help just yet as trying to get one overstimulated baby and a caked up boy to bed. Birthday party for one of ds1s friends but will write more soon. Hang in there and when db gets home go against what you want to do. ie if you want to yell at him give him a hug instead or just walk out if the room. Oh wufhly baby gotta go.

veggie the difficulty is he'll give me a hug and then act as if that makes everything alright again. i'm finding it so hard to love her at the mo - feeding is a constant battle rather than a pleasure, and even something simple like putting her in the sling to go out becomes a fight as she's getting so strong now. she's gone from being really easy to being a total teenager (!). I dh did hit the nail on the head that if he and i spent 24 hours a day together every day it would lead to divorce, why is it meant to be easier with someone who can't communicate their needs very clearly and is completely dependent?

Oh JJ sorry you are having such a difficult time. I have gone through bouts of that, but fortunately they have been short so I have put them down to a growth spurt. Is she really 'milk drunk' after she eventually finishes feeding? I was having that problem that you describe and I was at my wits end - taking it out of dh as well - all that. I was advised to express as much as I could but I (to this day) can only manage to get a good bottle full in the morning, so i feed him off one side and express after, from the other. I have been using that expressed bottle to give him last thing at night as then I know he gets a full feed and he takes the bottle without fussing. This doesn't help things for the day time I know, but the only thing I felt helped with that was winding him constantly when he fusses on the boob, and keep trying. he won't nap in his cot so I have been putting him down in the travel cot with all the noise around him during the day and this is the only way he will nap in the day time. He still doesn't always go down without a fight though, but DH was getting irritated that I always went to pick him up as soon as he cried. Well I tried it his way and left him to cry and eventually he stopped. that went on for a bit but got shorter and shorter. Now it's usually only about 2 mins he grizzles for when I want him to nap, and usually not at all when he goes down for the night. I found that by getting him really full after each feed he would def sleep better during the day - easier said than done as he still gets wind and won't feed if he has wind , if his nappy is even the slightest bit wet, or if he has an issue with my slow flow. If the same issues start back up again I'm going to consider combining with formula, but I guess this inevitably leads to totally FF - have you thought about doing this? Anyway, there will be way better advice on here than from me that's for sure so I won't go on, but I do know how you feel - I don't know how it's done with more than one child!!

jj: it isn't easier at all. It's bloody difficult at the best of times, and worse when they're not sleeping .

I'm not sure I can offer any coherent advice (jiggling tired and cross DS2) but what about:

1/2 sp calpol in case it's teeth (you never know)

try putting her down somewhere she usually settles in (bouncy chair works for DS2) and walk away for 5 mins? I think sometimes babies can get overstimulated and need a bit of space to cry. I remember Spot's osteo's theory about stopping and listening to them when they're upset ratyher than rushing to fix things. Worth a go?

Above all, can yuou get some help or at least some company tomorrow? Someone to take her out fir a walk while you have a qwuck snooze? Or someone you could meet for coffee?

oops need to put food in - back soon

pmk - she's stopped ever considering herself finished of a feed - guzzles for about 5 mins then sucks until I stop her - can be up to an hour during the night. If she wriggles so much that she comes away repeatedly i take that to mean sge's finished but haven't had the milk drunk face for weeks. It may be that sge's not getting enough I guess. went to the bf clinic and they advised on a better position to stop the wriggling and just to feed her as often as she asked.

jj, first off a great big hug (though I know it doesn't help!). Second, I don't think its meant to be easy. Its incredibly draining to look after someone who, as you said, can't tell you what the matter is! And just so you know, I've shouted at ds2 before as well. It makes me feel incredibly upset to lose it so but sometimes you just can't help it. Just remember that they forget about it and won't hold it against you.

I don't have any help for her feeding or behaviour though. I just know that reading the thread, so many babies are having very restless nights, acting differently to usual that you are not alone.

With dh, ikwym about the hug, my dh does that as well and thinks everything's ok again. What I say to him now is 'thanks for the hug, its helped a little, however I still feel [however] and would like [whatever]'. So I tell him I'm still upset/angry and I need either some time to myself or I need him to do a chunk of childcare on the weekend to take the pressure off a bit.

I don't think I can write as well as some of the other girls here can but I hope that this post has at least helped a little.

oh another position that calms DS2 is sitting on my lap facong outwards (you prob already do this, took me ages to work out). Again seems to reduce the stimulation levelds

moind you he is kickin off big time atm - clock change doesn't help

Jump, that is very difficult and frustrating sounding indeed. Of course you feel crap, it seems like you have had hardly any breaks basically since you had her, and you are incredibly tired to boot, which can never be underestimated. Sleep deprivation is torture, after all! And the sound of a baby shrieking can't be far behind, it is incredibly stressful, especially in public.

I only wish I had some helpful advice. I have sat here and thought and thought, but because I ff DD and use a dummy as well, it's frankly a lot easier, or sounds it. But I am a selfish old bag, I can cheerfully admit it. I knew that I wouldn't be able to cope with bf and I knew I wouldn't be able to manage without a dummy sometimes. I think you are being very brave.

Is there anyone you could trust with DD for an hour every now and then (particularly when your DH is at work) so you can get OUT? I know it sounds harsh but at least you wouldn't hear her yelling and she would probably cry less anyway if her milk supplier wasn't near. You could try expressing some milk again, maybe that will get easier the more you do it.

Could you try giving her extra baths? This makes my DD sleepier. You can get sleepy time bath stuff and body creams and things (DD also likes these) - I am sure you know this. What about baby massage - would she find this soothing?

Is there any way you can vary your night time routine in some way, to try and get her back on track? It seems so many of the babies are experiencing this night time disruption again all of a sudden; perhaps it is just another phase and will be over soon?

Above all, I just wanted to send you lots of sympathy. I hope someone comes on with better practical advice than me.