October 08 - Chit chat

[CantSleepWontSleep]

That's us with the chit chat, not the babies!

10th Sept (Due 1st Oct) - loulou33 - Boy - Joe Louis David - 6lbs 12oz - Induction due to rhesus sensitivity, G&A.
16th Sept (Due 8th Oct) - Ksal - Girl - Emma Rae - 6lbs - Just beat induction for PE!
21st Sept (Due 5th Oct) - myjobismum - Girl - Naomi Caitlin - 5lbs 10oz - Fast and furious hospital birth.
22nd Sept (Due 10th Oct) - Lozza70 - Boy - Sander Gene - 7lbs 5oz - Em C-Sec due to raised BP and high ALTs from liver.
2nd Oct (Due 12th Oct) - star6 - Boy - Quinlan - 5lbs 15oz - 36hr labour, ventouse and stitches.
3rd Oct (Due 26th Sept) - purpleflower - Girl - Rebecca Jill Erzsebet - 8lbs 10.5oz - Homebirth with paramedics due to meconium.
4th Oct (Due 30th Sept) - Aubergenie - Boy - Stanley - 7lbs 12oz -
5th Oct (Due 4th Oct) - hedgepig - Boy - Oliver - 6lbs 3oz -
5th Oct (Due 29th Sept Oct) - CherryChoc - Boy - Ryan - 6lbs 11oz - 3 day labour with natural birth in hospital
8th Oct (Due 6th Oct) - ronshar - Boy - William Dexter - 7lbs 11oz -
8th Oct (Due Oct) - RedElsie - Boy - Daniel - -
9th Oct (Due 17th) - Marthasmama - Girl - Martha - 7lbs 10oz - Elective c-sec
10th Oct (Due 1st Oct) - CantSleepWontSleep - Boy - Duncan Elliot - 8lbs 4oz - 4 day induction with 1 hour established labour!
12th Oct (Due 4th Oct) - pistachio - Boy - Thomas Fraser - 10lbs 2oz - Homebirth.
13th Oct (Due 15th Oct) - mum2jakeyroo/jrsqueak - Boy - Joshua - 7lbs 2oz - Delivered in car by dh!
16th Oct (Due 17th Oct) - rowanmac - Girl - Anna Ruth - 7lbs 2oz - 2 hours ARM to placenta delivery.
16th Oct (Due 11th Oct) - heather1980 - Boy - Alexander James - 9lbs 5oz - Homebirth
17th Oct (Due 10th Oct) - pepperrabbit - Girl - Jessica Rose - 7lbs 15.5oz -
17th Oct (Due 27th Oct) - Rhian82 - Boy - - - Episiotomy and ventouse.
24th Oct (Due 29th Oct) - Ekka - Boy - Matthew - 7lbs 15oz - Home water birth with gas and air.
26th Oct (Due 20th Oct) - jenwa - Girl - Phoebe Jasmine - 9lbs 2.5oz -
28th Oct (Due 23rd Oct) - RachieW - Boy - Jack - 7lbs 4oz - hospital birth, epidural, stitches, 24hrs start to finish
28th Oct (Due 31st Oct) - Jojay - Boy - Edward Alexander - 7lbs 7oz - hospital birth - gas and air, 2nd degree tear. 7 hrs start to finish.
1st Nov (Due 22nd Oct) - SmudgeyDoodle - Girl - - 8lbs 2oz - Hospital water birth.
5th Nov (Due 29th Oct) - Honeymoonmummy - Girl - Poppy Grace - 6lbs 15oz -
5th Nov (Due 30th Oct) - MamaG - Boy - Harry James - 10lbs 9oz - Em C-Sec. Back to back and knotted cord around neck. 24 hours of labour first though, and don't you forget it!

Tap water here, for the very occasional sip that ds takes without spitting out .

pepper - could I grow broad beans in the old water tank that I mentioned? This year? If yes, please tell me everything that I need, and exactly what to do .

5am is too early to start the day. How do you do it star?!

Ugggh. Yet another crap night - why can't that boy sleep for more than an hour and a half after midnight? Yesterday at baby group some of them mums were complaining about having to get up twice in the night. I would love that! I did have the presence of mind to go to bed at 9, so I don't feel too bad though.

CSWS - Shame about that carrier. I hope you can return it. Have you looked at the Ergo? That has a back carrying position and is apparently very comfortable. Not sure if you'd have the same problem though.

I gave up sterilising at about 4 months and also give normal tap water. S loves water and it doesn't seem to have given him any problems.

CSWS - You can still plant broad beans for the next couple of weeks. You'll need seeds, compost and later, some bamboo poles for them to climb up. There's a video here but don't panic about all the equipment - if you don't have it, you can manage with much less.

You could also grow strawberries, and tomatoes in containers this year if you bought the plants rather than seeds. Things like aubergines and cucumbers grow best in a greenhouse in our climate, but you could get one of those plastic mini ones for about £15.

Anyway, got to go and sort out ds as dp needs to leave.

Csws I've always been an early riser. I'm at work now - kiddos come in in a few minutes.

RachieW- My morning routine (I'm a teacher of 5-7 year olds at an american/international school in Surrey - 10 min drive from my house).
4.30am wake up and express milk (double pump in style medela pump - takes 15 minutes total).
Put that milk in the refigerator, clean and sterlize expressing equipment. This all takes about a half hour between getting out of bed, telling DH to take over w/ Q (if he's up or just lay there in same room if asleep - Q is in our room).

5-5.30: Get Q's food ready for the day, fold laundry, clean up living room and kitchen, dishes... from any mess left from night before (it has taken me AGES to get to the point where I can leave a mess and go to sleep... still can't leave the house with mess though).

5.30-5.50 - Shower and get dressed/ready for the day.

5.50-6.10 - bf Q (he takes probably half a feed at this time).
6.10-6.30 - change nappy, dress Q and soemtimes give him a bit of breakfast (although my friend who he stays with during the day is happy to give him breakfast as well).
6.30 - bring Q's bag and my bag down to the car while DH gets ready and keeps eye on Q playing on carpet in living room.
Leave by 6.45
6.55/7 - arrive at my friend's house.
7-7.30 - bf Q from both sides, play with him a bit, get him used to being there.

7.45 we leave - I take my friends 3 boys to school with me, we arrive by 8am.

I then either express milk at my midday break (when I have a meeting) or go and see Q (it's only 7 minutes drive away without morning traffic) and bf him.

Leave school by 3.30pm with my friend's boys. Collect Q by 3.45pm. BF Q before going home.

* Of course, this never actually all goes exactly to plan.... time gets away from us in the morning... but we are always at my friend's house by 7am. Always at school at 8am. It works

Wow at Star - you're amazing! I could never get all that done in the mornings. How much milk do you get when you express? I used to be able to get 100-120ml (from one breast) at a time, but now it's more like 50-90ml

(Actually when DS was born, I had to express every feed as he wouldn't latch on. I could easily get 180ml in 10min (5min each side) every three hours, I was a little milk machine! Completely pointless then as he only needed 30ml a time, now that would be useful!)

DS is now on tap water at home, though filtered as our water is really hard. He's still on the list for boiled at nursery though for now, though I guess I'll tell them they can change it soon. He has almost no water at home anyway, nursery are much better than we are at getting him to take a cup. But it was the HV who said there's no real point boiling it now as he doesn't live in a sterile world!

I don't sterilise his food or water stuff, but still sterilise my pump and his bottles for milk, because milk's such a breeding ground for bacteria.

wait, I missed something - can they have tap water now? I can get a britta or something to filter it if necessary? But still no bottled water, right? b/c of sodium?

Rhian82- I express about 180ml total in the morning. This is decreasing as he's not taking milk at all (or if he does, just a little) during the day while away from me, so he's taking more in teh night and in morning, afternoon and evening feeds (and noon time feed). I'm hoping to move the 4.30 feed up or drop it all together somehow... as he's not been sleeping for a couple of weeks very well at all anymore I think it's b/c he's not taking milk while away from me.

Summer holidays start 19th June for me, so that will be a nice few months of getting back into a good sleep routine for him (and me!) and feeding through the day more, too.

Aaah - what do you do with the milk then? DS has two bottles of EBM at the nursery in the days I'm at work (same times as the two daytime feeds on days we're together) so I'm constantly battling to get enough for him. He also feeds from me at about 5am, 8am and 7pm - we stopped feeding him in the night as he couldn't self-settle without a breastfeed and was waking up every couple of hours. Now he's getting better and better at going through the night - last night he slept from 7.30-4.30, when I fed him and he went back to sleep quite happily. It's not that good every night by a long shot but it's generally got a lot better.

CSWS - yes, broad beans are very very eay to grow and they are pretty tough too. Caulis are very hard work for only one cauli per plant as they take up loads of room, we have planted 6 this year but they get got by all sorts of insects, bugs and critters too.

We use tap water but i still sterlise expressing stuff and any bottles we use. My friends sterlisses toys . Nursery strerlise all the plastic toys once a week which i guess they have to with all those children dribbling on all the toys....but i wouldn't bother at home.

Rhian - i can't express that much now either about 4 oz but i think that you can never express as much as baby can suck out iyswim!!

Wow Star! You sound so organised! I don't know how you get up so early and manage to do everything without falling asleep on your feet. I'm full of admiration I'm hoping to avoid getting up as early as 4.30 come Sept but I'm going to have to devise a strictly timed routine like yours to get it all done. It will be a military operation I'm sure and I imagine I'll be running out of the house late everyday screeching at dh to follow with everything I've forgotten...hopefully not ds!

Ds was very lovely and we had a good nights sleep so I am feeling of much saner mind today. We were supposed to be going to a baby yoga taster session which starts in 10 mins but I decided to take it easy, cancel it and just arrange to see my Nan later.

Interesting about the tap water, I'll make the switch too I think. But I'll keep sterilizing bottles, agree with Rhian about the milk.

Star - Tap water is fine from 6 months. You can filter if you want, but it's not necessary. There's some info here.

Rhian, I understood that it was important to sterilise bottles etc if you formula feed, but if you're giving EBM you don't need to as the growth rate of bacteria is minimal. According to the LLL, a good wash with hot soapy water is sufficient.

Off swimming today. Hoping it will get me out of my grumpy mood...

Hi all, i am using unboiled tap water for Em, whih she has a little of at every meal from a doidy cup, more for practice than anythig, but she loves it. We only sterlise her bottles as she's FF and the milk is supposed to be the worst culprit for breeding germs.

Star, my understanding is that tap water is fine from 6 months without boiling, but as you say still not bottled water. However if you were abroad you could use evian, but you'd need to boil it, presumably because its not treated in the same way as tap water... but i find that all very confussling.

our morning routine sounds v similar to Rhian's but an hour earlier. I get up at 6.30 and get myself completely ready for 7, when i get emma up, change her, give her a bottle and have a bit of a play, then leave at 7.40 for nursery. Its all geared around getting to nursery for 8, then legging it to the station for the 8.23 into London :-)

Luckily she will just amuse herself in her cot until 7 and i don't have to give her breakfast as they do that at nursery. Really looking forward to having her at home tomorrow.

the dress you bought sounds lovely MM, sorry your feeling a bt down about M's reactions to your DH. I was having similar issues, and it seemed to be because she saw me all day and DH was almost a novelty... but as you have said, she'll come to you for comfort and when she needs looking after.

Q loves DH far more than me. Feel the same way. I KNOW it's not true... blah blah blah... but he is 100X more excited by DH's presence or silly movements than mine.

I also think Q prefers my best friend (who he spends the day with) over me. When we arrive in the morning, he's all smiles to see her. No tears or anything when I leave. Doesn't bother him at all. When I return to collect him, he's more interested in the three little boys than me. Not eliciting sympathy... it's just how it is. I am loving that he has recently started to not take milk when I'm not around, though. I love that he doesn't want the bottle. He needed it before, so glad he took it... but now that he can have food, too, it's not so much of a worry.

All babies/children like to make their mummys worry. When your child gets hurt it is always YOU who they will come to for a cuddle. When they are tired it will always be you who they come to for comfort.

It has always been my understanding that you should never give filtered water to babies. I still do not give filtered water to my DDs. It has alot of unneccesary elements in it like salt etc. Tap water in this country is amoung the best in the world.

It always makes me sad when we have bad times. Sleep is such a fundamental need when you dont get enough it is soul destorying

MM nice dress

Lunch time

filtered water is fine for babies
www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/formula/boilingtapwaterexpert/
you shouldn't give softened water or mineral water to babies

Thank goodness! I'm SO sick of boiling water in a pot, pouring it into a bottle, covered with sealed lid... burning fingers... taking out of refrig an hour later with sunken seal... replacing. Doing it again the next day...
ok, it's not that bad... just 10 minutes of my time that could be spent doing something else!!

Heather I read the link. Thank you I genuinely did not know any of that.
In my looking for more info re filters. I found this. I didnt know this at all.
CSWS help!!!
The Department of Health recommends that infants receiving breast milk as their main drink after the age of 6 months should receive supplements of vitamins A, C and D (in the form of liquid drops). Infants receiving at least 500ml of infant formula daily do not require these vitamin drops since the vitamins are already added to the formula. If babies are consuming infant formula or follow-on milk in smaller amounts, or they are being given cows? milk, supplements of vitamins A and D should be given.

I have never had a steriliser ever. I used to boil DDs teats and every thing else has always gone into the dishwasher!

I have a friend who still uses Milton on everything, the floors, toys, cups! She wonders why her DS have continuous runny noses and tummy bugs I have tried to tell her but her self confessed OCD is just too strong

William is being a pickle. He keeps crawling over to the little table we have in the lounge. Underneath is a pile of pictures which I just havent bothered had time to put up on the walls. He takes great delight pulling them all out and having a look. When I call him and ask what he is doing he rolls onto his side and gives me the smile which simply says "what I'm not doing anything". I can tell already he is going to be a charmer

Ronshar - I've seen that before, it must be rubbish, surely? Humans don't by nature have either formula or drops, we're not designed to need them!

Rhian - Just playing devil's advocate, but we hardly eat a 'natural' diet these days and most of our 'fresh food' is often not fresh (or at least not ripe when it is picked). As a result there is very little nutrition in much of supermarket fruit and veg. This is a short article but I am sure I've other reports about this.

I'm not saying I agree, I really don't know......

I'm with you on the need for vitamin drops Rhian (although i FF) surely this should be controllable through a sensible diet? is this another case where the advice is designed to cater for the parents that give their babies a pureed happy meal as their first taste?

The advice re vitamin drops is new. My lovely hv mentioned it ages ago, but was going to check if/why it's necessary, given that it wasn't deemed to be 3 years ago. She can't be too worried as she has obv forgotten all about it! I am also not worried about it.

I haven't checked out links yet, but will do with interest, as like ronshar I thought that filtered water was a no-no.

I seem to have spent about £40 so far in order to grow these broad beans. I think it would have been cheaper to just buy the beans .

Tried ergo at babyshow once. Even with guy selling them helping we couldn't get dd into it on back, so no hope of managing by myself.

Got ds back to sleep at 6:30am in the end. I need a better night tonight.

We've finally chosen a shed btw, here. Yes, it is designed as a log cabin before anyone asks!