April 2009 - Chapter 3 - Let us round up the stragglers

[PuzzleRocks]

Ta da.

Hugs Nutty, Ju, Boff, Auld, Brett, Schulte. We'll get through these things. Hormones are and lack of sleep are some of the problem I'm sure. Low levels of seratonin make things much more glum. Try to de-stress when possible. And take joy in the laughter of your little ones. Hugs.

Nutty: Big Big hugs!!! so so sorry...

Boff: Hope your ear is getting better by now.

Hi everyone else.

Ju: try not to feel disheartened. It might just be a natural thing. you and DH are both tall and slim so that might be what little H is doing. Is his height following normal centiles. You know that Y from work had similar issues with I and that it was a turmoil for her too but little I is gorgeous and healthy just small. Dont let anyone make you feel that you are doing the wrong thing BF you are not. but also dont feel the burden of guilt if something else is required. It is all just dependent on the individual baby. I have it from the other side where I think some people frown on me for the fact that I didnt BF. So I think sometimes us new mums cant win! Also have yoy heard that they are changing all the growth charts anyway cos they were based on ff babies. and that bf babies put weight on at a slower rate anyway. Like you say there maybe a simple explanation such as dairy intolerance which can be sorted. Please dont start worrying about things like CF cos as you say your knowledge will make you worry! ..

As you say H is fine in himself which i think is more an indicator of health than anything!

Hope your consultant appt comes through soon. is it with DR P?

Take care try not to get worked up. and ignore silly comments.

kazzie

Hey Kaz - I am mostly calm about it, so far! You're right that new mums (all mums) can't win. However you feed your baby, you'll get flak from someone. Can't wait for weaning! I remember all the trouble Y had (love this talking in code!), I must talk to her about it more. The appt is with Dr BR - I asked for the referral to be addressed to him, because he is such a sweetheart!

How was your chocolate cake? And how are the twinkies? We really must get together. Have just remembered you sent me a text message about a year ago, which I never responded to ! I was thinking maybe we should all get together for a lovely Saturday picnic or something, and have all the pharmacy kids together. Though I suspect Bukky wouldn't come!

Nikki called me yesterday - David is at school now - I can't believe how quickly time flies!

Its good that you are calm just take one step at a time i say. Oh gosh weaning is fairly close for me (about 6 weeks! ) ooh quite scared about it lol. I approve of your doc referral and agree lol.

Chocolate cake was good but feel massive guilt everytime i eat it. (must let chris have it i think).

Dont worry about the text. you are like me unless I reply to something straight away it is out of my head!!

Picnic sounds like a brilliant Idea!!! gosh there are gonna be so many kiddies! Me and tania are also trying to organise a wednesday to come visit you to if thats ok and we can get our diarys synced! (soo complicated)

Oh my days is david that old now. (a lot of the nurses in ofnu remembered him and asked how he was getting on!) Is he going to a mainstream school?

I know what you mean about time flying I only have 4 and a half months till i go back to work. (just in time for the new robot!!) whoopeee......

ooooh picnic... i want a picnic now!!! egg and cucumber sandwiches under a parasol with all the men wearing boaters. (so wouldnt be like that but i can dream.

Morning all - am back from Slough and shall try to catch up.

Nutty really sorry to hear your news.

Boff for your ear, and your experience of flu. That must have been so terrible for you. And I can understand the raging anger at not having been able to get help from the dr.

Juw hugs for continued weight gain worries.

Schulte hugs for being in a house of illness.

Auld you poor thing you must be exhausted.

Puzzle same boat here it's the older one that's costing us so much sleep!

Bicnod we have the Angelcare breathing monitor too and it's great. Not that we're using it much as E won't sleep on his own for more than maybe an hour a night.

BB burnt ankles? Yowch. Hope they're better now.

Now ladies I am feeling rather sorry for myself and what I probably need is for you all to laugh mercilessly at my troubles. I feel... exactly like someone who has just had as her main family holiday for the year, two nights in Slough. A holiday which I actually spent some hours planning including a detailed planning and packing session for Legoland (DS1 did enjoy it but mostly he wanted to play Lego, buy Lego in the big shop and then take it home and play with it in the hotel and at one point threatened to have a tantrum because we were trying to make him go on a ride. Odd child). Needless to say my role in the day was to walk miles with baby and bags and provide regular doses of clean dry clothing after DH let him go in the water fountains in his outdoor gear . DS1 is clearly behind in his abilities to steer a car - he was comically bad at the driving school (we laughed ourselves stupid at the time) but definitely looked like the dunce of the class, even though they were all the same age. He just propelled the car merrily at pavements, people etc. without paying remotest heed to where he was going. And when his doting parents yelled over the railings to him to "STEER" he would just wrench the steering wheel round to perform a majestic U-turn. Oh dear.

And then I had a ghastly nightmare about Edmund that I had gone out to have lunch with the local bookshop owner - whom I do not fancy by the way in case it sounds suss - and left E behind. Only I'd absentmindedly put him in the freezer. So I ran back to the house, only to discover one of the NCT incrowd had broken in to my house to rescue him and had phoned for the ambulance already. I have spent the last couple of days rather horrifiedly apologising to Edmund for something that never happened. And reassuring myself that E wouldn't even fit in the freezer drawers anyway so I wouldn't ever accidentally do this.

Do you think I'm losing my mind?

Nutty so sorry lovey

Hi everyone. You were all right 5 days and it settled down. We had 6 solid hours of sleep last night from Sam - YAY! Of course he woke up every 2 hours after that but I can cope with at least a little sleep. I think it might have something to do with Puddleducks but I'll take my sleepy boy any way I can get him

This morning he decided to throw up spectacularly over me, why does he never do this on his dad????? No temp and seems in fine fettle so I'm not worrying even though he's been a tiny bit sick again. This is the one thing that gets me with breastfeeding, with bottle feeding you can just fill another bottle it's a tad harder to do that with a boob! Tiny grrr face, we should have a grrr face emoticon in tiny, middle and large

GettingSomeSleepIsFunTeamNuttyTiggaxx

Well my diary on the whole is blank, so pretty much anytime will do for me!

David is at a school somewhere down this way, so not mainstream. Sounds like he is doing really well though. They're going to the lakes for the school hols, but she's going to come and visit when they get back.

You don't see many men in boaters strolling around Medway.....but a few sandwiches in Capstone would work! I'm thinking you, me, Eliz, Laura, Yvette, Tania.....

Ju would passing some of Sam Godzillaness in your general direction help? I'm starting to get it from the HV's now as 'he's putting a lot of weight on' 'how are his feeds going?'. I'll pass you some of his eat for Brittain and put weight on if you like.

Having said that he was 5 weeks early, if I plot him on the WHO bf chart with -5 weeks he hits what use to be the 75% line and is now line 2. If I plot him for 12 weeks he's just over average so it's all bllcks in my uninformed-just-a-mum experience.

Click here to download your chart, you need to scroll to the bottom and find out where H plots on the new charts you might find it quite heartening

GettingMoreAnnoyedWithSomeHV'sTiggaxx

MrsG - If I nip out with a fancy man I at least put my children in the oven so they are warm. And there may be some crumbs and fat to sustain them. Tsk.

Sorry, that's an entirely Kaz-related post! Should move it onto FB really!

Dawn - Hooray for sleep.
I'm always snoozy after a swim.
Thanks for the link.

See - we can't win! If your baby is not on the 50% line, they get at you, which is not the point of centile lines!!! Our red books have breast and bottle charts already, so have assumed the breast charts were the most up-to-date WHO ones.

ju nope new WHO charts came out recently. No more will there be seperate charts, just this one based on the most up-to-date information for bf. Only babies in the UK born after 12/05/09 will get the automatically, I've had to fight to get them to use this one only. But then I'm bolshy and they know it

PITATiggaxx

A fraction above the -3 line on that chart!

Snort @Puzzle.

Lol Puzzle and MrsB
Personally I assume the cat will take care of Meg when I leave her...

I have another little 'wow!' moment about my Meg....
We feed on both breasts and for the final feed of the day we lay on my bed, with Meg in the middle and I then change positions from dh's side to mine or vice versa. Well, last night she was laying on her side facing me on dh's side and she must have decided that she was finished with that side because she stopped feeding and rolled over onto her other side then started doing the open mouth 'feed me' face on that side. i rolled her back over to feed on the side i was on, but she wasn't interested and rolled back the other way and did it again paired with a squawk. it was very cute. i feed her on that side then re-offered her the first side again which she then took.

Bleu - That's so adorable. Smart girl.

Hi everyone. Hope you're all having a good day so far.

A had his first vaccination today . Poor soul. He was really good though and just had a little cry. Quite relieved because I was dreading it and thought he would scream the place down. He seems ok for the moment.

WFS I have pre/probiotic drops that I give A when he's particularly windy. I think they may also be useful for re-colonising the gut after antibiotics. They taste foul, but if I stick A on the boob straight after he doesn't have the time to spit them out!

Is anyone else giving their baby vitamin D drops??? All babies here are given them until they're 2 years old. I've been a bit lax about it though since we've been having sunny weather.

Bicnod I feel your pain! A had an ok night following his night from hell, but last night he was up and down like a yo yo again . I'm feeling like a zombie again. I talked about it to the nurse today and she thought it was because he's hungry. Since they have a growth spurt around this time she reckons they need to be fed more often to boost milk supply (if BF) or given more formula. She suggested I persevere, but if he is still hungry after a couple of weeks to give him a bottle of formula in addition to usual feeds. She also said that I could start giving him mashed potato when he's 4 months old(!) Think I might be ignoring that..... He's now 15 and a half pounds at 13 weeks, so needs plenty of milk to maintain his chunky-monkeyness!

Nutty I'm so sorry things haven't worked out between you and your husband . I hope you're ok.

Boff Having such a sad thing happen in the past must make the current swine flu situation such a worry for you! Two of my siblings and their partners currently have swine flu (they live in London). They're ok though - apparently it's like normal flu and knocks you out for a few days, but isn't worse than that unless you're very unlucky or have health problems. I think normal flu can also be fatal in a small number of cases. It's causing such a furore because it's so virulent. I haven't heard much about it where I live though, so maybe the situation here isn't as bad as in the UK.

Oh - A's up again. Will catch up more later.

LOL MrsG!! The freezer?????!!!!!

Juwes, I have the proper ear drops now. Regarding H, you don't know anything until you know something, as they say. Wait for the consultant to have a proper look.

Nutty - so so sorry have posted on your thread x x x

Puzzle - thanks for the link, I will be forwarding that on to FIL if I get any more hassle!

Schulte - Sorry you're feeling down at the moment how did it go at the doc?

MrsG - I think I am going to get the angelcare movement only monitor... DH is totally unconvinced and thinks I'm being a bit hysterical about it... I just know I won't be able to sleep if I don't have some extra reassurance that O will be ok. I always listen for his breathing when I wake up and I won't be able to do that if he's in his own room, so will probably be up and down even more than I am now checking he's alright... DH probably right, I am a paranoid mummy but having a monitor is the only way I can deal with him going into his own room (which DH wants and I don't by the way) and DH just doesn't seem to get that

LOL at your freezer dream don't think you're losing the plot any more than the rest of us (although not sure that's saying much...)

Dawn - at your 7 hours... still hoping O will go more than 4 1/2 at a stretch... it will happen

Bleu - how cute is Meg?! its those little moments that make it all worthwhile... Oscar keeps taking himself off the boob to give me huge milky grins and a-goos at the moment which is gorgeous and makes me want to eat him all up.

Kali - at the mashed potato suggestion! It does make sense that big babies need to feed more to maintain their vast bulk... still hoping my little fatty will learn to sleep for a bit longer (nighttime and daytime naps) - I'm with you on the zombie-ness

Boff - fingers crossed the drops work x x

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO tired today... off to stay with mum and dad next week so at least won't have to deal with housework/cooking etc... will try and leave O with them for a bit and escape for some naps/walks on my own as well - have only left him with DH so far...

Right, better go, Oscar's in his cot shouting and refusing to nap

Still not caught up (I'm crap at this, I know!), but just wanted to say that I've just seen the HV. I have an appointment with the GP at 3.30 this afternoon, because I scored 22 on that questionnaire & I think I'm going to be given ADs.

I feel like I've failed somehow just in needing them. I know that it's stupid, I really do. If anyone else said that I'd be full of 'don't be daft, it's really common & purely chemical', etc. I do know the facts of it. But in my gut, I feel like a failure. Like I should be enjoying my life as a new mum enough to not need the help.

I really don't mean to offend anyone else who's in this situation (I've not been reading for ages, so I have no idea what I've missed) - I know none of us are failures. It just seems absurd to me that this is the time I'm getting prescribed things when I've dealt with real problems in the past. Oh well. Onwards & upwards.

Much love to you all (especially Nutty today xxx) & I'll come & rejoin the group properly as soon as I feel I can. I hope everyone's okay xxx

How cute of little Meg!

Aren't they just gorgeous our babies... I took H to the supermarket earlier to stock up on nappies and I just love how everyone coos over her - it always lifts the spirits

Must admit I kept nibbling her chubby cheek as I pushed the trolley along too It was just at the right height!

The doc was a complete waste of time as usual. I don't know why I ever bother going because all I'm ever told is that 'it's probably a virus and will clear up on its own' and that my dc's look 'happy and healthy' even when they then go on to have a febrile convulsion a few hours later .

He checked that she wasn't dehydrated (I could see myself that she wasn't) and said to keep feeding and changing her (well, obviously). And that it was impossible to tell whether it had been caused by the jabs, or was a bug. He also prescribed dioralyte (sp) which I can't get down her - fair enough, I wouldn't want to drink that stuff either.

So maybe I am being ungrateful and unreasonable but I wish I hadn't bothered.

Springy sweetheart, it's beyond your control, there's no rhyme or reason to it, that's the nature of PND. It happens to the best of us, it's totally indiscriminate. The fact you are addressing the issue is proof of your strength.
You and Nutty and two amazing women, i'm in awe of you both and I know you will both come out of things fighting and stronger than ever before.