March babies part II

[misdee]

Oh poor you, Zoe. Good you had your DH around to give you a break and time to recover. I left DH alone a couple of Saturdays ago, with DD and DS(5), and he was shattered, he said he doesn't know how a single parent would do it. He had no help for the whole evening and was a nervous wreck when I returned.

Starw poll for Zoe

You know this anyway but I will kick it off.
Harry - breasfed, no formula or solids yet.
Goes to bed between 7 and 8....usually wakes between 10 and 11 for a feed then sometimes twice more in the night but recently, he has only woke once more....
So for example - last night was brilliant! Fed at about 10:30 then didn't wake again til 3:40, then woke for the day at 6:40 (didnt have much choice with ds1 storming in)

Harry had his second lot of injections yesterday - no problems.

The last few days, I feel much more 'free'. On Monday, I took ds1 to see the wiggles and harry stayed with my mum for afew hours and had a bottle of ebm () then today I took ds1 for his nursery school visit and DH had the morning off work and had harry. Missed harry ton but he was fine!
Hoping to take ds1 to the cinema to see madagascar when it comes out. Feel like I am getiing ds1 back now

Know how you feel ZoeC, DP had to look after Caleb for a few hours to give me a break as he was screaming and kept gumming on my nipple. Still feel sore today.

Caleb is breastfeed and once a day I give him some baby cereal mixed with EBM. He goes to sleep between 8pm - 9pm, wakes for feeds roughly at midnight, 4am & 6am.

popsy - you feeling any better about going back to work now you've left him a couple of times already.

and thanks shalaa too for replying - kinda nice to know there are more in the same situation, will make me feel less hard-done-by ;)

No I still feel pretty shit about going back to work. I want to be a SAHM or WAHM but never mind.....
its only 4 days then I have the 6 weeks hols...so not REALLY going back til septmeber.....

Sylvia is breastfed with the occasional bottle of formula (e.g. when I had driving lessons or took her to the gym's creche I leave a bottle of formula). She goes to sleep about 9 pm, wakes up about 12, then 3, 5, 6, 7, 8. Short feeds (5-10 minutes) then asleep again. She has a long sleep in the morning usually, then again in the afternoon.

My relationship with my son (who is 5) has been rather strained lately and I feel nostalgic, if that's the right word, for my little boy whom nowadays it seems I can't even hug properly as I always have Sylvia in my arms.

cristina - i think many of us feel that way
it will pass it will pass it will pass

ZoeC - Niklas has been only breastfed. A very occassional bottle of formula just to try him out with the bottle (didn't get on with expressing). however the last week or so I just haven't been able to keep up with his feeding demands and he has been waking more and more often (he was only waking once a night since he was only a few weeks old), so we have started to give him a bottle of formula before he goes to bed. Last night was the first time he had much (about 160ml) and he slept through from about 8 ish til 4 ! I feel great today !
He is 4 1/2 months lots of babies are on solids at this age so i don't have any worries about giving him one bottle a day (keeps us all happy). I don't want to put him on solids yet (I think its going ot be a hassle) and (thanks to mumsnet) I want to breastfeed him for as long as possible .

Last day at home today! Holiday tomorrow!!!!!!! !

Hi all!

Sorry have not been around I don't get much pc time.

I am still mixed feeding Millie, she has about 75% breast milk and 2 formula feeds a day, she sleeps from 7ishpm, I dream feed her (boob) at 10ish and then its hit and miss she has started waking in the night again usually once for more boob dor about 5-10 mins and then awake at 6.30-7am so not too bad, however I have decreased the formula and upped the breast and ebm in the last couple of weeks, when she was on mainly formula she slept right through

I have managed to express quite alot with the help of Domperidone and it has successfully increased my supply, have also changed bottles to the MAM ones and she is much better on those. This is why have not been around much am to busy expressing, about 4 times a day and alsways offering the boob first. we have turned the corner and it has been bloody hard work!!

Why is it the b/f babies do not sleep through the night and the formula fed ones do? Not that I am knocking the formula, it obviously keeps them full up for longer, such a double edged sword (is that the right expression?!)

So am totally with you Zoe and Popsy and all the others trying to keep up the b/f its bloody hard work eh!

BUT, Millie is a darling and such a happy baby the other 2 love her to bits and do their best to make her screech with delight, hre favourite tune is 'the wheels on the bus' sung with much enthusiasm by ds. it is heartwarming to see and never fails to make me laugh out loud!

I weighed her on monday, she is 18wks and is 17lb 4oz, have not started solids yet, will wait till the summer hols when there is no school run and I have more time.

Thanks for comparing, everyone. OMG Cristina you must be exhausted with that feeding.

Girly - well done for getting back to mostly breast, that must have been really hard work so you've done brilliantly.

After moaning and moaning about night feeds, last night she fed at 7pm, slept until 1am, fed then slept until 7am . Trying not to hope for a repeat of that else I'll just be disappointed I'm sure.

i think if it wasn't so much easier to breast feed in the day, I'd have stopped by now - hard to motivate yourself to continue when you'd almost certainly get more sleep using formula .

Sitting here with ds2 asleep - cant be bothered to put him down as he iwll wake and i cant be bothered with the whole thing
so xcuse typing!!!

ds2 had a worse night last night
have decided i need to try to get him to take more when he feeds in the day
i know breastfed babies will take less from a bottle compared to breast but he only will take 3oz from a bottle in one go and his little tummy is full....so wondering how much he takes from the breast in one go

also, when he feeds between 10 and 11 at night, i need to try to get him to take more.....considering a bottle of expressed milk

he has been much more sicky with a bottle though...reflux came back with avengence whilst with bf it is virtually gone...hmmmm

girly - good to hear from you

xxx

As DH and I are very sick in bed together with bronchitis, Lauren has been shipped off to my mum for last night and probably tonight. So lucky to be able to do it as I'm formula feeding and also she is sleeping though from 7 to 7 now. ( Sheepish not meeting the eyes of all breast feeding mums!). Although I tried Lauren on the rice cereal for over a week, she really wasn't interested, I've stopped and will try again in a few weeks. Have just upped her bedtime bottle a little. Not supposed to be giving her any more milk but can't see how 25 mls will hurt her. Have any of the mums with older children skipped the cereal and gone straight on to fruit and veggies? She really doesn't seem keen on the cereal, but I don't know how essential it's supposed to be that you start them off on that? We don't have a history of allergies in our family, and to be honest, have you tasted the stuff, it's worse that wallpaper paste! I would also be pulling a face!
Enjoy your summer holidays ladies. We are having a pretty mild winter so can't complain. It's about 22 celsius today.

Hi all,

Which brand of baby rice have you guys tried?

jambot - sorry you're poorly and don't worry, I know formula gets them to sleep through - dd1 did by now - no need to look sheepish

you can start them on whatever you like foodwise, and yes you can skip cereal - baby rice is horrid anyway . you could try something like pureed carrot or apple, maybe dilute it a bit with some formula to make it similar to what she's used to. Introduce one new food every 3 days or so that way you can spot any reaction. Mashed banana is another one worth a try, just watch out for constipation.

popsy - sorry to hear harry's reflux came back on bottles - nightmare. maybe he takes less in a feed as that's what he can manage to keep down? like everything else I'm sure he'll grow out of it, although I'm sure he could take more than 3oz at a time if he wanted to. Dd1 would do 8 or 9oz in a go at 4 months. Maybe the bottles are still a bit strange to him and put him off a bit.

zoe - yo9u are right

you know - i think the reason he feeds so frequently (actually 3 hours now ) is because little and often prevented the reflux
anyway
still persisitng

popsycal, you don't say if you are giving him ebm or formula in the bottle. Lauren also has reflux and she is on an anti-reflux formula which is thicker and I haven't had any problems since she went on it - and it keeps them fuller for a bit longer.

Hi everyone, nice to see you again girly . Sorry you are so poorly jambot . Hope you feel better soon!!

Well Faith is 16wks and weighs 12lb 1oz, still on the 9th centile. She seems very hungry lately and I have been trying her with a bit of baby rice (which she took very well first time!). She's waking a lot in the early hours which she had stopped doing and I'm wondering what to do. The HV says I can increase her rice intake to perhaps 2 meals a day and add pureed fruit. Or I can add another bottle of formula (she has one a day at the mo). I really don't know what to do for the best. I've had no probs with BF so far and enjoy it, so I'm loathed to give another bottle - but want to do what's best for Faith, not sure if I'm weaning a little too early, but then if she's ready for it??!!

Can't believe I don't know what to do.... I've done this twice before!! I'm not panicked by it or anything, I'd just like to know what you guys think?

Get well soon Jambot!

Caleb has become quite clingy and cries if anyone other than me or DP holds him. We feed him blueberry and apple baby cereal which he really enjoys. Am going to attempt to BF for a year, have got a job interview on the 15th for a night cleaning job so I can still be a SAHM, it's 2 nights a week. Will probably be knackered be will give it a go. yuck caleb has just thrown up on me so see u all later!

Feeling a little better after an awfully high temperature all day. Shivering one minute and boiling hot the next. Stuffed about 5 different pills down my throat and they seem to have done the trick in lowering my temp. Taking advantage of probably the last night of Lauren having to be at my mums. Got The Aviator out on DVD, so are going to enjoy watching that tonight without half an ear listening out for Lauren. Also a lie-in will be wonderful, although I'm so used to being up early now that I'll still probably wake up at the normal time.

jambot its ebm

Well, I'm all packed and ready to go tomorrow! Can't remember the last time I was so excited about going on holiday!!!!

Girly - great to hear from you again! Well done wiht the bfeeding!

ZoeC - hope the good night you had last night will be repeated!

Jambot - hope you get better fast. Your winter sounds great , its been 15° and raining heavily here for the last few days, but then again if our winters were so mild I would really miss the snowboarding ! Did you try mixing the rice with the formula milk? Can you get a rice that you mix wiht formula and feed from a bottle?

Popsycal - your patience amazes me! Thinks seemed to be starting to get better for you, but I guess its 2 steps forward one step back ¨

Norash - hope you and Kieran are both doing well. I guess we have different brands over here to what you do in UK, but I've had a look at a few and some contain additional things to rice others are just rice. I would go for an organic rice with nothing else added.

3Mummy - no idea what you should do, but if you bfeed more often shouldn't the milk supply increase with the demand, then you wouldn't need to add another bottle of formula.

Shalaa - good luck with the interview. working 11pm - 3am sounds tough to me though. Had you thought about being a 'home help', you could find some people that wouldn't mind you taking Caleb along with you.

Niklas is doing great! The last week he seems ot have grown a lot and also had an overall development spurt. today was mad though, he woke at 7.30 and had 2 half hour sleeps during the day, finally went off to sleep this evening around 9! That's not much sleep for a baby! He is still feeding very often.

Enjoy your holiday Leogaela

Always wondered how you arrived at your Mumsnet nicknames. Jambot is my Dh's nickname for me. Jambot is french for ham. We once stayed at a guest house where they had a huge, tame pink pig that they used to take for walks. My husband has a thing about pigs. He's crazy about them and loved this pig called Jambot. Since then he's called me Jambot, or Jambies. Very flatterning, being called after a huge pig! But he means it in a cute way, and now that name has stuck.

A WHOLE month since I last posted - we've been having computer troubles here. Still no broadband, but it's on its way. Plus we had a scare when we nearly lost all our digital pictures of Iris which were on the computer, not backed up, and the blasted thing wouldn't start up. Horrors, I did a lot of weeping. Anyway, all was well in the end, I found some magic in one of my computing books that fixed it!

On the non-technical front - Iris is now almost exactly 4 months. Had her last set of jabs yesterday, so I also got her weighed. She's 16lb 5oz, which puts her bang on the 90th centile. Not a petite girl like her older string bean sister. More a sumo wrestler. Might enter her for the 2012 London Olympics!

She's still exclusively breastfed. Her big sister never had formula, even after I went back to work at 6 months. And I hope to do the same again. I have eczema, asthma and nut allergies, so have no intention of introducing solids before 6 months. Plus like Misdee says, I like the easy life! My one bit of effort is to sterilise the pump and express each morning to donate milk to the milk bank.

On the sleep front ... she goes down at around 7pm, then last night woke randomly at 11pm, but then through till 3am and then 6am. So pretty good (ignoring the 11pm blip). But we're just recovering from a series of horrendous nights when she woke 1-2 hourly from midnight and then wouldn't go back to sleep at all from 5am. Ghastly. My older daughter regressed horribly in her sleeping around the 4 month mark, and then suddenly started doing 12 hours straight through at around 5 months, so here's hoping for something similar. Seems most unlikely at the moment!

No rolling from Iris yet. And only a few laughs. She's a big smiler though!

Big sister is still generally lovely with her, but you have to really watch her, because suddenly she'll decide to scratch, or bite or hit Iris. Poor old Iris has had quite a few war wounds recently. But I guess it would be more surprising if an older sibling didn't react at all. And mostly she's great with her.

Right - I'm off - looking forward to getting our broadband, at which point you will be seeing me here daily!

pidge - how did you manage with going back to work when dd1 was 6 months and breastfeeding....i want to do that too