June 08- the shoes, the food, the glamour!

[pureeandpearls]

Struggling to load pages these days and saw we were over the 900 so took the liberty of starting a new thread.

J sometimes pushes dh away if I am holding him (J) and dh tries to kiss me, but I think that is more in an 'oi, I was here first!' kind of a way. He happily partakes in three-way cuddles no problem. If dh is lying floor 'playing' (throwing the kids around and getting them thoroughly over-excited) with the kids then J sometimes pushes the others away so he can have more goes! WE just tell him no and out him to the back of the queue.

If anyone is passing things onto Sponge, then I would agree that it hurts even on a perfect latch for the first few minutes at the beginning. When I had ds I was taught the 'nose to nipple' thing. You squeeze out a few drops of colostrum onto the nipple, put the baby's nose to the nipple and then they smell the milk and open up really wide tipping their head back to get a really good latch. It does work!

Tips for Sponge - lansinoh, making sure Michael is lying across you, use a nursing pillow to strategically place him, this also releases you hands to get his head in the right position, mouth wide open, at end of feed rub in some excess milk into your nipple and let it dry in the air.It hurts - at first, but this does not last forever. Even 3rd time round it hurt and I was on tablets for the afterpains for the 5 days I was in hospital.With the latching on and afterpains toe curling and eye watering is how it is. Hope you're getting lots f support and not so much conflicting advice.

Amber - I was impressed at the circles you move in! I'd like to know if he can go away now and let us start sorting out the mess he has made.
Hopefully they will get enough people volunteering for redundancy, will keep my fingers crossed for you.

Slowly dawning on me that it won't be long before I am back to the first days of bf and all the other post birth joys, this time I will have a little helper

Sorry Ktpie - I didn't want to paint such a grim picture, just wanted to reassure Sponge that some pain is normal.I have 23 months between ds1 and ds2 and the jealousy thing was never a problem, ds1 just ignored ds2 until he started crawling. The things that really helped in those early days were Cbeebies and having a packed lunch made up in the kitchen for ds1.

Hurrah- they are here!!!!!

Amber- party actually in two weeks. I can't count!!

[waves to all- Sponge has updated FB. Still in hosp and missing A but sickeningly happy]

Debs - no it wasn't what you said, I had an inkling anyway!

Puree - do you think GB brought the halloween smileys?

Just had a quick look at the GB thread, do you think he actually rolled up and logged on or had a minion to do it? Somehow I find it hard to imagine him reading through it all, maybe someone condensed it for him into a few appropriate questions?

I seem to have wasted another day, have had a really annoying lurking cold for ages, never really turns into a proper cold but makes me feel just a bit rubbish all the time. Feeling queasy as well but not sure if it is the cold or morning sickness. Moan, moan, moan, sorry!

I am back in internet-land having visited my cousin this afternoon.

Just read through all your lovely replies to Sponge and tried to condense it into a single text message . We seem to concur that it does hurt quite a bit to begin with. Maybe the people for whom it was pain free are too scared of us to come forward

Puree whatever you do, don't let the PD have a say in what DC2 is called. C and Roy don't work together somehow

Ktpie phew, glad he is your Dad. I put my foot in it big stylie once with my boss. I asked if the photo on the wall was of her son and husband. No, the photo was of son and grandad . In my defence I knew her husband was in his late fifties, and her Dad despite being 80 looked pretty youthful to me. After that she put a post it next to the photo with an arrow saying "my Dad"

Love the new ! Feeling very Halloweeny today as have been preparing for our party - getting quite excited about it. .

Marking my spot and waving to everyone.

Was I up early? It seemed normal to me! Struan's bedtime beckons...

How about Royston purée?

Sorry, I meant

Ok, new text from Sponge

"Thanks for the advice. I'm now in a private room which is lovely. M is refusing to feed from me at all now . Expressed last feed and cup fed him, but am worried tis slippery slope . Will try and look at mn later as can get online from here, say hi and thanx to all the girls from me"

Advice and suggestions please.

Apparently the internet connection in the hospital is rubbish, so you wont be getting word from Sponge on here till she gets home.

Ah, I remember the awful hospital Internet connenction.

Sponge, we'll all be looking forward to hearing from you when you're back at home. Sorry you're having problems feeding. I hope it works out for you, because I know it's really important to you, but please don't beat yourself up if it doesn't. Sending very positive vibes your way.

Hi all, not on today because I was at a women in Bangor university meeting to discuss the mentoring scheme. It made me depressed.

I've also been in contact with Sponge and am actually using my bfing peer support qualification for the first time! I had already suggested lansinoh, and sybil's colostrum on the nose suggestion. (Now that sounds really weird summarized like that - Sybil it's spot on advice. ) I am on call for her now though because she's going to panic, I can tell. Maybe Michael just isn't hungry at the moment? Isn't bfing harder work than bottle for them, so he might take it from a bottle if he's not so bothered to put in the effort. The colostrum days were very odd, I thought, and everything changes when the milk comes in. Anyone with better suggestions?

Spider ok here I am, closet door wide open...I had no pain. In fact I had nothing at all really, apart from the milk bath days - no mastitis, no thrush, no cracked or sore nips, no pain, no latch problems. Which probably means I'll be a crap advisor. I feel like a fraud really!

No, wait - the biting was severe! That really hurt! I'm not a fraud!

If GB goes, what will happen to the childcare vouchers? I'm taking a totally childish attitude to the whole political situation!

Oh no . Please tell Sponge to relax, just keep putting him near the breast and wait for him to latch on. Don't force it and don't let any MWs stick her boob in his mouth! He is only tiny - the DTs esp esther struggled to feed at first and would only feed for a couple of minutes at a time. Or sometimes not at all. E also had low blood sugar cos she wasn't feeding enough but you just have to relax and trust your body. Evenutally she did feed. Please please please pass on my best wishes. It's fine if he doesn't feed for a while - maybe he is just not hungry.

And yes it hurts at first - lansinoh is the best.

I remember asking the MW - it is hurting, does that mean the latch is wrong? And she said No! And she was right

Also tell her he has a very small tummy and doesn't need much right now. I would ask to have his blood sugar monitored and only give him formula if he NEEDS it, not just cos he hasn't had a BF for a while.

And ask to speak to the BF counsellor.

Good luck Sponge!!

Don't think I have anything more useful to add than trying to relax about the whole thing, but that is a lot easier said than done.

I'm trying to remember what it was like when J was a day old, I don't think he fed all that much compared to the hungry monster he became once the milk came in. Actually he was born at 11pm, had a little feed then fell asleep, a stupid midwife woke him at 3am and he then fed constantly until 7am, at which point he went to sleep and then didn't seem very hungry all day, I assumed he had filled up during the night so didn't worry about it.

Essie - amazed at your no pain confession, I thought that was just a myth!

Wasn't it GB who was going to scrap the vouchers? Or have I got it all muddled up? Oh no hang on I see what you mean Essie, duh!

Think what I was trying to say there about the feeding is that my memory is of him being fairly on and off with the feeding until the milk came in.

Done another job at text message compression, but wont send another now as it is getting late. Lovely comments from all of you. Aren't we lucky to have this thread? Essie so pleased you have an official capacity to support Sponge . I too feel a bit helpless to give advice based on my experience as P was a greedy so and so from day one.

Last text of the night from Sponge saying thank you to everyone. She is hoping to get home tomorrow.

essie if GB goes, we'll have David cameron in charge. While I'm very p'd off about the childcare vouchers it's not much of a surprise for me to say I'm more worried about that!

I sort of x-posted with GB today. I logged on quickly before the start to to put on my question about childcare vouchers (of course loads of people had already raised it) and by the time I'd finished he'd already discussed it!

Am shattered and need to go to bed but have no clean wraps and nappy wash not finished yet. Zzzzzz.

PP, btw I found you on Twitter!

Hi, I "spoke" to Sponge briefly today on FB when the internet was working for her, she said then that bf was a bit hit and miss. When Ethan was born the MW tucked him up in bed with me and that worked OK for a bit, he fed and slept but then was very unsettled. Eventually the MW took him so I could get an hours sleep and when they brought him back they had given him a bottle of formula. At the time I was so tired I didn't mind and it obviously had suited Ethan but what I want to say is that it didn't stop him from bfeeding, so Sponge try not to worry.

Neenz - this has to be the best sentence of the day "Don't force it and don't let any MWs stick her boob in his mouth" Did any MW's try and bfeed your dt's?

ROFL, Deb! (Not at you, Neenz! ) That mental image. 'Oh, FFS, give him over! I'll do it!'

Ktpie I think I've just been offered your dad as a friend on facebook too!