October 2009 babies - Waving arms and gummy smiles make the sleepless nights worthwhile.

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Here we are on the other side-finally. Well done ladies!

On 2nd lot of AB's and they are suitable for BF so no expressing needed.

HC
x

welcome igglybuff
congratulations on the birth of your baby

Hi have just requested to join Facebook page - my name is Karen

big hugs to all of you who are struggling - this is the hardest thing I have ever done and no-one can prepare you for this - Sophia is my first (and last) child but she is worth everything (although sometimes it doesnt seem like it i think how I'd feel if someone took her away or if anything happened to her and I know its worth it)

Thank you Calypso and theboob! Congratulations to everyone too.

Quick summary for you - DS was born 1 Oct weighing 9lb 4oz.

Birth story - he was born at home (planned) after the NHS said no home birth for me as I have a tiny fibroid. So I got an independent midwife who supported my choice

Labour was about 10-12 hours - I woke up at half 4am with irregular contractions and decided to get myself some breakfast, leaving DH to sleep. At half 7am when his alarm went off I sheepishly came up and told him I thought I was in labour and sent him to the supermarket for supplies. By half ten, things were more regular so called the midwife. She got to us for half two, by which time I was deep in the throes of labour using yoga breathing and massage from DH to help. I managed the contractions with no pain relief and was apparently quite relaxed.

By 6pm I was pushing (which was bloody hard) but having not been able to go to the loo, my bladder was pretty full and blocking things. Plus my waters hadnt broke. Finally after about two hours, DS crowned but it soon became apparent why pushing took forever - his elbow was up by his face!! I felt myself tear (swearing as I did) and panic pushed the rest of him out. DH caught DS after leaping out of the way as my waters went.

I lost a lot of blood so midwife told DH to call an ambulance. Meanwhile I was staring at DS scream as he lay on my thigh (his cord was too short so couldn't get him higher). I got stitched up at hospital as had a third degree tear, hence the blood loss, and was kept in for three nights as they put DS in special care as they thought he had an infection (he didn't).

Phew - anyway, 8 weeks later here I am! I've had trouble getting BF started but it's going ok now. DS is a whopping 13lb 11oz now and his grandparents keep making references to him being obese when older

I'll probably be on here asking about sleepless nights (he was up until 5am the other day ) and grizzlies as he refuses to sleep in his pushchair so I can only take him out in the sling.

Anyway, thanks for welcoming me!

HI and welcome to Igglybuff congrats to your first baby.Dont listen to his grandparents hes putting on weight nicely and don`t think you can overfeed baby with BF anyway.Great you worked it out after some problems.Nathaniel is my 3rd and we had problems in beginning too.

HT Nathaniel lost 1oz and put back 1 1/2 ozs in last two weeks am not too worried but have to go back next week as HV wants to monitor him.Supposed to feed him every 4 hours but am leaving him at night as he goes 5-6 hours dont believe he would do that if he was hungry.Not going to start waking a sleeping baby. During day he can go from 1.5hs to 3 hours so wondering how he has hardly put on weight with that but am sure he will soon. He has grown in length though as fitting in 3-6months clothes already.They are refusing to measure him till 8 week check-up,which would be next week if it wasnt for their clinic being closed so have to wait another week for that.

Am enjoying wearing my Moby wrap,I do have a question though for those with slings how do you handle changing bags or do you wear a backpack?
Hope you`re all having a good weekend xx

Hi all
Welcome Igglybuff

I seem to have a lot to post. It might come out a bit rambling!

I had a very sore boob all day on wednesday, not sure if I posted that before or not. And on wed eve I felt a bit rubbish and had a bath and took some neurofen. It was sore to touch and even dd knocking it by mistake made me flinch.
On thursday I made a triple appointment at the doctors for dd, ds2 and me. I wanted to take dd as she has been coughing A LOT recently. On thursday she coughed for the WHOLE day. Every few seconds. She is showing signs of having asthma like ds1 and she has been given inhalers to see if they help.
I took ds2 (feddie) because I wanted them to listen to his chest as he is still coughing and sneezing.
His chest was clear , so thats good.
As for me, they gave me antibiotics incase I have mastitis ( the sore boob) . I actually had a temperature while I was there. I haven't taken these yet though as since wednesday my boob hasn't been sore again. Very odd. But good!
I also have been given some oral gel for ds2 and the same for me for breast thrush. I wasn't sure if that was causing the pain in my boob. He had a few white spots in his mouth, near his gum.

The other thing that has been happening is that occasionaly he has been sicking up what I call 'a whole boob of sick'. I.e a LOT. This is very disheartening and I feel for you who have it happen to them a lot.
He seems to do it after a bout of coughing and it all comes up. It's enough to have to change all his clothes, some of mine, and sometimes the bottom bed sheet on my bed.
This mostly only happens at the first feed of the day. I think I've worked out why it's happening.
I have fast flowing milk and a lot of it. In the night I feed lying down and so gravity is not doing it's thing.
But in the morning I sit up, so it's faster flowing, plus I am full as I've made more in the night. Ds2 usually goes longer in the night between feeds.
So when ds2 feeds he is struggling and gagging a bit. Then is sick, usually in time for school run. Then he is hungry on school run as he has an empty tummy.

I read on the MN archives about this problem and have read some of the advice. I fed him lying down this morning ( as advised)and he wasn't sick. , but later in the middle of the day he did a huge amount of sick. After coughing though...
Other suggestions were to feed him with him lying on TOP of my tummy, so he's sucking UP. I haven't tried that yet.
Or to lean really far back, this wasn't very easy. Hopefully when his cough goes, this will stop.

I found a baby bjorn sling in the loft this weekend. It was a friends, leant to me years ago. I have used it a few times, round the house already, and I am pleased with it. ds2 fell asleep lovely in it.

I have been teary the last few days. Not sure why. Was just crying and looking at dh and saying I feel sad. The older 2 get to me a bit and make me feel stressed. ds1 isn't fab at listening or ammusing himself and it can be very hard work.
But I feel guilty as I haven't been able to give him any 1-1 attention due to ds2. Oh well that's having 3 kids I suppose. dd gets some time with me in the afternoons whilst ds1 is at school and ds2 is asleep.

I wanted to just get out this afternoon as dh was working all morning, and will be tomorrow too. ( I wanted to go anywhere!!) and me and my sister went to Matalan with the dc's. Not a good idea! ds2 was hungry and was on the verge of crying all the way round, very stressful! Dsis held him though. Then dsis was going to treat me to a Starbucks without any dc's but ds2 wanted more milk, so we took him too. But when we got there it was shut!!
Oh and tonight it's the girls night out, dancing, sparkly tops and drinking and I can't go!! I am going to have a curry and watch X factor instead. I will love that Would just like to go out too.

Gosh what a HUGE post. sorry it's so me me me.

Hi *princessmel, thanks and sorry to hear things aren't great. I have fast flow in the mornings or after a big gap which makes DS choke - so I've tried taking him off just at the start which sometimes help. A BF counsellor also told me to lean back which I find hard esp as DS can't hold his head up for long...

Hi BellaCullen, yes I'm ignoring the grandparents as their kids were small babies anyway plus my DS looks gorgeous with his chubby edible thighs. Yum.

BellaCullen, I sling quite a lot and use a backpack mostly as better balanced that way. I tried a changing bag but felt awkward and lopsided. Using a sling also means I travel much lighter now! I do get back ache sometimes though.

Am now in bed with DS (he's called William by the way) in the vain hope he'll sleep better tonight. Fingers crossed! x

Princessmel i hope things get easier for you. Im just trying to take things one day at a time, but its hard. Faith has cried since 2pm yesterday, dropped off at 9pm last night, woke at 12 & hasnet stopped crying since. Sicking up the milk still, her bed, clothes & me being changed again last night. If i had some sleep then i think i could cope better, but as it is, all i do is cry. Last night was the army christmas ball, i couldnt go. I dont want to leave the baby or my DS with a babysitter that i dont know, plus i would rather be doing the feeds myself, even though its bottle. But i would of loved to put on the long dress, hair done, have a few drinks & enjoy myself. DH went anyway so been on my own again, and he is off for a couple of weeks soon too.....Im starting to hate men!

Welcome Igglybuff

Faith hates the sling, then again, i think she hates everything apart from being held & fed!

Going to put the Xmas tree up today, DS is near wetting himself about it, so will let him try to do it. Cant wait to get to the christmas markets here, Germany really knows how to do their markets!

littlepea maybe you should try Cranial osteopathy with faith? It must be so hard having her cry so much. tbh all my 3 would have cried if they weren't being held when they were so young. So i held them! Very restrictive though.

can't type anymore, ds2 asleep on my other arm...

igglybuff I empathise completely with some parts of your birth. I too had a planned home birth but meconium in the waters which only broke right at the end meant I also had to transfer straight after Annalise popped out to spend 2 nights on the antenatal ward. I don't know about you but I feel sad that I missed out on the biggest reward of giving birth at home; staying at home to enjoy the baby without the kerfuffle of a busy hospital. I know we both now have healthy babies, but its still a shame! I see that you are a south Londoner too {waves from Vauxhall}

Bella its reassuring to know that Annalise isn't the only baby not piling on the pounds, and that you feel calm about it.
About the sling I have a back pack for the changing stuff, which can be a bit of a faff when getting Oyster card out for the bus, or money etc, but 99% of the time I'm very comfortable, and its important that if you wear your baby a lot (I do all the time, never used a pram) then you need to make sure you have a good bag - don't want to give yourself back/shoulder pain!

princessmel Empathy with the prolific vomit, Annalise does that a lot and I often feel close to tears as what looks like a whole feed ends up on my lap/sofa. I find feeding her leaning quite far back has helped with the over-fast let down, but I'm pretty sure a lot of sick is actually saliva too, as Annalise is putting some weight on. I also know someone who had a baby that sicked up when coughing, and it did pass quite quickly, hope same happens for you! x

hi Calypso

yes I was hoping to just hop into bed, snuggled up with my new family and recover in no time... As it was it took two weeks before I could leave the house and walk up the road (before returning home to collapse!!) and I missed out on the 12 hours of DS in his first day as he was in special care and I was too weak to see him. I will never forgive myself for letting the midwives take him off me which meant he got cold, started grunting so they decided he was ill. He just needed my heat as my independent midwife (correctly) kept telling them. Ah, that's some baggage I'll have to lose at some point as I do feel I lost something of my DS's first moments (although my IM made the ambulance drivers stop so we could do skin to skin so eternally grateful for that)
I hope the next one will go more smoothly - although I am proud to say I did do it at home!

Hi littlepea72!

littlepea dd1 had 1 tooth at 4 months and 6 at 6 months!!!it is such a shame,it seems to happen just when they start to get settled.

DD1 and connor went clothes shopping today to get a party outfit for her.She now needs to be with me to choose.

We are all now snuggling up with the fires on.

Connor has still got phlem (sp)on his chest.up at 12,3,4,5,6am oh the joys.

I feel i have to whisper this......Faith went down last night at 7pm, bottles at 1, 3.30 & 5.30!!!! Its now 7.25 & she is still aleep!!! Didnt have to change her clothes etc once, only a nappy!!!! Oh what joy haha.....It will no doubt not happen again, but i got a good sleep last night, so im very happy!

Littlepea wow, good going!

William had a better night than he's had in ages although it's hard as we can only get him to sleep by rocking - feeding rarely works as he needs burping otherwise wind keeps him awake

How do you get Faith to sleep? Any tips gratefully received! Especially as William can't stay awake for more than an hour without getting overtired - so I have to work out how to put him down and settle him without rocking (my back kills me most days!)

Hi Everyone

Welcome iggly littlepea SO happy for you!
at Faith teething dd1 didn't get her first tooth until 11 mths!

princessmel sounds like you've had a bit of a hard time, hope this week is alot better for you.

ht I wouldn't be too concerned about 5.5oz gain in two weeks, it's not a great weight gain but it's not that bad either. I think HV generally err on the side of caution as they would feel responsible if anything turned out not to be ok. My dd1 only ever put on 1 or 2 oz per week until she was about a year, she dropped from the 75th percentile to in between the 9th and the 25th. The HV used to say 'are you worried about her?' and I used to say 'no, she's doing everything she should be doing and she's happy and healthy' so she'd say 'if your not worried then I'm not!' (sorry thats a bit rambling ) She's still a skin and bone now, I have to bribe her to eat her tea every night, but that's just the way she's built. On the other hand ds used to put on about a pound a week in the early days, I can honestly say that I didn't do anything different feeding wise with him than his sister. Amelie is about halfway between the two.

Try not to focus too much on the weight. Look at the overall picture, Is he meeting his developmental milestones? are his nappies a nice yellow colour? is he growing out of clothes?

icantbelieveitsnotbitter welcome back, long time no see! Feel free to post your birth story. Like calypso i'm missing by 'fix'.

Anyway, I have a busy day as usual! It's quite exciting as we have a group of 8 trainee peer supporters qualifying today, so I'm going along to welcome them to our organisation and get them sorted with their duties I also have to do the breastfeeding clinic at lunch time and fit in a supermarket shop at some point.

I was very cross with Amelie this morning as she 'only' slept a 6 and a half hour stretch last night, then I come on here and it reminds me how lucky i am... somebody slap me please

I've been approving everyone to the fb group, some lovely pics on there, keep them coming!

Hope everyone has a good day

hi all

just a quck one as i am having a very busy week - lots of visitors so v hectic (but good!)

Ruby gave me a 4 hour stretch at night on Friday but since we have gone back to every 2 hours

she had her jabs and she was a star - no after effects.

will try to catch up later but hope everyone is ok

x

Thanks everyonre for the weight gain feedback, feeling much more chilled about it all now. So good to hear this happens a lot and can be overcome. We'll see what this week brings. I am more glad than ever now that I put in a complaint about that midwife on postnatal-every time I have a bf issue, her comments about me starving my baby pop into my head. Joseph is having lots of wet nappies and has an explosive yellow one every 4-7 days. He seems to be feeding fine although I get conflicting info from hv and bf counsellor re. how long to feed for on each breast. One says let him stay on it as long as he wants(which can be up to an hour), the other says swap after 30 mins. Which is right?

My mum came to stay this weekend which was lovely. Joseph was a little angel for her!She brought a massive suitcase of clothes with her-our neigbour in Wales has a little boy and sh'd given us all the clothes he'd grown out of. You should see them, there are so many-28 pairs of jeans for a start! 90% of the clothes are from Next, the rest from Mothercare, Debenhams and George. Ages range from 3-6 months to6-9 and 9-12 months so we're sorted for clothes for a long time.I sent mum back with a gift for them and she rang to tell me they're putting more clothes aside for us!shock]

The other big news is that we made some progress with sleep this weekend. I tried out the Baby Whisperer shush-pat technique with amazing results. After initial resistance, Joseph fell asleep without the aid of rocking or the hairdryer.! I then transferred him to the cot-no chance. So started over and moved to the bed. I had to do the technique for over an hour but finally he went off at 12.30am. He woke at 3am, 6am and 8am for feeds! Used it again last night with similar results. DH and I are in shock-once we can calm down the flailing arms and legs, it works v fast.

HC Hope all is well after Matthew's freak accident, are you both ok now? That must have been a heart-stopping moment.

iggly Hello and welcome (waves)

ICBNB Hello again(waves) a birth story would be lovely, we're all getting withdrawl symptoms!

fidelma You seem to have gone through so many of the isseus with your DD1 that we're going through with Joseph now. I find it so heartening to see that you've come through the other end happy and smiling-and that you went on to hsve more children! I've a question re sheepskin-Ive ordered one for the pram for DS. Do I put a sheet over it or just lay him on it? And does te warmth of it affect how many blankets I should put on him?

Littlepea YAY! So happy for you!

Twinklegreen I requested to join the fb group but can't see anywhere on my "wall?" that I'm a member/ot how to access it. Can you talk a newbie through it?! Thanks.

Joseph has his jabs on Thursday, somewhat dreading it!

smallone Exaggerated latch info, sorry for delay. Am copying this out from the NHS Breastfeeding magazine.(Issue 8)

"If feeding from left breast, cup breast underneath with left hand. Keep fingers well away from th areola. Your thumb should tilt your nipple back so it looks like it's pointing away from your baby. This will have the effect of making the breast under the nipple bulge forwards.

The baby's bottom lip should make contact with the breast well away from the base of the nipple. Imagine a piece of velcro attached to the baby's bottom lip and a matching piece attatched 2.5-5cm from the bsse of the nipple. An easy way to measure is to use yiour thumb's knuckle to nail distance as a guide.

These imaginary pieces of velcro need to be matched together first. Then yiur thumb needs to QUICKLY roll the nipple forward under the roof of your baby's mouth. You must maintain the pressure with your thumb above the areola until your baby is rhythmically feeding. Before you remove your hand, make sure that you are holding your baby close and that you can see his cheek is touching yiur breast with his nose free to enable him to breathe."

HTH-its a bit fiddly to strt with but great if you have sore nipples or a baby who often won't open his mouth far enough!

Hi HappyT

I'm interested in the baby whisperer technique - at what point do you use it - eg when DS is overtired I imagine it won't calm him but I'll probably try too early when he's awake!

On BF - I only use one boob per feed and William rarely switches. This works quite well for us. I've tried switching but he ends up taking too much as he's greedy!! By sticking to one boob, he can get as much as he wants -but i did that from the early weeks so maybe the supply has worked out accordingly? However if he's extra hungry, I'll switch to the second boob.
I let him stay on as long as he wants - it used to take ages but now he can finish in 5/10 mins if he's alert!

ht click on profile at the top of the page, then click the info tab, the link to the group should be there x

Hi twinklegreen I've just requested to join the FB group if that's ok - I'm F Wright (unusual first name)

Thanks for the info!

I think there's conflicting thoughts on switching. I used to switch ever 10 mins with dd to keep her interested coz she was a sleepy feeder. Now I only use one boob per feed except in the night. On my 5am feed I feed one side, then wind and change, then put him on the other.

You prob know but if you switch you have to start the next feed on the same side you finished on, or you'd end up with one side only ever doing half feeds iyswim.

I always stick to one side per feed, even if it's a long on and off one (which ds2 tends to do in the mornings while dd is at school).

I only do both sides in the evening when ds2 is cluster feeding. I swap after about an hour, when he keeps coming off. I imagine it's because its slowed right down. There is always milk left in the boob though. Sometimes if it's a marathon cluser feed he goes back to the first side.

ht neither way is right or wrong, your body will adjust to whatever you are doing, so it's really a personal preference.

Just a quick update...rushed Faith to doctors yesterday & we were told she might have to go into hospital. They think she is Lactose Intolerant, even though i asked a month ago & they fobbed me off. Cant get the milk here & it will take a couple of days to get it delivered, should get it on script but they wont do it! Off to see the HV this morning, who will roll her eyes at me again when she sees me coming, but i need to get LF milk now.....why is it so hard to get something so simple. I feel like rocking while singing Lalala

HT...im off to buy the baby whisperer!!!