FEB 2010 Valentines, pancakes and BABIES!!

[InmaculadaConcepcion]

Here it is, then - the post natal thread for the Feb 2010 gang - let the poo/bf/nappy rash/sleeplessness/crying

OMG whatdoIdonow!! conversations commence...

stoofadoof keeping my fingers crossed your move goes smoothly.
Thanks again for the eyedrop advice - it has already made a difference! Just wish my GP could have been a bit more forthcoming with advice. As it is it took me three months to convince them it wasn't just a sticky eye but an infection that was unlikely to clear with cooled boiled water!
Anyway...

What happen to my daytime TV? BBC1 has been hijacked by the elections! No excuses I have to do the cleaning in the house

Hello again after what feels like a long time away!

I've been keeping an eye on the election as well - sadly it wasn't as exciting a result as I had hoped, but never mind.

I've been away to my parents for a few days with the DDs. They were both very good, and DD2 surpassed herself by sleeping from 7:30pm until 9am the next morning! Obviously this was a one off as the following night she woke at 6:30am, then went back down until 9am, and last night she woke for a feed at 4am (why? this hasn't happened for weeks!) but then didn't wake until 8:30am.

Anyone struck down with extreme tiredness? I know I have no excuse as DD2 is generally sleeping through the night, but I'm so tired I can barely lift my limbs at the moment. Please tell me I'm not alone...

Oh, and Stoof's advice on the eyedrops was spot-on (from a pharmacist's point of view). Personally I always ask for the easiest option, so last week this involved asking the GP for antihistamine tablets instead of liquid for DD1 (she's three) as she won't take the latter. He was surprised, but it's definitely made it easier for me. So eye ointments are definitely easier than drops.

BG glad to hear it's helping!!

we've moved into a holiday house this afternoon, in readiness for the removals people coming on monday? but it's got broadband - yippee!

we didn't really intend moving in until tomorrow, but it was so nice to walk into a tidy house, without piles of stuff everywhere, that we decided to stay! busy day tomorrow getting stuff sorted, then two days of removals people packing and loading all our worldly possessions into a 20' container?. wednesday will mostly be taken up with cleaning our house and handing the keys back to the rental agent, then thursday should hopefully be a day to relax, before starting our 40 hour (door to door if everything on time) journey at 7am on friday?.

oh, and DS has been struck down with dreadful bottom end wind the last three nights, and unable to settle him back down after 2.30am feed, so even more knacked than usual? ho hum

Have had an awful couple of days after DS had his first imms on Thursday. He was really sleepy for the rest of the day (I remember several people saying they had a similiar thing happen) and feeding more frequently than usual - then a bad night (woke up at 1, 4 and 7 - this is bad as he had just started sleeping 9.30pm - 6.30am). Yesterday was just awful, he wouldn't stop crying no matter what I did, and I was desperately trying to keep him quiet as DH was on nights and needed his sleep, but he just kept screaming. I ended up sticking him in the car and driving up and down the M40 for 2 hours as he always sleeps in the car! Anyway, that worked and he seemed calmer when we got back. He was better last night, woke up for a feed when I went to bed about 11.30pm and then was down until 6.
He's happier today although still quite sleepy and a bit clingy at times but he seems to be over the worst.
I had no idea he would react so badly to his injections. I even tried calpol but he just spat it all out....

Am reading a book about controlled crying with a view to maybe using bits of it in a month's time or so...(bracing self for barrage of messages telling me I am cruel, a terrible mother etc)

tinker poor you and your DS.
I can understand why you are looking into control crying, I have read a few thing myself but I know it'll break my heart if I do it.

My DS had a 50mn not stop crying yesterday, I was ready to put him the car to go to A&E as nothing seemed to calm him dowm. I phoned my mum who advised me to strip him down an give him a bath... and it worked, he actually stoppe when he was just wearing his nappy! He looked at me with a big smile... I was in tears.

Yay Stoof it's actually happening for you now! Good luck!

Sorry to hear about the unsettled babies. My DS2 has finally fallen asleep on my lap after struggling through a horrid windy feed that we pretty much abandoned .

DH is out for the evening - a rarety really - so I'm about to try and put the baby down and start all the chores - I lead an exciting life!!

However, did take DS1 to ToysRUs today to spend birthday money-finally-and it was lovely to see him dashing from one thing to another tryng to decide what to buy. He also picked up a cup with his name on there and told me what it said. I don't know if this is good for a 2.1 year old, but I was amazed!

Must start chores before feeding again. Hope you are all sitting witj your feet up!!

GF and tinker hope today/tomorrow goes better. There must be something in the air, all our babies are turning into cry monsters. I've figured since she's being unsettled anyway, I may as well put her in the her cot now. I'm naively hoping that once I'm of the anitbiotics, she stop crying so much. I think she has more wind, there lots more farts atm (wishful thinking that's there a magical reason for the upset).

She's pretty much found her thumb, depsite my active encouragement of the dummy. At the moment it isn't quite sufficient for her so after a while she gets frustated and then the dummy goes in, which settles her. I guess the advantage is, I won't need to put her dummy back in to get her back to sleep.

She's dropped nearly two centiles on the charts so hovering near the 2nd now. She only put on 7oz in 3weeks, but all her nappies are wet, so trying to not to worry too much (always easier said than done).

beth even before I thought of babies, ToysRUs was always a good day out so I hope you enjoyed it as much as DS1

tinker and GF sorry about the crying - it must have been awful. Mine was very unhappy the evenng of his first imms too - floppy and hot and with a really pitiful cry. I gave him a tiny bit of calpol because he was still under the weight at which you're allowed to give it according to the box - so only like 1.5ml but it did settle him somewhat. Have 2nd imms next week - eep. But generally I think as they get older and spend more time awake it is inevitable that they'll cry more.

Stoof Good luck with tha last bit of your life in NZ - whereabouts are you going to live back over here?

Mine still doesn't normally sleep through. I think maybe twice. Night before last he did 11-5am which is probably the best yet but last night was far more normal with three wakings and I just could not get him off after he woke at 2. Think we were up for about an hour and a half.

We are having a lot more success now giving DS his iron medicine - after a few awful days of refusing and vomming we now give him it twice a day in a bottle of expressed milk and it stays down (most of it anyway - even with plenty of winding he is a very possetty baby - I've taken to keeping him in a bib during and after breastfeeding becausee of this. He still seems to have a permanently wet neckline om his sleepauits though).

We enjoyed a week of lovely weather last month and I was out with him every day but the past few days have been crappy and I've been stuck indoors - bit miserable as both DH and I have colds and I think A is cming down with it too. Oh well, babies gt bugs a lot - better get used to it. I've got some saline nasal spray and our Dr Bee nasal aspirator so I should be able to keep his nose fairly clear (I hope!).

He slept on my chest like a dear little bundle for 2 hours during the day yesterday as I was sitting leaning back on the sofa - it was so sweet and I didn't want to move him but in the end I had to as I needed a wee. Maybe if I'd woken him sooner he'd have slept better at night, who knows.

Being stuck indoors has made me go a bit crazy with the internet shopping. I have made a list of my favourite baby clothes websites if anyone is interested. I think I have an addiction to Petit Bateau...

www.littlefashiongallery.com
www.barnyardkids.co.uk
www.nordickids.co.uk/
www.bibaloo.com
www.eponime.com/ (tiny French label - gorgeous girls stuff)
www.childrensalon.com/
www.eliasandgrace.com/
www.smallable.com/
www.just-gorgeous.com/
www.alexandalexa.com/

Please don't blame me if you go overdrawn...

bearcrumble as if I need an excuse to shop.... . Having two girls has not been good for our finances because there seem to be so many unbelievably cute things around. Dh not impressed with my online shopping though because we are down to one income. I was made redundant last year, a few days before finding out I was expecting dd2. Didn't get a new job with a bump... wonder why . (Went to an interview 7 months pregnant which was quite amusing as they obviously could not comment on the bump and are not officially allowed to take it into account. Did I get the job? Of course not )

Bank holiday here and I have been planing to do some gardening all day but got no wish to o so as the wind is really cold.

DS has been back to his normal self so the crying monster has gone!

CC my DS is exactly the same for sucking his thumb.

BG we're on 2 incomes but most of it is going to be spent on childcare (over here it costs £1,200 a month). Okay the income over here are probably higher than UK but it still a big chunk of our incomes. So online shopping is kind of a thing of the past! I don't even want to think how we'll do if we were to have a 2nd child.

Have a goo Sunday

Oh, BG sorry about the job situation. I actually resigned before finding out - found out a couple of days before my notice period ran out. We'd been trying for over a year and I decided to invoke sod's law and it worked.

GF Glad your boy is back to his happy self.

Hello Ladies!

I'm getting excited for you, stoofadoof - although not envying you that long journey with a LO in tow. Good luck!

Well, WOMAD was an interesting weekend that was a lot less stressful with DD than I feared. She was fabulous on the 4-hour train ride to Caceres - I kept her to her routine and she took two decent naps in her car-seat/pram chair (with a muslin hanging over it) and didn't fuss at all. She was pretty good in the sling while we were out and about, even sleeping through an INCREDIBLY loud band (I made sure her ears were covered, but even so...) and the first night in the hotel we improvised a little tent over her nest and she slept reasonably well (waking up her normal number of times, so no worse than usual).
The second night wasn't so great - she was tougher to get off to sleep, then woke up wanting a feed every two hours - ugh. Actually, she may have been thirsty as she did feel a bit sweaty. Anyway, as a result of being more tired (I suspect) she was also much fussier on the train ride back, a couple of times I resorted to breast-feeding her standing up in the corridor between carriages to try and chill her out (suprisingly effective) - although we did get her to nap for a while. The fun part was when she did a poosplosion which leaked out of her nappy, entailing a nappy change on the train seat - thank goodness there were two of us to deal with it...!
Anyway, not a great night last night and again, it was tougher to get her off to sleep, so I think the disruption has had an effect. Hopefully, she'll settle back down now we're in familiar surroundings...

Still, overall it went fairly well. Roll on the weekend after next when we fly with her back to the UK for a weekend...

IC good to read it went fine.

stoofadoof good luck for the journey with your 2 LO

I'm at the moment looking on how long a tub of formula is lasting in order to know how many to take with us to France. I'm going to use disposable for this trip as I can't face storing dirty nappies (even if I would be able to wash them at my mum's)

For those of you whose LO is at the childminder/nursery already, a quick question:

How many spares clothes do you leave there?

I'm looking at DS clothes and as we're going to France, I'll be able to get a few cheapies to leave at the nursery

Happy Monday all .

My laptop has died, DISASTER, it has all my pictures of LO on it since she was born (11 weeks ago today!) . It is supposed to be picked up by courier today to see if the office IT people can mend it, but the IT guy on the phone didn't sound too hopeful. It has all my finances and everything else on it too. Well, that will teach me to back up, won't it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Lovely cute pics of your LOs posted up! I would have no idea to do that myself even if I hadn't lost all my pictures (it's not quite that bad, we still have the ones on DP's laptop. Just not all mine ).

It was very odd living without mumsnet for a while (the laptop death coincided with DP being away on business with his laptop). I read a book!!!

I think I can finally see a pattern emerging from the chaos - LO wakes up, feeds, plays, goes back to bed an hour after her first waking, and a couple to three hours after subsequent wakings. Bedtime varies between 8.30pm and 10.00pm. Then she tends to wake between 5 and 6 for her first feed. Of course when we had friends for dinner and staying for the weekend, all bets were off and she refused to go to sleep .

For those of you with a bedtime routine - does it always involve bath? As she still doesn't much like having a bath and I don't want to inflict it on her nightly if I don't have to. What else do you include in the bedtime routine?

Oh and good luck with the repatriation stoof. Very exciting for you! Hope the journey goes well (as well as can be expected!).

Am managing not to click on all those links, naughty BC for passing those on. IC We've done a weekend away, but can't imagine having enough energy to enjoy a festival, well done.

Well LO has been in the cot for 2 nites now, she looks ridiculous, but it's going well (touch wood). Went climbing outdoors again yesterday, not too far off pre-pregnancy grades now, though the stamina still has a long way to go. We're off to London tomo to visit the US embassy to hopefully get our visa's. Just hoping everything has been filled in correctly to their satisfaction and we remember all the forms we need to take, otherwise have to pay another £500 for the privilege. Wish us luck....

Hi Fizi, yours posted as i was typing mine. Sorry about your laptop, you must be gutted. Our bedtime routine does include a bath (unless she feeds at a weird time and is already off, in which case she goes to bed in her day cothes), but the aim isn't always to get her clean. Sometimes she's in for just a minute, when she seems happy, then she gets the full works. My reasoning, its the order of getting wet, drying (now with a hairdryer) and changing is what she'll start to reongise. She seems to like the bubbles that we've recently added, especially if they're on her chest. To be honest its pretty hit and miss, some nites she'll cry for ages, others as soon as she swaddled she's off. I figure that she's a bit young to reconigise cues etc, but when she is old enough that with it already being in place......

Fizi sorry for your laptop.

Our bedtime routine is:

6pm Bath: DS likes his bath and we spend about 10mn in it. It does involve a lot of splashing, chatting and smiles
7pm Feeding: it will be the last bottle of the day - feeding can be before the bath or past 8pm if the timing is messed up
7.30pm Bed time - put into his sleeping bag with his dummy. He can settle down immediately or create a fuss for about 20mn.

He'll be alseep most days by 8.30pm until 4am when he'll feed.

Sundays, he most of the time doesn't have a bath as we come back from the pub for his bottle and put him to bed by 7pm.

I had a really good bathtime routine with dd1 when she was little. She enjoyed it and it seemed something to do to fill the time before she happily went to bed... Now with dd2, she is lucky to get one or two baths a week because the logistics of bathing a toddler and baby together give me a headache (and toddler insists on sharing the bath). When we do get round to it they both really enjoy it, but I tend to time it for later afternoon when both of them still have some energy and the tantrum levels are low. I have one of those fairly flat bath chairs for dd2 which means I have my hands free to wash dd1s hair, then put conditioner on, whip the baby out and dry and dress her on her changing mat on the floor (just about possible because our bathroom is tiny). Then finish off dd2 and get her dry and dressed. Today the baby had a little snooze while I blow-dried dd1s hair...
When it works, it works well. When it goes wrong, it really goes wrong Don't much fancy two screaming children and dh coming home late from work, hence only once or twice a week for now. Found out today that my bloodpressure is a tad high - wonder why

Oh, and as for bedtime routine for dd2... She always wants to be fed as soon as our food is on the table (does not matter whether this is 5.30, 6 or 6.30), so I feed and eat at the same time. I then take her upstairs to have a bit more of a quiet environment and give her the rest of her feed, show her a baby book (she has really got into this) and sing to her. With any luck she is happily in her cot at 7 and either still sucking on her hand, or fast asleep. DD2 next, and she is meant to be in bed at 7.30 but has various tactics unique to a 2 year old to stretch her daddy time out to closer to 8... (right now she is chatting to herself in bed). After that with any luck peace and quiet until about half 10 when I give dd1 a sleepy feed which then makes her last until between 6 and 7.

Sorry, bit verbal today. Such a nice experience to type two handed

Ooh I haven't been on here for ages!

I found something for DD's skin - I massage her with home made oil (sunflower and vitamin E) on an evening and on a morning I use buriti baby body butter (from the body shop). Her skin is lovely and smooth now .

Her christening went well, she only screamed a bit and I had to feed her at the back of the church (I actually had a rather interesting conversation with a group of small children 'what's she eating' my neice -'a sandwich' ).

My sister has had a baby boy - managed to get to 8cm without realising she was in labour .

We've started putting DD in her own room for the beginning of the night as I think we were disturbing her, on saturday she slept from 7pm 'til 4am!

I am in love with my babasling and someone is going to lend me a wrap to see how I get on with.

Is anyone else surprised at how much they've changed since becoming a mother? I was never going to co-sleep, planned to stop breastfeeding at 1 year, thought I would be itching to go back to work. Now I co-sleep most nights (for myself not because she particularly needs it), I want to breastfeed for longer (not 'til she's a teenager or anything ) and I've arranged to have an extra 4 months off work. DH finds it very funny.

DH us away for a couple of weeks so I'm all alone with her, it's not as scarey as I thought it would be!

IC I take my hat off to you for the festival and also for the forthcoming flight - haven't even taken my DS1 on a plane yet! Also to Angela for having DH away for a couple of weeks. A day of DH at work is quite enough for me at the mo!

Good luck CC with the visas. And Fizi - what a disaster. We discovered after the first week with DS1 that the camera was brokwn and have no record of that week at all.

BG know exactly what you mean about baths for DC2! It should have been bath night (on alternate nights) for DS2 tonight but he got a bit stressed and so we just didn't bother! He doesn't seem to smell!! Baths for two are such a juggling act.

As for a bedtime routine, having had two refluxy babies, we have found it very difficult to have one as they can't lie down after the evening feed. DS2 is sleeping in his Chicco chair as we speak and will require a further two hours of upright cuddling once I dream feed him in a minute. Lying him down any sooner means he wakes up within ten mins in pain and writhing (sp?) around.

I have to say that this time round I'm not nearly as obsessed with a routine for DS2 and he has fallen into the same routine that DS1 got into with my help. I'm actually quite proud to be more relaxed this time as I'm usually a bit stressy about routines!!

Have had a truly rubbish Monday here (I suspect the success of the day is directly linked to the amount of sicky/pooey/wee-stained clothes I have to change!) and am looking forward to a sleepy uneventful feed (I really hope...) and an early night.

Night all.