April 2010 - our little bundles are here!

[lineky]

Thought I'd start a Post-Natal thread as there are so many of us now sorry about the uninspired name.
Well I am slowly realising the sleepless nights thing is no myth - VERY tired!

Oh Misty that is cute! Sometimes I want to take photos of DS sleeping and then I worry that the camera noise will wake him up, so I don't. My best sleep photo is one of DD and DS,we'd been out shopping and then came home. I sat down to feed DS and DD sat on the floor next to me and put her head on my lap. Next thing I know, DS is sound asleep after his feed and she'd fallen asleep on my leg and I was stuck there till they both woke up . I took a photo of them with my phone and sent it to DH.

So how is everyone coping with the snow?

Got to work yesterday, but stranded today. Could not even get off drive - wheels spinning even with grit and salt, so did not go any further.

DD1 upset at missing nursery, and today is the pantomime. They are still taking the kids which amazes me - long drive through Scottish country roads, up a big hill, and round a lake with a sheer drop, all in a big bus with no seat belts. It is still snowing.

I think everyone must be busy Christmas shopping!

Another crap night with George. He may be teething as the last couple of days he has woken half way through his afternoon nap & screamed & screamed. When he eventually calms down he is then overtired and won't go back to sleep. This very unlike him as usually he is very good all day & happy. I thought it was cos the grandparents were here and so his routine was a little disrupted, but he did it yesterday too when they were no longer here. He wouldn't eat much tea yesterday which is unusual too.

Zeeky sounds like teeth :(.
stinky my parents are up in Edinburgh, they are supposed to be going up to Thurso and Forres later in the week to see family. I'm not convinced they'll make it in the snow given what I'm hearing on the radio! We have had about an inch or so today, it's warmer than it has been since it's cloudy.
Hope all those children are OK on the bus.

The bus was fine thankfully - I had got myself in a right pickle, convinced it was going to crash etc... I think that poor little baby that died in a crash at the weekend has really got to me

The snow here is dreadful. Worse than last year when I got stuck on a bridge.

I will try and be brave tomorrow - big meeting to attend.

Hope everyone is safe and warm, and hugs to George - sounds like teeth.

Another screaming session from George this afternoon lasting over an hour. He did go back to sleep for another in the end do ate his tea fine as was not overtired. He's just woken up again now though (11pm). He cried for a few minutes and then started breaking wind so maybe it's his bowels that are disturbing his sleep at night? What does everyone else feed their little ones af tea time? I have been trying to give him his main meal of meat/fish & veg at lunchtime and then just pureed fruit with baby rice or yogurt at teatime as I remember DS1 used to suffer dreadfully with constipation & wind if he had veg at teatime (esp broccoli!!). Maybe I'm getting it all wrong.

Zeeky I used to give whatever caught my eye in the freezer but I was reading my Birth and Beyond book the other day (trying to see if there were any tips on getting babies to sleep through :)), Yehudi Gordon suggests giving protein and fruit at lunchtime, and milky/starchy things at teatime. So it sounds like you're doing pretty much what he suggests.

Hi everyone!
Not had alot of time to pop on this week then my internet was down. Loving the snow! Lots where we are so had a few days in the house, so have managed to catch up with cleaning and washing

We have just put our christmas decs up, yay! We normally get a real tree but our living room is so tiny and full of toys, plus we were a bit worried that Eilidh might eat it! So, we decided to get a fake one...my DH went to asda this morning and came back with a £9 one that looks...how can I put it...dead! Its like a fake dead tree! Very sparse! However, we have just decorated it and it looks...mmmmm...ok

Eilidh has hardly noticed the decorations. Maybe once it is dark and they are all lit up she will notice more.

Eilidh has had a cough and cold this week Poor baby is all wheezy. We put boiling water in the sink when she was in the bath last night to steam her and that seemed to help a bit.

How are you all? All organised for christmas?

Stinky, how are you getting on expressing?

zeeky, how is George - are his gums white? I tend to give Eilidh her main meal at lunchtime. Usually soup, then pasta or fish or meat. Then at teatime she will usually have soup with toast and stewed apples, so sounds like I am maybe doing things wrong!

I got my last wage this week till I go back to work in May. Money is starting to worry me now. DH says we are poor but will manage ! Will need to tighten the purse strings from now on.

Hope you are all well

Hi harverina The expressing is going ok now - less stressed, which helps, and also resigned to having to express more often, like morning and night. I finally have a fridge at work, which helps a lot. She is having 200mls expressed each day when I am at work, and I am getting about 150 a day, so my frozen supply is dwindling, but should last, as soon she will drop a milk feed.

Billie is currently going potty about Waybuloos, absolutely squealing with delight!

DH upset me today by saying Boo has a lazy eye - all the time apparently, but I have not noticed it. Apart from being concerned about her eye, I was upset that I am clearly a neglectful/absent mother not to know this, plus annoyed he has not mentioned it before and chooses to tell me in front of family!

Great new about the expressing stinkypinky. You will probably find that, because you are expressing morning and night, your supply will increase anyway so expressing will just get easier.

Sorry your upset about Boo's eye - I would'nt feel guilty about it at all. It must be very mild for you not to have noticed it? When did your DH first notice it?

Eilidh loves Waybuloo! I secretly love it too! I love the music

So, thats me done all of Eilidh's christmas shopping...finished it while at Asda doing my weekly shop yesterday! This is what we have got her...tell me if this sounds stingy...a musical table (the kind which has legs for her to stand at), a leapfrog My Pal talking teddy, a xylophone, 2 books and a spinning top. Thing we have spent...maybe, £60 in total?

It is snowing again here, been very heavy all morning. I'm loving it!

Neeko, are you now back at work? If so, how are you getting on? We never managed to meet up...!

Can I ask you all a question about mealtimes/milk. Have you all started giving solid breakfast before a milk feed or do you still give a milk feed first?

Just looked out the window and there is a squirrel running around in the snow!

Very quiet again? Hope you are all ok and not too cold

Been a while for me since I've been on here. After DD recovered from her last bout of D&V, I got it and then DS got it and then we all came down with stinking colds and now we just all have hacking coughs, keeping DH and I awake at night! DDs cough was so bad the other night, she threw up and of course I went into panic mode thinking D&V again but it was just a one off and she's eating fine so I reckon it was a build of of nasty stuff on her chest and in her wind pipe making her gag.

Sounds like everyone's getting festive and liking the snow. I'm seeing all the lights and trees going up and wondering when we're going to do ours. I'm quite excited about it all this year as DD is aware what's going on. She's had a couple of encounters with Father Christmas already and seemed to love it, once she'd gotten over her shyness. She's also loving all the fancy dress parties she's been invited to. I can't wait to give her her presents! Poor old DS might get a bit of a back seat deal for his first christmas... . Not sure what to get him yet.

Hope you're all OK and for those back at work, hope you're managing to juggle everything, incl some quality "Me" time. Yeah, I know, chance would be a fine thing!

DS gone right off milk in the day now and we're even struggling to get any decent amount in him at bedtime and during the night. He's still getting on well with his solids though and we're giving him plenty of yoghurts to make up for it. And I'm using his formula in food where I can. WRT discussion on foods given at lunch versus dinner, I might be doing it wrong but I try to get all components in both (carbs, protein and veg/fruit) so he kind of gets main meals at both sittings! No wonder he's a chubster big boy! DD gets her main meal in the evening so over time, I will probably do the same for DS, i.e. finger foods at lunch (cucumber, cheese sticks, bread, etc).

Hope all the festive cheer and decorating is going well and speak to you all again soon.

P.S. Just to sympathise with those still not getting a clear run in the night - DS is still waking once for milk between 3 and 5 and since he's been ill, has also been crying out during the evening. I've had to deploy a dream feed on a number of occasions in addition to the middle-of-the-night bottle. I'm holding out for 9 months, when I hope that he starts to sleep through more as I'm sure that's the age that did it for DD.

Very quick one to say hello...back to work Monday, was in till 8pm last night and in again at 7.30 this morning (I have a mostly 9-5.30 office job). So not much of a gentle reintroduction to the world of work .
Re milk feed/breakfast, I fee DS as soon as he wakes up, and then he has Weetabix/Readybrek for breakfast at 8.30 ish.
My festive news - Alexander got to switch the christmas lights on at nursery as he's the youungest there. I was at work but DH saw him and said he was very good .

A quick one from me too. I've been lurking but not had much time to post & not much to say. No teeth from George still bit his daytime naps have settled back to 2-3hrs in the afternoon & he's eating well again. Still waking a couple of times a night though

Been busy busy with Christmas stuff - cards, mince pie making, shopping etc & also got a couple of busy weekends of visitors ahead. DS1 is loving all the Christmas stuff which is just as well as I am such a huge Christmas nut [nut]! George is pretty unimpressed with it all...

Meant to add that I tend to give George his breakfast first at 8 when DS is having his & then bf at 9 ish after DS has gone to nursery. But if he's woken extra early then I'll bf him first if it means there is a decent gap between milk & solids. If bf is too close he doesn't eat his breakfast.

Hi all,

Good to know what your routines are. Glad that not everyone is doing it one particuar way. Think I will keep giving a bf first as Eilidh seems to cope better with that...if its her Daddy she will eat all of her porridge before a milk feed but she won't do that for me

Sayitwithme, sounds like you have been having a rotten time. Eilidh was sick with her cough too and it was really gunky. How long have you all been coughing? Its been over a week now for Eilidh, maybe 9 days. Although she is much better, it is lingering a bit.

We are having sleep problems here, but its early evening when Eilidh is supposed to be going to bed. Some nights she is wide awake, refuses to feed and just seems happy to sit with us...its not happening! However, I don't know what to do about it! I can cope with middle of the night feeds if I can get some time to myself late evening

Good to hear from you all.

I know what you mean about the time to yourself in the evening. G & DS1 both go to bed around 7 so I can get about 3 hrs before I have to go to bed or G wakes up. If for some reason they go to bed late it just feels never ending & exhausting as I've has no chill out time with dh all day (nap times don't count as I'm usually rushing round getting stuff done round the house while they sleep!)

Just realised I was no help at all to you Haverina! is Eilidh having too much sleep in the afternoon so she's not tired for bed or not enough sleep so that she's overtired? George often sleeps for 3hrs in afternoon until 4.45 but is still really tired and ready for bed by 7!!

Uuuummmm I know it's late but may I join, DS was born in April, just turned 8 months. We are having a crap time sleep wise at the moment, teeth number 7 and 8 pushing through, we've been up since 3am! Trying to get him to nap now, but I expect the postman will wake him up as soon as he drops off!

If anyone is interested our routine is usually...
6:15 wake up and breastfeed
7:00 breakfast (porridge and/or fruit) followed by Thomas the Tank Engine and Noddy
8:30-9:30 nap followed by breastfeed
11:30 lunch (whatever purée I've taken out of the freezer, usually a meaty casserole followed by yogurt)
1:00-2:30 nap followed by snack (rusk, carrot stick, rice cake, toast) and breastfeed
4:30 dinner (usually a veggie purée - his favourite being cauliflower cheese)
7:00 breastfeed and bed
(we bath him 3 times a week, no more because he has eczema).
He usually wakes at 11:00 and 2:00, I desperately want to give up breastfeeding but he refuses formula out of a bottle and a cup! In fact I can't really get him to drink much out of a cup at all!

Welcome Guacamohohole! Your not too late at all! Thanks for sharing your routine...now I have some questions!!!...do you feed yout DS to sleep? We have gotten into this habit and although it was fine in the early days we have real difficulties in the evenings if E doesn't want a long feed as she then can't get herself off to sleep on her own

Zeeky, I feel the same if Eilidh isnt in bed before 8pm. I think nap times are ok? Eilidh has roughly 1-1.5 hours in the morning and 1.5-2 hours nap in the afternoon, usually around 2pm.

On amore positive note...we tried the Pantley withdrawal method last night and it seemed to work! During the night we had to have a couple of attemps but Eilidh self settled and tonight EIlidh went in to bed at 7.30pm no problem using the method...too good to be true? We shall see!

Yes we feed to sleep, it used to be so easy (which is why we fell into the habit of doing it) although it was interrupted sleep we used to get plenty! But it's got quite hard recently, in that I'll feed him, he'll nod off, but wake up the exact second I put him in the cot, it can now take an hour of trying to get him to sleep in the cot and he's on and off the boob the whole time.
We have decided to tackle this after Christmas by DH comforting him instead so that we stop feeding at night.

Regarding feeding at night. I used to and was really worrying about how to stop the cycle. Fortunately about 4 nights ago DS just seemed to stop himself. If I do hear him in the night I leave him to settle back himself which he is now doing so hopefully it will continue.

This is my third dc so I think I'm more relaxed about things as I know all the stages pass eventually :)

DS is now very active as he is crawling, pulling himself up and cruising round the furniture. This may also help his sleep routine you never know!

Just realised that I can't be too "relaxed about things" if I "was really worrying" about the feeding at night