July 2005 babies

[AussieSim]

Welcome all those with fresh new babies. Oh the joys and tribulations. Post the lot here!

I hope I haven't overlooked a previous thread here for us. Anyway, here goes.

DS2 was due 3 July but arrived 29 June, 9lb 6oz. He has been growing nicely and is 4 weeks old today. I am breastfeeding and have already had mastitis and thrush but am pushing on with it. Biggest problem is sometimes he sleeps too long in the day and then wakes up a lot in the night, not that he stays awake for long, just long enough to feed and go back to sleep. The Midwife says that I shouldn't worry about his lack of wakefulness for the moment in the absence of any other issues, and to see how he is going around the 6 week mark. She also said I should wake him up during the day, which I have been reluctant to do, but I think I will have to do. Anyone else got an overly sleepy baby who doesn't seem to be growing out of it quickly enough?

Hello everyone. Where does the time go?

Lovely pics Merryberry, what a cutie Vin is, and holiday looked lovely.

Glad everyone is doing well. Things are fine here if a bit out of control at times. Had a tough couple of weeks coping, started wondering what the hell I had done having a 3rd, but we seem to be a bit calmer, or rather I have submitted to the chaos a bit better (pretty tough for a control freak).

Not doing so well on the school run. Was late yesterday as ds decided he would be a very very slow train all teh way there, so today couldnt face being late again so hopped in car. Unfortunately we then go gridlocked on teh road to school and could have walked quicker. We were later than ever. To cap it off when I parked back at home I badly damaged car wheel on the kerb - its 3 weeks old!!!!!!!! Nearly cried but decided to eat biscuits instead!

DD2 at specialist next friday for her birthmark which is now magnificent and drooping over her eye slightly. Its funny that it is such a significant part of her face and yet chances are she will never know herself with it.

Oh, and I started running! I foolishly signed up to do a race with 2 friends in November, so I have to get from unfit to being able to run 10K in 6 weeks. Well at least it has motivated me to start doing something about the very stubborn baby weight (she says whilst tucking into her comfort packet of biscuits!

what a lovely set of holiday pics, merryberry, I am very envious and will now start the holiday campaign with dh. His sister and brother in law moved to the Washington DC just before Dulcie was born so they are yet to meet her- and that are only 4 hours drive from NYC... my credit card is twitching just thinking about it!
Mrs D, I would be happy to help with your booze requirements, I will get into practise right now and come up with some suggestions!
I am now spending spare time selling things on ebay as we are moving house just after Christmas and need to de-clutter, it's so much fun and I am getting a bit carried away... I will probably end up selling dh.... (buy it now £20)...

hi all. Lovely photos mb.

dd has discovered thumb fits in mouth. cute.

today I got a mouthful of baby milk vom when I was giving her a kiss on the changing mat. ewwwwwww.

didn't taste too bad, actually.

thanks guys, we had a magic time.

ds and i started baby massage classes yesterday. boy he loved it! did what we were taught with mum inprovisations today - he continues to love it. what a winner!

anyone else doing it?

i also did a dvd bhagra dance class - first non-water exercise for months. Wow, knackering.

Our health visitors run a baby massage class which I'm planning on joining. I've also signed dd up for swimming! I did it with ds1 in the hydrotherapy pool at Guy's. It's brilliant. We're doing this one

I've got her a little pink swimsuit and if she gets chilly they do baby wetsuits!

I was going to go to the one in Triyoga, Primrose Hill, but I get a 'women only' vibe from reading the blurb. Which class did you go to mb, and erm, were there any dads ?

baby wetsuits mrsd, quick, where's my credit card! lovely pics merryberry, looks like vin had a great time.

dd is so nosy, always trying to sit up & look around. had another good night last night - i actually slept from 11 to 7 with no wakings to check either child. i felt like a new woman this morning!

i think my diet is about to go into reverse as the corner shop has started stocking green & blacks .

of your nights HC. As your nights are getting better, ours are getting worse. DD is more reluctant to go to sleep on her own and seems to want to be cuddled all night. I'm happy to oblige except I could do with a bit of sleep myself.

There is a specialist chocolate shop round the corner from me that sells the most scrumptious chocolates. The locl newsagent is doing a special offer on Cadbury's, and as I am starving hungry all the time I am abandoning all pretence at dieting!

I forgot earlier - MB, your pics are lovely and Vin is gorgeous

Harriet keeps trying to get herself upright. She's a long way from being able to do so but somehow she feels so much less floppy now - when I prop her up on my lap or my legs she no longer slumps in a heap, but looks all around her and wants to see what's going on. I'm finding bits of hair on her sheet as she rubs it off - it's a mark of my devotion that I find it terribly sweet

PLEASE STOP WITH THE C*CLATE word. dp and i are trying to be good after months of indulgence in the face of new parenthood.

H2D - it's a sure start one in kentish sure start area, 'fraid it's also full:-( how about when i've learnt a bit more i pass it on to you guys? tho you should be a um, maninist and go to triyoga. i have to say i find the vibe there teethgrindingly self-conscious though. no one feels that relaxed, which is naff for a yoga place, je crois. oh yeah, dp came to the first massage class. they were terribly right on about it but i could see it was VERY novel in their reaction.

now everyone what do you think about this - they were telling me about a mother and baby swimming class. that's something dp is well into doing with vin and is ata time he could. but the sure start people said, oh no, we are talking about starting a dad and baby one, sorry.

i am a bit taken aback by all this gender apartheid. is it normal in parenting?

I think fair enough if the object of the class is to talk about pelvic floors and nipples, but it's a swimming class for heaven's sake! What if you were at work full-time and he was the main carer (awful word!), or you had a male nanny? I think I'd sign up for it without making an issue of Vin being accompanied by his father and just turn up.

Morning all! I am being a VERY bad mummy - ds2 is in front of a baby einstein dvd whilst I have a cuppa and sneak on here . I feel very bad about it but I neeeeed a break!

Merryberry, super pics - Vin looks so lovely and your holiday looked fab. We have just realised how much it is going to cost to go away now that ds1 is at school - dh had a real fright when he realised that Centre Parcs was booked up for half term - serves us right for not getting our fingers out earlier really.

I would just go to the swimming classes also. It shouldn't make a difference like Mrsd says unless the focus is specifically post-natal.

Harriet, snap! I had all my hair chopped off last week as I got fed up with ds2 grabbing it and swinging off it . So much easier to manage now although ds2 is a bit miffed! I am very impressed with all your Ebaying. DH keeps nagging at me to ebay dds stuff which takes up most of the loft but I just never seem to get around to it.

Mrsd, we are still cuddling ds2 in our sleep, which is lovely but I am also finding it knackering. DH buys me Green and Blacks from the supermarket so is preventing me from dieting at the moment. Before I forget, keep meaning to ask you if you want to meet up sometime. I am finding it easier now that the two older children are at school/pre-school and am acutely aware that ds2 has no friends yet! If you feel like it then send me a CAT and we can sort something out.

Must dash now, dd needs picking up from nursery and I'm now late!

Hello all. Don't know how long I'll have here before laptop battery goes... But, I wanted to tell everyone how brill dh was today. He looked after the girls from 6.15pm until 7.45 whilst I went to Yoga! That's the worst time of the day for me. Felt brilliant to do some exercise. Well done on the running Pinkmamma. I managed 4 runs whilst on holiday, but haven't been able to get out since I get back. I always worry about running in the evening 'cos of milk levels. What time of day did you go? dd2 refuses a bottle (aargh!), she will only have the draft stuff so I've got to be careful in the evenings which seems to be the only time I can get a chance to go out.

Merryberry your holiday photos look brilliant. Swimming in the sea - I could do that! Where did you go? (Have I missed something?)

We've also started Surestart baby massage. dd2 loves it. They're also doing a baby yoga class which is brilliant. She's happy throughout the class and then sleeps for 4 hours on our return.

As to the nights, they're getting worse for us. Not better. She had been sleeping from 11-7 (or whenever dd1 woke her), but last night she woke up 3 times. Am I doing anything wrong? Any tips greatly appreciated.

Better go - getting another low battery alert.

thanks belo - we were in gozo, malta's little sister. for the peace and quiet. got fleas! yuck, but hol amazing. whcih sure start area do you live in belo?

anyway, doing a day of 'stuff' the stuff that makes our little world go round. off i potter.

One off or the start of something big ????

dd gave us our first continuous night ! Way to go, baby bean.

Now... I wonder if we'll get a repeat peformance tonight or later this week ???

oh you will get more for a few weeks and then just as you get cocky/rely on the nights they hit their 3 month growth spurt and regress to extra feeds in the night.

GGGGRRRRRRR, says the voice of sad experience

still i hear that you get over this hump and its plainer sailing til the night terrors and toddler wanderings start.

LOL, mb.

Has anyone else started giving them double doses of calpol at night too ?

(JOKE)

Just been to see the health visitor and she has confirmed that we've hit the 3 month growth spurt. We've had 2 nights running of 3 feeds a night. dd2 is now 13lbs 6ozs though. She'll be 3 months exactly on Saturday.

We're in the SE19 surestart area MB. The number of activities they put on is brilliant. Especially for our elder one. Would you recommend Gozo? It certainlly looked idillic from your pics. We're thinking of trying to get a holiday organised before I go back to work. Do you know what the weather would be like in Jan? Oh dear with teh fleas though. Yuck. I managed to get scabies on my henweekend along with 1/2 of my friends!

isn't sure start wonderful. ds goes to a fantastic nursery which costs us £20/day (& they get organic food from waitrose ). in the past couple of weeks we've been to a breastfeeding group, gymnastics & art class, all free. fab. must find some stuff for dd & i to do together.

dd's tb jab looks really horrid, all swollen & red, poor love. her wriggling is definitely progressing - when she woke up this morning she'd wriggled 90 degrees round the cot & looked rather squashed!

ds ain't that wiggly yet HC. but he has just had a session of erm, spanking the monkey - no not that one the one in his play gym - so he's finally getting it together to do stuff with his hands. oh the excitement. quote me in a years time when i am wondering about child restraints...cackle

belo - i would recommend gozo, and malta for a fly and flop holiday but only in spring/autu,m if you want sun and heat. summer is scorchio. it is lovely bright but cooler in the winter. also, no big sandy beaches it is more rocky inlets etc. on the plus side though the food was fine, the hotel immaculate except the outdoor cats infested our loungers and everyone speaks english and adores kids.

its like england in the 50s in terms of safe, polite and friendly. and is moslty full of our pensioners enjoying same. also only a 3 hour flight. we stayed in a 5 star hotel that was more 4 star (common for malta hotels from my conference experiences) however, it was also shed loads cheaper than a real 5*.

we took the helicopter from malta airport to gozo - what a blast. real reason we went ? dp insisted we went somewhere fully english speaking for our first holiday with first born.

way to go vin

merryberry, I have been to Gozo twice and absolutely loved it too. I tried to get dh there on our honeymoon as well but we both fell in love with this place in italy and ended up there. The people are so lovely in Gozo and you could even run into the Maffia like we did- the men took their sun lougers into the pool and smoked cigars and played cards, it would have been hilarious had we not been terrified! My mother even stopped the Maffia family's kids from running away one night when the parents had gone out and left them with the maids- in the morning there was this huge bunch of flowers on our doorstep, but no horses' heads unfortunately.
Anyway, back to babies! Darling Dulcie is also trying to sit up and gets so frustrated she starts crying, then falls asleep with exhaustion. We are having a lovely time at night too at the mo, last night she slept from 7pm until 5.30 with one sleepy feed- hoorah! wonder how long this will last...
I am not going to mention the cho*ate word either as am getting way too fat just sitting about waiting to get better, I have resorted to go-ahead biscuits too. It's a sad day all round.
On a lighter note, am happily almost making as much money as I am spending on eBay so hurrah for guilt-free shopping!

dd has just had a strop 'cos i was having a nice chat & cuddle with her & what she really wanted was to shriek at her toys & hit them. dp's tie has taken a serious mauling tonight too.

harriett, i really need to get into e-bay selling, am just obsessively buying atm....

Did either of you buy those adorable shoes with pigs on them?
I'm receiving a parcel a day at the moment

my latest purchase is a cow print buggy snuggle

Hi Guys

Sorry I haven't been around for a bit, but you all seem to be in good spirits and coping well.

I am quite unbearable when sleep-deprived, as my poor DH can attest. That is why I have managed to get on here now, my DS2 (14.5wks)and exclusively breastfed has slept through from 7pm to 7am for the last three nights! I actually have to go and wake him in the morning! My DS1 didn't manage it until about 4.5mths old so I wasn't expecting it, but like his older brother it coincided with him figuring out how to suck on his thumb! In the days before he was waking 2 or more times in the night and then just WHAMMO! What luck! I can't get the smile off my face and my DH is looking a lot more relaxed too. I'd better go and get my mini-pill prescription filled.

My latest exciting purchase is a sit n stand stroller which DS2's car seat fits into and which DS1 loves to climb onto. It is great for shopping and DS1 loves looking at me as we walk around and if he is asleep it is so easy just to pop his car seat in and out of it.

I have started a diet one week ago and already feel a bit better about myself. It is breast-feeding friendly and I never let myself feel really really hungry without grabbing a piece of fruit. My DH is on it too. The hardest thing is preparing DS1's favourite pasta dishes for him. I also started back at Pilates, thankfully they have a little creche which is ideal for DS2.

Bye for now, Sim