FESH spa and creche: The Ultimate Destination for survivors of the Palace and Deli: Prologue

[CurlyCasperBaggedABairn]

Welcome weary travellers. It's been a long road, but you made it! Now, hard as it might be, leave your ESH spawn at the creche and step into the spa - where we have every treatment available to soothe your Amityville Horror undercarriage, ravaged raspberries and worn out wits. And - wait for it - we've got the bar back. And it's all-inclusive

So, what are you waiting for? Grab a glass, lower yourself into the jacuzzi and lets get chatting. We are Forever ESH!

P.S Children never cry here...

We seem to have lost some of our FESHes - they can't all be cluster feeding all the time!

Yesterday I felt a bit patronised by the paediatrician (male, 60s) who told me I must bf as much and as long as possible. I did consider asking him if he'd breastfed his own children and how his milk production went...

I read somewhere recently (mn maybe?) that health authorities in the UK are not allowed to "discuss" formula because it's the rules and I wondered if it were the same here. Formula clearly exists - the hospitals provide it but nowhere, NOWHERE will you find a leaflet on it. What's that all abaaaaaht?

Bear's mouth is already looking better with his medication although he doesn't much like it . Pulls the most extraordinary faces - have found putting it in and then giving a dummy means it goes in/down best and I suppose all that sucking means it gets sucked "in" to all those nooks & crannies in his mouth.

rots I used a nipple shield in hospital - he didn't have any problems latching on to it but the latch was more like a bottle latch than a breast latch. My nipple didn't fill the teat as such but the milk was drawn in to it and if I remember rightly it created a small vaccuum and he was able to feed.

Bear went 30 hours without a poo - then within 10 hours (2 within 30 minutes) I have dealt with poo on a gargantuan scale! I saw it described elsewhere on mn as "mango smoothie". Grim and yet hilarious at the same time. I fear if he were weighed this morning his stats would be somewhat less impressive. He was awake yesterday from around 7:30am until 9 with just a snatched hour or two in between and a lot of pure undiluted fury at the hospital (peed on his dad). It seems fury makes him pee & poo!

Btw - how is everyone getting on with their ML? I thought I'd be bored senseless but so far have barely thought about work - am kind of looking forward to getting back but am not going as stir crazy as I thought I would be.

I'm here. Was just busy yesterday as it was our anniversary.

There's no marital strife in this house, but that's only because we are both so exhausted and distracted by the bewildering task of dealing with two children. Especially when one of them has transformed overnight from adorable little angel to archetypal horror toddler. We spent our anniversary dinner staring across the table at each other saying 'what are we going to do?'. Clyde is so easy by comparison.

ski They are not allowed to promote formula for babies under 12 months. That is why all the ads are for so called 'follow-on milk' - a product which was invented purely so that FF companies could get their brand name into an ad showing babies and bottles without breaking the law. True.

rots I have not tried nipple shields but they look pretty big to me too.

ski The disruption caused by Bonnie at the gymkhana was more along the lines of 5000 decibel screaming tantrums every time we tried to stop her from throwing herself under the nearest set of flailing hooves. When we moved away from one ring I actually heard the man next to us say 'Oh, and I was just about to fetch my revolver.'

fanny Tbh, whilst undoubtedly I'll get a bit PFB-ish, I fully understand where that man was coming from and it would've been me a few years ago. You could always do an AIBU along the lines of "... to be disgusted that complete strangers are not fawning over my toddler?" Weird though - when I go out with Bear people melt - when is that magical cut-off date between adorable and "annoying"?

I haz just received MAC order! So soft! Will replace pillow on bed with bambinex for soft princessy like snooze.

ski My AIBU is more likely to be '.. to be suddenly highly motivated to return to work because I am horrified at the prospect of spending seven days a week in the company of my ghastly toddler?' Can you imagine the response?

I was that man too, once upon a time. I always wondered why people were 'indulging' their children. I didn't realise that they were at their wits' end and basically struggling to think of what to do next. I think I'm going to have to read some child taming books. I previously imagined I would have the perfectly groomed, articulate, polite children like you see in French restaurants. Not looking likely based on current form.

one-a-day gargantuan poos here too! usually does a second one during the nappy change.

i'm happy to be just a mum, but am all too aware of work woes, unfortunately

fanny She's not being indulged - she's an indigo child and it would be cruel and wrong of you to curtail her self-expression like that!

cunty funnily enuf I resorted to that last night (pinkie) as my nips were being burned off, and it seems to work a bit. He was clearly hungry, but couldn't feed. Sometimes he'd do a huuuge burp and then feed really well for about 15 minutes, then the cycle would start again. I also got the dummies out again and that helped. Unfortunately by about midnight he was starving so fed for an hour - but after a dose of infacol (maybe coincidence?) he gave a good burp and that last hour was settled.

Unfortunately he then settled in the carrycot after doing a big poo so we had to get him up again to change him - and he got very annoyed and it took YOB an hour to get him back to sleep (no boobs required = his baybee).

It's not every night but that was the worst ever. I was surprised, though, that I wasn't stressed, other than finding it tough to see him distressed, but we both coped ok. Prob because the last two nights were fairly sleep filled (relatively speaking!).

OK re nipple shields, thanks for feedback. I'll give them another go. Thrush is massively improved but I'm still stuck with sore end of nips so will have a crack at positioning again. Nothing like as bad as it was, though.

ski I don't think there's enough information about formula, myself. There's lots about "breast is best" and lists of the problems formula can cause (the ones we all know, eg gastroenteritis, ear infections etc) but no real information on what the actual statistics are - nothing to give a proper informed choice, I feel.

cunty you're having the windmill arms thing, right? Don't you find the BF photos of little babies with beautifully opened mouths ready to latch really irritating? Comma never opens his mouth that much which I think is part of my problem.

ski glad everything arrived ok. Sorry about the delay though due to mum being on her own and it took a few days for her to work out a few things (order changed from original order, how to pack it as I always do that for overseas orders, etc). Don't forget to wash the nappies 2-3 times before use (no need to use detergent or to dry them in between).

ski Does 'self-expression' equate to ruining other people's days and dashing into high speed traffic? If so she must be indigo.

rots I agree re the BF leaflet photos. I suspect that for the photos they have replaced real babies with little sparrows dressed as babies. Otherwise how did they get a real baby to tip their head back and open their mouth so wide?

fanny Well from what I remember from the indigo child threads Yes, it allows for all sorts of "bad" behaviour to be excused - to try and reprimand her would simply stifle her brilliance!

rots Eep? I changed the order? Sorry - I hadn't realised I'd done that. Your mum had put in a yellow sheet saying I need to soak them overnight then wash 3 times. Right now he's still in the disposables and it's not as if we're planning on running out immediately.

Bear sounds like a dirty prank caller when he's really hungry at the boobs. "urgh ugh umph aaagh uuugh uugh aaatgh".

ski 'pparently you did but I'm not there so who knows

Oh the yellow sheet comes with the Bambinex kit, it's not what we've written. Don't bother soaking overnight, just wash them. You might want to save a few sposies just in case you run out and don't get the Bambinex dry quickly enough. I'm loving our teddy ones - they're wonderful. The bamboo ones asre gorgeous but take a long time to dry which is a pain. They're the most absorbant though so are fabulous for overnight.

Loving the indigo child stuff. I may use that as a excuse .

Hi all, I have breast feeding question... How long do you do before switching sides? Or do you just do one aide for one feed and the other for the next? All the conflicting info is confusing me....

Oh yeah... I also get the flailing/ won't latch thing, then randomly it stops... Seems to be wind related tho... As is better now I am better at burping her...

Hope you all ok. Have no time to post at the mo... Is constant visitors and babycare!

Hello mummies, marking place is all.

Hi iggy, good to see you. Theoretically you keep them on the first side until they come off themselves and act like they've finished, then you offer them the other side. The next time you start with the side you finished with last time. But I often just have a one-sided feed, then do the other side next time. If I can remember which side it was.

Sounds like it is going OK for you?

cossie What does this signify? Have you a feeling you might be here sooner rather than later?

fanny no, just nosy

iggy we have found that swaddling Comma helped as he couldn't then flail away from the breast.

Re how long to stay on, what fanny said with the only proviso that that's a rule of thumb and for specific BF problems you may be given advice to do something different (eg stay on one side for 2-3 feeds). It doesn't mean that advice is wrong.

Every nappy I change has poo in it. This child can produce waste on the scale of a small city. Mind, he eats for Britain so it's hardly surprising. @ mango puree...

rots I'm swapping him over from a cradle to a rugby ball hold when he starts flailing and that seems to surprise him into decent suckling for a while . It also gives the same parts of my nips which get the gumming a rest from time to time.

iggs I generally do as rots does. I know they say you should always offer the other, but frankly I like to preserve one nip for later feeding, given that Rastus hangs off them at every opportunity. If I used them both at each feed they'd have fallen off by now... Hope you are getting on OK - is it you that has the in-laws near the Common? If so, once you're up and about we must meet for a brew and a muffin at the Windmill.

Sorry, I do what fanny does re BF

Ladies - whilst your nipples may feel like they're falling off and you never sleep - at least you can sleep soundly in the knowledge that you'll look like Giselle Bundchen by christmas.

I haz had horrible gin-non-related incident. Asked jailbait to fetch me a G&T last night as I had all the ingredients in. Alas, no blue cornered bottle to be found!

If indigo children are brilliant, intelligent, kind, loving, warm, generous and have a sixth sense - which qualities do puce children have?

PS I haz noticed cossie loitering around here again - clearly expects to be here soon!

Oh and can someone remove my creditcard before the bank does? Did muddypuddles and joules yesterday.

Comma is a puce child. At least, that was the best way to describe his colour as he screamed through a colic attack last night.

As mentioned elsewhere, homeopathy seemed to do the trick. Now, I'm a big HP fan but in my experience it either works really well, or not at all (the latter probably meaning it's the wrong treatment) but I am just desperately hoping that it DID help, and therefore can be replicated.

I really don't expect to be here for at least 3 weeks, I think Artie is very comfy in there, I just like to catch up with you all.

People have said that before...