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...

rots But surely 15 sit ups should have reduced your tum tum down to nothing? Agree trousers must have shrunk very badly indeed.

I am having a bad time with this transition to bottles, and it's got me quite down. Am going to go out this afternoon (if I can get him off me) as I don't wish to go completely nutty just yet.

Quite, fanny. Must buy new one.

It's not like you don't know this and I'm sorry if I'm being patronising :( but is it def feeding and not comfort sucking? Dummy no help? I know how trapped you can feel and I really feel for you. It will pass and even this phase will only last another few days I'm sure, but it feels like hell and forever doesn't it. But it will pass. I often feel like not a proper person as I can't even put a pile of washing away, never mind read LC a story or do some work. But I also know I will miss babyhood when it passes and it is so fleeting.

MIL day out cancelled. LC home with tummy bug and currently tucked up on sofa with duvet and bowl, poor mite :(

ski you went swimming?

so my post didn't appear when laptop crashed this morning. Bugger Having 'puter troubles and have a greetin' wean myself. So not hanging around I'm afraid.

rots I did indeed! Everyone was most impressed with his MAC swimmers! :)

Same at our pool too!! He was a bobby dazzler (although Hom swore a bit trying to get the little shorts on him)

Don't fight it FP - Joues does great clothes, not just polo shirts.

Another vote for great NCT frends Silver - I still meet up regularly with my lot and we're doing a big 2nd Birthday party for them all tomorrow...wow - where did those two years go???
Our yard is mostly senior laydees (re-living their youth) so not a lot of bitching goes on - I feel very lucky.

at the grizzly baybees - it does get better, I promise.

casp I'm sure your lost post was brilliant, witty and supportive!

rots Yes, you are right and I have already thought about these things. Quite a lot of it is definitely comfort sucking, but frankly he won't be comforted by anything else! He won't take a dummy, and this is part of the problem that I need help with.

He seems to gag on the dummy, which is also what he is doing with the bottle. He has a strange action. He takes the teat or dummy in the side of his mouth and pushes it out with his tongue. If he actually takes it properly in his mouth that's when he gags. It's quite distressing. I feel horrible trying to make him take a dummy but he keeps crying for more milk. He is well above weight so I can only assume he is already getting plenty.

MrP just tried to give him a bottle of expressed milk and he gagged, refused, and cried to the point of being hysterical. I just couldn't listen and went away. In the end MrP rocked him to sleep.

I am exhausted and feel I just can't keep up the exclusive BF. I really need him to accept bottles just for my sanity.

We've tried different teats, and I've tried leaving the room. The only time MrP has succeeded is when I was completely out of the house.

Sorry for all the moaning and me, me, me. If anyone has any more tips on how to get a BF baby to take a bottle or dummy I'd be eternally grateful.

Will he suck your finger?

fp as you know I know shit all about baybees not never having one but is it worth getting his mouth checked out?

Yard is generally not a bitchy one and if there is bitching I never hear it! So clearly they must be biatcing about meeeeeeee!!

ski cannot share details on here but let's just say ML cannot come soon enuff.

Urgh - it's going to be one of those days isn't it?

Bear greeting - thought he might be constipated so bummed him with a vaseline covered thermometer and did bicycle legs. Sure enough a poo (or series of rather) of gargantuan proportions emerged. Smiley baby for about 15 minutes. Then, screamy baby for about an hour.

Frazzled, I pack up him, the dogs leads, shopping bags and set off down the corridor to the lift. Lift doors open and little dog got in, big dog refused to get in. So I'm in a situation with either leaving one to roam the corridors or sending the other down to the basement on its own. Managed to jam the lift doors (not using baybee) and was just delivering the mother of all tellings off when the other lift doors opened and a neighbour came out and gave me the BADMUMMY look. Bear was of course still howling and by now both dogs were shaking and quivering with "fear".

Halfway down in the lift realised I'd left Bear's cardi upstairs - couldn't be arsed to go and get it. Driving to jailbait's work to pick him up I hit a pigeon and there was an explosion of feathers.

So because of lack of cardi, daddy had to sit in the car with baybee whilst I walked the dogs on my own - so not the family outing I'd planned.

Aaaaaaaaaaargh. Oooh 10:52 am - 8 minutes 'til gin-o-clock!

silver Well I hope things work out in the future. My position was left very "up in the air" when I went on ML. Not in the sense of me not having a job - but there being very little in the way of work for me.

Spoke to the guy a few times more yesterday and he wants me to work at a bank in Utrecht - good benefits. Trouble is, I've really lost my nerve - I've been in my current job 10 years and in that time have battled mental health problems and just lost all my confidence really. Any tips anyone? He says my CV & experience is great and I know/work with a lot of heavy hitters in my industry. Yet I find myself (last year) offering to take on secretarial duties... :(

Ditto work woes: huge change programme at work which means that when I go back I will be reporting to a different Director. Was looking forward to it cos the said Director is a lovely man, v supportive of our work (those in the know will be aware that my cohort are slightly less popular than the nazis). Sadly, he is now leaving and the rumoured person taking over is Not Friends With Our Work, and I dislike them personally. Ace.

Christ y'all. Sympathy all round deeply felt but quicky wrote as T crying when put down so have to type fast.

fan try dummies with different teat styles and try feeding milk with cup?? Check for tongue tie or other mouth probs? GP/HV visit? Sling/carrier to settle?

ski :( Will call you.

cunty bad news :(

Sorry all. Thinking of you but screaming bub I can't bear to hear it anymore and have to stop.

It's now getting on for 3pm and yes, it's one of those days.

Comma currently in pram by front door cry, cry, crying. Clean, fed, warm, dry, safe but outside and I'm inside with radio on trying to ignore crying. Call social services on me if you want, but I am Going Insane and have had to Walk Away. For 5 minutes, tis all. But I am doing it.

Have done nothing all day but sort washing, clean kitchen a bit, try to get lunch (just had some toast). Back killing me from sorting washing with him in sling. It's great when walking but not for bending down.

Just off to sailing club to get out of the house. YOB home about 5ish so not long now.

Altogether now... "This will pass, this will pass, this will pass"

Poor rots. :( Tomorrow BBC2 at 4pm UK time (I think) - Burghley horse trials. Turn up the volume, place Comma on the dog and pretend you're jumping against the clock?

That's pretty much my plan for tomorrow. :)

Hang in there rots - it's nearly cocktail hour. For every one unit of alcohol you should place a slice of fruit around the rim of your glass. 5 a day will do you grand, 10 and the baybee gets healthier too... plus less risk of scurvy!

That brie we put out for cossie has blue veins running through it now. Should we bin it or save it for her?

Is it practically driblling off the plate Ski? Oh, yum!

Where has the day gone!!!!!!! I left the house at 830 and can you beleive I have not been home long. Day filled with yard ishoos and general shit.

Him Indoors chose today to decide he wanted to spend the afternoon together. Nice idea but would have been good to have some bloody notice. Cue shirty ass cos I am tied up with hoss things !!!! I have come home to find dinner on, man gone, but kitchen full of clean laundry (left there since earlier in the week) yet they now reek of slow cooked lamb. Arggggghh.

House is a mess and I am grumpy and over tired.

Come join me in a whinge everyone - I haz gin, Pernod and sambuca cocktails on offer and if things get really bad I have got some absinthe lurking that needs necking.

FP - Playtex bottles and nipples apparently have worked for friends that have had issues getting BF babies to take bottles. Think Cheggs said these were the only ones kind of working for her too. I thought tounge tie babes had issues breast feeding too rots

okie yes, I'd assume they would all the time, but a friend has just found that her 9 month old had a tongue tie yet was fully BF until recently. I know very little about it but thought it was worth looking at. It also occured to me, fanny, that if he's constantly attached it may be because he's taking ages to get what he needs because of something like that? It's a long shot I know and obviously you're not new to this but I'm just throwing things out. I was thinking of you today because I was at the end of my tether by mid afternoon and thinking what you said about being constantly attached, either literally or because he won't go long enough without you.

Comma has spent the whole day either sleeping (which he's done for about an hour), being carried/held/fed or crying. It's been really tough. I'm trying to go dairy free but am failing and can't understand how hard it is to just not eat/drink stuff with dairy in. If my baby needs it why can't I do it? I'm feeling a complete failure. Also the riding stables say max weight of 11.5 stone which is a real blow as I wanted to start to ride to lose weight, ironically.

I was stopped by a lady yesterday when shopping who raved over Comma and kept telling me how lucky I am, then explained it by saying that her daughter can't have children and her other daughter lives in Australia and she doesn't see her grandchildren.

I feel so awful when I'm going through the "I want to give him back" moments. He is adorable and gorgeous but sometimes I just feel that I'm not good enough by not figuring out what's wrong, and why he's crying, or that I'm not doing everything I can to fix it by actually following the dairy-free diet. I feel guilty that I am so lucky to have two sweet and perfect little boys and I'm feeling stressed about it all.

I am ok, I'm not depressed or anything, just had a tough day. Tomorrow will be better.

fanny interesting what you say about him gagging on the teat. That must be really upsetting :( . I realise you'd said you'd tried different teats - sorry I mentioned this again, I was too rushed to read your post properly and I was thinking of the HV who suggested to me that we tried a different dummy teat. I was using a flat one (the ones which are supposed to be better for the mouth) and I then tried the cherry type which he preferred. But it sounds like something much more fundamental. Have you spoken to a BF counsellor? They may be able to help with the breast to teat transition.

Yob came home, had been at a funeral dahn sahth. I wasn't able to go as there wasn't enough room in the vehicle but I went to the sailing club instead this afternoon to get some human company which was nice, although I fell asleep with Comma on the boob and woke up (only 5 minutes later) showing a bit more than I would want to . Anyway, he came home and sorted out a chinese for us and I'm feeling much happier now he's here.

As ski said to me today, thank goodness i have him. He's a gem :)

fanny interesting feeding cup thing

Although it says it's for special needs babies who struggle to suck, I've done some searching and it seems to be good for BF babies who won't take a bottle and I thought it may be worth a try.

this one has a method of getting them to take a bottle but I'm not sure...

Doing some more searches for you. Apparently stroking the cheek gently when offering the teat (dummy or bottle) encourages the sucking instinct. I'm going to try that with Comma tomorrow to try to get him to take a dummy.

bit of a repeat of above but I can't find anything else

Sorry fanny. I wish I could solve this for you :( Hang on in there and keep trying different things.

rots Look around for other riding schools... or, turn up and not tell them your weight. This is something which really annoys me. At my yard there are only actually a couple of girls who weigh less than 10 stone, most are around the 11 stone mark and one girl is 110 kg! Horses are not made of tissue paper! There is a holiday centre in Scotland which uses Clydesdales and their upper limit is 11 stone! WTF? Friends of the family own a trekking centre and their weight limit is 12 stone which they think is enormous... 'course she's been 7 stone all her life and he was 9 stone - so to them, 12 stone is a giant. I doubt boxer put an 11 stone limit on her boy when she sold him! Also, it's not like you're a beginner bouncing around on the back. :( There's a forum called plusrider or something like that where there's a list of riding schools sympathetic to those who don't turn up in size 8 Pikeur jods. Hang on in there - an hour on the horse will make you feel like a new woman again and it's a bloody good excuse not to get off and bf for an hour!

Being as the idea of these threads is to help each other out I thought I'd share this: Warning: Baby Mexx clothes come out tiny. Bear isn't the biggest boy in town but I've had to put away a romper size 3-6 months - yet his NEXT stuff 0-3 months will do him until he is a fair bit bigger (imo). It's also stayed really soft and is easy to put on. One of the Mexx outfits I had (up to 3 months - bear in mind he was a preemie ) was a real fucker to put on. Jojomamanbebe stuff we were given is a really nice quality and good fit even over the washable nappies. C&A stuff comes up small. Tesco Cherokee stuff is surprisingly nice too and generous in sizing.

I'll chuck in that Zara tops come up small, but their trews are akin to a clown's