Due June 2022 (thread four)

[PeeAche]

Well, aren't we a chatty lot?

Catching up, sorry for numerous posts!

@Imhereforthecake congratulations on the scan

@stayignorant congratulations on your baby xxx

@GabsK92 welcome to the group. I’d definitely research groups online in your local area. I wish I’d done this with DS as I didn’t know anyone who was pregnant then.

@Willow1981 keeping everything crossed for you, hope you are ok xxx

Also, beautiful cat 😍

Scan is tomorrow morning so another sleepless night ahead. On the plus side, no more bleeding since last night.

@Willow1981 that’s really positive that there’s no more bleeding, good luck tomorrow, will be thinking of you

@Willow1981 my advice to you now is the same as to all the ladies at 6 weeks...

Get those Christmas Netflix movies on the go. They're the exact antidote to a fretful 48 hours.

I watched Love Hard recently and it was the best day of my week. I'm not ashamed to admit that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@willow1981 great that they can see you soon, and sounds positive that bleeding has stopped. I bled what felt like buckets and little one was just fine, so don't despair. I second some nice distraction therapy.

@Prema112 I still have cramps too, not lower back but feels like period pains. I can jiggle round and get into a position where I don’t feel it as much but it does make me nervous.

@CurryandSnuggle to the list to consider re buggies, I’d add height. Babyzen and others are marvellous but so bloody low if you’re relatively tall, as I am. Uppababy and Stokke are good if you or your partner are tall.

@MrsNT hold off re breast pumps, if you can. They’re bloody expensive and I rarely had time to actually use one as, in between actual feeds, it’s the last bloody thing you feel like doing. What I do recommend is one of those very cheap Haakaa hand pumps, as there will be moments when you feel your breasts are going to explode and you want to relieve the pressure but capture the milk.

@PeeAche Good list of essentials. I’d also add, if you think you might combine breastfeeding with the odd bottle (I highly recommend it - still have the benefits of breastfeeding but, in our case, I would go to bed at seven pm and let husband do the first feed or so of the evening with a bottle - good for him re bonding and the sleep kept me sane), is a Perfect Prep machine. At first I thought they were a con, but, making a bottle from powder when you need it NOW, as will generally be the case, makes it a game changer.

@alhctps thanks for the tips.. ive saved hakka pump on my amazon list as it looked good and is cheap. And yes if i do go for formula which I think I will at some point..ill defo get the milk prep machine. Ive seen my siblings making milk and then try to cool it while their baby is screaming .it seems stressful

Whats the best place to see the prams/pushchairs in real.. is it mama and papas or john lewis or any other store.will check in new yr

@ALHCTPS agree fully with the breast pump advice. I honestly used to hate doing it as it took so long and it was the last thing I wanted to do during precious nap time!

@MrsNT exactly. It’s one thing when it’s one bottle a day, as we were for a long time. Though boiling and then letting water cool for twenty minutes and not forgetting it and having to start over is not something you want to be bothering with when sleep deprived. But I thought I could get along without a fancy machine, until we started moving away from breast to bottle as I prepared to go back to work. We bought the Perfect Prep on sale and it made all the difference. Instant water at the exact temperature you need sounds like a small thing but it’s not.

PS I also wanted my baby to accept a bottle even though I mainly breastfed because I knew babies who were utter bottle refusers and was paranoid I’d die suddenly and my baby would starve to death. Do NOT try to reason with a sleep deprived new mother.

@MrsNT we looked at both John Lewis and Mamas and Papas for our daughter, and between them they covered most bases. Maybe John Lewis had a slightly wider range. It does slightly depend how big the shops are. We live in London so went to Westfield, which I instantly regretted. Yes, the shops were all close together, but also very small, so had pretty limited ranges in stock. I was already in my third trimester by then, so didn’t have the energy to trekk anywhere else. Hopefully that won’t be the case where you are!

@ALHCTPS hahaha you crack me up. True though, I agree with starting early (even though some argue that it causes “nipple confusion”) as I know of lots of babies who refused a bottle, then mother was permanently tied to the home and feeding. Which is frustrating if you want time to yourself/need sleep/want a rare night out etc

@MrsNT John Lewis always worth a visit but they’re not as good as they once were. Much more limited range and service patchy. I threw a fit at a pushy assistant who would have been more at home on a used car lot (young male and clearly not a parent) trying to suggest that if we didn’t buy the most expensive pushchair possible we were failing as parents. In John Lewis!!!!!! But we’ve had excellent old school JL service too, so hopefully he was an outlier. Mamas and Papas seem good too. No one place seems to stock everything. But you will use the buggy every sodding day so it’s worth seeing as man6 as possible and talking to as many people as possible and even accosting people in the street. We bought pretty much everything but the buggy second hand.

[quote CurryandSnuggle]@ALHCTPS agree fully with the breast pump advice. I honestly used to hate doing it as it took so long and it was the last thing I wanted to do during precious nap time![/quote]
Me too, and also I found I couldn’t get as much milk through pumping as my daughter seemed to be able to get directly. So I used our Medela a total of twice.

@CurryandSnuggle I firmly believe every child is different, so you never know what shit they’re going to pull. My little boy was fine with the odd bottle and, as you say, it meant I wasn’t his sole source of nutrition. Others might well have got confused. But it was so important for my husband to have that one on one time. Solely breastfeeding would have excluded him a bit. He’d do the early evening feed while watching Walking Dead for the first few months, while I caught up on much needed sleep, and both father and son were happy as Larry. That said, my son might have breastfed longer if a bottle hadn’t have been an option. He essentially ditched me, rather than needing to be weaned, at 8-10 months, as he increasingly would only feed in a dark room with no other stimulation, which was massively inconvenient, while with a bottle he could chug it down while doing other things, which he patently preferred.

Someone mentioned slings. I can’t recommend them enough. The baby is all tucked in and secure, right up against your heartbeat, so more likely to sleep, and you are MOBILE and HAVE USE OF YOUR ARMS!!!! Do not underestimate how vital this will be. Babies want to be carried a LOT (so much so my husband got a frozen shoulder), and I think the sling is the closest feeling to being back in the womb. I never got on with the structured ones as I struggled with the clips. The ones that are like long pieces of stretchy fabric look intimidating to wrap and tie but are a piece of piss once you get the hang of them and much more adaptable and, to my mind, comfortable. That said, my husband always looked wrong using it as he never got the hang of tying it and always looked like he’d gaffa taped our baby to himself.

Thanks ladies..i really want to see the pushchair in person before buying regardless of where I buy it from. Dont want something too big for me to handle😂 John Lewis in Kingston is a big store and Mamas and Papas Farnbrough branch. Both are about less than 1hr drive.
I was considering going to westfield to check but as one of the ladies above said..ill skip it
And as above .. I want to breastfeed as long as I cut but also let baby get used to bottle. Ive seen too many cases where baby refuses to take bottle.but then on some videos on Insta of "muminfluencers" and midwives they all say if u switch to formula ur milk production stops ..oh dear ..guess ill see how it goes and let it flow😂

I’m patently not a breastfeeding purist, and some don’t get a choice in the matter as their babies refuse bottles or breastfeeding doesn’t pan out for them, but it does make life easier being able to breastfeed if you can. No having to cart kit around with you and sterilise stuff - it’s the ultimate fast food. I was not sorry to stop, mind you. So lovely to have your body back and to be able to wear clothes that no longer had to have easy access to your boobs (dresses that zip at the back!). Mastitis is utter misery too. You’ve never thought about your boobs so much. It’s just as much ‘I need the baby to feed before I burst’ as ‘Is my baby hungry?’ And those who manage to breastfeed twins are superhuman.

@alhctps how easy is it to clean the milk machine? And did you move it to bedroom for night feeds?

@ALHCTPS - the perfect prep is what we had for my step son! It was a game changer. We actually had 2 - 1 upstairs and 1 down.... the stairs can see like such a mammoth task at 2am 😂

@MrsNT super easy to clean. It’s a little like an adapted kettle in some ways, so not complex. There’s a filter you change every few months and you run a cleaning cycle once a week. The machine just sorts the water. The actual mixing of the formula happens in the bottle, so don’t think there’s a machine with mouldy milk in the pipes sitting there. We kept ours in the kitchen, as you want a tap nearby to fill the tank. In your place, I’d hold off buying one until you’re sure you’ll use it, though. Breastfeeding, if it pans out, is by far the easiest option to begin with and you can get formula ready made in individual bottles to use at first if you want to have the odd bottle too and they don’t require any messing around with boiling and cooling water. You shake them, twist off the lid, pull back the foil and pour into the bottle. Ready made is more expensive than powder, of course, which adds up as the weeks go by, hence you make the switch in time, but use every shortcut available to you at first and, only once you’re getting the hang of things, start to add complications.

Tah dah! It’s arrived. Super excited about this. And it’s such a smooth push!!! 😍 still need to get it all set up etc.. will try it with the carrycot when I can

Oh, just thought of something to tell the first time mums about. Infacol. No idea how it works, but it’s miraculous. You may only need it for a few months but it’s essential. Basically, when babies are small, trapped wind is a massive issue. If they’re crying, it will pretty much always be because of one of the following: they’re hungry, need a nappy change, they’re tired or they have wind. The first three are more or less straightforward, but trapped wind is a bastard. But somehow infacol makes it go away. Then, one day, they grow out of it and you don’t need it, but it was right up there with keys and my phone as an essential to have with me at all times in those first months.