July 2023 (Thread 2)!

[RandomCatGenerator]

Creating a new thread as we’re about to finish the first - just as we finish our first trimesters!

Just found out today at my OB appointment that I have to do 4 more ultrasounds, 1 per month. It's crazy how unenthusiastic I feel about them now, when early on I practically wanted to look inside every day. Maybe it's just because I know it'll take around 2 hours😂 It's so boring staring at the ceiling for that long! Next one I'm bringing a book.

I’m still at my booking weight at 25weeks but my sugar intake has massively increased recently so I feel like I will balloon in third trimester.

saying that, trying to make cupcakes for work tomorrow and my electric hand whisk just gave up on me so I’m beating by hand and my tummy keeps jiggling 😟 wonder what baby is feeling in there 😂

Anyone else got new stretch marks yet? So far I have 3 new ones under the belly and my old ones on my hips have started to spread as well. Looks like a canvas, the babies are painting their own lines on me😄

The back pain has kicked in again 😫 Not great when I work at a job where I'm on my feet all day 😂

It's just lower down on the right hand side in one spot. It's fine until I start walking, but I don't really do painkillers

@MountainLaurel7 Oh I've had new stretch marks come since around 7 weeks 😫I had a small amount on my lower stomach from putting on weight before which are white now but they've extended to a line across the middle of my stomach now!

Mostly, lightning crotch. All the time.

Im walking like John Wayne.

Also I want chocolate and ice cream ALL THE TIME

No new stretch marks yet, but I feel they can't be far off. Back pain has really kicked in this week for me. My appetite has increased massively, so i'm so worried i'll really start to gain some weight now.

I don't think I've got any new stretch marks. But the ones I had have definitely stretched back out 😂

For the first time mums here...how are you preparing? As I've started to plan the nursery and buy bits I've realised that I know NOTHING about having a baby. I didn't even know they shouldn't drink water

I don't want to do a NCT class as it's not my cup of tea. Are there any books I should be reading?

@RandomCatGenerator I went for efficiency and simply got a 2L chocolate ice cream. I can't remember the last time I cared so much about sweets!

@babybrainfart I know for sure I've been taking in too many calories-no need to even check, and the scale reflects it for sure. But I figure I'm going to gain no matter what so I may as well enjoy myself right now and then use breastfeeding to help with weight loss after birth. I read it uses about 500 calories a day so that's quite good!

@GC2023 First timer here🫡 I've been reading parenting books like 'how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk' to get a better grasp on how young minds think, as well as the reddit groups sciencebasedparenting and attachmentparenting to see what modern people are thinking about baby care that may not be in a book that's a few years old. Aside from that I plan to read up on how to recognize common issues like gas/ear infection/clothes pinching something. Reddit is full of anxiety so I don't read it every day, and if anyone has other learning resources I would also love to see more!

A book I found really helpful first time around was ‘Your Baby Week by Week’ - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Baby-Week-ultimate-UPDATED/dp/0091910552

It is less of a holistic guide to parenting, more a day by day and week by week guide to getting through the first few months. I found it incredibly useful - it has things like guidance on how much your baby should be drinking and sleeping each day, when different development milestones are likely to be hit, things to worry and not worry about. I would highly recommend. I gave it away after DS was born - pregnancy was so shit for me first time that we didn’t think we’d have another! - so I’ll be buying it again!

If you’re not doing NCT or anything, I’d also recommend The Baby Academy. They do peri natal baby preparatory sessions - DH and I did the one on first aid. It was really helpful to know that if I needed to, I knew how to react if DS choked or was burned etc. Some are free, some paid for, all delivered by health care professionals, would recommend. Some in person, some by video call.

Has anyone here done NCT before? Would you recommend it?

I have a few friends who will be on maternity leave at the same time as me but they aren’t geographically close. I found it quite lonely last time. So nearby baby friends would be a bonus.

A DH here (not sure I love that term 😂), we're expecting our first on 30th July.

My wife and I are big believers in being as equal as (physically) possible - we've agreed with our jobs that we'll drop to part-time when the baby is born, and putting lots of plans in place so that we can try to stick to this philosophy (equally shared parenting by Amy and Marc Vachon is a great initial read on the topic). Anybody else planning to take this approach, or taken it in the past? I'd love to get thoughts on potential roadblocks we might face.

Good morning! Mind if I join? Second timer with an 8 yr old DS and July 15th due date. I read up a lot first time around and making up for what I didn’t read then now. When my son was born I used the What to Expect the first year (I know she is not a doctor but it was basic and solid - what I needed at the time. Two books I thoroughly enjoyed were John Medina’s Brain Rules for Baby - anyone I recommended it to asked for more - and Your child’s growing mind by Jane Healy with all the fascinating science about what’s going on inside baby’s amazing brains especially during the first 3 years and thus behaviour! I am now reading The Baby Whisperer (I know, ridiculous name) but as we are already 3 in this family I would like some help in introducing baby-appropriate structure that will allow the rest of us to function as smoothly as possible especially in the first 6-12 months. I appreciate that she is between attachment and parent-led (her writing can be pedantic at times) and there are promising reviews about her method. After reading the book I understood a lot of the things that we didn’t do with my son and kept frustrating me especially around nap times. Overall things will be fine no matter what we do as long as factors like PN depression etc are monitored.

@JustAnEqualParent The only thing I can think of that would throw balance off is breastfeeding if you go down that way for as long as it’s exclusive it will take your wife most of her day anyway in the first couple of months at least until they become efficient eaters.

We did NCT and it was helpful. We didn’t go the non-medicated way they were advocating but it was still useful.

First time I read about birth in a non-scary but informative way was Effective Birth Preparation by Maggie Howell (I didn’t give hypnobirth but I used her meditation clips and I can still hear her soothing - to me - voice “down where your baby lies” )…

@gingercookiesforever breastfeeding is definitely one of the big call outs we have had so far! We plan to have a mixed breast and breast-milk-bottle-fed approach, and account for the need to pump with me taking a larger majority of household tasks (we use cozi for this at the mo).
We plan to speak to a lactation consultant to help make that work, but if all else fails we'd rather formula-feed than have my wife singularly breast feed.

Obviously none of this applies in the first week where we'll be in survival mode! 😅

@RandomCatGenerator I did it with my first and didn't really learn anything. Seen a lot of people say the same

For the social side, I’d 1000% recommend it. Nothing quite like having friends with a similar age babies who live just around the corner - it can be so hard getting out at first that it’s really useful to be able to text and say ‘I’m going out in 10 if anyone else can?!’ Also really nice to have ready-made friends to start classes etc with.
my DD is 2 now and I’m still in almost daily contact with our NCT friends and half of us are pregnant again, due around the same time, so will have another ready to go maternity leave group.
In terms of the actual learning, it’s nothing I hadn’t already read on the internet but useful to have someone there to ask questions to.

Hi there! We’re due our first near the beginning of July. I would love to do this, but we can’t afford to drop to part-time. Perhaps I could drop to 4 days (I’m the higher earner) but I’m reluctant to. I’ll be breast feeding so I’ll be doing the night feeds and the majority of the childcare whilst I’m on Mat leave. I’ve not heard of Amy and Marc Vachon, but I’m sure parenting will be more balanced once we’re out of the baby stage.

I did NCT with DS. I’m still friends with the women I did mine with, and at the time the hospital weren’t offering anything (covid) so it was great.

Also, and you don’t have to have done the course for this but I rang the feeding advice line a couple of times and the kindness and support I was shown was overwhelming .

Thank you for the NCT advice!

welcome newcomers :)

@JustAnEqualParent DH and I split pretty equally for 4 months after DS1 was born. Sleep was the key area of benefit - it not being down to me to be with our (non sleeping) baby all night AND all day made a big difference to my well-being. It also gave me time to do non-baby things to make myself feel more human too.

@RandomCatGenerator that's great to hear! Were there any tasks that either of you found yourself defaulting to?

Yes there definitely seem to be some great benefits to the approach (like not having one very sleep deprived mummy!). Was there anything that you think was harder than if you were to do the majority of the baby-care?

@RandomCatGenerator we did NCT the first time, it was great for meeting people and 4 years on we still spend time together regularly (as do the Dads which has been a valuable lifeline for them I think). But the content of NCT was pretty rage inducing tbh 🙈 very biased to no medical interventions, and almost shaming this. It’s very expensive for what it is