Anyone due in April part 4

[XenaTheWarriorPrincess]

Hey guys, new thread for the April due dates.

Looks like the other thread maxed out before someone could make a new one, so I'll tag a few people and then if they could tag a few and they tag a few and so on, so we can try and get everyone in.

There's no way I can get everyone tagged myself, it's a nightmare on mobile.

@XenaTheWarriorPrincess I am so incredibly sorry for your loss, I can't imagine what you and your family must be going through. Thank you for sharing your experience and I hope you have the support you need and time to grieve 🩷 in loving memory of your beautiful baby.

@Mrsttcno1 we have a lot of trouble with my boy fighting sleep and waking when being out int he next to me. Had a magical first night then downhill ever since however we have found that being swaddled and warm helps. He has a really strong startle reflex still bless him which wakes him up. Also making sure he is in a deep sleep seems to work better, this does mean sometimes with a feed it can take over an hour to get him down. Not ideal but anything that makes it a little better.

@sugarplum33 breastfeeding is really hard! It's more the mental toll it takes on you in the night and constantly being needed to feed especially cluster feeding I find really draining! I'm right on the edge of trying to express being it's just so demanding but then worried about introducing a bottle as he's only 11 days 🙈

@Cora24601 my girl has been on a bottle since she was 4 days old, when my milk came in I had to express I was soo engorged and clogged she wouldn't drink and it would soon become mastitis if I didn't clear it out. I use the Medela calma teats as it mimicks breast feeding suck rather than usual teats. I do find expressing easier but I've begun to express more than breast feed (my choice, she will latch it's just so much quicker with the bottle, especially when on the go with my son). I have to pump around every 3 hours including nighttime. Some suggest every 2 hours but I can't manage it. She feeds mostly from bottle with some direct breast top up mainly to keep her saliva on my breast so my body knows what she needs. She is gaining weight fast and I have 10-11 bags of breast milk stored away (around 5-6 ounces a bag) which increases daily even with her drinking from them all day! It's definitely possible to do both, it really helps me with someone else being able to feed her sometimes but knowing she is still getting breast milk. She was 7lb11 at birth, dropped to 7lb 8 at 5 days and at 12 days up to 8 lb 2 so she's doing perfectly fine this way x

@Ttcmumma thank you for the advice! I think it's definitely an option for us. Il have a look at those tests as well!

@Cora24601 Can you feed lying down in a side by side position? I find it much more restful.

@Ttcmumma I am really pleased to hear expressing works well for you. I have never been able to express enough to have spare with either of my previous babies. I just don’t seem to be able to produce milk for the pump in the way I can for the babies directly. What pump do you use?

@Applesandpears23 I feel like I'm the opposite and don't quick produce for baby the way I can for pump. She fills up for much longer after a pumped bottle than she does on the breast. With my son I had a random pump and I could barely get an ounce at a time out. I use the Medela freestyle this time. It's hands free so you can get on with other stuff at the same time (just don't bend over, I learnt that the hard way when I spilt milk everywhere 🤦🏼‍♀️) but you do have to stick to a schedule similar to babies in order to keep the milk supply up. It's exhausting but rewarding, I'm also going back to work after only a month (with baby and my mum) so i kind of need a stash for my mum to feed her when I can't! X

@Applesandpears23 I have tried that position but baby is so temperamental. He's a real grump if he's not in the perfect position so can take a while to latch in the laid down position then gets frustrated and unlatches... although saying that he's been terrible at latching the last 2 days. He doesn't like it when the milk doesn't come quick enough! Thanks for the suggestion though!

@XenaTheWarriorPrincess omg I am sooo sorry for you loss. I cant imagine what you are going through. hugs

As for sleeping, my baby sleeps fine in ther bed. However, when she is unsettled, particularly at night, I do co sleep. It happens every other night, for at least one chunk between feeds.

I am not breastfeeding, which makes everything a bit easier.

Those of you that are breastfeeding, does your partner still sleep in your room? My partner had been taking baby after i feed her around 9pm and then bring her in to me when she next wakes sometime between 11-1 . But i get no sleep after that really as she wont be put down anywhere, she just wants to sleep on my chest which I know she cant as its top dangerous :( i was thinking if my partner came in he could be in charge of changes etc and she might settle better for him in the cot as he doesnt smell of milk etc....

What am I missing? I feel like im doing it all wrong, me and the baby arent getting sleep at night, she just gets the bits before I go to put her down. We also have a 4 year old so my partner needs to be able to function enough to look after him.

What can we do?!

@XenaTheWarriorPrincess I'm so sorry for this devastating loss. I am praying for you and Eleanor and you will be all in my prayers and thoughts

I've vaginally delivered my baby on Saturday. I accepted induction because i went in for reduced movements which turned out fine and was told I'm at the end of week 39 anyway so was offered induction. I had ARM first and then the drip and then epidural. It could have gone the other way with c section but had it delivered vaginally.

I'm trying to establish breastfeeding and have forgotten how tough the first few nights is.

@XenaTheWarriorPrincess I am so sorry for your loss and thinking of you.

@Janeykat your pattern similar to mine. At night the baby is less settle than during the day.

almost every night from evening like 6-8pm start hourly feed until 1am. Then baby block sleep for 3 hours but usually for 4 or 5am feed it start not settle again and started hourly feed until 10an. I would get up have breakfast … wash baby… try to squeeze in a walk… have lunch then back to nap. Until dinner time 6-7pm. Cycle continues in past 3 weeks. Some days better than others.

those struggling with sleep have you tried white noise? Once I’ve fed her I pop her down in her snuz pod and play some white noise which settles her.

with my first we didn’t have the best sleep and she still struggles now at 4 so I didn’t want to go down that path again if possible!

we’ve got a white noise machine but at the moment using the snuz cloud which you press and it plays white noise for about 20 mins which seems to be the perfect amount of time. We feel very lucky that at the moment she is feeding then just going straight back to sleep in her cot until she wakes to breastfeed again in 3 hours. For me the key difference this time is putting her down even if she’s awake after a feed so she can learn to settle her self (she doesn’t cry I wouldn’t leave her to cry) xx

No advice for sleep as we are struggling too but it is good to know we aren’t the only ones getting no sleep through the night! Frustratingly my baby sleeps lovely in her moses basket through the day, she’s been fast asleep in there for nearly 2 hours now without so much as a single cry but yet 10pm-6am if I dare put her down in it within seconds the eyes are open and the screaming starts! So we are all very tired at the minute taking it in 4 hour shifts to hold her while she sleeps. I just keep reminding myself this won’t last forever and one day I know I will look back and miss these days! X

Has anyone had a baby with tongue tie? Ours was assessed and he had a posterior one which they divided there but could only do it 95% as they were worried they'd do more damage if they cut it 100%. He has been latching better now, but it's still not the best and I still don't think he's getting enough milk from the breast so I keep topping up. If anyone's had a tongue tie division, how long did it take for the baby to latch properly and be exclusively breastfeed?

Has anyone got a lot of swelling since giving birth? My feet and legs make me look like Michelin man and I had no swelling during pregnancy! I had quite a bit of fluid during my c section as I had got very dehydrated so not sure if this is why.

@SummerOak my 1 week old daughter has a tongue tie and it was absolute agony trying to feed her in hospital, my nipples cracked and bled etc :( since being home I used nipple sheilds which allowed them to heal and I tried today without the sheild and was surprised to find it doesnt hurt at all! We have an appointment in 2 weeks to get it snipped but im not sure whether to go ahead with it. My 4 year old son also had a tongue tie that was separated via laser at 6 days old-- it was really traumatic again and he never fed properly after it again so we had to switch to formula. From reading, that seems to be an unusal experience, but it has made me cautious about it the second time around. Just my experience, best of luck with your decision, I know how stressful it all is xx

I was v v swollen, and like you nothing during pregnancy. It seems to have settled now, lots of elevation, water and sadly night sweats (obviously involuntary) seems to have shifted it. I’m 13 days post c section delivery.

YES! I was SOOOOOO swollen post partum, it was unreal! It only really went down after a week or two, though it got better during that time.

I also had loads of fluid during my c section and was peeing every 2/3h like I hadnt peed in a day!

@Janeykat I let my baby sleep on my chest when shes unsettled. I just make sure that I find a position where she wont slip, and I also know I dont move in my sleep, so its always been fine. We both wake up in the exact same position!

@XenaTheWarriorPrincess I’m so incredibly sorry for your loss. Thank you for generously sharing your story and setting up a place where we could all meet and talk about our worries and joys in the lead up to birth. You and your family will be in my thoughts 💕

Just jumping on here to say that I had my little baby girl about a week ago. In case it’s helpful I’m sharing my birth story!

I was in latent labour for about three days at home - my mucus plug had gone and I was 3cm dilated, having contractions every 10 minutes or so. I couldn’t sleep so I was exhausted by the end of it! Eventually half my waters went and I was 4cm dilated so they let me stay in overnight in the hope that established labour would start. It was late at night so I took some codine and hoped for a big sleep. The midwife came to check on me about three hours later and she told me I’d fully dilated so it was time to push! However my contractions weren’t close enough together so I didn’t get enough help from them to push baby out. I was pushing for two hours before they decided to take me to the labour ward and get me put on an oxytocin drip and that helped speed things up. However, as I’d been pushing for so long and hadn’t slept in three days the doctors advised we use a combination of forceps and a suction cup. I started contracting properly soon after the drip, and had an intense urge to push (like I just had to push out a giant poo!), I did one big push and her head came out! So two more and she was with us. We didn’t have to intervene with forceps or suction cup - phew!
Baby was safe but my placenta wouldn’t deliver (a retained placenta) so they had to take me into theatre and give me a spinal anaesthetic so they could get the placenta out. That was quite long but they eventually did it and we were both happy and healthy. I have a second-degree tear which is still healing, but generally okay!

Baby is generally a good sleeper and feeder. I think both of those things are down to luck but things we did/do:

• Lots of skin-to-skin contact in the first few hours/days to encourage latch;
• Feeding on demand and also waking up for regular feeds;
• When we put her down - do a feed and fresh nappy, make sure her crib is a nice warm temperature (we use a heated blanket) and we swaddle her using a readymade swaddle.
• when we put her down we turn on the white noise heartbeat setting on our snuz cloud.

It works for us! But totally get every baby is different. She sleeps for about two hours each time and wakes up for feeds xx

I am currently having some issues with breastfeeding and my community lactation consultant sent me a link to the following video. It shows a different more "baby-led" way of laid back breastfeeding in the early stages-- i have implemented some of the strategies and found them useful. Midwives in the hospital were more focused on teaching re latch, more traditional holds etc. Just putting it here incase anyone finds it useful

https://naturalbreastfeeding.com/

For those breast feeding...

I was convinced my daughter's latch was fine and she was just a bit fussy, preferring the bottle. I tried nipple shields today, as my sister suggested trying. She now latches instantly and for longer, I didn't realise how much easier it could be! Worth a try if anyone is struggling.