Discovery Home & Health

ooo forgot to say HUGE CONGRATS to moomoo for doing it by yourself! Your labour in places sounds just like mine! I had that tiny bit of cervix that just wouldn't go away and pushed a long time before she realised it! And you managed so well without pain relief you clever girl!

right firstly...

moomoo well done you i'm am delighted for you have an all natural birth and if alanna was a boy she'd have been either aaron or oliver so loving the name, hope your feeling well, and stitches are bothering you too much.

secondly, zoe, my heart is breaking for you, don't know how to mix putting baby on breast and bottle but i can tell you what i've been doing... i express 5-6 times a day try to do it every 4 hours, but if alanna sleeps 6 hours during the night so do i, and yes i wake up with huge boobs but it's worth it to get some sleep, i express her whole fed atonce so i get about 2.5oz from each boob every 4 hours, but that has been built up since she was a week old and i totally gave up on the breast. you can store 2 oz in the fridge and then add another 2 oz to it later but you must make sure they are at the same temperature before you mix them. what i'm doing works pretty much like formula feeding she is being fed every 4 hours and i just express before or after her fed. hope this helps and you get some order sorted out, any questions give me a shout.

lea, looocy stil checking in on you gals, thought you might have popped lea after all that cleaning and your sweep!!!!

Good Morning!!!

I am so glad that i am not the only one with a baby with colic my god i can sympathise wih you all. Rileys bad time is 7 pm - 11 pm than he settles after a bottle but then continues to wake every 2 hours seriously all my boy does is eat he has 4 ozs every 3 hours and he is packing on the weight he is now 8lb at 11 days he was 6lb 8 oz.

Ange/Zoe- i know infacol works for some but it just doesnt work for riley at all infact it makes him really constipated i swear by colief its expensive nd you cat get it on prescription but it is a dream works really well for him during the day. The onl other thing is as loocy said it doesnt last myy dd was colicky aswell not as bad as riley but all of a sudden when she was about 12 weeks she just settledd really well. apparently thats when there digestive systems are maturing and can handle the lactose in the milk. Good on you for sticking with breast/ expressing i feel so guilty that riley only got 3 days of bf thats if he got anything at all in those 3 days lol i just wanted tto let you both knwo that your not alone.

Nik- alanna sounds liek an absolute dream you sound like your all getting on fab. so when your next one hey? lol someone actually asked me hat in our local spar haha

moomoo- CONGRATULATIONS on the birth of oliver!!! Well done you as well you did really well and im so pleased you got your Vbac. how sweet of your ds i must admit when ellie-may talks to riley it brings a tear to my eye you'll realise how grown up they realy are now its quite scary

lea/loocy- hope you girls are hanging int here i really hope we have some baba news over the weekend.

big waves to everyone else

xxx

rach lol at alanna being a dream the little madam has been awake since 4.30am i have had about 2 hours sleep and the hv is coming out at 12pm so i have had to get up, speaking of which suppose i better get a move on, need to fix my hair brush my teeth and express some milk, just the basics these days!!!

zoe your poor boobs that's one thing I'm not looking forward to again - that awful horrible melon-feeling!!! If it's any help at all, my DD was the sickiest baby you have ever met and she would bring up entire feeds but at completely random times - like half an hour or an hour after feeding so we had no way of knowing when or where she was going to be sick. Unfortunately (and here's the bad news) as long as they are putting on weight, the HVs and docs don't care - I was at my wits end with her and the HVs just kept fobbing me off and saying she'll grow out of it, which she did once she was weaned !!!! She was so bad that we had to get all our carpets cleaned before we put the central heating on for last winter as the house was so minging!!! I really hope Wyatt grows out of it sooner than that, but it's just to let you know that I totally sympathise with having a really sicky baby - eventually you get used to smelling of sick and you stop changing your outfits

As for expressing, with my DD I used to express at the same time I was feeding her to try to save time, so I'd express off one boob while feeding her on the other. It takes three hands (LOL!) and a bit of getting used to, but you get the hang of it eventually and it cuts down on the amount of time you spend expressing rather than trying to express in between feeds. it meant she fed a bit more often at first, but we soon got into a good routine. And, if you are really struggling, I never had a problem mixing breast and bottle with DD as I could never express enough to keep up with her, the greedy little munchkin that she was. The only thing you need to remember is that if you start on formula, you need to express at the time you would normally give the feed otherwise the supply will dry up at that time. I started off by giving her a bottle of half breast half formula. Not sure if that helps, but Aptamil is a great formula to get them going on - I've not known anyone that's had a baby with a bad reaction to Aptamil.

Hope this is of some help??!?

love to all
Loocy xxx

Nic that was so helpful hun thank you! It sounds like you have got a right little routine going- well done you! I am so anal normally abotu routines and stuff and I guess I am stressing more than I would otherwise because i haven't yet got myself organised. i think i am going to have to go back to my monica self and write a list! It sounds daft but I reckon if I was to make my own little routine and write it down stick it on the kitchen cabinet - I might get somewhere! This morning has been amazing because Wyatt has slept for hours and is still asleep bless his heart - and I have only hung out some washing - I've simply sat on here gossiping and drinking tea and I feel 100 times better for it!

Rach - Riley will have got the most important colostrum hun so you did really well. ANd loads of people go straight to formula and their babies are doing really well on it so why beat yourself up about it? I've been told that the first born gets the best milk anyway - anything for later babies is never as fabulous as it was for the first - so Riley isn't missing anything babe. I'm going to be brutally honest and say the main draw for me is the financial incentive - why pay £6 a tin for formula when my boobs can do it for free!! Although mine aren't quite meeting the demand right now....never mind!

My mum thinks Wyatt sicks so much because he is a piggy and that he spends half his time on the boob for comfort not because he's hungry - that is probably very true - as when he cries for a feed only an hour after the last one - he nearly always throws most of it back up......Like nicnak we are using TT nature bottles and dummies (aren't they bizarre looking tho - my dad hates the dummy as you can see baby actually sucking on it!)

Oo nic meant to ask how the nappy situation was for you? We went for Bambino Mio and I am SOOOO impressed - they are piss easy to use and wash and dry so quickly its ace! Even the most revolting poo comes out after a soak in napisan and a 60 deg wash! Very happy indeed. Wish we'd bought a couple extra covers tho as we only went for 6 in the end - we're considering getting some extra ones but we'll see hwo we go in a week or 2. Are you still using disposables or have you switched to the Smart system yet? Good luck with the HV anyway - mine was actually really friendly last week - perhaps she had a bad couple of weeks previously?...Who knows!

loocy - cross posted hun sorry -

Thats realy good advice about the expressing at the time you give a formula feed - makes sense actually. DP bought a tin of Aptamil the other day as he was so worried about me being upset bless his heart. I wasn't going to use it as wanted to go with Hipp Organic - just felt Organic might somehow be better for Wyatt but must admit everyone is raving about Aptamil and MW seem to like it too...if its good enough for SCBU then should be good enough for Wyatt! Although Hipp Organic is cheaper by about £2 a tin tho wierdly - I would have thought having the word organic on it would make it more money. DS1 had Hipp when he was on formula and he got on well with it - he's rarely ill now - and even when he got chickn pox at about 10 months or so he got off really lightly - hardly any blisters....

Girls I have to say I am looking back at all the babies I have looked after as a childminder and also DS1 - and the boob fed babies are much sickier and also were ill more often than the formula ones.....I know the govn bang on about breast is best but my experience is a bit different to be honest........maybe a mixed feeding routine would work well for all involved....hmm.

Well I am going to wake Wyatt up to feed now as I am concerned he's slept for like HOURS and if i don't get some food in him I will be spending the afternoon trying to catch up! I'm also going to try what nic does and express at regular times - at the moment I just do it when my boobs are exploding and Wyatts asleep. I think I am juts being a bit crap with it - organisation is the key!! (oh god Monica-Zoe is back with a vengeance!!)

omg i am so pleased, just had to pop on for a wee boast. hv was in and asked why i hadn't tried to put alanna back on the breast. i said i didn't think there was any point as she'd had a bottle since being 1 week old, as soon as she left i whipped by boob out and guess what alanna had a good 20 min feed! she was still hungry as i had just expressed 5oz an hour before hand and has also demolised that the gready monkey, but now i can put her back on the boob im so happy, i'm going to keep expressing and put her to the boob first before her bottle. and she is 8lb 12oz today so well over her birth weight now!

zoe, we're still on the disposible nappies, we only got the medium size smart nappy which won't fit her until she is 12lbs, i'm so pleased i have them as i'm astounded by the amount of disposibles we are going through.

zoe - im mixed feeding Josh, He has 2 or 3 oz of Hipp Organic, then a breast top up. It seems to be working well, he sleeps lovely! I was using Aptimil, tried the normal one plus the easy digest one, but Josh was really unsettled! Dr told me to change, so i changed to Hipp and havent looked back. He is so much more settled, happier & his tummy has really calmed down.

I was like you, struggling to cope with my other kids whist having a very demanding baby. Doing mixed feeding has really sorted things out, and put Josh into a routine. He now feeds every 4 hours, and much longer at night (last he night he slept 9pm - 4.30pm, small bottle & breast then slept til 8am)

Hope things get better for you xx

I have to disagree with breast babies being sickier - none of my 3 have never been sick, and i breast fed the girls til past a year! The also very rarely had any illnesses, they still dont.

Well done moo moo!!! So happy for you. You did it all by yourself which is amazing and you must feel wonderful. Congratulations on your little man. So many boys int his antenatal group isnt there?

Ange congratulations as well on the birth of like. Sorry to hear you had a rough time of it - I hope you make a good recovery. My twins birth was quite traumatic too and I had a stupid dr who made a bit of a hash of the suction cup thingy so another dr had to take over. She tore me when putting it in and so I ended up with a 2nd degree tear as well as being cut inside from her poor technique. I know it seems like a nightmare right now but talking about your experience with someone, perhaps the midwives may help you. I found it quite helpful to talk to a counsellor after the twins birth to help me understand some things. I felt a failure and it took me quite a while to recover emotionmally from it. Having your son in your arms safetly is the best feeling though isnt it. So glad all worked out well for you XXX Rest as much as you can.

Ever, sorry but your post on your feeding troubles really appealed to my sense of humour and I had to laugh out loud!! I think it was the thought of spraying boobs that did it. What a warped sense of humour I have!! It must be cos I am so very tired. I mean, its not funny at all really. The things we women have to put up with. With the girls I was told to do top up formula feeds to help them put on weight so I used to express after each feed and then give it to the girls. I have some storing breastmilk info I have just dug out from 4 years ago as I am soley breastfeeding this time.

Freezing milk:
Cool in the fridge first.
When cold, place int he coldest part of the freezer
You can add freshly expressed milk to frozen milk, but always cool it in the fridge first.

breastmilk can be frozen for 2 weeks in the freezer compartment inside a fridge freezer ot in a separate freezer for up to 3 months.

Thawed breastmilk can be stored in the fridge for 24 hours (not warmed)

Thawed breastmilk that it not refridgerated must be used within 4 hours.

Breastmilk cannot be reheated if baby doesnt finish the feed.

I hope this helps you a bit XX

Nikif - so lovely to hear from you and anyone else who has posted messages to me. I am so sorry but sometimes I just cant get to the net for ages. I am so in awe of my beautiful little man. You are right, its taken so long and I would not have believed 2 years ago I could feel so happy and contented at long long last. Its truly a wonderful feeling

Sorry Ange I see I have made a typo. I have put Like instead of Luke by mistake.

Hello

Congratulations moomoo, i really love the name oliver.

Bethany was such a good girl last night we fed her 6 oz at 10.30pm and then put her to bed and she slept from 11pm all the way through till 6am then i fed her 5oz and she went back to sleep till 10.30 so i have had loads of sleep - i hope she does the same tonight!!

Im a bit down about my dad at the moment so sorry im not on here alot - for some reason even though dads tumor has shrunk he has gone really down hill in the last week and no one knows why. It really annoys me as all the doctors seem to do is guess, we end up finding out whats wrong before they do by going on the internet.

Hope everyone else is ok

Nat x x

HI ALL

Sorry it's taken me so long but just wanted to say ....


Another one for the blue team

Our beautiful boy Jack James was born on Saturday 14th June @10.38pm weighing 9 lbs 1oz

Birth story...traumatic I'm afraid !!!!!!

Went in to be induced Fri 13th had 1st prostin @10 am, did nothing had 2nd one at 6pm left on labour ward by an absolute cow of a mw with no info about what to expect or not. immediately started having severe contractions 1 minute apart, thought I was going to die if these were early contractions, sent dh to get help after 30 mins mw came 15mins later and shouted why didn't you call me made me have inhaler to slow contractions didn't work so was rushed to labour suite where they gave me injection to stop contractions because I had hyperstimulated, had severe contractions for another 2 hours (for nothing) then mod contractions throughout the night. Had to be strapped to monitor so couldn't move off the bed it was awful.

Had waters broken next morning and started contracting again. Progressed really nicely on gas and air until I got to 8cm but just couldn't get past this. Had seretonin (?) things went downhill from here, then had pethidine (awful), then epidural (no recolection of why) then no way of pushing as was so knackered after 28 hours. Also developed labour induced pre-eclamsia so was rushed for emergency c-section at 10.30pm !!

I am struggling to recover physically after the section as I am in so much pain and on so many drugs!

Have had a nightmare breast feeding, Jack is just so sleepy after the trauma that he doesn't want to feed. He's perfectly content and just sleeps loads but won't latch, so have been feeding expressed milk from bottle. JuSt had breast feeding counsellor at home who got him on with nipple shield so hoping he will go back to breast (Nic you've given me hope with your last post).

Any hoo that's us, will try and pot some pictures. After everything I've been through I just feel so blessed to have my healthy little man here safe and sound

Huge congrats Ange on the birth of Luke you beat me by 2 days!! I'm sure our birth memories will fade in time, sorry to hear you've had some trobles wth feeding too it's really hard isn't it x

Moo Moo well done you for the birth of Oliver all by yourself, we all knew you could do it

Hi to everyone else, will pop on when I can to do some personals I am living in a parallel universe at the moment!!!

Come on Lea and Loocy, sending you loads of positive labour vibes !!

Love Ellie

Sorry, this is quick. Cora Leanne was born this morning at 7:04. 8 lbs 13ozs. It was all pretty traumatic but she is here now safe and sound. I will explain more when I have had some sleep.....it was a LONG labour!