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Another question - apologies regarding the topic before I start!
Previously I have noticed something like small sugar crystals on James' skin as I change his nappy. It was usually after he was in a disposible after a night without being changed. this morning it was quite a lot and now this evening (in a disposible again) my husband has commented on it (not having worn the nappy for that long). has anyone else found this? Is it the nappy or is it him?
Hello everyone, hope we're all well! Hope you're feeling a bit brighter soon DCM. I suffered with tonsilitis a lot as a teenager and evetually had them removed. Use it as an excuse to eat lots of ice-cream (as if one is needed!)!
Mitts - would echo what Vixo said about the pethidine. I had a similar problem when I had a shot of morphine last year (in the bottom!). For ages afterwards I had a sore rear end whenever I ran - very irritating. But it did go away after about 2 months, I think.
MR - glad it's working out with the formula. I'm doing mixed feeding, as I just didn't have the milk to keep up with my huge boy! I give him whatever I have and then top him up with formula. I did feel bad about it for a while (made to feel guilty by breastfeeding police...), until I realised how much happier we both were! I don't know about you, but I love the freedom and convenience that formula gives you. If I know I'm going out (or going somewhere I don't want to breastfeed - i.e. FIL's house!), then I take formula with me.
PA - not sure about this one, but I seem to remember a midwife in an antenatal class saying something about it being the uric acid in the pee reacting with something in the nappy?? Think it's harmless though.
Right, off to watch X-Factor results - how sad am I???
Oh, forgot to say yesterday that I laughed very loudly when reading your post about weighing yourself, EF. I do exactly the same!!! But this morning it didn't seem to make any difference, as I have gained half a pound this week.
Never mind, I'm sure I'll lose some next week! I have a theory that I have gained a bit due to starting running again (have done 11 miles this week, hooray!), as I have been trying really hard with my food. Have got 11lbs to lose to get to pre-preg weight, but I always lose weight REALLY slowly, so I'm thinking it'll probably be well after Xmas when I'm back to that.
Also forgot to say glad the foot is feeling better, JT!
Hello Mums
Just said goodbye to my big ones who are off to school (phew!). Baby number three due in two weeks. Can't wait!
Hope you and your families all had a good weekend/half term.
A quick question that I hope a few of you could help with - is a TENS machine worth hiring/buying do you think? It is six years since my daughter was born and I can't remember that far back!! Don't want to spend the extra money if it isn't worth it and yet any relief from the pain whilst at home is surely not to be turned away...I know it depend very much on the kind of labour I have/baby's position etc but hope a few of you might clarify things for me. I need to get a move on if I want to hire one.
Many thanks. Happy Runningx
x
Sequin, I used a TENS machine and definitely found it worthwhile. I just hired mine from Mama Tens (I think - ordered it online). I didn't actually use any other pain relief at all except the TENS and was doing fine on it until they discovered Kit was breech and whisked me off to theatre. Not sure I'd have managed the entire labour on it if I'd had a natural birth but got to 5cm without even having it up very high. It's a weird sensation: not sure it exactly relieves the pain, but for me it was more about having a distraction each time I had a contraction.
MM, thanks for giving me the amounts of milk your two have. Think Kit's probably fine - he usually has 6-7oz first thing, then about 5oz mid-afternoon and about 6oz before bed. Not to mention all the extra he has on cereal, in baby rice and the cheesy sauces, fromage frais etc. That was reassuring to read - thank you.
He's had a cold over the weekend but has been generally OK with it, just a bit grizzly the day it started. Hubby and I went out for dinner for our 3rd wedding anniversary on Saturday - it was such a treat to have an evening out together. My mum babysat for us. So great having her so nearby; not sure what we'd do otherwise!
Hi Minks
Thanks very much for your advice. Appreciate it.
Glad you enjoyed your meal out - you are lucky to have your Mum nearby, we spend a fortune on babysitters! I remember using steam to help relieve my son when he had a cold. Hope he gets better soon and thanks again.
Thanks Janie. I am going to get online and order one now! Think I might buy one and then sell it on. How horrible not to be allowed any pain relief! Will was OP(back to back) too so I fully understand what it was like in terms of no let up between contractions. Trying to do all I can to get this baby in the 'right' position for labour...On my swiss ball as I type!
Rolling over!! Oh no! Did Ted look proud of himself or just suprirsed?? He's soon be crawling...bless him. My son was much happier once he was on the move and hasn't looked back since! Think he takes after me in being active.
Need to get round to selling my TENS machine too! It was great for the early stages, and even for a bit later. I had to take mine off after I demanded an epidural! Memories...
Clever Ted! E and M can only manage front to back but boy do they try to go the other way! Time to start childproofing the house!
Had a bit of a mare of a week as Dads been diagnosed with Lung cancer, luckily they think they have got it early enough they can remove it and that should be that. Been up to see him and was really pleased with myself and the girls as I manged a 4 1/2 hour drive on my own with them, people at services were really helpful which was nice.
The girls slept through til 7 for the first time last night, lifes just not fair though, I was awake on and off from 5 as my boobs felt like they were going to burst! Fingers crossed for tonight and it was not a fluke, and that my milk supply adjusts quickly.
gosh - such early rollers. jacob rolled front to back at 16 weeks, but didn't roll back to front until he was 7 months! but he was fairly late doing everything except walking. he was doing that at 11 months, and then there was no stopping him!
all this talk about baby number 2... i think in theory it would be lovely to have a 2nd baby, although a logistical nightmare with getting them ready in the morning to go out to nursery / school etc! however, from my point of view, i've only just really stabilised after my PND and am still on medication, which I would have to stop if i wanted to get pregnant again. i could take other stuff, but what i'm on at the moment works a treat and there's always a possibility that other medication wouldn't be so good. anyway, i am doing something positive about trying to get off the medication and am going to get some CBT (counselling) in a couple of weeks. if i can come off the medication and be stable and have means of not diving back into my anxious state, then maybe baby number 2 might be possible. i'm 35 though, so need to get my act together soon!
mrs o - i had no periods at all while feeding jacob and i fed him till he was 12 months. within 3 weeks of the last feed, my periods were back. i thought it might take a bit longer than that, but oh no! hopefully your hormones will get kicked back to normal again by having a baby. one of my friends struggled for years to get pregnant naturally and then she was pregnant again naturally within a year of having her first baby (by accident as she was still breastfeeding). she has had two more babies since then and they have both been conceived quickly. so fingers crossed for you...
ploddingalong - i think it was you asking about milk. i gave jacob soya milk on his cereals for a while and he seemed fine with it. he now has goats milk to drink and on his cereals because i don't drink cow's milk, so don't buy it. he seems fine with that as well. re: expressing - odd that you can't express now. it's not something simple like a valve gone on your pump is it? mine wore out (i expressed 100% of jacob's feeds from 3 months until he was 12 months old!) and made it hard to express. i had to buy a whole new pump because i couldn't find a replacement valve anywhere. the other possibility is that your body has just adjusted to exactly how much milk james is taking and is not making any more than that. do you express first thing? sometimes that's a bit easier because you have more milk then, although not a great time of the day for having lots of spare time to express!
Hetty, your boobs will adjust. I remember all too well lying awake around 5am in agony for 2 hours until they woke up. I even nudged hubbie and said shall I go and wake them i can't bare it!!! I didn't, and after 3-4 days my boobs were used to the 8 hour stint. I was still expressing the dream feed around 10.30pm at that point.
Hope your father is OK. Hubbie's Mum has just been diagnosed with breast cancer so we know how you feel. Again early diagnosis so fingers crossed. Well done on the long drive. I've managed about 5 hours too, but went to the loo in a bush at the services!Now I would have to get them out as they don't sleep at all in the car unless its night.
My two rolled around 4-5 months front to back and mastered back to front soon after, I think we found them both on their tummy's in their cots one morning! H used to roll everywhere! They started sitting around 7 months but this did take a while, and started crawling around 8 months, now J can stand for a couple of minutes but seems to get scared after that and sits down. They are both very competent with walkers though and do spend most of their time standing up cruising around the furniture. Am unsure how long it will be till walking this stage seems to be going on for ever. Not sure if I want them to walk or not, its going to be such hard work!!!
Believe me it is nice when they don't move! I have friends whose babies just sat for 6 months what bliss that would be!! I think my two just sat for about 2 weeks!
Hi,
Sequin - I definately found TENs machines brilliant with both my two. But also know people who didn;t find them helpful at all. you can buy them really cheap now from some of the smaller chemists - not sure if I'm allowed to name names.. Or you can hire them reasonably from a lot of places.
Cathy
MM - a friend with twins actually said it was easier when they did walk because she didn't have to carry them so much - to the car etc. She got reins to keep them under control a bit. I've got a little backpack to put on Jacob which has a strap I can put around my wrist, so that he can't run out in front of cars etc.
I don't actually think it makes all that much difference once they start walking to be honest, if they've been crawling before. If they are crawling around and pulling themselves up on things, you have already had to move most things out of their reach. The only thing is that they are quicker once they walk, at least Jacob is because he doesn't walk but tries to run (looks more like a waddle) everywhere. Taking him swimming is a nightmare because he disappears as soon as you put him down and i have to emerge from the changing rooms half dressed to retrieve him! Last week at waterbabies, he headed straight across into the boy's changing room (there are no doors on the changing rooms at this pool - it's in a school). fortunately, there was only 1 dad in there at the time, and he was in the loo!
As for how long cruising goes on for - I guess like everything else, it will depend on the baby. Jacob probably cruised for a good 4 weeks or so, but he was always adamant that he wanted to walk holding your fingers - right from around 7 or 8 months of age. So he probably did less cruising and more walking holding fingers / pushing baby walker.
The good thing about them walking is that it's much easier to tire them out. You can take them to the park or out in the garden and they can potter round so much more easily.
Yes have decided on the reins already. We have quite a fast road outside, although supposed to be 30, people drive much faster, so need them really.
I do find myself rushed off my feet already, they are everywhere so maybe it won't be too bad. They stay in the living room and their play room which are both now baby safe, we have gates up to stop them escaping! Will be good to beable to walk to park which is only over the road. I have a very un-baby friendly garden. I designed it myself and hubbie did the work but its terraced as was quite a slope, so they have to get used to the walls and steps pretty quickly. Also lots of garvel which was a nightmare over the summer as they just put it in their mouths. Hopefully a stage they will grow out of soon.
Its been much more than 4 weeks of cruising and walking with walkers and our hands, so maybe soon!! They are 1 plus 1 week now so mustn't rush them!!
Other than that things are fine, Megan was weighed today and is now 9lbs at 4 weeks old (having been 8lbs 2oz when born). We're managing to get out and about with the pram each day (even if it means getting wet). Should have bought shares in Pampers for the amount of nappies we go through - Megan is not overly keen on a wet nappy and since she seems to have a bladder that does overtime then we're fairly tearing through them!
Cannot for the life of us get any definiteive routine going though - we're so glad of sleep at night that we are loathe to wake her to feed and when we do it just creates upset and hours of girning! So generally she feeds every 4 hours during the day but can go 5 hours plus easily at night. The health visitor told us that we should just let her sleep at night and whenever she wakens for her middle of the night feed, perhaps give her just a little bit less then get her up at her normal time in the morning and give her a full bottle - in the hope she'll get used to the idea of getting up for the day and getting a good feed. Also by giving less at night the HV reckons it helps with dropping the night feed altogether. Anybody any experience of this kind of thing...
lol to eating gravel. we live on a small country lane - nothing much comes up and down except tractors (which is why jacob's first word was tractor, i guess!), but whenever we go for a walk, he picks up cow poo and tries to eat it. stones of any shape and size are a great temptation as well.
i'm sure they will get used to your garden. jacob will have to learn not to dive into the reen (drainage channel between fields which is full of yucky, slimy water which separates the back of our garden from the fields behind us). no one round here fences them off because the wetlands drainage people need access to them (they are protected because it's a site of special scientific interest), so that means that we have basically a stream at the bottom of our garden which he could easily fall in to. the fact that for most of the year it's covered in slimy green weed and looks like grass confuses the cats no end (they STINK when they've fallen in it), so it's inevitable that he'll end up in there at some point. still, generations of children have survived living here, so i'm sure he'll be fine! good job he's learning to swim
i'm sure they'll be on the go very soon. it's a matter of confidence. i'll never forget the first time i saw jacob let go of the settee and try and walk over to his toy box in the corner of the room. he was looking at it but staggering off in the opposite direction and then fell over, looking extremely confused. he was quite unhappy around this time as well - went off his swimming / bathtime and was really very clingy. I think it probably does unsettle them when they are learning to walk, as it must be quite scary.
MR - i know it's so hard. and i feel for you because it takes a lot to admit that you wonder why you had the baby. for weeks / months i kept telling my husband to take jacob away and that i didn't want him. even back in june when jacob was nearly 1 and i came off my anti-depressants for a brief time, i was back to saying those things again. as soon as i went back on the tablets, i was fine.
i know it's absolutely NO consolation whatsoever, but this time will pass. megan will EVENTUALLY settle into a routine. i had no joy with waking jacob for a dream feed at 10 / 11pm for many weeks, until he was about 11 weeks. he just wouldn't feed at all. so i used to leave him to sleep and then when he woke up (usually around 12 / 1am), i'd just have to feed him then, and then again at around 4/5am and again at around 7am.
i know it's easy for me to say now because i have had many months of jacob sleeping through (unless he is ill), but the time when they are feeding in the night is so short. they are not deliberating waking you up, and sometimes i felt like i was failing because jacob was waking really frequently when other babies born at the same time were sleeping through. i thought i must be doing something wrong and blamed myself (particularly because b/f was so painful and stressful for me). i yearned for someone to tell me what i was doing wrong so that i could do it 'properly'.
but there is no categorical right and wrong. it's a case of experimenting with what works for you and megan. she will eventually sleep for longer periods at night. if it's possible, try to relax a little bit about that. you are rightly keen to establish a routine - and as long as you keep trying and encouraging her to be awake in the day and quiet / asleep at night, she will get the hang of it eventually.
this probably isn't helping. it wouldn't have helped me when i was at your stage. no matter what anyone told me, i never believed that my baby would sleep through the night. but he does. and so will megan.
please make sure you monitor the way you are and the way you feel, and if those feelings don't go away, do go and see your GP. they won't prescribe anything unnecessarily, but you don't want to take any risks either.
MR - just a thought, are you still doing skin to skin with megan? you do it automatically when b/f, but it might help a bit with bonding. strip both of you off (leave on her nappy!) and snuggle up under the duvet for a bit - perhaps when she is due for a nap or when you think she might be tired. she might snooze off on your chest. and if she does - you can too. that's the one thing i miss now - when jacob was little he used to snuggle up on my chest and fall asleep, and i used to love watching him breathe and twitch in his sleep. it definitely helped me feel a bit more maternal towards him. and whatever GF might say, you are not going to teach megan bad habits if you let her go to sleep on you now and again!
I am supposed to be working today but you would never believe it from the amount I have been posting. I'm doing some really dire 'background' work because the bid work for new business that I am supposed to be doing has stalled for a few days. Consequently, I'm struggling to find motivation!
Mitchie Moo - if you are still around, there's a new mum-to-be who has posted over on the Pregnant Runners' forum. She's worried because she's had two miscarriages and is anxious about exercising when pregnant (she has 2 children but didn't run during those pregnancies). I think you also miscarried? Not sure whether you could give her any advice about how you coped with the anxiety associated with it and still exercising?
This is something I missed out out CM, as with two I couldn't have both on me for skin to skin at the same time. I feel I bonded better with Harry to start with but this was mainly as he was so ill in hospital, we found poor J got a bit left out, he survived though. I was lucky my two were also good sleepers and still are, but I think we all have black moments. I had a very bad day yesterday with them, and everything else seemed to being going wrong too, today they are at the childminder and I am missing them while I sit drawing my garden designs. You can't win!!!
I have a puncture on my buggy so am going to have to drive the 200m down the road to pick them up. How silly!!!! Not being useless female but I hate fixing punctures!!
MM - I know what you mean about black moments. We do all get them - I do, even with my wonder drugs! But I think there is a difference between black moments and the despair and desparation I felt when I was at my lowest. I don't really want to go into how I felt, and anyway, I don't think I could explain it to anyone. But all I wanted to say to MR was that, if those black moments don't lift properly, go get some help. Baby blues shouldn't last for weeks and weeks...
ARGH re: puncture on buggy. Soon you will be able to walk them to and fro
Will try the skin to skin - although Megan is a prim little madam and has a bit of a hang up about being without clothes so not quite sure how we will get on, might take a bit of perseverance! Will have to pick a time when the heating is on - can't believe its gotten so chilly but suppose it is almost November (8 weeks today we'll all be scoffing turkey and mince pies!!).
Our dream feed is currently anytime between midnight and 1am- and so far its DH's feed as I go to bed around 10pm. Last night was the only night she didn't settle straight after it but that was only because she was very busy multi-tasking (being sick, hiccuping and pooing all at once apparently!). However, it took 1.5 hours to settle her after her 4.30am feed... and eventually we had to waken her at 9.30am for a feed. On todays timings our dream feed should be 10pm tonight which is more what we'd like - so we'll see how we get on!! Wil report back in due course.
MM and Caramel - yes to reins! I have very fond memories of wearing reins myself when younger (I'm 34 now!) And can also recall having luggage tags put on me when we went to big/organised events that said what my name was, what my car registration was and where we were parked - so if I got lost somebody would return me!!