Parenting after LT TTC #3

[TaRhLi.]

Wow everyone is back on here at the moment.

Grub: So happy to see you over here, it is completely different to the pg thread as now we are trying to work out what these little creatures want. Sorry about the wind, Tara doesn't seem to have any problem with hers (luckily), so don't really know what to recommend.

Neptune: Hey, wow Adam is so big. Tara is probably around 6kg's now and has also been sleeping through for about 6 or so weeks, although she has been waking herself up early a couple of days (around 7am) as she has needed to do a massive poop... and if I don't get it straight away it leaks everywhere.... Therefore she wakes up when getting a nappy change and won't go back to sleep. Hopefully you can get the reflux under control as well, I have found that I have had to double the recommended dose in Tara's bottles to make them thick enough now and even then I generally get about 1 day every week and a half where she has a big chuck up day. I'm counting down the days now until I can start the solid foods as I'm hoping this will help the reflux and fingers crossed because she has been having thick bottles her tummy will be used to having something more solid in it.

BG: So cute about E and her cousin, it is so nice to see how kids interact with each other even with such a big age gap.

Miss M: They grow so fast dont they, Tara has been in 00 for about 3 weeks now but more for length, I think Trent might be for both length and width...am I right??

Big hello to everyone else

[sazzafrazz]

Hi Gang and WELCOME GRUB!

Celeste was very colicky Grub. I tried LOTS of things, Brauers Colic relief helped a bit. THe best thing I found was massaging her belly clockwise and also "bicycling" her legs which was the best at helping move that air. She always preferred to rest upright against me partially cause of reflux and also to press her tum against me for wind pains. I think time was really the only thing that fixed it I'm sorry to say!

Glad to hear all is ok with Trent's hearing MissM. 11 weeks already!!!

Hope you are doing ok Mako. ♥

Today is Celeste's 2nd birthday!!! I can hardly believe it! I remember everyone going on about how short a time they are babies for and me thinking "Oh ok whatever" because at the time it feels like a blooming long time to be gettng vomitted on and having no sleep etc. Now that I look back though I really do see that. There is almost no baby left about her. Just the nappies and that's not long for either I think. 2 years we have had her with us!!!! It feels like shes always been here but also I cant believe that 2 whole years have gone by since her birth. Last night I was lying in bed thinking "this time we went to theatre, this time they started.." She was born at 1 past midnight so she has had her birhtday the longest possible time: ALL day She has learned sooooo much in that time! Just this week she has learned to count to 10 on her own with almost no mistakes!!! Then theres all the walking, talking, feeding herself etc. It's no wonder they get tired !

[Janie71]

A big happy 2nd birthday to Celeste! Wow Sazz - she sounds so grown up already. Counting to 10 is very clever.

BG - Miss E just sounds gorgeous and she must be having a lot of fun with her cousin. Isn't it amazing how much they love big kids! Jasmine just loves playing with her older cousins.

Tania - good to hear that Trents hearing test went well. Sounds like he is growing up so fast.

Neptune - wow 13 weeks and 7.5kgs! You do have a lovely big boy. Jasmine was 8.17kgs at her 8 month check up!

Grub - Jasmine was very colicky and I tried everything. Some things helped a little, but unfortuntely the only thing that really helped was time - SORRY! I know I hated to hear that from everyone when I went through it.

Mako - hope you are doing ok x

Hello to Kelly, BW, Marcellus, Acacia and anyone I have missed - hope you are all well.

I am not even going to comment on all you lucky ladies with babies sleeping through the night! Jasmine has never been a great sleeper, but this week she has had 3 top teeth come through and it has been terrible! Her 2 bottom teeth popped through without any trouble, but these upper ones seem to be causing her all sorts of pain the poor love.

Apart from that she is coming along in leaps and bounds. She chatters away but only really has 3 words I can make out which are mumma, dad dad and me me me. She is crawling like a demon, pulling herself to standing, letting go for brief moments and cruising around all the furniture. We are really looking forward to our holiday to LA and Hawaii - leave in 2 weeks tomorrow! Can't wait - it will be our first proper holiday as a family.

Hope everyone is well.

Janie and Jasmine xxx

[butterfly_warrior]

Janie, the top teeth really seem to give them grief. Sam's first two bottom teeth came through and we didn't even know he'd been teething (just went off his food for a week and then ate with gusto once they were through). But he had his four top teeth all coming down at once and he was miserable for weeks. In the end three came through and one only made it part way through and then went back... and we had another dose of the miseries when it tried again. I think the top teeth just seem to hurt more. We still only have five and a half teeth now at 13 months... he's a bit slow with teeth!

Sazz - good to see you around again! A very special happy birthday to Celeste too - I just can't believe it's been two years already! I sometimes think it seems so unreal to us because we spend so much longer than most trying to get pregnant so the pregnancy feels a lot like blink and you miss it... The time we've had Sam plus his pregnancy now only adds up to the amount of time we spent doing IVF, so it still hasn't really sunk in yet! But at the same time - I can hardly remember life without him now.

Have to go get ready for a paed appointment later today. Hoping to get the all clear on Sam's possibly not fully descended testicles... Something I'm extremely paranoid about after all we've been through!

BW

[onthefly]

Hiya

Celeste for yesterday. Wowzers! 2 years already

I remember hearing a radio program where this guy was saying they'd done studies of babies all around the world and found they all cried more in the second month of life. 98% of the time there was nothing wrong. Call it unsettledness, colic, reflux, whatever you will, it's just the way babies are. 2% of the time there's a problem - that's why it's good as a new parent to always see a professional if you're concerne,d just in case. You don't know what's normal anyway, so you have to check.

You can do you head in, running round and round trying to find the magic fix, though.
Reflux and throwing up is normal too. Babies digestive systems are so immature, and their stomach flap thingy that keeps stuff down (ok, dunno the name) doesn't work too well, so that's why they tend to vomit. But it's a good thing, really, cause if they get too much, or things are quite right down there, it comes up again, easy. For most babies the only real problem is with mummy's clothes or the furniture (or whatever).

The biggest trick to parenting is learning to trust. Trust that your instincts are right. Trust that your baby knows what they need. and listen to them. In the early months particularly, it's all about survival. Path of least resistence - do what works best. If your baby is colicky, the best thing often is carrying them around as much as possible. Co-sleep. Feed them to sleep. Get your mum/someone else in to watch baby while you catch up on sleep during the day. Forget about the housework. Get your partner to do as much as possible. And so on.

Things settle down in time - try to make things as easy as you can so you can enjoy those precious early weeks. There's no ponit worrying about routines, or bad habits, or sleeping patterns in the first few months because everything changes so fast.

Sorry for writing so much. Best get back to work.

[Janie71]

:yeahthat:Marcellus - beautifully said!

[butterfly_warrior]

*sigh*

Went to the paed today. Have to go back again in 6 months. It appears that one of Sam's testicles has only partially descended and he may need surgery to correct it. Paed suggested we wait another 6 months and keep watching and if it's still not right then, he will refer us to a surgeon.

However, he did say that if we were really worried he would give us a referral now.

I don't know if I'm just being paranoid after going through so much with IVF to get Sam... I don't want him to face similar troubles in the future, but I also don't want to put him through unnecessary surgery. Don't know what to think and DH isn't answering his phone.

BW

[onthefly]

Sorry you've got extra stress BW. Maybe get the referral for peace of mind?

[grub17]

oh BW sorry to hear about your little man's troubles. are you going for the referral now or going to wait?

Marcellus - very well said me thinks! i am trying to trust my instincts more cos they've been right 100% of the time so far

janie - ooh the chattering sounds lovely, hope you both get some relief from the teething. and that's fine, as sazz says the time seems to fly by.. i know that this is just a stage and before i know it he'll be walking and talking and there'll be a new challenge.

sazz - i love what you wrote about celeste's birthday. you should print that out for her and keep it for when she's older and can see how you felt. and thanks for the colic advice. we do do bicycle legs... i even have a cool song "we're going to the shops, we're going to the shops, we're going, going, going, going, going to the shops". I sing it over and over and over to the point DH often tells me to "get to the effing shops already would you" lol. So i mix it up, sometimes we're walking to the shops, sometimes riding. you know keepin it fresh heehee

kellyd - lol about tara's morning 'movement' sounds like you wake up to a real little treat every morning haahaa.

bg - glad to hear E is thriving and getting loads of attention.. and isn't that what baby pinkies are for? wrapping people around? lol.

miss tania - 11 weeks! are you kidding! are you sure?? gee it doesn't seem that long ago you were with us in the preg thread! Ash is about to go into his 000, some of that is being a litlte guts ache and some of it because we are doing cloth nappies and they need a bit more room than sposies.

neptuen - wow 12 hrs! and i bet you start giggling at his giggling! how cute is that?

well girls a couple of things on the go here, Had to have a vaginal ultrasound today for left over bits from the birth brh. am waiting for results and my have to have a little d&c if there's any nasty nasties. so that really sucks. Luckily my MIL is visiting and could come to the appnt and take ash for me.

on a positive note, i breastfed in public for the first time and surprised myself that i wasn't embarrassed by boobage or self-conscious. it was at a cafe and was very calming... in fact so calming Ash fed extremely well and promptly went to sleep.

He seems a little better with his wind/colic since we've relented to dummy usage and i think is getting used to the pain or it's lessening as he sometimes goes to slep with just a cuddle from me gotta love that.

And the big news is he put on 700grams in 2 weeks ! lol. so he's definitely getting enough to eat. Oh and he slept for 6.5hrs straight last night! it freaked me out but hey, i'm more than happy if he does that! 10pm to 3.30am and then back in bed by 4am til 7.30am. Unfortuantely tonight he'll porbably be unsettled because he hasn't had much sleep today due to doc appnts and nurse visits etc

ooh, long post first time i've sat down all day and it was so worth it to chat to you lovely ladies.

thank you all so much for the welcome and the advice. i am just loving seeing all the 'old faces' lol.

[grub17]

Babies digestive systems are so immature, and their stomach flap thingy that keeps stuff down (ok, dunno the name) doesn't work too well, so that's why they tend to vomit.

is it called the epiglottis? or is that something else?

going to google.

[onthefly]

i prefer flap thingy, but yeah, could be...

Congrats on your public feed - that's a big step. And awesome weight gain! way to go

[briggsy's girl]

epiglotis is the dangly bit at the back of your throat (the one they over exagerate in all the silly cartooons!)

it's a valve of sorts - should be one way, but not strong enough so stuff comes back up. E still has issues with hers sometimes...

[Acacia]

The flap/valve thingy is called the oesophageal sphincter (there's one at the top of throat for swallowing and one at the top of the stomach, which is the one that's often a little underdeveloped in bubs - the muscles that control it don't have enough tone yet in the early days)... so my incomplete medical degree has come in handy for something now... hehe DD had lots of vomiting/posetting up until 6 months or so because of it too. All good now - she grew out of it as we started solids.

Sazz Happy Birthday to Celeste! So much to celebrate and remember, and I know what you mean about seeming like she has always been here, but also still pinching yourself that she is here in the first place.

Grub - welcome! I have to agree with Sazz - time is the biggest thing. DD had awful colic and wind, and I did my head in trying to fix it for her, but in the end time was what fixed it. I used Infacol to help get her burps up, lots of tummy massage and leg-bicycling, which all helped relieve bad bouts at times, but in the end she just had to grow out of it. Hang in there - by 3 months things started to change and by 6 months wind was almost a non-issue and now she doesn't bat an eyelid as she burps/farts her way through the day (sorry for the TMI lol). It feels like a long time when you're going through it, but in the scheme of things if you can say to yourself - this will pass soon, it helps. I'm so happy that you got through your first public feed - it's a big milestone and I still remember how proud I was of that moment too. Congratulations!

BW - I'm sorry to hear about Sam's problem. I hope it doesn't leave you feeling to stressed - you are doing all the right things to deal with it and weighing up the options and effects are important. Perhaps you can get that referral and have a chat to the surgeon about the cause and effects of it all rather than just booking him in for surgery? BTW I could have written your post word for word about teeth - DD is identical to Sam

Janie - Jasmine sounds beautiful and so very sweet! Hope the wait for your holiday goes quickly - how exciting!

BG - now I'm completely sure that E could teach my DD some stuff! She needs to learn to be more social around other people and your little charmer would teach her all about it, by the sounds of it! Ah, I'm sure it will come in time though.

to Neptune, Kelly, MissM and everyone else.

Just found out today that DH is very likely to be out of job at the end of March, so feeling a little down about that. He has priority for interviews for new positions in his organisation (a large government department that employs about 20,000 around the country) so hopefully we won't be in too bad a position coming up to March. On a positive note, DD slept through from 7.30 - 7.30 for the first time in her life, bless her. You could have knocked me over with a feather this morning. We've had pretty awful night time sleep issues recently, but all I did last night was not offer her a dreamfeed, and she slept... and slept. I'll see what happens when I do the same thing tonight and then I can work out whether it's a coincidence or not! I woke up several times wondering when she was going to surface, but nope! What a strange feeling lol!

Take care, and tickles for the LOs

[grub17]

sphincter - has GOT to be one of the most awful words in the english language. the C word used for a woman's v-jay-jay is still top ranked tho! But my favourite word to say is haberdashery. it just has a great rythmn to it. haberdashery, haberdashery.

end of ponder....

Acacia - how good does that feel! sleeping 12 hrs!that's so wonderful love. we had a similar thing here this morning... Ashton slept about 7 to 7.5hrs straight! he got more sleep than his dad. But of course waited til i was on the loo this morning to crack up for some tucker - i'm sure he hears my bottom hit the seat

I've got my fingers crossed your DH, acacia, gets that other job love. and thank you for the advice

[Janie71]

Hi All - my it has been nice and busy in here!

BW - Thanks for the advice re teeth - sounds like Jasmine is a lot like Sam. These top one's have just been rotten. Sorry to here about his appointment. Hopefully you will get some more answers soon. I too often think about the issues we went through to get pregnant and how I would hate for Jasmine to have to go through that. I have PCOS and I believe there are some that think that there are some heredetry (Sp?) links, so I am hopeful that she won't get that from me.

Grub - great weight gain! I forgot to say in my last post that Jasmine also used a dummy when she was little and that seemed to help her move the wind. And well done on the sleep - so jealous! Hopefully you don't need a D&C, but if you do - hope it is quick, painless and solves any issues.

Acacia - Firstly well done on the 12 hour sleep! Wow! Sorry to hear about DH's job - hopefully he will get another one that he can move straight into. It is always so stressful when something like this happens, so I hope it all rectifies itself as quickly as possible.

Hi to Marcellus, BG, KellyD, Sazz, Mako, Neptune, Tania and anyone else I have missed. I hope you are all well.

Well we had a slightly better night here last night. Jasmine slept until 4am (from 7pm) then was up and down until we got up at 7am. The last tooth cut through yesterday, so she now has 2 bottom teeth and 4 top teeth (6 in total)... makes her look so grown up! No longer a baby that is for sure. So hopefully we are through the worst of this bunch of teeth and we will get a little break before the next lot pop through. It looks like Jasmine is one of those kids that gets her teeth in clusters rather than one at a time.

Hope you are all well.

Janie and Jasmine xxx

[onthefly]

Wow. Are you an incomplete doctor Acacia? That's awesome.
Hope you get good news on teh job front for your DH. Must be worrying.

My knowledge of anatomy is pretty limited, you may have guessed.

geez. A has never slept 12 hrs. We've had a few 11-hour runs, but he rarely gets more than 9 (like, all up). sigh. I know he'll make up for it when he's a teenager.

Teething sucks. Do Ya'll have teething necklaces?

[butterfly_warrior]

We have one, Marcellus. It seems to make a difference, too.

BW

[sazzafrazz]

Yes we have the amber one too. Got it at around 8months and wished we had it sooner. SHe still wears it full time. Never comes off. I used to take it off for washing and sleeping when she was little but not anymore.

Bummer about your DH job Acacia! Dh had similar this month. He has 2 part time jobs and one was a d-head but has just replaced that one with another positon. Not as many hours but at least the stress has gone. Hope the gov job works out. That would be great.

Hmm Haberdashery. Yeah it's kinda nice I had a chuckle to myself here. I had a fave word but now I cant think of it!!! Hmmmm... what was it?

Good work on the great sleeps kids!!! C has slept through 3times this week except last night I got up to her 4 times. Oh well. 2yr old teeth still....