Babies Born February 2008

[jenjams]

My DD will settle in my or DP's arms between feeds but when we put her down she will wake herself up and cry and cry. I dont know what to do to get her to sleep during the day. At nights we seem so far to have a better time of it but I read some babies get the sleep between feeds and my DD just wont do that.

Bun- When your DD is unsettled between feeds, what do you do?

Sorry for the lack of personals.

[RoyaUK]

Carley - i'm just round the corner from Hawthorn train station (takes 6 mins to walk there at the moment and i'm due on Friday!). Where are you?

I realised with my first DD that life for me went easier if i didn't impose a routine on her too soon and just followed her lead.

Whether than meant feeding after 4 hours or feeding after 1.5 hours, that was fine. After all, if i felt hungry or thirsty i wouldn't want someone telling me i had to wait! Quite often she would cluster feed (breastfeeding) in the afternoon/early evening and i would find she slept better getting lots in at the end of the day and would sleep longer at night if she did that so we stopped 'scheduling' her feeds and it worked for us.

We started the 7.30pm bed time routine when she was 8 weeks old and since then it's been pretty successful (she's now 19 months) give or take a few periods of brain development/solids that threw a spanner in the works!

So we're just waiting to see what this new one will be like! due any day now...

[Jacki]

OMG - DS slept for 4 hours straight last night !! Its a miracle. I feel like a normal person for once this morning rather than a walking zombie. I know not to get too excited about it and it probably won't happen again for another 6 weeks - but boy o boy was it good to get more than 1 hour sleep.

Has anyone ventured out much. The thought of it still puts the fear of god into me. MIL is coming over today so will stay at home today but tomorrow am going to try and get it together to get to the child care centre and get Luke "weighed in".

Thoughts anyone ??? ...... DH and I have been invited to a wedding next Saturday (1 March). Im not too sure if I am up to going out for a full day with Luke yet. I can't drive due to c-section and DH will be drinking so I will have to rely on my Mum to drive me there and pick me up. I am worried that he if chucks a big said I am kind of stuck there until Mum gets there. Am also worried about BF in public at this stage.
Am I being silly/not brave enough? Do you think I should go. The wedding is at 4.00pm and the reception starts at 6.00pm

[jenjams]

Jacki- I too are scared to go out. We have to go to the hospital on Monday for an appointment and I really dont want to go. Well done on 4 hours sleep. It certainly makes a difference. With the wedding I dont think I could do it personally especially if I couldnt not get away plus I am not too comfortable with the bf yet... that really doesnt help!

[Esme]

Hi girls,

Haven't logged on for a while due to a short hospital stay. Jasper was still vomiting a fair bit and had not gained enough weight, so the paed wanted us under observation for a couple of nights. He figured it was due to my milk supply not being enough and put me on Motilium. This seems to work and we are back home after a weight gain of 80 g in one night yesterday. Hopefully this will keep working, otherwise we'll have to switch to formula.

Jacki - I hear you on the anxiety with the trips to town! lucky DP had two weeks of work, so we tried to tackle them together. So far we managed a short trip to town; up and down the main street, the shopping in the supermarket and appr. 3 doctors visits... So far so good, no tantrums and no vomiting. We also went to a BBQ at a friends place, but he didn't want to settle after a feed, so we went home early. We also have a wedding coming up this saturday and I don't know yet how we'll manage as DP is singer in the band and won't be around to help....But I'm sure that in a couple of weeks time we'll be all confident!

On feeding routines; I feed Jasper on demand, especially now he's got trouble putting on weight. He calls every 3 hours, sometimes 4, and has a wakeful period of about 3 hrs a day (anywhere in the day/night) when he drinks every 1.5-2 hrs. He's only on the breast for about 7-10 minutes at a time though, and doesn't want the second breast... so we'll have to keep an eye on his weight gain. The community health nurse will be coming over this arvo, so we'll see.

Sorry about the long post, but there's so much to learn and talk about!

[Bun]

jen - when she is unsettled I try first a cuddle, then walking around and rocking her, a few little exercises the midwives taught me to help get rid of gas, I will try the rocking chair and if all else fails, I will feed her again! I am still not sure what the problem is a lot of the time, but I know she gets a lot of gas so that is most likely the problem. It takes a while to work out these little people!

Jacki - woo hoo on a four hour sleep! Sleep makes such a difference to your overall mood, hey.

I am finding going out a bit daunting still. We managed to get to the drs yesterday which was fine and we have visited the families a couple of times. I haven't been to the shops on my own yet because DH has been around enough, but will brave that soon. As for a wedding, not sure if I could handle that! I am also a bit shy to bf in public, as sometimes it takes a while to get her on properly, or she pulls herself off a few times, exposing me to everyone! So far I have only been around friends and family, so it has been ok.

Esme - glad to hear little Jasper put on so much weight in one night - that's impressive!

We were doing pretty well with a four hour routine once we got home from the hosp, but now we seem to be going backwards! Now we can barely make three hours, and sometimes only two! She also gets confused between day and night and sometimes will go back to sleep straight after a day time feed and then wants to play after a night time feed! So annoying!

[prama]

Hi girls, just saying hello and welcoming myself to the group!
Bub was born 2 weeks early on Valentine's Day.
Will be posting more, having a hard time dealing with lack of feeding, sore nipples, making bf very hard, constant expressing and sterilising bottles.

[jenjams]

Prama I can sympathise with you. Being a new mum is hard. Nothing can prepare you for it. Sounds like you have a great supporting DH. Dont beat yourself up over the BF. Things do get better apparently.....