Hi all - I am so sorry for not being able to get here earlier to say hi and catch up on what's been going on, time to get anywhere near a computer is seriously limited by a newborn! DH is attempting to settle Arabella which gives me a couple of minutes to see what's been going on with all these new mums and babies Unfortunately I don't have time for personals but I am so glad to see all these healthy babies, and that they're all feeding and stacking on the weight! I hope to get back on here more regularly, and if I could figure out how to use Tapatalk properly on my iPhone I could even do updates whilst feeding!

Arabella is almost 5 weeks old and is doing so very well. We had some problems with feeding - she couldn't latch on, so I was using a nipple shield and supplementing with formula as she wasn't getting much milk via the shield. It was just awful to have to mix up the stinky formula and feed it to her - I'd often be feeding her a bottle and sobbing as I did it - but we had to do what we had to do, and I'm thrilled to say that we've now been feeding without the nipple shield for a whole day now, and haven't used any formula since last Wednesday - so nearly a week. Finally it's working! She is getting on and feeding without any help from anything - it's just me and her and it's beautiful. I do get a bit teary now when I feed, not for the same reasons that I cried when I was formula feeding, but because I am so relieved that I can breastfeed and that Arabella is healthy and chubby and churning through those nappies. Seriously, this kid is a poop machine!

Unfortunately she's not too keen on the sleeping business! For a few days there she wouldn't sleep at all during the day, but we've now realised that she actually was getting tired but moved very quickly to overtired and thus wouldn't settle. We're now trying to get her to sleep between feeds; sometimes she will, sometimes she won't. She was sleeping 7 or 8 hours of a night-time which was amazing, but that lasted about a week-and-a-half and she's now waking once during the night for a feed (which is still pretty good!). However, she won't settle after the night feed - and Arabella's way of letting us know is to cry and cry and cry! She'll also cry for hours of an evening (I think it's the dreaded arsenic hour - it really does exist) which is just heartbreaking. And I can't seem to settle her as I smell like milk. Do any of you have any hints for settling in the evenings? We walk a lot up and down the hallway, bounce on the fitball whilst patting her bottom, walk in the pram (yeah, walking a screaming baby is heaps of fun!), feeding more often, try her in the sling, a bath either in the baby bath or in with me... And she will cry her way through all of these until she's worn herself out. DH struggles with it more than I do - he just wants to fix it, but there's nothing actually wrong - but if any of you have other ideas I am keen to hear them!

Hope you are all doing well, I will hopefully be able to log in more often to catch up on everyone's news and milestones as Arabella gets a bit older and into more of a predictable pattern (wishful thinking on my part???)