This thread is for parents who's baby was born January 16th-31st 2011
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There are many issues that you will encounter as a new parent. We have put together this list of useful articles and threads in order to assist you with some common questions or issues you may have, and to provide you with bit of extra support that we all need as new parents:
Please contact the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) or a Lactation Consultant if you are concerned that you may have breastfeeding and/or supply problems, and before the introduction of solids.
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Last edited by Astrolady; May 17th, 2011 at 11:45 AM.
While I know my little man was born early - as a premmie he is measured on his adjusted age for milestones, so I hope everyone is okay with me joining them here!!
Just thought I'd pop in here. My little princess was born on the 25/1. Not sure if I should join this group or the 1-15 Feb group which was when she was due....
Hi S'Rose and Chody47! Congrats on the arrivals of your babies I'll be joining you here too - Arabella was born 20/01/2011. Hopefully some more of the girls I was belly buddies with will join us here soon... I can't promise that I will be able to post much, getting near a computer is a little difficult with a little one!
LOL allejane.. it gets easier I promise.. Oscar sleeps better now and look here I am lol.
Welcome Chody47, feel free to join both or either, and congratulations on the birth of your little girl.
I have my first meeting of the first time mums group this afternoon, and strangely I am very nervous. It seems so much harder with a premmie as my experience is so vastly different to most. I hope they are a great bunch of women :fingerscrossed:
We've had our first lot of immunisations and my little man was a complete superhero. A little crying and then he mostly slept it off. DH & I had the whooping cough on the same day to even the score
S'rose - hope you are enjoying your RDO!!!! and massage on thurs sounds lovely! I am hanging out for a massage, will just wait a little longer though until I'm comfortable leaving Lewis for a couple of hours... He doesn't often make it past half an hour without a feed atm although I know he would be fine if I wasn't here dangling boobs in his face all day lol
Chody47 I'm the same with letting DH sleep through too, although sometimes if DS1 wakes at the same time he'll have to get up. But there's no point us both being sleep deprived and he's more help to me during the day if he's at least slept... It baffles me to no end though how they can sleep through it all, I guess it's the mummy instincts that have me wide awake at even the smallest squeak from either of my two boys!
Lewis has a nasty bit of nappy rash I'm a bit worried about. Went to the pharmacist today and got some super cream, fingers crossed it works, I'm a little worried it might be thrush but no other symptoms. If it doesn't clear up in a couple of days I'll get a midwife out to look or sthg.
He's also been a bit unsettled with a tight tummy after some feeds, but think that's just a case of him working it all out... Just causing me a bit of stress as didn't have any of that with Edward and I guess I just assumed that Lewis would be the same baby lol.
Anyway outside with two nappy free boys airing their willies and bums! I'm typing on phone so sorry if I've missed anything! Hope everyone's well!!! xxxxx
AliMoy, I hope the nappy rash clears up quickly. Amber has a little bit of it too.
Afm, we had a weigh in at the child health centre yesterday and unfortunately she was only weighing 30g more than when she was discharged from hospital (8 days earlier). So, the nurse recommended we attend an Early Feeding Support Clinic this morning. The good news from the visit to the EFSC was that the nurse said her attachment and sucking is good. Her only suggestions to help us were to change sides earlier and more frequently. She also recommended I express after each feed, so we need to buy a pump. In the meantime we've borrowed one from a friend. We go back to the child health centre on Friday so I'm hoping she gains some weight by then.
Juniper76 - not sure if you can, but we hired a pump from our pharmacy, you can also hire them from ABA if you don't want to buy a pump! Great news that all is well with latching. Don't fret too much about her weight. It takes a lot of energy to at home for a little person
Chody47 - How did the Dr's go? You do get used to being tired. Enjoy having your partner home, and use him heaps, it's much more different on your own most of the time.
Alimoy - Oscar has been getting nappy rash - sudocream has worked for us - do you get bounty bags? If so there is a sample in there you can try. I'm sorry your partner can sleep through Lewis' wake ups.
RDO was pretty good, DH came home early which was a bonus so I handed him our little fusspot and got some stuff done!! Oscar has decided not to sleep mornings which is fun, except when he's upset for the whole time We have some diarrhoea too which makes the nappy rash a bit worse. On the upside, 4am colic time seems to have settled finally. We're mostly only doing 1 night feed now which is exciting. We got weighed yesterday and my chubby boy gained - we're now 4.1kg.. I can't believe how fast he grows!!
AliMoy - I hope the nappy rash has decided to go away! I too have some sudocream and pop it on Amelia whenever I think she is looking a little red down there.....not sure if she actually has a rash or not, but I figure it can't hurt either way...
Juniper - Sorry to hear about the slow weight gain. I have brought a pump (a tommee tippee one as I was told their bottles were good as they are closest in shape to BB's, making it more likely bubs will be happy with them) and started using it a couple of days ago. I got it mainly so that DH can feed Amelia occasionally so I can have a break and he can have that special time with her too. Try not to worry about the weight thing too much (although I know that's hard as I have been stressed about it myself). I've been taking Amelia to be weighed a couple of times a week as I have been so stressed about it. I was told by a friend our local chemist (a national pharmacy) has scales you can weigh babies on if you don't want to go to the hospital to do it....
S'Rose - Wow! Oscar seems as if he is gaining weight really well!
AFM - The doc appointment went ok. He wasn't too fussed as Amelia is still putting on weight (around 25g a day at the moment). He did suggest that if the vomiting continued maybe we could try infant gaviscon, which apparently thickens the milk in their stomach a bit. Luckily for us the vomiting has decreased over the past few days. DH had done a bit of 'research' on the internet and reckons that Amelia has a bit of 'silent reflux' (nothing like self diagnosis ). Apparently it means that stomach acid and stuff comes up and down a bit. When this had been happening we had incorrectly assumed she needed to burp, and the patting her back had been making her spew. We have been trying to follow the 'tips' for silent reflux (sitting them upright and offering a dummy after it appears to have gone away to help neutralise the acid) and it seems to be working really well, so even if that is not it the tactics seem to be helping!
Well DH goes back to work on Monday.....I think I will be ok with looking after Amelia but I'm not sure that I will manage to get anything 'done' around the house. Don't get me wrong, DH doesn't expect it (that's been a good thing about him being home the past couple of weeks, he has seen how much time Amelia is demanding), but it's more me wanting to keep things tidy and 'up-to-date'. I guess I will just have to try to modify my own expectations or I will burn myself out!
... okay just really quickly - i have a small window where both boys are actually asleep! i wonder if i can actually eat lucnh with two hands or (shock horror) drink a whole, hot cuppa tea!
Lewis' nappy rash is all cleared up - turns out it was a bit of thrush, so lots of open air time and some anti-fungle cream did the trick super-fast.
interestingly though, we didn't get a bounty bag this time - the hospital i went to are very pro-natural and anti chemicals etc so they asked the companies to stop sending them samples 'coz they wouldn't hand them out or promote them at the hospital lol... one of the midwives did mention though that "sudo cream was the only good thing in there"!
anyway i just wanted to quickly pop in and see if anyone else has a tummy-sleeper?
it's just Lewis' comfy position, he sleeps so well on his tummy, up until now i've been reluctant to put him on his tummy at night, but since we're 100% BF and co-sleeeping, SIDS risks are minimal... so i'm thinking about putting him on his tummy tonight - anyone have any thoughts/experience? i'm just nervous 'coz all the mainstream stuff essentially stops just short of telling you that sleeping on the tummy is going to kill your baby... i'd obviously like to keep him for a while yet and instincts and nature seem to be telling me that that's what he wants to do... especially since he's a bit of a windy baby so being on his front obviously helps with that.
DH went back to work this week and it's friday and we all seem to have survived with most of our marbles... but there will be wine tonight.
Edward is constantly surprising me with how he is taking it all in his stride, with only a few challenging moments. We've kept very busy this week though and only really had one day at home - just seems much easier if we're out and have things to do!
Actually i did cheat one day, my mum took Edward for a sleepover and so i got to spend a whole day with just me and Lewis looking at each other and getting to know one another - fallin' in love and stuff... it was really nice to have that 1:1 time where i could sit down for a whole bf and carry him everywhere without feeling like i was constantly putting him down to look after Eddie (or constantly telling Eddie that i needed to look after Lewis)...
oh that was the other thing had a middie visit last week - weighed Lewis just outta interest - he's put on a kilo since birth (that was a week ago when he was 2weeks old and he's definitely fattened up since then too!)... haha crazy kid.
Having said that i seriously urge you all not to worry too much about statistics (i'm sure there'd be some 'experts' out there who would say i'm feeding Lewis too much or some rubbish like that, i feed him when he wants it - you can't force a baby to suck!).... you know if you're babies are healthy so the idea of putting on 'too much' weight or 'not enough' weight really should bare little relevance to what you're doing as long as it's working.
Okay, longer than i thought - boys still asleep... spoke too soon, Lewis is awake... back to the nappies and boobies
Hey allejane!
Well done on the feeding that's awesome!!! Stick with it, it gets easier and easier as you both adjust and soon bfing will be a complete non-issue! Fantastic news that you're managing without the shield and formula!!!!
Eep about the aresnic hour. You need to find your magic 'thing', again it'll get easier as she gets more interested in looking at things etc... My magic trick that has worked for both my boys is to take their clothes off! I have a couple of nudists! A bit of nudey time (outside if it's warm enough) just seems to work when nothing else does!
With Eddie boobie was my fix-all but Lewis only likes to feed if he's genuinely hungry so I'm finding it tough adjusting to having to find other things that keep him happy or give me some time to write an email, make a phone call etc
Taking them outside worked for us too normally, looking at trees.
Or cranky up some music and dancing around with them in my arms... Sometimes I wonder if some of these 'techniques' had more to do with cAlming me down which then calms them down, but if it works who cares!!
Will lets you know if I think of anything else... But Lewis is back asleep on me so we're going back to bed!
Oh and OMG I'm jealous of your sleeping!!!!!!!!!! Nice work!
Ugh, I think AF started today. Anyone else have any signs of AF yet? At least (if it is indeed AF) it seems to be pain-free so far. I only had 2 AFs after my lap and I hadn't had any improvement in the pain so I was dreading the first PPAF.
Hi all - I've managed to make it to my computer, and this time, I have a baby strapped to me! Thanks to S'Rose I've been able to finally work out the sling (I had sort-of worked it out but I didn't feel at all confident in using it - too worried DD would pop out or start getting upset, and she obviously felt this from me as she would usually cry when in the sling!) and I have been able to wear DD for much of the afternoon where she has peacefully slept. I think we have found our magic cure for arsenic hour and I couldn't be happier! We ended up going to see a doctor about the crying and sleeplessness, it turns out that DD suffers pretty badly with wind pains (thanks again S'Rose for your detective work with that!) and suspected silent reflux. Our GP got her onto Losec and she's been on that for just over a week - after yesterday's dose, she vomited and by this morning she was a screaming mess, so we know that the Losec is working. We're also using Infacol with great success, I am really enjoying those massive man-burps DD is ripping out after a feed!
We saw the MCHN last week, and DD has put on just over a kilo in 5 weeks which we're really happy with - she's now just over 5.5kg and my arms are getting so buff hefting her around! She has started to smile as well which is pretty special, I got a smile yesterday (or was it the day before??? The days just roll into each other!) and DH got his first smile tonight. It's pretty special because you know she's doing it on purpose
AliMoy - I got a good laugh out of your nudist fix-all! I had no idea that taking off clothes made babies happy - DD tends to cry a bit during nappy-free time but I think that was because she was on her back, and we now know that the reflux is worst when she's lying flat. Great ideas though, I tried the music/dancing option the other day (none of that baby-music crap, I put on the stuff that I like and sang loudly, too) and although it didn't calm her that much, I felt really good afterwards.
Juniper - eek, I hadn't even thought about AF. I assumed that I wouldn't be seeing AF for a few months yet because of the breastfeeding, but I do know that she can make her re-appearance even if you're breastfeeding... I hope it's not too awful, it's amazing how quickly we adjust to not having to deal with AF each month! I wonder if it will be much different now that we're mothers???
Hope everyone else is doing well and that your babies are keeping you entertained!
Okay, I must apologise for the false alarm. Apparently there's this thing called the 6-week bleed. Who knew? Anyway, no sign of bleeding this morning, so hopefully that's what it was?
But the good news ends there. I spoke to the paediatrician this afternoon and he made me feel like a complete failure. Amber still hasn't regained her birth weight. We have been supplementing with formula for over a week now and her weight gain last week was less than the week before. He has basically ordered me to give her more formula and I'm starting to think we won't even get to 3 months with the BF (which I had wanted to do for at least 12 months). After needing IVF to conceive her and a c/s to deliver her, I now need formula to feed her. I couldn't do any of it on my own.
allejane, I'm glad to hear you've got the sling worked out and that it's helping so much! Also great news on the Losec working and Arabella's weight gain too!
Hi girls,
I have been keeping up with your thread and thought I might drop in and see how everyone is doing! I miss you all!! I think I might need to have two baby buddy threads this time, lol!
We are going well. Caelan is a little buddah and is just getting more and more adorable by the day! He's started laughing a little and it's just the cutest sound I have ever heard! He's been smiling for ages, but I just can't quite catch a photo of him, not for lack of trying though! He's cooing and babbling and loves to be sung (sang??) to. I'm sooo in love! Though a little more sleep would be lovely! He will have one four hour stretch first up of a night, usually about 7-11ish, and then he might have 3hrs, and then it's 2hrly wake ups, sometimes hourly, and sometimes, usually at around 3-4am, we have a big grizzly fart session, where I am usually awake for an hour or two with him, lol! He usually sleeps fairly well through the day, with at least one 2ish hour sleep, sometimes two if the kids are quiet (which is rare these days!) but usually a few cat naps of abotu 45mins in there too.
I am going well (considering the lack of sleep I get, lol!) Still anaemic, though that will last a little while yet I would say. I am trying to eat well adn need to start diong some exercise, or I will never lose this weight!
Babies born ~ January 16th-30th 2011 #1
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I'll be joining you here too - Arabella was born 20/01/2011. Hopefully some more of the girls I was belly buddies with will join us here soon... I can't promise that I will be able to post much, getting near a computer is a little difficult with a little one!
). Apparently it means that stomach acid and stuff comes up and down a bit. When this had been happening we had incorrectly assumed she needed to burp, and the patting her back had been making her spew. We have been trying to follow the 'tips' for silent reflux (sitting them upright and offering a dummy after it appears to have gone away to help neutralise the acid) and it seems to be working really well, so even if that is not it the tactics seem to be helping!
Anyone else have any signs of AF yet? At least (if it is indeed AF) it seems to be pain-free so far. I only had 2 AFs after my lap and I hadn't had any improvement in the pain so I was dreading the first PPAF.
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