Babies Born ~ July 2013 #1

The 5 feeds per day is just a guideline (my S-26 sachets say 6 feeds for 2 weeks-3months). Some babies will still want smaller, more frequent feeds. If you do choose to switch to formula, just make sure it is what you really want, as usually there is no going back. And sometimes it's not all it's cracked up to be - constantly washing bottles, preparing formula, heating bottles, buying formula, constipation & smelly poos! lol. I hope I am not coming across the wrong way, I'm just speaking from past experiences.

Emily is feeding roughly 3 hourly during the day, and between 3-5 hours at night. All babies are different, I know it's hard not to compare, but there is no 'normal/abnormal'. My DS1 fed every 1-3hrs day AND night. He didn't start sleeping in longer stretches until he was around 9 months old. No one had warned me about the sleep deprivation!

I really don't want to go to formula. I just get desperate thoughts sometimes I guess. I've been giving her one formula bottle at night (the one DH gives her) and that's all. I never imagined I would be so bad on no sleep, it is breaking me down.

Tasha, are you able to express? My bubs is currently feeding every 1.5-2 hrs at night, slightly longer during the day but I have a good supply so I express once a day and get around 240 ml which I use at night or when bubs is with hubby. It is still hard but gives me a break and more freedom. He feeds much quicker on the bottle so it makes it easier at night when I'm bleary eyed.

Sorry for just barging in, I haven't posted for ages. Our beautiful boy was born the 9th July, 9.2pounds, born naturally at an independent birth centre with our private midwives.
He was posterior and got a wee but stuck so pushing went for aaaagessss but we got there in the end with a little tear and a couple of stitches. All feels pretty normal now.

We are tired but very very happy and grateful! :) no Dtd for us yet either. The mind is willing but the body really isn't, sleep comes first right now! And luxuries like showering and eating ;) lol
We have taken apart our bed, mattress on floor, bub on snuggle bed on single mattress beside me and usually in our bed by around 4am when I can't sit up any longer to feed without falling asleep! During the day he sleeps in his swing in the lounge near us. A very snuggly, cuddly baby who is happiest on mummy or daddy!

Happy to hear our bundles were born safely, have been reading along when I get the chance!

hi ladies, finally making it in here! :)

our little guy is doing really well, after a slow start to feeding & a little bit of jaundice. he is a little baby (2.78 kgs at birth, dropping to 2.56 kgs a few days later). perfect in every way of course ;). hospital stay was really good, made good use of the breast feeding room until I got a unusually opinionated/pushy midwife/lactation consulatant who made me cry... then proceeded to tell me not to cry bc baby doesn't need that sort of bodily liquid, what it needed was breast milk. I think I just had the hormone drop/baby blues bc really I was crying for no reason at all. lasted 2 days and would just pop up at any time during the day, a bit funny really bc I would just be going about my business & then start to cry. odd. breast feeding has gotten off to a real difficult start, cracked, inflamed nipples making it unbearable to breast feed on one boob. ended up at a day stay program Tuesday, which was a life saver. perfected my latch & got a medicated cream for right boob as even lactation consultant couldn't get a painless latch going for me and suspected I might have a slight infection behind nipple. it even hurt too much to breast pump, my dh & I were hand expressing a feed... took us aaaages to get 25 mls. anyway, things are looking up & im glad I stuck with it. well worth the tears, exhaustion & worry that I might not be giving my little guy enough. even managed to breast pump yesterday & today & give a 10 min feed of the sore boob. sorry im going on about it, but I feel I have really jumped a massive hurdle with this breast feeding thing!

my little guy is feeding quite well, still gets sleepy & often I have to take him off, lay him on the floor/change nappy to wake him up a bit & try again. sleeping 3-4 hour blocks, and has done a couple of 5 hour blocks over past couple of days. its tiring, but we are managing. we have got our feed/settle routine down from 2 hours, to 1 hour - so we are patting ourselves on the back with that too! recovery wise, I am healing really well, ive been surprised. there's not much I cant do, other than lift heavy stuff & I am thankful im not in any real pain. had first mchn visit yesterday & he is putting on the required weight (25-30 grams per day), which is a relief considering the difficulties we've had breast feeding.

still cant quite believe he's mine & there is a lot of starring at him & cuddling him off to sleep. he sleeps in a moses basket next to our bed at night, and in the lounge area during the day & doesn't seem bothered by the noise around him which makes pottering around easy. anyway, better go & have a shower. I hope you're all doing really well, I have been reading occasionally but must admit have been a bit awol since he was born. understandably...! xx

Congrats Maybe and Andie :)
I think we are all awol at the moment Andie. Glad the feeding is under control, I had trouble too at the start, but now my nipples are fine. I used hydrogel breast discs, they worked fantastic and they stop the nipple rubbing on your clothes :)

Things are looking up the last few days for me. Things are getting better. I went to bed at 8pm last night and DH gave her a 9:30 bottle and she slept till 1am. So I got 5 whole hours!! LOL

Congrats Andie and Maybe.

Life is a newborn is so time consuming lol. Today I found myself vacumming and mopping my floors with a newborn strapped to me in his infant carrier. We got one for free when we bought our car seat. Its been a blessing as he loves it and I love that I can get things done, so can rest when he is sleeping.

Wednesday was our first mummy and baby group. It was good although really packed. There were 17 new mums with babies ranging from 4 weeks to 14 weeks. It amazing to see the different sizes. My Jack was the biggest 4 week old there. He was so good through the meeting.

Jack is in a good routine now, although he sometimes sleeps through his midnight feed and wakes around 2am instead which throws us out a bit, but I love the bigger sleep. He goes down between 8 and 9pm. Feeds normally at midnight and then again at 4am and gets up around 7.30am. Although the last couple of nights its been 2am and then 6am. Waking up around 6am is hard, but am liking only getting up once a night.

I hope your all loving not being pg and having your bubbas earthside. I love not being pg anymore although I do miss the afternoon naps on the sofa :)

Tasha, so glad things are looking up for you :) Hope there are many more 5 hour sleeps! My DH has been doing the last feed of the night sometimes too, and that bit of extra sleep is lovely.

vic, I love having my body back, I am still tired, but at least I can move and breathe! lol. The carrier sounds great :) It's amazing what babies will sleep through!

Congrats Andie! Glad you got the feeding sorted, sucks you had to deal with a horrible MW/LC though.

Congrats maybe :) How is your DD liking being a big sister?

Breastfeeding is a non-event here. Still :( Even after Emily's tongue was snipped, we still haven't managed to get a good latch. And now I'm not even trying as it was frustrating us both. My nipples are still cracked, sore and bleeding, and that is just from pumping. I spoke to the lactation consultant again because I'm sure this is not normal. I can't get in to see her until Wednesday. She did recommend using coconut oil in the meantime, so I grabbed some of that today. Fingers crossed it makes a difference. Everything else is going well, I was just saying to DH this morning how amazing it is to have a baby that sleeps! So totally different to my boys. I still can't keep up around the house though, I spend far too much time baby gazing (that, and expressing milk!) :)

tasha - 5 hours... yay! glad to hear things are looking a bit better today. I have been following your other threads but being a first time mum myself, don't really have many suggestions for you. probably should've just given you some of these anyway.. :hug:. not sure how you're settling your little girl, but my little guy likes to be swaddled tight (something I though I would never do after watching my sister swaddle hers & thinking 'they cant possibly like that'!). he squawks a bit when I do it, but calms down almost immediately. once swaddled, dh holds him on his side along the length of his arm & he just looks around with his beautiful big eyes for around 10-15 minutes & then drifts off to sleep. you could try something like that? (sorry if you already have... told you I don't have much to offer!).
I used the hydro gel discs too, very soothing. using lanisoh & drying breast milk on them too. bit of an everything approach at this stage, hopefully my nipples will toughen up soon.

vic - ill have to try out our baby carrier soon, we got one as a gift. its a sling style one. I think I want a ergo but have to do some more research on them yet. our little guys sound like they have a similar routine, except mine likes to have his longer sleep (5 hour) early morning/before lunch. wish I could get him to have it 12-5am... that would be bliss! I though I would miss being pregnant, and I would love to be pregnant again, but since he was born I haven't really thought about it. except when I put my maternity jeans on yesterday & had a little sigh when my band was all floppy bc I don't have my belly anymore!

peeks - totally get where you're at atm, it's a nightmare. out of interest, how much do you get when you pump? im still not managing much, maybe 25-30 mls if I have a good session. my baby seems content though, settles easily & sleeps well., wet nappies etc. I hope the coconut oil works out, let me know bc I might try it too!

afm - nipples still a bit stingy after this mornings feed. im finding I have less on my right boob now bc I rested it for 2 days, any suggestions on how to build up supply on just one boob?! (the other one is fine). ive just been offering the right one first at all feeds in the hope that it will adjust. and express a little a couple of times a day, but I don't get much out. hope you all managed to get some sleep last night. xx

Andie, my little Emily must be a bit of a piggy as she's having around 110mls per feed! Because I'm exclusively pumping, I need to keep pumping until I get a full feed for her. Sometimes that can take up to 40 minutes, which is a drag, as then I need to actually feed it to her, wash the pump/bottle/etc. It's so time consuming :( I bought a hospital grade electric breast pump, as recommended by the lactation consultant. Before that I was using an avent manual pump and didn't have as much luck with it. The coconut oil seems to be working it's magic already. Not nearly as sore today, and the cracks seem better already too. I was using marcalan which I thought was meant to be pretty good?? Not as good as the coconut oil! lol. It's quite strong smelling, lucky I like the smell of coconut ;)

Peeks - 110mls per feed... that would take me a month to pump! I tried my sisters electric pump but my nipples were too sore so I went and bought an avent manual and seem to go ok with it. Takes a bit of getting used to but I only need to pump half a feed so its not too bad. Do you have to wash coconut oil off before feeding? (I'm assuming yes..?)

Peeks, Marley has about 120ml a feed. Well, that's how much formula she has at night with DH. So I'm assuming its roughly the same for my milk?? And a few times he has had to top her up!

Andie, I could only express about 30 ml at the start, but now I can do about 80. If I miss a feed I can do 150ml.

AFM: surviving on the few hours of sleep I get when DH takes over! But everything is going well :) I have sleep school on Wednesday so looking forward to that.

Also, how long is everyone feeding for? She is still doing 20 min each side. But friends have said that is very long for 1 month old??

Andie, you don't have to wash the coconut oil off, the lactation consultant told me to put it in Emily's mouth for thrush. If you put it on after a feed, there's not a lot left by the next feed anyway :)

Tasha, what's sleep school?

ok, so my little guy is just a weenie with his one boob & 30-35 mls?! I gave him 45 mls last night & one boob. he guzzled the 45 mls, so maybe he's starting to eat more. both boobs/nipples are feeling ok now so I think I might ditch the bottle, although it does make it easier/quicker at 3am.

tasha - I've got friends who went to sleep school with their little ones, they found it really helpful. my baby is averaging 12-15 mins on each side, will occasionally do 20 mins on one boob. at my day stay the other day, the midwife/lactation consultant told me anywhere between 15-30 mins is fine.

peeks - thanks for the coconut oil info, I have some so will try it out if I get sore again. glad it's working for you.

hi everyone else, hope you're doing well. : )

Good to hear Andie, lucky he doesn't feed long, it's tiresome!

Peeks, sleep school is for unsettled babies. It's all day and they settle your baby for you so they can find the problems. Then they help you use techniques to help settle them and give you advice on what would help.

I really hope they can help me! I fed at 3:30am and at 5:30 I was still up trying to settle her!! DH fed her at 9:30 and was still settling her at 11:30, it's ridiculous :( poor DH was so tired for work this morning.

Tasha, hope you get some answers/help from sleep school! What does Marley do after her feed? Is she upset/crying? Or just not wanting to sleep? Do you use a dummy? I know some people are anti dummies, but we couldn't survive without Emily having one :redface:

Emily has suddenly decided she doesn't need much sleep during the day! It makes it hard to get much done. I guess I should be happy she's still sleeping at night - last night she had a bottle at 10, she was down by around 11, and slept until 4. She is smiling all the time now! Sooo cute :) She is not overly keen on tummy time, only lasts a few mins usually, but her neck is so strong already!

Peeks, she does both! I feed her and rock/pat her till shes looking sleepy which can take 20 minutes. Then I pop her in the bassinet ever so slowly lol. Then in 5 minutes she realises and them starts to cry! I will usually repeat this up to 3 or 4 times, its sooo tiring. I see how tired she is sometimes and she just wants to fight it :( you are so lucky to have Emily sleep for 5 hour blocks! How long do you feed her for?

I just had 5 hours sleep! Its rare, but I Fed her at 6:30 and went to bed at 8. DH did a bottle at 9:30 and she just woke at 1:30am. I feel like a million bucks!

Lol peeks I'm kind of meh about dummy's, no real preference either way but my little bugger absolutely refuses to accept one! I have tried and he looks at me as though I'm trying to poison him, not sure if I should try a different brand? He happily takes an expressed bottle though which my DD never did.

Tash do you put her down as soon as he falls asleep? I have to be mindful to hold my little one a little longer as it takes him a while to get into a truly deep sleep where I can move him without him stirring, too early and he wakes and we start the process all over which is incredibly frustrating! Though I understand the urge to pop bubby down ASAP just for a few minutes autonomy!