Hi to all,

Sounds like everyone is going well in these first few weeks. I haven't had time to scratch myself let alone post much so I'm finally catching up on some time. Will is 5wks old today and its been a rocky few weeks, mainly on the BF front. Unfortunately I've had to wean him and he's a fully formula fed boy now :-( I'm still having a hard time dealing with it. To cut a long story short, trying to BF has been hell for us - we took him off the boob at day 10 because my nipples were horrifically damaged. He has a high palate which made attachment difficult and he is absolutely ferocious at the boob. So I had been expressing since then to ensure he got breast milk and hopeful that things would heal and I could get him back on.

That all went pear shaped when I got thrush and a bacterial infection on my nipples, discovered that vasospasm was making things worse, and just over the weekend I got another infection flair up - a combination of mastitis and the bacterial infection getting into a wound on the nipple. Very painful. So we've weaned. I've never been in so much pain in all my life - even expressing was painful. Not to mention taking up precious time that I could be spending with my boy. I persevered for as long as I could. I just have to deal with the fact that my boobs weren't meant to feed this little one....maybe next baby

He has taken to the bottle fine, and he is stretching out his night sleep to about 7 hours now which is brilliant. We feed him around 8pm and 11pm and he'll sleep until about 6:30am the next morning. He's happy and settled and getting more and more alert. And now that I'm not attached to a breast pump for most of my day we can get out and about a bit more and I can have my sanity back.

All this hair-do stuff sounds good - i need a colour desperately. Re-growth is looking hideous. Thankfully my best friend is a hairdresser who works from home. I can go and hang at her place for an afternoon with Will and get hair done too. And my hariy legs look like something from the black swamp - time for a wax! Thank god its winter.

Take care all x will try and come back more often.
Lolly