Babies born~March 1st-15th 2010 #1

Hi ladies

Cass - glad to hear you are excited about your parents arrival! I'm also in Perth and going to try and get out in the sun-she-yine this afternoon.

Thrilled82 - hang in there - sounds like you are doing great!

Feijoa Mum - know what you mean about shopping. I went to the local shops the other day to get a pair of jeans that fit. Fraser slept the whole way there but as soon as I stepped into that changing room - ping, he was awake and girning. It's depressing not having any nice clothes that fit.

Jandals - take it easy! Try and not do too much as you need time to recover.

Mum2willie - hope you are all feeling better soon!

Lou76 - hope things are working out better for you.

Hi to everyone else I have missed!


Glad to hear that I'm not the only one that that is going it tough at the moment - maybe it's also Week 3-itis! On Tuesday night, Fraser wouldn't settle at all. He screamed and screamed, which isn't like him. We noticed it seemed to be wind, but we couldn't get it up or down. Luckily, I had some Brauer Colic Relief in the drawer so I gave him that and it settled him enough to get him to sleep (after 3 hours of screaming). Through the night, it was a case of feeding him as quickly as possible and not changing nappies on every feed, to try and keep him settled. He woke up screaming every time, poor soul. Anyway, daylight hours yesterday, he screamed from 6 am right through to about 11 am, when he wore himself out. Slept on and off for about half an hour at a time and I couldn't lay him down at all. He also wasn't taking proper feeds, just grazing all day. DH arrived home at 3 pm and he carried on "cuddles" to try and settle him so I could get a break. It was around then that we realised he hadn't had a poo for about 15 hours, although he had lots and lots of eye watering smelly pumps. We gave him some cooled boiled water and another drop of Colic Relief and that seemed to settle him a bit. At about 8 pm last night, we had a "Number 3 - Poo Explosion", which came out of the nappy and was all up his back, over his vest and his muslin. The look of relief on his face said it all! After that, he settled really well, although he woke up every 90 mins through the night for a half feed - must have still been trying to get his system back into rythym, poor little man! Today has been good so far - he's asleep at the moment, athough still not back up to full feeds.

Goodness, sounds like some of you are having a really hard time; it's so stressful when they cry like that.

Well we had an "ordeal" today. We had a paedetrician (sp?) visit to check bub's thyroid as I have an under active thyroid and it can affect the baby. I thought that it wouldn't take more than an hour but we ended up spending half the day at the hospital. Bubs is making a funny sound sometimes when he breathes so they wanted a chest Xray and he had to have his blood test done again as they stuffed up the first one, not enough blood. We had to wait for ages as doctors were on lunch etc. Then they had a lot of difficulty getting blood out of him. I sat in the next room listening to him scream whilst they tried endlessly to get his blood; it was agony. We are all exhausted now and we are meant to be going to see DH family tomorrow and they are 1.5hrs drive away....we'll see how tonight goes but if we have another bad one I'm not going anywhere.

I was told not to give any water, but iv heard its good for wind?

anyone think it works?

'sneaks in'

shell, I went to a chemist today to try and get something for my little guy's wind, and they told me two things (apart from the medication for it).
1)if bub is fed with formula, to change to an 'original' formula and not the 'gold' version as these are too heavy for little babies, and 2) to give them room temperature boiled water (with a tiny bit of sugar as they don't like the plain taste). She said they only might take a couple of ml. or so, but it's supposed to help relieve constipation/wind.

'sneaks out'

beata I am willing to try anything at the moment as well. Poor lil guy does the smelliest fluffs I have ever smelt. My mum told me to try infants friend or something like that but I don't know much about it.

queen Bee poor lil bub. Hope you all get a nice nights rest and relaxation!

So tired today but I am not really sure why. Have been getting a decent amount of sleep but I guess you just feel tired with a new born.
We finally went out and brought a new pram today. Now I am ready to tackle the streets with my 2 lil guys.
Hope you all have a lovely long weekend with family.

Thanks Beata hun, great to know! You're a star! :D

Shell I have a book from our hospital that says to try cooled boiled water, thats why we tried it, and it seemed to do the trick. Only prob was it didn't say how much so we did 20 ml.

Deedles, a friend from my baby buddy thread told me to try Infants Friend drops, she swears by it. So I have been giving my little guy 3 doses a day (my friend said you can give the drops before or after a feed, directly into the bottle if formula feedind, or if b/f before or after a feed directly into the mouth). My paedetrician said morning, afternoon and night is enough. The drops help with colic and wind, and even with teething later on. It's supposed to keep the bowels regular. The dosage on the bottle says for babies up to 1 month old you can give 5 to 10 drops, and then the dosage goes up for 1 to 3 months old to 10 to 20 drops. Hope it helps! Look it up on the web site.

Miamunchkin, hi hun!!! Good to see you're doing well :D With the cooled boiled water, the lady at the chemist said to give them what they are willing to take, they will pee the excess out anyway!

Happy Easter everone!

Thanks girls i will make some up- iv been using infants friend it does work, i want to try infocol (spelling)

its 3 each afternoon Hannah screams for about 2 hours from wind and then during the night she screams mostly between 2 and 4 sigh poor little girl..

I am getting a close carrier next week ordered it from the Uk much cheaper then getting it here, so i hope by wearing that so she is upright during the day it will help with her wind build up i hope!

Beata - good to know with the amount of water! We weren't sure so didn;t want to try too much. We've only had to do it the once.

Shell - great about the close carrier! The exchange rate is really good for buying from the UK at the moment! I got our GroEgg from there for a fraction of the price!

We're currently using the Brauer Colic Relief but I have ordered some Infants Friend and a few of the other Brauer products. Someone (forgive me for not remembering who) on here said earlier that the Infacol is a bit harsher and you have to give it before a feed? Will look up the website on Infant's Friend though.

Does anyone know if it's okay to give them these things quite regularly? I obviously don't want to if I can help it, but Fraser seems to have had a particularly few windy days and it breaks my heart to see him in pain!

Happy Easter everyone and keep enjoying the snuggles! x

We are using Infants Friend and finding it does give Willow some relief.
We are still not sure what is making her cry as she doesn't give away the dead set wind signs (pulling legs up etc), but the Infants Friend is helping quieten her, so we are going with colic or wind being the culpret to her screaming.

I am pretty sure it's ok to give it to bubs fairly regularly - as in after each feed I suppose. We have given it to Willow a few times a day, maybe three times on a particularly bad day.

Happy Easter to all!

Gosh I hope I don't jinx myself but..... Robert hasn't had any really bad wind/collicy problems so I can't offer any advice on the water or infants friend. Fingers crossed it stays that way! :pray:

Last night he went 3 & half hours between feeds which was great, I'm hoping he keeps that up. During the day I'm sticking with 3 hour feeds (from the first one in the morning to the last "night time" one at around 8.30-9ish) even if I do have to wake him for it. He had no interest in having a sleep this morning so I took him for a half hour walk - which he just enjoyed, I even got a couple of "coos" out of him. He fell asleep just as we were coming up the driveway, but then it was only for about half hour. He's just gone down for his "big nap" now.

Hi everyone,

I've read all the posts but can't remember enough to reply. Having a rough day - haven't gotten out of my pj's yet and had a couple of teary episodes. Lacie has had an awful couple of nights. Three nights ago she screamed from 10.30pm till 4am, she'd stop to feed but then start up again straight afterwards. Thought it must be wind so sat up with her, bouncing her etc, trying to get it out and no luck. She finally passed out at 4ish and was awake again about 5.30. The next night was much the same. Yesterday we noticed she was having less wet nappies throughout the day, and with my nipples being so sore I thought I'd try expressing for a while. Discovered what the problem is - an hour of expressing resulted in just 10 mls of milk. No wonder she feeds for so long and sleeps so much during it, the poor little thing must have been starving.

Tried expressing hourly to try and keep the milk coming, so far it hasn't helped. Gave in this morning and sent DF out to get some formula so now I'm expressing about every 2 hours and giving her that, with formula as top up. She had her first formula bottle at 1pm today and has been sleeping peacefully ever since. I feel so bad that I didn't realise sooner that the BF wasn't enough. I'm going to keep expressing and hoping that the milk comes back, I did have a really good supply so I'm not sure what happened.

Anyway, better go try expressing again while she's still snoozing. Hope everyone is okay xxx

Oh Roxxie you poor thing. Hope you (and Lacie) get a better nights sleep.

Oh Roxxie I hope tonight is better for you.

I've heard that just like breastfeeding, expressing is an art and it can take a while to get it happening. I think one of my books actually says to start expressing 3 days before you require the milk - it can take that long to get a full feed expressed for newbies.

I tried hand expressing the other morning when I was "full" as I was planning on keeping some in my fridge for a 'top up' feed when Willow is most girzzly, but after a full 10 minutes expressing I had less then 10mls. So I gave up and am trying 2 hourly feeds of an afternoon when she is most girzzly and unsettled.

Willow is still putting on weight and appears really quite content after a feed so am trying to remain confidant about my supply. I know how easily it is to doubt your supply - it is the first thing I always think is the problem when Willow starts to become unsettled (I say to myself, oh she must be hungry, she's not getting enough at feeds, my milk isn't filling her ... it's a downward spiral).

The childcare nurse said the other day at her visit to stop doubting my milk, Willow is putting on weight and it's just normal baby behaviour to be so unsettled in the early weeks.
We'll see how we go.
I have heard some very positive things about a comp feed though.
I have a tin of formula just in case.

Roxxie - like the others have said, I hope tonight's better for you. With a nice bulky feed of formula hopefully Lacie will let you get some much needed sleep :hug:

I know you probably don't have any time for baking right now but just wanted to let you know that I tried a lactation cookie recipe that I found here on BB and I'm pretty sure they helped increase my supply. I don't think my supply was overly low but Toby was feeding so much I began to wonder how much he was getting. Feijoa Mum tried them too and I think she found them to work. So if you can con a friend or relative into baking for you it would be worth a try. Here's the recipe:

Housepoet's Famous Lactation Boosting Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip & Flaxseed cookies
Serves: 6 dozen cookies
Preparation time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
* 1 cup butter or marg
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 tablespoons water
* 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal (can be found at any local health food store)
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 cups oats, thick cut if you can get them
* 1 cup or more chocolate chips
* 2 tablespoons of brewers yeast* (be generous) (IT MUST BE BREWERS YEAST, NO SUBSTITUTIONS)

Directions:
* Preheat oven at 375 degrees F.
* Mix together 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and water, set aside for 3-5 minutes.
* Cream (beat well) margarine and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mix well. Stir flaxseed mixture and add with vanilla to the margarine mix. Beat until blended.
* Sift together dry ingredients, except oats and chips. Add to margarine mixture. Stir in oats then chips.
* Scoop or drop onto baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment or silpat. The dough is a little crumbly, so it helps to use a scoop.
* Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on size of cookies.

I couldn't get to the health food shop so instead of flaxseed meal I used LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond I think), which was at Woolies. The brewers yeast was at Woolies too but it only came in tiny packets, probably not the most economical way to buy but saved me driving around to find it elsewhere.

thrilled - good on you for trying hand expressing. I could never get the hang of it and never got much out. I have a manual pump now and can get a lot more with that. Might be worth a try if you're still wanting to express.

Toby had his first check up with the CHN yesterday. He's only just back to his birth weight now so I'll have to keep weighing him weekly to make sure he's gaining. I'm not too worried as he's happy and settled most of the time and he feeds every 2-3 hrs and he is gaining weight. Just slowly! DD was a slow gainer too - although a lot of that was because of reflux, which apparently often kicks in around 3 weeks.

And I got my first real smile yesterday too :D I almost cried! I've had another one today so I'm pretty sure it's for real and not just wind. I'll tell myself that anyway ;)

I was doubting my milk supply too because I couldn't seem to fill Robert. The CHN told me he's obviously getting enough as he's gaining weight. Last night after having my boobs out for what felt like the whole day, he fed at 9pm, 1230am, 4am and then 7.30am. Today though we were back to two hourly feeds. I would rather feed all day then have the longer breaks at night.

Roxie, I also don't get a lot of milk when expressing. I try to get as much as I can in a 24hour period so I can freeze it. Our bub's are way more adept at getting the milk out than we ever will be!

Jandals I'm going shopping tomorrow morning to get the ingredients and I'll ask my mum to bake me the cookies. BTW, when I read "brewers yeast" it reminded me that my pop used to always recommend a glass of stout - good for mum and good for the old milk!

Thanks girls! Lacie has had a very settled afternoon so fingers crossed it continues throughout the night. She's only put on about 5 grams since coming home so I'm hoping the formula will help her to gain some weight quickly, she's 11 days old today.

Jandals - thank you for the recipe! I'll definitely give it a try in the next few days. Yay for baby smiles too :D

I hope everyone has a good nights sleep tonight xxx

we had an accident this morning
My Df was putting bubs into the pram she was in the carrier and it attaches to the pram, it didnt sit in properly and it tiped over,bubs fell out , it was not from a far distance but she did fall out and screamed and looked at me like why did u do that to me.

We took her to the hospital and they checked her and she wad fine and we went home.they were really good and made sure we knew that accidents do happen and stuff but i still feel awful

I can not get the look from her face out of my head