January 2018 Babies Club

shesty

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Not too bad - A is pretty much a little angel, boobing like a champ and much more alert these days. Going longer stretches at night too, he's only fed at 11, 2 and 6 the last few nights. First hints of a smile in the last day or two as well!

I'm struggling a bit - almost certainly have PND and I'm absolutely exhausted from chasing my toddler as well. He's going to be 2 in Easter week and is absolutely full of beans! Hubby had the flu a couple of weeks ago as well so I had to do literally everything on my own for a while.

6 week checkup next week and birth reflections appointment just before Easter.

Take it easy RK.I remember finding weeks 5-9 (roughly) of no.2. so so hard.In hindsight, it turned out I wasn't well, and between that and me just being totally unable to cope with no sleep, yet breastfeeding by myself too-I struggled. 21 mth gap, and no.1 is a bit lunatic.I just remember this awful lethargy, just being unable to work up the will or interest to get out of the house or anything.Everything was too much, and just feeling like everything was on me and I wanted to cry - a lot.I also remember the guilt of not being able to be 100% mummy for either of them was awful, trying to deal myself with having to divide my attention and feeling so bad about it was really hard.

I did end up switching to bottles eventually which helped.Not suggesting you do that, but it worked for me.Third time round I intend to combine feed because I simply cannot cope without sleep and I have accepted that.Pretty much every mum I met at that time who had just had their second, all had their own mum's in the house every day to help up to about 3 months.Or else their elder was in school/creche.I was one of the few doing it all myself.It is really really hard, but try to think of a few ways for you to change how you are dealing.How do you manage with no.1, do you have jigsaws etc he can do while you are feeding?and let him just watch tv....sometimes it's all you can do....just a couple of ideas for starters anyway.....

heldel00

Nope ladies its definitely not easy. I think no matter what we do and regardless of how well we are doing it, we think we could do more or do better. Take each day as it comes and don't be afraid to tell anyone that's pi$$ing you off to fúck off. Not baby obviously but partners/ husbands/ PHNs/ postmen .... you decide!

We are after getting a wedding invite in today's post and the poor postman nearly got an eff off from me. I have this knot in my stomach even thinking about going back out into the real world!!!

rainbow kirby

shesty wrote: »

Take it easy RK.I remember finding weeks 5-9 (roughly) of no.2. so so hard.In hindsight, it turned out I wasn't well, and between that and me just being totally unable to cope with no sleep, yet breastfeeding by myself too-I struggled. 21 mth gap, and no.1 is a bit lunatic.I just remember this awful lethargy, just being unable to work up the will or interest to get out of the house or anything.Everything was too much, and just feeling like everything was on me and I wanted to cry - a lot.I also remember the guilt of not being able to be 100% mummy for either of them was awful, trying to deal myself with having to divide my attention and feeling so bad about it was really hard.

I did end up switching to bottles eventually which helped.Not suggesting you do that, but it worked for me.Third time round I intend to combine feed because I simply cannot cope without sleep and I have accepted that.Pretty much every mum I met at that time who had just had their second, all had their own mum's in the house every day to help up to about 3 months.Or else their elder was in school/creche.I was one of the few doing it all myself.It is really really hard, but try to think of a few ways for you to change how you are dealing.How do you manage with no.1, do you have jigsaws etc he can do while you are feeding?and let him just watch tv....sometimes it's all you can do....just a couple of ideas for starters anyway.....

I'm guilty of a bit of Cbeebies parenting at the moment - if I'm on my own with both of them then I tend to give the older one my phone with Teletubbies on iPlayer or put him into his highchair with a snack at feeding time. I hadn't originally planned on it, but I am exclusively breastfeeding. I do pump and hubby gives a bottle every now and then, but it's hard even to find the time to pump with my toddler.

shesty

Oh I remember (long story I won't go into!).I just couldn't do it.I had to accept that I needed sleep and food too. Just go easy on yourself, it takes a few months to get used to being pulled in two different directions.It gets better when baba passes the 12 week mark, and then better again when they are up and active.But the first year is very hard, and it's totally ok to feel that way.
At home with my own pair this morning, 32 weeks pregnant and feeling just unable to cope.The small age gap is lovely as they get a bit bigger and as a whole, it is worth it but it's a LOT of work while they are still small like this.
Anyone who says otherwise is lying!!!

Toots

RK I had PND really badly after my little boy, it's really tough, so try and look after yourself. I found a a good counsellor and it was a huge help. Also this time around I met with the perinatal psychiatrist during the pregnancy and he said a huge trigger for PND is lack of sleep (not that you can do much about it with a newborn) but this time my hubby does a night feed so I can get a bit of unbroken sleep. Usually I'd express during the day so there's enough for a bottle in the fridge but if I don't get the chance, she gets formula for that feed and then I breastfeed her the rest of the time.

Have you tried one of those Haakaa type pumps? If you're not getting the time to pump, they just go on the boob while you're feeding on the other side and they collect the milk. It could take 2 or 3 feeds to collect enough for a full bottle, but even something like that might help and then your hubby might be able to do a feed during the night just so you get some sleep. Or even during the day so you could go and have a bath or do something relaxing for yourself.

Toots

Happy Mother's Day, ladies

heldel00

Toots wrote: »

Happy Mother's Day, ladies

Hope ye are all spoiled rotten. We feckin deserve it.
Christening yesterday. We had a fab day.

saggycaggy

heldel00 wrote: »

Hope ye are all spoiled rotten. We feckin deserve it.
Christening yesterday. We had a fab day.

Hope you all had a lovely day, we're all doing a great job at the hardest job in the world!!

You're so organised, we haven't even mentioned a christening yet!

rainbow kirby

We're not religious so no christening, but we're doing a "meet the baby" barbecue at my parents house when we're back in Ireland in June. A will be 5 months the day after it.

The boys got me a Debenhams voucher for Mothers Day, need to resist the urge to get cute baby things with it and actually get myself something!

heldel00

"Meet the baby" is a lovely idea. It's just nice to all get together and welcome bubs. Our dolly was so good for the christening. Barely batted an eyelid when priest poured holy water on her! And i don't know how she didn't roar the place down because when i went to fill up a little plastic bottle with the water used it was absolutely freezing!

She had her vaccinations today. Bit contrary since but not too bad. I think i was more anxious than anyone. Husband usually brings them for their jabs but couldn't today. Just glad it's over

Toots

Hopefully she won't be too bad. I remember my little boy wasn't too bad after the first round of vaccines, it was the second one where he was very unsettled afterwards. My baba is in for her 6 week check tomorrow, then the immunisations in 2 weeks time. Got a letter from the HSE today giving out to me that I hadn't had her immunised yet - "we sent you a letter 2 months ago asking you to arrange the vaccines with your GP" - eh, no yiz didn't yiz gob****es, the child wasn't even born 2 months ago.

We booked a christening, but we're not having it until July. She'll be 5 months old then, I think my little boy was 6 months when we had him christened. I wouldn't be able for it yet, and also hoping that in July the weather will be better so we might get some nice outdoor photos.

New farmers wife

I'm trying to organise the christening, I'm catholic and husband is church of Ireland, we had our first girl christening in the church of Ireland church, only bcos it had not bearing on future religious choices.There's now a new rector in the church and the dates I want are the first Sunday or both months but they do communion those days and he doesn't really want a christening as well. Seriously like it's only an extra 5 mins! I'm thinking about asking in the local catholic church.
The tiredness I have during the day the last few days is crazy, I never remember being this tired during pregnancy or even when I was doing night feeds. What's worse is we've just started lambing so it's early mornings and late nights

rainbow kirby

Had A's 6 week checkup yesterday - all good! He's quite dinky - 9lb 7oz (4.28kg) at 6 weeks - but not extremely so and he's following his line nicely. No other issues and no sign of brachial plexus injury, which was a concern following a shoulder dystocia delivery.

Laced up the running shoes again this week - was able to do 2k today, it'll take a while to build up again but shouldn't be as bad as last time as I only had around ten weeks off the road compared to nearly 5 months last time.

Jabs on the 29th - squeeze them in before Easter!

saggycaggy

Good on you Rainbow Kirby, I keep threatening to get out for a wee run but haven't done so yet. I'm blaming the weather today!!
We had our 6weeks check up this week too, he's up to 11lb5oz which is great to hear when I'm feeding him myself. I must book injections for before Easter too.

Has anyone got the Baby Jogger City Mini?? I bought a Quinny 2nd hand and I hate it!! Instead of buying a whole new travel system I've heard the mini jogger can be used from birth. Love to hear feedback!

rainbow kirby

I do - we got ours secondhand when my older son was around a month old. It lies very flat so is good from birth. It's quite narrow so good for public transport.

saggycaggy

Cool, are you using it currently? Would you need any sort of neck support for them lying down or is it pretty secure? I might try one out in one of the stores that stock them!thanks!

rainbow kirby

We didn't bother but if you wanted to it's quite cheap to get a head support on Amazon. We use it mostly for the toddler at the moment (sling for baby if we're out with both and don't want to take the double) - but we do set it up for baby the odd time.

rainbow kirby

Had our birth debrief yesterday, found it very helpful. Looks like we just got really unlucky - a combination of unrelated complications (true knot in cord which was around his neck, infection on day 2) and an insanely fast second stage (4 minutes including the time to free a shoulder dystocia!) made for a quite traumatic birth. A is just over 8 weeks now and doing great, but still quite dinky - he was just under 4.5kg at 7 weeks and he's still in size 1 nappies.

bee06

rainbow kirby wrote: »

Had our birth debrief yesterday, found it very helpful. Looks like we just got really unlucky - a combination of unrelated complications (true knot in cord which was around his neck, infection on day 2) and an insanely fast second stage (4 minutes including the time to free a shoulder dystocia!) made for a quite traumatic birth. A is just over 8 weeks now and doing great, but still quite dinky - he was just under 4.5kg at 7 weeks and he's still in size 1 nappies.

Is that something they do for every birth in the UK or just where there are certain complications?

rainbow kirby

Only for complicated or traumatic births. My first son's birth was in the midwife led unit and was very straightforward, nothing like that needed.

mirrorwall14

Just jumping in to say that the Coombe have a Birth Reflections service. I didn't know about it until my booking in appointment but I've been in touch to make an appointment. They operate on a Tuesday and Friday morning apparently

heldel00

Wow they really don't advertise this sure they don't!?
My friend had a horrific birth with her first and when she was in for an appt shortly after the birth she lifted her folder off of the desk and had a look while waiting on doc to come in.
They almost karate chopped it out of her hand and told her that she had no business looking at it - her own fecking file for Christ sake!

Toots

Jaysus! I took photos of my labour charts for posterity when I was in Holles St. Didn't really read through them until later and was quite shocked by what I saw. I didn't have a chart in labour this time around cos it had all changed to computers in the Rotunda. Although even if there had been notes, it probably would have gone something like "7:20am admitted to delivery room. 7:39am baby born. 7:50am placenta delivered. 8am tea and toast administered."

rainbow kirby

I'd read my postnatal notes - I knew from reading them that my second stage had been very short but the debrief confirmed just how quickly things had gone in the end. 7pm I was 6cm and asking for an epidural, 7:30 I was sitting on the side of the bed and baby's heart rate plummets, try position changes and it doesn't recover, checked again and I'm 10cm, 7:40 start pushing, 7:42 obstetric emergency called for shoulder dystocia, 7:44 baby out, 7:48 placenta out, 7:55 baby to NICU, 8pm I'm lying there on a super strength syntocinon drip wondering what the actual fcuk just happened.

Toots

Jesus that sounds like the birth of my first, only without the shoulder dystocia. I was told I'd be a couple more hours but then they did one of those scalp PH tests and it came back that he was in distress and it was panic stations, forceps, ventouses, the whole lot took 15 mins after a 40+ hour labour and like you, I was in total shock. I read my notes later and it turned out there had been concerns about his heart rate for hours and nothing was done, and I wasn't told about anything.

shesty

It's amazing what you find out after the fact.

I only learned on the booking appointment for my second that my first tested positive for group B strep a couple of days after the birth.
I was kept in hospital for five days after her birth, she was treated with antibiotics and they did blood tests etc but nobody ever actually told me if she had tested positive for anything, or what it was she had.I had been treated for it during labour, so I knew it was a risk.

Annoyed the S$%&e out of me when I found out because as a first time mum it was all very bewildering and quite upsetting, and all I wanted was information, good or bad, and I could never bloody get any at the time.Nobody would answer any of my questions.

If ever anything taught me to stick.my neck out and keep shouting til I got answers while dealing with them, that did.

heldel00

Girls we have all gone very quiet. I would hate for this thread to die out. My son's October 2015 one did and it would be disappointing if this one did too.

Our little one is doing very well. Suffers a lot with constipation. She can get herself into an awful state of hysterical crying. I have been adding and extra ounce of water to her bottles and it has definitely helped but last night i had to help her go by using a ear bud. Not ideal but she was in awful discomfort. After pushing out what could only be described as playdoh, i thought she was finished and went to clean her up.... Big mistake. I ended up with a very green smelly hand! The joys!

Routine is awake at 7am for bottle, back down for an hour or so at 10am, back down at 1pm and this is the long nap - she could sleep until 4pm most days. Back down again at 6 until usually 8 and then away for the night at 10pm. Bedtime is getting earlier as the weeks go on though. She doesn't wake during the night thank god!

Hope all going well for the rest of ye

bee06

Have you tried baby massage? I did a course and we learned some techniques to relieve constipation.

Toots

For some reason my little one doesn't go every day, what she seems to do is stockpile for a couple of days and then just explode.

My son used to get very constipated and we'd lie him on his back and do bicycle legs to try and help him go. I notice with my daughter she will usually poo after she's been down on the floor having a good kick.

New farmers wife

We set up a group in Facebook messenger and then switched to WhatsApp when I have my baby in November 2015, there's only 4 of us at its a great support.
Baby massage is supposed to be great, it didn't work too well for my girl as she was only having dirty nappies every3-4 days, it improved when she went on to solids but she's 2 and 5 months now and wouldn't go every day