MSE Parents Club Part 5

feelinggood_2

Krystaltips wrote: »

Feely, the age of your baby is irrelevant if you're donating your milk, it will still be nutriciously good enough for a new born... If you think about it, a lot of milk donated to milk banks is from women with babies of various ages and then given to a wide range of babies... Is your friend happy for the donation? Some people can be funny about it, my sister went nuts once when I offered to feed my nephew (so I always offered Tongue in cheek whenever he cried) but my friend and I had an agreement that we'd feed each others children if they needed it and one of us wasn't around... We never needed to in the end, but she did offer to feed caitlyn the other day jokingly... Her 2yo just weaned so she still has milk...

I don't know how she'll react to my offer. She hasn't mentioned if she'll be breastfeeding, but I doubt it. She has all the 'risk-factors' for not breastfeeding (gosh that sounds so offensive, it really isn't meant to!). I haven't seen her for a while, but I kinda feel responsible for this baby, so I might offer and see if she wants me to build up a few days worth of milk, just give the baby a good start.

I've never had enough to donate (and no milk banks near by) but I can probably get a couple of days worth for her, if she wants it.

SusanC_2

:eek: I put Alice to bed at 1300 and I knew she was still awake but then just now (1420) I heard funny noises so went in and found she was pulling the curtain rail down. (To be fair though, OH didn't put it up properly and the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago.) I've now put a CD on and instructed her to sit on her bed and look at books until the music finishes.

BeenieCat wrote: »

I live closer to Teeside than Durham actually but it's usually easier to say near Durham to strangers

People don't seem to know Teeside exists. The year I went to university, Boro had been in two cup finals (but lost them both) and people still didn't know what I meant if I said "near Middlesbrough". They also thought I should talk in either a Geordie accent or a Yorkshire accent.

BrunoM wrote: »

Nap time has come around... today he won't even settle at the start, OH stormed out after a few minutes trying, I offered to take over, she said "I have to do this" and went determinedly back in... she's been singing and rocking for another 5 minutes now, if he won't settle after this I fear she'll explode!

If she's already stressed/angry from the start, he will pick up on that and be distressed by it. I know that times when OH and I have had disagreements, Alice has tended to be more difficult.

"Twinkle Twinkle" is quite a good song for soothing/calming a baby to sleep.

Also, like Feelie said, changing the time of the nap may help - Alice used to go for her nap at 12 but it eventually changed to 1 because she just wouldn't settle if I put her to bed at 12 but she still needed to have a nap.

Another thought is music - either a musical box or just a CD of nice calm music. I think Alice was a few months old when we introduced a musical box - we had it already and Alice was crying without any of the standard things seeming to work so I put the music box on (with her full on crying) and by the time it had finished she had gone to sleep. It didn't always work but it was useful as an additional tool.

And yet another thought: Does he fall asleep in the car? If so, perhaps it could be worth driving him to sleep for a few days just to get him back into the routine of sleeping at that time of day and out of the habit of fighting it? Kind of breaking the cycle.

Also, is there any chance that she would agree to you taking over that particular thing for a few days to get it sorted out and break the cycle? (E.g. use weekend/holidays/working from home to give you a run of days where you can take over at nap time.) That way as well as possibly breaking the cycle with Elijah, it would give her a break from it (and the stress of it) and give her a chance to recover and calm down about it as she wouldn't have the pressure of dealing with it all the time. It sounds like maybe she thinks that she should be the one who deals with it but (whilst acknowledging that many single parents do an amazing job given the circumstances) children have two parents for a reason and it doesn't mean that she has failed somehow if she can't manage this particular thing and needs you to deal with it.

And another suggestion: Maybe if verbal discussions aren't too successful, she could write things down when she is all stressed and then some time when she is calm you could have a look at it and discuss it together?

tiamai_d wrote: »

Well I wasn't working so I was enjoying my busy time. Think it's more feeling important I'm missing. Right now I'm just mummy and not invaluable person who does this and this and that.

You're not "just" mummy - mummy is an invaluable person who does this and this and that.

searching_me wrote: »

i think its from wearing a towel for so long i mean i usually get alittle trush at the end of a period but coz its been over 3 weeks im wondering if its turned in to something full blown x

You should try a mooncup and/or cloth pads.

feelinggood wrote: »

Another baby born!

A lot of the new ladies don't seem to want to join us though Probably moves to fast in here!

There always was a low transfer rate over from the pregnancy thread. When I came over it had only been going four months so was all calm and quiet and there weren't a huge number of people. The ones who were already there (LuT, Bailey, PurplePatch and Cha97michelle) were all talking about weaning and it seemd so calm and peaceful compared to the pregnancy thread which was all frantic and full of people getting stressed about prenatal screening.

feelinggood wrote: »

Krystal, random question.

Would you say it would be worthless, giving a brand new, newborn baby some breastmilk for an older baby?

Say my friend had a newborn, would my stashed milk from a 3 month old Toby have any benefit to that baby, or would baby be better off going straight on to formula?

I'm not Krystal but I'll answer anyway.

IIRC, according to the WHO the order of preference for infant feeding is as follows:
1) Mother's milk direct from the mother.
2) Mother's milk from a cup.
3) Breastmilk from someone else (I think they say a milk bank because obvioulsy they can't condone it not being checked for diseases.)
4) Formula.

Although breastmilk does change, I don't think it changes that significantly that formula would be better for a newborn than breastmilk expressed at 3 months. (Of course that is just my opinion.) And if you think about it, a wet nurse would generally be someone who had an older baby - they'd be unlikely to do it from when their own child was born.

scruffy96uk

Bruno Does he only have one nap a day? Has his nap time recently changed?
El was round about the same age when she went from having 2 naps to just needing 1. Her naps were 10amish the 2.30ish. No she just has one bout 1pmish, not set in stone tho just when Ithink she is getting sleepy. So days she goes without one but then she goes down earlier at bed time.

HTH

Hope your all well today.

Had swimming lessons today then went for lunch with DH and El.

searching_me

susan i dont think im comfortable with that cup thing :undecided x

Glamazon

feelinggood wrote: »

Another baby born!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=24625603&postcount=2195

A lot of the new ladies don't seem to want to join us though Probably moves to fast in here!

I can't wait to join you all and try and keep up with all the familiar faces.
You'll all be sick of me after a week (in fact you probably are already) :rotfl:

I would say in the last 6 weeks this thread deffo moves a lot faster than the preg thread (I try to keep up with both but it's hard sometimes)

I'll be back next week to ask for some labour vibes as I will be 37 weeks on Tuesday but I don't want any til I'm full term!

elle_gee

Rhys' first go in his Bumbo
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=8515503&l=fde7a18f32&id=723825074

feelinggood_2

Elle, that picture is wonderful! Toby has that same confused 'whats going on look' on his face whenever we try something new!

SusanC_2

feelinggood wrote: »

I don't know how she'll react to my offer. She hasn't mentioned if she'll be breastfeeding, but I doubt it. She has all the 'risk-factors' for not breastfeeding (gosh that sounds so offensive, it really isn't meant to!). I haven't seen her for a while, but I kinda feel responsible for this baby, so I might offer and see if she wants me to build up a few days worth of milk, just give the baby a good start.

I've never had enough to donate (and no milk banks near by) but I can probably get a couple of days worth for her, if she wants it.

Hope you don't mind me mentioning this but if you were taking any medication at the time of producing the milk and your friend does accept it, you should probably let her know about it. I take cetirizine (an antihistamine) which is considered okay for breastfeeding but it means I am not allowed to donate milk to a milk bank.

scruffy96uk

Oh wow Elle he actually looks big in that or I think he does, considering how dinky he looked next to the pop bottle!!

feelinggood_2

SusanC wrote: »

Hope you don't mind me mentioning this but if you were taking any medication at the time of producing the milk and your friend does accept it, you should probably let her know about it. I take cetirizine (an antihistamine) which is considered okay for breastfeeding but it means I am not allowed to donate milk to a milk bank.

Thanks for reminding me, I was on medication for a short while, but not currently. I'll make sure to put on the new labels that I'm not taking anything,