MSE Newborn to 1 year Baby Club 1

Bamama

Thanks ladies. All this advice is very much appreciated!

Dewi was born Christmas day so that makes him...11 days according to midwife (SCBU would have him at 12). HV will be getting in touch tomorrow. Will wait and see what she says, if she doesn't know much about the meds then I'll ring up

I woke at 6.30 and Dewi was grumbling so he had a 30min feed. He woke at 9 so I changed him and he was looking for boob, only stayed on 5min and went out cold. Then he stirred at 10.30 so he came for a feed and had half hour

Elelyn, I have no worried that he's having enough when he is feeding, well maybe after 3-4hours of going on and off, but my boobies seem to be an efficient milk machine and he dribbles and hiccups and looks completely satisfied.

dizziblonde

Assuming your SCBU is better than my "any problems = A+E - we're not interested" one - I'd possibly call them and ask there. For what it's worth with Erin being prem and on the low birth weight threshold (obviously the two being linked) for the first few weeks I set an alarm for 3 hours - then started regarding 4 hours as being the max I'd let her go between feeds, until it was obvious she was gaining weight just fine after a couple of weigh-ins (I took her down weekly initially - partly for the weighing, partly to cover my backside in case SS did a follow-up on us with the HV) when I relaxed a bit and she started dropping her night feeds of her own accord (she dropped the first one by about 12 weeks).

*Nutella*

Katie, yay for sleeping! Long may it continue! :T

We had a good night too after a couple of weeks of really messy ones - she fell asleep at 7pm, demanded dummy at 3am and then slept until 4.30am. It would be nice if she didn't wake up quite so early, but I can cope with that (just!) if I haven't been up all night... Unfortunately I suspect it was because she was knackered from travelling back from my parents', so I'm not holding my breath for tonight.

Sunshine, I can really relate to what you said about not having the will/resistance/patience to spend ages getting him back to sleep in the middle of the night. My LO's like Aiden in that the moment I put her in my bed, she falls asleep*, so co-sleeping is such an easy option.

Elelyn, sounds like you've got an early bird too. My LO very rarely sleeps beyond 5.30 - I never thought I'd consider 6am a lie-in!

* But it needs to be the bed in the spare room with just me - if OH is there, she gets super-excited by his presence and wants to play!

Elelyn

He's definitely an early to bed, early to rise kind of person Nutella. We struggle to keep him awake past 6pm and then he sleeps solidly but is obviously then up early next day. Wish he'd go to bed a bit later but I can't do anything to change his natural patterns really. Think I'll just have to start going to be earlier myself. I think it will be easier once the mornings start to get lighter again too.

*Nutella*

Elelyn wrote: »

He's definitely an early to bed, early to rise kind of person Nutella. We struggle to keep him awake past 6pm and then he sleeps solidly but is obviously then up early next day. Wish he'd go to bed a bit later but I can't do anything to change his natural patterns really. Think I'll just have to start going to be earlier myself. I think it will be easier once the mornings start to get lighter again too.

Same here, she's rarely awake beyond 6pm, the latest she ever goes to bed is 6.30/7pm. Good point re. lighter in the morning - I hope you're right! I tell myself that I'll need to get up at 5.30 anyway when I go back to work (28th Jan - boo!), but I've never been a morning person myself. Think she's got that from OH

JT100

Hope that someone will be able to offer some advice, as when I do an internet search on this, all I seem to get is information about Extreme Breastfeeding!!

My baby is due in 6 weeks. My plan is to breastfeed as this worked out well with my other two children. They were exclusively breastfed and never had any bottles.

However, my other children will be 7 and 8 when baby comes along and I'm in a huge panic after reading on here all about the 'cluster feeding' and long feeds for newborns (amazing how much I've forgotten in 7 years) ... how on earth do those of you with school age children get out of the house in the morning???

If baby doesn't come early, she will be born during half term week (planned c-section due to two previous sections) so this will give us a few days at home before the school runs begin.

My OH is only able to take a few days off leave and then he will be away from home with work pretty much as soon as I'm out of hospital. My family live over 3 hours away (and my parents still work, so them coming to help out is not an option) I haven't lived in the area very long and because I've been working full time, I don't know any other parents well enough to ask for help with walking the children to school or picking them up.

Sorry for long post - I guess my question is .. would any mums be willing to share their daily routine with me? It might reasssure me that it will be possible to breastfeed and cope with the daily routine of my other children on my own whilst recovering from major surgery!

Many thanks!

Gillyx

I think most cluster feeding will happen early evening, so hopefully after the school run. If you have to go you have to go baby will slot in xx

Edit: I do tend to think 1st babies are given a lot more leeway with everything, once subsequent babies come along they tend to be more patient. I do know of people who can feed with baby in a sling so could be an option for about the house if you have other stuff to be doing

*Ro*

Hello JT100 sorry cannot really advise has only have the one little monkey, if it was me I would just try and get a back up plan that you access whilst you recover from the c- section as I think they usually say about not driving for specified period. Hopefully schools not far to walk and as Gilly says hopefully cluster feeding will be later in the day. Could one of your parents not take any leave at all if you needed help for a short period whilst you are getting over op? Otherwise what about net mums/finding out local parenting groups to see if you can find someone local you trust to help if your stuck. Good luck !! X

dizziblonde

Eeek just looked at the baby food drawer in the freezer and supplies are running low again - looks like I'm cooking this weekend (once I figure out what)... can freeze some portions of the shepherd's pie we're having for tea tonight as well (she'll eat that utterly un-fork mashed as long as it's me and not daddy who's made it since I cut the veg up into sensible chunks and he goes for the boulder approach). Need to start throwing more finger food into the equation as well but that's more of a faff since I can't just batch cook/reheat as easily - plus she's well lazy and just looks at you like "ok, service please" half the time!

Took the valve out of her sippy cup today so at least she's drinking from it completely free-flow - even if she doesn't like holding it herself still yet.

fluffnutter

JT100, my six month old is exclusively breastfed and cluster feeding happened only in the first month or so and only in the early evenings. Long feeds too were only really part of the first few months' routine. Once he hit about 10 weeks, his feeds were about five minutes each. He's also not particularly hungry in the mornings and will happily go three hours between feeds.

If you want to BF it's worth putting up with the disruption for just a few short weeks - it will fly by and it's a great opportunity for your older two to start being a little more self-sufficient in the mornings too.

NB. I had a c-section and was happily driving a week later once the OH went back to work. Didn't think anything of it TBH.