New baby and post birth advice #56

[kayefeluu20]

Anyone else find having LO a bit cathartic? I grew up quite poor and with parents that were done with parenting by the time they had me and just kind of ignored my existence - anyway, tomorrow I'm taking baby Kaye to a local attraction I always wanted to go to as a child, and I'm going to enjoy the overpriced cafe food and take lots of cheesy photos. It's not even an expensive or interesting place, just one of those I remember school friends saying they'd been to over the hols and the closest I'd been was the nearby Farmfoods

 

[Tifastrife]

Had the most baffling appointment at the dentists today. Good news is the tooth is less grey/purple looking than yesterday so there’s a chance it’s healing! If not it will just go grey and die but won’t have any long term effects and isn’t in pain.
Then she started asking me if he gets juice and sweets. I said of course not? He’s 9 months old. Then she started lecturing me about giving him milk in a bottle and it’s “ridiculous” he’s still having a feed during the night I should only give him water. I practically had steam coming out my ears. I explained to her that some babies need fed through the wee hours until one, milk is his main source of nutrition since he’s a baby man ffs!
I came away feeling really judged and pissed off. We brush his teeth twice a day, he LOVES brushing his teeth. I’m not a bloody idiot. There was also a pissy passing comment about formula instead of breast milk that I didn’t fully hear but I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not usually one to complain but I think I might. Imagine making a mum of a 9 month old feel bad for giving him milk 🫠

 

[Fruitgums]

Let’s hope no one is honest moving forward and shares any details about how hard they’re finding motherhood because “it’s what you signed up for”.
This thread can turn sour so quickly.

I know, such a shame coming on to read the pile on and one upping this morning 🥱🥱🥱

 

[opintionatedperson]

i struggled with breastfeeding & pumping and i would politely tell your husband to f off it’s HARD WORK. my baby lost weight too and i introduced formula, best thing i did.

I nesrly swong for him a few times when he says all I do is bf... Its bloody exhausting and all the nurses etc keep saying it but it doesn't seem to be registering with him. I'm tempted to fuck his phone out the window too. He thought he was great doing the 3am feed but reality was I was up myself pumping too

 

[WotsitG1]

Pretty convinced at this point there’s a sleep regression every month that lasts 26-27 days…. Few days of alright sleep and BAM into the next regression!

also how is my husband happy to stay up for the SuperBowl tonight but hasn’t done one night wake in 10 months!

 

[kayefeluu20]

When does the ‘how does he sleep’ question stop? Really getting fed up of it everytime my MIL comes round

I just say "with her eyes shut, on her back, usually" 🫡

 

[easyliketuesdayafternoon]

Just jumping on to shout out Aldi's Mamia nappies for doing a stellar job containing Baby Tuesday's massive liquid shits that he's been doing over the last couple of days. Stand up job.

Right, back to the trenches 🫡🪖

 

[Very traditional]

Incredibly well said. The midwives took MM for a couple of hours so I could sleep, she would only settle on me and I was falling asleep with her on me. I knocked my table and they burst in because they thought I had dropped her.
Knowing WC for over a year from this thread and the pregnancy one, she’s a lovely person, and didn’t mean half of what is being suggested here. She was simply saying having some sleep might help, it’s not the same for everyone and for those other posters who have jumped on, you could also be classed as being “tone deaf” as you have no idea what her experience was.

Totally this. WC intended no harm with what she said and expressing a desire to have been able to rest a bit and recuperate isn’t wrong at all. Shes been nothing but lovely, supportive & helpful to everyone on this thread and for people to pile on her like that this morning was uncalled for. I’ve been on this thread for nearly 11 months and have never see it get nasty like that, it’s such a shame.

I was in hospital for a week after having baby VT with us both being ill, luckily she was able to stay with me other than when she was taken off checks and antibiotics. We were in a shared ward, and I had no more than 2-3 hours sleep every night I was there. While I would have absolutely missed baby VT with all my heart if she had been taken away for me to get some rest I would also have likely been in a better place to cope with a poorly newborn.

 

[WotsitG1]

Sleep question. If your baby. (10 months) wakes up after around 8 hours total sleep…. But it’s 6am (he’s a late to bed fella) so you encourage them back to sleep. Was talking about this and a friend said I should just accept he’s up for the day. But I like him to ideally do 10 hours other wise he’s a grumpy mess.

dunno if this is the right place. But those who have been through a separation…. When did you just know it was over. Finding it increasingly hard to stay with my husband. The way he speaks to me at times, the lack of respect towards me, the lack of help. If Iv had a rough night with baby wotsit, he just wants to have a go if I’m tired and abit not a fully happy person. Heard him calling me the C word to a friend because I hadn’t asked him how his interview went straight away…. Prob because I’m the only one dealing with baby wotsit 24/7. He says he gives me a break in the evening but it’s literally 15 mins to take a shower. I don’t have any family close and the thought of being by myself scares me. I so wanna make it work, heard people say it’s tough in the first year or two…. But how much is enough!

 

[cmcdb]

Mad how much you can miss these threads. Love talking to everyone here because my own friends and family are driving me crazy. Can I just say the twins are also driving me crazy. Baby daddy driving me crazy.
How are you all keeping sane 🥲

 

[justonemorepage]

What I love about this thread is that no one judges and everyone is here to support each other. If you don't like a comment someone has made, scroll past and ignore. Everyone has different experiences and no one goes out to offend people on purpose. I think there's an element of projecting there, which is understandable too when it comes from trauma. Birth is hard for everyone, no matter what the circumstances and emotions run high.

My personal experience was that I spent two nights in hospital and they were some of the hardest nights of my life. I wanted so badly to feed my baby and I struggled so much. I had zero sleep in 48 hours on top of the night giving birth and I couldn't see straight. One particular midwife suggested I top up with formula and I didn't want to be reluctantly agreed because I thought she knew best and I was too tired to advocate for myself and my baby. She whisked my baby away and I immediately freaked out thinking where has she taken her! The next night (I was still running on zero sleep) a nicer midwife offered to take my baby for twenty minutes to give me a break and I was glad of it because my baby had been screaming for four hours straight in-between latches. I didn't sleep in that time of course but I was glad of a small window of peace and quiet. It does take a village and even now I'm so grateful to my husband when he recognises I'm struggling and he swoops in, and I do the same for him. Granted now she's 12 weeks old she's much easier to manage and I'm getting more sleep and therefore have much more patience when she does cry. Sleep deprivation is real and it can really send you insane. If support is offered then don't be ashamed for accepting it.

 

[maiamoo22]

need to rant as I'm on the early morning feed and I'm just so pissed off about this week. Agreement was that my partner does the feed before bed so I can have a bath/relax and have my own space for abit as you all know it can be intense looking after your baby alone all day.

But every single time lately he's got no patience for it. Expects her to just fall asleep instantly without actually relaxing her and checking all her needs are met. Ends up me actually getting her to sleep and then still having to get up and do the early feed as we agreed I'd do it so he'd be rested for work, not like I'm tired too lol.

The last few days he's had full 8 hour sleep no wakeups and it's all been on me. I expected this weekend he would take one feed so I could have a good sleep considering he always gets his.

But no, she wakes up and it's me again. I come downstairs and he's asleep on the sofa so I literally say to him why are you down here when you could sleep in bed and now your moaning that I've disturbed you? the whole point of me putting her to bed is that you got a good sleep and now he's going out in the morning with his friend for breakfast so I'm going to be left again to do it all tomorrow alone.

They can say as much as they want they'll be there for you etc but the lack of patience and almost expectancy that oh yeah mummy will sort it all is just draining.

Sorry that was long but he's just got no idea what it's like, when he goes to work he's his own person and looking after her for a few hours a night feels like such a chore to him.

 

[WeepingCassandra]

When I said I was going back on one day less my manager told me that the team had decided that even though I was only dropping one day a week they couldn't support me returning on that number of hours. I asked if they'd keep the maternity cover on as she was doing it at my original hours but got told no, they want the money for a different job in the service. Today an advert has gone out for my job role (on my original hours - not stated on the advert but in the job description) and I am fucking pissed off.

 

[disillusionedbythegram]

Had the most baffling appointment at the dentists today. Good news is the tooth is less grey/purple looking than yesterday so there’s a chance it’s healing! If not it will just go grey and die but won’t have any long term effects and isn’t in pain.
Then she started asking me if he gets juice and sweets. I said of course not? He’s 9 months old. Then she started lecturing me about giving him milk in a bottle and it’s “ridiculous” he’s still having a feed during the night I should only give him water. I practically had steam coming out my ears. I explained to her that some babies need fed through the wee hours until one, milk is his main source of nutrition since he’s a baby man ffs!
I came away feeling really judged and pissed off. We brush his teeth twice a day, he LOVES brushing his teeth. I’m not a bloody idiot. There was also a pissy passing comment about formula instead of breast milk that I didn’t fully hear but I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not usually one to complain but I think I might. Imagine making a mum of a 9 month old feel bad for giving him milk 🫠

Please do complain. A less knowledgable or confident parent than you might take that advice as gospel and stop feeding their baby milk (against NHS guidance). Absolutely HATE healthcare professionals who pass off their personal opinion as medical advice

 

[CallMeHollywood]

I found that the 2nd or 3rd week back at work were sort of a climax of "how the hell am I going to manage this?" Before we settled into a sort of rhythm...as best you can with a baby anyway lol. I went to bed towards the end of week 2 in tears because I was exhausted, the baby wasn't settling for my parents very well, the bigger one was struggling with me not being there every morning like I had been for almost a year, and the house was a health hazard because suddenly there felt like no time to do any housework.

I'm slightly different, as I don't work nights, but I do get up at 4.40am on work days. We've come to an agreement that I will make the sandwiches in an evening when I make tea, and I will put fruit in pots etc for the big one, but otherwise everything they need to be doing in a morning to get out of the house is none of my business. I work 20 miles away, and I can't have my phone with me. There's nothing I can do about it, so I just leave them to it.

Ive found having a clear split of who does what has massively helped. For example, the big one has a club on Saturday mornings, and we now take it in turns to get him ready and take him to that while the other one stays with baby Biscuit, gets her breakfast, gets her dressed, and has her down for her nap by the time the other one gets home.
School-wise, homework is done on Friday evenings, and we have set days that we do his reading book, and these are things I do. Mr Biscuit washes the pots in an evening, puts the bins out, and does the uniform ironing on a Sunday afternoon while I supervise shower time. He also takes and collects the big one from his Thursday evening club.

I usually work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then I set Monday aside for boring stuff like food shopping, and Friday is my day to do something fun with baby Biscuit.
I make lists too. I always have a list of stuff that needs doing ASAP and a list of "big" jobs that need doing but are less urgent, and I try to do one big job each week. So this week I'll be defrosting the freezer. It's not life or death but it needs doing, and ticking it off makes me feel like I've achieved something.

It's all a bit military, but it works for us in general, and it leaves us the weekends free to do nice things together if we want.

This is sensible. You need to project manage a baby schedule until they start doing things themselves
---

Coming in late to this with my 2 cents but our babas are around the same age so I'm also thinking about this a lot at the moment! We don't start our bedtime routine until 9:30pm (which looks v late according to this sample!) and consists of nappy change, new pyjamas/onesie, breastfeed in bed with a soothing/white noise track and dimmed light. We do that for about half an hour, gradually dimming the light more until it's a red light, before transferring to his moses basket and hoping for the sleep gods to bless us. He's generally waking up once or twice a night for a feed and then waking around 8 or 8:30am for the day.

We don't do unsupervised naps yet. He mainly contact naps (bad for getting housework done) or naps in his carrier but only for very short periods.

We’re contacting napping, too, which is lovely, but deffo need to do some housework. Im trying that above schedule today and it’s already gone to shit no nap yet and he’s grazing. I told husband that if we can get him to sleep at 7pm, we’ll have sex. I’ve never seen him work so hard.

 

[fudgebox]

So I put baby fudge up to bed at 7.30pm, gave him a dream feed at 11pm, he’s just woken up at 6.40am also so impressed with Morrisons nappies, I’ve been using pampers at night because I was getting fed up of leaks from Aldi nappies so splashed out on pampers, but I used a Morrisons one before I put him to bed thinking I’ll have to change him when he wakes up next anyway but because he never woke up I didn’t! So he was in it for 12 hours and no leaks!!!

 

[themuffinwoman]

this is very childish but can you make him jealous of another dad being good with baby? Like if you see a friend and their partner you can say oh Lee was amazing with baby, you should have seen how much fun they had and she was giggling away, he even *insert thing you want him to do with her*
And let the green eye monster chew on that.

This is the answer I am here for.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Got me a case of mastitis

Feel like death.

Send chocolate.

 

[WeHadFunRight]

Thank you to the poster who said about putting calpol in a bottle teat. She took it so easily, as 5 said “wow! She really fell for that one!”

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Just need to vent

Woke up with a sore throat, all achey and sneezy so think I def must be getting what hubby has got have a banging headache too ! The timing…

Really pissed off though, I felt like absolute shite when baby woke up and I said to hubby we both should get up as I don’t feel very well and now hub has been nothing but horrible to me ever since all because I didn’t let him sleep in while he’s still ill. Then I wish I didn’t bother waking him up either as he wasnt helpful at all and just went and sat on the sofa with coffee.

Like sorry but we’re both ill? It’s not exactly fair for either of us to just lay in bed while the other struggles alone with baby is it? And I let him sleep in the last 2 mornings..
But no he’s been picking small fights about anything he can with me ever since. I hate when they also say things like ‘why did you want to be a mum if you just want to stay in bed’. Really unfair thing to say. I hate it.

Unless it was an immaculate conception, I assume he was involved, and therefore wanted to be a parent too?
Tell him to grow up!