I’m back, yet again lol! 16 weeks and the joys of relux

Well for the last few weeks I’ve been laptop-less and as good as my phone and tablet are, neither are good for speed blogging with a 4 month old clinging to you!

We’re now really getting to work on both her feeds and her meds for relflux. It seems a fine line between not enough medication, and too much. She’s on domperidone, ranitidine, gaviscon and comfort milk at the minute. They upped her D. and R. top 1ml and 0.6ml respectively but she seemed to have tummy ache and was resisting her feeds so I’ve dropped it back down to see how we go.

I’ll soon be starting a new blog which will concentrate on her reflux, I will post a link as soon as it’s up and running.

She’s now taking about 32oz a day which seems to keep her on the 9th percentile line. I intend to start weaning her properly when she hits 17 weeks next Sunday (she’s had a spoon of baby rice on when she won’t take her bottle for the last 3/4 days. Generally after one spoon she’ll then take it fine).

I read up on it and many babies are weaned earlier due to reflux,and our paediatrician said it should improve once we start weaning. Here’s hoping eh?! On the plus side she’s loved the couple of tiny bits she’s had (1 spoon at a time of 1tsp baby rice mixed with an oz of milk lol!) and it has helped me get her milk down her.

In other news – she’s gorgeous and a joy to be around (when it’snot 2am hehe)

Snuggle Bundl Review

Shortly before having my munchkin I was sent a SnuggleBundl to review, largely because I was suffering from SPD and if it had continued after delivery the Bundl would have been invaluable for lifting her. As it is I was lucky enough that my SPD has almost completely gone, so I have been unable to use the Bundl in that way.

That having been said it’s a fabulous idea and the Bundl is so comfy and cosy it makes a fab blanket anyway! When my daughter was newborn it was ideal for letting her lie on as it has a comfortable head support that also helped her to feel secure. The way it supports all of their weight evenly meant my daughter loved to be in it and was quite happy being picked up in it – plus the lining feels lovely and comfy!
I find it is really useful for taking to things like baby group as if it gets too much for her it can be used to help get her to sleep by cutting out the noise/ light etc. I also intend to use it to get her used to her big cot after sleeping in her hammock.

To find out more please follow Snuggle Bundl on Twitter, Facebook, or visit their website.

An update… sorry for going AWOL

In short I have been rubbish at keeping this updated. Mostly because my little munchkin demands most (if not all)of my attention.

Here’s a quick summary before I get back into my usual postings (I’m hoping to manage 3x a week)

 

• After lots of issues with feeding, not putting on weight etc etc I gave up breastfeeding. It’s been really hard but my baby girl is much happier now on comfort milk. She won’t take my EBM that’s in the freezer as it’s thinner and makes her reflux worse so I’ll just have to use it when she is weaning.
• She is on the 25th centile for weight and the 50th for height. Her head is 91st centile.
• She sleeps from around 8 or 9 to 7 or 8 with two feeds in the night. She is finally taking 3 – 4.5 oz each time.
• She is on Aptamil comfort milk and uses Tommee Tippee anti-colic bottles with the straw
• She is a right trumper
• We go to stay and play sessions, baby signing, kindermusik and sensory baby classes….. it keeps us busy!

Here are a few pictures to get you up to speed… my baby girl is now 9 weeks and 4 days old.

 

My breastfeeding journey – 5 weeks in

I can’t say breastfeeding my little pudding has been easy – in fact it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I think we’ve finally cracked it. When she was born she was whisked off my chest to be checked over as though she was crying she was totally floppy – I’m guessing from exhaustion/ epidural.

When we did try and latch her afterwards she wasn’t interested, she was just exhausted from birth. I managed to hand express a few mls of colostrum and we gave it to her by syringe. Her blood sugars were low and colostrum alone wasn’t managing to get them up so the midwives gave her formula and she ended up in the NICU for a few hours.

By the time she was back with me her latch was poor and she was a little jaundice. I tried to get her back on the boob but at 3 days PP she had lost 8oz. I started exclusively expressing for her to make sure she was gettng enough to eat. It worked.. a week later she was 17oz up and the jaundice was well and truly gone.

Another week later and her latch begin to improve. I’ve had a few really rough days dealing with reflux, trapped wind, oversupply and fore/ hind milk imbalance (all inter-related imbalance caused wind, gave her infacol which caused reflux).

She’s now happily a booby monster and exclusively breastfed, I can no longer express a full feed for her which is a shame but I’m sure I’ll get back my pumping prowess 🙂

3 Weeks PP – Back to blogging! My Birth Story…

With a small person around the place I just haven’t had a chance to post my birth story as yet, though I know some of you read my updates on Twitter before I went up to be induced.

I was brought in for induction on Thursday, 1cm dilated, uneffaced. I was given the propess pessary and left for 24 hours.
The following day (3pm) I was told by the registrar (lets call him registrar A) I would have my waters broken and be put on syntocinon as things had started to thin out.

It was 2am before I was taken to the delivery suite. Only to be told the registrar (registrar B) now on duty wouldn’t be able to break my waters. I was then given prostin gel and taken back down to the ward.

Again it was delayed and I wasn’t taken back to the delivery suite until registrar A had returned at around 11am, very angry about the fact I still hadn’t been helped along successfully.  It took him around 10 minutes to rupture my waters (the prostin did nothing) and get me set up on Synto.

3 hours later I was in active labour with very strong contractions every 2 minutes for a minute. It became clear that baby was OP as I was feeling the contractions in my spine (oooouch). I was surprised at just how much water there is!

I started on G+A pretty quickly as the pains were strong from the start at first this allowed me to laugh through them, though I had to have the radio off as the G+A made it sound weird.  I was also given pethidine but all it did was make me feel tired.

I asked for an epidural 3 hours in but wasn’t able to get one until 4 hours later. I have to say the anaesthetist was my new best friend. The epidural made it so I couldn’t feel the pain.  After the epidural I managed to get a few hours sleep while we waited for me to dilate and baby to descend.

It took hours and hours for me to get dilated, Alice refused to turn right way around and the Registrar (reg B of course by this time) kept threatening me with ventuouse/ c-section as I was exhausted. Once I got to 10cms I was told to wait another hour or two for her to come lower of her own accord. The trouble is I started to feel like I had to push. The midwife was no longer in the room and I was lay on my side. By this time the epidural had worn off.

Hubby managed to find the midwife who then checked and said LO was still by my spine but I could try bearing down whilst on my side if I was finding it too hard not to.About 30 minutes later they let me have a go at pushing, and the midwife was happy that I would be able to do it (unlike reg but we managed to talk her around).

By this time I was surviving on lucozade/ water as I wasn’t allowed to eat after epidural. The midwife brought me some orange juice to try and up my blood sugars (which had been hypo for days) I promptly threw it back up.

At this point hubby went down the business end. I didn’t want him to hold my hand etc, I felt ridiculously hot and kept thinking I had gone to the loo… I hadn’t apparently.

When she started crowning the MW asked if I wanted to feel her head – my answer “NO” . DH stayed at the bottom end until he saw I was about to tear. I accepted the episiotomy quite happily!

Once she made the cut it all happened very quickly and my gorgeous daughter was born. 6:11 am on the 11/12/2011. She was 7lb6 and 54 cms long. She had to be checked over straight after delivery as she was crying but v floppy! I had to have 6 stitches and there were also a couple of grazes.

 

 

Last post pre-baby (well pre-induction)

Well after seeing my consultant on Tuesday it has been decided that I’m going to be induced tomorrow (eep, so excited, so scared argh!). I thought it was only fitting to do one more post before I’m taken in!

This is my last bump picture from 37 weeks 5 days

When I had my internal yesterday I was 1cm dilated, uneffaced and at -3 station, so she still has a bit of a way to go – but not bad for 37+ weeks. However the consultant was able to feel her head and give me a sweep. It’s done something as I’ve been having pains and losing plug/ bloody stuff ever since. With a bit of luck I’ll be  a bit closer when I get there tomorrow.

From what I can tell I go in at 11am and they will book me, give me a bed and monitor baby. They will then check me and insert the gel and see how I go…..

On the plus side the diabetes team were happy to semi discharge me on the basis I have been keeping my blood sugars under control and as long as I remain stable during labour I won’ need to be on inslin/ glucose sliding scale. This is obviously much better for baby.

To all those who messaged me about induction a couple of weeks ago I only hope I have as positive an experience as you did, I’m sure I’ll be back very soon to report on how it went.

One way or another my consultant says I’ll be holding my baby by Saturday….. yay!

I’m officially serving the eviction notice

Since I’m now only 3 days off full term, and due to start being induced in a little over a week I’m going to do my best to a) get baby engaged and b) get her out by ourselves. I’m not a fan of the whole induction/ c-section idea so if she could make an appearance beforehand I would be over the moon!

Things I’m trying 

• 2 cups of raspberry leaf tea a day
• EPO inserted nightly
• Lots of time bouncing on my ball
• Hot baths
• As much time as possible stood up/ walking(difficult with SPD/ on crutches)
• Sitting on a chair backwards and leaning far forward in my chair

Things I’ve yet to try

• Sex
• Clary Sage
• Curry
• Pineapple (difficult – GD)
• Chocolate milkshake (difficult – GD)

So far I’m definitely getting more braxton hicks and general pain, and my SPD is getting much worse so I really hope that means she’s engaging. If she doesn’t engage then we have a problem.

What worked for you, what didn’t, what are you trying to move labour along?

Wish me luck – I’d love it if I could bring my munchkin into the world without needing all the extra help and monitoring.

J x

Baby’s hospital bag

I’ve already rambled about my bag for the hospital but thought I should really post something about what I have packed for my little munchkin when she arrives!

For at the hospital

• 4 vests/ bodysuits
• 3 newborn sleepsuits
• 3 0 – 3 months sleepsuits
• 3 cotton hats
• 6 pairs mittens
• 1 thicker hat
• 20 nappies
• cotton wool pads
• sudocrem
• a little elephant teddy
• nappy bags
• muslins/ burp cloths
• my gorgeous blanket from Mama’s and Papa’s

Going home bag

• 2 bodysuits
• 2 sleepsuits (one newborn one 0-3)
• one thicker velour sleepsuit
• muslins
• wooly hat
• nappies
• car seat etc. etc.

Everything is gettting so close now! Is there anything else you would recommend I take for baby?

J x

Sleeping Arrangements…….

Until a week ago I was under the impression that baby would be sleeping in a hand me down crib from my sister. Unfortunately once the crib got to us and we attempted to sand it down and paint it, it was clear it wouldn’t come up as nicely as we had hoped. We decided to buy a new crib and get rid of the older one.

 

After much deliberation and research (into which one we could pick up the same day as we’re impatient) we decided to go for the deluxe gliding crib from Mothercare. It has a really nice colour to it (Birch I think), feels sturdy and rocks really smoothly. We got it for £120 and took it home the same day. Hubby was able to put it up by himself in about half an hour with no major stresses – I’ll let you know baby’s verdict in a few weeks….

 

However, once the crib was up (and sheets/ blankets in it etc) hubby got a phone call from his brother who has a 7 week old baby girl. They’ve been using a Miyo hammock for her and she’s sleeping really well already. He very generously offered to buy us a hammock for our baby gift – lovely idea and it’ll take up less room in our bedroom – the crib is kind of big.

So now me and DH have switched sides of the bed in anticipation of the hammock arriving. My father in law will come and help him put it up once it gets here (which should be today). IF you haven’t see the hammocks then I’ll have a post about them coming up in the very near future – to be more specific –  once I have one.

The crib is now looking very swish in our front room 🙂

Has anyone used a hammock before? What does/ will your little one be sleeping in?

J xx

Packing your hospital bag

Now that my little one’s arrival is fairly imminent I thought it was about time I got on with packing my hospital bags. I say bags because I have three. One for me, one for baby and a going home bag for baby that can stay in the car. I’m going to split my hospital bags’ contents into three post as I’m taking quite a lot.

My Bag

When I got to thinking about it I realised that my bag needs to contain everything I need to be comfortable whilst staying in hospital, plus a few bits to protect my modesty and keep me entertained. Bear in mind that a few things you would usually pack in will be in your handbag which will be coming with you regardless. In my bag I have:

• Two pairs dark pyjama bottoms
• One nightie with buttons to the front (knee length) – for labour
• One vest top suitable for nursing
• One button up long sleeve top for nursing
• Two packs of five knickers to be thrown away afterwards (apparently a better idea than disposables)
• Twenty maternity pads (more at home if needs be)
• Twenty disposable breast pads (as above)
• Lilypadz
• Five pairs of socks
• One pair slipper socks
• One pair of slippers
• Comfortable yoga pants for going home in
• Nursing top for going home in
• Lansinoh nipple cream
• Three nursing bras
• Shower gel, shampoo, face wash, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrush, moisturiser and deodorant – to make me feel human.
• Concealer, foundation, blusher, mascara and eyeliner – to make me look human
• Breast feeding scarf (Mama Scarf)
• Pack of cards
• Kindle with two unread books
• Phone, charger and headphones for music
• Tens machine
• Hypnobirthing CD
• Small towel
• Lightweight dressing gown

I’ve managed to fit it all into a carry on suitcase, I think it should be plenty to keep me comfortable and entertained. There are a few bits I still need to get for my bag, namely:

• Can of spray water
• GD friendly snacks for labour
• non GD friendly snacks for me and hubby once baby has made an appearance

 

What did you take in your hospital bag? Is there anything I’ve missed?

J xx