Chat Thread: July 27-Aug 2

[CookAMH]

Time to start a new one!

I'm loving cloth diapering! I'm starting to look at what size Ezra will need next. I plan to get GMD brown stitching most likely so I hopefully don't have to size up after that. The yellow still have some room now and we use the orange as a doubler at night. I love thirsties covers and plan to get more of those. I earn points through swag bucks and get amazon gift cards, and since we're in between jobs now, I hope to use that to get enough in gift cards to get some covers. (you use swag bucks to do your online searching and earn "bucks" which can be redeemed for gift cards).

We're driving to KS tomorrow and Wednesday so I'll likely not be in this thread at all!

Oh, Seattle is still a possibility for my DH to be a pastor. They are voting in a couple of weeks. So, we're in limbo right now and DH got a job at Pizza Hut. COBRA will be about $1400 a month : so we applied for an individual high deductible plan. Has anyone else faced changing insurance b/c of having a baby and leaving work?

How is everyone?

Also, I think we're going to be shut down soon We'll have to move over to LWAB.

[jenneology]

I'm in Seattle too! So if you do move, you'll "know" someone.

I just realized my arm is sore from Wii Bowling today. I only played at the request of my 2 year old. And I got 8 strikes in a row, too bad it was on his Mii and not mine.

Beauty is still doing well. Such a blessedly easy baby. She is close to 13 pounds now!

The time of being a widow to the tides is drawing to its end, thankfully! My husband is starting the trek home tomorrow and will pick us up from the airport when he gets back. I'm very pleased that the 6 weeks of widowhood was not as bad as I had anticipated. I was prepared for another colicky baby and I'm so glad to not face that one again!

[Peppermint Poppies]

I can never manage to keep up with these threads!

I've actually been having a really rough trot lately, and I'm hoping desperately that it's not a resurgence of the PPD I had with my son. Having a toddler and a newborn is HARD WORK! Relentlessly hard work. And I'm seriously sleep deprived. So hard work + sleep deprivation + crappy, small, no yard, no laundry, up 3 flights of stairs apartment = complete loss of patience and sense of humour.

Darcy, my LO, is doing OK. She's gaining slowly, very slowly but seems happy and cheerful most of the time, although she doesn't sleep for more than 10-15 minutes during the day which I'm finding a bit tough. Night times are OK - she sleeps from 10pm - 6am with 3-4 wakings to nurse.

Our cloth nappies are going great, and since my toddler has just toilet trained, I can use all the one-size ones he was using on Darcy now. At the moment, we're using mostly prefolds, bamboo fitteds, and hand-knitted (by yours truly) longies and soakers.

[Quate]

AustGirl--I replied to you at the end of the other thread.

Peppermint-- I'm having a hard enough time with one. I still don't manage to do much more than take care of her and don't know how a person manages a toddler on top of a newborn. This transition to being a mother has been a bit of a rough one for me.

[Amydoula]

Originally Posted by CookAMH

Time to start a new one!

I'm loving cloth diapering! I'm starting to look at what size Ezra will need next. I plan to get GMD brown stitching most likely so I hopefully don't have to size up after that. The yellow still have some room now and we use the orange as a doubler at night. I love thirsties covers and plan to get more of those. I earn points through swag bucks and get amazon gift cards, and since we're in between jobs now, I hope to use that to get enough in gift cards to get some covers. (you use swag bucks to do your online searching and earn "bucks" which can be redeemed for gift cards).

We're driving to KS tomorrow and Wednesday so I'll likely not be in this thread at all!

Oh, Seattle is still a possibility for my DH to be a pastor. They are voting in a couple of weeks. So, we're in limbo right now and DH got a job at Pizza Hut. COBRA will be about $1400 a month : so we applied for an individual high deductible plan. Has anyone else faced changing insurance b/c of having a baby and leaving work?

How is everyone?

Also, I think we're going to be shut down soon We'll have to move over to LWAB.

We use and love GMD prefolds and thirsties covers too! He is now in yellow edge and size small covers, sold the orange edge and the x-small covers on craigslist for only a little bit less than I bought them for! (we aren't having anymore children). Time is going by so fast! I can't believe our DDC will shut down soon, wow. It seems like the pregnancy lasted forever and now time is just flying.....
We are doing great here, evening colic finally settling down. Weight up to 12lbs7oz so almost doubled birth weight. Sleeping MUCH better at night and has moved into his crib full time as of last week. I'm getting a good 5+ hour stretch every night. Summer is just flying by!

[~Katie~]

I'm okay here. DS is getting two year molars and having a really difficult time. Laine isn't napping during the day for longer than 15-20 minutes, she was running a fever of 99.1 last night so not sure what that's about.

I was using GMD prefolds with Laine once I started using cloth again and she got a horrible diaper rash. Liam has never had a diaper rash from disposables or cloth so I'm not really sure what to make of it. I put her back in sposies for the time being and treated the diaper rash, I'm nervous to put her back in cloth again.

I just finished eating a giant piece of chocolate cake, if that's any indication of what kind of day I'm having

[Quate]

Originally Posted by KatieJD

I just finished eating a giant piece of chocolate cake, if that's any indication of what kind of day I'm having

Sounds like one that just got better

So the LC thinks that the issue is that she pulls her tongue back some of the time and ends up biting me, and also doesn't draw the nipple in far enough. So she gave me some things to try to encourage her to eat properly. We'll see what happens. The good thing is that every time I have another thing to try, it means I keep on going. And now that I know her latch actually looks good, I feel a little less frustrated about my own abilities.

[~Katie~]

Originally Posted by Quate

Sounds like one that just got better

So the LC thinks that the issue is that she pulls her tongue back some of the time and ends up biting me, and also doesn't draw the nipple in far enough. So she gave me some things to try to encourage her to eat properly. We'll see what happens. The good thing is that every time I have another thing to try, it means I keep on going. And now that I know her latch actually looks good, I feel a little less frustrated about my own abilities.

I'm so glad you got answers at the LC visit. I'm guessing she gave you sucking exercises to do with her? I did those with DS as well. I'm hoping things improve for you both from here on out, you can do it!

[Peppermint Poppies]

Originally Posted by Quate

So the LC thinks that the issue is that she pulls her tongue back some of the time and ends up biting me, and also doesn't draw the nipple in far enough.

Have you tried "the flipple"? I read about it in Breastfeeding Made Simple and I was so relieved because it's what I do to get my nipple further back in DD's mouth. It sort of involves putting the lower areola into baby's mouth, and then pushing the jaw down while rolling/flipping the nipple into baby's mouth with your thumb. My nipple almost flips back to touch my breast while i do it. It's really helpful for baby's who don't open up wide, and I like it because I have huge breasts but teeny tiny nipples.

[the_lissa]

Addie is a giant. Her smiles are so amazing. I love her so much.

My son is going to be 3 next week! Times goes by so fast.

[Punchy Kaby]

Could a LC help Violet take a bottle better? In the past 2 days she has been doing better but before that she would take nothing from Dh. We tried a different bottle.

How many poops a day are your LOs doing? Has the consistency gotten thicker yet? DD still poops 3-4x a day and it is runny.

I think dd had a breakthrough this week with sleep and soothing herself. She found her hands weeks ago but this week really started using them to get herself to sleep. Some Naps that had been 30 min long are now 2+ hrs long! She also started sleeping a 5 hr stretch at night. I think she could probably go longer at night but she always needs a diaper change around 4 am. She I'd a super soaker! I just ordered some bamboo overnight diapers from a wahm. I cannot wait until they get here. We use mostly BG organic AIO. They are the easiest to use for dH and the babysitters.

I'd like some chocolate cake

[~Katie~]

Chocolate cake


I made it for my SIL's birthday while she was here, I still have a couple of slices left. I'm tempted to bring them to my pregnant neighbor so I don't eat them but I don't want her to think I'm trying to fatten her up either.

Nolansmum - I'd say keep trying with different bottles and nipples and see if there's one she prefers, keep trying different positions for bottle feeding that don't resemble breastfeeding also because she may be getting confused and frustrated.

Laine still poops a lot, probably because she nurses twelfty times a day. My poor boobs are like pancakes. She's up to 12.6lbs. now so the milk is doing something right, she's still my teeny tiny baby (at least to me). Its official, we're about a month out from DH getting home. I am overjoyed, I only wish the time would go by faster. I'm already thinking about how sad its going to be to say goodbye again, this time for much longer. I hate how these separations mean having to adjust to parenting together again and being partners again once he returns, it feels so awkward to me. Its like meeting somebody for the first time in a way.

[kdtmom2be]

Originally Posted by Nolansmum

Could a LC help Violet take a bottle better? In the past 2 days she has been doing better but before that she would take nothing from Dh. We tried a different bottle.

We just figured out that DS takes a bottle a whole lot better if you offer it so he can lay with his head turned to the side (like breastfeeding). If you try to feed him with his head straight he won't drink.

[Amydoula]

DH has to sit DS straight up facing outward to take his bottle, it needs to be very unlike BF for him to take it

[CanBoo]

Bottle: We have not tried anything since we don't need too. It was way too much of a fight and stress with dd1. It the end, it took until 10 months for her to take a bottle from someone else nicely. She'd only take it from me! Go figure. I do have to stopprocrastinating and pump a little though. I'd feel better with emergency milk in the freezer.

Sorry that some of you are still going through nursing issues...

Dipes: We use infant prefolds mainly. Got fitted as well, but now that DH has figured out prefolds and snappis (thank you dd1), that is mainly waht we use, with a wool soaker on top. I only used our pockets a couple times. We are in fact going for our second camping trip of the year with cloth diapers this week-end.

Poops: P poops in average every second day. Sometimes daily and sometimes it can be 4-5 days in between.

Heat? Anyone found ways to keep them comfortable? This is driving her and I crazy! She is so hot. We give her a long bath twice a day to cool her down. But what else?

She started to coo a lot. It is the cutest thing. Her voice is quite different from what I can remember of dd1's baby voice.

Chocolate cake: I want some! To hot too bake though. Maybe I can just make the microwave one in a mug.

[Quate]

Yes, we have a sucking exercise to do, and we're also playing stick-out-your tongue games.

Diapers: just prefolds here. I got some Chinese and some Indian and was surprised to discover that they ended up exactly the same size after washing and drying. It wasn't how they were described. She's still fitting in her small covers fine--we didn't bother with XS since we didn't start till she was almost a month old.

Bottles: we have to make sure we give one before she gets too hungry, or it's a disaster. She gets about 1 a week. I am guessing a LC might have some good suggestions, since mine asks whether she takes it ok.

Poops: still 4x a day or so here, and still liquid, or liquidish

Cooing: adorable! I love it She sounds like a little mourning dove.

[Sadie Lake]

Wow, I haven't posted for a while! I miss you ladies!

My little baby has made that clicking squeak sound while nursing since she was born. She is growing fine and seems to get pleanty of milk, but I worry that its making her gassier than she needs to be because I think she's swallowing a little bit of air every time she does it. Anybody have sugguestion about how to help her stop doing that?

I'm so in love with her! I'm completely captivated by her when she does her little smile/coo/whole-body-squirm-with-delight thing! I feel bad sometimes because I'll realize dd1 is watching and I can only imagine what she's feeling when I'm totally having a love affair with "the baby". What do you ladies do for your older kiddos to show them that you still love them as much as ever?

Sadie

[lil_miss_understood]

Katie, so happy DH is coming home to you soon.

Still can't really think straight. There are others I wanted to reply to but all I can think about is that my mom's funeral is going on right now.
Thanks for the condolences.

[CanBoo]

I am very sorry to heart that Jackie It is hard enough to go through a loss, immigration issues mixed in there are even worse.

[ReadingRenee]

Jacqueline, Im so sorry about your mom and the funeral that you can' t be at.

Sadie, my baby has always made that clicky squeaky noise while nursing too. She sticks her ginormous tongue out very far all the time so I don't think its a tongue tie or anything and even if I latch her on perfectly she will be doing it in a minute or so.

Im totally beat. Either we have the beginnings of an early 3 month growth spurt. (she will be 11 weeks tommorow) or the nightmare of no sleep at night is beginning. Last night she woke up every hour to nurse and then starting at 5 am every 30 minutes! I have been napping when she naps today and Im trying to nurse her a lot in the day just in case she is getting more of her nursing at night and not nursing well in the day. I hope its just a growth spurt!