September 2011 Whatever Ladies Having Babies! - Page 4

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by MarineWife 

i was going to look into jenny craig. i think my sister did that one. i think they have the option of making your own food or using theirs. i'm getting discouraged at finding something for breastfeeders. i'm not really looking for a weight loss diet, just a meal plan with premade foods so i don't have to think or prepare anything. i know i can add extra food to make sure i'm getting enough calories but i'm worried about my supply decreasing. also, i'm getting concerned about my nutrition at this point. if my dh were home, he would prepare everything for me. he likes to do that sort of thing.

Is cost an issue?  What about something that delivers?  All the celebs do this one:

http://www.freshology.com/healthy-diet-food-delivery-programs/fresh-mommy-nationwide/

Have you tried nutrisystem before?  Their food wasn't the best and the portions are TINY.  Though, I'm sure since you're not really looking for weight loss exactly but more for convenience that's not such an issue bc you could just have 2 or something, if it wasn't satisfying.  Just thinking out loud.

I'm spoiled like that b/c DH does do most/all of the cooking.  On days he's not around, we get take out.    He's in NYC today and tomorrow.  Already I'm trying to figure out how to get both kids somewhere so I can buy lunch out.  Haha.   I really want Panera.  

ETA - I just ordered some of that Rockin Green Funk Rock detergent.  My dipes still have a fishy smell.  IDK what it is but it needs to GO.  Hopefully the detergent works.

[akind1]

MW: have you looked into the eDiet stuff? they have lots of options, not sure for BF'ing mamas or not. Hope you are able to find something.

I don't do that sort of stuff for a couple reasons- mostly the expense, because I'd want both  DH and I to do it (else we would be buying/fixing totally separate meals, also an added expense) If I were the only adult, I would totally do something like that.

As for the EPO, like I said, it isn't so much an induction method, but just a cervical ripener. It was recommended to me, and so I thought it couldn't hurt/might help. Since I can't depend on other sort of prostaglandins (DH just doesn't seem too keen at the moment - combination of stress from working on his national exam/licensure for massage therapy and being in his parents' house I think-, let alone on a real regular basis) I thought, why not? much as I'd love to meet this LO sooner than later, not going completely gung ho about the natural induction methods. with DS we did walking, fried, spicy, foods, sex, papaya juice, fresh pineapple . . . I even tried a little castor oil, but I really can't stomach it, so did a double dose of a laxitive tea instead. and none of that worked. Oh, lots of fresh basil and oregano too. So really, I thought the EPO might be a good thing, both because it might help physically, and it helps me feel like I'm doing something but nothing really high stress or anything psychologically it helps. She'll come when she comes.

Carrie, hopefully the spit up is short lived! I have an IRL friend dealing with the same thing. At least it's breastmilk spit up and not formula (because formula spit up smells really nasty).

[Baby_Cakes]

the thing with EPO is its totally harmless, but if it can help, why not?  

And I hear you on the bm vs formula spit up! True that!!  

It's so nice out today and Finn is taking a rather awesome nap (been down since 10 and it's 12 now).  I'm hoping but not counting on being able to get both of them ready and fed and take a short walk with him in the sling.  Mama could use the fresh air and I'm sure Nora could use the play time.

[MarineWife]

I did nutrisystem for a while last year. It worked really well. I lost weight very easily. The food isn't great but it's better than I expected. The portions are tiny. One thing that got me was that the dinners were more sauce than actual food. I wasn't hungry while I did it, tho, and I was breastfeeding then. K was 2 1/2 so I wasn't worried about my milk production. If it stopped at that point, I was ok with it. It didn't, though. We kept nursing until I weaned him when he was 3 and Sean was home and I was ready to TTC.

I looked into eDiets first but got the same response. "We can't offer our programs to breastfeeding women." I wonder if there's some sort of regulation against it. I would be surprised if there was but I find it interesting that everyone says they "can't", not that they "won't" or "don't". KWIM?

Money isn't too much of an issue. Anything I spend on meals for me will be deducted from our grocery bill and the cost of me eating out. nutrisystem costs about $300 a month so it actually sWe eat out a lot when dh is gone. It gets old real fast, though, when he's gone for months at a time. Ryan informed me yesterday that Wing Zone delivers and they have burgers, shrimp and salads in addition to wings.

I know EPO isn't dangerous, per se, but I don't see the point in using it if you don't need to. The fact is that you can't be sure that nothing adverse could happen if you mess with a natural process like that. In my mind, I want to experience a completely natural birth so that means not doing anything to change things or make things happen in any way that's not natural and normal anyway. So, having intercourse or walking would be ok because they are both part of a normal and natural life, anyway. Since one doesn't normally put EPO on her cervix, that's not a part of normal and natural life. KWIM? i'm not saying it's wrong or bad. just wondering why you would feel the need to do it when you aren't even at your 40w edd yet. why mess with perfection? that's all.

[AnnieA]

I've thought about doing WW but we don't have the money for that right now. I've started walking again and I've lost a couple more pounds just doing that. I'm six lbs away from my prepregnancy weight. I'd like to lose at least 20 lbs more inthe next couple of months but I can't jeopardize my milk supply any more.

I wasn't double pumping before my supply dropped. Honestly I was being pretty lazy about pumping because my supply was so good. So when it dropped last week I freaked out. There were two pumping sessions where I only got an ounce out between both breasts. So I started double pumping every two hours during the day and really watching my water intake. My reaction to possibly losing my milk was surprising to me. The idea of giving DD formula made me very sad and angry. I refuse to lose my milk!

One of the unexpected downsides to pumping and bottle feeding is that when'll feeding DD I don't have a free hand to also feed myself. So I end up making food and then having to wait hours to eat. It stinks.

I had decided that I was going to start getting DD used to falling asleep without me but I said screw it. I only have four more weeks at home with my baby and I'll rock and hold her as much as she'll let me! She and her care provider M will figure out their own way to nap. I used to be a care provider myself and I've seen how babies adapt and do things differently with different people.

[akind1]

all the holding and rocking will likely be good for your supply also. do you hold Ava while you pump? J/C as I've heard some mamas have better success pumping one breast while nursing the babe on the other.

for me, pumping one breast at a time just seemed more natural, and it left me with a free hand to flip through magazines, or eat, etc. That and those handsfree pumping bras don't come in my size.

[MarineWife]

Annie ~ Have you looked at WW online? I think that costs less and it's so easy to keep track of things with their online tools. I did it for a while. My problem with WW was that I was hungry all the time. I don't know if it was because of the limits on how much I could eat or if it was because I wasn't eating the right things. In other words, I wasn't maximizing my allotted points.

That Freshology is way too expensive for me. That's more than our monthly grocery expense for everyone. It sure does look nice, though.

I end up waiting hours to eat cold food, too. I don't think that's just a bottle feeding problem. Something almost always seems to come up so that I don't get to sit down and eat. By the time I get E's and K's food on the table, D is crying. I get D settled again and then E or K need more food or drink. I'm up and down several times and my food is cold by the time I get to eat it. I have to wolf it down as fast as possible and don't usually get enough.

I feel the same way whenever I think about my milk supply dwindling. I got myself very sad about it last night thinking what I would do if I had to feed D formula. There was no rational reason for me to worry but I did, anyway, and got myself all worked up. Silly!

Back to the TV watching time, I was thinking about the boy next door who goes to school now. He leaves for school around 8-8:15 and gets home around 3:45-4:00. That's at least 7 1/2 hours. Then he spends a couple of hours a day after school doing homework. By that time it's 6 pm and time for dinner. Say dinner only takes 30 minutes, even if the boy stays up until 10 pm (which I, personally, think is way too late when he has to get up at 7 am), that leaves only 3 1/2 hours of free time to watch TV, right? Where do the other 3-5 hours come from? When Ryan was in school we were all lucky if we got an hour to just veg out in front of the TV. Most days we had just enough time to eat dinner and do homework before going to bed so we could get up the next morning and do it all over again.

[Baby_Cakes]

He might get up at 7 or so and get an hour in before school.  Still, that's a hell of a lot of TV to be watching, I agree.  I think that number is way off.

Annie - Rock that baby and let her sleep on you!  I agree, they'll figure things out for themselves.  I'm a firm believer in if it ain't broke don't fix it -- I don't try to get babies to nap out of arms or out of the swing until need demands it.  Once you have no other choice, it's a lot easier!  Same with transitioning to a bed, PL'ing, etc.  It all works out, no need to stress.  Good for you!!

Freshology is way expensive.  Ah to be rich, huh?  LOL!  And my food is usually cold too.  I'll put something on, the timer will go off, and then hours later I remember about it.  I've opened the microwave to see my coffee cup in there from the morning that I reheated and forgot about.  It's just there's always something to do!!

I got a lot done today.  I got all my dipes stuffed and put away, tidied up (but didn't vacuum yet), threw Finn's dirty clothes and burp cloths in the wash, cleaned up the kitchen, took the kids to Sonic (yum), and Finn is napping now and Nora is watching George.  After he wakes up and eats, we're going to go outside and do SOMETHING.  A walk, the backyard, whatever.  The back has a lot of mosquitoes, but at this point we need fresh air and Nora really deserves some free play.

I'm still at 169 lbs.  Blah.  I really hope to get this weight off by Christmas.  That's just 15 weeks away.  Yikes.

[MarineWife]

i need to get out for a walk this evening. however, i noticed just a tiny bit of pinkish discharge when i wipe after at least a week of nothing. what's up with that? i asked my MW about walking. she said it was fine as long as i didn't start to bleed again. if that happens, it means i'm doing too much and need to slow down.

did i tell you all i got a graco turbobooster at target? they had a boyish one that E said he liked. my plan is to put E in the turbobooster and K in the frontier with the harness in the van. the boulevard that K is in now can go in sean's jeep for K and we can easily move E's booster back and forth.

[MarineWife]

i found this calorie calculator for breastfeeding. http://www.freedieting.com/tools/breastfeeding_calorie_calculator.htm#

depending on which formula i use, it says i only need about 1500 calories a day with little/no exercise.

[AnnieA]

I ultimately need to lose at least 50 more lbs but I was overweight when I got pg. I'm hoping that by doing portion control and moderate exercise I can drop at least 20-30 lbs. I've thought about the WW online. I might do it when I start back to work. My job will reimburse almost all the cost as part of our wellness program.

With the tv watching I can totally buy that figure especially if you factor in weekends and summers. My DSC will easily watch that much if allowed. For instance my DSS 10 gets home from school at 2:30 and as best as I can tell he watches tv for most of the time until he goes to bed after 9 pm. He rarely has homework that takes more than 30 mins. On the weekends and summer days they will literally watch all day or play wii for 3+ hrs if allowed.

[MarineWife]

i wondered if that was taking an average from every day of the year. i'm not sure it's accurate to do that. I can't believe a 10yo only has 30 minutes of homework a night. The kids here in 1st and 2nd grade seem to have more than that. Or, at least, it takes them that long to do it.

That's great that your job will pay for any weight loss programs. Once I get to my pre-pg weight, I still need to lose another 20 lbs. or so to get to my ideal weight. I'm supposed to weigh only around 110 lbs. at the most based on my height. I don't know if I'll ever get down to that again but if I can get down to 120 lbs. I'll be happy. I was 120 lbs. before I got pg with both E and K and felt really good about how I looked then.

I like dessert too much for portion control to work for me after a certain point. I just made some cookies. If it didn't make me sick, I'd eat them all right now. I'm sure they'll be gone tomorrow.

[Baby_Cakes]

I have 30 lbs to lose to get back to my prepreg weight.  Oye.  I'll hopefully be happy there, I was before.  I would like to get super fit though, b/c we are DONE having babies.  I have all the time in the world to work on my run times and fitness!  Yay.  

I found decent shorts at Target finally, and they are size FIFTEEN.  Yes, one, five.  UGH.  Juniors, sure, but damn.  I was a 7 in juniors before I got pg, and a 4 in womens.  It's such a blow to my ego, damnit!  I'm ready to lose at least the first 10-15 lbs so I feel somewhat normal again.  I'd like to be in single digits at least, lol.

[AnnieA]

It's funny because if DSS 10 has 30 mins of homework that's a bad night. Usually he doesn't have any homework and definitely nothing on the weekend. I was just talking about this with my sister who is a teacher in MD. Her school gives a lot of homework. I don't know if our school district doesn't do a lot of homework or if they have time to finish it in school or if it's a combination of both. But even my DSS 16 doesn't have that much homework.

Baby_Cakes, when you say your diapers smelly fishy, do you mean after they have been soiled? Or when they are clean?

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by AnnieA 

Baby_Cakes, when you say your diapers smelly fishy, do you mean after they have been soiled? Or when they are clean?

Clean!!  Right out of the dryer.  I even did an extra wash/rinse w/o detergent with hot water and its still there.  Not ammonia, just a funny musty fishy smell.  

[AnnieA]

Hmmm that's odd about the smell. What detergent are you using? I've had good luck so far with the Tide free and clear powder. I know some people don't like it but it's working for me so far.

[onetwoten]

RE: Homework, I think you're right and it does vary a lot from school to school, but in the younger grades here (up to about grade 3) I've found that most kids don't have more than an hour max- and that's on a hard day. Generally here in the younger grades if you have homework, it's things like memorizing spelling words, or finishing some simple math problems, the kind of things that if you work at it for 30 minutes than it's done. I was always a very good student, but I never had hours of homework until I reached high school. Even junior high, I would have days where yes I probably studied for two hours, but on average, I'd say I spent less than an hour per day. 

And then I got to university and all h*ll broke loose and suddenly I was studying for five hours a day and still behind. lol. 

I'm already trying to get psyched up about postpartum fitness, and I've still got 12 weeks to go before my EDD. lol. I was at a great weight for my height/build before the pregnancy, but I was horribly out of shape, and had no defined muscle. I really need to change that, so I'm sure I won't get back down to my prepregnancy weight, possibly ever, since muscle weighs more than fat. But I figure I'll take it easy until Spring, and then I want to take advantage of our neighborhood and the trails, and start going for nice long walks, and then eventually runs, every day. Hopefully that'll last me from about April through October, and then by then, baby will be old enough that I can go to the gym if I want, since they have childcare. We'll see, maybe I'll just keep up with home videos, etc.

I'm up about 23lbs right now, at 28 weeks... so I figure I should "budget" at least another 12lbs (1 per week), bringing me to 35lbs even. More than I wanted to gain, but meh. It's still mostly belly, so I can't complain. I'm trying to decide if it's unrealistic to expect to be back to "about" normal by summer? That's six months, and since I haven't had much fat gain, mostly just boobs and belly (and associated blood, uterus, placenta, etc) then it shouldn't be that hard... right? lol

[akind1]

Re: ideal weight - I don't go based on BMI charts - if I went by that, I'd need to weigh between like 98 and 115 for my height. Which I think is NEVER going to happen. They don't take into consideration boobs, or bone structure, or muscle mass. All of which I have in spades. I would like to ideally get down to 130 - 140, which is 100 lbs for me (yikes!) but I am not in a rush for it; I like having small, more attainable goals. Since starting pre-natals, I've gained 8 lbs total (between 8 and 38 weeks) so I think I'll have no problems getting back to pre-pregnancy weight. I would love to lose an additional 30 lbs or so in the next 3-6 months.

the 25 lbs I gained with DS came off within 6 months, and that's with doing nothing. I did find I needed to eat in order to lose weight though. If I tried to restrict my calories at all (not major, but 1500-1800 calories was not enough for me in the early days, I found I needed 2000-2200 or so to lose weight) I would not lose weight at all; it's like my body was holding on to it just in case.

I have lots of friends that love WW. I'm not really into diet plans. Just want to make good lifestyle changes. Eat less crap, move more.

Kids here have tons of homework. It is ridiculous. (from what I've observed from friends' kids) One of the great things about homeschooling! which we plan to do, somehow.

Carrie: do you ever add  vinegar to your wash? I use white vinegar where you would normally use fabric softener. It seems to help the smell (though if you do too much, your dipes will smell like fish n' chips)

[MovingMomma]

Carrie: Do you use Desitin?  That makes dipes smell fishy & is next to impossible to wash out w/out multiple washes!

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by jeninejessica 

I'm up about 23lbs right now, at 28 weeks... so I figure I should "budget" at least another 12lbs (1 per week), bringing me to 35lbs even. More than I wanted to gain, but meh. It's still mostly belly, so I can't complain. I'm trying to decide if it's unrealistic to expect to be back to "about" normal by summer? That's six months, and since I haven't had much fat gain, mostly just boobs and belly (and associated blood, uterus, placenta, etc) then it shouldn't be that hard... right? lol

I don't think that's unrealistic at all.  I'm hoping to be "normal" by Christmas and that's just shy of 5 months from when Finn was born.  Doable, totally doable.  Especially since little miss is your first and you don't yet also have older DCs pulling you in another direction (as in awayyyy from exercising!!) lol.  

Originally Posted by AnnieA 

Hmmm that's odd about the smell. What detergent are you using? I've had good luck so far with the Tide free and clear powder. I know some people don't like it but it's working for me so far.

I'm using All F&C Small and Mighty.  I have a friend bringing me Country Save to try, and like I said I have the Funk Rock on its way.  
 

Originally Posted by akind1 

I have lots of friends that love WW. I'm not really into diet plans. Just want to make good lifestyle changes. Eat less crap, move more.

Carrie: do you ever add  vinegar to your wash? I use white vinegar where you would normally use fabric softener. It seems to help the smell (though if you do too much, your dipes will smell like fish n' chips)

I'm the same.  I just try to eat less crap and move more, lol!  But if I have some stubborn weight I might count calories and try to stay within a certain range, or cut out extra sugar or something.

Hmm, vinegar.  Do you dilute it?  I have a dispenser in my washer, fabric softener goes in the agitator and gets put in automatically.  Do I just put like a capful in?  I'd like to try that!!

going back a bit - regarding the EPO, RRL, etc -- I don't see using those things as interfering with a natural process at all.  I see it as helping your body prepare as best as possible for labor.  Same as eating spicy food, etc.  These things might kickstart something that's already happening or going to happen, but don't actually do anything with the process itself.  Castor oil I feel differently about, but still, if I went really postdates, I don't think I'd personally be opposed.