Hellobee Boards

@Goldilocks1107: Now you have me wondering if I should have gotten multiple kinds of bottles. I just got a few of one kind--she doesn't have a choice as of now. She BETTER like them! LOL

@winniebee: He doesn't want the baby to get much bigger.

@Nskillet: I'm excited to know that there is an end in sight! I do hope to go into labor between now and Sunday by myself though.

@marriedandlovingit: Wow! Good luck with everything and it's crazy that we'll soon have 2 more May babies!

@Mrsdaredevil: No DVD recommendations here, but at our class, it was mainly "do what feels good, change positions if something isn't working, focus on your breathing". The breathing part was pretty helpful - the nurse said to start with slow deep breaths for the early stage. When the contractions started getting more intense, move to a few short, quick inhales, followed by a prolonged exhale. And when things really get going, do the same short, quick inhales, but change the sound of the exhale to help return your focus to breathing and away from the pain.
She didn't really talk about specific "methods" that are out there, just some tips/tricks to help during labor.

6.24 am here, and I'm the only one awake on the ward:) my bp came down to normal range last night and seems to be more or less stable at that, yay. Have a stinky headache but it seems to be one of my old tension headaches rather than anything spooky. It's just so warm here, and I know I didn't drink enough during the day so while it's a nuisance, it's not a worry. Docs will be around in a couple hours so I should find out whether I can go home today- if the results from the 24 hr pee collection are good, it seems like I should be good to go ? Fingers crossed anyway!
Doc did say yesterday that if worst came to worst and my bp couldn't be controlled, he wouldn't be hugely concerned about having to induce me- 35 weeks tomorrow and all else is well with me and the babas. Which is good to hear.
Near the end of the road now girls..:)

@Nskillet: Thank you! You will have to tell me if your nurses have any redhead superstitions too. It's not all true, as one superstition is that we are major bleeders and that didn't happen to me. DH handled the labor support really well. When we were hanging out in the hall on first arrival, he did ask a nurse to give him tips on what not to do. She said, don't talk about your own needs (like, say that you are hungry or something) and also don't coach her like she's playing football. In the end, he did really well and the nurses were so cool about coaching him on what to do and how to help (like, how to hold my leg during the pushing, and suggesting things he can do to help) so I credit them with making his part work out so well. I appreciated how friendly and up-beat he was with the nurses and doctors, as I would normally want to be like that too, but while in the throws of pain it is hard to do so. The only thing I didn't like that he did was when he said 'good girl'.....but maybe that's just the little feminist in me.....I totally didn't hold it against him though nor say anything about it.

How has it been adjusting to the babies sleep schedule? Well, as I posted just now, he's too good of a sleeper. I have been trying to keep with the EASY method from the Baby Whisperer, so we do Eat, Activity (which is usually just changing the diaper), Sleep, You time.

Now, speaking of sleeping, the hospital did give us a page about 'the 2nd night' and everything on it was so true. It said that the 2nd night is when the baby suddenly realizes that it is out of the womb and it is not sure about anything. The only thing that will console it is being close to the breast. Now, in my head, I wanted to establish baby sleeping in his own bed right away starting on that 2nd night and when I ended up having to co-sleep him the 2nd night I imagined that I was failing at my sleep plans. But, as soon as the 3rd night came (and for all his naps starting the next day) he was fine to sleep in the hospital crib thingy. By the way, I only read the hospital's page about the 2nd night on our 4th day! Now, I wanted to mention then that the whole '2nd night' phenomenon happened again on our first night at home. I think it probably has to do with being again in a strange new place and dealing with that. So ladies, be ready for the '2nd night' and just give baby lots of skin to skin time and hold baby tight.....it won't spoil the kid.
I'm glad your internal didn't hurt and that you are making progress. Now, for anyone who is frustrated about not making dilation progress in the weeks leading up to due date, remember, for me I was zero dilation (cervix just 'softening and moving forward') at 3pm and gave birth at 8:30pm, so the dilation progress isn't exactly a great prediction of things to come.

@LAGS: Thanks. We had to go back to disposables for the hospital again. (because we don't have enough newborn cloth diapers to go for several days away) Even though I love the cloth diapers, I would like to highly recommend the 'Pamper's Swaddlers Sensitives'. They have a little yellow line at the front which turns blue when the baby pees. Since newborns pee just a little, it is really handy for knowing when they pee. And if you run into a situation like me with the jaundice, the nurses will want you to document every pee and poo. With the sensitives I could always report and then when I ran out of those and went to a different type of diaper I had no idea when he'd pee. The diapers are so absorbant that I missed lots of pees and wasn't able to chart properly anymore. Now that we're back to cloth, I can definitely tell when I open the diaper if it is wet or not. Back to my good charting. (I'm continuing to chart at home the pee, poops and especially the breastfeeding times and durations. I highly recommend that everyone set aside a notebook for keeping track!)

That's all for now. My next Bee session will be to read what you've all been posting these last few days. I am so excited to be back and to find out how everyone is doing.

And now, I'm going to snuggle my sleeping baby....best feeling ever....tears already just thinking about it (and he's already been sleeping on my lap during all this typing). Cheers and good luck to everyone!

volksgirl64: thanks for the cooking ahead/storage tips!
I recommend prunes and metamucil cookies. I used to drink those fiber supplemented drinks but if you don't drink them fast enough they conceal and you have to choke them down--they're awful! FiberOne granola bars are good, too.

@goldilocks: I don't know if 8 is right--but I have less than 8. They aren't that hard to run out and get, though, so don't worry about it.
Glad you're finding where you can return some towels! I just started a target registry so I can take advantage of that baby sale you mentioned.
nskillet: last week of work? YAY! I can't wait till my last week--I know it's a tough one, though. Good luck!
nskillet/goldi: agreed--I have no clue how long I'll be able to keep up with breast feeding when I go back to work...
MsMini: still thinkingabout you and hope the induction is going well!
marriedandlovingit: another April baby? That's awesome! Good luck!
mrsdaredevil: Definitely thinking about the raspberry leaf tea!
I didn't go to a class and never even thought about watching a DVD... sorry no recommendations from me.
goldi: thanks for the tips from your class!
aunt pol: Fingers crossed for you--hope you get to go home!
cvbee: glad the light therapy was so helpful--I had no idea! Glad feeding is getting easier now!

Wow, congrats Mini! Enjoy your sleep, looking forward to the update!
It's lunchtime here and I've got the all clear to go home so I'm just waiting for DH to arrive for me. Have a low dose pill to take to keep manners on the blood pressure, everything else is fine, thankfully. Have to go to my own doc Friday to check bp again, then I'll be back in hosp for scan and twin clinic Monday anyway so I'll have plenty of supervision. Very much looking forward to my own bed, and getting away from the damn fetal heart rate monitor! They kept letting the student midwives sort it- I understand they need the experience- and it kept going wrong and needing repeating. It's bloody annoying sitting semi reclined for an hour at a time, especially an hour after breakfast when indigestion is just beginning to kick in and twin 1 is trying to reverse out via my ribs! But all's well that ends well, as they say. I'm fine, babas are fine. @cvbee: you sound so happy:) the 2 day tip is v useful!

@MsMini: Wow! Induction to stat c-section - I'm glad you're both doing well. And yay for a little boy!

I had the worst night's sleep last night. After being exhausted all day, when it was time for bed I was completely wired. It took me 2 hours to fall asleep - I almost got up and started folding the laundry I washed 2 days ago.

It didn't help I was irritated with Target.com - I tried buying some items off my registry and never had issues with everything qualifying for the free shipping, but this time NOTHING qualified. And I was not paying $37 to have something shipped to my house. So now I'm going to see if the items are all at one Target store in the area so I can buy in-store. Otherwise, Amazon might be getting my business for those items. Grr.

@msmini congrats!
@cvbee nico is adorable, and what a sweet little video!

@MsMini: Congratulations! Another boy, yay!!! I'm sorry to hear your story is a scary one So glad everyone is happy and healthy now!

@MrsDaredevil: Your weekend sounds so relaxing, I'm jealous your belly got to see the light of day!

@Pastemoo: BRU has their store brand prefolds here for about $17 for 12. Can you order online?

@Volksgirl64: Oh good idea with the crockpot meals. I've had no interest in cooking and prepping dishes for freezer... but throwing some raw ingredients in a freezer bag, I think I can manage that! I've recently just started Dulcolax. It helped at first, but I'm thinking I need to up my dosage already

@NSkillet: Wow.. nothing like encouraging breastfeeding with a totally unrealistic/intimidating statement like that... jeepers. Hopefully you can establish a good pumping routine and stash and it'll be a non-issue. Either way it sounds like you have a good perspective going into things.

@marriedandlovingit: Wow, we'll have another May (April) mamma! Its crazy how all of a sudden babies are coming left, right and center! Sending good thoughts your way that you beat your Dr. to it before Monday!

@aunt pol: Happy to hear everything came back normal and you get to head back home!

@cvbee: I'm glad you were able to get to the bottom of Nico's feeding problems. Hopefully now that he's doing better it will keep getting more familiar and comfortable with practice. He's absolutely perfect btw, love those itty bitty fingers and toes!

@pastemoo: The promised breastfeeding post:

So, first of all, as I've said, my experience with the breastfeeding is probably worse than what most of you will experience because the jaundice made him so tired that he would just latch and then fall asleep after one suck. It was pretty frustrating, because the nurses were trying so many things to help me: checking my latch again and again, teaching me how to keep the baby awake by stroking him with a cold, wet washcloth (baby torture), etc. Well, I should say that the 'baby torture' started off sweet, like just by tickling the baby's feet or stroking his back or ear....mine just needed to get the next level of stimulation. (Although now I'm back to just stroking nicely with my hands). And since it's my first baby I was never sure if what I was doing was right. Sometimes he'd be latched on for a long time and I thought things were great but he actually wasn't drinking.

Here is my experience from the start (though it is a little blurry). When I got him onto my chest we did skin to skin and I tried to get him to do the 'biological breastfeeding' that I talked about before where the baby just kindof finds his way to the breast. He was sure wiggly and had the instinct to push with his feet, move his head around, and search, but it was complicated because the breast is on the side of the body(ish), so then he'd not have anything to balance on and he'd be rolling off to the side. I tried to turn a little. It wasn't working out, so right away I went into one of the holds. Maybe cradle or cross cradle.

I tried the 'tease his lip with the nipple' thing and I knew that I had to wait for his mouth to open wide and then shove it in. My first correction that the nurses gave me was to bring the baby to the breast not the breast to the baby. I had read this before but it didn't seem natural. I was also a little worried about him not being able to breathe in there, but now I see that he can be covered in boob and breathe no problem. Another nurse later told me to do whatever feels right for me, and if I want to lean forward over the baby, then that's what I'll do. So, it was helpful to have lots of different nurses giving their ideas.

The nurses then helped me to see that I need to actually hold my breast the whole time. (This is a bit of an exaggeration because yesterday I was breastfeeding well without holding, but I do think it is a good tip for the first while). You have to hold up from under the boob. That did help.

Oh, and if you can bring your breastfeeding pillow to the hospital DO SO! Once I got home and started with the pillow it made things soo much easier......especially in my situation where I needed a 'third hand' to poke the baby with the wet wash cloth to wake him up.

I got lots of nurses looking at our latch, and it did end up being good. Ask for the nurses to check. Ask them questions. It helps.

I also wasn't even so sure that I had anything coming out of my breast. Took me a while before I actually saw the colostrum, and I was glad once I did.

So my next complication was that he wasn't eating much and he was losing weight super fast (which hopefully won't happen to any of you). They didn't know why at first. They thought maybe it was because he still had a lot of mucos in him (which was true, as he was coughing it up a lot). Then they thought it was the sleepiness maybe because he's a little early and just not ready to work for his meal. Then his jaundice showed up and they said it was common for jaundice babies to be too sleepy.

I did go home, with the instruction to feed him as often as possible and at a max of every 4 hours. I'd try after 2 hours and basically try for 2 hours and he'd feed only after 4 hours. After a while I stopped trying every 2 and just went for the 4: figured that's what baby wants. But then when I found out he lost all that weight I felt bad for not trying harder. But it was so hard.

Oh, and my first night home my milk came in. My breasts were so swollen and tender and I was shocked how they felt like rocks. I turned to Dr. Google who did offer some good advice about massaging the breast before feeding to soften it up so the baby could feed. And Dr. Google said the cure was baby drinking. (Great, I thought, that is the jaundice cure too and it's not going well. Then I pictured a long time of agonizing pain for me with engorgment). So I got to thinking and decided to lay side by side with baby at the breast and sleep that way so he would hopefully drink some sips throughout the night. I did a few hours on one side and then flipped and did a few hours on the other side. I did fall asleep many many times and thank god I didn't squish/suffocate my baby (which is my co sleeping fear). But in the morning, the engorgement was gone. Phew.

Figuring out how to squeeze out the colostrum or milk with my hand was really hard and continues to be a challenge. It may not be necessary for everyone, and I don't know why it's so hard for me to understand how to do it; when I got the nurse to show me, she touched me so gently and it just flowed out.

On my return to the hospital, after my milk came in, I was having a really sore nipple (not gonna lie, it was cracked and bleeding!). I didn't understand why he'd latch and then pull back and chew. Turns out he was trying to 'get things started' and as soon as I learned to express a drop or two onto my nipple tip first and then put that to his mouth, he stopped the chewing. And I was so surprised how amazing lanolin is. You MUST have some lanolin. I went from bleeding nipple to normal nipple in about 8 hours. I can't say enough good things about lanolin. Love putting it on my lips as chapstick now and I also love it on the cuticles. I don't know why the lanolin people don't advertise it for other purposes.

Breast pads. You do need them. I bought reusables (and will be doing daily wash with the cloth diapers so that's a good match for me). I wish I had more because I like to change them a lot and I like them clean. The nipple needs to either be air dried (ideal) or have lanolin on it before you put on your pad or else the nipple can stick to the pad. (Did that just once before I learned). Last night when baby was fussy I thought maybe my bra was bothering him so I took it off and learned that if you have your bra off, the other breast will leak all over the place.

What else? Oh! It is easier for the baby's instincts if you do the breastfeeding skin to skin. After the nurse showed me how to give baby a bath on the first day she said 'where is his outfit' and from that point on I was dressing him up a lot, but looking back I wish I had stayed skin to skin for longer rather than getting baby into outfits.

And if it hurts, the latch is wrong. It will feel slightly uncomfortable for the first three seconds, usually, but if you are in pain, break the seal and try again. This is a case where no pain no gain does NOT apply.

Okay, this post is way too long and I apologize for rambling. Breastfeeding is still hard for me and for Nico. I have him laying in the sun right now, so hopefully that will help his jaundice a little more and he will do a stronger job at his next feeding. He's definitely not feeding as well as he did yesterday in the hospital and it worries me a little but I just have to keep up the work.

I don't think I'll be able to breastfeed in public for a while; it's still very tricky. But then again, it's only been a week!

@cvbee: You have so many great tips regarding breastfeeding! Keep up the good work. Nico has a wonderful mommy!

@duckduckkristen: We are supposed to receive the Osocozy prefolds in the mail today!

I think I lost my mucus plug this morning. I would love to believe that this is an indication of impending labor, but I know better :P. I really want to go into labor by myself, so I can't help but to have a bit of wishful thinking after this morning.

@cvbee: Thanks for all the advice. I am honestly very nervous about breastfeeding. All my friends who are new moms say things like "I wasn't producing enough" or "my baby stopped getting full on my milk" or "my nipples were so bloody I had to quit." I just want it to WORK! NO FORMULA!!!!

I have another NST tomorrow and an OB check. My OB mostly won't check my cervix, but I tried to check mine myself and I am pretty sure it is high and closed. I couldn't feel anything at all, which I am pretty sure means that it's still way up there/posterior.

I don't know if this is nesting or not, but yesterday and today I have been on a cleaning binge. I vacuumed and polished the hardwoods behind all the furniture in the living room, vacuumed EVERYTHING (even under all our area rugs), dusted everything in the whole house, scrubbed the kitchen floors and cleaned out the fridge. I just couldn't stop! Then I alphabetized all the books on my bookshelf.

I keep waking up hoping I feel different, but I don't. I just want this baby to come out.... more and more stretch marks keep popping up and it's really depressing me. I just want the baby to come out so my stretch marks will stop coming! I thought that not gaining a ton of weight would prevent them, but I guess that's not true at all.

@Mrsdaredevil: You can breast feed! It will work. Find out who the support people are for you in your community. Ask the nurses lots of questions; keep asking and keep asking; ask the different ones different things; keep asking them to look at what you are doing and give feedback. Tell them your worries. Find out who you can call for help once you are home. My community has breastfeeding public health nurses who you can visit or call and they call every new Mom and do a home visit for everyone. I can see how troubles could happen if you don't ask for help in time. Ask right away. My hospital is very supportive of breastfeeding: I was very lucky. You might have to be more proactive about asking for help. Believe in you!

@MsMini: Yay! So glad that you and Sawyer are doing well. One of the ladies at my hospital went into labour the same way as you (induction turned to C section). It is interesting that we both have lazy feeders. Were you advised to supplement with formula or did you make that decision based on what you know? No one has mentioned formula supplementation to me. I have a doc appointment on Friday for another check-in; maybe if things aren't getting better then he will tell me the same thing.

@aunt pol: Keep us updated! Wishing you the best!

@marriedandlovingit: Wow! I hope that your labour starts too, but we all know that at the end of the day we want a healthy baby and healthy mama. How we get there, we never know.

@volksgirl64: Would you consider putting your rings onto a necklace instead of wearing a fake ring? That's what I did and lots of people noticed and actually it brought a new attention to my rings! Feels fun to have my rings back on again now. Also volksgirl64: I feel like eating a pear and one other peice of fruit daily is what keeps me regular. I had constipation issues in first trimester and the fruit did the trick for me. I made DH bring me pears after birth because I was so scared of post-birth pooping experiences being bad. Maybe it was the pears that did it: I've been A-ok with the nice, soft bowel movements.

I have not stepped on the scale. And proud of that. But I did put on pre-pregnancy pants today and it made me a little sad how I couldn't zip them up....I had thought I was looking pretty good up until then. So my advice is not to put on non-pregnancy pants after you give birth. (I'm 1 week post now).

@shortcake: I'm just following dr orders. I asked at the hospital about pumping and feeding him that way and they said not to. The doc said that in the old days at this point they would tell me to switch to formula for a few days until the baby gains weight and gets over it, but he said that this hospital supports continuing with the breastfeeding so that we don't mess with that process.

@Mrsdaredevil: Yes, try the red raspberry leaf tea. You have to drink lots of it....like 2 or 3 cups per day....and my box said to let it steep for like 10-20 minutes. I'm also thinking that staying upright and doing lots of upright positions and walking for as long as you can stand is good. I was watching the 'baby story' shows in the hospital and so many of the ladies were trying to relax in early labour, but it seemed like it just made them not progress and drag things out. I say, don't try to relax until the pain gets REALLY bad. Until then, work with it. And hey, I am telling you to try the sitting on the toilet thing. I know two friends who progressed well and quickly by sitting on the toilet. I did too!

whoa I just almost lost all these replies. TIme to hit send.