The Official New Mom Thread

[Strawberry Lemonade]

Sandy22 - congratulations!

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. Lucas and I enjoyed going to my sister's baby shower (she's having twins). He was the only boy there, but loved every minute of it!

 

[justhat]

Congrats Sandy22! How exciting for you! Madison is 17 months old too.

Alice28, after reading your description of how Molly nurses I give you so much credit for sticking with it this long. Madison was exactly like that in the beginning and it was so frustrating. It was worse for her at night though, when she'd get very tired andhungry, then she'd unlatch, scream, I'd try to get her back on but couldn't while she was crying. Ugh, it was a nightmare. That was another big reason for me using bottles so much in the beginning. By the time she was a month old, however, she worked her issues out (I say it like that cause I dont' think I helped her in anyway) and became a super nurser, but gosh was that hard until she did. If she had still been in that pattern at 5 months, well I don't think I even would have made it to 5 months.

Tasha, when Madison was 12 months she wore 6-12 months. My mom said the same thing when I would buy in advance, that the outfit would be too small, including things I bought when I was still pregnant. She went on and on about what size I wore at what age, and it didn't help that at 9 months my 4yo niece was the same size that my daughter is now. For Madison, at 12 months some outfits were 6-9 months and fit, others 9 months, and then some said 6-12 or 9-12. She was barely in regular 12 months and almost nothing that said 12-18 months. She was 19.7 lbs. and 29 inches, 25th percentile in weight and 75th in height, in case that is more useful to you. So the reason for her sizes was more about the weight-pants just fell off her waist. If she had been a bit heavier she would have definitely been in 12 and 12-18 months. She's 17 months now and a lot of the 12-18 month stuff is still big on her, and I don't see her going to 18-24 months for awhile. But again, like I said, if she weighed more she would have definitely been in her size, and since there's a 75% chance that Kylie weighs more, I'd go with the 18 months too.

DisKim, we had the same dilemma about when we started Madison on solids so here's what worked for us. We were going to be in DL when she turned 6 months, which was when we planned to start her. So I decided to start about 3 weeks before the trip, but she wasn't really interested in it yet either. It surprised me since she was over 5 months old and always showed interest in our food. So after about 2 weeks (I took a couple breaks in there and restarted) I gave up and decided to wait till after the trip. This worked out much better for me because then I didn't have to pack cereal/bowls/spoons and pump milk to mix the cereal with. When we got back she was 6 months and a week old and seemed much more interested in eating which made it much easier for me. It still took awhile before she'd eat much though, and even now she's not a big eater, which I'm pretty happy about, and eats a small bowl of Cheerios and milk, with a little barely cereal mixed in.

 

[gwcollins71]

Congratulations Sandy!! How exciting! Your new dayughter is very lucky!

Gretchen

 

[DisneyPhD]

Diskim, Something about feeding too, most babies don't like to eat soilds as much on vacation. Most resort back to bottles or nursing. (mine did and it seems all of my friends said the same about their children.) It is a comfort and security thing. (even older babies.) It is ok, to start, and back off of ceral too like just that did. Keep trying every few weeks or so. We didn't start Lily until she was 6 months old also. When we stayed at CRS it was before we had kids. It is a lovley resort and we had a lot of converntioners there. (not Cheerleaders thank God.) The upside of that was less famlies, less people on the bus at night and morning. (much less then Dixi Landings at the time.) There still were a number of famlies and the pool is great for kids.

My oldest started getting teeth at 3 months too, I was like no way and my MIL said my DH got them at that age too. While getting teeth early helps you out in now way what so ever, it did seem to bother her less then getting them when they are older. (kind of the whole ear peircing when they are a baby thing.) She had most of her baby teeth by time she was 1 year old.
Anna was always super tiny too. She wore size 12 months when she was almost 2 years old. It seems like she was in size 18 months for a year. She still can fit in size 2T, but they are short so we is mostly in 3T and some 4T (dresses moslty they would fall right of her waist otherwise.) She is 4 1/2 years old now. Lily can wear her old cothes, and she still is small by other standards, but bigger then her sister was at this age. One thing I found wearing hand me downs with Lily is the excat size doesn't mater as much as you think it might.

Congrats Sandy22, a friend of mine adopted a little girl from China (2 actually, in the middle had one of her own too, I don't know how she did it still!) Anyway she said it was like getting a 4 month old on fast forward. She went through all the stages, just much faster. The local head start did help out too. She is 4 now and doing great.

After reading it the destribtion of the sucking problems sounds a lot like toung tied. I don't think that is the case or she would of had bigger problems by now however. My friends son was and after a snip of his tonge he nursed much better. It can be out grown sometimes too.

Lily is normally a bad sleeper, but last night really sucked. We think it must be teeth, but she seems fine when she isn't trying to sleep. After an hour of crying we finally gave her tyenol at midnight, then she sleep until 4:00 and wouldn't go back to sleep. We gave her motrin at 5:00 am and she did sleep a little after that. However she seems fine now, but tried and refusing to sleep. What I wouldn't do for just one good nights sleep. I take that back I might get used to it and that would be harder in the long run.

 

[DisKim]

Thanks for the advice on feeding. I'm going to back off and wait a while. I'm not going to plan on giving him the cereal in Disney. I just feel bad because I will be starting back at work on 9/6 and I will be leaving it for the babysitter.

 

[justhat]

Madison had a very bad night of sleep too. Must be something with babies and sleep lately! We had been doing so well, with Madison just getting up twice, well really once I guess-she'd wake around 2 then again at 6:30 to lay in bed with me for an hour before she gets up for the day around 7:30. Well last night she slept from 8:30-3:45, so I thought "wowl, 7 hours!" but she wouldn't go back to sleep!! She bascially cried from 3:45 till 6:15, slept 15 minutes, had some milk, then slept from about 6:45-8. We'll just hope that doesn't happen again tonight.

 

[DisneyPhD]

Thanks for the advice on feeding. I'm going to back off and wait a while. I'm not going to plan on giving him the cereal in Disney. I just feel bad because I will be starting back at work on 9/6 and I will be leaving it for the babysitter.

I can understand that totally. Maybe you want to do a little swithing and start the 1st feedings at night when you are home or weekends. There isn't a set time or age that you need to start soilds so you can take your time with it. In my experence they made things harder then eaiser, after all they have the rest of their life for soilds. We used to get her some every other day, a little bit here and there. As with most things I have found if you wait until they are really ready they do much better.

Good luck with it and I hope you have a great trip. It might be the easiest one for a long time.

 

[copper68]

not that i check in all the time anyway, most of the time i'm just a lurker.. but, figured i'd let ya know i'll be away for a while.. i'm going to alabama to visit my parents from august 3-8 and then to disney 18-24.. that's gonna be sooooo much fun with an 18 month old on the plane.. she loves watching aladdin, and we have a portable dvd player, now the tricky part is getting her to wear the headphones..

 

[DisKim]

Good luck with it and I hope you have a great trip. It might be the easiest one for a long time.

Thanks! I figured a trip would be easier while Aidan is young. We took my other DS when he was 2. It was not fun. He could not understand waiting in line.

Justhat - I hope you have a better night with Madison. I don't think Aidan is going to sleep through the night unil he's 18. I know the doctor is going to scold me for picking him up but he is starving when I get him. I can't let him cry like that. I'm getting used to going on no sleep.

 

[tkyes]

Hi everyone! I really need to hop on here more often, there is just so much catching up to do when I finally get a chance to visit.

I love all the new pictures and babies - everyone is soo cute!!

Diskim - have fun on your trip!

Alice - {{hugs}} you are Super Woman! And also my hero!!! Hope things are going better.

Copper - have fun on your trip too!

Sandy - congratulations!! That is so exciting! Be sure to share pictures with us.


Not much new here. I had the beginnings of a migraine today, but I was able to stop it before it got too bad. We still had a lazy morning because I knew a nap would help my migraine. Tyler slept so much today, we'll see how well he sleeps tonight. He still isn't napping in his crib well. In my arms, in his swing, even in his boppy pillow he sleeps well, but not in his crib. He still startles himself awake sometimes - is that normal? I thought he was supposed to be past that now. He's getting so strong, he loves to stand up and hang out in his jumperoo! No rolling over for us yet and like Kylie he hates to be on his tummy for "tummy time"!

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm kind of looking forward to fall. I can't wait to put some of Tyler's cute fall clothes on him!! lol!

tamie

 

[justhat]

Justhat - I hope you have a better night with Madison. I don't think Aidan is going to sleep through the night unil he's 18. I know the doctor is going to scold me for picking him up but he is starving when I get him. I can't let him cry like that. I'm getting used to going on no sleep.

Thanks, I hope so too. We don't feed Madison during the night anymore (you'd think that would be obvious at 17 months, but she just stopped night feedings a month ago) but when she wakes up I can hear her tummy growling. I feel so bad for her, cause I know she's crying cause she's hungry, but I don't want to go back to feeding her. She simply won't eat much during the day though.

 

[DisKim]

Justhat - My doctor says that when you stop the night feeding, the child will make up for it by eating more during the day. I don't know if that's true, but it's a nice theory.

tykes - Tyler goes in his jumperoo already? I haven't even put mine together yet. I assumed Aidan was still too small. I'll have to give it a try.

 

[justhat]

They told us that too, that once we cut out feeding Madison at night that she'd eat more during the day. In fact, one dr went so far as to say that the reason she's so thin is that nursing at night filled her up enough so that she didn't want to eat much during the day. Well we've been meal free from 8pm-6:30am and every night I hear Madison's stomach growling around 4am. Also, she has not started eating more during the day yet, so I'm not sure when that will kick in. Yesterday she ate a small bowl of Cheerios and milk for breakfast. Dry Cheerios for lunch (she refused all other foods offered). For dinner we were at the mall buying new shoes so we ate ate Bennigans. Madison had 1 Broccoli Bite (which is cut up broccoli, bacon bits, and melted cheese in a little breaded ball), a couple of bites of a Southwest Egg Roll, a piece of lettuce, and from her meal (chicken fingers and green beans) she had 3 bites of chicken. When we got home she had a cup of milk before she went to sleep.

Of course, there's no way I'm going back to night feedings, but I do still feed her around 6:30am, when she comes in my bed and then she sleeps another hour before she gets up. That's the only time she nurses everyday, and I'm planning on cutting that out in a month or so too when she starts school, so then I don't know what we'll do. She's always so hungry by then, but she's still tired enough that she goes back to sleep, so I don't know if I should just get her up and feed her breakfast and let her stay up for the day or what. I guess we'll see what happens next month.

Oh, Madison started using her jumperoo around 4-4.5 months. I tried around 3 months but she was so tiny she was sliding through the holes of the doorway jumper (we didn't have the Jumperoo yet). The Jumperoo was a much more snug fit though so she probably could have used younger. She loved the Jumperoo, much more than the doorway jumper.

 

[Alice28]

Molly likes her Jumperoo too; but she is SO TALL that it worked for us about at 4 months.

I'm off to California on Thursday- I'll probably still check in now and again though..

Take care all!

 

[tkyes]

Tyler loves his jumperoo - he's been using it for quite awhile now. I thought he was too small too, but Dh put it together one morning. We were putting a small blanket beneath his feet to help him touch but he's big enough to jump without it now. We still do tuck a blanket in behind his back since he doesn't really fill out the seat much.

Question - can you mix breast milk and formula in the same bottle or are you supposed to keep them seperate?

 

[KaterBell]

I'm *finally* joining this thread!

I had baby Michael on 5/20/05.... he's 10 weeks now, and finally starting to become a bit more predictable. Sleeping lots more now - sometimes upwards of 8-11 hours at night!! Well... "his" night sometimes is from 5pm til 3am.... gotta work on that! I put him down tonight at 8:30pm, we'll see how long he sleeps!

I have to say, one of the best things that has helped me is a book by Dr. Marc Weisbluth - Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child ... it's very helpful in sleep training and learning when your baby needs sleep, and how to avoid the overtired state. I LOVE this book - it's the bible right now.


Anyone else exclusively pumping breastmilk ? Michael has been bottle feeding breast milk since he was about 13 days old. He wouldn't latch on without chewing his way on.... OW.... so after visiting the wonderful lactation consultants, I have rented the Medela Lactina....and I'm able to freeze so much milk I had to go buy a separate freezer for the basement.

That's it for me - I'm glad to be a part of this community!

 

[DisKim]

Congratulations Katerbell!! Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll have to check it out.

I'm having breastfeeding issues. Aidan is now pulling at my nipples. He gets mad at them. Maybe the milk doesn't come out fast enough. He is only 3 1/2 months old and I was hoping to at least get to 5 or 6 months with breastfeeding. What should I do? I'm thinking that I could pump but I don't get much out when I pump so he would have to primarily have formula. I don't know what to do . Any suggestions?

 

[KaterBell]

Congratulations Katerbell!! Thanks for the book suggestion. I'll have to check it out.

I'm having breastfeeding issues. Aidan is now pulling at my nipples. He gets mad at them. Maybe the milk doesn't come out fast enough. He is only 3 1/2 months old and I was hoping to at least get to 5 or 6 months with breastfeeding. What should I do? I'm thinking that I could pump but I don't get much out when I pump so he would have to primarily have formula. I don't know what to do . Any suggestions?

I find that I can pump the most early in the morning - b/c your prolactin levels go up while you sleep (I believe).... so after the morning feeding, pump... then you can start building up a supply. I definitely recommend getting a double pump, as its' so much faster that way.

 

[justhat]

Congrats Katerbell!! I exclusively pupmed for awhile, about the 1st 3 weeks or so, then I was able to go back to nursing. We had a stockpile of milk in our freezer too, but when I thawed it for Madison a month or so later she wouldn't drink it-she hated the taste of frozen milk! Not sure why, she didn't mind refrigerated. It was really sad for me, but I ended up throwing out many, many bags of milk. I'm hoping the next baby will be different cause it was so nice to know I had reserve milk in case I had to go somewhere.

Tykes, I mixed formula and breastmilk in the same bottle for Madison and she was okay. Also, I heard that if you're going to swtich from breastmilk to formula you can do it gradually by diluting each bottle with formula until that's all the baby is drinking.

DisKim, sorry about Aidan. Madison did something kinda like that I only a few times and when it happened I was so shocked and it hurt so I yelled without thinking. She got so scared she started to cry. I felt horrible, but ya know when you feel pain and just don't think? Well, that happened maybe 3 times and never again. So sorry, I can't help too much, but I do feel bad cause I know it wasn't a pleasant feeling. Maybe he's teething and it hurts to nurse? Maybe you can ask his dr or a lactation consultant to see if they have any ideas.

 

[DisneyPhD]

KaterBell congraduations. Like Just that said sometimes (often if you keep at it.) you can swicth over to breastfeeding when the baby is older (around 3 months.) Also by this time the presure if off both of you and you have recoved some and adjusted to parenting. One of the difficulties with bf is you are meet with it at a time that you just went through hell. Many women often doing have the engery to put into at that time, but do after a while. Either way pumping is getting the baby what it needs, just twice the work for you. I love bf, hate pumping.

Both of my girls at some point was challanging to me with bitting or hurting me. I learned the hard way both times (I guess I am a slow learner.) that you need to say "NO" and put it away. Any time they do anything that hurts no more food. No matter how badly you want them to eat. Don't offer a bottle instead for the most part. Just wait until they are hungery enough and they won't do it. Lily used to suck so her teeth were sucking a whole in my niple. Stupid me put up with it and then I had to pump one side to get it to heal. Now I know I have to stop her right away. She learned. It was very hard for me to do since I wanted her to eat though.

On another note,

LILY IS ONE YEAR OLD TODAY!!!!!

Funny she seems so much younger at this age then her big sister did. I wonder if it was because she was a week early. She is doing well and such a joy to have around. My how time flys.