Any other expectant Dads?

[g3org3y]

Blown2CV said:

g3org3y said:

Hypnobirthing course this Saturday (and next!) 10-4.

that is a long session!! Some people thinking hypobirthing is daft but we did it and whatever chills the missus out is a good idea i think. Worry can have psychosomatic effects, basically physiological stress etc. and this can directly slow down birth progress. So yea shame to burn the saturdays but go for it.

Long session and there's another of the same length next Saturday as well.

I think she's wanting to do it primarily to see the Juno Suite (midwife led delivery unit) at the hospital.

[Vaud]

justin220 said:

Also, we've resorted to bottle feeding aswell. Expressed and top ups with formula. He's a hungry horror so the formula has been a godsend.

We'll get back to breastfeeding soon but wife needed a break, it was (and every midwife) putting far too much pressure on her causing some hormonal moments to say the least.

Just do whatever works for you

I think it's a mindset issue with the NHS, echoed by your "resorted to formula"... I am sure breast milk is best overall, BUT if it doesn't work for 100% of volume then formula is perfectly, perfectly valid.

[richatnort]

Vaud said:

justin220 said:

Also, we've resorted to bottle feeding aswell. Expressed and top ups with formula. He's a hungry horror so the formula has been a godsend.

We'll get back to breastfeeding soon but wife needed a break, it was (and every midwife) putting far too much pressure on her causing some hormonal moments to say the least.

Just do whatever works for you

I think it's a mindset issue with the NHS, echoed by your "resorted to formula"... I am sure breast milk is best overall, BUT if it doesn't work for 100% of volume then formula is perfectly, perfectly valid.

I agree here we were looked down for giving formula but we are very much what works for you is fine don't worry. We are breastfeeding, expressing and giving top ups after boob of expressed and then at 10pm giving around 60ml of formula so she sleeps longer and we can have a catch up on sleep and is working well. I have to admit the formula at night is a god send and kept us sane as meant she's been fully and sleepier for longer so we can get more sleep.

[Vaud]

richatnort said:

I agree here we were looked down for giving formula but we are very much what works for you is fine don't worry. We are breastfeeding, expressing and giving top ups after boob of expressed and then at 10pm giving around 60ml of formula so she sleeps longer and we can have a catch up on sleep and is working well. I have to admit the formula at night is a god send and kept us sane as meant she's been fully and sleepier for longer so we can get more sleep.

Indeed. 100% boob, mix and match and 100% formula are all equally valid... vs a stressed mum and an underweight baby.

The NHS advice of trying breast first is fine, but it should not become a rod for your own back or risk the childs health. Too much of their advice "breast is best" gets badly communicated with the reality being that not everyone can produce enough milk.

[The Moose]

Vaud said:

justin220 said:

Also, we've resorted to bottle feeding aswell. Expressed and top ups with formula. He's a hungry horror so the formula has been a godsend.

We'll get back to breastfeeding soon but wife needed a break, it was (and every midwife) putting far too much pressure on her causing some hormonal moments to say the least.

Just do whatever works for you

I think it's a mindset issue with the NHS, echoed by your "resorted to formula"... I am sure breast milk is best overall, BUT if it doesn't work for 100% of volume then formula is perfectly, perfectly valid.

Breast is not best. What is best is having a full and content baby (and by extension, mother and rest of the family). That should be the number 1 goal.

I have absolutely zero time for these people who look down their nose at my wife as a "failure" or some such other b.s. because we moved to 100% formula after 6 weeks or so...funnily enough the same time our daughter ended up happy in the nursery on her own and pretty much sleeping through the nights. And yes, I have given said something I probably shouldn't have to old bats who have said something out of line.

The health benefits to both mom (sorry) and child far outweigh the method of feeding IMHO.

At that 6 week mark, everything in our house changed in less than 36 hours. And it was all because after another 90 minute episode of trying to breast feed and my wife's nipples literally bleeding and the baby still not full, I said "fk this" and grabbed the formula. My wife who is an excellent mom just didn't make enough milk for whatever reason. It wasn't technique - she would pump for hours and produce only 2oz of milk. Not sufficient.

ETA: I'm sorry if that sounds a bit like I'm on my soap box...well, I guess I am really. I just feel passionately about the mental beating women take about this 'breast is best' thing when it's counter productive...and in our household led to signs of PND (which changed within that 36 hours I mentioned).

Edited by The Moose on Thursday 29th August 21:23

[Vaud]

The Moose said:

Breast is not best. What is best is having a full and content baby (and by extension, mother and rest of the family). That should be the number 1 goal.

I have absolutely zero time for these people who look down their nose at my wife as a "failure" or some such other b.s. because we moved to 100% formula after 6 weeks or so...funnily enough the same time our daughter ended up happy in the nursery on her own and pretty much sleeping through the nights. And yes, I have given said something I probably shouldn't have to old bats who have said something out of line.

The health benefits to both mom (sorry) and child far outweigh the method of feeding IMHO.

At that 6 week mark, everything in our house changed in less than 36 hours. And it was all because after another 90 minute episode of trying to breast feed and my wife's nipples literally bleeding and the baby still not full, I said "fk this" and grabbed the formula. My wife who is an excellent mom just didn't make enough milk for whatever reason. It wasn't technique - she would pump for hours and produce only 2oz of milk. Not sufficient.

ETA: I'm sorry if that sounds a bit like I'm on my soap box...well, I guess I am really. I just feel passionately about the mental beating women take about this 'breast is best' thing when it's counter productive...and in our household led to signs of PND (which changed within that 36 hours I mentioned).

I think that I mis-wrote.... I 100% agree with you.

The WHO findings are unanimous that overall breast feeding is best IF it is possible. I suspect the NHS derive from that.

My point is that IF it isn't possible then don't beat yourself up over it - mix, match, use formula, etc, and the outcomes in the Western world are very, very similar. Go with what is possible, not with what the NHS/midwives try to pressure.

I'm with you on the soap box, apologies if I wasn't clearer... my day started at 4am

[The Moose]

Vaud said:

The Moose said:

Breast is not best. What is best is having a full and content baby (and by extension, mother and rest of the family). That should be the number 1 goal.

I have absolutely zero time for these people who look down their nose at my wife as a "failure" or some such other b.s. because we moved to 100% formula after 6 weeks or so...funnily enough the same time our daughter ended up happy in the nursery on her own and pretty much sleeping through the nights. And yes, I have given said something I probably shouldn't have to old bats who have said something out of line.

The health benefits to both mom (sorry) and child far outweigh the method of feeding IMHO.

At that 6 week mark, everything in our house changed in less than 36 hours. And it was all because after another 90 minute episode of trying to breast feed and my wife's nipples literally bleeding and the baby still not full, I said "fk this" and grabbed the formula. My wife who is an excellent mom just didn't make enough milk for whatever reason. It wasn't technique - she would pump for hours and produce only 2oz of milk. Not sufficient.

ETA: I'm sorry if that sounds a bit like I'm on my soap box...well, I guess I am really. I just feel passionately about the mental beating women take about this 'breast is best' thing when it's counter productive...and in our household led to signs of PND (which changed within that 36 hours I mentioned).

I think that I mis-wrote.... I 100% agree with you.

The WHO findings are unanimous that overall breast feeding is best IF it is possible. I suspect the NHS derive from that.

My point is that IF it isn't possible then don't beat yourself up over it - mix, match, use formula, etc, and the outcomes in the Western world are very, very similar. Go with what is possible, not with what the NHS/midwives try to pressure.

I'm with you on the soap box, apologies if I wasn't clearer... my day started at 4am

Sorry, you were clear...I just picked on your post to go off on a bit of a rant! Not a lot of sleep here either...but not because of the baby! Puppy had surgery a couple of days ago and I've been babysitting for a couple of nights. Should be good tonight!

[CharlieH89]

richatnort said:

CharlieH89 said:

richatnort said:

Gents, I know we have a few colic parents on here and after some advice. At 10 days now and unsure if it is colic or not. On an evening after a feed she doesn't settle for 2 hours with crying and lifting her legs and restless which sound all the signs of colic but it's only once a day and she then does some big farts. Does this sound like the start of it?

Support worker suggested infacol but not sure if it's needed just yet and could do with some real world experience on the matter.

Colic does normally tend to happen in the evening, there were many of times at night around 6pm we knew it would start.
You can wind the baby during the day, itll still happen. It's not yourself winding her insufficiently.

We tried infacol but it didn't work then moved onto colief, at £18 a bottle from Boots at first then started buying it from Dolphin Fitness saving £5 a go, which normally lasted a week.
Our daughter is 6 months old next week and we weened her off the colief a month ago.
Not exactly sure when she could have been stopped as my wife dealt with all the research but she had no colic episodes after we started the colief.

Thanks for this it does explain a lot and she start around 6pm too. How do you adminster it as the guide says using the drop thing at the back of the tongue but quite hard to get down there and she spits it up the first time we tried it.

I will look into how long to keep it on for and will look at where you got it from as if we do need to use infacol that's a good saving!

Thanks for the advice it does sound rough for them!

We put 4 drops in each bottle.
We were bottle feeding from day 2. The baby wasn't getting much milk from the breasts and my wife had foreceps delivery so was really sore down below and her back was in bits, so we both made the decision to bottle feed her.
Ultimately, it would have been hard when she was home as my wife wouldn't have been able to do hardly any feeds as she was in a bad way, so I ended up doing the majority of the feeds in the first few weeks.

[richatnort]

CharlieH89 said:

We put 4 drops in each bottle.
We were bottle feeding from day 2. The baby wasn't getting much milk from the breasts and my wife had foreceps delivery so was really sore down below and her back was in bits, so we both made the decision to bottle feed her.
Ultimately, it would have been hard when she was home as my wife wouldn't have been able to do hardly any feeds as she was in a bad way, so I ended up doing the majority of the feeds in the first few weeks.

Yeh I remember the rough start you guys had from a few pages ago! I hope things are going better now? I ordered some colief from amazon but will get it from that site you mentioned as way cheaper!

[Krikkit]

Vaud said:

Too much of their advice "breast is best" gets badly communicated with the reality being that not everyone can produce enough milk.

From an outsider's point of view, it's all designed around the laziest, least interested party.

The kind of person who takes an interest isn't the target for their adverts. As noted, making sure they have the right calories is far more important than the content.

Congrats to all the new Dads, hope things go well with sufficient sleep! One of my best mates had just had twins (his first), and somewhat suffering for it

[Gazzas86]

My wife was adamant she was going to BF, To the point where she did the BF classes before giving birth, Had the BF support worker come onto the ward after giving birth to help with latch, have another BF support worker come out to the house days after getting home to again help with latch, and then going to BF support groups to perfect it etc etc. My little girl is 11 months now and still only boob fed, although it has dropped to morning and night as she gets 3 solid meals a day.

Totally agree with the doing whats best for all the family, nobody wants to see a baby cry with hunger all day, and see an emotional mum thinking she is a failure, because she is not.

My nephew was born and went straight onto formula because he was so underweight, nearly got admitted again due to weight loss, Since being on formula he's turned into a little tank, a proper content baby.

There is a stigma about it, and i think there will always continue to be, which is a shame.

[Vaud]

Sambucket said:

Someone told me it's all about money. It costs peanuts to ask midwives to hard sell BF to mothers, but even a modest increase in breast feeding rates, will make a small dent in overall childhood illness by some small percentage significant enough to save NHS millions a year.

That's the theory anyway. Could be bks.

The percentage of Mothers who exclusive breast feed at 6 months is something like 2%!

Whether it's worth all the pain to the parents, to make your malnourished kid 1% less susceptible to a cold or whatever, is highly debatable.

It is about health outcomes. The data (WHO, etc) is pretty conclusive that babies that are (at least part) breast fed up to 2 years old have better health outcomes. Increasing weight is one aspect, but the difference that BF brings over formula is that more antibodies are passed from mother to child through breast milk, increasing the childs immunity.

At 6 months they are weaning to a mix of BF and solid food, so it isn't about exclusivity of BF.

So indirectly there may be a small cost saving to the NHS, but it isn't the goal of encouraging BF.

But as I caveated, it works for some, it doesn't for others and we should keep the stigma from mothers that can't.

[Blown2CV]

Sambucket said:

Someone told me it's all about money. It costs peanuts to ask midwives to hard sell BF to mothers, but even a modest increase in breast feeding rates, will make a small dent in overall childhood illness by some small percentage significant enough to save NHS millions a year.

That's the theory anyway. Could be bks.

The percentage of Mothers who exclusive breast feed at 6 months is something like 2%!

Whether it's worth all the pain to the parents, to make your malnourished kid 1% less susceptible to a cold or whatever, is highly debatable.

However on one level, we are glad the midwife bullied us into it, primarily due to convenience of not having to carry bottles about. It was super traumatic early on though.

Edited by Sambucket on Friday 30th August 06:08

it's an unresolvable debate. Natural stuff is probably better for the kid than manufactured, as it always is for human foodstuffs. In reality however as people say, you need to make the decision based on other factors such as mother stress, logistics of the feeds, amount that is being produced, whether the kid takes to it and so on. So, when you make the decision not to breastfeed, the other factors outweigh the 'goodness' argument by a long shot. That doesn't mean formula is as good, it just means the other factors were more significant... TBH Mrs 2CV is an absolute breastfeeding advocate but we are going through a tough time with it on number 2 (7 months old), so we are introducing formula at certain times and seeing how it goes. There are certain women who just want to go straight for formula because they don't want their nips ruined or can't be arsed with it... or maybe just that's what everyone in their family did... i guess you might call those stter reasons, because you'd think the default is the boob method, but who is anyone to judge i guess. You do what you need to do.

[Dyl]

CharlieH89 said:

richatnort said:

CharlieH89 said:

richatnort said:

Gents, I know we have a few colic parents on here and after some advice. At 10 days now and unsure if it is colic or not. On an evening after a feed she doesn't settle for 2 hours with crying and lifting her legs and restless which sound all the signs of colic but it's only once a day and she then does some big farts. Does this sound like the start of it?

Support worker suggested infacol but not sure if it's needed just yet and could do with some real world experience on the matter.

Colic does normally tend to happen in the evening, there were many of times at night around 6pm we knew it would start.
You can wind the baby during the day, itll still happen. It's not yourself winding her insufficiently.

We tried infacol but it didn't work then moved onto colief, at £18 a bottle from Boots at first then started buying it from Dolphin Fitness saving £5 a go, which normally lasted a week.
Our daughter is 6 months old next week and we weened her off the colief a month ago.
Not exactly sure when she could have been stopped as my wife dealt with all the research but she had no colic episodes after we started the colief.

Thanks for this it does explain a lot and she start around 6pm too. How do you adminster it as the guide says using the drop thing at the back of the tongue but quite hard to get down there and she spits it up the first time we tried it.

I will look into how long to keep it on for and will look at where you got it from as if we do need to use infacol that's a good saving!

Thanks for the advice it does sound rough for them!

We put 4 drops in each bottle.
We were bottle feeding from day 2. The baby wasn't getting much milk from the breasts and my wife had foreceps delivery so was really sore down below and her back was in bits, so we both made the decision to bottle feed her.
Ultimately, it would have been hard when she was home as my wife wouldn't have been able to do hardly any feeds as she was in a bad way, so I ended up doing the majority of the feeds in the first few weeks.

We started using Infacol at c.10 days old - days 1 to 5 were an unsuccessful attempt at breastfeeding, so we moved to formula which brought on the colic; the symptoms were as you've described - unsettled for hours on end in the evenings and bringing legs up.

From beginning of Infacol use this quickly improved and we used Dr Brown's anti-colic bottles too.

We stopped using Infacol about 2 weeks ago, as a test to see if using anti-colic bottles on their own would be sufficient. So far, so good.

We have noticed that since stopping Infacol the frequency of dirty nappies has increased greatly - during its use we were only getting one dirty nappy every 2 or 3 days. Not sure if connected, could be a coincidence.

That's a fairly round-about way of saying I'd recommend giving it a try.

[richatnort]

Dyl said:

We started using Infacol at c.10 days old - days 1 to 5 were an unsuccessful attempt at breastfeeding, so we moved to formula which brought on the colic; the symptoms were as you've described - unsettled for hours on end in the evenings and bringing legs up.

From beginning of Infacol use this quickly improved and we used Dr Brown's anti-colic bottles too.

We stopped using Infacol about 2 weeks ago, as a test to see if using anti-colic bottles on their own would be sufficient. So far, so good.

We have noticed that since stopping Infacol the frequency of dirty nappies has increased greatly - during its use we were only getting one dirty nappy every 2 or 3 days. Not sure if connected, could be a coincidence.

That's a fairly round-about way of saying I'd recommend giving it a try.

Thanks Dyl I'll keep an eye out for the poo situation! I'm tempted to just use it a few days at a time and see if it clears up rather than keeping her on all the time. We had a bad episode this morning with colic, she wouldn't settle all morning and about 12 she did some massive farts then followed by poo.

Is colic mainly linked to formula or boob too? We are only giving her one formula feed at night but that's it.

[tomble22]

11 months coming up here. Funny to look back at photos of the first few months and think how boring/safe it was.....now that Ruby has discovered crawling, standing etc she's into everything, literally 5 seconds and she's in another room pulling shoes out of the shoe cabinet, trying to open cupboards, dragging all her toys out etc.Amazing how quick they develop at this age, i think anyway.

She's still sleeping pretty well most of the time. We get the odd 2am wake up here and there but in the main she's very good. Eats and poops like a trooper, what more could you ask for. She now weighs 27lbs 4 ozs and is 98th percentile for everything so she's growing really well.

I've also previously commented about the feelings thing where Dad's have not felt anything for their child when born. All i'd say is wait until they can say Dadda and give you a cuddle or lean up against you while they're watching Hey Duggee, it's just amazing!!

P.s. If you can stay away from Baby TV do it, it absolutely does my head in (and then I'm humming the songs etc at work!!).

[Vaud]

Rubbish. Hey Duggee is ace.

One episode is an homage to Apocalypse Now...

Ruf ruf.

[Peanut Gallery]

Around the corner, not far away.....

[Blown2CV]

Vaud said:

Rubbish. Hey Duggee is ace.

One episode is an homage to Apocalypse Now...

Ruf ruf.

stick stick sticky sticky stick!!

[tomble22]

Vaud said:

Rubbish. Hey Duggee is ace.

One episode is an homage to Apocalypse Now...

Ruf ruf.

I love a bit if Duggee, I meant BabyTV the channel, it's on Sky!