Any other expectant Dads?

[Blown2CV]

thebraketester said:

Xenoous said:

A new expectant dad over here! We had our 12 week scan last week. Everything went well.
The other half has been suffering from morning sickness, tiredness and various other little pregnancy symptoms over the last 8 weeks, but thankfully they've started easing.

With January sales just around the corner, perfect time to start kitting out the nursery!

Words fail to describe how happy I feel right now. I can't wait.

Congratulations. Pregnancy trimesters seem to go as follows

i) I feel sick
ii) I feel fine
iii) I feel heavy.

yea the first one seems hardest for some mums. My wife was just super tired, incredibly hungry, very irritable etc. Then hit 2nd trimester and she says she was fine overnight. The 3rd is more of a physical struggle, and i guess for first time parents also a bit of a panic.

[Harry Flashman]

Baby no.2 was norn on Thursday. As Toddler had that day been sent home from nursery with a temperature and suspected COVID, my mother could not watch her so I had to stay at home whilst Lady F did it alone. That was, frankly, utterly st.

We had, after a pretty bad experience with the NHS last time, paid quite a lot of money to go private this time. And thank goodness as whilst birth initially seemed fast and routine, Lady F had a huge bleed from an undetected tear and lost litres (!!!) of blood in minutes. She went into emergency surgery and blood was given, and they went in and stitched her up. Turns out that the tearing outside her in the last birth, where the NHS midwife butchered the stitching, had actually been far worse, internal as well as external, gone undiagnosed, and the scar tissue ripped open this time around and she haemorraged. Even if we wanted to have more children, we now could not now as the damage is pretty final.

At The Portland Hospital they had four consultants in instantly and she was in surgery in minutes with the baby in care. Frankly, had she been back at St Thomas' with a similar bunch of fkwits as delivered our last child (I may have posted some of that mess on here - it is only with hindsight and Lady F's many months of problems post birth that we realised how rubbish they had been). I think I would be arranging a funeral right now.

Wife is at home and cannot move, but is gamely breastfeeding our new little girl, who I am in love with already. I am relieved and happy, and we are never doing this again.

And people, get private health insurance. Our health service was bad before the pandemic Whatever Boris and his idiots claim, it is certainly not fit for purpose right now. So angry right now, which is weird, as I am also so happy.

I know that our experiences in this area are not typical and go back to one botched birth 2.5 years ago, and statistically, you lot will be just fine, so excuse me letting off some steam. But still - this has been a terrifying and tough few days. Luckily we have healthy baby and mother who will recover.

Older sister is quite confused, but seems to like the little guy.

I had totally forgotten the lack of sleep thing. It is brutal.

Lots going through my head.

[Stu-nph26]

chip* said:

Our local children charity does not accept electricals anymore, so we have a BT 6000 monitor to offload.

https://www.johnlewis.com/bt-baby-monitor-6000/p31...

If interested, drop me a Pm and you can have the BT 6000 for a small charity donation.

Chip the baby monitor arrived last week massive thanks I've made a donation to my local charity shop. Thanks again

[chip*]

Stu-nph26 said:

Chip the baby monitor arrived last week massive thanks I've made a donation to my local charity shop. Thanks again

No worries, a perfect win win, for you and the charity shop

[No_Idea]

Well our scan confirmed our 2nd child is a boy so really happy to be having one of each Not so good news is they've confirmed he's got talipes in both his feet they can't confirm how severe it is but they are confident there's no other underlying issues but can't say 100% for certain. They've offered a amniocentesis test which we have decided not to do due to risk of miscarriage.

Apparently boys are at higher risk and there's around 1 in 1000 born with it.

Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Edited by No_Idea on Monday 7th December 18:44

[thatsprettyshady]

Xenoous said:

Thank you both. I've always had distant dreams of starting a family. They just always seemed... well, distant. Now it's happening, I never truly realised how much I wanted this.

Congratulations, the remaining 6 months are going to fly by!

[richatnort]

No_Idea said:

Well our scan confirmed our 2nd child is a boy so really happy to be having one of each Not so good news is they've confirmed he's got talipes in both his feet they can't confirm how severe it is but they are confident there's no other underlying issues but can't say 100% for certain. They've offered a amniocentesis test which we have decided not to do due to risk of miscarriage.

Apparently boys are at higher risk and there's around 1 in 1000 born with it.

Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Edited by No_Idea on Monday 7th December 18:44

No first hand experience but our close friends son was both with this. He's 16 months now and walking around no problem. Depending on severity the little mans legs will most likely go into casts a few weeks after he's born and have his feet slowly adjust back in shape, once this step is done he'll have to wear special boots with a bar across it when he naps up to i think 4/6 not sure which. Their son has been absolutely fine with it all as he doesn't know any different and he's 16 months now and walking around no problem. you'll probably be in touch with the consultant soon who can explain options and what will happen but this was their experience. Just means more frequent trips to the hospital at the start to get his cast re-set.

Feel free to PM me and i'll try get some more info or can put you in touch with them if you like!

[seiben]

@Harry - sorry to hear the arrival of no.2 was less than straightforward, but I'm very glad to hear that all four of you are home. Congratulations

We have our 28 week scan in a few days to check progress of our two boys. It's scans every 4 weeks from now to keep an eye on them - starting to feel a bit real now, especially with the amount of baby-related kit that keeps turning up!

[richatnort]

@harry i'm so happy everyone is OK. Not going to lie reading that both makes me mad, terrified & in shock!

I'm sorry that the opportunity for you to have anymore children has also been taken away, even if you did only want 2 it doesn't really make up for it.

This bloody covid is messing everything up isn't it! Your wife is very brave doing that alone and so are you for trusting in the service you got privately.

[okgo]

The NHS is both awe inspiring, and eye opening in the same breath, I bounced between being amazed at things for both good and bad the entire week I spent with my son in ICU.

[Jcwjosh]

The time has come for us to look for nuseries and i am apprehensive about leaving our son who will be 7 months old when he starts..

I have to do the drop off and pick up, im sure he will be fine right ? he already seems like he is ready to go, everyone we visit he is clawing to go and play.

Also am i expecting too much for a nursery to have a decent outdoor space ( not that he can walk or crawl yet ) im thinking its winter all gardens look a bit st at the moment.

How did you know the nursery you chose was the best one for your child ? aside from all the usual - facilities,ofsted reviews, routines qualifications etc was it just gut instinct/feeling you got from the staff ?

[Blown2CV]

Jcwjosh said:

The time has come for us to look for nuseries and i am apprehensive about leaving our son who will be 7 months old when he starts..

I have to do the drop off and pick up, im sure he will be fine right ? he already seems like he is ready to go, everyone we visit he is clawing to go and play.

Also am i expecting too much for a nursery to have a decent outdoor space ( not that he can walk or crawl yet ) im thinking its winter all gardens look a bit st at the moment.

How did you know the nursery you chose was the best one for your child ? aside from all the usual - facilities,ofsted reviews, routines qualifications etc was it just gut instinct/feeling you got from the staff ?

it's a lot for them to get used to, and different kids have different feelings about it, and of course those feelings change in waves too. Some days ours are raring to go, and some days they are really upset at the idea. You will get both, and all between i am sure. That doesn't mean however it's a bad idea. Personally I think they need at least some time in that sort of environment to get used to other kids, to learn to share, to learn they aren't the most important person in the room and so on. Plus honestly they have a great time! We visited nurseries and chose the one with the best feel. You need to visit these places during the day to get a feel for it. There was one that we ruled out where the kids looked like lord of the flies and all the nursery assistants looked like bored 16 year olds on their phones. Horrid. The place we chose is fantastic, really organised and friendly, they do all home cooked food and so on. The quality of the outdoor and indoor play areas is one thing to consider for sure. There was a montisorri place we saw where the outdoors was fantastic, but the indoors was a bit shabby and cramped. I guess you will get a feel for the sort of place that you like and trust your instincts?

[Gazzas86]

Jcwjosh said:

How did you know the nursery you chose was the best one for your child ? aside from all the usual - facilities,ofsted reviews, routines qualifications etc was it just gut instinct/feeling you got from the staff ?

With our Nursery, we 'knew' it must have been special as there was a year and a half waiting list to get in, We literally had to apply 4 months before we were due.

When we looked closer, and we could go for a visit, you could see what the Ratio was between Kids vs worker, when she was in the baby group it was 2 kids per worker.

During the application process, we had to go for a sit down interview with the owner in her stately home, which was (without admitting it) to make sure we would 'fit in' and 'our faces fit' within the community. Whilst outside the Nursery it seemed very snobbish, once you got 'in', it was all very normal, the girls working there were amazing, the food she eats is amazing, and we get good updates and pictures through an app during the day.

The Nursery is within an estate, so there are farm animals everywhere, which they go and interact with everyday

[okgo]

Christ, that sounds alright doesn't it.

When should I really start looking into this? Son is 5 months today...Wife wants to go back to work in Q1 at some point (has to find a job first)...

I've phoned a few and there didn't seem to be a mad panic about waiting lists, I guess Covid has changed things somewhat. I see they all still want 1500-1800 a month for 4 days mind you.

[Blown2CV]

i don't think most places would invite you for interview to see if your face fits.... that sounds highly unusual. Each to their own but i think if we'd been asked that it wouldn't have proceeded past my brief response.

Something else that sounds unusual is £1800pcm for one kid for 4 days a week... i think ours is £55 a day per child. Maybe some hefty regional variations in there!

[Jcwjosh]

We were let down by partners sister who decided that she couldnt handle looking after our son and her own at the same time after saying she would for over a year.

Probably for the best in my view, but she has left us around 5 weeks to find a nursery and settle him in, wont be visiting her this christmas, We viewed one last night and it was good albeit pretty small and cramped hard to see the garden in the dark.. due to covid they are only really doing visits out of hours which isnt the best i agree.. there were a few kids still waiting to be picked up though.

So we should have a relatively good feeling about a place and the people and go with that. is the general consensus ?

I am dreading the day he is upset when i drop him off. i will probably be in pieces...

[Blown2CV]

Jcwjosh said:

We were let down by partners sister who decided that she couldnt handle looking after our son and her own at the same time after saying she would for over a year.

Probably for the best in my view, but she has left us around 5 weeks to find a nursery and settle him in, wont be visiting her this christmas, We viewed one last night and it was good albeit pretty small and cramped hard to see the garden in the dark.. due to covid they are only really doing visits out of hours which isnt the best i agree.. there were a few kids still waiting to be picked up though.

So we should have a relatively good feeling about a place and the people and go with that. is the general consensus ?

I am dreading the day he is upset when i drop him off. i will probably be in pieces...

wow that's a poor show from your sister in law. Still, life throws stuff at us i guess. Yes trust your gut feel but obviously discuss feelings with your Mrs etc. for sure. There may be compromises that need to be made etc.

Yea you will be in bits when that happens. One thing I hadn't anticipated about being a Dad is that there are lots of instances where you will be upset. Lots of it is very bittersweet, and I think coming to terms with that and acknowledging that it's a part of being a parent is key to finding your feet with it. Often, it will be doing something that you know makes you upset but deep down you know is the right thing for the kid. It's probably the hardest bit, and I don't think mums/society etc really acknowledge this happens to Dads, and it can be more pronounced than it is for the Mum, at times.

[fourstardan]

@harry Does sound like you've had a bad experience.

I've nothing but praise for Salisbury, but then again its all luck of the draw and how busy it is, third day in after being induced we just sat there looking at each other as everyone else seemed to be in labour, also got moved from the birthing pool room (although didn't ask for it originally).

7 weeks on and missus is doing ok on after the cSection, she has the occasional bit of blood thats barely recognisable but seems ok, cooking the dinner, doing the washing fine etc lol

One question I have is what do you rest your little person in when you are in the front room? At the moment we've had him in a Moses basket but he is a big boy and will be growing out of this soon.

Got him in this at the moment but obviously only ok for short stints. (yes he's seven weeks old)

[okgo]

What do you mean by rest? Sleeping or?

Bouncers or the thing pictured will last for months. My son is quite large and still fits in his bouncer fine at 5 months.

[fourstardan]

okgo said:

What do you mean by rest? Sleeping or?

Bouncers or the thing pictured will last for months. My son is quite large and still fits in his bouncer fine at 5 months.

Well while we are in the front room.

I thought they were only allowed in a bouncer for 45 mins due to the neck?