Any other expectant Dads?

[Carl_Manchester]

ooid said:

I hope I'm not too early to say, but the sleep training seems started working for us!.

I had my third night of un-interrupted sleep (at home) this week since November 2021 but things have been easing slowly for a couple of weeks now.

He is 2, his stomach has grown and he is able to eat more solids before bedtime, the teething and milk situation has calmed down and he just takes the bottle for comfort (this one does not use a dummy, teddy or dolly). He is only drinking about 100ml during the night now, down from 500ml just after Christmas.

On reflection, him using a dummy probably would have been better all round for him as he really suffered with teething but he would not take one.

[okgo]

ooid said:

Well, since we achieved uninterrupted sleeps of nearly last 3 nights, the budget news do not even make any difference to my current mood!

I hope I'm not too early to say, but the sleep training seems started working for us!.

So what you doing now that you weren’t before?

[ooid]

A lot of things actually but I'm just gonna summarize. We have made massive changes to his room. remove all toys, shades, colourful things during night time to avoid any shade or interruption. We covered secondary curtain to create complete darkness for night. We also changed his bed, he had sort of cacuun type thingy was sleeping only and that went away. Finally, loads of changes to his daily routine, his eating times and limiting his afternoon sleep to a specific time. Most of all, I have had to take putting him into sleep mode role, as he has been breastfeeding so apparantly, he is not supposed to have mother smell around him at night, otherwise he gets excited and wakes up and wants to feed. He is on both solid food and still breastfeed top ups so we have had to re-arrange his feeding schedules, hard work really but I'm glad it started to work. His day sleeps are still rubbish though.

I've been quite sceptical about the whole sleep training but after talking to health visitor (she has done it also with one of his kids, as they could not cope with it anymore). I've interviewed 2-3 people but decided to go with the current consultant, as she is also been a night nurse, childcare and etc.. for years and seemed more experienced.

[ooid]

Carl_Manchester said:

On reflection, him using a dummy probably would have been better all round for him as he really suffered with teething but he would not take one.

It's really interesting, I barely see any kid/baby with dummies around us as well? none of the babies in our group also takes dummy. It used to be quite common, babies must be evolving out of it, so time to short all dummy manufacturers

[Blown2CV]

ooid said:

Carl_Manchester said:

On reflection, him using a dummy probably would have been better all round for him as he really suffered with teething but he would not take one.

It's really interesting, I barely see any kid/baby with dummies around us as well? none of the babies in our group also takes dummy. It used to be quite common, babies must be evolving out of it, so time to short all dummy manufacturers

they're definitely out of fashion as they had been associated with those parents that over-use things like this as an excuse to ignore their kids. I think they also can cause malformation of front teeth and gums.

[okgo]

Yeh, besides looking council as fk I think the teeth thing is a big part of it now, one of our mates has been told she needs to stop asap with her 2 year old for teeth and gum reasons.

Good stuff ooid, quite a lot of interesting elements there.

[kiethton]

Time to graduate, our daughter was born at 8lb 7oz on Monday afternoon following 4 days of contractions, 20 hours of labour and then an emergency C-section.

Unfortunately she's not the best of feeders and both baby and mum are currently on antibiotics. Hopefully she'll nail feeding today and we can hopefully get home at some point this week!

[RenesisEvo]

Jambo85 said:

RenesisEvo said:

Carl_Manchester said:

keep an eyeball on the budget today dad's, there might be some good news coming our way.

I've been watching this closely over the last day or so, the proposals will definitely impact our decision on [timing of] a potential second. I do suspect it may drive a surge in demand for nursery places that are already thin on the ground, not sure how that will play out. But overall, if they deliver what's been suggested, it should be a welcome step forward. Fingers are crossed on a number of fronts (I'm personally hoping they lift the thresholds for the child benefit tax charge, as that's about to sting us).

Fingers crossed, in a similar boat with twins closing in on their first birthday and wife's return to work. Any help with that childcare bill is going to make a huge difference to us. Similar with child benefit, I don't expect too much sympathy for having a net income > £50k given the state of the rest of the country, but there has to be some point in both parents working. Tories obviously feel they're in serious danger of losing their core voters too.

In short, 30 hours free childcare to be extended to apply from the end of maternity leave (9 months) instead of from 3 years, however its going to be rolled out in stages over the next few years, so likely to miss out on any real changes, as by the time they come in they'll be eligible for the existing support anyway. It does perhaps give more scope with a second, but until the timeline is made clear it's hard to say either way. Overall a positive step forward but right now, I'm sat here thinking nothing has really changed, I'm not going to see any saving or benefit for possibly a year, if at all. Bit deflating, although even I knew change doesn't happen overnight.

[eltawater]

kiethton said:

Time to graduate, our daughter was born at 8lb 7oz on Monday afternoon following 4 days of contractions, 20 hours of labour and then an emergency C-section.

Unfortunately she's not the best of feeders and both baby and mum are currently on antibiotics. Hopefully she'll nail feeding today and we can hopefully get home at some point this week!

Congratulations, it must be a huge relief for you all!

[jimmybell]

joining the roll call. just passed 22 weeks (after a hellish 18 months to get to this point). what am i meant to be doing now?

still haven't solved the 'what car are we going to buy' dilemma, as that's clearly high priority.

[Carl_Manchester]

kiethton said:

Time to graduate, our daughter was born at 8lb 7oz on Monday afternoon following 4 days of contractions, 20 hours of labour and then an emergency C-section.

Unfortunately she's not the best of feeders and both baby and mum are currently on antibiotics. Hopefully she'll nail feeding today and we can hopefully get home at some point this week!

congratulations.

[Carl_Manchester]

jimmybell said:

joining the roll call. just passed 22 weeks (after a hellish 18 months to get to this point). what am i meant to be doing now?

download 'wonder weeks' to your phone and it will help you.

[okgo]

Carl_Manchester said:

download 'wonder weeks' to your phone and it will help you.

Hmm

They’re so vague with timings and things you may be experiencing that I think it’s little more than a comfort blanket to desperate parents tbh. We didn’t have a single sleep regression for example, yet he’s been on a ‘leap’ for the last 3 months by his behaviour.

[Jambo85]

RenesisEvo said:

In short, 30 hours free childcare to be extended to apply from the end of maternity leave (9 months) instead of from 3 years, however its going to be rolled out in stages over the next few years, so likely to miss out on any real changes, as by the time they come in they'll be eligible for the existing support anyway. It does perhaps give more scope with a second, but until the timeline is made clear it's hard to say either way. Overall a positive step forward but right now, I'm sat here thinking nothing has really changed, I'm not going to see any saving or benefit for possibly a year, if at all. Bit deflating, although even I knew change doesn't happen overnight.

Thanks for the summary. The Scotland situation probably still TBD as well.

[Blown2CV]

okgo said:

Carl_Manchester said:

download 'wonder weeks' to your phone and it will help you.

Hmm

They’re so vague with timings and things you may be experiencing that I think it’s little more than a comfort blanket to desperate parents tbh. We didn’t have a single sleep regression for example, yet he’s been on a ‘leap’ for the last 3 months by his behaviour.

it's very accurate for most kids.

[okgo]

Blown2CV said:

it's very accurate for most kids.

Because they list every possible thing that a child can do at almost every possible time. It’s the equivalent of trawling a garden pond and claiming you skilfully caught a fish.

[jimmybell]

i'm sure i'll be reading things like that post-birth, i'm assuming it's focussed on then? the description suggests it's for early months of childhood, rather than expectant dads, but until then i need to sort my life out - and given the thread title i guess that's where i'm at, and looking for tips on things people think is worth attention (and what isn't) based on experiences.

[The Moose]

kiethton said:

Time to graduate, our daughter was born at 8lb 7oz on Monday afternoon following 4 days of contractions, 20 hours of labour and then an emergency C-section.

Unfortunately she's not the best of feeders and both baby and mum are currently on antibiotics. Hopefully she'll nail feeding today and we can hopefully get home at some point this week!

Congrats on the arrival!

While everyone will be shoving "breast is best" down your wife's throat, it really isn't. What is best is having a baby with a full tummy and therefore a mom who can get some much needed rest.

Don't be afraid of good formula such as HiPP if baby/mom can't feed.

[RenesisEvo]

jimmybell said:

i'm sure i'll be reading things like that post-birth, i'm assuming it's focussed on then? the description suggests it's for early months of childhood, rather than expectant dads, but until then i need to sort my life out - and given the thread title i guess that's where i'm at, and looking for tips on things people think is worth attention (and what isn't) based on experiences.

Definitely get your head around tongue-tie and what it looks like, we had a challenging first 3 months on the back of a missed tongue-tie and a spiral of feeding issues, which then of course lead to sleep issues (for the parents), as per the post above, fed baby = happy baby = sleeping baby = functioning parents. The midwives and health visitors had very little knowledge/guidance to offer, if you think it's there get a private specialist on the case in the first week, it will be the best money you spend.

Read a few books but know that you won't remember much and that's fine, keep an open mind and don't ignore your gut instinct vs other people's 'advice'.

Also as above, bottle or breast - keep an open mind, what you want may not be what works, you have to roll with it.

One lesson I've learnt is - have a plan B, plan C and maybe D, and you might find one works for a while then you go back or forwards.

It feels almost impossible but you have to find moments for yourself, it's very hard to be a good parent when you're in a bad place yourself, I struggled with having to sacrifice what little sleep I was getting if I wanted to go for a run, for example. If I had a pound for every time someone said 'it will get better' I'd be rich enough to have ignored today's Budget, but looking back, it is true.

I think a lot of times my expectations were too high in terms of what they could do, and when, so various trips out were wasted. Keep it local, simple and cheap - it's all the same to them, and you can put the resources into doing bigger and better things when they'll actually appreciate it much later down the line.

[kiethton]

Thanks, tried boob and were just getting very little, then compounded by her not latching properly, nipple covers and C-section pain. Issue was yesterday she wasn't taking a bottle either, necessitating a tube. Thankfully everything seems to be going a lot better today and she's taking the bottle (using our own MAM ones and not the hospitals was a revelation) a check has confirmed no tongue tie and she's doing very well - a properly happy, smiling hardly every crying 2 day old. If she carries on,l and my wife loses the catheter tomorrow we'll hopefully get home!

Edited by kiethton on Wednesday 15th March 16:50