Too emotional! Sorry it's a bit long.

Hi all. I know a lot of you are still waiting for your babies but I just wanted to share this.
Henry arrived at 37+3 on the 27th of November. The first few days were really rough on both of us. We didn't establish a good latch early on (I was probably too keen to get home from hospital) so I ended up with extremely painful nipples and a baby that wasn't being fed. I used a lot of hand expressed colostrum but it wasn't enough. We were readmitted on day 5 due to his weight loss, jaundice and sodium levels in his blood. Cue HUGE guilt from me!
From there we started using nipple shields and pumping so I could give breast milk top ups and I am over the moon to say that things are massively improved. I really didn't want to use bottles at all but it doesn't seem to be affecting breastfeeding as we are doing that first and using the bottle for ebm if he's still hungry. The amount of nappies however..........we could do with this 201million lottery win tonight! Thank god for lidl!
Last night I was having a bit of a dance with my little man and suddenly had this amazing feeling of pride that he chose me to be his mamma. It hasn't been an easy start to our relationship but we are definitely on track and this bond is overwhelming now. I feel so incredibly lucky.
I guess my point is, please try not to feel guilty about anything that is doing what is best for your baby. The first few days were really really tough and nearly broke me. The tiredness from night feeding and doing 3 nappy changes every time we're up feeding is still almost breaking me but I see now that it is totally worth it!
We've got this guys! There is light at the end! Xx

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He is adorable Jo congratulations! I actually cried reading your post. My little Leo was born on the 29th November and we have been having trouble feeding, he lost loads of weight too. I’m under the feeding team who have been amazing but the mum guilt and baby blues have been horrific so in a weird way it’s nice (not sure that’s the right word!) to know that there are others going through the same thing as me and I’m not alone in my battle.

@Hannah you are not alone!

The worst is when you go to change them again and they pee all over themselves and it’s another full outfit change at 3am 😂😂😂

But this does stop and soon it’s one change a night ❤️

I got 2 "not even fastened the brand new nappy yet" poos this morning!

was almost asking if others are actually going through these nappy changes, when does it become better?

for us it got better around 3-4 weeks mark. 😊

I love this post. We went down the jaundice route too and stayed in a week. Our latch was poor and we now use nipple shields too but that was only caught on by a nursery nurse. I hated being in hospital and if they’d let us go I would have been out like a shot and then likely in exactly the same position as you! Big love mama and try and push the guilt away- it’s not worth the energy!! X x

around 4-6 weeks

I remember week 3 i spent 2.5 hours changing nappies back to back because of explosions 🙈😂

But it does get better and now I’m like hey am I changing it enough sometimes

He does go all night no change so 9pm - 9am but the only brand that holds the wee and doesn’t give nappy rash for us is pampers

This happened to me too our baby lost too much weight trying to breastfeed and we are now pumping and topping up with formula and she’s doing so much better. We got this mamas, just gotta do what’s right for our babies!
Well done Jo and thanks for all your help on here throughout pregnancy x

in our community

Should I wake baby up to feed?

First time mum here, my baby is 2 months old today. Should I be waking her for night feeds? During the day she feeds every 2–3 hours, but at night she usually sleeps from around 11pm to about 3am, and I’ve been waking her then. Is that okay, or should I let her sleep?

Birthday postpartum

I’m due to give birth to our second child weeks before my birthday. My partner wants to know what I want to do but I don’t know what would be possible so soon. I already get things like facials and my hair and nails done and it’s been made clear none of those qualify as a present for my birthday 😅 I don’t know what more I could possibly do 😅 there’s no way I’m going to want to go on a day out 😂

Night time help!

Hi! My baby boy is nearly 6 months old and every night he wakes up anytime from 2am onwards and will be awake for well over two hours.
I’ve tried changing his naps during the day, changing his bedtimes and yet nothing seems to help!
Any tips that might help this exhausted mummy?
I don’t mind the wake ups if he would settle straight away but he views it as a whole wake window.

Feel like I’m solo parenting

I’m so sick of arguing with my husband over this.

My daughter is 11 weeks old, and my husband works Monday to Friday. I look after her all day every day, and on the weekends and some evenings he goes out cycling. I don’t mind this, he gets extremely ratty and stir crazy if he doesn’t go out, and it drives me mad.

Lately. My daughter’s sleep pattern is all over the place in terms of the second stretch. She tends to go for 6 hours, then has a feed, then either goes for another 4 hours, or starts to fuss at about 5:30 am. (I realise this first stretch is a dream, please believe me I’m not complaining about that.

My husband starts work at 7 am from home, or leaves at 6 am if he’s going into the office.

This means that he comes home, feeds her once while I’m in the shower, while I handle all of the other feeds/ settling her off at night. I rarely go back to sleep after as I’m so wired. He also struggles to sleep once he’s awake, so when she fusses for her night feed, he’s up from around 4 am regardless of feeding her or not.

I see him for around 3 hours a day apart from weekends, and in that time I cook, he does the dishes and cleans the bottles. We then bath/wash LO, he feeds her, then we watch a film or show until her next feed at 9:30 pm.

He has gone up to bed early to try and get more sleep because he feels like he’s exhausted to the point of headaches. (I am too, but it seems like this isn’t as important because I don’t go to work. He acknowledges that it’s hard work looking after her all day, this isn’t the problem). I have stayed downstairs with her, because to me, disturbing a sleeping baby only to put her in a crib for 30 minutes after settling her again, to feed her and then have to restart the process is ridiculous when she’s asleep already.

I feel like I do everything. I feed and settle her every time. When he can’t calm her down within 10 minutes he passes her back despite me having her all day and him not seeing her.

I love my daughter more than anything, and my husband is lovely, I swear. It’s just a really tough time with her sleep, and I’m struggling to cope. I’m so, so tired. And he doesn’t seem to realise this, because he is. We have talked about this so many times, but it just turns into an argument. Please tell me this will pass?

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anyone heres babys had their 12 week jabs yet, how were they afterwards?

Newborn sleep for 9 hours

Hello mamas, my newborn is 6 weeks old. Last night she slept for 9 hours without waking up for a feed. The previous night she slept for 8 hours as well. During the day she had quite a lot awake periods and she was eating well. She also gained 1kg for a month which the midwife said it's very good. Is she okay like that and should I wake her up to feed her during the night?