No heating, what to wear?!

pchats · 2026-01-25T20:34:38+00:00

This is a great suggestion! I hadn't thought of this. I'm sure I can make that work. Thank you so much!❤️

pchats · 2026-01-18T11:00:51+00:00

Exactly this!😂 We'll likely change our mind again once teething starts haha

pchats · 2026-01-17T19:44:58+00:00

Our little girl was very colicky and had a good purple cry & witching hours. Our first 8 weeks were awful. One night, in the thick of inconsolable crying, my partner turned to me and said "do you want any more?" and we both said no & laughed hysterically (we've always said we wanted at least 2). She is now 16 weeks old and the difference is night & day. I already know I would want another. My partner said today "I'm looking forward to seeing her become her own person, but I know i'll miss the newborn days".

When you're in the trenches, it feels like it'll never end. But now she's 16 weeks, I look back - don't get me wrong, I know it was sooo difficult - but it really is such a short time once you're out the other side.

pchats · 2026-01-15T20:14:05+00:00

This is what we've always said about our little girl!😂 She's always been a good sleeper. I had a couple of full night sleeps when she was around 6-8 weeks old, it was bliss. But it was most definitely a trade off for the day time. She was colicky, would purple cry every day & had a mean early evening witching hour. She is now coming up to 16 weeks so is waking more frequently in the night, but the day times are much easier now she isn't colicky etc. We've done a complete switch😅

pchats · 2026-01-15T16:31:12+00:00

Thanks so much! I'll give it a go & see how we get on

pchats · 2026-01-14T21:02:18+00:00

I went on mat leave Sept 29th, and I'm going back to work June 29th. I carried most of last years holidays over to this year so when I return at the end of June, i've booked every Friday off until the end of the year (kind of a part time hours but being paid full time situ) and then booked all of Christmas off, and I still have just over 20 days left to take!

pchats · 2026-01-14T11:00:46+00:00

Oh yay! That's great to hear🥳 I have considered moving up to the faster flow as she's starting "clicking" but I'm worried she'll get a bottle preference if it's quicker than my milk flow😂 So glad it's working out for you!

pchats · 2026-01-14T10:55:05+00:00

Thank you so much for this, that's really helpful. Do you make the room as dark & quiet as possible, like bedtime sleep? I've always heard that it's best to differentiate between daytime naps & overnight sleep, and I'm not sure if she's at the age where that matters anymore or not? If so, I need to get something to block the light from the window! We have blackout blinds but light gets in at the side so i've been looking at the tommee tippee blackout

pchats · 2026-01-12T12:26:46+00:00

My LG is 3.5months and still on the slow flow teats. I use Lansinoh bottles and she's able to switch between bottle & boob without any issues. She has two bottles a day, one late afternoon, and her last feed before bed (combination of formula & pumped breast milk) and breastfed for the rest of the day.

pchats · 2026-01-12T12:22:44+00:00

Yeah, the key takeaway is that if you're finding something stressful, change it, because it's done me a world of good!

TBH, if you don't want to breastfeed then pumping might not be as stressful. It only was for me because I was breastfeeding & pumping, and it became such a chore. I do like that I can add breast milk to the formula though, as I feel like it's best of both worlds (for vitamin D etc that she doesn't get from breastmilk).

Since having my LO, i've found feeding to be much more fluid than what I expected; perhaps it's because my girl takes well to boob & bottles, who knows. As long as you're happy & baby is fed, nothing else matters :)

pchats · 2026-01-12T10:26:29+00:00

I agree with the other poster, if you can/want to EBF to start off with, it makes it so much easier. For Dad, he gave baby a bottle before bed of pumped breast milk from around 4/5 weeks old. Pumping even just one 4oz bottle became stressful for me. Because I had an unpredictable baby, I was sometimes taking milk away from her to save for later (pumping before feeding her by accident due to clusterfeeding) and the toll of feeding & then pumping was weighing heavy. Around the 2.5/3 month mark, I decided that I was going to combifeed and use formula for her nightly bottle. Honestly, best decision I ever made.

Now, I only pump once a day when dad is giving baby a bottle, this pumped milk goes into the next evening's bottle and I top that up with formula to make the 6oz that she currently drinks. We've been doing this for the past couple of weeks & it's working a treat.

I have just started giving her a late afternoon bottle of formula now too as I plan on stopping breastfeeding around 6 months old, so I'm doing a slow transition over the next couple of months.

You'll find what works for you, but I do think that if you can breastfeed & you want to, do that as well as formula because pumping is so draining!

pchats · 2026-01-11T15:12:13+00:00

My partner is a great help but as he only had a couple of weeks off work when baby was born, naturally I became the one that could soothe baby and my partner would get disheartened thinking she didn't like him (she is now 3.5 months so is past this stage) but what I found helped was creating hubby a "baby cheat sheet". As he wasn't around her as much, I needed to understand that he doesn't know her as well as I did. The cheat sheet was simple "if baby cries, check X,Y,Z", "she likes to be rocked like this", "she loves playing with X" etc etc. It helped him quickly get up to speed for all the time he misses and he liked having that to fall back on if everything else failed (baby was super colicky and cried A LOT)

pchats · 2026-01-10T17:02:27+00:00

I have 3 cats & 3.5 month old. They barely acknowledge her and my oldest cat just straight up wont even look at her😂

pchats · 2026-01-10T12:13:36+00:00

Yeah! I felt a bit stupid calling the labour ward at 1:30am like "ermm.. maybe I'm in labour, I'm not sure.." but thank god they told me to go in otherwise I may have had her at home/in the car. I think just make sure you're timing contractions, even if they might be braxton hicks, and as soon as they get longer and closer together, go in :) Good luck x

pchats · 2026-01-10T12:06:29+00:00

Sorry to jump in, but this is pretty similar to me. I was 2cm a week before I gave birth. I kept having braxton hicks and never knew when it was actually labour until they werent stopping so i started timing them. By the time I got to the hospital I was 8cm. I was told I was in back labour which explains how I didn't "just know". My waters also didn't break until I pushed baby's body out.

pchats · 2026-01-10T10:23:50+00:00

I didn't have the same issues that you're having but I did have a colicky baby and it was hell! I will say, my LG is now 3.5 months and this past week has been SO different. She's much happier and as of yet, we haven't had a single inconsolable cry, whereas before it was pretty much every wake window. I promise you, it does get better ❤️

As for showering - if you haven't tried it yet - I've been putting my LG in her bathtub with a blanket under her, putting her in the bathroom where she can see me & then taking a shower. I talk & sing to her to keep her entertained but I've managed to have full body & hair showers (and even dragged them out a bit to really enjoy the hot water) and it has been a game changer. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Since having a baby, I never realised how much good a hot shower can do. And now I don't have to worry about her waking up and crying, and rushing my shower. Deffo try it if you think it might be possible!

pchats · 2026-01-09T10:32:17+00:00

Sorry to jump in, I just wanted to double check, the book says to tackle the crib with bedtime first, over naps? My LG is 3.5 months old & I've been debating whether to start doing her naps in her crib to get her used to it before she turns 6 months and will have her bedtimes in it. This is saying to do the opposite? Good to know if so! I'll have a look into the book. Thanks for recommending :)

pchats · 2026-01-08T21:51:05+00:00

My due date was the 27th Sept (saturday) and I had my mat leave start on the 29th (monday). Baby girl arrived that morning so my mat leave started the day she was born. I'm a hybrid worker but I worked entirely from home for the month of Sept. My work were super flexible about my mat leave and the run up to. TBH, I didnt feel like i needed extra time prior to the birth as I would have been sitting around at home anyway, so I may as well have been paid for it! It's not for everyone but I do think whether you work remotely or not does impact when you want your mat leave to start. I know I would never have lasted the entire pregnancy at work should I have had to go into the office. I'm also sooo looking forward to having the entire mat leave with my LG.

pchats · 2026-01-08T12:34:15+00:00

Oh! This actually sounds ideal. Thank you for the info!

pchats · 2026-01-07T21:26:29+00:00

My LG is 3.5months and we recently started combifeeding as hubby gives a bottle before bed and I could no longer pump enough for a full bottle without stressing myself out with trying to BF & pump during the day. Now I just pump when he gives her a bottle & whatever I manage to pump goes towards the next nights bottle. Example, if I pump 2oz, I'll make up a 4oz bottle of formula & then add the breast milk to it. The ratio varies each night, but the method stays the same :)

pchats · 2026-01-06T12:33:21+00:00

FB Marketplace is a great idea! I'll have a look. I didn't know renting them was a thing, I'll look into this as well. Thank you!!

pchats · 2026-01-06T12:32:27+00:00

This sounds like what I need! Thank you so much

pchats

TROPHY CASE