r/BeyondTheBumpUK

Hey everyone, I’m 26 and currently breastfeeding my daughter, who is 8 months old. Before pregnancy and breastfeeding, I had quite perky, round, medium sized breasts that I honestly never worried about. I have breastfed my daughter exclusively since birth, no pumps or formula.

My boobs have changed a lot, they’re much bigger (including massive areolas) and definitely sit lower than before. They’re still kind of perky in their own way, but not like they used to be. I don’t mind the size as much, but I do notice the difference in shape.

I’m planning to stop breastfeeding when she turns 1, but I’m really anxious about what will happen after. I’ve heard so many things about breasts becoming deflated or saggy once you stop, and it’s making me nervous.

For those who’ve been through it, what actually happened to your boobs after you stopped breastfeeding? Did they go back to how they were before, or is the change permanent? Did they get smaller, lose fullness, or “deflate”?

Just looking for honest experiences so I know what to expect 😅

i have a 5 week old and i love her so much. i spend every second of my day with her or doing something related to her (pumping, cleaning bottles etc.) and i will put any of my needs aside for her. my partner, however, will not.

he was horrendous during my pregnancy. he had me doing all the housework, his only jobs were the bathrooms, cooking dinner, and taking out the bins. i did the bathrooms and bins most of the time. he is filthy. he argues i have a high standard of cleanliness but the times he has been alone in our flat for a few days we have ended up with mice and ants.

he is a student. he says he had no time to support me bc he was building our future. yet he never went to class or rotations. meanwhile i was also a student, pregnant, and taking on all the housework.

he id financially blessed, living off his parents whilst i survive on student loans, hardship funds and widening participation funds. yet i pay him rent (he paid our rent upfront and i pay him back) and bought all of the stuff for our baby. ALL of it. he has used money to control me too many times, threatening my with small claims court if i don’t get his rent to him. he would take the food out of our child’s mouth if he could.

during labour, he made it about himself. he was tired. he was bored. he wanted to go run. he was uncomfortable and hungry. but he would switch out with my mum every few hours to go home and rest. my labour was 1 day and 10 hours, i spent 3 days in hospital. from 10-2am on the day i gave birth, my mum stayed with me… he only showed up at 4pm, 5 hours after they broke my waters.

during my contractions, he was a menace. he was micromanaging everything i did. shoving juice in my face after my mum and i both asked him to stop bc i was nauseous. he ordered pineapple fried rice and left it in my room, it smelt so strong and i wasn’t allowed to eat. he did everything i asked him not to do whilst i pushed. he never advocated for me. i saw him once during pushing - at the end of the bed, behind all the midwives, hands on hips and gawking at my vagina. i asked him specifically not to bed at the end of the bed.

after birth, he took my golden hour. i was so upset that i dissociated whilst they stitched me. he then stood there staring at them stitching me up whilst my mum stayed with the baby instead. he kept pressuring me to breastfeed after i repeatedly said i couldn’t hold my arms up and knew i couldn’t support her.

as my mum left at 2am, she had to wake him up and tell him to look after me and i should be the one sleeping. he ignored her. i tried to wake him up so many times because i was exhausted, sat in my own bodily fluids after 850ml blood loss, falling asleep whilst holding my baby. i begged him to wake up at one point bc i was delirious and he argued “there’s no point in us both being sleep deprived” but decided he was the one that deserved the sleep. eventually he took her, i went to the toilet, and as i returned i almost fainted and had a whole room of doctors rush in.

we went to the post natal ward at 5am. he went back to sleep until 9/10. i stayed awake. it was horrendous. around 12 he went out for lunch with a friend whilst i waited around, alone with my baby still. we were discharged at 8pm-ish. my mum came to bring the car seat. as we left, he rushed ahead leaving me behind, wanted a the dad walk vid but my mum instead took a pic of the both of us at the exit holding the car seat (he complained about this saying “the only thing i wanted from the birth was that video” wtf!!! how can you want anything from MY labour?!). the moment we stepped out onto the street, he swung around without looking and almost launched the car seat with our infant into a woman.

once home, he made himself dinner (not me) and took himself to bed at 10. the next night it was 9. the next it was 8:30. whilst i didn’t sleep at all. he didn’t care for her throughout the day. he was rude to my mum, cooked us inedible food (raw, chewy). disappeared multiple times to go run or cycle. was rude to me, didn’t help with housework. held the baby in such dangerous ways and was too headstrong to let us teach him.

one night, he was so rude to my mum that she had to leave. i had a mental breakdown. he had basically kicked out the only support i had in the city, my mum lives 5 hours away. paramedics came, emergency mental health team took me onto their caseload and then referred me to perinatal mental health services. 6 days after the mental breakdown. i decided to take a cross country train with my 2 week old to stay with my mum for 3 weeks.

3 weeks of peace and support. he had been around this baby for 2 weeks, barely seen her, didn’t bond with her. left it all to me. i come back at 5 weeks and nothing has changed. he just told me how to parent her when he doesn’t know her and she doesn’t know him. he repeatedly oversteps when i tell him how she likes to be held or soothed, or what each cry means. he argues with me on everything.

the room that i had a mental breakdown in was still a mess. a massive bag of soiled nappies from 3 weeks prior sat in the corner of the room. laundry everywhere. my bed was unmade, he had washed my sheets last minute and tried to make me sleep on wet bedding. the entire flat was filthy, ants swarming the countertops and walls.

i sobbed. he had three weeks to reset and make me feel welcome. he didn’t even have dinner for me when i finally got back to the flat at 9pm. he had been bragging for the last three weeks about how much exercise he was doing. long runs, long bike rides, hanging with friends whilst i survived sleepless nights, horrendous latch issues, colic. he told me he had no time to clean up. when i said he had done nothing, he said “i’ve been up and you’ve been sat in the bedroom all day doing nothing” despite it being the day after i had returned to the flat, the day before i was packing and travelling whilst simultaneously caring for our newborn that doesn’t like to be put down.

i realised. my daughter and i will always come last. his dreams and his hobbies will always come before us. my dreams mean nothing to him, i must always follow his. he prioritised himself over a clean, safe environment for our child. again and again. my breaking point was having to check the clean bottles on the draining board for ants before i put them away.

i need to go back home to my mum. but im scared. there’s no room for us. i want to give my child a better quality of life, better than a controlling, dirty man and better than a cramped living arrangement. he keeps moving us further and further away from support. he wants us to move to a different city in august, no friends or family. then eventually he wants us to move abroad. i can’t do it. i’m going to break. i’m scared of being a single parent.

When I really need to work or cook or clean or whatever, I turn on some YouTube nursery rhyme videos on the TV.

My toddler (16 months old) stops whatever she's doing and becomes a zombie. She will stand in front of the TV for an hour with her mouth open, pure hypnotised. Like a statue.

Otherwise she'll be standing right between my legs while I'm waving a sharp knife around slicing veggies, or making a roaring hot stir fry.

I feel guilty looking at her when YouTube is on. She stops being a baby and just turns into a zombie.

I have tried locking her into her playpen but she hates it. And I can't listen to 1 hour of screaming. Maybe I should suck it up.

Any tips that don't involve zombification?

I've noticed when making up a bottle for my baby that when I got to check the temperature on my wrist at first milk spews from the teat.

I'm unsure of why this is happening and I am worried that it may be happening inside my babies mouth whilst he's drinking.

Any tips/advice

Thank you

I finally got the 2nd stripe on a stick and expecting number 2 by end of the year. Number will then be 3.5 yo nearly on the dot. What are the best books you recommend to help prepare for number 2? Recs preferred for things you felt have really made a difference/ypu have actually used

Thanks!

My EBF LO (now 6 weeks) has been dealing with congestion and silent reflux, vomiting at least once a day. She has trouble sleeping on her back and likes to be carried just like most babies, but sometimes I worry it’s related to the reflux pain as well. The vomiting has been stressing me out a lot although she seems fine with it (she mostly vomits up mucus which gives her relief but also promotes more mucus).

Early days, she never took to the pacifier and I decided it would be cruel to force it on her if she has no interest, only to wean it off later. I still have them on hand in case needed.

Yesterday my mother took over the first part of the night shift while I got a bit of sleep. She somehow managed to get LO to go down in her cot with the pacifier. Not knowing how I feel about it yet, i read that pacifier use can help manage congestion and reflux symptoms by encouraging more swallowing which helps clear the throat and also keep the milk down. We tried it again tonight for night sleep and LO was able to sleep in her cot again. It does take a few tries before she accepts which is making me feel so so guilty about the whole thing.

Has anyone experienced something similar and can confirm if the paci did help manage reflux and congestion?

I’m a FTM with a 6 week old baby who has been EBF since birth. Initially we planned to give baby one bottle of expressed breastmilk a day to allow my husband to give one feed and give me a break (whether that be to sleep or time to my self!). And also to ensure she can take a bottle incase we needed to leave her with someone else at any point. We waited until the 6 week mark to introduce it following midwife and lactation consultant advice. I’m since realising it’s not that simple/easy! I used a manual pump on Wednesday for the first time and did this whilst she was sleeping in the day. I got 1.5oz from one boob and 2.5oz from the other. My husband gave her the bottle of expressed milk that afternoon and she took it despite not being sure and some cries in between.

I thought great, we can introduce a bottle a day now. However I am finding that I never actually have the time or desire to pump, especially the last few days she’s been very clingy/cluster feeding. Her day time sleep isn’t great at the moment so I never have a hand free to pump and when she will be put down for 30 mins, the last thing I fancy doing is pumping! Second, there’s absolutely no routine with her feeds, which I know is normal. The evenings have been hard work for a few weeks and she’s on and off me 6-9pm. The mornings she doesn’t have a consistent wake time, sometimes it’s 6am, others it’s 8 (by which point my husband has gone to work). Therefore it’s hard to plan when my husband would give her a feed since times are so unpredictable.

I’m interested to know how others do it and if you find it’s worth while? And if you do give an expressed bottle, how do you maintain your supply? Currently I’m feeling like it’s more hassle than it’s worth! I’m contemplating just giving a bottle once a week instead but worried she would be more likely to reject it if I did this.

Baby is 5 weeks old and although I don’t need to be away from them right now, there’s a few events in the summer (weddings etc) when I know baby will need to take a bottle and I feel the pressure to introduce to one sooner than later as I’ve heard it’ll be more difficult after 6 weeks.

What are people’s best tips and advice for introducing an EBF baby to a bottle? Mainly wondering how often to offer one if he does take it, some of my friends do daily but I haven’t planned on expressing that much.

Also with expressing, how often to do that because bay only takes from one side per feed so if I was to pump once daily do I just do from one breast each day and alternate or do both at same time or both every day but at alternate feeds?

Sorry lots of questions, it’s all new territory for me!

My 15 months old baby has started to repeatedly screech in a very high pitch whenever he wants something. When he wants something he screeches, when he doesn’t want something he also screeches. It’s to the point that really damaging my mental health and the health of my entire family cuz he’s REALLY LOUD.

Anyway to tackle this?

I need to get this off my chest as I feel like I'm going bonkers. I'm a FTM to a now 12-week old baby boy. Been with his dad for 15+ years, uni sweethearts. Baby was IVF, first time success. Pregnancy was fine, apart from hypertension. C-section at week 38+1. We had a rough start with severe tongue tie, strong baby blues for me, drop in weight, triple feeding hell, etc. We don't have much help.

He's beautiful, smart, interesting. But I just feel constantly sad, depressed and impatient with him. He fights day naps, needs to be in carrier all the time, gets overstimulated fast, spits up a lot. He's EBF which I'm so proud of, that we managed to achieve that, but I just don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am mourning my old self, I miss time with my husband, I miss my identity pre-matrescence.

Everyone tells me "it's a stage, it gets better"...or "enjoy this stage, they grow so fast" but I am just sad. I feel like I chose this, I mean damn, I even paid for it, but I'm so certain I'm One and done. It's tough in a way no one or nothing could have prepared me for.

How can I stay positive? What can I do to change my mentality?

Is everyone suffering in silence and just puts on a brave face or am I suffering more than normal?

So I know the guidelines is 12 months before things go in the cot, I have done my research but my 9 month old is absolutely refusing to sleep without her comforter. She will go sleep on bottle and hour later she is screaming will not settle for me or my partner if anything she gets worse until I give the comforter back I’ll stay away take it away sometimes she settle for a little bit then wakes up screaming for it again! I feel like I’m getting no sleep because I’m constantly waiting for her to drop it so I can try take it back off her which 9/10 fails! I brought the muslin style comforter but I still worry about it being in there because everywhere says it causes SIDS so obviously I panic! I just want to know if anyone has advice or has this problem? When did you start giving things in the cot at night?

Long time lurker, first time poster here. We are heading to Crete at the end of May for a week as our first family holiday, our LO will be 3.5 months (15 weeks). I’ve been reading many posts about what to take, how to handle the travel etc which includes feed on takeoff and landing (I plan to have him latched pretty much the whole journey), travel buggy (we have the bugaboo butterfly) and keep him cool so we have a UV tent and fan (as well as an untested snoozeshade)

Outside of this, what are the tips you have for travel as a non-negotiable, or things we should purchase and take that will be game changing for us? My husband saw something about a sheepskin rug as a travel cot insert which is an example of something we’d never considered before.

A big bit of advice we saw is that they have babies in other countries so don’t worry too much about bringing millions of nappies - which is obvious but we hadn’t even thought about it, so everything is helpful.

Thanks!

Hi all, I come to you today a total sleep deprived mess. During the week I am the one who wakes for baby as my partner is up for work at 5am as he has a long commute. Weekends he will get up early and take baby downstairs so I can catch up on sleep and that works for us.

To preface my baby is 7 and a half months (but 5 and a half adjusted) and we’ve not long started baby lead weaning which has been going well. He already has his 2 bottom teeth through.

He usually napped 3 times a day for 1.5-2 hours but has very suddenly dropped to 30-45 minutes seemingly without cause.

Sleep always happens in our bedroom which we share, he’s in a crib and sleeps in a sleep sack (tog depending on temperature which we also monitor). He will be getting surgery sometime in the future (still a bit too small for it yet) and we’d like to keep him in our room to keep an eye on him afterward.

Windows are blacked out and we use a white noise machine.

He has a regular bedtime routine, in bed around 7:30-8pm, and getting him to sleep can be pretty easy but it’s starting to get more and more difficult as he fights it.

Admittedly he is rocked/held to sleep.

It’s like he doesn’t have a drowsy but awake window; he’s straight up either 100% awake or he is conked out asleep - not in between. So seeing all this “put him down drowsy but awake” is driving me nuts because if I put him down before he is out he starts whining and does not settle.

He will sleep good the first few hours and then wake around 2am for a feed. Then about 4 or 5. Then he’s up for the day at 6am. 🫠

Last night he was up every single hour.

I’ve looked into these sleep apps but they all seem extortionate for something that just tracks baby’s nap time and night awakenings.

Totally against the cry it out method.

How do we help my little one learn to self soothe? Is there something else we could be doing to improve things before they continue to spiral? 😩

6 year old cockapoo and 10 month old now very mobile baby.

Have realised we need to make some serious changes after a few growls and snaps & by generally looking at our dog's behaviour.

So far have decided

-We will do our best to keep them separate at all times.

- Going to buy a room divider so dog can have her own area with food water and bed in there.

- Won't approach or pet the dog whilst the baby is watching so she doesn't try the same (is this sensible?)

Need help with the fact that when I use an excited voice with the baby when playing with her the dog comes running with a toy to play too. Also some days when I'm home alone with them both the dog is desperate to sit on my lap, resists being told to get off etc but then growls when baby inevitably approaches and then I feel so bad having to push her off (to avoid a confrontation between them). When I then try and invite her onto my lap when the baby is asleep in another room she's not interested and sometimes doesn't even come downstairs to near me.

What does this behaviour indicate and how can I meet those needs? And is there anything else I should do to manage the dynamic? Any insight welcome. Please be supportive and kind - I'm also managing sleep deprivation...

I'll be returning to work full time in 3 months after 9 months of maternity leave. My MIL will be taking on full time childcare. He already has a fantastic bond with her but I'm already feeling so guilty and worried we will lose our bond. I feel very lucky and privileged to not have to pay for nursery but still the guilt is eating me away!

Has anybody else had the same setup, please share your experiences!

I’m packing my hospital bag and am wondering what clothes are best to wear for giving birth, and for post-birth.

Ideally I’d like a water birth, so I suspect I will wear a sports bra or vest top in the pool and otherwise be naked.

What clothing is best for giving birth outside of the pool?

And what is best to wear after giving birth? Perhaps a loose floaty dress so that it’s easy to breastfeed and to have any stitches checked?

I’d love to hear about people’s experiences of weaning & reintroducing dairy when their little one has CMPA - how and when did you start?

Our 7.5 month old son has mild CMPA, I’m breastfeeding so have excluded all dairy from my diet. We were recommended to wean slightly early so he has been trying solids for just over 2 months now but he is only just recently started to actually consume food rather than just lick / suck / play with it!

We were told we could look into reintroducing dairy around 9 months, I’m just curious whether people who breastfed did this via their own diet first, or went straight in to giving some directly to their baby (or a bit of both)?

I’m not going to do anything before speaking to the consultant / dietician, but our appointment isn’t until May and I’m currently dreaming of eating cheese again so just curious to hear others experiences!

I am pregnant with my second and will have a 20 month age gap. I am debating a double pushchair/pram or not. Haven’t heard good things about the buggy board but if you have positive experiences, I’m open to it! My current pushchair is the Cosatto Giggle 3, so it is not easy to switch between the seat and bassinet.

I moved to the UK from California, and I want to buy some things for my 1yo. We brought a few things like bottle washers, but bulky items just added too much luggage, so we sold them. Now I need a cot urgently. He is sleeping with us these days, and I dont want him to get used to that. I also need a high chair. I had grow with kid one off momcozy, and I really wanted to bring it to the UK, but my husband strongly opposed.

I also want to know how you guys buy baby food and similar items. What do you trust for online purchases? I’ve heard a lot about Tesco. Is it a good option for baby gear?