Many thing

[halojedha]

I think I'm a bit depressed. Everything is just A Lot. I'm at a really low ebb, both mood wise and energy wise.

I was chatting to juliet yesterday, who validated the fact that everything is really quite hard right now. I mean having an 11 week old is always hard. But then there's been the broken washing machine and the backlog of laundry to catch up on.

There's Leo's hip, meaning they aren't able to offer me all of the physical support a partner might offer, like taking the baby out for a walk in the sling to give me a break, or loading and emptying the dishwasher. (They're doing as much as they can, more than they should to be honest, but their mobility is compromised. Stairs are hard, and so is bending over and standing, so all sorts of things are difficult including fetching and carrying, bouncing the baby, and several of the regular chores.) 

There's Podling's ongoing refusal to take the bottle, meaning I can't get any respite. I'm on the hook day and night. I'm not tracking how long I'm spending breastfeeding per day but it feels like I'm glued to the sofa. I can barely take time for myself, have a nap, go for a walk on my own. The cluster feeding lasts for hours. I'll feed for an hour and ten minutes later they'll be hungry again and go back on the boob for another hour. It's midnight now and they've been feeding on and off since  7pm. I'm desperate to go to sleep.

Anything I do do on my own risks interruptions to feed at any point. I'm permanently on call.

There's the puking. E is losing 2-4 full belly loads of food a day. It might be reflux, pyloric stenosis, or an allergy. We're seeing the doctor and and I'm going to ask to be referred for tests. They still get really congested at night and often wake-up crying because they can't breathe, which makes me think allergies.

Meanwhile the feeding/puking/cleaning/feeding cycle is relentless. It's so dispiriting to finally finish a feed and have them lose it, and have to start again from scratch. It makes me feel so trapped. Plus every puke is two changes of clothes and it makes so much extra laundry.

On top of all that, my cat Niamh has been sick. She came home with fleas a few weeks ago so we treated her with flea treatment. Then she started looking increasingly haggard and straggly. It looked like she'd lost a lot of weight. She started hiding in my office - the least used room in the house - and there were straggly patches on her fur where she was biting herself. I thought it might be some sort of parasite. We found little wriggly things in the moses basket after she lay in it and I found more in her fur when I groomed her. Honestly, the way she was looking and acting I was worried she was dying. She's 15, but was perfectly healthy until a few weeks ago.

Leo took her to the vet this morning and she is lousy with fleas. The over the counter treatment just didn't work. She's crawling with them and that's why she's been sick. So she got sprayed down with flea spray and we got a prescription spot treatment to give her, which should kill them all in 24 hours. We also got a deworming tablet and an anti-inflammatory for her hip, which has been lame recently (an on/off problem which has been worse lately - probably arthritis or something, exacerbated by being run down.)

So I'm really hoping all that helps her and she doesn't need antibiotics or something - I know fleas carry diseases and she really has seemed awfully unwell. Today she's been hiding and grooming herself and running away from us. I'll try and give her another proper brush down tomorrow if she'll let me, to get all the (hopefully) dead fleas out of her fur.

Of course, there are now fleas in all our soft furnishings no doubt. We've changed the bedding, the cleaner came yesterday and hoovered and mopped everywhere, and we've washed (more laundry) the sheets on the moses basket and her cat blankets and all the other places we've seen her sleeping. But what about the rug and the sofas? We can't put pesticide down, not with an 11 week old baby.

I guess we just need to hoover everywhere every day. Once Niamh is poisonous to them they'll die out in due course. I've been bitten loads over the last few days but they can't live on human blood, so that's just annoying. Except the place is so cluttered and untidy with baby stuff and nappies and laundry despite constant work to try and tidy up, and I'm so tired, and we didn't hoover today. I feel itchy just thinking about it. I hope the horrible little things all die soon. Poor cat, and poor us!

It's autumn now: rainy and grey. I should probably be taking Vitamin D supplements. Also my GP told me that my iron levels are still low after the birth and I need to be on 200mg oral iron twice a day. Which is a lot of iron. So between that and waking to feed every 1-3 hours and having to sit up with E for an hour or so in the middle of the night to let them sleep on me because they can't breathe and only getting 6 hours a night and having my life essence sucked out of me by a tiny vampire, no wonder I'm tired.

Comments

[ewt]

Oof, that is A Lot.

Visit Cat is allergic to fleas, which we and his other people found out when he had similar symptoms: he lost a lot of weight very quickly, wouldn't stop grooming, got really mean-tempered, and had great patches of fur missing. Once the fleas were dealt with he was back to his usual self within a matter of weeks. It's hard to believe that the scrawny, bitey, miserable thing was the same cat as the smug, sleek, friendly purr-machine who saunters into our kitchen now.

I hope things get easier soon, particularly the bottle feeding. Vitamin D sounds like a plan, and yes, low iron will make everything else harder.

[halojedha]

Goodness, poor Visit Cat! A flea allergy is insult to injury. I wonder if that's what's been bothering Niamh. She hasn't been mean, but otherwise that all sounds very familiar.

[juliet]

Definitely get on the vit D (we use a 3000 whatever-units-it-is oral spray, which is pepperminty and pleasant) and the iron. (NB not everyone gets on with the GP-prescribed tablets; if you don't you could try one of the OTC liquid type ones; I'm constitutionally inclined to low iron & have found those much more effective than the horse pills despite notionally lower quantities, due to bioavailability.) Are you prone to SAD / could you consider a lightbox?

Fleas on top of everything else is HARSH :( :( lots of sympathy. I hope they do die out soon and Niamh is feeling better, but what a horrible massive PITA. Not what you need right now. Could the cleaner do a few extra shifts to do extra hoovering of things?

Cluster feeding is so exhausting too. They do grow out of it eventually (& it can come & go anyway depending on developmental stage & all that stuff) but it feels like bloody forever at the time.

[halojedha]

Thanks :) I am prone to SAD, yeah. I think the horse iron tablets worked fine for me before - I was prescribed them after the birth due to losing so much blood. I do need to actually go to the pharmacy and get them though.

Lightbox is a good idea! We have one, but it's currently in Leo's room.

Cleaner: yeah, we're looking into this. Our cleaner is *wonderful* and we really trust her. We'd love to have her come twice a week to help with housekeeping tasks - no need to mop floors or clean the bathroom that often, but help with the dishwasher, laundry and maybe hoovering would be very welcome. We've already agreed she'll do an extra two hours every other Monday, but she can't do every week. We need to have another conversation I think and see if she could do another day or if the agency could send someone else.

[smhwpf]

Urgh, that all sounds decidedly miserable. Hope E. gets over the vomiting and Niamh gets better soon.

[halojedha]

Thank you. Niamh is already looking better, spent the whole night grooming, and the floor below the chair she slept in overnight was covered in fleas this morning. Hoovered them up. I'm not feeling v Buddhist about fleas right now!

[aiwendel]

We use the hideously expensive once every 3 months kills all parasites spot on from the vet on our animals, and use it once or twice a year which seems to be enough. As you say they are cat fleas, so a. Won't survive on humans alone and b will get back on the cat, but her, then die. So don't fret too much about the fleas.

I can't come to you, we have too much on here, but if it would help and you would like to you are welcome to come and stay here for a bit for some respite if getting here isn't too hard. We're messy, not brilliant at keeping on top of housework but adding an extra person or two of stuff to deal with is no problem, we could feed you, do laundry and provide some baby help. I'm still feeding Kitty. I have no idea how nutritious my milk is after 2.5 years, but I wouldn't mind trying to wet nurse your child to give you a break, though they might be allergic to my milk I guess - we currently aren't eating soya but are eating lots of dairy and eggs. Caveats are: every morning we are out - Kitty has something on with me, and she needs lots of attention. And b. I've taken on some work, so 3 days a week I'm trying to get on with that (eg tues/thurs/sat but not this Tuesday), so wouldn't be able to provide baby help during those times; I'm behind. However there are a lot of hours in the day so outside of work oclock I can help and meal times and laundry... When the TV is on its insane cartoons, mostly in French, rather than adult stuff.
I don't have isofix in my car which might be an issue if you need ferrying places.

[halojedha]

The flea population is massively reduced already. Still a few crawling on Niamh, which I guess must have been recently hatchlings, but they're sick. I'm still being bitten, I guess I will be for another 6 weeks until the last eggs that were laid before we did the treatment hatch and die. But we put diatomaceous earth (baby safe flea powder) down on the stair carpet (only carpet in the house) yesterday and we've hoovered the sofas and washed the rugs and bath mat and cushion covers... so hopefully that's got most of them now.

Thank you for this offer, that's really kind. It would be really lovely to see you both. I might well take you up on that. Calendar is quite busy with friends and visits for the next couple of weeks, but maybe later in the month or early November? It might be great once Leo is back at fulltime work (start of November) tbh... I would definitely be driving up so no need to worry about car seat!

[shreena]

I'm sorry you're having a hard time.

FWIW, I think you're doing the right thing in getting the puking investigated. Anecdotally, GPs can be quite rubbish on this type of stuff. It was 9months before we found out that Jovan had CMPA and we only got the allergy testing because he had a much more serious reaction to eggs.

My guess would be it's reflux - based on anecdata- but there are some good medications that could help, it doesn't have to be dismissed. A number of people we know ended up seeing a private paediatrician - might be worth looking at if the GP doesn't help.

[halojedha]

Thankyou, that's helpful! I'll be firm with the GP tomorrow and if that doesn't get anywhere, we'll consider a private paediatrician. That hadn't occurred to me before but it's a good idea if it comes to it.