Graduated Elderberries - Thread 8

[Cavort]

The over 30's expecting/just given birth to their first little bundle of joy.

Thread 8 already!!

Congrats Quod! Is it shallow if I'm thinking about doing a PhD mainly because I can then reply to all the "Is that Madame/Mrs or Mademoiselle/Miss?" questions with "Doctor, actually".

Went home for lunch, Viki had had 60 ml without crying, but took him forever and he was obviously still hungry. Well, better than nothing.

A question regarding baby clothes - I've been given several cute outfits consisting of trousers and a t-shirt or sweater. But when I've tried to dress Vic in them, he ends up half-naked, as the shirt just rides up and becomes quite pointless as a clothing item. What am I doing wrong?

Nothing wrong Hazle, baby clothes look cute but are just ridiculous and ride up all the time. I currently favour daytime wear of long sleeved bodysuit with jeans/trousers/leggings over the top as I find this is the least frustrating baby attire which still looks like clothes rather than sleepwear. Yes, do it, then we can have DrQuod and DrHazle

For anyone battling baby sleep like us, I've had a good read of this great website this morning and it's made me feel much better that our baby is not broken and really is just a normal baby.

Hazle - a vest style babygrow seems to stop tops riding up quite so much. They still do. I have to force myself not to put him in babygrows every day as they're both easy and cute. Hope your afternoon at work goes ok. Must be weird to be back.

Mother (was it you mother? Sorry on phone and can't check) is your varicose vein in your lady parts? If so a very good friend of mine had them awfully in pregnancy, got to the point where she couldn't stand still, but they all disappeared straight after childbirth my other friend was amazed as she inspected them out of morbid curiosity and said she looked like a cauliflower down there So hopefully this will pass quickly. If they're just in your legs sorry for this post!

Vest style babygrow underneath a normal top that is

cavort Viki is mostly in long sleeved bodysuits and leggings or jogging style trousers as well, way more comfortable than those t-shirt outfits.

But I do need a cute and not too uncomfortable outfit for Viki for my sister's wedding (in december). Anybody seen anything suitable?

Mamas and papas had some lovely and different stuff! And they had a sale on too. I bought two long sleeved dresses to wear with tights. Quite cute and not a hint of pink

Cavort that site is amazing, thanks for the link.

I'm a big fan of long sleeved vests as H has lots of t shirt type tops at the moment, and layering looks cool.

But I've just discovered an epic fail - bought a 5 pack from Mothercare during a shopping trip fraught with whingey overtired baby, an overkeen 11 year old and a stressy daddy. Just been to put them in the wash and realised I had spectacularly overshot on the size - 24-36 months instead of 3 - 6. Epic. Fail.

Hoping they'll let me take them back even tho I'm jiggered if I can refold the ginormous vest that I took out.

I also cheat a bit - some sleepsuits I use as daywear, especially character suits like superbaby and batman.

Have to second the Mamas and Papas call - they have some fabulous smart wear for Christmas, saw one with a bow tie at the weekend!

janey yep it was me, it is indeed in my lady bits nice huh nothing to see but it throbs which makes me think it's a vein. I gave my mum a varicose vein so I guess it's payback!
I've nearly bought the wrong size a few times, thankfully caught myself in time, sure it must happen all the time though so I'm sure they'll understand.

Ok started on my epic cook up, have one meal now done and in the freezer, going to cook another four tomorrow...as well as our dinner. Figure then I don't have to rely on the OH and he doesn't have to rely on dominos Ideally I want 10 days/2 weeks worth of meals so this could take a while

I did that mother and it was brilliant! Lasted us longer than planned though as due to the heat wave we didn't necessarily fancy frozen home made chicken pies for tea but was super handy for the first few exhausted days...

Silly question but what do you put the frozen meals in? I don't have enough dishes to freeze loads. What sort of things are you making?

I'm just using various tupperware alex, made cottage pie today, making chicken curry, meatballs, chicken in black bean sauce an chilli tomorrow. Glad you found it useful janey, I'm happy to do anything to make those first few days a bit easier.

I had 15 meals all in plastic freezer bags. They take a lot less space and are easy to identify as you can write on them.
It was also a godsend to me. Definitely worth the work!
I can't wait to be able to use the 3-6 month stuff I have. It's the first lot of reasonably practical day wear we have!!! So far I put her in babygrows most days!

wow 15!!! Respect lol! I think I may end up with 10 going by what I have here to cook.

Yes I had enough for two full weeks, so fourteen meals. Think we used about ten of those in the first fortnight so was very very useful. A good thing to do in my experience!

Alex - I used a mixture of pots (eg for fully assembled pie) and freezer bags (eg for ragu). The bags are v useful as you can write contents and dates.

Even now I tend to cook double what I need, and freeze a meal. Yes, I have time now to cook a meal each day, but that doesn't necessarily mean to. Sometimes meeting the NCT girls for wine a coffee at lunchtime is more appealing than cooking a meal from scratch! As such I've just got a shepherds pie out of the freezer (I love old school dinners in the autumn!)

Oh and I made:

Chicken and veg pie
Beef ragu (which we then put with pasta or baked pots or whatever)
Puttanesca sauce
Chicken tagine
Fish pie... (Be careful with re freezing previously frozen fish or seafood though. Not sure how bad it is but I worry, and the last thing you'd want is food poisoning with a newborn!)

Other suggestion for freezer food... Freeze bags of chopped onions and chopped garlic (easy to grab handfuls to cook from frozen if you want to 'cook' a meal from scratch but dont want to stand chopping for ages. If you also freeze bags of chunky chopped veg you can simply add a bag of frozen veg, some onion and garlic to a pan of stock and some stewing steak (max 2 mins to chuck it all in together) and leave to simmer on the stove or oven for a few hours. Nice with fresh bread. It's a good example of where you don't have to have the whole meal pre cooked and frozen but you can chuck together a few ingredients, and freezing ingredients in portions makes this dead easy. Also works for chicken casserole and sausage casserole etc.
Frozen soups are good, (especially for a hot lunch), freeze in freezer bags (laid flat) and simply microwave when you want one.
I also like to make and freeze pie fillings (eg steak and ale, chicken and leek). Then defrost and slam in a dish with (a pack of pre made) pastry and bake

...can't wait til it is time for me to be doing the pre baby cook off! Can you tell!

DP has started the freezer stockpile already and has already filled a drawer just by cooking extra portions over the last couple of weeks. In addition DP's mum is making and delivering us a big batch in a few weeks as her contribution - she kept asking what she co

Doh!

• could do that would be helpful and she is a great cook so we have set her the freezer stash task to keep her busy!

Oh and on the subject a friend of mine suggested buying soft fruit and freezing bags of it to blitz up into a smoothy with a bit of peanut butter or yogurt, which I think sounds like a good way of getting your vitamins/fluids!

Quod am going to steal both your fruit and MIL idea!!

Just to add another angle, I didn't prepare any frozen meals in advance and we managed fine. I had cereal or toast for breakfast, made a packed lunch the night before which I just grabbed out of the fridge while I was pinned to the sofa with a constant boob out in on my own and then DH or I would cook a quick meal when he got in from work.

Merk we buy bags of frozen chopped onions, garlic, diced mixed veg all the time. It's only when you offer it up as a labour-saving suggestion that I realise how lazy we are when it comes to cooking.

We also buy bags of pre-prepared frozen soft fruit for smoothies from Sainsburys

If I rely on my OH cooking I may starve so cooking and freezing could be a lifesaver shall take down some of the ideas for what to cook though. I was planning on a few batches of bolognese as that can then become spag bol, lasagne, be put on a jacket spud etc, plus its easy to make and split into batches easy is good!

Lunch wise I have no idea, I have some mug shots and have a corner shop at the end of the road so can get beans and bread for toast....that will keep me happy

Been having some nice BHs today, bump feels odd when it goes solid! Bubs is moving less but still within the limits, think hes a bit cramped now.

Trying to work up to booking a spa pedicure, my friend said I just 'had' to have one as hers was amazing.....I'm feeling too bloody lazy though. That's bad isn't it! Too lazy to pamper myself