June 10 babies have arrived. Now we are all sleep deprived!

[CantSleepWontSleep]

Welcome to 'the other side' ladies. Long may we all continue to post!

ARRIVALS
27/04 (due 23/06) - SunshineDay - Faye - 3lbs 2oz
16/05 (due 02/06) - Meggymegmegs - James (Jimmy) David, 7lb 1oz
19/05 (due 01/06) - whenwillisleepagain - Alice Emily, 8lb 7oz
21/05 (due 21/06) - Gizmo - Hester Rose - 6lbs
23/05 (due 9/06) - greensnail, Alice Elizabeth, 7lb 2oz
24/05 (due 8/06) - Saucepanman, Gabriel, 8lb 4oz
24/05 (due 31/05) - minimoonumber2, Sebastian Robin
26/05 (due 24/06) - GibberingGinger James Alexander, 5lb 13oz, & Douglas John, 5lb 15oz
28/05 (due 30/05) - GoodName, Fergus, 8lb
28/05 (due 31/05) - mampam, Tilly May, 9lb 11oz
28/05 (due 4/06) - jo807bump - Hannah May, 5lb 7.5oz
04/06 (due 07/06) - perkster - Sidney James Perkins Berner, 7lb 11oz
05/06 (due 31/05) - dinosaurinmybelly - Zoe Leila - 6lb 9oz
07/06 (due 02/06 ) - AlwaysHopeful - George, 7lb 13oz
07/06 (due 07/06) - MrsC09 - Rufus Jack
08/06 (due 01/06) - PogueMahone - Magnus Gabriel, 8lb 14.5oz
08/06 (due 11/06) - woofie - Laurence Elliot (Laurie) - 7lb 11oz
08/06 (due 21/06) - sunworshipper - Romola Ann Bettina, 5lb 15oz
09/06 (due 08/06) - LittleRobbo - Summer Dawn
09/06 (due 09/06) - Boobz - Constance Ella Reed,
11/06 (due 02/06) - Justbeme - 'Nobody' (boy) - 8lb 9oz
12/06 (due 02/06) - roundabout1 - Lauren - 8lb 14oz
13/06 (due 18/06) - Virgo1979 - nameless boy! 7lb 9oz
14/06 (due 30/06) - monthlymayhem - Hayden, 7lb
14/06 (due 08/06) - MrsAlwaysRight - Alice Rose, 9lb 7oz
14/06 (due 15/06) - Millymollymoo - boy
15/06 (due 31/05) - RnB - Artemis, 7lb 9oz
15/06 (due 29/06) - playftseforme - Rory 6lb 4oz, and Fergus 6lb 8oz
16/06 (due 17/06) - Chestnut100 - Daisy Belle 6lb 14oz
17/06 (due 01/06) - Madamfreckle - Emma 6lb 6oz
17/06 (due 30/06) - MonkeyMargot - Atticus Fox 7lb 8oz and Rafferty Bear 7lb 14oz
17/06 )due 04/06) - Suzy1975 - Samuel 7lb 14oz
18/06 (due 23/06) - earlyonemorning - Edgar William 7lb 8oz
18/06 (due 13/06) - sobloodystupid - Stella 8lb 8oz
19/06 (due 22/06) - Gaelicsheep - Robin 6lb 14oz
22/06 (due 14/06) - Fillybuster - Mia Rae 9lb 3oz
24/06 (due 16/06) - Nizzynoodles - Samuel James 10lb 10.5oz
24/06 (due 17/06) - summerhols - Lilly
25/06 (due 17/06) - Barbeasty - Ruth Damaris Rose, 9lb
26/06 (due 16/06) - JoKettle - James Lennox, 8lb 7oz
26/06 (due 29/06) - MrsDmamee - Elyssa, 8lb 5oz
28/06 (due 26/06) - imkeepingmum - girl, 7lb 11oz
28/06 (due 12/06) - Georgee - Anna Rose, 7lb 15.5oz
28/06 (due 12/06) - Elena67 - boy, 9lb 5oz
29/06 (due 17/06) - bluesnowfalcon - Corey, 8lb 11.75oz
29/06 (due 18/06) - theperfectbaguette - Clementine Jemima, 6lb
29/06 (due 26/06) - RubyReins - Luke Douglas, 7lb 14oz
29/06 (due 25/06) - Ilovemyterrier - Jeppe Sebastian Fagerlund, 7lb 6.5oz
01/07 (due 30/06)- LaTrucha - Daniel Timothy, 8lb 11oz
3/7 (due 29/06) - CantSleepWontSleep - Jeremy Francis, 9lb 4oz

Happy new year everyone.

LaT- sorry to hear about your dad. Losing both parents so close together must be so hard.

We started weaning Ruth on Christmas day, it's hit and miss, but she enjoyed smearing mashed potato and pheasant everywhere last night.

She also enjoyed slowly getting into the White chocolate polar bear that father Christmas brought her. Her favourite thing wasn't wrapping paper, it was the labels (fine if you've checked who the present was for/ from before she got to it!) and she enjoyed eating the polar bear's label. Then she found the ribbon that tied it shut- even more chewy fun. By her face (and concentrated silence) when she managed to get into the packaging and taste chocolate was fantastic.

She has also slept through (well, for 6 hours a night) the two times she's had a good go at food. So I'm thinking weaning is a good thing.

More difficult is that since Christmas eve she has been crawling. It doesn't matter where you put her down she will home in on the radio times and anything else she shouldn't be chewing. It's certainly keeping us busy!

Happy new year everyone!

All this talk of babies on the move is making me very glad that I seem to make babies who are slow in that department. I'm not ready to have another one on the move yet, but if she's the same as her big sister I have another 4 months before she'll start crawling. I have a feeling she may move a bit earlier than that, but it doesn't look like its about to happen any time soon.

Happy new year all! Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.

LaT so sorry about your Dad. Must have been very hard on you and your whole family, especially DD.
Re. weaning, I think it's the fact that they are still having the same amount of milk as always, with all that food on top, that makes them put on weight. My DD was a huge chubber and continued to be so once BLW commenced. The twins were skinny and are now becoming chubbers - hooray!! 18 lbs each now. They are loving food.

Wow - amazed to hear of babies crawling already. Am not anticipating any movement for another 3 months at least.

Wishing you all a great start to 2011...sorry I dropped off for a bit but 3 kids & school hols haven't provided much MN time :)

Back to school on Weds, so hope to catch up on the thread after that (and provide some update from fillyland, too!)....

Have caught up ....not sure how much I will retain though, so apologies in advance for crap personals....

I was so sorry to read of your loss WWISA; it is never easy to lose a parent, but I'm sure it is much harder at xmas. I know you wrote about feeling guilty about having dc2 just as your parents needed you too, but I think you should focus on the joy Alice gave your father before he passed away and on the relief and distraction that she will provide the whole family to ease the loss.

We started weaning Mia in mid December, when she was about 6 months (CSWS, yes - finally, a baby I actually waited to wean!)...I have to admit that I'm finding weaning her much harder than my previous two, mainly because we're being a lot more slapdash about the whole thing....we're not doing BLW (not really my parenting style ) but alongside her puree she's quite likely to end up chomping on whatever DS and DD1 are having. Which means she'll have a bit of puree, get bored, grizzle and I'll just hand her whatever is on their plates. I think this is probably ok at the moment, as it means she is gettibng to try a wide range of foods and textures, and she definitely seems to prefer solids to smooth stuff, but it leaves me far less in control.....sigh...

Also (again, nods in direction of CSWS and LaT) I am still bfing , although now only morning and bedtime feeds, but that makes it much harder to assess how much milk she is getting and how much food she might need, for example, at breakfast after her feed. I've stopped expressing and we've exhausted the freezer supplies (finally!) so now she's on formula for her 2 daytime feeds.

Sleep is fine but she has turned into the same nightmare limpet screaming baby that my other 2 DCs hit at this stage....she is only happy when being held, if awake, and will scream constantly until this is achieved. Thankfully, she still sleeps really well, otherwise this would be even worse...but it makes it bloody hard to do anything with my other dcs at the moment :(

No teeth yet. And definitely no crawling. In fact, I am willing to place a bet that Mia will be the last to crawl and the last to wal;k on this thread....any takers?

I will take that bet Filly as Fergus is a lazy wee bandit who cant even be bothered to roll over yet. Cannot imagine him crawling anytime soon.

So sorry to hear about your fathers La T and Alwayshopeful. We have had quite a few deaths in the last few weeks to deal with also, my nan died about 6 weeks ago. I did not expect to feel so sad about this as she had been ill for a very long time but once she died I stopped remembering the ill times and remembered how much fun she used to be. My brother in laws father died of lung and brain cancer about 3 weeks ago. This was v difficult as he was only 63 and it happened very fast. We were very close to him as he was the reason my husband and i met in the first place. He was one of these larger than life people so it was so awful to see him deteriorate so fast. This weekend my cousin who was only 20 died of the flu! We were not very close but its so shocking someone so young dying unexpectedly. Still dont believe it. Feels like a pretty awful time of year just now as this miserable weather doesn't really help.
To CSWS and greensnail I must apologise for my earlier comments on BLW as Fergus has decided that is definately the way to go. He clamps his mouth shut when I try to feed him but gobbles it up if I just let him get on with it. As a matter of interest how long is it before more goes into him than ends up in the floor. I must say I am a little fed up with all the clothes and floor cleaning. His favourite things to eat so far are asparagus, oranges, pasta (has the big tubes - so messy!) and anything I am trying to eat without him getting any!
Fergus is sleeping no better at all and sometimes I just feel like I cant take it anymore. Keep thinking of resorting to slighlty more drastic techniques to get him to sleep better but dont have the emotional energy to deal with it. I never imagined having a baby would be this tough
SOrry for the long and fairly negative post, am feeling quite crap today. Will try to post a short cheerful message next time

So sorry to hear about your bereavements, goodname. A run of deaths in the family can be very hard to cope with, I know.

I can't remember when things got tidier with the BLW last time, but it does happen. In the meantime, there's plenty you can do to make the cleanup easier. We have a big collection of cheap plastic tablecloths which go under the high chair, then at the end of the meal you just need to shake everything out either out of the door or into the bin. At the end of the day I just chuck it into the washing machine. This not only makes cleaning up easier but also gives you a clean surface on the floor so you can pass food back to try again. Good bibs make a big difference too. The best i've found are these

Sleep getting worse here too. I think something drastic may need to be done here at some point too, although I'm still hoping for some kind of miracle improvement to occur.

Do you know what? I'm so glad I cam back on this thread. Daniel is being a tinker too, as was his sister. He will spends periods on his own in his bouncer or catching his feet but has periods of hours where all he wants is to be in our hands, either playing or coochy-cooing. He will will not self settle at the moment either, screaming for the breast if we offer to settle him another way (he will go of fin pushchair or sling).

DH is being a star as he is kiddie wrangling at night and just bring DS to me for two feeds a night. It's bliss.

And I say again, it is so nice to know I'm not alone in this.

Daniel, after seeming very uninterested in food, is suddenly insisting on eating, launching himslef forward and swiping at food like things around him. We're doing a bit of puree and a bit of BLW. Actually, scratch that - he is eating what we are eating. If it's breakfast and we're having porridge, he has it on a spoon, if it's a banana he has a chunk to bite (his idea not mine - I was mashing it with a fork as DD and I shared a banana, but he swiped the chunk out of my hand and went for it). If we're having a jacket potato I mash a bit and give it to him in my fingers. I'm really happy about it so far. I was pretty much all puress, high chairs and bibs, with specially prepared foods with DD. It was a disaster and we both hated it. This time we're going freestyle and liking it alot.

Alwayshopeful - I'm so sorry you've been having such a rough time.

latrucha and goodname sorry to hear your sad news.

AlwaysHopeful Go George!!

We are predominantly doing BLW which seems to be going well apart from Alice appears to have got some food allergies. So far we think she may be allergic to bananas and possibly something in baby cereals. We have got a hospital appointment next Friday. Feeling a bit more wary of introducing new foods now though.

Sleep wise is quite hit and miss at the mo. Some nights she wakes a couple of times a night and others like last night she slept from about 7.15-5.45. I think teething is not helping matters. We moved her into the nursery 2 nights ago and I'm feeling slightly stressed about not being able to just lean over to check if shes ok as she seems determined to sleep on her front.

Got to go as Alice has just woken up after a quick power nap. Anyone elses baby not sleep longer than about 30 mins per nap in the day? I'm sure by this age DD1 would have a couple of 2-3 hour sleeps every day.

Teething has been a real problem for Jack's sleep as well - waking up to hourly in pain, scratching his face, cheeks and forehead. We have dealt with it by changing our swaddle technique - in one go, he has stopped waking himself up.
As I'm now back at school, it's been crucial to helping me survive. Most nights he'll now sleep until 6ish, although he did wake at 4.30 on first day back!!

MrsAlwaysRight same here re the naps. Tom sleeps brilliantly at night (touch wood) but has virtually never napped more than 30-45 minutes unless he's in the car, when all bets are off and he is sparko. I would LOVE him to have a regular longer nap but maybe he just doesn't seem to fancy it. Bravegirl are you a teacher too(I assume that rather than a gymslip mum!)? I just went back too, only three days a week but it's not lovely, is it...

Elena - bang on, sadly no options for me to return p/t as I'm an asst headteacher at a secondary school, but as I'm still BF, I'm expressing 3x day at school, and have support to do so, where lessons clash.

I'm fortunate enough to live 10 mins from school, so 3 days/week I can be home by the time he wakes from his lunch time nap(currently 1-3pm (grovelling apologies to those who're not sleeping during daytime))

Gosh this thread is quiet!
Just adding to my list.

Hi all.
Bravegirl am impressed you're pumping at work - good for you.
How is weaning going for everyone? BLW going great guns here. The boys are putting away truckloads. The clearing up is a nightmare but fortunately the dog is a willing and able helper :-)

Hi
Weaning is going great - I thought I would be far too controlling for BLW but it's actually great! The control issues are merely manifesting about cutting down the milk feeds... We had so much trouble getting BFing going and getting weight on the boy that I can't let any of the milk feeds go in case he suddenly goes waiflike again. I know it's ridiculous - he's gone from near the bottom of the scale to comfortably above the 50th percentile but it's frightening. He has bottles during the day so he's now having his full bottles AND as much chow as he can get his sticky little hands on so something is going to have to give. We'll just keep posting in the roast parsnips and ham sarnies and see what happens. PS thanks a million to whoever posted the 'recipe' for the weird porridge pancake thing - it souinds so foul but boy LOVES it.

Hello - so sorry to hear about your friends and relatives Goodname. That is a lot to cope with in such a short period of time, no wonder you are feeling down.

We have just passed the 7 month mark here and Zoe has been plagued with a chesty cough the last few weeks which is disturbing her at night. She cut her first tooth a couple of days ago and is enjoying her food. She is becoming very distracted when bfing though and flicks my cover off when I am out and about, so I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to do it.

Oh dear. I'm so sorry to hear about your losses, Goodname, LaTrucha and WWISA.

Magnus has teeth coming in all over the place and is fairly miserable, so there's not much sleep to be had in our house.

Filly and Goodname I'll throw a fiver in to bet that Magnus is last to crawl. Rolling over is as much as he can manage and he doesn't like to do that very often. He is gigantic (23lb), so according to our paediatrician, it would be hard to have the muscles to shift that weight .

We've started BLW but I don't know if he's swallowing much. There's a fair amount of grimacing and spitting, and it looks like most of the food ends up on/around him. Elena67 you've reminded me I meant to try the porridge pancake.

Ah pogue it's good to find another solid baby on here, but the weight isn't stopping ds from being active. He rolls and twists and sits brilliantly (esp bearing in mind we've only just reached 6 months) and even manages to pull himself up on to his knees already. And on the bed he's managed a sort of crawl forwards, and can shuffle backwards on his back very well. So I suspect we'll be at the earlier end of the independent movement scale.

Wow! 23lb?! Isn't it amazing how different our little people are already?

It is my first day at work today. I have been in pieces for the last few days, crying far too much in front of the children. It isn't as bad as I thought now I am here (just ate my lunch without interruption and am caught up on mumsnet!) but I would rather be at home...

Ruth seems tiny by comparison. We went to get her weighed last week, and an hour and a half later found she is 16lb 6oz. But that on the centile she's been following since regaining her birth-weight, so everyone is happy.

I hope work is going ok for everyone who is back. I can't believe I was originally planning to go back last week. I managed to put it off to the full year, so my only worry now is not wanting to go back at all. But, if my cunning plan to win the lottery doesn't work then I have no choice!

I've learnt that if Ruth goes quiet, she's up to something... At the weekend she got hold of a biro someone had dropped. Whilst trying to eat it she had managed to draw all around her mouth. Thankfully it came off easily enough!

Weaning is going well. I have produced a child who loves her greens! Actually I think she might just like green, because she will go for whatever is green first whether it's a brussel sprout (to her father's disgust) or watermelon.

For those of you doing BLW, are you giving 3 meals a day? Ruth always seems to be asleep or very tired at our meal times, so we're either just giving her a bit and seeing how long she will try for, or giving her something later- which kind of goes against the ethos. Or just giving her the meals she's awake for if we're busy or out.

Barbeasty the timing thing is just the same here. I have read the Rapley book and it's great but following the ethos strictly went out of the window the first time I started posting bits of banana in because it's too slimy for him at the mo! He has food when we do but we're not exactly three regulars a day type of people so it's just happening when it happens - with the fear of giving up the milk feeds (see earlier post) I can't be called a BLW zealot but Pom seems happy enough.

Barbeasty we're doing BLW and doing 3 meals a day. Breakfast at 8am, lunch at 11:30am (to allow enough time for the babies to eat before they get too tired), and tea at 5pm. I'm going to drop a milk feed in a week or so, and when I did this with DD, I replaced it with a food snack (e.g. a banana). This seems to work well for both mid-morning and mid-afternoon milk feeds.

MonkeyMargot we have those mealtimes too for the very same reason. It has been working very well for us. Mealtimes are a big focus for me at the moment as I am also working on exposing DS2 (27mths) to more foods as he has become a bit fussy.

I still haven't read the Rapley book (will order it now) but have been just giving Zoe a mashed up version of whatever we are having and she is much easier to feed than either of my boys. I would rather she was picking things up and chomping herself though, so I really must get my head around the BLW.

Hello All.

Weaning is going very slow here, Elyssa doesn't seem that bothered at all so we are talking it very slow, somedays she won't even open her mouth.
Tried letting her take control herself offering her a crust of bread thinking she might gum it but no..it's the only time so wont put something in her mouth.

She has always had a small appetite so I'm assuming she will take to solids in her own time.

She also had her (last round for a while thank goodness)injections last week and she had trace amount of blood in her routine pee sample so we have to repeat the test next week. I'm hoping everything is ok with her abnormal kidney and its not a sign of an infection or reflux

Was a bit sad at the way the injections are done over here in US. We were told to lay her on examination table and the nurse just started poking needles in her.
Back home DH would always hold her on his lap. Maybe we should have just held on to her ourselves. Still getting use to the difference's over here.

only time she* wont open her mouth