The Final Fruition of the Frolicking Forays for the First Time Frolickers

[Spirael]

We came, we saw, we frolicked.

Now our PFB has arrived and we can begin the stressful befuddled guiltridden exhausting wonderful journey of parenthood!

(Or at the very least we can stop bothering the antenatal bunch until they join us!)

Apologies for this completely random and self-absorbed post but Worrisome I wanted to get the opinion of a BLW-er on this.

We have been doing mostly BLW but I do spoonfeed T some bits (which negates the whole thing in the eyes of the purists!). When I read the book originally I remember it said that babies will take what they need so not to limit them if they are enjoying something and not to worry if they go through fads as their bodies obviously need what they are eating. Sooo, T has a really bad cold at the minute and is looking a bit pathetic I've just given her her lunch and she literally launched herself on to the bowl of raspberries and started wolfing them down like her life depended on it. Ok, I thought, she has a cold, she needs the vitamins. But after a dozen or so, it became more "Oh christ, she is going to have the runs tomorrow if she keeps this up!" so I took them away. As you are doing "proper" BLW I wondered whether you would have just let her eat the punnet and stop when she wanted? I don't want to deprive her of what she needs but at the same time I don't want her having guts-ache as well as a cold for the whole of tomorrow!

Or anyone elses opinion, for that matter, but Worri is my BLW guru!

Sorry, fairly insignificant a post, I know!

Ooh I'm a guru!!

Well tbh I know the theory is that they will self regulate but Lochtopus (given his way) would eat his way through a 6 pack of yoghurt and a tub of cherry tomatoes, so I do limit him there! I think there has to be a bit of caution on your behalf - especially as she's already poorly. When you say she ate them, how much of the berry is she swallowing? For instance Lochie just sucks the innards of grapes and spits the skins out so he's not 'eating' as much as it may look IFYSWIM. Did you give her any other kind of fruit at the same time? Don't forget that she'll be getting the majority of her vits from the milk at this stage too. Am rambling slightly, in a nutshell I would say use your discretion and try her with something different if you think she's overdoing something! Btw don't worry too much about the spoon-feeding - at Lochie's nursery they partially spoon feed him. I was trying to decide whether to make a fuss about it but it doesn't seem to have stopped him wrenching the spoon out of my hand at any given opportunity. Tbh I'm impressed if they manage to get the spoon in his gob without him grabbing it. Are you trying her with pre loaded spoons?

zippys great that there's been no more bleeding and the symptoms sound promising too! Will cross fingers for Thurs.

bunny love the sound of Will's new game and what a clever boy saying 'there'! We've had the first 'Mama' this weekend which is lovely to hear. and Lochie is another non-nursery sleeper, little blighter! At least it seems to help him sleep through...

Roses Happy Birthday to the LO!!

pixie and worrisome I certainly don't think the theory that they self regulate applies to Will either - if he likes something enough he will eat and eat until he is sick from being overfull.

I really like blw in theory, and I was all set to do it, but then I was led by my baby to just spoon it down him as fast as I can

[waves] I'm here! I've been following the thread, but just not had time to post lately.

I did a combination of spoon-feeding and self-feeding with Mindy when she was weaning. She'd have a bowl of (soup sized) pasta for lunch with a sauce, which I'd spoon/fork feed to her. But then I'd give her some quartered baby tomatoes or cubes of cheese alongside to feed herself.

Seems to have worked out pretty well. :) She's currently able to use a spoon or fork to eat with, using the spoon to scoop things like yoghurt and the fork to stab at food. Though she did insist on stabbing her garlic bread with a fork yesterday and eating it that way, strange child!

On the self-regulating feeding front... Mindy's only recently mastered the art of stopping when she's full. Before that, she would just eat and eat and eat given half a chance...until she made herself sick.

Though it could be the only way she's now learnt to stop when full is because she's been sick a few times by pushing it. Though I don't recommend that as a training method!!

Very jealous of all the walking and talking babies!! We've only just got walking mastered here, and no words yet. However, we've been doing sign language and Mindy's mastered ones like "Hungry" and "Milk". The important ones. Is anyone else doing baby sign language with their LO?

Thanks WorrisomeGuru, sounds like we all do pretty much the same then and ignore the book on some bits! I do give her pre-loaded spoons too, but some things are so fiddly that she gets more if I "help" a little. She is a spoon-grabber too though! When I say she ate the berries, she really ate them all - she was squashing them into her mouth two at a time, not a pip wasted! And making lots of cooing, pleased noises - she has had them lots of times before but this time they obviously hit the spot!

Her talking has hit slow patch as she has mastered "No Mama" and this obviously covers so many different scenarios that anything else is superfluous So instead of cute little bits of songs and copying words I say I just get "Na, na, NAH MAMA!!!" with a tiny face. I'm liking "Dere" Bunny - that is reeeeally cute! (Doh, I actually typed in cute instead of grin then!)
Still no walking either but she does do the most hilarious dancing which makes up for it ? a kind of stepping from one foot to the other with a chin thrust! It makes me PMSL ? every time she hears any kind of music we get the head-bopping, foot-stomping. I must get a video to humiliate show her when she is older.
What else? Oh, our new flat has three stairs in the middle and after many, many failed attempts and two full on head-first plummets down them T has finally got the grip of how to get down them. Phew!

Hope the scan is going well today Roses and you see two tiny precious people waving back at you. (Your email gave me a massive grin - awwwww)

Sorry for prolonged absence, busy as usual! I have been trying to keep up with all the news but no time to post. Just popping in to let you all know that after another bad weigh in last week we had another wigh in yesterday and the HV is finally happy with Rose after she gained 6.5oz over the last week, finally we can stop worrying! :o :o :o Now i just have to hope she keeps it up as I think they were on the verge of trying to make me give her formula.

Completely knackered as she's been full of the cold so keeping me up all night with her snuffling (poor wee thing :() and she has started refusing bottles the past 3 weeks so I can't have a night off at all. Oh well, one day I might get some sleep (in about 18 years???)

Apologies for selfish post, will try to get in here more often and post proper messages, now need to go and hang out the nappies whilst the weather looks promising.

Ooh a flurry of Frolickers!

Yay for the weight gain Highheels I remember that feeling of relief when we were told we didn?t need to go in for weekly checks anymore after they realised that ?Some babies are just smaller than others?
T has a cold as well, its miserable isn?t it.

Hello Spirael! Well done to Mindy for walking and signing. I quite fancy baby signing too. When we lived out in the sticks it wasn?t available but now we are back in the smoke I should really investigate it further. I?m trying to learn T?s noises and signs but I?m sure I only get a fraction of them. Sometimes she?ll repeat a word over and over (Ning for example) and she looks so crushed that I don?t know what she?s asking for.
I was going to ask when to introduce a spoon and fork so you have answered my question. I had a look at some in a shop the other day and it said on the back of the packets not to be used before 3 years old I went away thinking I didn?t have to worry about it for ages

spirael the combo of spoon and self feeding is what I'm doing with William. He will self feed with a spoon, but prefers me to feed him so his hands are free to do more interesting stuff

Yay to Mindy for walking I'm doing signing with Will when I remember - he does "more" and very very rarely "finished" He seems to be really wanting to learn to communicate at the moment, so I might try and introduce a few more. We did a course, where we were taught some really useful signs like "spiny echidna" Will seems to have made up a load of his own signs anyway, his most recent effort is to point at something then do a come here type gesture until I give it to him......pointing is not that accurate though so it can take me a few attempts to get it right [bad mummy]

pixie Will does a funny little bopping thing when he dances that makes him look like someone's grandad at a wedding Glad Tegs has learnt to go down stairs

hh yay for weight gain, but boooo for bottle refusing. Hope Rose is feeling better soon and you get some more sleep

I was very proud when I went to collect William from daycare today. They were having a late afternoon snack, and rather than being in a highchair, William was sat on a proper chair at the table with all the bigger boys and girls feeding himself without any help from anyone I didn't even know he could sit on a chair , but now I know he can I have the perfect excuse to go to our new Ikea to get him one

Sorry I haven't been hanging out with fellow frolickers pretty much since I had Beth and got an iphone, it is so hard to post on it and I am never near a computer but will have a good catch up once B goes to bed.

I came on the say to fudgecat that I was thinking about you on Saturday, as I do from time to time. I couldn't find the thread and you may not stop by often but i just wanted to know you were in my thoughts.

Hope everyone is doing well ... back hopefully in an hour or two!

luckyseven Join us on facebook! bunny set the group up so if you scroll back the directions to join the group should be around. If not pm me and I'll send you the link.

HH That's brilliant news about weight gain. Hope the cold goes soon. Same to you cherry

spireal Great news about the walking. When did you start sign language? I've emailed locally about one and one might be starting up. Hannah will be 6mo in a couple of weeks. Is that a good age to start?

I am loving these dancing baby images - get them on video and onto fb!

Not much new here, sleeping is still a bit rubbish but we have made some progress. She falls asleep by herself, she occasionally takes longer naps, can go nearly 5 hours without a feed (on a very good night) and sometimes only wakes 3 times in 12 hours (twice when i'm asleep) Honestly this is good compared to how she used to be!

Started weaning last week, she doesn't seem sure of it yet and I'm undecided whether to go down the puree or BLW route. So far her favourite is toast and butter. She licks the butter off and them gums the bread. I felt bad as she is only 25 weeks but figured a week wouldn't make too much difference. When I put the bread down I figured she would just throw it on the floor like she did the carrot batons but no, she loved it.

She is sitting like a pro. Lots of comments about her good balance but she hasn't rolled again and shows no signs of crawling.

She is the softest baby in the world too, really easily intimidated. I wish I had a confident social baby but I guess I should just make the most of the cuddles.

roses I hope all was well today and zippys I hope things are still ok with you. I bet this week has dragged but Thursday will soon be here.

Hello everyone,

I haven't been able to post for a while - literally haven't been able to as the internet/mumsnet decided not to like me and the last post that I wrote got deleted. :( Hopefully a move to GoogleChrome will help solve that!

Firstly, I wanted to say to fudge that I was thinking about you, your DH and little Elliot all weekend and hope that you had a peaceful time together remembering your little star.

I've been reading all about these walking, talking babies and still can't imagine that DS will ever be that grown-up! The dancing sounds fab too!

roses, congratulations on the second-time-frolicking and your double blessing of twins! I was so excited to read that! I do hope that all went well with the scan.

zippys, I remember you too and have everything crossed for your scan on Thursday. I will be thinking about you and checking in, and hoping that the little bean is just getting itself nice and comfortable.

bunny, I'd love to join the facebook group if that's allowed? I can't find the link though...

So, update from me:
A is just over 6 months old now, but is definitely not there in terms of development - more like a 4/5 month old, bless him. He's not sitting or rolling, though he gets closer to both every week. He's growing really well, sticking quite closely to his line on the centile graph and has just hit the 15lb mark. I've finally put away all of his 0-3 month clothes and have embraced 3-6 month, though he is swamped by some of them!

We started weaning last week but have not had much success yet. Again, this is a problem with his development not matching his dietary requirements. He is EBF and has never been a great fan of having things put in his mouth (he has refused bottles, dummies...) but he just doesn't have the coordination to pick things up and put them in his mouth when he is sitting in his bumbo / highchair. I'm trying not to stress about it and just take things very slowly, and the last two attempts have resulted in about 35% swallowed, which is an improvement! Now that I've worked out that he likes things runny, I know what to do with that, but I'd like him to do some finger-feeding as soon as he can. His tongue-thrust reflex is still very strong too, which doesn't help!

Sleeping is on and off. The last six nights we have had 2 nights of 1 wake, 2 nights of 2 wakes, and 2 nights of 3/4 wakes. He refuses to self-settle in the evening (despite often managing it for daytime naps) which I expect doesn't help, and once he has woken up at night, he will not go back to sleep without either an hour of screeching at DH, or a quick feed. We went through a really good sleep phase where he self-settled at 7pm, had one feed at 1-ish and if he woke after that, a quick chatter to his fairy lights (which I'd nip in to turn on) sent him back to sleep. That game is so last month, though! I find it hard to know whether to just give in and feed him (which takes max. 20 minutes in the night) or get DH up to try to settle him and often end up lying awake listening to him cry and then feed him in the end!

Finally, we are off to Orlando on Saturday for a fortnight! Yes, I am totally crazy to voluntarily endure a 9 hour flight with a six-month-old but I'm hoping that we survive to tell the tale. We are going with my parents so at least a 4:1 ratio will spread the load if he gets upset/sore/cross. Any last minute tips for long haul flights and holidaying in a hot country with a baby?

When we're back, I hope I can be a more regular contributor!

Ozzie your joint birthday bbq with wine sounds fantastic, i think it is great what they doover there getting new mums of a similar age together. A really good friend of mine is in Sydney and she is so close to her mums and bubs group and they even all go away together as families, very cute! Will sounds like a real wee character and boo to the pesky sandwhich stealing birds!

halo thanks for the fb invite will look back for it, had a quick look at your pictures of Hannah and she is so smiley and cute. It scares me how quickly they are turning from babies into wee people. Good luck with the weaning, beth is a carboholic and just loves bread. I didn?t do baby led weaning as she started solids just before she was 5 months but I try to give her as much finger food as possible. I love to cook but found weaning really stressful just trying to think of things for her to eat as she would eat yogurts and carrot crunchies til the cows come home! I overextended myselaF a bit on Sunday and accidentally ended up cooking for over 4 hours ? 5 annabel karmel meals in double portions, two soups and Sunday dinner but now I have a well stocked freezer and don?t feel guilty about giving her mashed potato and yogurt for tea now that I am back at work ? bad mummy!

cherry how are you getting on with deciding what to do about work? I have been back for just over three weeks now and it was a lot easier to go back than i thought but i didn?t prepare myself for the amount of organising there is in the evening. I am back f/t, i asked or 4 days back in January and it took them ?til June to say they haven?t got round to considering it yet. We are goingthrough a restructure and there may be redundancies so I am just going to sit it out and see what happens. Now I am back 5 days it is doable but i have flexible working and get in just after 8 and when i can leave at 4 to collect from nursery and go to the park or the library while there is still enough light. I am so busy at work that i don?t have time to miss her but I have to stop myself from running across the nursery car park and up the stairs the three days that she is there. My family take her one day and my mil comes to the house the other day so it seems to be working so far and the mil coming makes me/us clean the house on a Thursday night!

roses congratulations! I can?t imagine how tired you must be right now.Hope you get to enjoy the first birthday party in a way that suits you, after all a first birthday is also a celebration of everything you and dh have achieved in 1 year. Beth?s falls just before Christmas so i think we will just do an open house on the Sunday and keep it low key and try to stagger people as our wee house is not great for entertaining. Having people round, even the low maintenance ones is stressful at the best of times so go easy on yourself. Flip ? i have just read you are expecting twins ? wow, double congratulations!

zippys i really hope everything works out for you on Thursday, please let us know how you get on. Ell done on your weight loss that is fantastic. Not sure how you did it but i recently joined slimming world to lose the weight i should have lost pre-pregnancy and I think it is great. I have lost 10lbs in 4 weeks just need to stay away from bread (ah!) and cheese (ah!) and wine (ah!) and sweets (ah!).

worrisome i hear you on the teething trauma, i think we are nearly on the other side with the top two now cut but boy were they hard work. Vile nappies, grumpy baby, grumpy mum and then hyper baby as i didn?t realise that you can get sugar free calpol! Beth is also using her teeth, the other day she used them to grip onto my boob and pull herself up to standing on my knee, the wee tike! Wine is most definitely a teething survival essential. You probably have already tried them but i thing the nelsons teethas that you can get in Boots are a great quick fix.

tribble are you formerly hermya?

mrsw hope holiday was good after shaky start, my parents missed their flight last week by getting the time wrong, despite the fact i pointed out they kept complaining about dierent early morning flight times and they missed check in by 2 mins but this time it was Thompson. They had to buy new flights but won?t say how much they cost! Hope Robyn is doing well, can?t believe she has her first tooth already and i love her name if i haven?t said before.

crazy sorry to hear you are having feeding issues, you are doing really well to stick at it, I managed exclusively for 4 months but went away for 2 nights on a hen weekend and even though I expressed totally messed up my supply so had to give up completely at 6 months cause i wasn?t sure she was even getting any anymore. When I read about those still doing it it makes me miss the closeness and the cuddles.

highheels hopefully your little one is a wee bit more settled, for what it is worth Beth has no real routine for naps etc and she is 9 months old today, she will sleep in the car and in the buggy but I never achieved anything in the day as i could never be sure if she did sleep how long it would last! Looking back I probably should have put her down in the cot more to try and get her over but until she was moving i would just let her fall asleep on the playmat, put a blanket over her and try and get a quick tea, coffee or sandwhich. I found a big difference in her after 12 weeks after not knowing night from day for the first 6 weeks and then colic for the next 6. It does get easier, the wee tears can be heartbreaking.

So sorry if I have missed anyone or said anything insensitive as i have only read back a couple of pages so far.
As for me wee Beth, who is not so wee any more turned nine months today. She is super tall (98th percentile) but she didn?t really stand a chance as we are both tall. She is such good fun and changing all the time, yesterday when i picked her up from nursery she gave me a big affectionate slobber which was very cute, if not a bit snotty! I am so grateful she is a good sleeper once she eventually worked out night from day. I am back at work now but have had to take a few Thursdays off ?cause my parents keep going on holiday but it means i get to spend time with her and go o her baby sensory class which I love as much as she does. halo has friended me and put me in the secret group so i can be a much better frolicker from now on!

Hi. Very quick post - only had a quick skim through thread - it's been so busy over the last few days! Anyway, birthday went great. As did scan. 13wks today, EDD March 27th (though twins are normally early).

Zippys - am going to my parents for a couple of days so prob won't get on to post again before your scan. Want to wish you all the luck in the world. x

just a quickie - YAY for scan roses & fingers crossed for thurs zippy, hope you're feeling ok at the moment.

Hello luckyseven and kurly lovely to hear from you both! Will reply properly when I get a chance tomorrow. Kurly, you need to be friends on FB with a member of the group so that they can add you. If you're already FB friends with a member then get them to add you, or if you want to PM me I can friend request you then add you.

Eeeee lots to catch up on but it's a bit late in the day for a full post so...

Roses Yay for scan, 27th March is my brothers birthday too and happy belated birthday to J
Lucky Good to hear from you again :)
Kurly Have a fab holiday
Halo Weaning is underway in the Wajs household too and R is only just 5 months, going for the puree option to begin with - see my FB page for R's thoughts on broccoli!! Hilarious.

And to the rest of you I will catch up tomorrow properly :)

roses yay for scan. Glad J's birthday went well

lucky good to see you again. I think you meant me when you said ozzie I do love my mother's group - it is such a fantastic idea and means we get a little support network right from the start. I think I was lucky though as we all get on, I know of other people where there's been some major personality clashes and the group just hasn't worked.

Glad Beth's doing well, and things are going ok at work

halo yay for better sleep. It sounds like Hannah's well on her way to being a good sleeper It started weaning Will at 17wks cos I just couldn't keep up with his monster appetite with milk alone at that point

kurly I'm sure A will catch up soon enough. One of the babies in my mother's group was about the same number of weeks prem as he was, and while she was behind all the others till about 7mths she suddenly just grew and grew and grew and figured out rolling, sitting and crawling in about a 2 week period. She went from below the 2nd percentile for height and weight, to the 50th in 1 month Now you can't tell the difference between her and all the full term babies, and in fact she's bigger than some of them now.

We did the 24hr flight to the UK when Will was 6mths - it wasn't half as bad as I was expecting. He did get really dehydrated and thirsty though, so I BFed him every 2hrs or so. We took our Ergo baby carrier on with us, and it was a lifesaver as if he got difficult to settle, he would fall asleep pretty quickly if we walked up and down with him in that. It was also much easier getting around the airport with him in that as we had enough hands free to carry the 600000 bags we needed

As for coping with the heat -remember to offer him feeds more often, or sips of water if he's having that. Keep him in the shade during the hottest part of the day, and it can get really really hot for them in a pram/ pushchair, so just check he's not overheating in there.

thank you for all thinking of us. I am currently sat at home crying my eyes out, I lost little pip yesterday and devestated would be an understatement. I feel like my heart is breaking.

I know there is the positive that it means I can get pregnant but that really doesnt help right now.

Good luck with your parenthood journeys anf thank you for all the support you guys have given me over the years. I hope to back with better news soon.

xxx

Oh zippys, I'm so sorry to hear that. You're allowed to feel devastated - I feel awful for you. I hope that your DP is able to be home with you soon to have cuddles and cry together. Are you able to take some time off work?

Oh Zippys what an awful thing to happen. I'm so so sad for you and your DP. Lots of our Frolickers are proof that a miscarriage can often lead very quickly to a successful pregnancy but I'm sure thats not much consolation today Be gentle with yourself.

Really sorry to hear that, Zippys. :( Definitely take some time off work and make sure you get lots of TLC. I had an early loss first time around and found my emotions were all over the place for about two weeks afterwards.

Also, don't let anyone tell you that you have to wait months afterwards before starting TTC again, if you want to. You can start again as soon as you feel ready - the doctors tell you otherwise because it makes their lives harder with date prediction if you don't have a 'first day of last period' for them.

I also found doctors and even family/friends kept spouting stuff like "chemical pregnancy", "barely even alive", "fatally flawed" and such rubbish. If anyone says anything like that to you, just ignore them! They just don't understand the grief of losing that tiny life, no matter how small it was.

I totally agree that there is good evidence that fertility is heightened for a few months following an early miscarriage. Most likely to do with your body having gained experience.

One thought of comfort now I'm much further down the track, is to think that the one lost helped pave the way for another new life a couple of months later. Kind of like they actually worked together to make one beautiful baby. :)

I hope, when you're ready, you'll be able to find the same thing and we'll see you back here soon! [hugs]

Oh zippy so sorry to see your news . Thinking of you and your DP and we WILL see you back here again very soon. Please take care of yourself xxxxx

so sorry to read your news zippy, thinking of you and sending lots of love your way xxx

Oh zippys I'm so so sorry for your loss

Zippys I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. Take care of yourself and I hope we see you here again soon.xx

zippys so sorry to hear your news. Take care of yourself. Xx