November 2010: Welcome to life on the other side

[bunnygirl80]

Pull up a chair and help yourself to a LARGE glass of wine

Welcome to the dark side the wonderful world of motherhood

Hi all, sorry for the total lack of posts, our internets been off or super slow for ages. Hopefully its better now

Annabels weaning is going well, we're up to two meals a day of veg/ potato/ pasta and shes taken to ham and chicken too. Still nursing well tho, and I've started giving small amounts of water while its so warm.

Shes sitting up too now, still a bit wobbly but is improving almost daily

Off to catch up with everyone else now

Well I'll bow to your superior experience 4mad, although in my defense it was raw and still had skin on it. That'll teach me to peel stuff

Cooee Mibby sounds like Annabel's doing great.

Boris are you married yet?

Ooh, going to leave you all now, House is on

ah see i would be more worried about him choking on it if it was raw and not peeled. honestly i have worried with all mine, they all choke and splutter etc at some point, but it can be very scary.

even when they are older, when ds2 was about five i had to pick him up and tip him upside down and WACK him on his back as the silly sod had swallowed some lego and it was stuck in his throat and he was choking, it came out covered in blood! it was one of those lego 'gears' pieces and the edges are sharp and it had been well and truly stuck, it was very frightening.

if you can i recomend doing a child first aid course, they are very good and at least then you will feel you are prepared just in case.

Thanks for the bottle feeding tips fen and sgj I offered him one again yesterday and he guzzled the whole lot in about 30secs so I think perhaps he just needs to be really hungry to take one.

4mad I'm also ignoring the sleeping through comments. Had a horrible night last night - William woke at 1:30am for a feed but for some reason couldn't go back to sleep and I was up with him until 3:30 before he settled. He does generally sleep in until 7 though - I often hear him stir at 6ish, but as long as he's not crying I don't go into him and he usually dozes back off. Not sure it'd be possible to do that if there were 5 of him though

fen I don't think you were being pfb, especially if it was a chunk of raw veg. I suppose there is the school of thought that they won't try and eat something they can't cope with, but it's still a bit scary. I'm a bit lax about the degree of mashing I do with William's food, and on the odd occasion he's ended up with a lump to big for him to deal with he's done a big gag and spat it out himself.

We did an infant first aid course, and it does make me feel better knowing what to do if he ever does properly choke. They also made the point that if something is square/irregular in shape it's less likely to totally obstruct their airway, so even if it does get stuck they will still get some oxygen, whereas round stuff can completely block their airways off.

William's sitting pretty well now, as long as someone's near by. He'll sit for 10mins quite happily if me or DH is hovering over him, but as soon as I leave the immediate area he will topple over in whichever direction there is a 1mm gap in the cushions so he can make a sickening thud as his little nose hits the floor He managed to get up onto his hands and knees last night so I think crawling will be happening in the next few weeks.....probably while my back is turned so I'll get the opportunity to look at his empty palymat and wonder where he's gone

Hi all!

All going really well and Evie really is the most perfect little thing that's ever happened to me/us! She's been sitting up unaided for about 4 weeks (wheres that gone?!!) which makes life a lot easier! I now tend to get her dressed sat up once her nappys on which she likes as she can see! Feels like she's suddenly turned from a baby to a little girl as she really is into everything and seems to study everything around her with such concentration, but also seems to really understand!!
Another one who also hunches her knees up when on her tummy now so not sure crawling is going to be too far away! I'd hoped she would be sitting up before we go in holiday to Greece on 10th June.....but didn't even think for 1 minute she would be almost crawling!

Don't want to rub it in to all people needing lots of sleep......so feel free to skip.......but she goes to bed at 7.30/8pm and wakes at about 7am every night which is heaven! We went away to visit family at Easter and I worried it may mess up her routine a bit as she had a couple of later nights, but she was a little star, slept like a dream in the travel cot & back to 12/13 hours with no probs :)

I've dropped a bottle so she is now having 4 240ml A day and has veg, then fruit & water at lunch. Seems to be going really well and she sure loves her food! I also worry a bit about finger food so your not alone fen. She has mashed food now instead of purees which she's fine with as chews a bit, but when she's feeding herself I worry she will take to much in her mouth!
I don't think it helps that I heard a horror story from a lady at swimming the other day about her friends baby who had choked on a whole grape, it cut off his air supply and he is now brain damaged :( confirms what you said about round things bunny!
Only giving her soft/Disolvable things for her to eat herself at the mo!

Does anybody have a baby who cries at certain people??! When we were away, Evie met new people & was full of smiles and giggles
Etc! When she sees most of my blood relatives....she cries at them as soon as they walk in the room! Now don't get me wrong...they make me want to cry to a lot of the time! do you think she could be picking up on how I feel about them?? She only seems to do it to people that I don't really take to (polite way of saying 'get on my blimin nerves!!')

........just realised this post is HUGE, so sorry for self indulgent post! Will stop now

Wow at all these sleeping, sitting, soon to be crawling babies..... [cgrin] Abbie still wobbles over when sitting and is still waking once in the night. She goes to bed at 7pm and wakes any time between 3 and 4am and then goes back to sleep til 7 or 8am so could be worse. She's just cut a tooth and seems much happier now. Foodwise, she seems to love her food. I've stuck to fruit and veg but she'll be 6mths on Friday so will get a bit more adventurous.

Mad I hate early mornings too. I've put blackout blinds in Ds's room and he rarely wakes before 7am. Worth a try?

Babybean Evie sounds fab. As for grapes, always cut them in half length ways before giving to babies/toddlers as they can completely block the airways when whole due to their shape. Chunks of sausage is another to watch for. A lot of places do a basic first aid for parents course which covers things like CPR and what to do if your baby is choking. I have to do a 12hr paediatric first aid course soon as need to update it every 3 years for work. We must meet up soon. Evie can show Abbie how it's all done! [cgrin]

Off to The BCH this afternoon as Ds has his heart check up. I always get very nervous before hand but hopefully it will be another 'come back in 9mths'.

We had a lovely time in Pembrokeshire over Easter. Ds loved the beach. It was a little too hot for Abbie but she was really good as well. Her sleep was really erratic one night but then I felt her first tooth the next morning when she had a good chomp! [chmm] Ouch!

Hope everyone is enjoying this weather. [csmile]

Hope every one enjoyed the lovely sunny Easter. We went over to my parents to meet up with the whole family. They have a fantastic huge garden so was great for the kids in this weather. It was the first time my brother has met Lottie too and she thought he was great, he's quite a big man and she seemed most intrigued by his hugeness. Dh and I are both midgets, I think she thought he was a giant.

Wow, sitting, sleeping, eating, nearly crawling babies! Lottie is now 28 weeks, sitting? No. Sleeping? No (still waking at least twice to feed). Teeth? No. Eating? Not great but getting better, still refusing a cup or bottle . She is very fat and cute though .

I'm also not great at the non puréed food, Lottie loves chewing on a crust of bread but I'm on edge the whole time. Dh is worse though and refuses to give her anything lumpy as he panics so much! I keep reminding him that it'd be most odd if we forced her to live off mush for the next 18 yrs as she has to learn to chew some time.

Also discovered the stuff the gp prescribed for her eczema actually makes it worse, have switched back to aveeno which is working much better so another trip to the doctor I think.

Hope all goes well with your ds's check up ebb.

Off out to collect dd1 from school and enjoy the sunshine now .

feels better hearing about other babies that dont sleep through

Ebb we have a blackout blind BUT there is a little gap at the top of the window where the material isnt flush to the wall iyswim? and so some light comes around there and 'ping' merryn awakes and sees it and then lays staring at it cooing and babbling, i keep trying to shove the dummy in, rock her etc and sometimes that willwork and she will go back off, but the past week or so it hasnt worked and she has just been awake, quite happy but VERY loud and babbly. she is definitely going through a phase of experimenting with sound a lot, and can make quite a range of funny noises etc, but at 5am i am its not so cute

oh and i shall whisper this, having only drunk 4oz a time for AGES merryn has gradually worked her way up to 5oz and then the last two weeks she has been draining a 5oz bottle, so today ihave given her 6oz for her feeds and she has drunk it all no problems! i dont imagine it will make her sleep any better, but its good to see her appetite increase and she actually gets excited now when she sees the bottle and as long as its warm enough (she is very picky at the temp) then she will drink it happily and isnt fussing like she used to :) touches wood

I knew it, as soon as I wrote it down and sent it out in to the world, the magic sleep spell was broken. Goodbye, nights of 13 hours sleep... I think there are a couple of teeth about to poke through, she's been a right grump during the day today too!

We also get a good 15-30 mins of Jessica's happy babbling every morning, but I'm so excited to see her every morning that I don't often leave it very long until I get her up! GEEK!

babybean I've tried reading your posts about Evie to William in the hope he'll get the message and try and copy, but so far he's not interested

No idea what the crying around your family means - William's not fussy who's holding him as long as he has a crowd of adoring fans paying attention to him he's happy. If they stress you out she might be picking up on your emotions, I know Will's suddenly become much more sensitive to that sort of thing. Last time me and DH fought disagreed about something Will's little face crumpled and he burst into tears

I have to keep telling myself that not sleeping through at his age is normal (or at least the majority of babies I know don't) but I just don't get why 2 weeks ago I dropped the dream feed and he slept from 6:30 till 3 and then through till 7, yet this week he's waking for food at 10pm, 1am and 4am Actually, I think he's genuinely having a growth spurt as he is guzzling his milk and eating all the solids I put in front of him and asking for more.

The only baby I know in RL that's the same age as Will and regularly sleeps through is the most high maintenance little thing - she screams at the slightest thing and still takes 60mins to complete a feed (breast or bottle) and will have a meltdown if you try and rush her, so the 13 hours she's asleep overnight is the only time my friend gets any kind of break. Poor woman won't go further than 10 mins from home in case her DD wants feeding as she's fed up of being stuck in cafes/feeding rooms for an hour each time. I think I prefer my little smiler and getting up in the night to that.

Your friends baby sounds like a bit of nightmare bunny and agree that i would opt for a happy baby instead of a sleeping one if i had to choose!! Im very lucky in that Evie is a real happy contented little lady when shes awake so get the best of both worlds :)

I know a few other mums with babies similar ages and even older (sorry :() in RL and they also regulary wake in the night, so guessing i am just lucky. If i could guarentee all future babies would be like Evie.....i'd have hundreds!

Testing time today as i am taking Evie to my mums whilst i finish end of month stuff for our business. She has been better with my mum the last few times, so fingers crossed she will be today! I can never concentrate properly leaving her with anyone other than DH, and its always worse knowing shes not so sure of them!! Its really bad say, but she really only does seem to get upset by people that are either a few sandwiches short of a picnic! (excuse the expression!) and also ive noticed that it seems to be people that smoke! I'm only talking about a handful of people, but they all seem to have that in common! Hey maybe she doesnt like the smell of smoke like me!......My mum wasnt the one i meant about being a few sandwiches short of picnic by the way, otherwise she definitely wouldnt be looking after her!!

Love it SGJ and dont think your a geek at all! DH is the same so i get to have a few extra minutes in bed whilst he gets up and changes her nappy first thing in the morning :)

Glad Merryn is drinking more 4mad. Always reassuring to see an empty bottle isnt it?

Hope Lottie's eczema isnt too bad hmm and the docs can give you someting that works! Is the heat making it any worse?

Looking forward to meeting up Ebb. Bet it will be surprising how much they've both changed!!

Right, off to rescue Evie's elephant from her babbling after nap time!

Marking place. Will be back!

Hello all, anyone remember me???
Isaac is 6 months on the 9th, very scary and feeling a tad upset its going so fast as I fear DP will not budge on a DC3 so looking like hes my last baby :(

We have no sitting up, rolling, crawling but a baby that loves to eat.
Grabs at everything with both hands and I fear is teething now

He went for a check up today at the hospital about his eczema and thankfully been told to take him off the strong ointments he was on and just use a lotion now plus I can finally take him swimming :)

This was him Saturday, first time at the coast if you can call it it
www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=8543153&l=22b6be4c79&id=556452455
Hoping we will be on some thai beach come boxing day for SIL's 30th
Thankfully the inlaws are sweethearts and paying for our tickets to HK so that saves us trying to find £2000+ just for tickes for the 4 of us, nightmare

[cgrin] at all of us posting quickly to mark our place and then never quite getting the time to write a full post!

Hi all,

Fen not married yet . Hen night next Sat and wedding on 28th May - really will have to pull my finger out soon.

Rinny have seen your FB pics and Isaac is so handsome as is your DD. Glad to heat is eczema is improving.

and hello to everyone else too!

Astrid is now 23 weeks (where did that go?) and I only know this beacuse the HV told me on Thurs when I got her weighed (Astrid that is, not the HV ). She now weighs in at a dinky 15lbs, despite rapidly growing out of all her 6-9 month clothes. Still not weaning as yet, due to her weight gain. I did try a couple of days and she ate no problems but dropped from 4 bottles down to 3, so I decided to leave it another couple of weeks. Still no sitting here either and she has only just tonight rolled over for the first time hooray. My other two are now determined she'll be crawling by next week.

Sleepwise (look away now 4mad) she's a wee dream and goes around 12 hours every night! Also, she is the happiest baby I have ever seen, she literally does not cry - honest injun guvnor. I did think about mentioning it to the HV, but thought she would think I was a bit mad or something....so have decided just to appreciate the fact that i have a happy child!

Right am off to bed, as supposed to be going to Salisbury races tomorrow - if the weather is nice and DPs hangover isn't too awful.

babybean you could end up like my MIL - her first baby was such a delight that she went and got pg again when he was 5mo......by the time DH arrived 9 months later the perfect baby had become a nightmare toddler Although I'm sure Evie will be a little angel forever

rinny glad Isaac's eczema is improving.

boris hope you have fun at the races

I weighed and measured William today, and he is now longer than the government issue tape measure that I'm meant to use and he's now well over the 97th percentile for length.

He's also ticked off another 2 milestones this weekend - he pulled himself up to standing yesterday, and today he picked up a toy using a perfect pincer grip [proud and slightly competitive mummy emoticon]

We're going to miss mother's day here next weekend as we'll be back in the UK, so DH and William decided we would celebrate today. They took me out for a lovely breakfast, and then they were going to wait on me hand and foot all day. Unfortunately they were so worn out from walking 5 mins up the road to get breakfast they both needed a 2 hour nap at lunchtime

Boris well, get a move on! [cgrin] Hope you enjoyed your day at the races.

We are also counting our blessings with Norry. He really doesn't cry unless he needs something and he's so cheerful, always grinning. I do hope he doesn't turn into a screaming toddler (i.e. I hope he takes after his father, not his hot headed mother )

Well, I hope you've all had (having) lovely weather for the bank holiday weekend [cenvy] We don't get Monday off as the 1st is a Sunday and I had to watch the royal wedding at work, but we've had summer weather for the last few days so we went to a country park for a picnic today. Lovely!

Oh dear, Lottie really does seem the opposite to all these happy sleeping smiley babies. If she's unhappy about something she really lets you know and in generally has a rather austere manner. She will smile but only in a 'well I suppose you're mildly amusing' way before going back to her usual stony glare. Dh says she takes after me.

She's also become very clingy, she's OK if I'm not in the room but if she can see me then that's it, it has to be me feeding holding her. The look in her eyes reminds me of cartoons, I think she looks at me and sees one big milk bottle.

Thankfully the food situation is improving. We've discovered that she much prefers whatever we're eating mashed up or chewing on a hunk of bread to purées. She's also started drinking water from a cup so hoping we'll be able to get her drinking milk that way soon.

Glad to hear everyone is well and loving all the fb photos (nosey).

Good luck ebb :)

sitting - with hands down but v unreliable

eating - not weaning yet

sleeping - still feeding in night (co-sleeping)

hmm fen boris I'm another one with a smiler, although he's not great at sleeping.

In fact, my most PFB moment to date would be when I considered taking him to the doctor at 5 weeks old because he rarely cried and I was convinced this was a symptom of some terrible illness Glad I saw sense before I actually made an appointment, although I suppose it would have given my GP a laugh!

Lol bunny, H doesn't really cry either but he shouts a fair bit!

I forgot some things on my list...

rolling - not really, has done once or twice with no nappy on

babbling - yes a lot!

Sorry about lack of sentences - it's quicker!

have to say merryn is in general a happy little thing, and is entertained by the boys which is good, she LOVES to be naked, so when she is whingy i often just strip her off and lay her on a towel and she will wriggle and roll around, she is very good at wriggling off the towel and then weeing on the carpet

she was a bit fussy with her feed this morning, unusual for her as she had got better but she has a cough and is being a bit pukey so thats probably why?

re sitting merryn is trying to sit and can balance for ten secs or so and so we are sitting with her and letting her practise, to encourage her and hopefully she will be sitting soon, i htink she will be really pleased to be sitting up and be able to see more whats going on. she LOVES sitting in her bumbo on the dining rm table when we are eating dinner or on the worktop in the kitchen when i am washing up.. tho ds1 pointed out to me that it says on the bumbo NOT to use on raised surfaces, but i am right there next to her so i figure thats fine.

is anyone else finding that the babies are now happy to stay awake longer? merryn used to consistently need a nap 2hrs ish after waking but now she can be awake for 3 hrs or longer inthe morning before needing to nap, in the afternoon she cant go as long and is more grizzly but still generally a content little thing, tho she does like to be held, thankfully having an 11 yr old means he can hold her sometimes

hmmsleep, glad she is getting the hang of eating nad drinking from a cup, means there is light at the end of the tunnel and she may start taking milk that way!

Hello all,
Sorry not been on properly for ages, dp had time off work, then we had family to stay which was lovely.
Up until a week ago I would have said Finn was a total ray of sunshine, always smiley and content, very placid. But since last week he has totally changed and is now constantly grumpy, shouting at all his toys, arching his back/ screaming after a few minutes in his biuncer/ walker/ bumbo etc and just generally looking cross and frustrated. It is soooo hard, i can temporarily make him hapoy by giving him constant attention, which is just not practical.
It is getting me down as I really don't have a clue what is wrong or how to make it bettwr. There have been lots of tears ( mine) this week. Even now trying to write this he is is moaning. Any ideas?

He is 22 weeks today, and still not interested in rolling. He can sit unaided for 5-10 minutes which he loves, and makes his bath times more fun.

Going to try solids this week. Any suggestions for best time in day to try? Will prob do baby rice

Got to go as can't hear myself think

Sorry to hear you're having a hard time at the moment Lainey . Could Finn be teething? From experience with my older 2 these trying phases do pass then crop up again and I'm sure you'll have a happy baby back soon. Not much comfort in the meantime I know, fingers crossed he settles soon.

Just back from gp with Lottie. Annoyingly he thinks her eczema is now infected so have been prescribed antibiotics, steroid cream, piriton and a new eczema cream, not looking forward to getting that lot in and on her. If things haven't improved by Friday I have to go back, so hopefully it'll start to get better soon.

Gggr just lost my post, will start again.

Thanks hmm fingers crossed it is a phase that passes v soon.

Poor Lottie, hope the abs etc sort her skin out. finn's eczema is improving now we are using diprobase cream and ointment when i remember
Tho he has a lovely habit of scratching his face by rubbing it on my clothes. Lots of lovely flakes of dna to accessorise with - nice!

Anyone have a recommendation for a good highchair? Have found this one www.mothercare.com/Arc-Highchair-with-SteriTouch-Leaf/dp/B0030SS97K?ie=UTF8&ref=sr_1_1&nodeId=44567031&sr=1-1&qid=1304419377&pf_rd_r=19KCBTP79VZMVR8ZGCQ1&pf_rd_m=A2LBKNDJ2KZUGQ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=42862041&pf_rd_p=231490867&pf_rd_s=related-tab-3-5
on mothercare, think it looks good but don't have a clue really. Excited/nervous about getting started with weaning. Not looking forward to the nappies.
Colchester/ norwich type people are we still planning meet up?