August 2010 - new thread ladies!

[Chulita]

New thread cos we've nearly filled the last one!

marzipananimal - well Miss E loved swimming, gasped a bit when she'd been underwater for the first time but generally seemed to enjoy it.Going again for lesson number 2 next week but hoping to go on Sunday with her and DH.

The weaning debate is very confusing, I'm just going with my instincts - so far fruit and veg is being very well received .

Hi all today has not been a good day

If anyone remembers last week I was at a and e with our lodger?

Anyway he had results of scan today and turns out he has a tumour in his stomach.

Chemo and radio next week but only 1 dose of each.

Had a shocker of a night with T last night and am really tired but have been up talking with him and even now I am in bed I can't switch off and sleep.

Sorry for maudlin and non baby related post..

Oh girls that is awful news - hopefully the treatment will sort things out, I'm not surprised you couldn't switch off. I hope you managed to get some sleep.

GYA
Sorry to hear the bad news, hope you managed to get some sleep and fingers crossed the treatment works. Take care of yourself x

gya that's horrible for him and you :( I hope T gives you an easier night so you can catch up on some sleep.

Anyone know anything about weaning and reflux? Not sure if there's any foods (apart from dairy obviously) I should avoid and I think he might be struggling to keep lumps down :(

Whatever happened to Sunday being a day of rest?

So far I've done an hours ironing, two loads of washing,prepared this evenings meal, been swimming with DH and Miss E and cleaned the kitchen, the house still looks a tip but I'm winning the battle with the ironing / washing.

Any tips for keeping on top of the housework gratefully received...

GYA, that's awful, your poor lodger.

My nephew had terrible reflux every time he had dairy, until 1yo. Don't worry about lumps yet, they get used to them I think. Speak to your health visitor if you are worried.

Dogwalker, you remind me of me first time around! I thought 'what's that baby rice crap?' but I soon realised it is kind of magic in terms of settling them/helping them sleep (that was my experience anyway). It also helps thicken up watery fruit and veg so makes it easier for them to eat it. But lots of people never use it and get on just fine so whatever works for you!

I started Daniel on Thursday with some apple and baby rice. He had started waking 3 times a night and I was exhausted. He slept through 11pm-6am Friday night and 10.30pm-7am last night! He wasn't going more than 2-3hrs between feeds before. Even though this is my second time weaning I am pretty amazed that it has worked that well.

The bmj weaning report is just what we've been saying on here - as long as your LO is over 17 weeks its fine. Babies are ready some time between 17 and 26 weeks, and after three kids I think you just know when the time is right. But the longer you wait the better I think. I think they say 6mths because if they said 17wks some people would start at 10, and there is no danger in waiting till 26wks, BM has evolved over millions of years to provide perfect nutrition for babies .

What has really annoyed me is the way the news twisted the report to make it a negative about Bfing, to say things like 'new conflicting evidence about how long a woman should BF for' (fivelive news) and 'does breastfeeding cause allergies?' (The Wright Stuff phone-in!). The Express even had a headline 'Mothers' Milk may not be best after all' That is not what the new report was saying at all!

nat, interesting article about SAHMs but if she hadnt got divorced she would be fine! She may look back now and think going pt was a mistake but bringing up kids and working ft probably would have made her miserable if she'd chosen that path. I know it would me. You have to work hard on your marriage (and marry the right person in the first place!) and then bringing up kids won't leave you destitute.

gya you poor thing, hope things get better for all of you soon.

This is my third attempt to post today, the internet keeps crashing. Grrr.

Basically the whole sleep thing is getting worse and worse, can't get Elodie down until 10.30, 11.30, something like that. That's with starting bedtime with a bath at 6.30pm... then she gets fed, if she falls asleep I move her and if I'm lucky she stays asleep. Otherwise I try and rock her to sleep but that's working less and less, I keep trying to settle her using white noise (which works for naps in the pram) but she ends up getting het up and I end up picking her up and she is suddenly very awake, not particularly hungry and impossible to rock to sleep. At 9.30-10 I usually give up and go to bed with her then entice her to feed again until she eventually goes to sleep. I know I'm not being consistent and I would be happy to stick with something for as long as it took as long as I knew it was going to work... Napswise, she has 1-1.5 hours in the morning and 2-2.5 in the afternoon, awake by 4.30pm usually. I don't know what I'm doing wrong and I'm beginning to feel like a really crappy parent who is just going backwards.

neenz, I know you said Daniel goes to bed quite late - what do you do with him in the evening? Is he in his room or with you until he sleeps? How does anyone else get their LOs to sleep and any tips for self-settling?

Apologies for me, me, me post. Hope it actually posts this time.

bellygazing S is usually asleep by 6pm, I make sure he doesn't sleep after 4pm even if sometimes it means he's up from 2pm and is very difficult to keep entertained. He needs at least 2 hours of awake time before bed and I feed him to sleep. If he doesn't settle I leave him for a bit and go back every 5-10 mins and pick him up til he stops crying and then put him back. You're not a crappy parent though, all children are different and none of them are easy!
neenz I think I might just try veg with baby rice. I had pizza last night and S has been throwing up all day so dairy is obviously still off the menu! Makes life tricky though cos I could just give DD anything without checking the packets but can't do that now.

Oh yes, and as of Thursday I can bf without it hurting Only took 24wks and 5days!

yay for pain free bf !

belly, that sounds tough. I don't have any brilliant tips but we've adopted a new approach to bedtime and naps and it seems to be helping. I decided to always put him down awake, whereas previously I often fed or rocked in pram to sleep. Now, the only 'sleep aid' I use is white noise. Obviously this means he cries when put down and I didn't want to leave him to cry so I would sit with him until it turned from whinging into proper crying, then pick him up and cuddle him til he's calm, then put him down again. And repeat as many times as necessary til he finally falls asleep. I also try the white noise at intervals - sometimes it works like magic, other times not at all. If he gets to the point where a cuddle won't calm him down, I feed him (not that he's hungry, but it always comforts him). He now sometimes goes to sleep with no crying and no help but sometimes it's still very difficult.
Do you get the feeling that she's genuinely not tired at bedtime or is she just fighting sleep? Maybe a shorter afternoon nap would be better?
I hope this helps. I'm jealous of your naps by the way. J seems to have decided that he no longer wants more than 20-40 mins nap, 3 times a day. When am I supposed to go on MN do housework?

sorry about your lodger gya, really hope the treatment is successful

Marzi your bedtime routine sounds very sensible, a good balance of self-settle and not leaving him crying.

Chulita, thay's great news, why the sudden change?

Belly, you are not a crappy parent! The first year is the hardest so just remember this too shall pass! I think she is prob getting too much daytime sleep. What time does she get up in the morning? I'd get her up at 7/7.30am. Then put her down for nap at 9 till 9.45. then put her down again at 11.30 or 12 (whenever she looks like she needs another nap). Let her sleep for up to 2hrs then, but if she wakes after 45mins just put her down again a couple of hours later for another 45 mins. If she can last till bathtime after that all the better but if not then give her another 20 mins when she needs it in the afternoon (4pm ish). Daniel doesn't go to bed till about 8 or 9pm (because I can't be bothered to get him up before 8am so I don't try to get him to bed till 8pm and later if he has napped a lot in the day). He just sits in his bouncy chair with us in the lo9unge and when he starts to get whingy I take him up, feed him till hge stops or falls asleep and then put him in his cot. If he is still awake I let him cry for 10 mins before going back in and trying to feed again. Often he refuses the breast so I know he is not hungry. So I leave him to cry again, for up to 20 mins depending on how distressed he is.

I put him down for a nap at lunch today and he was properly crying for about 20 mins . I wanted to go to him but the twins were eating their lunch so I couldn't leave them. It was awful but he did fall asleep after 20 mins and slept for 2hrs!

Belly having a nightmare with sleep here, day and night. I just got a book out of the library called the No Cry Sleep Solution, because I am too much of a wuss to let E cry!! It seems sensible enough, so am going to try and follow a self-made program ( you pick things you think will work for you and your baby) and see how it goes. Supposed to take about 10 days... Fingers crossed! Will let you know if we have any results. I feel completely bat shit with no sleep, feel horribly cross and grumpy with E/DH/ everyone and know what you mean about feeling like a crap parent because other people's babies SLEEP!

None of the solutions in the book deal with my biggest problem though, which is the crazy way that E thrashes his head/arms/legs when he's in a light period of sleep. Now he's bigger and stronger, swaddling or a hand on the chest does nothing. :( Sometimes I question whether my milk supply is enough now for his needs, but when he feeds at night, it's never a big, hungry feed...

GYA sorry to hear about your lodger. Fingers crossed for successful treatment and a speedy recovery.

X

Thanks all for your messages

neenz I have no idea what happened, just woke up one day and it was gone! Very odd but lovely not to hurt anymore :)
soontobe if he's not desperately feeding then your milk's obviously fine, it'll be something else. If he was hungry you'd never be able to put him down without him nuzzling/rooting all the time.
marzi I might try what you're doing. S cried for an hour this morning cos he woke at 5 and didn't want to go back to sleep so I put him in bed and went back to bed myself. I didn't sleep but I just didn't want to be up that early. I felt so mean when I finally went and got him again

nat although a relief that I'm not the only one, am sending sleepy thoughts to your LO!

Thanks everyone for your support, I think I will try a mixture of your suggestions. marzi, think I will try your method firstly to get her to nap in the cot (at the moment naps are v reliable and controllable but always in the pram under the extractor fan ) and if I can get that to work, will go for nighttime too.
neenz I regretfully think you could be right about getting up time. Quite often it's 9.30am or later when we get up, a habit I got into when she was keeping me up loads in the night. I suspect if I bite the bullet and get up a bit earlier, it may pay dividends. Or not, she is after all a baby. But I think the selfsettling thing is key. I know she can do it now because she does it for naps, with just the white noise, and I've started leaving her a bit longer when she makes noise in the night and she will often fall back to sleep. It's just last time I tried it my DH stopped me after an hour because there was some serious crying going on. But I think he now agrees we need to do something. It's not that she's going to bed all that late, it's the fact that it takes sooo long to get her down that we are just spending no time together at all

Hi everyone!

What a horrid rainy Monday!

Sorry to hear you're having sleep problems belly and nat. It's no fun being deprived of sleep

I still can't get G to nap very well during the day but at least nights have gone back to being a bit more civilised. I think he was so unsettled with being away over xmas and being passed around like pass the parcel that it's taken til now for him to settle down. Grrr. bloody mil trying to stretch him out between feeds

We had quite a good night last night. Decided to take the plunge and attempt to get G to sleep in his cot during the evening, rather than on my boob . He ended up having quite a large dinner (for a blw baby!) of 3 big florets of broccoli and loads of mashed potato (well, I say loads but judging by the floor probably only a teaspoon made it as far as his stomach!), a nice warm bath with lavendar oil, a feed at 6:20pm then quiet time with daddy while I put ds1 to bed, another feed at 6:45pm, popped in the cot at 7pm, promptly woke up, so fed again and he was asleep in the cot by 7:30pm . dh and I didn't know what to do with ourselves but had to turn the heating up as we were missing our human water bottle! He stirred a few times to give a wee whimper throughout the evening but eventually slept til 1:45am, quick feed, slept for an hour, another quick feed then slept til 5:45am when he had a nice big feed.

Currently boobiesnoozing (TM of Weehector) of course with no hope of going in the cot, but I'm hopeful we can re[eat last nights success tonight. I might even do some ironing (or maybe not!)

Off to research car seats now. At 18lbs G is far too young for a forwards facing seat but his head is almost at the top of the infant carrier and the straps just don't seem to fit properly anymore, Thinking about the Maxi Cosi Opal...will report back when a decision has been made!

Oh and hurrah for pain-free bf chulita!

blueberries we have the BeSafe IziKid for DD and have just ordered one for S. It's rearfacing til 4 - we're rearfacing converts after researching it for DD. She's been in it since 4 months cos she hated her infant seat but S is happy enough in his Cabriofix so he'll go in it whenever. It's a good seat though and can be turned around to be forward facing if your lo doesn't like facing backwards.

Chulita, does the RF seat take up a lot of room? Don't their legs get squashed against the seat? When I looked into it for the twins the RF seats wouldn't fit in my car because they were so long the front seat had to be pulled too far forward iyswim. We've got a Multimac now (4-in-1 seat) so Daniel's all ready to go FF when he's big enough. RF is obviously more safe for a head-on crash but I read that side-on crashes were more common and RF don't offer extra protection for them (although obv they offer good protection!). Here we go... first it was weaning, now it is car seats - another issue to make parents feel guilty in case they don't do the best thing!

belly, I did the same thing, leaving Daniel (and the twins) to sleep late in the morning so I could catch up on sleep, but you're right it does pay dividends to bite the bullet and start their day earlier. It is tiring at first but it will be worth it. Give the routine a week or so and you will see a big difference.

Nat there is almost certainly nothing wrong with your milk! Does he wake himslef up with his thrashing around? It's probably something he will just grow out of. Is he in a cot yet - he might be better in the bigger space.

thanks chulita will check it out

Nat, mt LO thrashes around too. He works his way up the cot, so that his head is touching the cot protector cloth thingy I've got hung up. Yesterday, he pulled it loose and was sucking on it . I think it is just excess energy or they are giving their limbs a good work out. T often scratches himself whilst doing it, so I have to be extra keen to keep his nails cut real short.

I was having a good day until my bank rang to let me know that over the last 2 days, my credit card has been used to the sum of nearly £2,000, and they had now stopped any further transactions and were enquiring if it was me . Thankfully the bank are going to re-imburse me all the money, as I didn't spend nearly £1,000 yesterday in Australia????? Bloody low life scum bags though that do this. Had to cut up my card and will have to wait for a new one, good job I don't need it, as it can take over a week to get mail over here.

Sorry I can't help on the sleeping problem, T is my first and he sleeps for 2 hours in the afternoon, goes to bed at 8pm, wakes at 5 am, has a feed, goes back to bed and doesn't wake again until 9am. Yes I know how lucky I am, and know that my next DC will probably run me ragged. So sending lots of sleeping vibes to those of you struggling and I do hope you can find a solution soon.

Take care xx

dogwalker, great that they are reimbursing you, by law they have to under the Consumer Credit Act as long as you have not acted negligently. I've had my credit card cloned a couple of times and it's never been much of a problem to get it sorted. It's a pain though isn't it.

My SIL's little boy was a dream sleeper like yours - until about this age when he started waking more and more and he has hardly slept through the night since (he is two and a half now!). She refuses to sleep train though and that is why he doesn't sleep well. Hopefully your LO will continue to be a dream sleeper!

Day 3 of weaning yesterday - banana and baby rice. he slept 9.30pm-4.30am, quick feed then till 7.30am (when i woke him) so well pleased as it is a massive improvement on last week. Butternut squash today

Waaaah! Just lost a really long post. Excuse me while I go and throw some stuff around a bit and come back later! Grrr...