Feb 2011 - it's all about the shred

[reastie]

welcome everyone

Morning, just!
wiggles Ben was 6lb 4 and was born 30th jan, he's now a whopping 13lb! So good that you've taken over the stats, thank you!
Jane thinking of you today, you are just so strong.
ledkr I remember doing something similar but not with posh clothes, with catalogue ones
Ben has a sort of routine, feeds at 7:30am then every 3 hours until 7:30pm then sleeps till about half five ish. He has between 4-7 oz at each feed and 3 naps a day but mostly on me ( don't mind too much as it means I have to sit down for an hour!).
I agree with having an OH that cannot dress a baby. Mine seems to favour the street urchin look if I let him choose bens clothes.
I'm off shopping on my own in a bit, so excited! Cant afford anything but formula and bloody steriliser cleaning stuff but I'll be ALONE!!!

oh i am rubbish at keeping up with this thread!
i have received the shred but have not unwrapped it yet, i have managed to lose 1kg by moving the scales to a room with a carpet so feel i can leave it for a few more days. since joining this thread i seem to have been bamboozled into spending all my money - shred, sophie, am now looking at a bouncer i am obviously an advertising execs dream as i just buy what i get told to!
delia i took nate swimming - he seemed ok but had his legs really straight and sort of looked at though he was grimly tolerating it?? how do you dunk them? i'm quite scared but strangely want to do it.
jane best of luck with TTC, hope you enjoy the trying

can i ask a very middle class first time mum silly question that i am slightly embarrassed about? how much time to you spend "entertaining" your babies? the boy often seems happy enough chewing his fist entertaining himself so i just leave him, but them i read things like children have higher IQs the more words they here in the first year of life so you should ALWAYS talk to them, and i have bought a book about babys skills none of which nate can actually do. feel a bit guilty that i'm not doing enough but he's a bit boring

suzy i just try to feed him every 3 hours, don't listen to me though as he still feeds THREE times in the night and wakes at 6am. was it need to who goes to bed early - i get twitchy if i'm not in bed by 9pm . he was a small baby though and has crossed a lot of centiles so i think he does need the feeds and i have got sort of used to no sleep now.

L eats every 3 hours during the day (BF then 3 oz formula), goes to bed 8-9, up roughly every 3 hours to eat though sometimes he likes to switch it to 2 hours. I've tried feeding him more during the day but he's having none of it. How the hell do I feed a baby who's not interested in it? I would love to sleep longer than 2 hours at a go.

Re outfits, I think DH chooses the boldest colours and patterns and combines them all into one outfit. I think people can tell when daddy's dressed the baby though. :)

jane - how sad to be packing up Zoe's things. Good luck with TTC. Did you manage to find any counseling? I imagine another pregnancy will be very stressful and some extra support will be helpful (I hope that doesn't sound presumptuous and rude, I can't find the right words for it).

irishqueen - the HV mentioned a system of getting free meds for the baby but I've forgotten the name and how to enrol. Do I ask at the chemists? (I'm in Scotland too)

wobblybumm I don't entertain A, I natter to her like "where are my bloody car keys", "why do I have so much feckin' washing" etc but if she's happy enough to play on her mat, sit in her seat, chew her muslin cloth then I leave her to it.

suzy Anna has a feed at 7pmish, goes to sleep between then and 8pm and is up for another feed before we get up at 5am-6ish. Sometimes she has a feed at 10.30pmish and will go right through but not always.

Thank you so much for helping me with feed times, I feel like I am so clueless most of the time! I just wish I could figure out a way to get H to eat his supper?!

wobblybumm I try to 'play' with H, but sometimes I dont really know what to do so I just lie him on his play gym! I am also making more of an effort to go to baby groups as at least that way he is being stimulated (altho he usually just falls asleep!)

Had a mammoth housework session this morning, then when DH hets in I am going to hand H over and get ready for my boozey day, yey!

D feeds 2-3 hrly too,i work on baby whisperers easy routine eat activity sleep-not sue about the you time tho,more like everyone else who wants a piece of me time. She generally has big nappo in morn then 2 little ones after,i dont let her sleep past 4 tho [cruel mum]
Just shredded ladies D sat in her chair and watched me,she seems happy enough without a rubber 12 squid girraffe
I speak to her like wiggles but about once or twice a day i actually sit and play with her which involves a lot of stupid singing and squealing.I am currently teaching her all the songs from Annie as we have a trad in our family,me and my 2 sisters all played Annie in the theatre so as D is a red head it goes without saying she will too

Oh yeah No phoning it in girls

A before and after shred pic is now on my profile girls

expat its called minor ailments and you just register at your pharmacy. You should get ot too. I got all my hearburn meds in pregnancy. Basically once registered you rock up and say for example babyexpat has a cold can I please have some saline drops and calpol pls and you get them free. Choose your pharmacy wisely though ... I registered at the only one in the village and the assistamt is an old trout
I also loosely follow baby whisperer so eat, muck about time and sleep ...

expat its called minor ailments and you just register at your pharmacy. You should get ot too. I got all my hearburn meds in pregnancy. Basically once registered you rock up and say for example babyexpat has a cold can I please have some saline drops and calpol pls and you get them free. Choose your pharmacy wisely though ... I registered at the only one in the village and the assistamt is an old trout
I also loosely follow baby whisperer so eat, muck about time and sleep ...

DH expanded his uselessness here after sending him out to buy kings speech dvd he comes back with it on blue ray and we don't have a blue ray player and it won't play on our normal one . So much for my dream sitting and watching it in peace this week end (was really looking forward to it).

wobbly I read that exact same thing about using lots of language in babies first year - I told DH and he has since been using random complicated sounding words to alice like onomatapoea (sp) completely out of context . Tbh I shove her on her play mat as much as I cna get away with, or, put her in her bouncing chair in the kitchen with me when I cook. She does seem to get bored and I try and play with her toys with her (ie squeaking them in her face), bouncing her on my lap, singing etc but often I sort of run out of ideas . She like a walk - I think taking her anywhere gives her lots of things in her mind to process and be interested in. Worry not - I'm sure we'll have lots of challenging times ahead to entertain them to enjoy it while we can

Our basic routine is first feed approx 6:30 am then about every 3 hours ish until a feed at about 5:30pm, then 7:30pm, then sleep at about 8 and dream feed at about 9:30 then night time feed whenever she wakes up for it. Naps are irregular but she usually does baby whisperer or feed, play/awake, nap every 3 ish hours except night - some naps are an hour or so, some are much shorter

completely xposted by everyone there - I'm way too slow. to ledkrs piccie

wobbly just found this web site with games to play for each stage www.babycentre.co.uk/baby/development/letsplay/ if it's of any interest

Thanks again ladies, its reassuring to read what everyone else is up to, as all my RL firends seem to have 'perfect' sleep all night babies ! I suspect they are lying to me, but it still makes me feel bad! Im also glad that everyone else feed their LO as often as I do, I worried as H was born on 9th centile and is now 75th! haha!

reastie I also think that walks/ trips out give them alot of stimulation, things to see, hear etc.

I wish that H would nap for 2 hours at a time, he seems to prefer lots of little catnaps, which doesnt help me when I am trying to get on with stuff mn

what is this baby whisperer routine you all speak of?

forgot to say wiggles wow for going back to work in any shape or form, i couldn't even think of it at the moment.
ledkr i can't see your photos! [impatient]
thanks for the "entertaining" advice; i feel such a weirdo for worrying about this, all my friends with toddlers think i am crackers for feeling like i am not interacting whilst he is happily sat on my knee watching TV, and should be grateful for the chance to sit down. thanks reastie will check out the website, my DH does the same re random words!
who was it with the teething baby? did you mention red cheeks and nasty poos? nate has done loads of green ones for the past week, has rosy cheeks and properly nashing on his fists
expat i think we have the same baby. N did used to do 6 hours stretches quite early on but has forgotten about this and we are back to 2-3 hours, 4 if lucky at night. i have stopped discussing sleep with people in real life as some people, e.g. my MIL seem to judge your mothering abilities on your baby's sleep i think
kings speech is a lovely film

wobblybumm compltely agree about feeling judged, like Im a crap mam for not having him sleep thru the night!

I would try not to worry about interacting with bubs, one of my baby books says that nowadays ppl are so worried about this that babies end up massively overstimulated. remember they need quiet time.

you can now wobbly it was the double m i missed out

suzy baby whisperer says they should follow a 3 hour cycle of eat, activity, then sleep. didn't work for us as N would eat, be awake for ages by which point he was hungry again then would feed to sleep which i think was what she said we should avoid at all costs. if i tried to get him to sleep without another feed he just woke up after about 10mins. to be fair, N feeds to sleep a bit but can nod off himself if he's full so i don't think it mattered that we did EAESY. my paediatrician friend told me there were lots of benefits for feeding to sleep, like calming them, slowing heart rate, etc, but she may have just been trying to make me feel better

ledkr eeeh you're gorgeous pet. wow your DH is v handsome, bet your evil ex is seething with jealousy.....

wobbly I have the same worries re interacting and entertaining etc. so will be looking at the site reastie recommended, but I know people have kind of laughed when I have mentioned this and kind of said...make the most of it when they entertain themselves...etc. Mum says she doesn't remember ever actually 'playing' with me as a tiny baby, just talking to me about chopping an onion (or whatever she was doing at the time, I mean not just randomly talking about chopping onions while out and about). It is probably a 'middle class' worry, and for me also a little because I have been slow to bond and kind of felt like I ought to be wanting to play more. You're right though, babies of this age can be a bit dull when you have a whole day. I mean I can be excited when Claudia biffs her bagpuss toy the first 27 times but after that my enthusiasm wanes.

Suzy C is on something of a schedule, but it's more of a plan, that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, so if nothing goes wrong, she wakes at 7 and feeds straight away, then 10.45, then 14.15, then I do a Gina style split feed 17.00 and 18.30 (which total about 1.5 normal feeds) with bath in between then a tiny dreamfeed at 22.30, then through till 7. We really want to drop the dream feed but the sleeping from 11-7 is so good that we kind of don't want to risk that breaking down. I think we might leave it another month and maybe introduce a tiny bit of solids (Dr has advised earlyish weaning due to reflux but probably won't do anything until at least 20 weeks). C is formula fed, which might have been why she has slept through earlier (I mean through from 11-7) as they feel fuller for longer on formula. We're doing what I call 'Gina-Lite' as in it's roughly based on Gina but not as militaristic and sometimes goes entirely off-piste!

wobbly re the dunking, I was at a 'water babies' class so the instructor kind of coached us. The first thing we did was 'Clauda, ready, go' and pause and then tip water over her head. We did this a few times, and apparently it gets them used to the idea that something will happen. Then I said 'Claudia, ready go' and the instructor just did it, and she must have taken a breath or something, but in any case she was totally fine. Don't know why it works but it does!

D

ledkr be careful, my pelvic floor isn't what it used to be!!!

suzy and wobblybumm don't worry, people do fib about sleeping babies I mentioned this about a couple of million pages ago - how I felt so shit re Olivia (the amazing non sleeping child) until a few mums at Sofias' nursery school told me their child was the same. It was like a huge outing of women and their non sleeping children , a bit like the first time you admit your children slightly irritate you .

reastie send dh back to shop right now, you deserve it!!

debka know you said you wouldn't be able to send messages but if you can read them, hope weekend is going ok and dh hotel isn't too much of a pain.

Going to update stats later - I'm so sad I'm slightly excited so another shout out for any lurkers - we don't bite, well ledkr a bit but only because she so busy shredding she forgets to eat

Hi all, well I bet you have been waiting with baited breath to hear how I got on It was fine yay! Got there, dd slightly grumpy and had a bit of a cry then I realised she was hungry dp fed her and she went to sleep in her carrycot for most of the do til I left with her at 11pm :) A few little murmers so I just put her on her side or put the dummy back in and she was fine. Feel relieved I've been and done it (and maybe a bit daft for worrying in the first place).

I have to say I am knackered though, she was quite a noisy sleeper in the hotel and woke at 6 so I have had 6 hours sleep.

And she has been a bit of a grumpy girl today, oh well.

ledkr you look hot in that photo, nice to see the shred is working

wobbly I worry about that too, you are not on your own. reastie has again proved to be a winner with another link to a useful website :)

Hope deb is ok, staying in the hotel last night I did think of her as realised how restricting it is staying in one room with baby.

delia I am at the dunking, how brave of you! (even thought the instructor did it) Would love to take dd to swimming and have a feeling she might react the same way C did, lots of wide eyed looks but not crying (heres hoping). You have encouraged me to have a look and fine something :)

Hello to everyone else, am off to check on dd as she is on her cot and can hear her talking to her friends toys

wobbly as it happens ex is rather gutted yes,we were out afew yrs ago and he started drunkenly whining about still loving me and getting back together. I loudly introduced him to J and said at the top of my voice "Are you mad?do you think swap him for you Everyone was laughing even xh sister (who is a close friend) told him he'd asked for that