March 2011 Windy bums and a good nights sleep - Will these wonders ever cease?

[GeekLove]

welcome to the new thread fellow March Mums!

Now they are all rolling suckin and gearing up for weaning!

I love the Annabel Karmel book, have made loads. The one pot chicken is good too! I is now 6months so we've been adding in dairy and meat. So we had chicken last couple of nights and today we had cauliflower cheese plus pitta with cream cheese. So far so good, she's enjoyed it all.

Went out for supper with my girlfriends last night. Feel a bit rough today but had a lovely time. Hope all had a good bank hol!

Lozario if you hate the puree stage why not go straight to finger food? If you do baby led weaning you could give her fish fingers right away (home made anyway).

I'm doing a mix of finger food and mashed stuff she feeds herself from the spoon. She had chicken today and was very happy sucking away on a bit of thigh meat. It was great fun to watch! I'm really enjoying weaning.

OMG Muser, i seriously take my hat off to those of you who are letting them eat finger foods!! I am pureeing til shes got a full set of teeth do you cut it into cubes or just a huge chunk?? I was brave and did grated cheese!!!!!! i will give things that i know she cant break off which is a bit mean but i just cant get over the choking side to it. What sort of finger foods have you given?? Liking the pitta bread with humous do you let her eat what she breaks off? What it its big?? do you give raw carrot just so they suck the dips off??
We have started to give cassie what we having now, did mashed veg and gravy with a little of scooped out roast potato at Mum and dads yesterday, would have given lamb but didnt have blender..and too chicken to let her eat ot by herself!! She LOVES fromage frais!! So funny to see her arms flapping and her mouth open in anticipation!
i may do some mash potato and grated cheese for luch tomnorrow and just put it on her tray and see how she goes..at least she cant choke on that surely!!??!!!
Progress on daytime naps too!! I put cassie down for a nap in the morning if we are in, and she will sleep for around 30-45 mins, then after lunch she has an hour playing if it all ties in!! then bed and she has slept for 2hrs today, and 1hr 45 mins yesterday! Sooo hoping this is the shape of things to come and can look forward to going out soon!! Have got school reunion in the middle of Sept and want to be able for my mum to put her to bed! for the past 6 months every night it has been me, then when DH was home he wanted to so i let him but she went mental i felt sorry for both of them!!
well, i could go on and on tonight but think i will shut up now
nite all x

I give her stuff in big enough pieces that she can hold it in her fist and suck on the end of it. From what I've read, a baby's gag reflex is much further forward than ours so they will spit something out before they can choke on it. You might get a bit of gagging, but that's perfectly normal and not dangerous. It's only if they go very silent that you need to freak out.

Iz has hardly gagged at all, bit of coughing occasionally but I've honestly not had a single scary moment and she just spits out anything she can't handle.

I think even if you're doing purees you're meant to start introducing finger foods quite soon after 6 months for developmental reasons.

She has normal porridge in the mornings, not baby porridge. I've given her toast, melon sticks, green beans, cucumber, cooked carrot sticks, broccoli florets, pancake, chicken, ricecakes topped with all sorts of stuff, mango, plums (skinned), pasta (twirls are easy to pick up, spaghetti is hilarious) all sorts of stuff. She can't always eat much of it, but she really enjoys trying to pick it up and giving it a good suck. And she's really good at feeding herself with the spoon now.

I wouldn't give raw carrot as if she did manage to break a bit off she wouldn't be able to get it soft to swallow. So I'd worry about that being a choking hazard. But anything she can suck soft or mush with her gums is fair game.

Right, I am uploading a movie I took of a broccoli episode to the FB group so you can see how not scary finger food is. I do spoons and mashed food when that works - mashed banana is popular here but whole banana is not - but finger food is brilliant too. I think a mixed approach is great.

going to fb now with deep interest!! xx

Yep we do the same type of stuff as muser. Izzy loves it. I also wouldn't give raw carrot but other than that, it's fair game. This morning we shared a bowl of weetabix, she was howling with laughter!

Oh avocado is good because it's very soft. And batons of cooked courgette/cauliflower etc

yep we've been doing the same here, sticks of roasted sweet potato and courgette went down very well yesterday, also had sticks of apple, cucumber, nectarine, pear, toast, and mangetout, sliced strawberries and whole raspberries (very messy).....mind you Angus does have two very sharp teeth! He hasn't refused anything yet! Decided not to introduce dairy and meat just yet. The broccolli looks like fun! He also has baby porridge but I just give him the spoon, some ends up all over his face / hair but a lot of it also goes in his mouth!
I was also terrified about the whole choking thing so read up lots about it, nothing round (cut them in half) eg. cherry tomatoes, grapes, no whole nuts. The rasperries I gave him were really squishy and he just sucks the bits sticking out of his hand, blueberries apparently you should squish flat first as well.
We just decided to see how it goes here and haven't ruled out spoon feeding him yet if I feel more comfortable with it in the future but so far so good. It gave me a lot of confidence watching three babies in my mum and baby group about 7 - 8 months old and how well they ate with BLW, prob wouldn't have tried it otherwise!
Am really enjoying it so far though, but yes probably a novelty as he's our first and am not too concerned about mess (dogs do a great job of patrolling the floor around the highchair and cleaning up any food overboard!)

Highland, a brill idea to have a dog for the mess! :)

I bought a big bit of oil cloth to put on the floor to help with the mess. Most of it is on her though.

Currently she seems to be refusing her morning nap. I really, really don't need this today as I have to tidy up in preparation for our new cleaner starting tomorrow. We're planning on selling the flat soon and decided a cleaner would ensure we didn't go insane preparing for viewings. But our decluttering is only half done and if I don't finish it off she's not going to be able to clean!

Does anyone elses baby still not have the coordination to hold a spoon or food? There's no way Ethan can feed himself he doesn't pick anything up yet.

Hello all
there are 437 messages wow !
I didnt read the messages but has any of babies started to sleep through night without night feed ? and any teeth ?

ren yep we are starting to successfully ditch the dream feed and we have 2 teeth, soon to be 4.

me Iz can pick objects off her highchair tray and takes the spoon off me when it's in her mouth but doesn't scoop the food in the bowl onto the spoon.

Hello all. I feel I am missing out on weaning as we haven't got started yet. Lovely to see all the pics on fb. Could be anytime in the next few weeks we get going, I am nervous but excited. I've ditched baby rice for now.

renuagarwal No teeth and definitely not sleeping through. Have we met you before? Whats your DD/DS called? How old are they?

muser Naps are all over the shop here too. Hopefully its just one of those wonder week things?! She has gone to bed before 6 twice this week after its all gone wrong. She often naps for half an hour 3 times a day. No idea if I'm putting her down too early/too late as there is no pattern. Today she was so tired and clingy I did the housework whilst carrying her. As she is now nearly 20lb my arms and back ache. The silly thing has decided to be scared of the hoover and cried the whole time I did it whether she was on the floor or in my arms.

me23 I doubt Hannah could feed herself. She is 22 weeks. How old is E?

Me Arthur likes to hold on to the spoon when I put it in his mouth. He can roughly guide it there but then most of the food ends up smeared around his face . He hasn't realised that the spoon doesn't just replenish itself yet and gets cross when I try to put it in the bowl for more.

Sleep this has gone to pot again over the last week. AArrghhhh. Arthur is now waking 10.30pm, 1.30am, 4am, 7am. I tried fobbing him off with a dummy last night in case it was just habit but he wasn't having it, so he got boob. I don't know if there is some developmental thing/growth spurt at 22 weeks because he then had 3 sides of boob, a big bowl of baby porridge and then another boob all for breakfast! The HV i saw at bf group today said not to feed him in the night if he has previously been sleeping 8hrs but a) I don't feel comfortable doing this until he is past 6 months and b) I do not have the energy or patience to deny him boob at 2am when I could feed him in 10 mins and be back asleep asap!

cheeseandbiscuit way to go congrats on soon to be 4 and no dreamy feeds ! We are trying to gradually stop the dreamy feed , lets see how long it takes. Also just started on solids, and I am sure he wants something new everyday !

haloflo I joined mumsnet but never got on the forum until recently, was looking for something. great to hear someone is like my DS ! he is 5 & 1/2 months. how old is ur DD ? sounds so much like Aarav as he is also random and suddenly decides to sleep or get scared of hoover !

Petty - I agree with you, boob and sleep is a much easier thing to do at 2am! It is easy for them to say but they aren't the ones exhausted the next day

Halo - Little Hannah needs to give her poor mummy a break! It will get better eventually... I mean, there are very few 15 year olds insist on being carried by mummy all day... RE the hoover though, Anya doesn't like the hoover either which suits me just fine as it has become my OHs job! When I am popping out I mention to him that it needs doing and offer to do it if he goes out and takes Anya with him :) So far he hasn't taken me up on the offer.

On the spoon-feeding front - Anya is pretty good at working a spoon. It is the funniest thing ever watching her eat. The second she sees a spoon her hands go for it, sometimes she gets the handle, sometimes the spoon itself (v.messy). She can successfully get it in her mouth and then when the spoon is empty she discards it (sometimes by throwing it across the room) and grabs at the next spoon. I have quite a funny pic of her feeding herself - I must upload it. I must say though I have noticed a difference in her success rate of finding her mouth depending on which spoons she is using. The Tommee Tippee ones get rather messy but the boots ones (which are straighter) seem to get more food in her mouth rather than in her eyes.

Anyway... I came on to mumsnet to find some more interesting weaning dinner recipes - Anya must be sick of pureed carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and a bit of boob milk.

I plan to do BLW hopefully, though we are another couple of weeks off starting I think.

Back and we survived. Very nice holiday had by all.

I see the convo has turned to weaning. We havent really started. Abit of baby rice in Turkey and he had sme tastes of whatever I was eating.

Plan to start in the next week or so, we will go for a mainly puree approach with some bits and pieces along the way. Mostly because I dont want to dela with mess. Worked well with the other two so we will jsut see.

My phone charger got left at home and I had no laptop in Turkey and I read 6 books (4 for uni) so have realised my productivity and am making some rules for myself about the internet - every other day usage etc.

Hello to all and sorry I ave no idea what is going on.

Urgh had to deny Arthur feeds in the end last night as he started waking hourly! He went to bed at 8pm then woke at 11.30pm (i dummied him), 12.30am (I ignored him and didnt even go in his room) and 1.30am (tried to dummy him but gave up and fed at 2am), 4.30am (found dh in his room trying to be helpful and talking to Arthur about going back to sleep When he wakes in the night I dont interact with him, anyway fed him), 6am (I ignored him again) and awake for the day at 8.15am!

I think what helped was finding the switch on the monitor which ignores low-level sounds and just pulling the pillow over my head . I only went in his room when he sounded upset, which led to a lot of hanging around outside his door while I decided what kind of yelping he was doing.

Welcome back mixed of your holiday

Sorry to be a complete newbie and butt in - but can anyone join in half way through? I have twin boys born 31st of March

Welcome halestones. Wow twins! How is that going? DOuble the fun?

Hello halestones! Are they id twins? Are they your first dc's? Do you get lots of annoying questions (like these ) having twins?

hey halestones welcome dont worry to butt in, I think being a new mum gives to that right ! twins life must be mess ! I know someone who has twins and its really weird how people behave in the shops, cafes , everywhere as if twins are 8 th wonder or aliens or something !!! she never gets irritated but I do !! And people just talk to u having 'twins' and not having 'babies' . How are your darlings ? any teeth ? Sorry I am currently hung up on teething !

pettyprudence my DS was also doing the exact same thing and almost same time ! health visitor suggested on weaning and as i m bottle feeding to give him aptamil 2 at night and it has settled him a bit. he had started waking around 12 -15 times at night and now back with waking once for dreamy feed. Which I will soon ditch ! I hope this helped.