April 2011 - Food Glorious Food, Sleep Glorious Sleep <subtle key change> They're our babies, we'll obsess if we want to!

[fraktious]

Thread 4 - that's one a month!

No hobbies as such, he plays and watches football, and likes almost every sport going. I caught him watching 10 pin bowling the other day.

What would be perfect would be tickets to see Man U at Old Trafford, but they are really hard to get hold of and quite expensive when you work in us getting to Manchester and staying in a hotel. We did the tour there a couple of years ago and he was like a kid in a sweetie shop. Sitting in Gods Sir Alex's seat, walking up the tunnel! I half expected him to wave to the (imaginary) crowd! You've got me thinking now......

Ha Fizz I got my DP the West Ham tour for Christmas one year and he loved it! At night the corporate boxes turn into hotel rooms that have one glass wall overlooking the ground. DP likes to joke that's the only time he's likely to score at Upton Park :) A fab pressie - and luckily West Ham was probably a bit cheaper than Man U!

If your DH likes stuff like that what about a signed photo/poster? I got my DP a poster that was signed by Pele and he totally over the moon with it. www.spiritofsport.co.uk/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=prodshow&ref=Pele-and-Bobby-Moore-framed-1970-World-Cup-photo-signed-by-Pele&sid=1z6eqa168u8hxc9iazj34450o8y1rm46

He's a bit older than your DH so these are his particular heros so don't know what would be appropriate for your DH but I think sports-liking men like this kind of thing!

A word of advice don't get anything MASSIVE that you really don't want to hang up on your house like I did.. DUH!

DP says that if he's a Man U fan then he'd probably like something George Best or Eric Cantona (dunno if that helps at all!!!) But to be honest you'll probably know how his heros are anyway!

Anyway, this sleeping thing is fun isn't it! We had a 'decent' night last night in that I was only up to G at 10.00 1.30, 4.30 and then up at 6.00. Think my baby that slept from 11pm - 8.00am baby has gone for good.. those were the days

I feel a million times better as the last few weeks it's been every 1.5 - 2hrs so yesterday hit a bit of a wall and just couldn't be bothered to do anything. Funny how it seems once you get to that point something improves. I think he's just really hungry at the moment he had a 7oz bottle at about 7.30pm them breastfed for 45 minutes at 8.30pm then had another 5oz bottle at 10pm which seems like quite a lot to me so I've been trying to feed him throughout the day today in the hope that helps.

He rolled, he rolled. Ike rolled! Hurrah for ds!

He was very impressed with himself and done it quite a few times (from back to front). However it obviously took a lot of effort because we then had a meltdown in the bath - which is pretty much unheard of.

Luckily he went to bed very easily and quickly, but then ds2 took up the torch and behaved like a little shite. I think I'll put it down to it being the first day of term for him

I know wha you mean about the scanner Gache, I have to keep it in the trolley rather than in the holster thingy. Dh can't be trusted with the scanner either as he scans things twice, the dickhead.

Oh yes, this time last year we went on holiday with the in laws and I was constantly feeling sick. One of the 'fun' things we done was a loooooong journey on a steam train and I felt bilious the whole bloody time, just like this . I'm glad I'm never going to be pregnant again!

ILTMI You just made me spit out my laughing at your comments on your DH scanning ability

Good website Moley! I can get something big and he can put it in his "man room". Best thing I ever did was setting that up for him, computer, TV with Sky, sofa, mini fridge! I get to watch what ever I want in the living room while he amuses himself next door! He can't see past Alex Ferguson, a throw back to when he was Aberdeen manager and they won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1983!

Currently watching my countrymen play in the pissing rain, desperately trying to keep their Euro 2012 hopes alive! They are winning though, so maybe, just maybe ..........

Well done I!

I'm printing, I'm printing. It's going in the post tomorrow and then I don't fecking care any more.

Oooh well done Ike! B gets as far as on his side, then does a funn back arch thing to look behind him. Why is everything interesting to a baby behind them??

And well done Frak big glass of for you!

So this popcorny ice cream you are all raving about, is it only available in Waitrose??? I can't stop thinking about it. I might just have to go "visit" DH at work tomorrow to give me an excuse to go to Waitrose in Edinburgh!!

Well done frak

Well done Ike and well done Frak!

Fizz man room sounds perfect for sports memorabilia!

I've just had 7hrs sleep! F slept 7:30-10:30, and ,11:00-6:00! I didn't see that coming. Same tonight please!

Well done F! We've had another good nights sleep here too. Fingers crossed it's here to stay - I won't hold my breath though!

Well done Frakk, I bet that's a relief. When I eventually get back into the world of earning money I think I'll have to study first, and the thought of it gives me the fear.

The Heston ice-cream is only from Waitrose. He does a mustard one as well

Yay Ike! Well done.

You must be so relieved Frak, probably closely followed by post-completion exhaustion.

Can you get your nanny a voucher to do something touristy and local seeing as she's just arrived? Failing that I vouch for wine also, or chocolates. Always winners.

Jo, C's eating habits sound exactly like S so I am glad to know she's not alone in eating small amounts and not much over 24hrs. The last HV I spoke to about it said 'just give her more' whilst looking at me like I was intentionally starving her or something. Yeah, right, like I hadn't tried giving her more . Has solids made any difference to C's reflux?

A momentous day in the Caramel household, DS is having his first haircut. He's nearly 3 but was such a baldy he only needs one now. We are saying farewell to the mullet!

Hi everyone.

I feel bad I don't post more often - I love to read but struggle to post as much as I would like to. Can't believe this thread already has over 130 posts! We are beating the other post natal threads (not that I'm at all competitive!)

Well J has fallen asleep on me so thought I'd take this opportunity to try and update properly.

Firstly well done frak you must feel so relieved. Its going to feel like you have so much time on your hands (or maybe not with a baby?!)

I was only in waitrose yesterday ... Will have to get the ice cream next time. Yum yum.

Well there have been a few developments our end. J is nearly 20 weeks. She has had severe reflux caused by cows milk protein intolerance. We saw her gastro paed yesterday and controversially he wants us to start weaning her with baby rice and apple purée asap. Im slightly shocked as we were going to wait until she was 6 months. I thought he was going to say we should wait so I feel in a bit of a quandry. He is one of the top leading gastro specialists in the world ( hope that doesn't sound boasty) so really feel like we should go with what he says but it wasn't what I was planning to do. Going to let his advice sink in over next few days.

Re the lack of milk intake...well I asked consultant about this yesterday as J only has between 24-28 oz a day despite being over 16 pounds. He thought that this was absolutely fine and the important thing is they are putting on weight and roughly following their curve. So I'm going to try and stop obsessing that J only seems to take 5oz per feed despite most of the babies I know at her age taking 7-8oz per feed.

After me only posting the other week and offering advice about How we got J off to sleep at night we now seem to have a baby who loves to cry again at bed time. It's very frustrating as it's taking about an hour to settle her and she is getting too heavy to rock. I don't leave her to cry as a ) I don't want to and b) even if I did her sensitive gag reflex makes her projectile vomit everywhere if her screams reach supernova. I'm hoping it's just a phase. So far she seems to be ok at self settling at night but I'm scared that won't be the case for much longer given how bedtime seems to be deteriorating. If anyone has any words of advice would be much appreciated.

Someone asked the other day about dreamfeed (sorry can't scroll back to see who). We still dreamfeed at 10.30pm and although J seems to only take a couple of ounces it sees her through until 6-7am. Part of me wants to stop the dreamfeed as it's starting to feel wrong feeding a sleeping baby but I'm also scared in case we get serious sleep regression...

As for other news I'm a bridesmaid on Friday and have to leave j overnight for the first time with her nanny I know it sounds pathetic but I'm kind of dreading it.

God sorry for mammoth post. Hope it wasn't too dull!

Ps caramel HV also told me that I should be feeding J between 30-32 oz (she told me that 2 months ago when J weighed about 12 pounds). IME it's almost impossible and very unpleasant to get more milk down a baby who doesn't want it. I've actually found the less I push J the more she will then take a few feeds later. I hope the fact Js consultant was fine with her having small feeds offers some more reassurance.

Thanks for the reassurance daisy. Interesting, what your paed said was the same as mine yet despite the advice I still feel I should wait for the BLW markers and not go down the puree route. I think you have to take all the advice on board and go with what feels right for you.

Sorry to hear you've had sleep woes too. Hopefully it's a blip and will return to normal service soon for you.

Well done Ike! Fizz C also does that arch back, it look very uncomfortable but is now how he sleeps. I put him down on his back and he flips over assumes the position and then I know he's down for a while. Strange boy.

The man room sounds brilliant. When we move house I want DH to get a similar set up with a man shed/office. Then he can have all the back copies of Uncut displayed nicely without me having to see them.

Congrats Frak! Must be lovely.

Caramel, I'm not sure if the weaning has made much difference but most of his reflux issues were solved with the omeprazole and changing to a formula with reduced cows milk protein. He doesn't scream anymore but he just won't feed after a certain point. I can even have the bottle in his mouth and he'll just muck about with it. When I give him food I have a bottle on the go too and he is often better at drinking milk when he's in his chair and having food, I wonder if it's just a change of scenery/distraction. In my experience HVs don't know anything about reflux really, it's barely worth asking them about it - as your comment demonstrates! I've taken the view that as long as he's gaining weight and looking healthy then it's fine. The Annabel Karmel weaning book suggests that babies should have about 20oz of milk per day until they are one, and he just about does that. How is S doing with her weight? You could ask your GP for a referral to a dietician if you are worried. Hope the haircut is a success!

Thanks caramel yup you're right in that we have to do what feels right for us. Odd that both consultants said to start weaning now.I now wish I'd questioned him more on why but it was coming to end of appointment, I'd had about a million other questions and wasn't even planning on really discussing weaning but he brought it up and told me to start. Am slightly irritated with myself now. Not planning on having another consultation (unless things deteriorate which fingers crossed they won't) as it's a right faff to get into central London with a bubs.

X posts, daisy. Agree that it's just awful trying to force a baby to eat and I am much less stressed since I stopped trying and I think that makes it a less stressful experience for C too.

Although most of my experience with reflux is in relation to prem babies (I have a little group of mums and we all met in hopsital) the advice to wean early is pretty consistant and the view generally seems to be that it helps. Hope that offers some reassurance.

Thanks Jo it's good to hear your experience. My DH wants to start weaning J asap so I think we probably will but will just start very very slowly. Will give myself over the weekend to think and let you know what we decide.

I had a friend with a vomity baby (in retrospect I'm guessing reflux) and she was told to wean early too. That's part of the reason we started H early, he doesn't throw up after purée, he does after milk although I was told he didn't have reflux.

Hurray, DP loved his birthday brownies

FWIW DS was refluxly and weaned at around 5 months, no problem keeping the purees etc down but he'd still bring his milk up, it did gradually get better but he was on the Gaviscon until we switched to follow-on milk/cows milk when he was one.

I started with babyrice for 4/5 days, then baby porridge, then the purees. Also going from my experience with DS, it's a good idea to start with veg purees as if you just give fruit ones early on they can develop quite a sweet tooth and you may find it harder to get them to eat the veg purees

The early weaning advice for reflux is quite consistent. It's to do partly with the fact that food is harder to digest and therefore the acid isn't so overactive in the stomach and it thickens the stomach content so it doesn't come up so much.

If your paed is saying do it then they obviously feel that the risk of early weaning is outweighed by the benefits.

Sitting twiddling thumbs waiting for the courier to arrive. We're not strictly supposed to send by courier but international post is so unreliable and there are big strikes here that I don't really have a choice.

Sorry not to have been keeping up very well guys, my keyboard is totally kaput so have been reading but not posting - very annoying to say the least!

It was me who was asking about the dreamfeeding ILTMI but we have abandoned it already, it worked ok for a few days but then R started waking at 4am again so I didn't see the point of disturbing her for a feed at 10.30 or 11 or whatever and then her waking again 5 hours later. She did take it well and stayed asleep through it but it kind of defeated the purpose!!

She is now back to sleeping about 9-6.30 but won't go back down again so tend to be starting the day at half 6 (which is not to my liking) but guess I can't really complain!!

Having feeding problems again here :( she was brilliant when we were in France, eating good amounts (more than usual in fact) and when we got home was still good for a few days too but slowly we have gone back to her screaming and refusing bottles and taking piddly little amounts and on one occasion not eating anything at all from 10.30am til 6pm at night!!!! I'm at my wits end and don't know what to do. Everyone keeps saying it's teething but there's only so long you can carry on patiently trying to get your LO to eat when she just screams and screams at you! All this talk of reflux is making me think again if that's what bothering her but I'm not sure, she's not sicky at all but she definitely does back arch. This morning she fed at 6.30am and then started making hungry noises again at about 9.30am so got her a bottle, she seemed keen, started to feed and then started going ballistic, screaming and squirming and spitting it all back out. Had to leave her and try again after she'd calmed down but this went on 3 times until she eventually took the bottle sat in her bouncer! Hardly ideal.
Was down at my mums for lunch time feed and had been telling her about it, I think she thought I'd been exaggerating the issue a bit but R did exactly the same again with her, I think it shocked her a bit. Not sure whether to ask HV about it again, she wasn't much help last time, just suggested teething or that maybe changing teats would help but she's on variflow ones anyway so should be able to get the flow she needs from that. It's really becoming upsetting to hear her scream like this at nearly every feed so if anyone has some wise words or suggestions it would be much appreciated :)

daisylulu Glad your HV isn't mine!! She'd have a hairy fit at the amount R takes at nearly 14lbs!! I'm lucky to be getting 20-25ozs a day into her! But she is gaining weight and sticking in her centile so I'm sure it can't be all that bad!