Post-grad Brookers, over here! We will Brook No Argument that all Mini-Brookers sleep 12 hours a night and behave angelically during the day

[TooImmatureTurtleDoves]

Over here!

jaggy - we currently have a pattern of the girls sharing a banana post tea. I feel like THE BEST MUM IN THE WORLD EVER for those five minutes of the day :) Actual fruit. Inside them.

I have given up the 'hope for sleep' weaning plan. A eats ungodly amounts and still feels the need to wake me at least 3 times a night.

yeah the food made bugger all difference to DS1 as i remember so in no rush to start with DS2. think we'll move him out of our room first, then start food. hoping DS1 likes having a roommate!

need to get both those things started before i go back to work and am up and down for shift times.

glad I'm not the only one giddy about fruit eating

Quickly checking in to say well done to Scarlet on coping so well with the sick. Glad it's not long till the counselling.

Biscuits I agree with every word you say, every time (in this case especially re Scarlet and re BLW. So far I've spoon-fed DS some pureed fruit, porridge etc and given him pieces of fruit, pasta and bread as finger food. I think I'll carry on like that. Then I know he's eating food, but also learning to feed himself. They'll all end up eating just fine, either way, but I'm not sure I can face fish-pie-mageddon here just yet, even with a dog! Oh, speaking of food, DS just ate an entire (small) sweet potato, mashed up! He wasn't impressed with the first taste but then got into it and grinned away at me. Lovely.

Too please can we have regular mealtime reports? Well done M on the sterling efforts so far! (BTW remember your stepmum's weaning comments? Well, I told my mum about baby led weaning last night on the phone, and that I was doing finger food with DS already, and she was horrified! Tried to talk me out of it, then went very quiet. ominous She's worried about choking. Can somebody remind me why that's not a danger?)

Scream I'd live to visit Yosemite. What have you done there so far? Seen any wolves?!

Hawthers hope F can be persuaded again that night-time is for sleeping...

Jaggy glad your DH has some meds - hope he's better soon.

Ninja garage-clearing and tip-visiting sounds very cathartic and hard work . Good luck with it!

Dream hope the colds bugger off pronto. Also hope you and DH get an evening relaxing together soon...

Oh and hello Cakes !

Also obviously I'd love to visit Yosemite.

Oooh Pet how do you make things underlined?

Ds2 is still trying to crawl bled him. He's sort of managing to get up into hands and knees and then rock back and forth . He needs to bring his knees under his bottom before he'll get anywhere as his arms / legs are still going outwards from his body iyswim but being off the floor enough to rock seems like progress somehow.

Still not much in the sitting department. He did sort of sit without me touching him for about 5 secs the other day but I think was mainly leaning on his legs to hold himself up. Still this is progress also I suppose?

Bless, not bled - I'm crap at multi tasking

pet - their gag reflex is amazing so choking them would in a way be an achievement :)

3 with colds is just not fair Dream

Scream your trip sounds fab, make the most of it

Scarlet you did a great job coping

Too fish pie doesn't sound like much fun. I'm not looking forward to weaning, would be quite happy to keep bf for ever ages

Well DD has finally cracked tummy time. For the first time she isn't screaming her head off as soon as she is on her belly and is lifting her head up. I've put up a pic

Reading avidly
. Ignoring pommes A eating like a horse and not sleeping. DD eats fruit, lots of fruit but never a vegetable shall pass her lips, bar the occasional pea. Fishfingers and waffles it is!!

Boys weighed. EXACTLY the same to the .whatever except I can't remember what they weigh- 7.63kg I think... Couldn't even be bothered to work it out in lb . Hv came to tell me she'd not refer to dietetics as she doesn't think B is cmpi, possibly lactose intolerant but his weight gain is too good. Sigh. at least they got weighed. She infuriated me, as if its me wanting there to be a problem, when all along I've tried hard not to jump on the medicalised/ drugs/ food intolerances bandwagon. I'll be bloody delighted if i dairy challenge him and he's fine, bring on Oct 20th!!! Bloody hvs.... At least she thought they were delicious :)

Off to check your pic rubber and am envisaging your E biscuits. Did you spot that Jon turned up in your post again?! I had a little giggle.

Calpol o'clock here.

Oh, and am.cheered and encouraged by your wise words on weaning biscuits, thanks.

How amazing they weighed exactly the same dream! Your hv doesn't know anything about cmpi though. Weight gain a very bad indicator (some cmpi babies get massive as they overfeed for comfort) and lactose intolerant is a very different thing which is both extremely rare and much worse than cmpi. Grr.

A failed dairy challenge to start with but is now fine with cows milk and yoghurt.

Biscuits to underline put an underscore at the beginning and end. Sounds like E could be crawling very soon! who needs sitting anyway?

Dream weights sound good - so has B caught up with S? I'm sure your DD will learn to like veg again soon enough.

Thanks Pomme - I'll report that back to my mum.

Rubber well done to N on the tummy-time!

Oh no Dream 3 with cold sounds very hard work indeed. Brooking for a better night tonight for you. Can't say I'm surprised at the HV, my experience with them is mostly crap.

Cute pic of DD Rubber

Good to hear DS is getting on well at school Ninja. How long now til the move?

at the weaning complexities. Whatever it takes to get them eating a wide variety of foods with the least amount of stress for everyone involved is my train of thought. Another 5 weeks here until we start and I'm intending to do a mixture of purees and finger foods. I can't be doing with the mess of full on BLW. And I haven't got a dog.

Horrible Horrible Horrible day here. DS has not been sick again but has been not well at all. Lethargic, pale and not himself. He's been asking for food but I've been mean and only let him have 1 slice of toast with marmite and 2 Ribena ice lollies. He's had numerous cups of water which have stayed down. I shall increase his food intake tomorrow but I'm very wary. I think he's asleep now but I'm on edge now fully expecting myself, DH or DD to come down with it.

TMI WARNING I haven't got full on AF back, but I am losing sizeable amounts of old brown blood and lots of clots . I mentioned it to my Mum who said she thought I might need a D & C, so I now have that to freak out about. I haven't got time to visit GP between now and holiday so it'll have to wait til I get back, by which time I'm hoping it will have all stopped. Anyone got any knowledge about this?

My exciting news is that I decided to go for the basic Kindle and a nice olive green leather case with built in LED. I'm hoping it arrives in the next couple of days so I can take it away with me. Thanks for all the info re Kindles.

So, I need some brooking tonight please. No puking in the Scarlet house. EVER AGAIN

Oh and of course I meant to say thanks to all of you who helped me through my hours of need earlier. Your kind words did help me stop feeling so rubbishy about myself, even though my anxiety has ramped up a gear now this evening!

Rubber, such a cute pic! Love the stripy babygro, too.

Today's meals: Bread and butter and yoghurt for breakfast - score, some chewed bread and licked-off butter, small amounts of yoghurt went in, much, much more all over the highchair and M.
Finger-food type dinner (no lunch as M slept through it after swimming): ham, cheese, tomato, cucumber, peach, bread and butter in chunks. She tried everything except the cucumber, I think, but again, not much actually went in. Less mess, though - we got a giant bib from Babies R Us, similar idea to those ones from Ikea that Ninja linked to. The only thing is that it's a bit big and concertinas under her chin between her mouth and her hand, annoyingly.

I have tried BLW in a cafe - basically gave her bits of my sandwich, plus the lettuce garnish that came with it. She chucked heaps of bread onto the floor, but I swept it all up into my napkin before we left, so hopefully the waitress wasn't too annoyed. Anyway, I used to be a waitress and people would come in and let their kids make a huge crumby mess on the floor and not do anything about it, so I don't feel too guilty. I've also asked for vegetables without salt in restaurants so M can eat some. So cafes etc are fine, but I'm not sure how well it will go down at friends' houses. I'll just have to clean up around her as she eats, I think.

Pet, choking's not a danger because they learn to chew first before they start swallowing, so nothing unchewed goes down. M has coughed on food, but not in an alarming way. Also, you aren't supposed to put food in their mouths for them although I do sometimes if she seems to be getting bored and not much has gone in yet in case their mouths get too full.

Biscuits, yay for E and the hands-and-knees rocking! M can't get up on hands and knees simultaneously yet - either hands or knees/feet but not both. The sitting has come on marvellously in the last week or so, though. She can sit unaided for quite long stretches - easily a minute or more at a time.

Scarlet, when do you leave for your holiday? Are you sure you shouldn't be checked out re AF? It doesn't quite sound right. I'm no expert though. How long did you say there had been between AFs? And the first one was ridiculously heavy, right? Have you been feeling well in yourself?

Scarlet I think you've given DS exactly the right sort of food / I would have done exactly that in your position. Toast is my stock offering after sickness and if that goes ok then I might graduate onto scrambled egg. So glad he's kept everything down but sorry he's all lethargic and yucky.

And of course, mega brooking that no one else gets it.

You know with the AF thing, do your docs do call back appointments so you could just discuss it with a doctor over the phone? It does sound like maybe the sort of thing that might need to be checked?

Too sounds like M is doing brilliantly with all the food. We had an impromptu lunch out so ds2 had an Ella's kitchen pouch and some of the bread that came with my soup. He did pretty well with the bread though - definitely the bits that were on the floor / high chair at the end were significantly smaller than what he's started with. I also gave him some cucumber sticks this afternoon while I was making his milk - he seemed quite keen, although soon sussed out that this was -not- (thank you Pet) going to fill him up . Still, he had cucumber in his mouth which is more than I've managed with ds1 in 4 years! DS2 has been grumpy this afternoon though - its been really hard to manage them both as he just has grumbled whenever he's not being held or at least had me right next to him, meanwhile ds1 is going 'pleeeeeeease play with me mummy, I want a person to play with' but a game whereby I can sit right by ds2 isn't satisfactory . Add in the fact that to get any tea sorted didn't meet either of those requirements just made it all quite hard.

Oh and Dream was the Jon reference about the note in pockets things? That was just my little joke to keep you all on your toes . If it was elsewhere them I might consider reporting Jon for stalking me, whoever he is

So I'm up feeding ds2 again. Pretty sure its not his teeth waking him these days. He's just waking . Last night I fed him the first time but then when he woke an hour later I figured he really couldn't be hungry and that was it really in my box of tricks - took ages to get the cheeky monkey back to sleep .

He'd better not try that again tonight pleeeeeeeeaase

Still failed with the underlining because of course an underscore is not a hyphen

Hi all!

Just wanted to throw in some extra No Brooking for Scarlet - poor you, poor DS! I hope he feels better soon with absolutely no more puking and I hope your sort-of-AF clears off ASAP! Both of these things need to happen IMMEDIATELY

Also No Brooking for all those hoping weaning will bring about more sleep. Little A has been very good this holiday, apart from refusing to sleep for more than two hours at a time! The constant up-and-down every night is pretty gruelling when you're out and about all day.

Pet no more mention of wolves thank you very much! I've already got DH talking about bears and wildfires all day long! [fraidy cat emoticon]

To cement my status as a sad MN addict, I have in fact just uploaded a photo. In my defence we have free wifi in this hotel, and every night when I remember I copy my camera's photos to DH's notebook so we have back up copies. So it's not that much of a stretch for me to upload one, even though I'm still on hol and clearly should be out doing fun things! (It is the middle of the night here though, and I'm currently up while DH tries to convince DD to go back to sleep).

Anyhoo, now that we've figured out the whole 'MN mates' thing I've actually dared to put up a pic of myself! Please excuse the hideous gut, I seem to have got EVEN FATTER since arriving nothing to do with having fast food every day. The pic was taken today, maybe 6 hours ago, which also happens to be DD's 5 month "birthday". We're still in Yosemite, as you can see.

Also, Rubber I love the pic of your DD! So cute!!

Just looked at your pic Scream - WOW! It is so beautiful! And obviously even further improved by the addition of beautiful A and beautiful you

I want to go there even more now!

Also a super cute pic of N rubber

Oh, by the way, ds2 only got me up the once last night. He murmured a few times so I was waiting for it to start but he went back off to sleep after 1 little murmer each time.

DS1 on the other hand was up at 12:30 (DS2 up 1:30-2:10), 2:45, 3:20, 4:00, 5:00 and 5:45 Now he only needs putting back in bed each time but it does require me to get out of bed and for some reason I'm struggling to drop back off to sleep at the moment so I'd only just be dozing off and he'd be back again! He wasn't being naughty or anything, just one of those nights I guess when he couldn't sleep?

Also felt irrationally annoyed by DH - I wouldn't have expected him to get up with him as he's at work today but he slept through the whole thing so much he couldn't even respond to my 'this is getting sodding ridiculous' ranting when I came back to bed. A consoling 'poor you' would have been nice?

Poor you, Biscuits! I naively thought that 4 year olds would sleep through. Does he just come through and say he can't sleep?

M was up at 12, just as I was dropping off to sleep, then at 1.40, then 5, then 6.30 and then slept until 8.30. The first couple of times she had really cold hands, but I looked at the thermometer and it was still 19 degrees in her room. Do you think perhaps I should put her in a cardigan under her sleeping bag? I do drape a blanket over her as well as the sleeping bag and usually come through to find that she's pulled it over her nose, but she still sticks her hands out.

Scream, what a lovely pic! And what gut? You look lovely, m'dear. It's nice to put faces to names as well - I knew what A looked like but not you. Now I can picture you properly!

rubber well done to little N, cute pic too!
scarlet I echo what biscuits said about a gp call back. It doesn't sound right to me. I hope it all settles back down v soon for you. Glad to hear ds is feeling a bit better too.
Would your gp refer you instead of the hv dream? Or can you see a different hv? Good to hear they are gaining weight though. Brooking for the colds to vanish into thin air very soon.
biscuits stick ds2 in a high chair/ sling and give ds1 a peeler and a carrot when you want to cook dinner, my ds has loved helping me cook for at least the last year or so and is now v good with a peeler (he's excellent when you want to cook a roast and need a hand but can't do potatoes though as they are too round for him). Or if he isn't interested in that can you stand him at the sink with lots of plastic bits to wash up and lots of soapy water? That also keeps ds entertained. Poor you on the sleep front last night, your ds must be a bit tired today too. Can you have a cbeebies/ tea and biscuit break regularly?
I'm not jealous of that photo at all scream not me, no siree, not at all...
dd has her 12 week jabs today, hope she is ok with them. She dropped off on the school run so have left her in the car seat in my bedroom napping so i don't disturb her. Better make a bottle before I go so its ready to console her when we get back. I think she is either teething a lot at the mo or having a growth spurt (or both) as her sleeping is a lot lighter and she's constantly hungry and always has her hands in her mouth. Hope the weather clears up soon, its crap when its raining!

He does usually sleep through Too but sometimes gets up once or even twice and comes through. Sometimes he says he can't sleep, sometimes he says absolutely nothing, even when asked and you can put him back in bed without him saying anything at all. Not wishing to jinx it but I've never had a problem getting him back into bed, it's just a PITA having to get out of bed myself. And as for doing it every hour or so, well that is just unprecedented.

He says his throat aches this morning but I don't know if he's just tired from being up so much, or of he was up so much because he's coming down with something . He never mentioned feeing poorly over night.

Ds2 still up on hands and knees and rocking.......

Scarlet how is DS today?