November 2012 - sleeping through yet?

[StuntNun]

Previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/postnatal_clubs/1647736-November-2012-losing-sleep-and-losing-weight

Stats list: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/antenatal_clubs/1485512-November-2012-Stats-List

Lane we had a "welcome to the world" party for DD when she was about 8wo. At PIL house and all v low key, but it was lovely to have all the family & friends there. Was June though, so a LOT easier than this time of year.

Oh GT just had a thought. Is there a word limit on our 2 posts allocation? Otherwise we'll all end up posting super epic posts yes detective I'm talking about you for our 2 a day

Forgive me but I need a teeny tiny mini RANT

Now, I love dsd (5) very much, and up until last week she has been no trouble at all since LO arrived, but today she has driven me to distraction. It will sound petty but need to let off steam.
She won't play alone (never has)
She won't play with us
She sulks at EVERYTHING
She won't eat normal food
She will however talk back and give dh lots of attitude.

At the risk of being the evil stepmother, have sent her to her room to play for an hour, sent dh out for a drive and am currently cleaning up ranting.
Phew

Sorry - feels better to type like a maniac and get the ranting out the system.

Oh, and don't make us limit posts, we'd end up doing IOU's for the next days posts anyway, particularly on ranty days.

They didn't have blw when I weaned DS2 and he LOVED pureed sweet potato and continued to ask for 'orange mush' long after he was well on to solids. Both DS1 and DS2 loved the baby spaghetti bolognese that comes dried and you make up with hot water. I imagined myself making everything from scratch but when DS1 wouldn't eat it became easier to use packets and jars because there wasn't the emotional response when he refused to eat the food I had lovingly prepared. At 18 months the only thing he would reliably eat was peas! Neither DS1 or DS2 ever opened their mouth to be fed puree, you either had to prise their teeth open or trick them with the choo choo train into the tunnel which never worked very well. After all the stress of weaning them I'm going to try blw this time. As with all things though I'll take my cues from the baby and see what suits him best. There's no point being dogmatic about it. I'll try everything and see how he responds.

I think it's useful to have discussion on here, both for the FTMs and for those of us trying something different this time. Until I had DS1 I had no clue how to feed a baby. I got into a real mess until I saw DMIL feed him. I hadn't realised you were supposed to scoop up the stuff they push out with their tongue and feed it to them again!

Lane Hipp made DD1 even more constipated than usual switched to Aptamil which is slightly better.

It does make me laugh how some people, such as AK or GF are treated as villains on here! I thought the book was good for inspiration anyway

I'm sure BLW is very safe really but I have a complete paranoia about choking after something happened to a friend of a friends toddler. It's just not for me but I do think it helps them feed themselves better

Hipp also made Penelope even more consipated. We moved to aptimal before the CMPI discovery. Make a decision VQ and stick to one. Mind you, only one carton a day is unlikely to make an enormous difference. Aptimal is the most expensive but very easy to get a hold of. Actually, VQ we have some cartons of both Hipp and Aptimal which we can't use as well as some sealed powder - would you like them?

I use sma. Being the paranoid person that I am I lined the four brands up and read the ingredients. They are all essentially the same. Just different quantities of whatever.

I use sma because that's what we were given in hospital and I saw no reason to change. People say aptimal is most like breast milk but see my previous paragraph.

Aptamil say that Aptamil is the most like breastmilk. I think they got done for misleading advertising on that one according to a (anti ff) thread I read last year.

I think Hipp now make some claim about praebiotics and similarly to breast milk. We were given aptimal by the hospital - i was asked if i had a preferance and when i said no they offered that. Cow and Gate and Aptimal are made by Milupa in the same factory. Interestingly, the only brand that the hospital didn't stock was Hipp. No idea why. The SMA mini-bottled look lovely irrelevant I know but they are very cute

I am another one who had no idea that weaning was such a heated topic. I also think noone on this group should apologise for airing their opinions. Just as we no longer apologise for 'too much information' I think we all know each other well enough now to know that we are all awesome grown up enough to share and take on board other opinions.

I was given an AK book for Christmas by a pal. I am flicking through it right now. It shall take pride of place next to my Gina Ford contented baby book! At the end of the day I think it all comes down to individual families and what works for them. I also think that babies lead most of it anyway whether they are knowingly 'baby-led' or not. For example, penny has become a Gina Ford baby - I didn't try to make her that but took wee ideas about bath time. Turns out P likes sleeping and likes routine. I don't think for a minute that we could make her follow that structure if she wasn't hard-wired that way. Or rather she would eventually follow a routine but it would be a long, hard journey.

On that note, I have learned this week that Penny is over dozing off in swings, car seats or bouncers. Baskets are for sleeping. Sometimes people but mostly baskets. This is fine with me but I have had to be much more aware of her sleepy cues which I haven't been up until now. Previously I just assumed she would doze off wherever she was. Now I have to watch her and put her down properely.

I have also noticed that she doesn't give hungry cues anymore. Certainly not ones I recognise anymore.

Everyday is different!

Evil Thinking of you, hope things settle down and a BIG apology reaches you very soon x

This is the first time I've heard of 'baby let weaning', I had to look it up to see what it was all about. It's pretty much how I've weaned my 3 anyway but they always eat what we eat blended then I put some of the veg that's in the food near them (chopped up) so they can munch on it if they wish. All 3 are now totally different with their eating and they were all weaned the same, one turned into a fuss pot at about 6 after eating anything, one turned into a fuss pot about 2 then at 10 decided that it was babyish to be refusing foods and now eats anything and the other has always eaten anything put in front of her, so I really do think as long as they get a varied diet when weaning it's pot luck how they eat further along the line. Just make sure you keep trying them with different foods and keep offering it even if it disgusts them :)

I'm very tired today. Night feeds are still midnight, 3am, 4.30am, 6am and 7am, it isn't easing at all. Oh well, at least it means that I can carry on eating the Christmas puddings and brandy sauce - there's an upside to everything!

I'm with you shelly. I am the middle child of 3 - we were traditionally weened as I imagine most people born in the 70s were. My big brother is rake thin and has a very peculiar attitude to food - won't eat meat that looks like meat, everything needs to be massively over cooked, nothing too strong tasting, huge portions but tiny appitite. My sister is overweight and eats through boredom and comfort. She eats pretty much anything but has a real weakness for high fat foods. I used to suck the marrow out of chicken bones. I also though being fussy was babyish. My mum says we all had very distinct attitudes towards food as small babies which continued into adulthood.

pass yes please I would love to give them a home

I think I used SMA for DD 1 from 8 months, although cannot be sure as it was such a long time ago.

I agree, with just one bottle a day, there is waste with a tub, but I used to use it to mix with porridge etc when I used it occasionally for DD2. I hated throwing the remainder away after 4 weeks. It is still cheaper doing that than buying the cartons if you use it regularly.

Awesome VQ. They are just going to get chucked out otherwise.

I think I'm being the same kind of parent with ds1 and ds2. I'm a bit more relaxed this time but I was quite relaxed the first time too. I haven't had time to read all the posts and I hope im not repeating what some one else has said, but my experience in regard to weaning is that they would eat most anything when they are 6 months. My ds1 was a bit of a fussy eater but in a kind of healthy way. He would eat fish, most veg, chicken, rice and fruit, but didn't like pasta or onions in his gravy. It was all stuff I could work with. He now eats or will try most things. I didn't make a big deal out of it. His fussiness started at about 2 and I think it was because he wasn't having all foods regularly. If there was a food he hadn't had recently, he was more likely to refuse it.

I'm umming and arring about getting ewan the sheep, does it really work? Has anyone found that it didn't work??

Also I'm scared that if it does work, am I just pushing sleep issues backward as he's not learning to self soothe and is relying on a sheep.

Chick my DS2 wouldn't go to sleep unless he was hugging his Piglet toy until he was just over 6 at which point he abruptly stopped caring. He still has Piglet in his bed but he doesn't look for him when he goes to bed now. So I think the same will happen with the sheep - they'll only need it up to a point.

Oh, I went to a parent and baby showing of les mis yesterday. Complete chaos. Not sure if I'm going to go to one again. It was packed and all the babies seemed unhappy.

I don't remember ds1 having anything to begin with. Had a Micky mouse when he was about 4

My DD developed a need for cuddling & poking it in her eye!!! a muslin, perhaps because she was always on one as a sicky baby, when she was over 6mths definitely, possibly over a year. DS seems to want something to bury his face in to.Why are my kids freaks? Eye poking & self-asphyxiation??!!!! I think if baby settles well when sung to or shushed, Ewan is a good bet. DS, for example, doesn't seem bothered by the quiet or need a nightlight to sleep, as long as he can squish his face!!

For the moment LO doesn't have anything to help her settle. DD1 was the same until she was about 15 months, then she suddenly got attached to a soft dog toy that she won't sleep or eat or go anywhere without now.

vq when we had our infant training at work they told us about the differences between the formulas - they all contain exactly the same minerals etc the differences were the percentages of casein and something else my baby brain has forgot and it's pros and cons which of course I can't remember must dig out my book of notes anyway aptamil was said to be slightly better than the others hth

I have no idea what blw is???? With ds(13) I started on baby rice, then introduced purees gradually increasing lumps/strong flavours and offering finger foods. I also gave him a spoon then fork as soon as he could hold it.

Although I'm wanting to go into midwifery where I will have to promote a lot of governmental advice - ie feet to foot, sleeping on the back, co-sleeping etc.... But I am a bigggg believer in mothers instinct - mothers have been winging it before cavemen were around and as a species we've survived.

The only way Dottie will have a nap during the day is on her tummy - I'm in the room and after Isaac slept on his front from birth and Tallulah on her back - guess which one we had problems with mild plagiocephaly??? Even though she had loads of tummy time.

I'm just gonna follow my instincts and go with whatever fits in with me and my family - so far so good lol

Pass - our babies have obviously been talking to one another!! Ds is a routine baby. Works well for me and my daily rituals routines.

He's 11weeks old today!!! This time 11weeks ago I was exhausted and being prepped for theatre!! Today he's spent most of the day giggling and eating his fist!!

I also think this thread is superb!!

I believe Aptamil is thought to be the best because they were the first to introduce probiotics. All the brands have them in now though so there isn't much difference between them. Just use whichever is cheapest/easiest to get/agrees with your baby.

I'm off out for dinner, DM is babysitting all three of them the brave soul. She is armed with the Amazing Spider-Man DVD and two bottles of EBM.

Bplp - from memory BLISS recommend weaning prem's earlier rather than later. Counterintuitive - but they have more need for it earlier apparently. I think the rec is 4 months - though I waited till 5 with dd1. Double check though.