DECEMBER 2012: The start of crawling and the end of maternity leave

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I am really struggling to get food into The Little Mister in the evening.

He isn't massively keen on lunch but eats well at lunchtime. By the evening he is often too tired to eat. Does anyone's LO sleep before their tea?

FoD DS doesn't sleep after 2pm, ever. So dinner really needs to be about half 3 so he's not too tired. It's usually at. Half 5 and he hardly eats any.

Nice work Pidj! His Very-Hungriness is paying off.

Best of luck spotty. Fingers crossed.

FoD, we're only on 2 meals a day at present. C is too tired in the morning to eat (though I need to try again soon) so I feed her brunch after first wake up (around 9-10am), and then dinner at 5pm. She ate no 'dinner' this evening - just some fruit and yoghurt. I think the heat puts them off food, plus I think she's teething today. Lots of gnawing and gum smacking.

I wonder if the heat makes them more drowsy too. C slept 3h45m today which is a lot for her, and was super cranky all afternoon too.

Ds refused lunch. I'm really not worried though, yesterday dd wouldn't eat dinner but I know they'll eat if they're hungry

I cut out lunch as DS would never eat his tea if he had it. He now has finger foods at lunch, pretty much none of which actually makes it into him so he eats tonnes at tea time. He just ate 1/4 of a salmon fillet, 1.5 new potatoes and some florets of broccoli, plus a Hipp fruit mush pot. He loves tea now. He always has a late sleep though or he'd never make it to bedtime, today's was 2:30-5:30 but we'd had a busy day and he was exhausted.

I am a bit fucked off today. DP has had another phone call from MiL. Apparently she "wants to start having J from next week". And I quote "She wants time alone with him, which is fair enough isn't it? So you can go out and she can have him." I will not be going out specially, if I need to go out and don't want to take him then fine, but I'm not being bullied out of my own house. He's putting J to bed while I go to aerobics, think there's a little chat on the cards later

Isthat to help soothe DS skin you could try chamomile tea. When T has had a really sore bottom I make up about a litre of Chamomile tea with several tea bags and chuck it into his bath water; it works wonders on nappy rash. He often has sore dry bits around his ankles and it seems to help there too.
Hope his arm gets better quickly too!

Hales wow so many teeth! DS just has crazy bumpy gums, my friend is a dentist and even she commented that his gums looked really bumpy. Hopefully they will stop tormenting him soon and just arrive.

T is still not really napping. He often pushes and squirms if I hold him so that he can get down to boob level and feed then he goes off to sleep. Today he did this three times. The first two times when I was sure he was fast asleep I put him down and he woke up about 5 minutes later. So the third time I just held him and he had a lovely sleep. I think that is the first time he has ever had an entire nap on me (that was a proper 30 min nap and not a quick snooze).

Then this afternoon I visited a friend and we sat in her garden, T fed and then had a great nap on their picnic blanket! Hurrah, the first decent naps in about two weeks!!

Jeeeez Willyou does she not understand that she is not actually the central player in this scenario? I know that if DP's parents became more pushy (ha, if thats even possible) I would simply back right off and dig my heels in.

I am still thinking about letting them walk him for an hour or two once a week ish.... I'm thinking about it.... thinking... thinking....

Poor baby isthat ezcema sucks. Sun cream is a likely culprit - not least because it stops the skin breathing. I avoid it if I can. Dd2 gets terrible ezcema and the thing that has made the biggest difference is not using any washing detergents on her clothes.

Well done baby pidj

Stand your ground willyou - mil is going to have to get used to the idea that you da mama so you call the shots.

We generally have two reasonable meals a day, the third being mostly rejected due to tiredness or perhaps too recent a boob feed. T will not eat brekkie before a short morning nap, usually just 30 mins on the school run. Then lunch or tea depending what the day has been like.

Bloody heat wave - I put a fan on in her room - temp has gone up! We are now at 30 ffs. Top tip though - fill a hot water bottle with cold water and leave it in the fridge all day - cools the bed down beautifully. Now where can I buy hot water bottles??

T properly 'asked' for boob today - it was when she was fussing at lunch and I thought she wouldn't eat after but she was much happier after and ate the lot!

I've also heard of people putting bed sheets into carrier bags and then into the freezer to cool sheets down!

Our fan makes the temp go up too but it feels nice

WillYou poor you your dh definitely needs talking to ds is my baby and I don't want anyone looking after him unless I really need/want to do something else.

Oh IsThat poor ds definitely the sun cream

Ds went down fine but I think I woke him up an hour later running a bath. He's back asleep now. He's slept through the past two weeks I'm hoping it wasn't because of the formula....

Ds awake again. It must be because of the formula

Nooo spotty! Good luck tonight.

WillYou, you need dh on side. "Would you like me to take the baby for a walk so you can have a soak in the bath?" is lovely. "I'm going to take the baby because I want to" is fucking outrageous. Hopefully you can find the right words to let him see that.

R often naps a around 4, tea is at 5 now. He sleeps better if he's down by 7. We still get two wakes but he sleeps till 6:30 and wakes happy. 8:00 bedtime means a 5:30 grumpy waking

We load him up at breakfast and lunch because he feeds to sleep. If his tummy is too full of solids he can't get off and it upsets him. I know everyone else is trying to get their baby to self settle but i see it as a developmental stage like the walking, talking etc. At the moment, he needs me - milk and cuddles. Breastfeeding is not just about food. Obviously different for the bottle feeders!

Someone is bloody chainsawing outside

Ds sucks his thumb so is happy to go to sleep on his own, sometimes he needs some extra attention sometimes he doesn't want any fussing just depends

pidj I'm not bothered about self settling tbh. I love feeding to sleep :)

well DS has stayed asleep while I went out to running club. Thankfully it's not as hot tonight. I hope he sleeps better tonight. I usually take my phone in to MN while I do night feeds but the last few nights I've been so tired I've not even been able to keep my eyes open to read.

Mama - fantastic news about sleeping through. FX she repeats it tonight.

Poor little mite Isthat. Hope it heals quickly for him.

Great weight gain Pidge.

Stick to your guns Willyou. She has no right to dictate to you like that.

Thanks for all the messages about N's arm. He does seem much better today. He's still not too happy about crawling on it (doing a bit of a commando-style thing instead) but is using it fully to play, eat and pull himself up onto the sofa to practice cruising . It seems to be just bearing his (not insignificant) weight that is an issue, so I think he has maybe sprained his wrist. DH keeps reassuring me that it's not my fault and just one of those split-second things that couldn't be avoided, but I still feel terrible .

Glad he's on the mend ispy. Of course it's not your fault but of course you feel bad - because you're a good mummy. We will all accidentally hurt them at some time - while we were away DH ran into dd1 and knocked her over - that's 14st vs 3.5 st! She was fine and he felt terrible - ah the dangers of playing stuck in the mud!

spotty baby thumb sucking is sooo cute!

I do love feeding to sleep and I love that my boobs provide comfort and security as well as nourishment but I also love not being exhausted! Trying to find a balance.

Pidj great weight gain. I'm not fussed about self settling if she does it great, but the majority of the time she wants comfort so will settle better for me. Shes bottle fed and still needs the same level of comfort as she did whilst breastfed.

Nutella, H has bumpy gums as well her 9th tooth didn't pop through today but i can definitely see/feel it. But i can also see teeth 10 and 11.

Ispy glad there is some improvement with N's arm. I agree with your DH there is nothing for you to feel guilty about it was a freak moment. But then again like WL said you feeling guilty is a sign your a good mum.

Willyou i wouldn't be giving MiL any time alone next week just to make a point. She doesn't get to demand time alone. Like Pidj said it would be nice if she offered it in a nice way. Could you sit her down and tell her you wanted to take things slowly and explain that DS is your son and he has the rest of his life to bond with her.

Isthat, i hope DS's excema (sp) clears up soon.

Mama yay for your good sleep last night i hope it continues tonight.

FoD H doesn't eat alot whilst weaning and very rarely finishes a meal. I have brought some scotch pancakes for her to try in the morning though and hopefully she'll like them, but i know she won't finish even 1/4 of one .

Sleep patterns loopy here due to heat, he must think he's in Turkey again. bedtime at 9.30 on thedot for the last 3 nights, but he's so happy to see dh come home I think that's part of it - so cute to hear them playing!

willyou sympathy for the mil issue. I almost had a mil like that, just ridiculous to dictate to you AND even worse behaviour putting you and dh at odds.

isthat sorry a obout lo's skin. O has little patches sometimes from suncream; I must try the cam. tea trick!

Good news on weight gain pidj, must be good to know. We're blw so i have very little idea of how much makes it into him vs onto him/his general surroundings. Am just working on the basis of always offer a variety of real food first and as much milk as he fancies after. He had a happy time dressing up in moussaka this evening.

ispy also glad to hear about arm improvements and i don't think any of us think you're anything but a great mum..

wl we're at a funny point with feeding to sleep as O is starting tohave a major drink after supper then finishing while still awake but wanting to be cuddled to sleep after. Not sure why, but means dh and I can take turns on the cuddle settling which is nice for him as he misses O and I get me time (in which I tidy the house because i am clearly a fruit looo while he tries to get me to relax instead...)

Wah! DS is wailing the house down with tooth pain. I've calpolled him but still waiting for it to kick in. He didn't even want a bottle as it was hurting too much.

I seem to have insomnia and I'm also 300 degrees, I'm melting. I have no temp control since having a baby. I also may murder DP as he keeps rolling over onto me and giving me the rage

Me me me! I don't care, it's the middle of the night and I'm grumpy!

I'm with you on the late night Utopian, j went to bed when we did at 10:15.