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June 2013 (3) - teething & not sleeping!

990 replies

rrreow · 21/10/2013 17:33

I broke the old thread! Step this way, step this way.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
pinkapples · 08/12/2013 22:26

No gagging here I'm afraid just a little muncher Grin but if I give her a bit that she deems clearly lumpy she does pull a not so cute face

hedgehogy · 09/12/2013 04:43

No gagging here either. But I think we're feeding her too late as since we started weaning she has woken up every night to poo! Just as she's got over her virus.

Sweet potato is the big winner so far, she couldn't get enough of it! At one point she grabbed a loaded spoon and shoved it into her mouth herself as I wasn't fast enough!

pinkbear82 · 09/12/2013 07:07

Hmmm ok, I shall speak to the hv and see if they feel anything needs checking. I still wonder if there was an underlying reason that the milk got in a her lungs and caused the asphyxiation in the first place. Lots of people in the medical profession I know said that it would have taken more than one feed, etc.
I'd rather be a fussy mum on this and make sure she is ok and isn't going to have big problems later on.

Olimoss · 09/12/2013 08:01

Joe's been on solids for a couple of months now, a combination of spoon-fed and leaving it up to him to get on with it himself with chunks of food. Have to be a bit cautious due to his operation site and the throat and make sure we can get stuff past it.

He's been on textured foods a while - only had pure purée for the first couple of weeks to get use to tastes, swallowing, etc. They don't need things very smooth for long, and in fact is good to get them used to texture sooner rather than later otherwise all they know and want is smooth, mushy stuff.

Scrambled eggs (creamy, not rubbery) are massively popular with him, as is yoghurt, dried apple and mango, toast and banana. He does eat three times a day now and it does take time but it's definitely good just to let him take his time and work it out. Lots of coughing and choking at the start, I've had to fish little lumps out a couple of times but he seems entirely unaffected by any of it.

He drinks water when he eats, out of a free flowing sippy cup. It's a bit messy but he seems fine. He's dropped his 3am feed entirely and the 11pm one has gone down by half, as has the 7am one so his milk intake has probably gone down by 400ml in total.

He's had the most filthy cold, really hardly able to breathe poor chook. I blame, entirely, a mum and dad who insist on bringing their red-eyed snot-covered baby to music class; they let her run free and eat all the toys and climb over everyone else. She has been ill the last three weeks and now I know of at least 3 other babies from the class who are properly ill. Not impressed!

Off to hospital today for a developmental and surgical review. I hate going back there...

Good weeks to you all, hope they are tops.

MadameJ · 09/12/2013 09:42

Morning all, another trip to the gp today as dd's "virus" has developed into the worst cold ever but I think it's on her chest, I'm sure they will think I am completely neurotic but I really don't care!! When my first dd was born my friend had a little boy at the same time and he had a cough for weeks on end and she was told everytime that his chest was clear etc but he ended up being admitted to hospital with a severe chest infection!

MrsBri · 09/12/2013 15:37

Hope the hospital went well, Oli.

Madame, sorry your DD is ill. What did the GP say?

Olimoss · 09/12/2013 15:46

Quick note - we are just back from a Paediatric review at Chelsea & Westminster and have been very firmly told that we should be using follow-on formula! As we are Aptamil users, it's #3 for us. It's got a different formulation which meets the requirements of a 6months+ baby's digestive system and provides a different nutrient/vitamin/mineral weighting. So, there you go! I feel suitably chastened....

rrreow · 09/12/2013 17:15

Oli, I think it's that milk for 1+ yo (i.e. when they can drink cows milk) that is the marketing ploy. As basically formula companies are not allowed to advertise their formula as a breastmilk substitute for under 1, so they advertise for the other stuff (and make you think you need it when you can give much cheaper cows milk! Only from 1yo though). Breastmilk changes its consistency over time in terms of nutrients etc so I guess that would make sense that you'd move on to a different type of formula once weaning.

OP posts:
Olimoss · 09/12/2013 17:19

Nice one, thanks rreow.

He was also very clear that he expected they be drinking water from a sippy cup, that they be doing lots of nice gagging and choking, with quick recoveries, combo of spoonful and bringing food to their mouths themselves, and that they get a good selection of textures and flavours. Pretty specific!

Think we are doing ok, dried mango with lime is very popular in our house.

MrsBri · 09/12/2013 18:07

That's very interesting, Oli.

We've always been told there's no need to change formula to go onto follow on milk. It's not relevant for us anyway as Amy is on LF milk so won't be changing it as there isn't an equivalent.

We seem to be on track for weaning, going by that. Amy has mastered the sippy cup and helps herself to it as well, which means that water is going down far better than it used to!

It's interesting to see what different health professionals say about things, isn't it?

Olimoss · 09/12/2013 18:17

MrsBri - I think it's as rreow says - that is def the case for the 1yr+ stuff, totally unnecessary and you can just go onto cow's milk, if lactose is not an issue. I did query him on it and he was quite clear!

MrsBri · 09/12/2013 19:44

We've been told to test Amy with lactose next Jan to see what reaction she has. If it's ok I think we will slowly increase the amounts given bit by bit.

We can give her lactose free cows' milk. I'm not sure why anyone would use formula beyond 12 months anyway!

Sarah2506 · 09/12/2013 20:36

It is eternally frustrating though I do kind of get why; if you walked into our office with a legal problem you'd get ten different solutions. Doesn't make any if us wrong, just that we all have different takes. Same with doctors. It's just an opinion, another doctor will likely have a slightly different view. One thing that winds me up no end is our local health visitors saying the babies need calories from food. When you point out they'd need a kilo of carrots to get the same calories as one milk feed they say that can't be right. And I feel like screaming 'just look at the calories information on formula and on carrots!!' So basically I ignore them. Because as Dontmind always tells us, they are only qualifies to operate the scales...

Mrs81 · 09/12/2013 21:10

The HVs in these parts don't even do that Sarah! They watch the mums weigh their babies and then write the figure down in the book... Hmm

MrsBri · 09/12/2013 22:05

That's weird, Sarah, as ours say the opposite and seem well informed about weaning.

It's a postcode lottery again, isn't it? :-/

Sarah2506 · 09/12/2013 22:51

Yeah she told me if I 'insisted on baby led weaning' she'd need to be weighed more. WTF? She probably gets more calories from the mouthful of bread, salmon and avocado she had for lunch than from the same thing puréed and spoon fed. What nonsense.

MrsBri · 10/12/2013 03:23

WTAF, in fact!

I'd just not bother going again in your shoes. It isn't compulsory to go to the HV, so just don't go! You're not missing out on much if the know Jack shit. How bizarre.

I'm not taking Amy again I don't think. She gets weighed (and as an added bonus, measured) when we go to the hospital with her, so I'll stick to that for now. But even if I didn't I probably still wouldn't bother as I can tell she's putting in weight as she's growing and I can barely pick her up these days! :-)

AlohaMama · 10/12/2013 06:15

EHave yet to see the HV in our new place. Let's hope they are more sensible than yours sarah. Though at this rate I won't be going to them anyway, they are on,y around for two hours a fortnight and I keep being busy. I need to try and track them down at least to get dd weighed.

We had a much better night last night. For the first time in a while the two-hourly wake ups were replaced by sleeping through from 6:30 - 3:00. I'm not sure if its a coincidence that she's been napping much better these last few days as I've tried much harder to stick to a routine with her - sleep begets sleep and all that. On the downside, ds woke up at 11 with croup, and coughed and cried so hard he made himself sick :( let's hope the LO doesn't get it.

MrsBri · 10/12/2013 07:57

I think I'm quite lucky as the administrative area I live in includes a deprived area (Bootle) and this means that we all get a lot of extra support even though my town is nowhere near deprived.

We have excellent breast feeding support as well as 5 x 2 hour HV clinics to choose from per week at various children's centres around the town. We ALL also get access to the free Healthy Start vitamins even if we don't qualify for them. And our HVs seem nice and sensible.

I feel very lucky reading some of your stories about them.

Sarah2506 · 10/12/2013 08:21

To be fair it's more to do with which HV you get. Some are ok, some less so. I think we do pretty well otherwise. We also have five clinics to chose from, and I have three childrens centres within walking distance. One thing I've not heard of elsewhere is that the HV run postnatal courses you are invited to with 10-12 other new mums in the area. The budget extends to it on the basis that if you have local support from other new mums you will access formal support less often, resulting in an overall saving. I think this is very true and have enjoyed the support of the group.

I think the thing I've been most jealous of amongst you lot is having a named midwife. I never had anyone I could call, just a team I could access who wouldn't necessarily know me or my history.

MrsBri · 10/12/2013 08:32

I only had the same midwife in clinic for the last 8 weeks or so of pregnancy and I wasn't given her number. Like you, I just had to ring the community office and speak to whoever answered / called me back.

With my hospital visits etc I saw about 12 different midwives during the pregnancy. So I'm also jealous of people who had just the one (though all the ones I saw were lovely).

It really does seem to be hit and miss what services new mums can access and I think that's wrong. We should all get the same services and benefits.

curlyclaz13 · 10/12/2013 08:45

I was supposed to have the same mw but from about 20 weeks she was always busy or on holiday when I had appointments so saw different ones. Post birth my aunt (mw) pulled rank to see us for our final check. My actual mw was lovely the rest a bit hit and miss.

HV are at the children's centre once a week for 1 1/2 hours. It does run when bf group is on so I have been but it is a faff. Will do it this week as it has been 7 weeks since he was weighed and I need to ask about the vitamin supplements.

Olimoss · 10/12/2013 08:49

I've never taken J to the health visiting clinics, not since post-natal discharge. Can't be arsed, he's fine. If I had any worries I'd go back to C&W or the GP.

Mrs81 · 10/12/2013 09:43

The discrepancy of support across the country (and indeed between individuals) is something that I'm developing a bit of a soap box thing about. How does your postnatal group work Sarah? It sounds brilliant!

SunnyL · 10/12/2013 10:03

Oooh I'm an evil mummy. Lily has a bad cold which means she's not been eating very much the last couple of days except snot. Last night she slept for aaaaages. She only woke once at 12.30, had a brief feed and then slept til 7.30. I'd forgotten what it felt like to sleep so well. So evil mummy would like Lily to have a cold more often if it does this to her sleep.

On the HV front I seem to have quite nice ones. I think it helps being in a small village as it means it's quite a small team at the health centre. Also most of them seem to be training to become staff nurses so are quite knowledgable. We had 2 midwives look after us during the pregnancy. There was meant to be just 1 for our village but they were having trouble recruiting one. As it was they started the week Lily was born.