Jan 2014 - can we call it a sleep regression if they didn't sleep in the first place?

[Swannykazoo]

Here goes...

I wonder how many of our babies are doing what they're 'supposed to', though. Meredith certainly isn't!

Btw, I don't know if it's the right thing to do, but M doesn't seem to eat much at her evening meal. I don't know if it's too late for her (7pm), but there's not much I can do about that. Last night she fussed and played with her dinner (mash, roasted carrot sticks, broccoli, chunks of boiled gammon), so in desperation I made her some porridge, because I know she eats that. She ate some, and seemed to sleep a bit better last night (woke for feeds at 11.30pm, 3.30am and 5.30am).

We just have to do what we can, don't we?

V true Toby! I think Gina F and the baby whisperer might faint if they saw our general muddle rather than what the book says but it seems to work (ask me again tomorrow when chaos is reigning and I'll be thinking "god this is no way to live maybe I'll get a regime" )

Hello all, feeling a bit frazzled today. Got a poorly little lad, he has a stomach bug. Had his 6:30am feed ok but hasn't kept anything else down all day, even water. Being sick to the point of bringing up bile after dinner watershed! I was concerned about dehydration so qe qent to the docs, he gave us Dioralyte. Had to give him it in water 1oz at a time, he was crying desperately in between each once I presume with hunger. It was awful. He kept that down though and is asleep now so we can hopefully gradually reintroduce food tomorrow.

First time he's been ill and pfb so it's been an experience to say the least and the perfect excuse to miss my military fitness class and sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and a kitkat

Hope everyone has good evenings

Oh merry, that sounds tough. I hope he is better soon. They do bounce back quickly though. Seriously impressed with your fitness class, I need to get something like that sorted out.

enormouse glad you are back! Had been wondering how you were. PND sounds a bugger but glad things are getting a bit easier. Like everyone else said, please do keep posting.

Routines, weaning etc...ha! I may soon get a medal for crap parent of the year but if it helps DD is currently sleeping through the day and waking all night, Nour's sleep is all over the place and even though he has been sleeping through since about 6 weeks and used to self settle, I have started feeding to sleep by mistake because I fall asleep every time I feed him. Weaning has gone to pot because all he reliably eats is yoghurt and I may soon kill one or both PIL. However, we are all happy and healthy so I am letting it slide, at least until ramadan is over. HTH

Merry how awful! How is he today? Hope he's feeling a bit better.

Altered as long as you're all happy that's fine! Sometimes you just have to get on with it and not worry about routines etc just to stay sane.

I need to decide if I should return to work. We will literally be £40 better off a week if I went back part time and we can afford to lose that £40 and wouldn't really struggle. Only thing I'm worried about is I don't have any friends here except my NCT class who are all going back to work soon (and I don't have anything in common with them anyway except babies. I'm the youngest by 12 years!) All of my family live about an hour away. I don't know if id get a bit bored/lonely! What do you lot think? I can't bare the thought of leaving S with someone else and working for such little money. If any of you are a SAHM, what do you do to prevent getting bored with life?

Ooh, good question felix! I'm going to be a SAHM but have no idea what I'll actually do. It won't be housework, I can tell you that much

Hope he's feeling better merry, it is so scary when they're ill.

At the moment she doesn't need much entertaining and she's very happy to roll around on the floor all day. She just spent half an hour flapping the bottom of the living room curtain around. I assume when she's older we will do more 'activities' which should keep me busy. I'm on antibiotics for my acne at the moment and I've been advised to avoid the sun so we have been stuck inside all week and I'm dreading it always being like this!

I've been a SAHM for a couple of years. Some days it's super dull and some days just don't have enough hours in them.

Felix have you got many baby and toddler groups near you? We do a group every weekday morning, two stay and plays, a church playgroup, bounce and rhyme, and a swimming group. The afternoon sometimes drags but I start full time OU (the last year of my degree!) in October, I'm sure then I'll miss having little to do!

Nope there's literally one baby group and one toddler group! It's rubbish. There's not even any parks close by and the leisure centre doesn't do baby swim classes, just general family swimming. I've got my driving test soon so hoping we will have more stuff to do once I can drive places

Felix I think working for £40 a week would be pretty hard unless you really wanted to be at work. What would your options be if you were really really bored after 6 months?

Little puggle seemed to have cracked food but is now refusing most savoury stuff grr. Had a breakthrough with a Ryvita tonight. Just trying him with a range of stuff and scoffing it myself when its refused Bloody teeth/stubborn baby/poor parenting whatevs. Our washing line is beside the raspberry patch and the wee bugger tries to throw himself out of the sling when I'm hanging washing if I don't pick him a raspberry. We'll be hiding punnets out there in the winter probably

I know, and I really don't like my job at all so I'd be miserable! I wouldn't mind going to work part time somewhere new if it came to it.

I am laughing at your raspberry monster!

Hi all, thanks for the good thoughts. He is a little better now. Can keep milk down if given an ounce at a time with 20-30 mins in between. Cue a trip to Mothercare to get a couple of new toys as a distraction more for me probably Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to start gradually increasing the amount.

Felix sounds like you might be better off not working for the time being. Things will be so much easier when you can drive, you'll be able to get out and about to more interesting stuff and areas with other groups.

Weaning has obviously taken a back seat here at the moment but will start properly next week, he will be 6 months then. He's had bits and pieces but not regularly. Must get dh into the swing of it too, he'd happily just make up a bottle til X was in his teens I think! I go from 22 to 30 hours at work from 04 Aug so dh will need to get used to preparing food (his idea of cooking involves what will go on an oven tray or in the toaster!) as he will be main carer until he finds work.

Life is so much more complicated nowadays, in a good way of course

I'm glad people agree and I'm not making a crazy decision

Merry glad he's better! Re weaning and DH - would it be helpful if you made up some portions of baby friendly food for the freezer? Then he can get one out to defrost and cook each day. Although it may be time consuming and not actually help the lack of cooking skills situation

Henry gets a mix of food, our stuff and jars. Mainly jars. I figure the 10 jars for £6 (boots and Asda, but boots you get the extra points) is well worth it. Maybe look into that if you can afford it?

Million we are the same. I tend to feed her fruit for breakfast, some sort of finger foods for lunch then an Ella's kitchen pouch for dinner (yes I know even the savoury ones are sweet but DP's Mum LOVES to bulk buy things so we have a few to use )

Good morning all.

N is only eating food I make up for him because jars of baby food are £1.80 each! Here you could buy 3 to 4 kilos of veg for that, or more than 10 kilos of tomatoes. Doesn't stop me being lazy, sadly.

Felix I think it really depends whether you like the job. I can't be a SAHM because I am completely unproductive and go crazy. I also hate not having "my" money so feel like I can't spend money on myself.

Given that you don't like the job it doesn't seem worth it, but is it easy to find part time work near you? If not I would be tempted to go back just until I find another job I like better. It can be quite hard getting back into work after an extended period at home so it might be worth keeping things ticking along. If you go back and don't like it, you can always just serve out your notice and leave.

So the bedroom furniture we ordered for DD isn't coming. The company called after the order had been agreed and signed to say they wanted an extra £90. It doesn't seem like much but we were already a lot over budget and they kept changing specifications so I just snapped and cancelled the order. Only trouble is that it was a good price and no one else uses wood as good as theirs. Now we can either buy an imported turkish mdf room for about £1000 or I can buy stuff from Ikea for around £500. The Turkish stuff looks lovely but not sure about durability. The advantage is that the beds are bigger (120x200) than the 90 cm ikea beds and FIL is up in arms about guests (and DD) sleeping on 90cm beds. What would you guys do?

Felix and Million I'm kinda hoping the weaning will be a good excuse to force my hubby to expand his culinary repertoire! I think i will mainly cook evening meals still anyway, so he just has to add water to baby porridge and chop up fruit, then lunch. Shouldn't be too much of a stretch!

altered I would be concerned about spending the £1000 if I didn't know about the quality and durability. Either way FIL won't be sleeping in the bed so let him grumble!

Thanks altered. I get what you mean about ending up going crazy. I am hoping I can be creative enough to think of different things to do, and get in to a good routine through the week. I don't think finding another part time job would be a problem if it came to it. I'm planning on going back to college/uni in 2016 once S is 3 and want to set up my own business after that, so would only have 2ish years off.

Re the furniture id go with the ikea stuff, just because it's so much cheaper and you can depend on the quality you're getting there. Ignore your FIL, it's not like he's sleeping on it!!

Great minds re FIL merry

Breakfast and lunch shouldn't be too bad. I wouldn't worry about his cooking skills for that! Although I always run out of ideas for lunch!

You are both right about the furniture. I too am tempted by ikea, but the beds there I think might be even flimsier! The turkish company comes and fixes anything that breaks but it is free only for the first year, after that yoy have to pay the cost of any materials. Mostly I think the trouble is I don't like it. The set is very "put together" and I am not a put together type of person! FIL will be using the beds when PIL come to stay, but I don't think it will be that often. If I get 90cm beds they probably won't come. Bonus!

Felix it sounds like you are right, being a SAHM would be better for you. Hope you get your driving licence soon, it will be great!

Anyone else's babies struggling with the heat. Last two nights O has woken every 1.5 hours overnight.

Urgh nature, that sounds exhausting. I've never wished hot weather away before, but I am now! P rolled over and back every ten minutes last night. I'm hoping it is the heat so that it will stop at some point, but I don't think it is I've not slept at all, DH has just skipped off to work after a lovely night's sleep, and I'm going shopping twenty miles away with my mum today. Send .

Sending nature and book. If there is one benefit to having a North facing garden (being 19 when I bought it and not thinking about when the sun would be in the garden!) it's that the sun goes over the house at about 5pm so X's room has a couple of hours in the shade. Highest it's got is 23c thank goodness. Also helps being in Hull, always a bit cooler on the north east coast.

Dh has now got a sickness bug. Apparently he felt unwell last night, but still went to play football anyway, smart move! So that's parental leave for me today whilst he is in bed, and he can pay me back the money I've lost

I suppose it's nice to start the weekend a bit early anyway. What is everyone up to?