October 05 - First Birthdays

[Yokefleet]

Happy Birthday to Joey!

PS: Hope you all had a lovely weekend

Good luck on Tuesday NN. What is the recovery time for an op like that?
I finish with my mindees this Friday coming and then I'm taking a month off (can't wait) so I have decided it is the perfect time to change Johnny from x2 naps to one long one. Initially I thought it would mean I wasn't so restricted by naptime, but now I am beginning to see that it is restricting too, but just in a different way! I am planning to have him nap from 12-3pm ish and it will probably take a week or so to get him into that routine. No doubt he will be grumpy along the way...
He is finally trying to stand up. He is nowhere near able to pull up on to his feet yet, but if I stand him up and lean him against something then he can stand unsupported for all of maybe 5 seconds before plopping down on the floor. Well, it's a start...

nn Hope everything goes well tomorrow for you.
mb Have you got anymore mindees lined up for after your holiday?
We started putting Thomas down for just 1 nap yesterday as for a while now he has only been napping for about 20mins twice a day if we were lucky. So yesterday I put him down around 14.00 (usually about 11.30 and 15.30) and he still only had about 1/2hr but then was tired early 17.15 so we bathed him and put him down at 18.00 (usually start bath around 1800 and settled down for 1830) So far today he has had 1 nap at about 1300 as he fell asleep on our way home and slept for about 40mins and so far (1730) seems fine (gotta keep him up longer today as picking dh up from station at 1830)
Thomas won't take bread unless its toasted any suggestions?
What are your lo's eating in a day at the minute? I am struggling for ideas.

Joey's only been having 1 nap for a while now. He goes down after lunch for 2 hours, until about 3pm.

Re food - Joey has a yoghurt and a babybel and some blueberries for breakfast; either cheesy or tuna 'people' (sandwiches cut out with a small gingerbread cutter!), a babybel cheese, and a satsuma or banana for lunch; and a chopped up version of whatever hot meal we're having for dinner and a bit more fruit. He also has a few biscuits or rice cakes and some dried fruit as snacks, and he still has 5-600mls milk a day. Gosh, when i write it down, it seems like a lot! He does go through awkward phases now and then, and won't eat certain things, but its usually just a temporary blip.

hot meals - casserole; risotto; pasta; shepherds pie; bolognese; omlette; etc. Joey'll eat pretty much anything really

I tried the one nap thing first when he was around a year, but it was obvious that he still needed two at that point.
Foodwise he eats all sorts of stuff. Breakfast is x2 weetabix or oatibix or readybrek with yogurt and fruit. Lunch will be whatever we are having, so maybe a sandwich with tomato followed by a piece of fruit and tea is some of whatever we are having, followed by fruit. Do you see a theme emerging here? He is a fruit bat!! We don't really do snacks as he eats loads each mealtime but he will have a small glass of cows milk when he wakes and he does still get a couple of breastfeeds through the day as well as morning and night.
YF- no mindees lined up yet, but I'm sure it won't take long as there are only two childminders in the town.

RE food
Evelyn will have for brekkie porridge or toast (but she prefers porridge) followed by a banana. For a snack she will have some cheese and some mango or other fruit. For lunch she gets a hot meal on the weekdays (at the CM's) and a sandwich at the weekend (at home) followed by some more fruit and a youghurt. For tea she will eat whatever we are eating followed by a piece of fruit / youghurt.
Her fave hot meals are : spag bol, shepards pie, pasta in sauce the redder the better, lasanga, chicken and rice etc.

RE sleep
She will have just one nap at the childminders, usually for about an hour or so. But she gets very irritable in the evening, I dont like to take her to bed before seven but sometimes the last twenty minutes are hard. On the weekends she will have two x one hour naps! This weekend though as we were rushing around etc she ended up with one nap a day, later than usual, and she slept for two hours each time! On Sat DH and I went to sleep on the sofa with her in the pram, and we did the same on Sun, bliss seeing as she's been a bit poorly!!

NN - hope the op goes smoothly, how long will it take you to recover?

MB - in a few weeks Johnny will be running around like a cheeky monkey and you'll be wondering what it was like when you could put him down in one place and pretty much be okay! What fruits does Johnny like btw? Evelyn loves fruit, I keep trying her on "different" things (ie not bog standard apples etc!) and she seems to like them all except kiwi fruits and plums (which is a shame as my mum has a plum tree). Mango is her fave, then melon. She also love strawberries, blueberries with apple, bananas and raspberries.

LOL Elf - I can't put him down and leave him just now because he would be in the crawling olympics if there were such a thing!! When we nip in to collect my mindee from nursery, he is in all the other kids trays and making a run (crawl) for the door or any set of buggy wheels that he might see. This is only is the short space of time that it takes me to help my mindee with his shoes!! Luckily the whole house is childproofed, but if he spots something open which is normally closed then he is there like a shot. He was taking my washing out of the machine this morning before I had put the last of the things in!! As for fruit, he has never refused any type that I have offered him. Saying that, he didn't know what to do with the blueberries that MIL offered him the other day. He has had then before and loved them, but I have been strict about only eating food in the highchair and only sitting in the highchair for food. MIL offered these whilst he was sitting on the livingroom floor and he just rolled them around in the bowl and wouldn't eat them at all!!

What a carry on. We went for Johnny's MMR this morning. I had talked on two separate occasions to the HV regarding his egg allergy and she was happy to give vaccination, but she had to get a GP to OK it. So, having done some reading I was happy with this so went to get it done this morning. The GP refused to sign it off and said I should have the allergy investigated. FFS I went to have it investigated and was sent away for three months as he was "too young". Aaaaargh. There doesn't seem to be much joined up thinking going on here. At least it wasn't a wasted trip as he got his Pneumo vaccine while we were there. I phoned the hospital and they can squeeze me us tomorrow before the consultant goes on holiday for a month... and no, they wouldn't let me see another consultant.

sorry they are messing you around MB

I still haven't had Evelyns MMR jab yet, trying to hold off til March, though she has had the new one.

Re MMR - We are taking Thomas for his tomorrow. I asked about it when I was at Drs with back pain nearly a fornight ago as we hadn't had anything through telling us it was due etc but was told that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't send them, helpfull eh?? and the baby clinic is only once a fortnight for an hour and a half (since we moved to this house I haven't taken ds to see the HV as I found this not very practical) at our previous surgery we had 2 baby clinics a week for 2hrs, always got reminders for jabs and altogether seemed a much better set up. So anyway we are going tomorrow and I have got my mum coming with us to try and keep Thomas occupied in the waiting room (when I went, I wasn't seen until 1hr after my appointment time not great with ds and 3 yo niece in tow and they don't start seeing the baby clinic until the Dr's seen all his patients first so appartently a long wait is normal...why haven't I looked for a different Drs???
anyway I hope you get Johnny sorted soon MB.
Thanks for all your meal plans, pretty similar to what I already do but I have pinched my sisters gingerbread man shape cutter so will try that on some bread tonight. Ds usually has Porridge, Weetabix or Shreddies for breakfast. Lunch, stew, homemade soups, lasagna etc Tea, toasted cheese sandwich, soup etc followed by a yogurt or rice pudding.Plus snacks of celery, cucumber, carrot sticks, grapes, apple etc during the day. It was the Tea that was my problem really as my dh doesn't usually get home until Thomas's bedtime and we usually prepare tea together once ds is in bed ds then has left overs the following lunchtime3 So my thinking is that it is ok for him to be having toast etc for tea as he has had a hot meal at lunch (must stop waffling ) Thomas's fave foods at the minute are homemade leek & potato soup, cucumber sticks and rice pudding.

Thank you to joeysmum for the advice about gingerbread men sandwiches, Thomas ate it all up last night very quickly
Have a good day everyone

You're welcome Yokefleet. Glad my advice was useful

Good luck for Thomas with his MMR - i'm sure he'll be fine. When Joey had his, he just had a few tears, then it was all over with, and he's been fine since apart from his blip 10 days post jab, which is apparantly really common. Take care, JM x

Just back from the consultants appointment, after spending 2.5hrs at the hospital!! He sent us up to the childrens ward to get blood taken for testing. They rub on some "magic cream" which numbs the hands and it takes 40mins to work. The doctor couldn't find a vein in the back of Johnny's hand so was poking and prodding with the needle. She finally managed to get about 2 drops so she will send it off and see if it's enough to do the allergy tests and if it's not then he will have to go through it all again on another part of his body the wee soul. The consultant said that he will wait for the results and then do the MMR (if appropriate) in the childrens ward under supervision. I bet Johnny has no reaction to it whatsoever, but I suppose the risk is there and has to be taken seriously.
Tomorrow is the last day with my mindees. I was talking to the wee boy about it today and he said he doesn't care that he's not coming back to my house. Oh well, part of the job, mustn't take it personally!!

Thanks Joeysmum but after a 1hr 45min wait for the jab, we were told that he had to wait until next month for the MMR & new jab and so today had his Men C/hib booster. Thomas was a little star, no tears at all just smiled at the Dr as the needle came towards him and looked up at me when the needle went in, bless him So anyway another 2hr visit next month and in the meanwhile I am going to check out other Drs in the area.
My neice started at the nursery last week and came home on Tuesday with her first few words of a welsh song (when she starts the school properly she will be taught only in Welsh until she is 7) I was gutted that night as I had forgotten to tell my dh about her new language anyway last night she rang dh and sang him the song over the phone she loves it (we must try learning some Welsh now I think!!

Oh x post YF. What a carry on you have had with the vaccinations today. At least it wasn't a completely wasted journey and he got his other one.

Are you Welsh? I knew that you lived in Wales and just assumed that you were. (I know not all Welsh nationals are Welsh speakers) I think it's great that they are promoting Welsh (and Gaelic here in Scotland)because it will not do kids any harm to learn it and it is too important to be lost IMHO.

mb seems like we are all having one of those days! and no we aren't Welsh, Yorkshire born and bred we moved down in Aug05 following my parents who retired down here in 2003 and we have since been joined by my sister & neice in May06 (her husband left them in Apr06) The school has a really good reputation down here (although in Wales there are no league tables) and dh and I are treating my neice as a bit of a guinea pig really to see if we want to send Thomas there eventually, so far she loves it.

Hooray!! Johnny can stand. He looks so funny and he's actually quite tall! (77cm last time he got measured, but that didn't mean much to me as it was length rather then height) Ok, it's not real proper standing, but if he leans against the sofa then he doesn't fall over instantly. He is fair pleased with himself.

WOOHOO!!!!

I looked at Evelyn the otherday when she was getting her juice cup from the dining table - she looks soooo tall (just above 60% on the chart, so not that tall really)

Hard to remember as a little tiny spud when she was first born

Well done on the standing Johnny! MB, I hope you get his MMR sorted out soon. Alice had hers last week, having been free from a cold for a few days (she's been snuffling for about 6 weeks). This week she's got another cold and a high temperature again. I'm really looking forward to spring and the end of the cough and cold season!

The latest development is Alice learning to use the bin - initially she was putting old tissues in but now has progressed to dusters and doll's clothes! She's also learnt to use a spoon for at least some of her meal at last, which is making yogurt and cereal eating much easier!

Elf, I enjoyed reading your new profile. Haven't been brave enough to do one myself yet - not sure about giving up my anonymity! But maybe I'll do one if everyone else is going to.

Profile? Am I missing something? Please enlighten me as I am very nosey indeed.

I went to the mother and baby group yesterday. I haven't been for around 5 months as it hasn't fitted in with my childminding at all. There used to be 5 or 6 of us, but yesterday there were around 20 babies!! I was delighted to see that about 6 of them were breastfeeding, compared to me and one other in the whole village when ours were tiny. Tell you what though. All these weeny babies were making me broooooody.

MB - if you click on another talkers name, you should be taken to their profile page (if they have set one up).

M&B group sounds excellent!

I am so unobservant!! How long have these profiles been on the go?
My goodness Johnny can eat. I am starting to get a bit worried that he's eating too much! Yesterday he ate:

-adult size portion of ready brek with a whole pear and some raisins
-good sized portion of pasta with brown beans and grated cheese followed by half banana
-the rest of the pasta and brown beans and the other half of the banana

• large portion of chilli with rice and some salady stuff which also contained grated cheese and carrots

-cows milk and breastmilk at various points through the day

He has started pointing to food in the kitchen and "asking" for it. He throws a mini tantrum when I dont give it to him (and I'm not going to start giving it to him either). He grabs the highchair tray to get to the food before I've even fixed it on to the highchair. The sight of the carton of milk puts him into a frenzy. He even ate rhubarb for breakfast this morning. It was mixed with plain yogurt but was still pretty tart but he loved it.

He is 77cm and 25lbs so not a waif, but not enormous either. He is pretty active and doesn't sit still unless he is physically restrained eg in buggy or highchair. Anyone else's wee one eat this much? Am I worrying about nothing or should I cut back what I give him?

oooh, its very quiet on here! hope everybody is well.

MB - sounds like a normal amount - Evelyn eats like a dustbin some days then not so much the others. I find the days where she just picks and picks at food the worst.