September 2014 - Into the new year!

[RedToothBrush]

Shiny New Thread for a Shiny New Year.

Oh I guess I do try then. Except DS won't settle so quickly. Maybe he really is hungry after all?

Red I also make more than enough milk to donate and don't, and I don't have any sort of anxiety to battle. Don't feel bad, being a mum to a small baby is a full-time job in itself

Nazly we were advised by the paediatrician to use a dummy to help dd with her reflux and started at about 18 weeks. She has it when she's really in pain with the reflux and it helps a lot. She'll spit it out after about 10 mins when she feels better. It also seems to stop her overfeeding as much as she was. I've also started to use it for getting her down for daytime naps if we're not out and about as she really fights sleep at home. I do take it out once she's asleep otherwise she wakes when it falls out.

Is anybody watching Take Me Out? So silly, I love it!

It took my DD 7 weeks of daily perseverance before she learnt what the dummy was for. Previous to this she would either gag on it or spit it out. This came as a surprise for me because both my sons were fine with a dummy from birth.

Team I forgot to thank you about the Naty nappies, I will look out for them. Actually the skin around her bits just seems to be red, but not especially sore or painful. I have definitely seem much worse nappy rash. Just annoying that it never goes away fully.

Team - it takes Emily about 10 minutes to demolish 8oz but she is a little piggy! She's is on size 3 teats but on comfort milk which needs them as its so thick.

I know there are a few here who had August 2014 babies. I have just noticed a new August post natal thread, I don't think there has been an August PN thread here at all before.

But fate don't leave us!!!

Not for me - I'm already on two different post natal groups .

DD was born at the end of September, so she is one of the youngest here (17 weeks). In the first few weeks I found I had more in common with babies on the October thread, so started posting there too. There are actually a lot of late-September babies on the October post-Natal thread.

I think cookie and Nazly are both August babies? Not that I am suggesting anyone stops posting here! (gosh, please don't think that). But might want to do like I do and post on both threads.

So today, baby proofing has finally started to commence as it think its going to take a while given our disaster area of a house.

The stair gate is up.

We have some IKEA shelves in the hallway which were a cheaper version of the Billy bookcase. They are less deep and are great for the small space. However they are a pain in the backside as IKEA never did additional shelves for them and there weren't enough in the pack. Nor do they do doors the correct width. We've had some small boxes with drawers in at the bottom of the shelves to fill the gap. Of course they are filled with all things dangerous to babies just at baby eye level.

However I have finally found a solution to the problem which I have been trying to work out for the last twelve months !!!

Pampers are genius. The shelves are EXACTLY the width of two jumbo boxes. Four empty boxes have now added two additional shelves. And my DVDs which have been piled up due to lack of space now have a home. The boxes of drawers are easy enough to move to a higher level out of the reach of inquisitive fingers.

I am rapidly developing a love for jumbo pampers boxes as they seem to be the perfect size for all my crap, not just my shelves. As my son shits I get easy storage solutions as a by product. And they are on offer at Tesco at the moment.

Red, your talk of IKEA shelves being baby proofed reminded me of something.

We had a pair of IKEA floor-to-ceiling cubix (I think?) bookcase/display cabinets from when DH & I bought our first home. It is very interesting how furniture changes its use and purpose over time.

When we had out eldest, the cube pigeon holes had all their pretty books/candles/lamps removed and were swiftly replaced with boxes of nappies, tubs of rattles, piles of wipes etc in all the cubes.

Later the pigeon holes were filled with boxes of toy cars and dolls clothes, it became downstairs toy storage.

Now the same two units are in my sons bedroom, filled with two dozen IKEA plastic boxes in all different colours - all filled with various toys, craft stuff, face paints and so on.

Households evolve. I find it really lovely to think how our home has evolved over time, and the furniture in it.

Haha yes, funnily enough I bought the boxes of drawers when I was in my early teens. I used to keep mix tapes in them (yes remember those! I'm THAT old). These days they are full of grown up bits and pieces.

Ah, mix tapes! I used to love to spend ages putting them together and decorating the cases

I too remember the mix-tape

Digressing on a tangent slightly (but feeling nostalgic), I made a cassette storage box with a (poorly fitting) lid in my woodwork lesson at school. Plain wood that I 'graffitied' with typical young teen artwork. I had completely forgotten about this particular masterpiece I made.

My son (aged 9) is fascinated by trinket boxes. He collects them and has well over 40 boxes - all pretty or shiny or interesting in some way (my son is a bit of an antiques magpie).

My Mum came around the other week with this homemade cassette box I made at school. She's found it in her loft, having saved it all this time. It bought a tear to my eye as she gave it to my son for his collection. So sweet to know she saved my school project for so long, I would have just thrown it away years ago if she'd have given it me. But because she's given it to my son, it will be treasured. I really like that thought

That's so lovely fate! When I was pregnant my mum gave me a box of my baby clothes, and that was amazing. I'm now keeping back special bits to save for DD when she is a grown up. It's so lovely to dress her in the clothes I wore not going to say how many years ago!.

Holls, I do exactly what you do with dummy! Feel mean just giving her dummy Burt usually does the trick. We started DD with it in first week on advice of my SIL and I must admit it's been a lifesaver for me (not DH, he somehow manages to sleep v soundly through any DD night time crying!)

Now she will sometimes take it at bedtime and sometimes not. When ahe does take it to get off to sleep its usually fallen out by the time I go up to bed a few hours later. I am worried that it'll be difficult to wean her off it but as a friend of mine, whose son never took to a dummy and now aged three, constantly shoves three fingers in his mouth unless he's eating, drinking or talking, pointed out to me, I can throw the dummies away, but she can't throw her DS's little fingers away!

Talking about babies close together my SIL has a 16 month old boy and her next arrival is due at end of July!! The poor thing also has a lot of nausea/sickness with her pregnancies so don't envy her. However shes a pretty super mum and is my real life go-to for baby advice.

You guys are my virtual go-tos and over the past year have provided me with some very useful snippets and things to think about so huge thanks to ALL of you!

DD us 18 weeks today and I'm still not sure about this weaning malarkey but did a batch of purées and froze in ice cube trays today as prep (carrot and roasted parsnips). Will await the experiences of slightly older babies and see how you all get on xx

Hon so many similarities between us; But I have actually tried dummy in the middle of the night a few times, each time ds just got quite angry and upset so I had to give in and offer boob; It is difficult to try it again and again because when ds wakes at nights he actually does not wake up fully; just feeds with closed eyes and while asleep, and goes back to deep sleep; whereas if I make him angry and upset by holding back, he actually wakes up and makes my life very difficult.

Which reminds me, how do you ladies with babies feeding at night burp them without waking them? I sometimes give up which just means he may wake with wind an hour later.

"how hard it must be to have 2 babies with that age gap"

There are 14 months between my first two children.

Our plan was always two together, 4 year gap and then two more together - like having two 'pairs' of children. However the first three years were so hard that we soon ditched that idea and spaced the children out more reasonably.

We reap the rewards for their close age-gap now though - aged 9 and 10. They do a lot together (even though they are boy and girl) and are thick as thieves. They would tell you they hated each other, but they absolutely adore each other.

I wonder who will be the first to conceive again here... ?

fate yes you are right ds was an early suprise in august but he was due 23rd of Sept so would have been one of the youngest not 2nd oldest so that's why I stay on this board.

nazly ds is the same won't take a dummy at night he wants milk. I lay him on my chest and pat his back this sends him back to sleep and will often bring up a burp,if he doesn't burp I still put him back in bed once he is in a deep sleep.

Just spent the last 15 minutes listening to DS happily chatting to himself on the monitor, then had to go in as he started crying & he have me the biggest smile when he saw me & was being super cute while I changed his nappy. He's been grumpy the last two days from his jabs so it was lovely to see, all I want to do is sit & play with him but have been very good & put him back down to hopefully sleep again.

Can't remember who asked about using a cup, I spoke to the nursery nurse about cups on Friday when I got DS weighed as he loves holding the bottle himself & it can be a battle over who holds it. She suggested to try him with a free flow cup with some cooled boiled water in & if he takes to it to start giving him some feeds in it.

I don't want to jinx anything, but we have spent the last two days trying to get as much milk in her as possible during the day, and the last couple of nights have been better!

Recently she has been ready for sleep at about 6.15-6.30 and gone to sleep with a couple of oz, woken at about 9.00-9.30 to have another couple of oz, then wake at around 11.30 and from that point onwards sleep is very unsettled with 1/2-1 oz every 45 min or so to have around 6-8 oz, finally waking at 4.30 to do a mega poo and not going back to sleep after

Last night she fell asleep at 7 with 5oz, woke at 10.30 and had 5oz, then woke at 1.45 and was unsettled until waking at 6.15, however she thrashed less and had about 4.5 oz during this time. Still not great, but getting better!

Think I'm going to continue trying to get lots of milk in her during the day and try to push bedtime slowly later. Fingers crossed we make a bit more progress!

During the night I burp DD by sitting up a little, lying her on my front and rubbing her back quite firmly but slower than I normally do. It can take a little longer but it doesn't wake her. I can then roll her on her side next to me quite smoothly too from that position.

The thought of having another baby anytime soon would be simply terrifying! I think it would be amazing when they are older, but I can barely survive each day with just the one. Before we even started trying we had decided we only wanted one, and I'm very pleased with that decision still!

A few frequent posters from the antenatal and early postnatal boards seem to have disappeared. I wonder how they are getting on?

Indeed team, I was wondering whatever happened to Ilovemonstersinc as not heard from her in a while.

I also do winding in the night by laying Jessica on my chest and tapping her back. She seems quite settled by this and it usually 'progresses' to me rubbing her back to get her to sleep.

I think we've definitely hit the infamous 4 month sleep regression. We did get to a point where Jessica would normally only wake once, and that wouldn't normally be until 4/5am, and then she would settle afterwards until sleep until about 7.30am. Now it's about 3 times a night and she won't settle until she's had a booby feed. I've heard this is quite common (I.E, getting extra hungry and needing more night feeds in the lead up to them being weaned) so I guess I'm going to have to just grin and bear it for a while. Yawn.

This morning I was woken up by Jessica doing a poo. I've since had to upgrade our pooing system to include the 'atomic poo' - I.E, everything in it's wake got destroyed. Vests, sleepsuits, changing mat, etc; all covered in poo. Somehow she got poo so far up her back that it made it up to her neck!!! She didn't poo at all yesterday so she must have been saving it up especially. She went straight in the bath this morning.

We managed Night 2 of sleeping through, so the previous night wasn't the fluke I thought it might be.

8pm to 7.30am today. Just one dummy reinserted at 2.30am which took about 10 seconds, so I'm happy. She wasn't even all that interested in getting her feed this morning either, happy to wait until the gannets that are my older children got their breakfast first gone 8am.

I have recently found DD is having bigger feeds through the day, so I guess this would be sleep regression if she was breastfeeding and wanting extra feeds.

DS's bouncer is supposed to be suitable up to 9months. (I just double checked). He was strapped it, but somehow has just escaped out the top. This is a sign of things to come isn't it?

Yeah. Once baby is sitting and climbing, bouncers aren't appropriate anymore. I always mourn the loss of the bouncy chair - because they are so damn useful for babies.

I guess I better get the baby prison out.

DS can sit for a few moments. Then face plants. He's getting good at the face plant.