September 14 babies - bring on the weaning!

[KitKat1985]

New thread for the Sept 14 babies. :)

I should also say, I've been struggling a bit lately and DH has been somewhat unsympathetic and has been out at least two nights a week despite saying he would give something up.

I was very grateful to his very level headed, ultra organised friend who yesterday said unprompted that 6months was the worst point for her and how she was texting her husband saying 'get home on time' and how she struggled to cope.

I think DH thinks that I'm just being over anxious or lazy at times and he needed to hear the same from someone who he'd never think is like that. He shouldn't, and it pisses me off, but at least someone has given him a reality check.

I think he thinks I do nothing. I said all he needed to do was a feed and play but god knows. I felt bad cos I felt b would think neither of us wanted to spend time with him.

Another one who thinks you have nothing to feel bad about Holls. DH has been 'looking after' A for a few hours every other week whilst I have been out to football. He struggled the first couple of times, (I got texts telling me he hadn't stopped crying etc) but he just got on with it, certainly didn't expect me to leave early. I would be angry at him not yourself.

holls don't you feel shit, it's totally on your dp and you're COMPLETELY entitled to want a bit of time to yourself. It does you so much good to get away from them because you're refreshed and a better mum afterwards!

God knows why I thought weetabix dunked in milk - aka glue - would make a good finger food. Lunatic mum move!

holls I agree with everyone your dh needs to pull his socks up! Hopefully it's just a confidence thing and he'll get better over time. Dh was a bit like that in a beginning but is brilliant with him now!

He is poorly again bah!

Also Holls, I would try and do something about it sooner or later.

My friend had a child a couple of years ago and would never leave it with her DH (although I think it was a 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, she didn't want to leave DC and her DH wasn't confident to have DC alone). She now has a second DC and she literally has no life, as she can't leave the 2 DC with her DH unless someone else is around to help. With both families living quite far away, and his good friends also not to local, it really does cause issues for her to get out, and there is definitely no spontaneous quick drinks or lunches with her on her own.

Its the main reason I made sure DH looked after A on his own from quite early on, and I got him involved with nappys/feeding etc even when I was there. To be fair to DH he wanted to get involved, and when I was discussing whether to keep my season ticket he told me I had to as that would be his bonding time

Sorry you're feeling bad Holls. I agree with everyone though that you're not the one at fault at all. Hope your DH apologises and tries a bit harder.

I took J to the doctors this morning as she woke up with a green gunky eye which is how her conjunctivitis started last time plus she's developed a loose sounding cough. Doctor said she didn't have conjunctivitis though, just sticky eye and her chest sounded ok. I always wonder if I should go straight to the doctors about these things or to just monitor it. I got an appointment within an hour though which I was impressed with!

Holls, another one here who thinks you should in no way feel bad about this.
DH was somewhat like that in the first few months and I think it was mainly down to him lacking confidence if DD was left with him.
He also used to think I did absolutely nothing all day..........
Now most weekends I can manage a gym visit and even sometimes on a weekday evening too (tonight after a 3 week absence).
I do have to leave everything prepared for him though but he's slowly getting there. we've only got to this stage though after me having a few fairly spectacular meltdowns at him!!!! (they were quite epic)
Even now I do bedtime with DD most nights and for the past week have found myself just going to bed straight after whilst he sits on his arse in front of the box until 11-12 like we used to do. So we are literally spending zero time together just me and him :(. I don't think he's noticed, which is even worse. I feel it's quite unfair that he's carrying on as normal and that I'm bearing the brunt of the adjustments.

DH just told DD that Homer Simpson is her TV daddy!

zan it's the same here. he got in at 6, and played with b for half an hour. I got him ready for bed and dh told him a story then came downstairs (he did hoover to be fair) and watched tv. after putting b to bed I came down and sorted supper, made his lunch for tomorrow, got washing out of washer. suggested the shared work load was unfairly spread and dh said it wasnt. he will sit ans watch tv till 11 now. and will probs wake me up when he comes to bed to tell me to unplug my phone from charger or to move my book...cos he couldn't do either of those things?! just a bit fed up.

suggested the shared work load was unfairly spread and dh said it wasnt.

made his lunch for tomorrow

Er... this is all I need to read to tell you, the load is spread unevenly. Why is he incapable of making his own lunch. This is something SCHOOL CHILDREN can do.

Stop doing it. He'll cope. He's taking the piss out of you because you do stuff like this.

Dilemma: We are supposed to go to a party on Saturday with DS. We have been told that there has been a chicken pox outbreak locally and they believe all the children have had it in the past or were past the infected stage last week.

Would you still go?

We don't really want to, having heard that.

Problem: The party is for niece. If that isn't bad enough, both her parents are doctors. And to cap it off SIL is having a baby tomorrow! (Yes really).

Red don't they need to catch that at some point anyhow? My friend's baby had it when he was 3 months and it was sort of easy; not easy as absolute obviously; comparatively easy. she thought it was a lot better than having it at school age, or older.
Just a thought.

The settling down session today was awful. He could not catch his breath in the middle of crying and screaming, his face was all red and he just sobbed for the whole 20 minutes that I could tolerate leaving him alone with his nursery nurse.
I don't really know what to do; maybe he is too young for the nursery? I thought if he was older it would get harder but I might have been wrong...

Holls, baby days aside, do you always do more in home than your dh, even when you both were working?

Red, personally I wouldn't go anywhere near a place where chicken pox has recently been rife with J. It's true it's better to get it as a child but babies are more vulnerable than toddlers obviously and you just dont know how severe a case your baby might get. Most are probably mild cases but you never know. One of the babie on the August fb group got chicken pox and was hospitalised with it. It looked awful . I didn't know this myself but there is a vaccination for chicken pox but the nhs don't routinely do it unfortunately which is a shame.

Well J's cough and cold is getting snottier by the minute. I'm just trying to get her back to sleep now.

DD had total meltdown last night for nearly two hours. It was horrific!

Any suggestions on how to swaddle Houdini? At the moment we are still using the mothercare newborn swaddling blanket, which has separate flaps to hold their arms down. However DD can now get her arms free and needs to be rewrapped up to four times in the night! I think it is because the arm flaps go under the bottom and use her weight to hold it in place, but she kicks her legs up in the air and they come loose. We've tried a Hannah wrap, but that was useless as she can move her arms. We've tried not swaddling her, but it was a disaster. We could only get her to settle by me holding her arms still and DH holding her legs, and as soon as we let go she was off like she was spring loaded!

We need to keep her arms under control. Any ideas? I'm seriously considering sewing the arms of her baby grows to the body part!!!

DDs nose has been replaced with a freely flowing tap of snot She's not too bad as long as she has calpol, but it is really difficult to get it in her!

Sorry to those of you having DH issues. I guess I'm quite lucky as mine isn't perfect, but he does at least try with most things and if I have a small strop it sorts him out!

Nazly, can you try spending more time in the room with LO so help them get used to it? It sounds so horribly stressful

Nazly, my thought is that DS will get it at some point but I would prefer him not to get it before he is 12 months old simply because his immune system will be more developed and I'm concerned about complications at this age. I do feel put in a position where we have very little choice because of their new baby and their profession. DH is even less happy than I am. He's saying we go for 10 minutes then leave. Its a 2hr drive each way.

I asked DH about the stuff about the house thing and his reply was this "I feel like I'm doing more than my share and I'm not totally happy about that, but you've said you are struggling so I'm trying to do more because that's what you do if you care about the other person".

That's not exactly the response I'd like (recognition I'm not lazy and that I do my share would be nice) but its half way there and he is trying to support me at least.

Team that sounds awful, and like the dreaded 'over tired' I meant to say about swaddling - we always used to swaddle dd and she had got to the point where she wasn't really sleeping between 3 and 6 am so I was co-sleeping but sort of swaddling manually but pinning her arms and legs down as they seemed to be waking her back up at night. I then read a really good article about sleep and it listed kicking legs, general thrashing and turning head side-to-side as self settling signs. Since then we've been practising self settling and letting her get on with the kicking and she's got much much much better at self settling. Maybe your lo is also over swaddling stage?

Oh dear. Sorry to all of you with DH issues. I can empathise. DH is doing my head in some days by never doing any basic housework and expecting me to do pretty much everything for DD. Obviously I expect to do it all when he's at work, but when's he is back / at weekends I think he could do a bit more to be honest. It doesn't help that DD has been bloody awful again the past two nights - last night she had me up 5 times for feeds, and that's better than she was the previous night. I'm hoping it's a growth spurt and it's over soon. Not that she's ever been a baby that sleeps all night, but 5+ times a night for feeds is bloody hard. DH doesn't really seem to 'get it' that I'm absolutely exhausted at the moment after months of sleepless nights, and it would just really help if he was to help a bit more. If I bring it up he'll acknowledge that he needs to do more, maybe make a bit more effort for a day or two, and then it all just reverts back to normal. So frustrating!

Red in all honesty I'd avoid going if possible. I know some people prefer their kids to get chicken-pox young but I couldn't bring myself to deliberately make DD ill. Plus I think our babies are still quite young. Probably clutching at straws but is there anyone who could babysit your DS for an hour or two whilst you and your DH go, so that it avoids your DS being exposed to the virus? It's tricky though I know when family are involved!

No we don't have a suitable babysitter. A round trip would be 5 hours (if we stop for an hour). All DH's side of the family are going, and my parents are just not capable of looking after DS sadly. I'm at a bit of a loss. It was always going to be a stressful event (MIL being competitive re: walking / BIL, change in family dynamic especially if baby is a little boy, other SIL not on speaking terms with DH and yet to acknowledge DS, the length of the drive and of course the fact theres going to be a bunch of three year olds running around) but not going is going to cause even more problems. If BIL and SIL have their newborn there and are doctors then there is not an issue and why are we being so PFB blah, blah, blah. DH going on his own is liable to end in tears too, as the chances of him kicking off with his mum are higher.

Arrrgghhhh family's suck.

The go there for ten minutes option actually looks the most sensible.

I'd definitely go to chicken pox party.

Chicken pox as a baby (who cannot scratch) is much, much easier to manage than chicken pox with a toddler (who doesn't understand why she has to stop himself scratching).

Red - If you are still breastfeeding then there is a good chance he won't get chicken pox anyway. DC2 didn't get it when his sister got chicken pox, because I was breastfeeding him at the time. He got it a few years later though, same time as DC3 had chicken pox (who was about 4 months old at the time).

Hmm. Does anyone else's baby hate spoons? A week and a half into weaning DD clamps her mouth shut as soon as I try and put a spoon in there. If I pop a spoon in quickly when her mouth is open she just cries and I feel like I'm force-feeding her. If I give her the spoon she just throws the contents of the spoon everywhere. I think I'm going to have to do BLW as when she holds objects she tends to put objects in her mouth, so I think she would 'get' the idea of food quicker with finger foods. Do any of you other ladies do BLW? What are good foods to start with?

Apples, that's really interesting! Maybe next time I put her down for a nap I'll try not swaddling her. We are just working on self settling, so I guess not swaddling could be kill or cure!!!

"Baby Lead Weaning" appears to just be unnecessarily formal language for what Mums have been doing for ages with their children - giving them bits of the 'proper' food they are eating.

That comes naturally to us, in our family. Not all the time, there will be spoonfeeding too. But when I'm doing a meal, DD will get a bit of whatever we are having that she can hold.

On Sunday she had a broccoli floret in her hand for a while. Then a roasted parsnip baton. Not made especially for her, part of our Sunday dinner. She's been joining us in the highchair for our meals for a while now.

She didn't eat, DD is only 5 months so this is just about discovery not eating. I just put the thing in hand for her to feel, squash, play with, put in her mouth (as everything goes in her mouth) and spit out (tongue thrust reflex).

If you are looking to do BLW you can't beat bread based products for early easy food - something spread on bread or toast, bagels, muffins, that kind of thing.

Team, Molly certainly thrashes around as she's trying to go to sleep, doing big kicks and throwing her head from side to side, so perhaps that could be it!

Red - I wouldn't go to chicken pox party. Although all kids need to get it at some point I agree that catching it at this age could cause more complications than if they were a bit older. I would worry if doctors did not agree with that in respect to their own child. However, that's not the point. If it is a situation that you don't think you should put your child in then that's all that matters. In my opinion that should come above all the family politics, whether or not they would understand. Especially as your DH doesn't want to go either, there is no one else you need to put yourself out for really. I know it can make things awkward and cause more arguments, but if it were me I would rather that then kicking myself if baby did end up poorly with chicken pox.