September 14 babies - bring on the weaning!

[KitKat1985]

New thread for the Sept 14 babies. :)

Acron I actually believe that is true. The article you were reading I mean. I also read that in orphanages babies don't cry as they learn early on nobody will come

ds is so into his food now that I am worried he may not take enough milk. He just has some milk feeds at night, other than that the amount of milk he takes during the day is going down rapidly, which is a bit worrying given up until 1 year milk should play a significant role in the diet in terms of nutrition.

With formula we are one step forward and two step backward. He just refuses it so badly again that I feel We may end up just dropping milk feeds while he is in nursery (if I can ever bear to leave him there!!!) and rely on solids and I have to breastfeed him until he is one. He takes so much solid that I am not worried he would be hungry, just that the food is not a good substitute to milk!

Omg night from hell here. Been trying to get her back off for the past 3 hours. She does have a bit of a cough / cold which is probably mainly to blame. But she will go to sleep in mine or hubby's arms but we can't stand up holding her all night. argh feel like we're in a nightmare.

Oh dear top, that's not good. Hope you managed to get some sleep!

Not had too dreadful a night here, considering the start we had. She woke about once an hour and fed three times. She's now asleep in my arms as I couldn't get her to settle at 5.30. Hoping she sleeps until at least 6.30, although I know I'll be lucky if she makes it past 6.00.

FATE - it really was over tiredness. I have already moved her bedtime earlier having previously been trying to push it later. Last night she had had her bath, was in her pjs, swaddled, book read and having her bedtime bottle at 6.15. I'd also managed to give her a half hour nap at 4.30-5.00. Can I really put her to bed at 5.30?! I guess at least the clocks go forward soon!

FATE I totally agree with you about dummies. I was dead again at them because of all my mum's random comments about how evil they are but since we gave dd one at nearly 5 months I feel guilty I never gave one to her before!! She doesn't always have it or want it, but if she's refluxy and in pain it's amazing how quickly it makes her feel better.

Ladies who are struggling with sleep. This popped up on my facebook this morning. Not sure how useful it will be but thought I would share it in case it can help anyone

Sleep Guide

I like this sleep article.

www.today.com/parents/exhausted-new-moms-hilarious-take-expert-sleep-advice-goes-viral-6C9559908

We had a better night here (despite me throwing up from a headache). We switched to faster flow teets yesterday and they seem to have made a difference to how much he ate during the day. I tried them a couple of weeks ago and he was not ready for them. He woke up twice but was easier to settle. At one point he fell asleep with his hand in my mouth. I have no problem with this as he was in his cot at the time. This is the first time in several weeks.

Cumbrian I just read that sleep guide. I think it needs to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. It seemed it was most aimed at 4 - 6 month olds (after which it gave me the impression your fucked which I think is utter bullshit - there is a lovely comment under one of the stories which also says that too)

I'm not too sure that at this point many of us want to read the following, without feeling the urge to through your laptop out the window:
Sleep at last!
When your baby is around 3 months old (and weighs around 12-13lb) and has been sleeping from 7pm to the dream feed and then until 7am for a week, you can start to drop the dream feed. The easiest way is to feed at 10.30pm for one week, giving three-quarters of the usual feed. Then do it at 10pm for one week with half the usual feed. Your baby will usually be able to sleep through from 7pm to 7am at around 4 months old, weighing around 15-16lb, and you can drop the feed altogether. Bliss!

(And DS is one who was sleeping through so I am in an altogether better place with my head than some of you. He also yet to hit 15-16lbs!)

RE: Controlled crying. We have one set of friends who swear by it. Their little boy does not seem emotionally damaged in anyway. We have one set of friends who are haunted two years on from their attempts at it and its their one big parenting regret. They gave up. They are still co-sleeping with their second 10month old but are much, much happier and have no plans to stop anytime soon.

Personally I think controlled crying would break me before DS got it.

I love love love that Kitkat!

Ah sorry ladies, I should have read the article properly. I just glanced at it and though it might be useful

Cumbrian I think there ARE some useful tips in there, but I worry that someone might read it and panic even more too. Especially if they are at breaking point with it.

I do think Kitkat's link sums it up nicely!

I also think that some babies are just not going to get this sleep business no matter what trick you use, in the same way that some babies will walk and talk earlier.

Haha that sleep article has made my day KitKat.

That other sleep article made it all sound so simple like a join the dots puzzle. But the person who wrote it clearly hasn't met my baby!

ella Sorry can't help, but I have the same poo issue. J is also on Cow and Gate Hungry Baby and has the runny poo problem. He only goes once a day but it is literally everywhere..up the back, down the legs...seeping through his clothes . I din't know how you cope with it multiple times a day !
Last week, my local Asda and Tesco had both completely run out of the hungry baby formula so i just bought the normal level 1 cow and gate stuff and the poo was better...however he seemed starving so I have returned to hungry baby and the poo is back.
I didn't have any issues with him switching between the level 1 and Hungry other than the hunger and the poo.
I will be interested in the replies to your post....

Puree definitely firmed things up here, ebf though but that shouldn't matter. I wouldn't rule out an intolerance just because of weight gain, mine is dairy allergic and had big weight gain (19lbs now). Not that I'm saying it is an intolerance!

Is the hungry baby formula the Stage 2 stuff? Have you looked at the ingredients and compared to normal stage 1? I believe that the only difference between the two is that Stage 2 contains more iron than Stage 1.

Have you ever taken iron tablets yourself? They do horrible things to your poo.

Iron has no additional nourishment value and there is nothing else different about stage 1 and stage 2. Stage 1 First milk is better just as good right through until 12 months.

The cynic in me says that Stage 2 formula was only introduced because it is illegal to advertise, market or discount formula to under 6 month old babies. So formula companies needed a new (and completely unnecessary) product that they could advertise, market and discount. It was given the "hungry baby" label just to play on parental insecurities surrounding having an unsettled baby. Any notion that "hungry baby" formula actually does settle baby better is in fact psychosomatic.

You are thinking of Follow On Milk Fate - that is the stage 2 milk and can be advertised.

I think Hungry baby milk is still considered stage 1 (0-12 months) and also can't be advertised.

The midwife who ran my antenatal class also said they considered hungry baby milk as unnecessary as follow on milk, but then they also spout out a lot at antenatal classes which in practice for some people doesn't work!

Team and KitKat - I saw that your questions were answered by the 'sleep expert'. What were your thoughts on her input?

I don't want to upset anyone by talking about this but I'm genuinely struggling.

Crawling: how the fuck do you survive?

We've had a poonami covered wrestle this morning and that's sent me over the edge. DS went from not rolling to rolling constantly to combining it with his backwards caterpillar to pulling stuff off the shelves to full on crawling incredibly rapidly.

I'm exhausted with lack of sleep, but this is tiring me out even more. He just won't stop. He was clearly hungry so I tried to feed him but he was more interested in everything else. I've had to come in the bedroom and bundle him up in his sleeping bag for a feed which has seemed to work.

Has anyone got any tips? To say DS is a handful seems to be understating it at the moment.

Apples you're a genius! The idea of just holding the spoon in front of Jessica (rather than out in her mouth) made all the difference this lunchtime. She ate all her sweet potato and butternut squash today and loved it.

Red sorry Jessica not crawling yet so afraid I don't have any advice.

Lilone interestingly just come back from post-natal group where the subject was sleep and I asked the same question tot the HV as to the sleep expert. The HV said although the official advice is that babies from 6 months onwards can sleep through without feeds, she said in her experience until a baby is fully weaned etc sleeping through consistently is unlikely, and even then teething etc tend to lead to regular sleep disruptions, so a lot of babies don't really consistently achieve sleeping through until 12-14 months oh dear god I hope it's not that long . I guess sometimes it's made me think that I (and the sleep expert) possibly have unrealistic expectations of a babies sleep in the first year.

Put in her mouth, not out in her mouth!

Kitkit, did you know that when you feed your baby they have a blind spot just in front of their mouth where they can't see the food - so it doesn't exist to their brains.

It makes sense with what apples said.

another one here half asleep, despite havinf had the best night we've had in a while with, ahem, 5 feeds....trying no cry sleep solution, fingers crossed