September 14 babies - bring on the weaning!

[KitKat1985]

New thread for the Sept 14 babies. :)

Why won't DS nap past 3pm??? Whhhhhy?! Instead we have screaming and screaming and screaming. Drives me nuts. Sorry. Don't know who else to tell. I'd love him to be more settled so I can give him food so then he'll sleep better at night (good meals seem to be followed by good naps in the morning) but I've just got no chance at all because he's so tired and unhappy.

Thank you top and fate by the way for your comments :)

DD adores her grandad! They are so sweet together. She beams and puts her arms out to be carried by him. She then nuzzles into to his face, give dribbly kisses and pats at his face. They can spend ages playing together, and I've found them watching the footie on TV together more than once! They are too cute

We're off to meet DS's paternal grandfather on Saturday. He lives in South Africa so he hasn't met DS yet. Looking forward to seeing him & the hot weather but not sure about the 11 hour flight followed by a 4 hour car journey to get there.

My dad is a bit rubbish at keeping in touch but he's quite good with DS when he does. My mum is amazing with DS & she is definitely his favourite person. As soon as he saw her this morning his arms were outstretched wanting a cuddle from her, so lovely to see.

I think ds is a bit scared of his grandpa! he hasn't seen my stepdad since he was 4 weeks and has never met my dad. we are in teething full on mode today. I have had to calpol twice and he has a bright red cheek poor little mite. he has hardly slept all day despite being awake since 5 so I am knackered and am hoping this latest lot of calpol will aid him going to sleep. I have baby nurofen at the ready just incase!

Nursery was not very good; but it was not a disaster either. I spent nearly three hours there, planning to leave him there on his own after an hour or so. But as soon as I thought time to leave he started a massive melt down! So much so that I had to take him & leave the baby room as other babies were getting upset
I nursed & rocked him to sleep (things he would not have in nursery when I leave him) and he went to sleep, when he woke he was slightly better, had a nice meal and we left. I am paying for these nursery sessions but I am also taking time off to go sit there with him. I decided I continue to do so until he is settled; but it is not very easy.
I was feeling upset today because two other babies just started one 6 and the other 9 months and neither of them were even one bit upset!! They seemed to love being with other people and in the room full of toys... The nursery nurse seems to think separation anxiety has arrived earlier for ds (normally starting at 7 weeks and getting worse at 9m).

On a positive note I really like this nursery till now. I am very picky and observant, but these people are generally good...

Honey you'll have a routine for feeding soon; first couple of weeks is difficult but every thing soon fall into place. We have three meals at around 8,12-1 and 5-6. As I said I am quite worried that he has dropped a lot more milk feed than advisedx ,but not sure what to do about it,
About napping after 3, for some reason ds also does not want to nap then, however he is tired. It is the only nap that I'll rock him for it and it works nicely. He has not developed any habit wanting to be always rocked as consequence - I lay his little mattress (previous crib mattress) on my legs, lay him on it and move my legs until he sleeps, then slowly move my legs out.

Goodness Topsy. I am dreading the drive to Isle of Wight in the summer, so to go all the way to South Africa with baby, that is one hard slog of a journey. Worth it when you get there I have absolutely no doubt. What are your plans for surviving the journey? I wouldn't know where to start.

Honey I used to call the teatime screaming session the 'witching hour'. I too struggle to get DD to nap after her lunchtime nap (which ends at 3pm), so you are not alone. I still use the bouncy chair for a nap around 5.30pm ish, whereas the other two sleeps are up in the cot.

Ella Your sister has 6 children? . Blimey. Not fair on your parents though. Lots of cousins in your family by the sounds of it. My children have only two cousins (my brothers two children) and that's it on both sides of the family. DH brother and my other brother are both unlikely to have children. So although I have a large family, we have a very small extended family. I think as a result of being small, we are a close extended family.

Holls I'm convinced my DD is going to be cutting a tooth in the next month or so, but DH keeps assuring me that I am wrong and she's no where near teething. Hmm, we shall see (and I shall gloat to him at being right)

Your post wasn't there when I started posting Nazly - glad today went well.

Top - I also work on the basis that food for the first 12 months is about experience and discovery, not nourishment. Glad to find someone who thinks like me on that basis. I have one friend who is very into this way of thinking but know very few other people who buy into this idea of slowing down the rush to wean fully.

naps..oh naps. They are my topic of choice at present.
I thought ds had dropped his 9am one. he hasn't.
so now our day sort of loosely goes....

7am up and milk then dressed and half an hour with dh whilst I havr a shower and prep for day

then play time.

8.30/9 porridge then sleep in bouncy chair. should I do this in cot?

when he wakes up into pram and walk into town to get bits and bobs.

10.30/11ish bottle

play etc maybe a snooze

1pm lunch

1.45 ish sleep - in cot if at home.

3ish (if awake) milk

5 supper

6 dh home so daddy time whilst I put away washing/make bottle/run bath

6.30 bath time then cover skin in zeroderm time then story time and bottle

and relax.....until the grunting/singing/rolling starts at c.4am.

now. the napping in cot is v much a work in progress...sometimes it works. other times, not so much.

Fate my plan for survival on the flight is the hope that as it's a night flight & DS sleeps through the night he will sleep on the plane for most of it. He will then be due a nap again once we start the car journey so he'll sleep through the first bit of that & then as I'll be in the back with him I'll have to keep him entertained for the second half. If this doesn't work it's going to be a v long day!

Holls DS has all his naps in the cot if we're at home. They're normally around 8-9, 11.30-1 & then 3-4 with bedtime being at 7. He has started dropping the last one or only having a very short nap and this has resulted in massive over tiredness & like tonight we've had to do bedtime at 6 instead. DS is also getting grumpy with his teeth which isn't helping the tiredness.

Nazly hope DS starts to settle at nursery better soon. Have you tried all the things like taking a favourite toy, blanket, something that smells like you etc? I can imagine how heartbreaking it must be for you seeing him cry like that when you try to leave.

Holls Stop fretting, they are all different and what works for one child won't work for another. Our naps are just changing from short and frequent to longer and structured, so have moved into the cot (if we are home, but I do try to plan the day around being in as often as possible for naps).

We have 2ish hours at 9am and 2ish hours at 1pm - both in cot. She then needs another nap somewhere around teatime, but this is often a battle and can vary from a 20 minute powernap to 60+minutes that result in me having to wake her up.

Topsy You are brave. Am I right in thinking that babies don't get their own seat on the plane? I've not flown with a baby before. Fingers crossed for a sleepy baby on travelling day.

Ella I've used those flavoured water things in the past. I really just think they are watered down fruit juice. I recall with DC3 he completely bypassed all baby cups. Since my older children have sports beakers of squash on the go all day long, it doesn't take baby long to find and figure them out. So he just went onto beakers of squash very early.

Nazly Something Topsy said reminded me, one of my friends son carried his Mums pillow case (unwashed, so it smelt of her) around when he first started nursery.

Topsy we've been on two 11 hour flights with DS and two 3 hour flights, all with him as a lap child. They honestly weren't bad! He still loves to sit and be cuddled for a while and to sleep in our arms. We got seats in the bulkhead row and then laid him down on a blanket on the floor between our feet when he was squirmy and wanted to roll a bit. Worse by far was the baby jet lag. The horror! But it's only a few time zones different to SA, right? So that shouldn't be bad.

Yes Fate I'm comfortable in the knowledge that milk provides babies with pretty much most of what they need till age 1. I'm just taking it steady with weaning apparently the old fashioned way with puree's getting gradually lumpier/textured food. I'm too scared of BLW just yet but do try and get J to hold her sippy cup and spoon.

Wow Ella that's a lot of cousins! J has 0 cousins :( I'm quite sad that this could easily be a permanent lack of cousins.

Good luck on your flight Topsy. We're going to Ireland for a holiday when Jessica is 9 months... 45 minute flight ish so hopefully won't be too bad! I just hope her ears don't hurt top much landing.

Jessica slept in her cot for a nap this afternoon for the first time ever!! 45 minutes but better than nothing! I celebrated with a hot cup of tea and cake. I think I could've tried getting her in the cot for naps before 6 months old but you live and learn don't you

Top/Fate, I also thought the same originally, i.e. Milk is main and solid is secondary up until 1 just to learn what solid is. But ds proved me wrong! About the amount of food, I read in multiple sources that I should be guided by how much he wants; and if he likes something, he eats a lot! That's why he dropped a lot of milk feed. I also feel now he is used to the idea of food, he sees milk as only little snacks and drinks and not proper food. I am actually so worried about him not getting the milk nutritional value that I am considering dropping to gp or hv

Lots of posts to catch up on!
Today DD slept a total of 45mins after waking up at 8am. And then at 7pm she fell asleep on me (usually never happens as she seems to prefer DH), Just an hour before her usual bedtime of 8pm, so took her up around that time and a small dream feed and she's still sleeping. V strange for her to be that tired!

Reading about all the babies having 2 hour naps and getting quite envious as it's very rare she will sleep for longer than 30 mins at a time in the day (unless we are out and in the car) and that's usually only twice a day too.
It's making the days pretty tiring to be honest (but lots of fun too as I find more and more ways of entertaining her!) should I be worried at her lack of napping?( she sleeps pretty well at night and has done for a while now)

Popped into two nurseries this week for a look around. Restricted to ones that close at 6:30 as I can't finish work before 6pm ever.
The first one was ofsted rated as needing improvement last March (mainly staff appraisals and paperwork etc). The second was often rated as good 18 months ago. Is it weird that I preferred the first one because I thought the children there seemed happier ?

morning all...has anyonr else experienced the screeching stage? my Ds has decided to audition flr the part of an orc in Lord of The Rings. at 5am.

Zanashar Jessica also only has about 3 x 30 minute cat-naps in the day, so I get the 2 hour nap envy. Oh the things I could do in 2 hours sleep mainly but 30 minutes is only enough time to grab a shower or do some quick laundry and she's up again. We were limited to nurseries that were open until 7pm so I get the frustration with nurseries. I would say read the ofstead reports rather than just the ratings to see what the concerns were with the first one. Ultimately though just trust your judgement. x

Oh and Holls yes Jessica loves her morning screech / chat-a-thons. She seems to be waking up with the daylight earlier and earlier so I think we may get some black-out-blinds as only have thin curtains in her room right now. And she was late to bed last night (out for dinner to celebrate MIL's birthday) so I thought she may potentially sleep in a bit more, but no, still up at just after 6am.

So last night was the first night of 'sleep training' and it was fine. Mainly though it was fine because Jessica was much better last night anyway. Maybe her growth spurt had finished, maybe it was going to bed later, maybe it was the amount of puree SIL managed to get into her at dinner it nearly makes me cry how much better she is at getting Jessica to do these things than I am . but she was definitely better last night. She was:
Put to bed at 9.15pm and asleep by 9.30pm.
Slept until 3.10am, left her for 10 mins but she didn't self settle so offered her boob, which she had a good feed and then went straight back to sleep.
Awake again at 5.10am, but I left her for 10 minutes and she went back to sleep in her own.
Awake again just after 6am chatting to herself in her cot. Given a feed at 6.20 but she remained awake and chatted in her cot until we got her up to take downstairs at 7am.

As I say, last night was fairly easy - the acid test is going to be on those nights she wakes up constantly how long I can hold out sticking to only feeding her no more than every 3 hours... we shall see.

Well done on sticking to your plan KitKat. I hope it continues to be an improvement for you.

Zana We used to have 30 minute naps too, though it felt like hardly any and I found it difficult too and we ended up with very grumpy over tired baby in the evenings. She used to sleep sometimes in her chair, sometimes on her mat, sometimes on me (I just wanted her to sleep, didn't matter where!) but after Christmas I consistently put her down in her crib, blind down, white noise on, blanket on. It was a bit of a battle to begin with but now she has 3 regular decent naps (1-2 hours) every day (touch wood!). If she wakes up before an hour asleep now i'll try and see if she will go back to sleep.

I got the Ikea Antilop High Chair. It's fine for only £13. The tray doesn't clip on properly though so i've had to tape it on lol. £9 for delivery so really not worth ordering another! I've put her in it the last couple of days to get used to it and yesterday gave her a cup with some water but as soon as she tasted it was water she was not interested and just banged it on the tray a few times then threw it on the floor lol.

I have the chair lilone. It is brilliant imho, everything we needed and more... No issue with the tray here. Have you tried both ways? It is unusual for it not to work.

I will talk to our hv clinic next tuesday, meanwhile anybody with experience can you tell me how much you feed your baby , solids I mean. Ds eats a lot; then he does not take milk. I read I should be guided by him so just keep the spoon in front of him (and his cup) and he chooses if he want more and food or water. What else can I do? Not feed him until he is full so he has space for milk?

Kitkat your plan is fab; and I have read those elements before too, but I am stuck with the first one. How do I get my breastfed baby not to sleep on breast before bed and stay awake so I put him in bed awake?

nazly, Google pantley pull off re avoiding baby falling asleep at breast

Well done Kitkat! Jessica was similar to your Jessica last night. One wake up around 3 am, feed then back to bed, but until 7.20 am I felt refreshed but I'm coming down with this horrid cold that's doing the rounds I think. Blerrghhh.

Nazly I'm no expert or HV but I'd say yes follow your baby's lead with regard to food and dropping milk. I'm sure he'll get excellent nutrition from the great food you're giving him and that he's enjoying. I just meant that I'm not in a rush until age 1 for getting J eating lots of solid food if she doesn't want to because I know that milk will fulfil her nutritional needs anyway until then. Hope that makes sense! I do however give her 5 drops of vitamins everyday as per the guidelines.

Finally got J's passport sent off today! Just need to sort mine out now and DHs but I think we can travel to Ireland with our driving licences.... does anyone know if that's true?

Just to add Nazly, my aim by 12 months old is to get Jessica having just a morning and an evening milk feed. Maybe your lo is just heading towards that sooner? I'm sure the HV will advise you though

Nazly, I don't think there is another way to try it, if I turned it around it would be upside down? It's probably just a dodgy one that I got, typical! I ordered a storage box from them too and they delivered it with a big hole in the bottom...