October 2014- thread 8. Growing up fast, 6 months already!!

[MundayCakes85]

Morning all! A shiny new thread for Easter.
Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, I'm off to eat copious amounts of chocolate whilst hiding in the floor of the nursery with Ewan the sheep

twice it's so hard to let them play amongst the snot isn't it?! It goes against every natural instinct to keep them healthy and clean.
I remember I really struggled with it with dc1 now unfortunately babywing frequently gets coughed on/sneezed on by the others but even now I find it difficult. Ds1 is one of those babies you mention unfortunately his nose seems to run like at tap from sep to April.:)

munday we've done lots of trips to the park and a trip to tatton park (huge park with a farm) also another trip to a farm. It makes so much difference when the sun is shining.

We have moved babywing into his own room for his first full night in there. Fingers crossed he sleeps through.

I was talking about my friend on here just the other day - about her co-sleeping with her DD until she was about 7 years old but having to be much more firm with her DS, only 18 months younger.

Her two children are the same age as my eldest two - now 10 and 9 (same genders too).

We met up today to let all the kids play and so we could catch up. She has Stage 2 Breast Cancer. I just don't even know where to begin with how I feel about that, what I should do, how I should act.

Life is precious.

Fate how sad about your friend. I hope her treatment goes well. It will be tough on her and her family though. I'm sure you'll be a good friend.

Life is indeed precious.

Finally set up dd2's big cot and was smug last night that I managed to transfer her in. She still bloody woke up when I came to bed though. And tonight I couldn't even manage the transfer so just fed her to sleep on the bed as usual. But in other news, finally started BLW at the weekend as she was 6 months on Friday. So far enjoying her veggies and tried some kidney beans at dinner tonight.

FATE I think a big hug and a hand to hold goes a long way. A genuine offer to help out with the kids might help as well? Poor bugger, hope she kicks cancer's ass.
Just having a quick feed and hopefully back to bed for another couple of hours, finger's crossed

FATE hope your friend beats this awful disease. You should check out Macmillan Cancer website. It's full of useful advice about how to help friends dealing with cancer and also that humour can really help too as well as practical stuff.

Hi folks, just popped in to say hi & sorry not been on here much. FATE sorry to hear of your friend . I agree with others in that hand holding & helping out with the kids will help loads I imagine.

Not much to report here...started weaning Adam 2 wks ago as he was grabbing every but of food on its way to my mouth! But he's taken to weaning like a duck to water, so much so he's having huge portions & moving onto 3 meals a day this week once I cook some more...just started him off with baby porridge not thinking he'd take to it as the other 2 didnt. He was shouting for it this morning & has lunch with a fruit puree for afters too. Moving onto dinners too from tomorrow...

Hope everyone has some lovely weather like we have here in London today..

Granny - My DD is loving her food too. Now has three course lunch and dinner (savoury jar, yoghurt or fruit puree pudding, finger food to finish with).

We had some trouble with drinking since DD has not taken to the beaker very well and so her poos got hard within a couple of weeks of weaning. I have had to bite the bullet and let her drink water/squash/juice from a bottle (which I really, really hate to see) in order to get her to have enough water to drink. Working on the beaker, but she's not there yet.

Thank you for all your thoughts regarding my friend. Already agreed to have her children during an appointment she has later this week, and any time she needs me to. Also will make some easily re-heatable dinners for them when she has the op and is convalescing. I'm thinking casseroles, lasagne, savoury mince, that kind of thing.

Nice to hear from you granny hope your mil is ok ?

So sorry to hear about your friend fate .., that awful disease has no respect for anything

Well, after the first few days of what seemed to be light digestion issues, or just a stomach getting used to it, Pip is sleeping much better on formula. I'm just doing two a day, but the last one at night is getting her/me 4 - 5 hours sleep, which is amazing after months of no more than 3. The other night she didn't want feeding for 7 hours, even though she woke a couple of times in that period. She was quick to settle though.

She's in her own cot for the first half of the night too, and last night went to bed with little issue and slept without really stirring. That's on boob milk though, so maybe she'd have started sorting herself out at this age anyway without any changes.

Still, it feels much more 'doable' now. Perhaps we just needed to come home... less stressed parents = less stressed baby.

Hi all.

Glad to hear the sleep is improving Goats, sounds excellent. We're now basically night weaned - his only night feed is 5.30 am. I do usually have to settle him a couple of times (at least!) before that though.

Fate, sorry to hear about your friend that's really horrible.

I haven't started weaning yet, he's 24 and a half weeks. Planning to try a few bits this weekend maybe! I was actually going to ask about how you encourage them to drink with their food. Hand them a sippy cup? Sort of show them how an open cup works? I'm really clueless.

Splendide impressed at night weaning! My dd seems a long way off night weaning. I like the tommee tippee free flow lidded cups (they have 2 handles and are in supermarkets). I stocked up when I went back to ireland last year as in America it's all about the straw cups. I also have a doidy cup but, this being my third, I find the doidy is best for bath time (drinking bath water is how my older two kids got good at open cups!).

We only just started weaning last Sat (DD was 6 months on the 10th). I has been kind of dreading it tbh but actually I forgot how much I like BLW. Just batch roasted a load of veggies as DH will be late home the rest of the week so I want to be organised.

fate so sorry to hear about your friend cancer is an evil disease we lost a family member last week to it. Fingers crossed she will make a full recovery.

Well as I predicted babywing has stopped sleeping through since we've put him in his own room. Gave up at 5 this morning and brought him into our bed. Dd1 is ill so I'm pretty tired at the moment and also tearing my hair out being cooped up everyone in the house, but poor d is just not up to going out. So toddlerwing is slowly destroying the house. Yesterday he got a can of beer out of the fridge and managed to open it and spray himself and most of the kitchen with fosters! Think we need to do some more structured activities today

Oh dear toddlerwing Hope you get to leave the lurgy zone soon Wing!
We're enjoying the sunshine, although trying to figure out what E should be wearing in the heat.
Off to baby sensory later on today, then going to try to tackle a big food shop with the baby

Thanks for the advice Flip, I might try him with a cup in the bath tonight!

We've had two weeks of mostly structured activities these holidays. Doesn't usually work like that but just happened to work out that way in these Easter Hols what with cubs and guides activities, local gym and swim membership at out leisure centre and whatnot. Sleepovers too - three here and three elsewhere.

Not baby related but proud Mummy moment. My DD10 has been called to the team for a Netball Tournament at the weekend. She's been at the club since September but usually just attends training. This is the first time being called to the squad team. She's so excited. My first time on the sidelines too.

Last night was the worst night for weeks :(

I don't understand why he's waking. He just wakes for a couple of minutes, has a chat and either goes back to sleep or I need to give him a quick stroke and he goes back. Last night he did this at least once an hour! Bizarre. Spent the whole night in his cot with no feed between 7pm and 6.30am but just no real stretches of unbroken sleep.

Bump sorry to hear you're struggling with your LO, no real advice since E wakes anywhere between 4-6 for a feed still. And now she's moving all around her cot it's quite hard to settle her! She does go to bed at about 6.45pm in her own room though so at least I have my evenings!!
In regards to weaning I made pear purée and sweet potato/ normal potato mash which she loves. What have you tried so far?

It is great Bump, he's great at being happy in his cot. Just no idea whether the frequent wakings will just go away or if I need to do something.

Continuing his theme of being very jolly but useless at sleeping. Today I fed him at 1, he nearly dozed off on his bottle at about 25 past. Then I put him in his cot where he rolled about giggling for 30 minutes before falling asleep at 1.55. I feel like I'm making him spend all afternoon in a dark bedroom :(

We've sort of got a routine for eating etc.

Wakeup and boob at 6.45 - 7.30
Breakfast of whatever I'm having sometime around 8
Small amount of formula (120ml max) and nap at 9 - 9.45
Sleeps for anything between 45 and 80 minutes
Boob at 12.30 - 1 ish depending on what we're up to
Nap sometime after that - usually tired about half an hour after food
Sleeps for 45 minutes max
Boob around 4
Sometimes another nap shortly afterwards - no more than 20 min
'Tea' type food at 5
Bath at 6.30 - 7
Boob and bed half an hour after that - takes about 5 minutes to drop off in cot
Will wake up most days 45 minutes later, but can be easily settled
Might wake again, depends... getting better at not
Formula feed at 11 ish (or whenever she wakes up around this time)
Boob any time between 3 and 5 - might need resettling before this
And awake again at 6.45 - 7.30

In terms of food, she's getting a variation on what I'm having. Porridge with fruit, toasted sandwiches, cereal, toast with various toppings, yoghurt with eggy bread or pancakes, scrambled egg for breakfast. Dinner is usually something veggie related (that we had the night before) with toast and cream cheese, or hummous, strips of meat, rice cakes. Anything really. Tonight she's getting ham, potato bread with cream cheese, slices of courgette and some roast squash.

Sleep is alright at the moment - it's not great, but it's 'fine'. She's partly in her own room - until the first wake up after the formula feed - and for now I'm pretty happy with stuff.

This weekend I'm going to start replacing the 4-ish boob milk with formula. I've decided to keep the early more and evening/night ones for the time being, so after a week or so getting my boobs used to only 3/4 feeds a day, I'll go down to 2/3 for a month or so.

splendide - If he's sleeping or going to sleep, I don't see any problem with being in a darkened room. As long as you play in a lively room or go out when he's awake and happy, all is fine.

Bump - My DD sleep regressed when she cut her first teeth. Just for two nights of really bad sleep and then two nights of not brilliant sleep, then back to normal. She too is normally an excellent sleeper. Could your LO be cutting teeth?

Re 6.30am wakes though, that's around normal here. We aim for 6.45 (when DH alarm goes off) but 6.30 wouldn't be considered terrible. The whole household (all six of us) pile into our bed for half an hour in the morning then we all get up around 7.15 to get ready for school etc.