November 2014 - The one where they won't stay still.

[MrsAukerman]

New thread, new moves, new poo!

Welcome mumineed!

Twiglet maybe this is how your DD is replicating your kisses? You think she sucks on while she actually is kissing you her style?
If your work don't have any alternative people to do the exhibitions than get you come in during matleave, I would expect they would try to lure you with a good offer? Does your company has so called "keep in touch" days? If yes, suggest you would do exhibition under that one and you will automatically get paid a full day. I don't think it is unreasonable to ask full day pay (how much time do you expect to spend working btw?). While you might have family to leave DD with, theoretically you could be incurring childcare costs, so you should really get paid amount which doesn't leave you "in red" if you leave the house. If they are interested for you to step in, they should make it interesting for you as well. Job contract is not a one way street.

Anna we are trying to avoid dummies altogether since DD has started to pull it out as soon as it is in her mouth and then gets frustrated because she tries to put it back other way round. Not pacifying at all But she suddenly has fallen in love with Sophie. Didn't have interest in it for months and then suddenly - favourite toy. She goes mental with it.

Anna I found handing the dummy to ds to put in his mouth himself helped him learn, still takes him a while, he will grab the teat and try and suck the wrong side.
We're lucky that ds can tolerate goats milk but the formula is getting very expensive. I've left it to the hv to try and get us some milk prescribed but I don't really want to take him off this milk now and I've read that the prescribed milk tastes vile?

Twiglet definitely ask, they can't expect you to work for nothing.

mumineed we have it prescribed which is brilliant as we fly through it. It'd cost a fortune otherwise. It both smells and tastes absolutely RANK but we got a tip of putting Vanilla Extract through it and then it tastes and smells yummy, like a milkshake. He gobbled it! After a couple of weeks we decreased the vanilla and now he drinks it neat.

Twiglet yeah he wouldn't keep it in his mouth before. But now that he's teething and it fits his mouth so well he seems to find it really soothing on the front gums. It works a treat all of a sudden.

I am massively conflicted about it though. It is reducing the wakefullness, definately. And he doesn't get it during the day. But still feel a bit weak for introducing it at this stage.

I was all angsty with my SIL at the weekend over it (she has four kids), and she listened patiently and then not-so-politely told me to build a bridge and get past it. Its a bloody dummy, not poison!

The best bit of advice I got (probably on here) was do whatever you have to do to get by!

Anna I got really hung up on dummy use at about 4 months; bored my friends with it too I'm sure. DD slept well with it but I was replacing it 8 or 10 times a night - not a big deal when she was a foot away from me in the bednest but I was panicking about what would happen once she was in her own room. She was also pulling it out constantly which drove us nuts! Luckily that phase passed after a few weeks, and then she went in her own room at 5.5m, we did still have to go and replace it but less often - I reckon about half the times I was replacing it in the bednest she didn't actually need it replacing. Now she's rolling over in her cot she usually chooses to sleep on her front which means when it falls out it's usually right there to suck back in when she wants it. She's also getting better at replacing it every day. Usually we only have to go in 2 or 3 times during the night and she just needs it popping back in and she goes right back to sleep - much better than having to rock her or anything more exerting!

The funniest thing is when she has lost the dummy but knows it's nearby - she doesn't use her hands to find it but rolls onto her front and faceplants the mattress repeatedly until she finds it!

Honestly though would I try to introduce a dummy now twig... I don't know. Depends what the alternative is!

Ooh porridge fingers! We used to do those for ds as a baby & he really loved them! On the list for dd now!

Lots of your babies starting to sleep through/longer stretches all of a sudden! I hope it happens for us soon too. DD's nights are terribly disturbed at the moment, she starts waking as soon as we get in bed & is restless til she eats at around 2-3am. Then we get a 2ish hr stretch of solid sleep & she starts waking again at around 5am. I struggle to resettle her at this point unless she comes in our bed but then I don't sleep cos she wriggles & whacks me in the face while she's sleeping!

twiglet if you've not used one til now I really wouldn't. There will only come a time when you have to take it away again. I've been cursing our dummy since around 4 months when she learned to pull it out. I get up to her probably 8-10 times per night to pop it back in, & I'm sick & fed up of doing it! She is next to the bed so its not so bad but I can't bear the thought of traipsing down & up the stairs once she's in her room (we're on a different floor). Anna I am wondering if the dummy is also the cause of our disturbed nights & I really want to get rid of it but have no idea how I would settle her without it? .

Who's doing BLW? Can you answer me a question? When you first started did you include him/her in every meal from the word go & just let them eat what they want, or did you start off with one meal then increase to 2 & then 3 as you would do with traditional weaning with purees? What are you giving for breakfast since they are not dextrous enough to self feed sloppy/wet cereal yet?

I tried giving dd some steamed batons of sweet potato yesterday. She bit into it & looked completely disgusted then started boking. I had to fish it all out of her mouth. Not sure we're ready for finger foods yet

DD wide awake at 4am, no idea why she sleeps through some nights and not others, probably best to just be grateful when she does!
Twiglet, I think you can get paid for up to 10 days work while on maternity leave so definitely not unreasonable to ask to be paid.

omama yes I just include him in every meal unless he naps through my lunch. I give him his dinner at 1630 and then dh and I eat after he's in bed. At 1630 I eat a little bit with him so he thinks it's proper dinner time. We didn't do any phasing in as for the first week or so not much made it into his mouth and down the throat. Don't worry about gagging, it's choking that is dangerous. He gags loads less now already, they learn how to handle the food safely round their mouths quite quickly.

DH has realised that non-sleeping, cot-refusing baby is a problem, especially as I will be going back to work in August and don't get home from work until after 9pm and do some night shifts. He has decided we need to get her sleeping in the cot instead of next to me, but, for all my good intentions, I tend to fall asleep feeding her. So, at 1.30 last night he comes up to bed, puts her in the cot, wakes her up but decides he can settle her. She cries for a hour until he thinks she is hungry and gives her to feed. He is right that she needs to be in the cot more as he clearly isn't up for co-sleeping when I'm at work, but I don't know how to convince her of this. This is the end of snuggle feeding in the warm comfy bed, as I won't be falling asleep sitting in the wooden chair.
DH keeps saying she won't be ready for nursery or whole days without me by August and we should see if I can extend maternity leave. I don't think we can afford that, but he has convincing arguments about not needing to pay for childcare and changing to an interest-only mortgage for a bit, and obviously it would be better for both girls. I have some vague recollection of needing to give 3 months notice to work if I want to do that so need to dig out the maternity policy.
This all may have been sparked by my phone call from the nursery yesterday, inviting me to bring DD in tomorrow to discuss settling-in etc (our nursery does settling in over a ridiculously long time).

Thanks, ladies.

Another night of awful sleep here. In cot at 8:30 after snoozing on me for a bit downstairs. Up at 9:15, screamed every time she was put down until 10:30, slept till 11:30, shouted when I tried to put her down, gave up at 12:30 and co slept til 2:00, when I finally got her in cot and she slept til 5:40, when I hoiked her back into bed for an hour more sleep. I am shattered! Have decided to try changing method again tonight because I just cannot go on like this. If it means leaving her to cry for a couple of minutes at a time before going back in and comforting, I am just going to try and stick with it. I don't think it will be damaging like CIO if it's a timed two minute break between cuddles will it?

twig I don't see how a couple of minutes could damage her. Plus they do work up to it don't they so it isn't going to be two minutes of distress is it. I can see why you want to try the dummy! That sounds awful. :-(

Morning ladies. Gosh, there's so much to catch up on. Since his magical night on Friday or Saturday DS has reverted to normal sh*t sleeping patterns. Oh well, one night was nice.

Re dummy use, DS has one but there are times, usually when I'm up all night putting it back in, when I wish we'd never bothered with the bloody thing. I have been making a real effort to put him down without it at night as there will be a point when we need to wean him off it anyway. He seems to be managing fine and I think through my sleep deprived haze actually sleeping better without it. But then who knows. I've given up trying to find reasons for things. It all just seems to be totally random anyway.

On a very positive note...forgive me if I've already mentioned it but I don't think I have...I finally got back out on my lovely horse the weekend before last. I'd forgotten how lovely it was. i felt like me again and not just DS's mum

Twiglet somebody was recommending a book on the last page I think which talked about maintaining trust and getting them down. Don't know if that might help?

And welcome to flipflops and mum

www.babyledweaning.com/features/gagging/the-gagging-thing-v-the-choking-thing/

thisis great news about the horse. How often will you get to ride do you think? I started swimming again and took on an allotment, I love the time on my own - even though hanging with dd is my favourite thing ever, I neeeed the alone time to appreciate it!

happy If it gives you any hope babydolly was exactly the same co-sleeping and dp was starting to complain I'd never be back in with him. I did as suggested by helpful ladies on here and put her in the cot for a few naps and just to play while I pottered around the room and when I moved her to the cot for night times I've had not a single problem, in fact, the restless hours and disturbed sleep disappeared. Admittedly I far prefer popping my boob out and continuing to sleep during feeds BUT, I am only waking for the 2 feeds and not by being whacked/tickled/wriggling in between. I do have a SUPER comfy feeding chair that actually I do doze in when feeding though. So just the transition to separate rooms now.

Re: BLW I do both so she gets puree and something to 'pick' at. I did a week of just breakfast (where she and I eat at the same time) and now a week of breakfast and lunch (ditto) but we've not made it to dinner as well yet, I'll wait til she's over this cold.

We are SO far from through the night though :( At least twice every night for a feed (and she really does seem to feed, not just feed back to sleep) and sometimes when I go to bed as well. Does it happen overnight prays

We started weaning DD properly on Sunday, giving baby rice for lunch and two following mornings now she has done two morning poonamis instead of one usual poop. Wtf, weren't they supposed to get constipated instead?! Not too sure if this has anything to do with weaning, but yesterday she did 3 big naps of one hour each and only woke at 2am for feed last night. After recent not that brilliant nights, this feels just great. Saying that, this morning she has done 2 micro naps of 15 minutes only...

Been to a weaning workshop run by one of the local HV and few things she said:

1. Apparently BF babies after 6 months have to be given vitamins as they don't get enough from BM. No need for vitamins if FF;
2. BF babies struggle more to start off with savory food compared with FF babies as BM is very sweet compared to formula;
3. BF babies struggle with cups as they don't like any plastic in their mouth.

It almost gave impression that there are more problems with BF babies when weaning than with FF ones. It did feel very confusing as the other HV who was coming to us was rather religious about BF till 1 year of age and BF being almost a panacea to all bad and now suddenly this... Have anybody else has been told the same stuff in weaning events or it's just a particular HV?

Somehow I got a feeling that there will be few people posting back that they either never heard of this or their BF babies never had any of this.

No I've heard of all of that Strawberry. They definately don't get enough nurtients from BM after 6 months - iron particularly. Apparently all that "Food Is Fun Till One" stuff trotted out by the BF Brigade is bollocks. After 6 months you need much more than BF can provide.

My best friend who is an extended breastfeeder (2.5 years and counting and hates it now but her little tyrant won't give it up) had a terrible struggle with cups/beakers. No way! I think her DD was well over a year before she'd accept a cup. She wanted boob, all the time and my friend felt she had no choice as she'd get dehydrated otherwise. It was very hard going. So definately persevere with cups or you'll rue the day! (I think my mate would do things differently again)

Mind you, that child ate everything that was put in front of her so I guess the savory thing might depend on the child.

I read this on it a while back too:

breastfeedingwithoutbs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/bullshitometer-food-before-one-is-just.html

Continuing on "Adventures in Dummies":

I'm really trying to only keep the dummy for mid-night wake ups. I feed him to sleep with a bottle, and occasionally he doesn't fall asleep and we leave him in a darkened room with Ewan on and he does self-settle after a while (picture me downstairs, eyes nervously glued to the monitor......)

I have to say though that he's moving the sleep goalposts on us now almost daily. He's dramatically reduced his nighttime milk intake (he's 6.5 mths & on 2 meals a day for the past month) and that has made a big difference at night.

Last night he went down at 7pm and didn't wake till 1.30!!!! He ALWAYS wakes at 11.30 for a feed so I was shocked. And then at 1.30 only took about 3oz!!

Then he started whining in his sleep at 5am, but since he wasn't awake I didn't try to feed him but just tried to stick the dummy in to resettle him. He spit it out! Turns out he just needed to be put on his other side. Then he slept till 7.

So no dummy at all last night! But its so changeable these days god knows what tonight will bring.

twiglet that sounds utterly shit. I would buy a dummy cos fuck it, it can't be worse that that.

omama is she going through that last growth spurt? Cos DS's sleep went to hell there about three weeks ago during it. Lots of wakefullness from 3.30 on. Hopefully its over now. Have you the Wonder Weeks app?

strawberry I went to one of those workshops too. I was told about the vitamins but never heard the other 2, although kind of makes sense. However, dd loves the bloody beaker, or she loves the water in it. She gets way more excited by that than the food. Likewise no problems with savoury foods although we've only done root veg and fruits so far. The only thing I've got the impression she doesn't really like is pear.

ladydolly re riding, I don't know. Weekends hopefully both days, but it will depend on what we're doing and maybe a night in the week if I'm lucky as DP doesn't get back til 7 most nights. I'm a bit over everything by that time though so we'll have to see. DS had his first sit on a friend's pony the other day and loved it. He screamed when I took him off and promptly stopped when put back on again much to DP's dismay. Definitely his mother's son!

strawberry I knew they needed more iron but not the other stuff. Tbh I was rather hoping I'd get the vitamins he needs into him via his diet, but maybe that's not achieveable. I do hate this lean towards supplements rather than natural sources of vitamins.

DS is both bf and ff at the moment. We've deliberately started him on veggies rather than fruit due to his ardent appreciation of Calpol and he's been fine with them. He had a mix of apple carrot and parsnip this morning from an Ella's kitchen pouch and it went down a storm. Curiously there was much less than usual on his bib... I think we will have to stick to the savoury stuff a bit more

Do you guys put cooled boiled water in the beakers or just water straight from the tap?

Oh, and Strawberry, we have had nothing but poonamis since starting to wean. Usually at 3 in the morning necessitating a nappy change when I feel least like doing it.