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

[MrsAukerman]

New thread, new moves, new poo!

Cooled boiled if the kettle water is right temp, tap otherwise.
I think the stuff about vitamins is bollocks tbh.

Thank you Anna for the link, it sounds very reasonable and objective. To be completely honest it makes me feel better about myself. I have been quietly beating myself up for DD going off BF after 3 months and me not making her go back to it (I didn't have it in me to not feed her unless she goes back to breast). I turned a deaf ear to HV suggesting BF workshop for DD at 4,5 months because I thought if I was doing baby lead breastfeeding then I should also listen to her when she doesn't want it anymore and not just blindly follow "babies don't wean off the breast under age of one".

The phrase "under one food is for play" makes me cringe for a very different reason. My parents were born during WWII and have had childhood with rather limited food available as a result. They had always told me not to play with the food, not to waste it and it is ingrained quite well in me.

We have near home a nursery rated by Ofsted as Outstanding. During the visit there we were told that kids do messy play once a week with foodstuff included and I was like . What smearing chocolate spread all over the place helps to develop? Am I old-fashioned? I thought messy play would be, for example, working with proper clay and making something out of it and so on. We are considering Montessori nursery instead now where they don't appear to smear edibles on each other on purpose.

twiglet it was me who's following the techniques re sleeping in a book called baby sleeping trust techniques - alternatives to controlled crying. It's by Rebecca Welton.
So far it's working really well, especially considering that we've only been following it since Friday.

Wow you lot have been busy! Think I am all caught up.

We are starting BLW on Thursday. He will be just over 6 months (adjusted) but he can sit up in the highchair and is desperate to get at our food. He also seems to have lost that tongue reflex thing. We have had him sitting at the table with us for a few weeks.

Sleeping is a pain on the arse here. He seems to have real trouble sleeping in the day. Unless I walk him in the buggy the only way I cam get him to sleep is feeding him to sleep. On Sunday he slept for 45 mins total all day. Crazy boy. At night we are generally having at least 2 wake ups between 8.30 and 7. Both for feeds. I am still putting him down asleep.

On a happier note he can now roll front to back and can sit up for a bit unaided. Clever cookie!

Ds is 6mths tommorow we have been weaning a mth and do puree and blw and he has got really good at eating himself loves broccoli florets.

Has had casserole, roast dinner and steak with veggies pureed up now have a freezer stash.

Has slept through last 3 nights Sat 7-5.45, Sun 7-7.45 (I woke for school run) and last night 7-6

Lots of babbling and shouting da da

Water in beaker has been coiled boiled water but from 6mths will be from tap.

Strawberry I hate food waste too so couldn't fully blw as would cry at waste :) we used a Montesorri nursery for ds1 as I was set on a Montesorri but it was ok but not amazing and I am sending baby to cm 3 days initially at 9mths and then adding 1day nursery at 13mths but different nursery to ds1 ( ds1 did 3 days cm +1 day nursery then from 19mths 2 days each)

Eastmids I understand that there will be some food falling out of her mouth and her hands while she learns to eat and handle food, but I find bit odd throwing food around for the hell of it.
It is partially coincidence that the nursery of preference is the Montessori one. From the 3 nurseries in the town it seemed the one with the most spacious premises, everything was clean and in order and kids were content and looked happy, nobody was crying (coincidence maybe). Everything seemed thought through and adapted to children needs, fresh fruit available through the day etc. Apart from that other nursery with the messy play the third one (rated as Good) came as a shock, could hear kids crying even standing outside and waiting to be let in, inside it was quite messy and dirty, even the staff had their uniforms with old stains. It crossed my mind that this is how an orphanage might look.
CM would be an option, but I am bit cautious about leaving DD with a single adult as she will be too young to tell if there's something wrong going on. Might be paranoia of mine.

Re wastage in blw, it's not wasted if I eat it, right?

MrsA that's really made me laugh - definitely not wastage. ...I ate pea puree today

havent puréed food is a deadly sin in BLW, so your peas don't count!

Oooh broccoli florets, are we allowed to give them yet? I've been buying all the broccoli puree I can find but it'd be great if he could munch on the real thing.

Oh Strawberry!!! Bugger.

We have given broccoli. She's has several of the no nos already: cows milk, nuts, eggs. Only a slurp or two on a piece of my food but she's been fine. No allergies in the family so was unlikely to be a problem but to be quite honest I didn't even think about it! DD had half a bread roll with some homemade jam on for tea as we had spicy curry. It looked like a massacre afterwards but she seemed to enjoy it.

We'll be at the cinema at lunchtime tomorrow, she's pretty messy, what can I take her for lunch? was thinking broccoli and cauli florets but that is still so messy. How messy are these porridge fingers??? Perhaps I'll just take some rice cakes for her.

I thought allergies aside, the only forbidden foods once they get to 6m were honey, raw fish and cooked shark / marlin? And obvs no extra salt and watch out for choking hazards.
I think cows milk is fine you just aren't supposed to give it as a drink. Hope so anyway, I've made porridge and weetabix with whole cows milk.

Wish I could get DD to swallow the vitamin drops, anyone got any tips?!

Sorry about yesterday's post. It was a bit of a sleep-deprived ramble that probably didn't even make any sense. Anyway I persevered with putting her in the cot last night and feeding her in the chair not the bed until 4.30am. She only slept for max 2hrs at a time, sometimes taking ages to settle back down, so I was only getting about a hour of sleep at a time and was fed up of that by 4.30. Today we are going ahead with the visit to nursery even though we haven't made a decision on extending my maternity leave. DH is quite convincing about how it would work financially, but he is shit with money and would admit that himself, so I struggle to believe him, and the sleep-deprivation makes decision-making hard. Yesterday the baby and I both cried from tiredness, but when DH came home he said I looked less tired. I think I am adapting to only 1-2hr stretches of sleep.
I need to go and get her some vitamins, thanks for reminding me, especially with her restricted diet and me spending too much time thinking wtf shall I feed her today.

Oh, and re strawberry's HV's weaning comments, my breastfeed baby seems to like savoury food as much as sweet, especially broccoli, cucumber, sweet potato, breadsticks. She is also happy with the cup although she tends to spit the water out rather than drink it. We are not really BLW, as she has a spoon for things that need a spoon (weetabix, pasta sauce, Apple purée), and she is also happy with a spoon in her mouth. I put the food on the spoon and she will put it in her mouth herself.

I think the least messy blw lunch is cucumber sticks, cheese sticks and fusilli. None of it stains anyways.
After my brief foray into spooning in porridge (2 nights) we're back on full on blw.
Bf baby here mainly gets savoury food as I don't eat a lot of sweet things. He does love banana though.
We have no food allergies here so he's had every common (vegetarian ) allergen except peanuts and celery. I've bought smooth whole earth organic peanut butter for him as I have crunchy myself so just need to wait til I fancy peanut butter and then he'll get some too.

Sorry if I am a bit disjointed or absent - I dropped my phone down the loo yesterday cos I was holding ds and forgot it was in my back pocket. I'm MNing from the tablet until my new phone arrives.

I got the wellbaby drops on the recommendation of a mum I met in Tesco, she said they're the only ones that taste 'good'. dd took them straight from the dropper this morning but I had planned to sneak them on a spoonful of food if not.

Went with porridge fingers and melon for cinema snacks. And a large sheet to cover the seat.

She woke up every hour last night and wanted a proper feed every time. I assume its the tail end of this cold she's had but I am totally pooped now!!

We had a very whingey night for no reason. He took very little formula and downright refused it most of the time. Dummy helped but then a couple of hours later he'd be groaning again. I don't really know why, he wasn't in distress and was ðefinately warm enough. And he was dry. Then up for the day at 6.30.

I suspect he knew DH wasn't with me as he's was working away!

Wasn't all bad though, he was knackered by 8am and I was able to put him in the cot and get back into bed myself. He didn't wake till 9.30! So I felt a bit better after that.

He's also reverted back down to only 5oz bottles during the day (except last one at night). Should I be worried about that? He's on two meals a day but I didn't really expect the formula to decrease like this. He's a big boy!

..........Oh joy, I've just noticed he's lying face down on the floor straining with utmost concentration to do a poo. sigh

Apparently nuts until 1 year also are not recommended and along high salt content have to watch high sugar content as well.
With the cows milk official line is that it should not be given under 1 year but I am not that sure about this. Tell you why. My mum weren't allowed BF me bcs she had infection in BM, so she was feeding me according to Dr. Spock book and made all the feeds herself from cows milk. I cannot really find any possible health problems at all never mind because of the cows milk. Never had any allergies, immunity always has been better than other kids (and my BF sister) and I don't have any health conditions either. Suppose more than cows milk it could be down to genetics?

Nuts are fine if ground or as nut butter. It's whole nuts that are problematic as they are a choking hazard.
Cow's milk is fine but not as a main drink.

We offer whatever on highchair when we have dinner in addition to puree except at lunchtime I had crumpets today so he had same did well with them, also did him a broccoli floret one frozen one in ramekin water over 90secs in microwave and done.

Well poor baby has some nasty cough we have all had colds joys of child in reception at school but this cough is awful been off food,and feeds, will see how he is overnight and if bad docs tomorrow as sounds really raspy.

Had sports,day today our ds1 looked so little he is youngest as end Aug birthday, he had great fun though, was knackered and asleep by 7 tonight.

3rd night in a row DS is screaming every time I put him down. I don't know what it is. I did Calpol the last two nights in case it was his teeth but I can't keep giving it to him can I?