September 2014 - Rocking and Rolling

[FATEdestiny]

Our babies are rocking and rolling, crawling and climbing into the second half of their first year.

Let the fun continue...

Ella is Magnum icecream allowed with your diets?

So here we go : I never thought putting ds on floor to play and doing something else yourself is bad parenting!!! Why should it be if you are not doing it 24/7? Engagement with baby is good, but doing it all the time is just out of question for me. PLUS. I never thought you should not give baby chocolate or ice cream- I definitely do that , whenever we are having it; so long as it is not often why not? PLUS I never thought sitting with ds in the back of the car is wrong, that's just stupid from your friend Red; if you are three people in the car why should you necessarily prefer the company of your dh not ds? That's just silly... I decide as I please!! Oh PLUS before coming here I never thought cosleeping is any problem, I thought it is caring parenting.... Oooh I could go for ever but that would be boring...

The thing that I actively try to do but fail some days is to limit the screen time to half an hour a day (an half an hour is a lot for a baby) - ds gets mesmerised when watching animated nursery rhymes ; so much so that I can even cut his nails and he does not even notice !!!!!! Now that's a bliss, no? He LOVES the stuff, not sure why that much ! Unfortunately recently he has developed a habit of going to TV, climbing the stand and trying to reach his favourite cartoon character inside the TV!!!

I'm glad to hear (read) that I'm not the only one playing on my phone instead of paying attention sometimes. Only good thing is A thinks I'm taking pictures when i get my phone out so poses lol

Beccus - protein rich finger foods. All the stuff in the frozen convenience food isle. Fish fingers, chicken dippers, crispy chicken. Not terribly healthy (check salt levels on the packaging) but dead simple, easy to prepare and great finger food.

Oh nazly i will try that trick for nail cutting. I hate doing it!

Oh my word. Magnum, b is addicted.

Can I ask are we allowed to give peanut butter? I hate the stuff but read somewhere that early trials if stuff like that a good idea?

Someone on my fb has shared an article about kids in nursery. I ignored it. :-)

Nazly, I never intended to co-sleep. DS had other ideas on that front. I do really love it some days. He'll wake in the night, crawl over and give me a hug resting his head on me. Other times it just saves my sanity as he's a nightmare waking, but at least I get some sleep. Of course there are other nights when I'd sleep better if he wasn't there and we just disturb each other. And DH is in the spare room at the moment which sucks, but he wouldn't sleep if I had to get up and see DS in another room during the night anyway either. As for risk, after 6 months SIDS really isn't an issue. Its suffocation that's the potential problem. Its very different at 8 or 9 months compared with a month old.

I guess we are really doing baby led sleeping as well as weaning.

I'm doing a lot of these things too. On my phone while DS plays with his toys, distracting DS with TV for 15 minutes peace, giving him Nutella on crumpets for his tea because I wanted one, putting cartoons on the iPad for the flight to SA to keep DS quiet. I don't think these things make any of us bad / slacker mums, I think these are tricks we use to keep our sanity & as they get older these tricks will change & adapt. I think we are all doing a great job & being able to come here & read that others are going through the same as me has been an amazing help so thanks for all your posts.

DS had peanut butter on toast for lunch today & often has banana & peanut butter pancakes for his lunch.

I've been struggling with protein for DS. He normally has some for his dinner as he has what we had the night before but he that's all he has. Think I might try him on fishfingers over the weekend, good suggestion.

Wow so much to catch up on!

Beccus - I find egg based foods the best protein rich finger food options, providing your LO has no egg allergy?! Omelette slices, frittata, vegetable fritters. You can get veg and cheese in too so a fairly good balance of foods and quite melt in the mouth type things too. The egg texture can be a challenge though, but vegetable fritters from mylovelylittlelunchbox.com are a firm favourite of DD's!

I always sit in the back of the car too. I also have the TV on pretty much all day in the background, and not CBeebies!

Banana and peanut butter pancakes sound yummy! I haven't been brave enough to try nuts with DD yet but yes I've also heard that trying it sooner rather than later (but not too soon!) is good.

Protein ideas - all omelette things, ds's favourite is cheese omelette on toast ; then fillet of salmon cooked for 5 minutes in little strips; cooked chicken strips, I also get kids cheese for ds and he loves it.
I got a big peanut butter jar for ds and he didn't like it but dh loved it!!! Mehhh - I add nuts to his breakfast cereal, grated really really softly almost like powder

Oh and Red, when I was pregnant and before that, I had this idea that there will be a little baby , like a blank sheet of paper, and mum and dad are supposed to decide how to bring him up. How naive and stupid I was. I never thought this little baby will have character and personality of his own this early on and will decide what he likes or dislikes . He definitely makes many decisions in this household and has various preferences in many areas already !!

There was a study that came out a few months ago that said the early introduction of peanuts might be better for prevention of peanut allergy. Unless your lo has risk factors for peanut allergy. Here's an article: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31599135 sorry, can't remember how to link properly. So peanut butter and banana toast is one of ds's faves. Also, peanuts are protein, aren't they, Beccus?

Morning all!

I must say, I felt so much better yesterday when I put DD in her jumperoo for 15 minutes in front of the TV so I could have a coffee and catch up on this thread! Usually I do feel a but guilty, but reading through all of your posts I thought, nah, I'm just a normal mummy! Thank you all

Now, back to the complaining...

How the hell can I get her to sleep past 5.15?! For the rest of the night she is so much better, but every morning she wakes like clockwork.

really can't believe mn doesn't have a sleepy emoticon!

Oh, with the nut thing, I've given DD almonds, but not peanuts. I was thinking maybe some smooth peanut butter in her porridge or coconut yogurt???

Team would she go back to sleep with milk? Or would she co-sleep with you for a bit so at least you can get a bit longer?

Oh and we've given Jessica smooth peanut butter and it was fine. I think with nuts choking can be a risk (hence the smooth peanut butter) so just something to watch. Also obviously allergies, although I believe that as long as there's no family history of nut allergies you should be able to just go for it (although I only gave the smallest amount at first to 'test the water' and built up from there).

I don't think you should give whole nuts until after 1 year because of the choke risk. But we often do peanut butter. Also coconut stuff, marzipan, anything nutty and smooth really.

I have to say I was careful the first time I gave peanut butter, just a bit on my fingertip. But now she has it as part of lunch fairly often.

I was also careful the first time I gave a strawberry. But that's because I was once actually present as a baby had an allergic reaction to a strawberry (at a playgroup) and it was very frightening.

I read the Emin thread when she originally posted! Very upsetting when I heard she had died :(

We started sleep training last night lots of tears, but I never left him and managed to get him off to sleep without milk :)

Hmmm bad mummy confession:

I don't let E watch any children's TV he only ever watches my TV and some of it really isn't child friendly!

I have been known to ignore him now he is moving around and entertaining himself

Up until last night/yesterday he was fed to sleep. On every waking and nap!

I say E doesn't like my cooking but I am mainly to lazy to cook!

Oh I seemed to have missed loads of posts!

E has had peanut butter on toast, at first he pulled his I don't like this face (which he does for anything new) and then scoffed it!

I have never sat in the back with E as I am the driver of the family! He doesn't really care!

We started sleep training last night lots of tears, but I never left him and managed to get him off to sleep without milk

Whoop Whoop!

Whooop, finally escaped the airport and now we're back home! DD was a star on the plane, again, I was so relieved.

So many interesting discussions on here the past few days. Thanks Jay! I feel like I should be able to write well and concisely seeing as I'm a writer and editor in my professional life, but it's not quite the same when you're hastily typing into an app one-handed while trying to wrestle an escaping baby with one hand and help from the dog

What books are your los really into atm? DD is now very excited by reading and I'd like to treat her to a few new books

thx all, lots of good protein finger food ideas. I came up with mozarella, cheddah and hard boiled egg. I reckon he could manage salmon fillet but am surprised some of the babies can knaw their way through chicken, so I will have to give that a go, too

Chris Haughton's 'Oh No George' and 'A Bit Lost' are great as there are board book versions available. Utterly beautiful, charming and will withstand grabby little hands. They are definitely a favourite with little and not so little children and a welcome change from 'That's not my Emu' or what ever it happens to be.

We do have some other nice books but I like these two most because they can't be destroyed. I'm having trouble finding similar that we haven't got in large format and are as charming.

DS is off everything but milk again. I found the culprit yesterday though. 2 new nashers. We are up to 6 in total now.

My all time favourite childrens book is called The Bear Snores On

Not as well known as Julia Donaldson books, but lovely rhyme and rhythm in the story.