June 2006: Part the second

[alibobble]

Hey guys. Hope you find this thread. Blobsmummy suggested starting a new thread to save trawling the first which was rather monster. Sorry re title. Had no idea what to cll it! DD had 3rd injections yesterday. Were much better than last lot. Nurse seemed to know what she was doing much better than last tiem. What a relief.

Yes am considering the tub option now. Took ehr swimming for fist time today. Was brilliant! She loved it. Was lots of work for about 15/20 mins in the water but well worth it. She was well hungry after all that work and guzzled a whole bottle then demanded solids. She knows that I give them now and she gets most impatient for them! I can't let her see the jar/tub till it's ready (ie actually defrosted!) or she goes nuts if she then has to wait. She waves her arms wildly in the direction of the spoon opening and closing her mouth madly! it's so much fun! Felt nostalgic today that she'll never go back to being a just bottles baby but then she seems to like real food so much more. Plus had a shock other day in a talk by dental nurse. dd is on LF sma because of dairy intolerance but aparently it has way more sugar in it than normal sma. there's nothing we can do about it but she was basically like it's not good for them when their teeth come through. Fortunately dd has no teeth yet. Just lots of teething!

DS was 7lb 13 at birth, he's still BF started him on purees 2 weeks ago and he weighed 19lb 4 today, that's a gain of 2lb in 4 weeks. He was gaining a pound a week up until 6 weeks ago. Luckily he's a really long baby so he looks all cute and chubby.

DS also had his 2nd pneumococcal vaccine today, should be his last lot till his MMR, he didnt cry as much as last time and seems quite happy sitting in his bouncy chair watching Baby Tv.

We took ds swimming for the first time last week -well 'bobbing' would be more accurate! He loved it, his wee legs were going ten to the dozen. Sister had lent me yellow rubber ring baby seat but could we get it blown up??! Going to use tyre pump next time.

DS's sleep is still unsettled since solids were introduced 2 weeks ago (grrr). He was 7 to 7 for weeks, but last night woke at 4am WIDE AWAKE! Not hungry, not upset, just awake. DH spent an hour and he did go back to sleep... until 6am. Hopefully when he can sit up he will be content playing with his toys at this time.

Talking of sitting up, he can sit leaning forward on his hands (the 'frog' I think its called) for a few seconds and rolls both ways and can hold himeself up for quite a while. My sister always harped on about giving him tummy time from when he was wee so I think that may have helped as he loves lying on his tummy and chewing his blanket.

When should I lower his cot mattress to the second setting? When he can sit up for a good length?... oh I hear mutterings...

...Just come back as ds has woken up from his nap - went in to find him on his tummy with his legs through the spaces on the cot bar - looks like the days of him being in the same position as when I left him are gone! At least at night he has his grobag on so can't get his legs stuck.

hi, can i join in on this thread?
im new to mumsnet, didnt know about it whilst pregnant, i think it would of a lot of help. my dss was born 30-11-06, (i started my maternity leave on the 26th june, induced on the 28th and he was out at 3.05am on the 30th!)he weighed 5lb 3.5 oz and is now only just 10lb 14oz. he had prolonged jaundice and has an allergy to formula, so im still bf and trying to get him to take peptijunior (mostly unsuccesfully) as i go back to work 3 days a week in 6 weeks time. (which i am really not looking forward to)he has for the past 2 nights slept fot 4 hours in a stretch which was wonderfull!! as he had been going 2 hours between feeds day and night.
has anyone else had a tiny baby that has refused to sleep and grow, he has only lost weight once in his first week and has put on ever scince, hes just a slow grower, he smiles and laughes and is now rolling on to his side though!!

hi everyone. ok so the teeth are arriving! Hurray for some action after all that teething! dd still eating for england. She has had over 30oz plus equiv of ajar of food today (at least!) what a hungry baby! I think it's starting to slow again tho which is a relief in some ways. Am at PIL and trying to sleep dd still in pram top but is redculous as she's way too big for it. Aregoing to find sides for the bed and sleep her on that if poss so she can turn round but not fall out!

Heard youshould lowe r the base of cot when they can sit unaided for a reasonable length of time but not sure if that is they can sit up from lying down or if you plonk them sitting! dd can sit unaided but shows no sign of trying to escape her cot so am leaving as it is so I don't wreck my back even with the drop side trying to get her out.

Welcome worelyone I'm afraid my dd was big when born and eaten loads ever since! Hope things improve in the sleep dept.

hi Worleyone,

Although your ds is 10lb 14oz, he has doubled his birthweight which is great.

Me also sad about going back to work (I go back on 4th December for 2 days until Jan then up to 3 days). Thought I'd go back before xmas when everyone is in a good mood!

re: sleep - whoever invented the phrase "to sleep like a baby"???! I was given the book "The Yummy Mummy's Survival Guide" just before ds was born and it has been so helpful, written in a really humerous way but deals with all the ups and downs very honestly.

im glad others are slowly starting to wean also. it was recommended with my ds1 to start at 4 months then to be told it is now recommended 6 months was worrying (i thought maybe some damaged had been done!), but my hv recommended i strart weaning ds2 now as hes sooooo hungry. ds2 is now having 2 AK size cubes of fruit and veg a day mixed with baby rice, he cant get enough, he gets so excited when he sees it coming and if the next spoonful isnt ready for him his bottom lip starts to curl over and crys!!. he is now strarting to sleep for 4 hours at a time, which is lovely

am visiting pil at the moment and dd is having to sleep in her pram top. Is like squeezing her into a straight jacket. Good job my mum is offering to buy a travel cot for christmas! dd has learned to blow raspberries and thinks it's the funniest thing! She is also staring to find her feet which I was worried she wouldn't as showed no interest in them but now lies on her back playing with her toes. Thye've not reached her mouth yet but they are well on the way. Aren't they amazing? I'm loving having dd at the moment because she's so cheery! Time consuming but it's so rewarding.

Wow I can't imagine what it must be like to have to go back to work now. dd is just starting to get really fun. I'm now officially a SAHM but there are days when 9-5 seems like it would be easier! ha ha! swings and roundabouts isn't it. Good luck all you returning to work mummies. I hope it goes ok.

Hi Worleyone! I can sympathise about the going back to work as I'm going back 3 days a week at the beginning of January. I should have gone back in early December like foxy, but decided I wanted to prolong this time at home, as it'll probably be the last chance I'll get and will have to be a wage slave for the next 30 years I'm currently on 3 weeks unpaid mat leave which is as much as I could afford, then tacking on all my year's annual leave, so at least I'll get paid at the end of December!

Don't want to count my chickens, but DD slept from 7.30pm - 6am this morning!!! We were at my parents this weekend and my mum said to try not feeding DD at 3am when she woke. Used dummy instead, and result! Fingers crossed that she's dropped that feed and I can get more than 3 hours sleep.

MY ds varies most days between a 6am to 7am wake up - its a killer tho' when he does a surprise 5.30am as it takes ages to resettle and ping its then time to get up. His sleeps were unsettled due to weaning but think it was due to me giving him apple at 5pm which my friend says is too acidic for them so I've switched and give him fruit at 11am and savoury at 5pm. He is still downing his 4 bottles a day too.

re: weaning - my HV advised that although new DOH advice was 6 months this was based on World Health Org who take the whole world into account and try and have Mum's in developing world bf for as long as poss as its a more sterile environment for their lo's. She said to follow your baby but definately not before 17 weeks..

One Mum at playgroup told me she weaned her first son at 5 weeks as he was so hungry!! I was tempted to say why didn't you give him more milk then?! 5 weeks, jeez...

hi finona,
im doing roughly the same as you, re maternity/annual leave, i took 2 weeks before i left for mat leave and i will have 5 days left when i go back so as im going back 3 days a week (was full time) for the first 3 weeks am only going to do half days to get ds2 used to nursery and me used to not feeding him as much, im still bf as hes allergic to formula so im trying to wean him on to pepti junior which hes not taking to happily to. i thought if i leave him for the full days i dont think emotionally not only could i no cope but my boobs will be so full and heavy!! I didnt leave my ds1 till he was 9 months and that was only 4 hours in the evening so not looking forward to doing 26 hours a week.
SORRY moan over!!

I am wanting to start DS on solids today, he was 5 months on the 16th. How long do you only give him baby rice for?

Thanks WW

foxy: my mum "weaned" me at 6 weeks because I was so hungry in the evenings so dispite full bottles (like 9oz or something) I was still hungry but wouldn't fit any more in. friend suggested a bit of somethings so had a bit of mashed potato and was imediately transformed! Obviously, the term weaning in that case = tiny amount of solids not meat and 2 veg straight out. my dd is the same ie v hungry in the evenings and you couldn't up her bottles in the day as she wouldn't drink more. Shes crazy at hte mmoment and taking well over 30oz plus 2 1/2 meals (just starting breakfast but is hard to find something suitable) and 12oz of that is between 5 and 7pm! was worried i was feeding her too much but HV said if she wasn't having any solids she's need over 40oz milk and there's no way we could fit that in even with an extra feed at 10.30 again.

Alibobble - DS is now on 3 meals a day and I find breakfast the easiest! At the moment I use the dried packets of "cereal". They are a bit like baby rice and you just add cool boiled water or formula milk (depending on the make). DS loves the apple and blueberry one from Cow and Gate. Today he had the Heinz organic oaty porridge and I mashed some banana in it too. That went down very well.

DD moved onto weetabix or normal porridge when she was about 7 mths old and I used to add pureed fruit to the porridge which she loved (in fact even now at the age of 3.6 she loves porridge with banana mashed in it!)

A question for everyone now - DS is feeding as follows:

7am - breast feed
8.15am breakfast
11.30am lunch (4 or 5 ice cubes fruit or veg)
2.30pm breastfeed
4.30pm tea (same as lunch)
6.30pm breastfeed
10.30pm 7 oz formula

He is fast asleep at 10.30pm but will wake enough to drink 7oz very quickly. He then goes straight back to sleep until 7am. Should I be dropping the 10.30pm feed? Has anyone done this yet? Should I just drop it or reduce it gradually? DS is 6 mths old next week and I can't remember what I did with DD at all!

Thanks

Hey SS,

Your timetable is v. similar to mine! WE gave ds 10.30pm dream feed until he was @ 15 weeks old. He would still at that age wake up @ 5.30am for feed which we treated as night feed and fed him again at 7am when he woke for the day.

After big chat with cousin who couldn't believe we woke ds up for feed, we dropped the 10.30pm feed to see what would happen, I expected him to wake up at 2-3am hungry but he woke up at 5,30am just the same and a week later slept through until 7amish which he has continued to do on and off with the exception of when his body was getting used to his solids..

He did only take @4oz at this feed so don't know if that made any difference to him being ready to drop it. Try it and see! We were v. pleasently surprised that ds slept right through as we through we'd be getting up during the night until weaning had been well established.

They do surprise you sometimes!

Thanks Foxymagoo. I may try and drop it on Friday night so if it's a disaster and we get woken at 3am at least DH won't have to go to work the next day!

ss: our time table looks v much like yours. I realised that we needed to drop the feed when dh (who had done it sice day 2!) was faced with screaming child who refused her bottle and only I could get it into her but even then she would only take 4oz and was only taking 4oz at 7am. we dropped it when the clocks went back because the thought was that the sleep would be screwed up enough with that. as it was she slept through! She now takes 6/7oz at breakfast but that's hard to tell when BF. if LO is still taking 7oz it may not be time but then dd does take SOOOO much in the evenings so there was pretty much no room to fit any more in! I found a couple of nights she "woke" ie moaned and cried at the time we used to wake her for the 10.30 feed but if i ignmored her she went back to sleep. the funny thing is that she is so much more alert and happy in the day now that we stopped waking her for that 1/2 hour. it's amazing! that said, she'd be less happy if she woke in th enight when we dropped it. I hope it goes well. i think for me, the fact that she;d been sleeping through was the reason I was afraid to drop the feed so it took the knowledge that it would be messed up by clocks to kick me into doing it so I hope it works out.

RE the baby rice; does any one add it to the veg/fruit purees as well to make it a bit more substansial or is it just me. i do sometime give just fruit/veg but i think for some reason it fills ds2 up a bit more.
am i the only one doing this? also ds2 cant have a lot of the porridge / cereal mixes due to his milk intolerance so does anyone have any other ideas for breakfast?

worley was going to say exactly same thing. Can't do porridge as has milk in and also say not ot have gluten before 6m. dd also has milk intolerance. am currently doing baby rice with bit of fruit puree in. son't want her to get too used to sweet breakfast tho as after that wetabix will be a bit of a let down when she's allowed that!

supersaint just realised somethng last night (while in bed! how sad is that I'm dreaming re mumsnet!) if LO only has lunch without a bottle that meabs hat they are on 4 bottles ATM. If you chopped out the 10.30 feed that would be down to 3 and I'm pretty sure that unless they show signs of wanting to drop another feed it could be more like 6 months at least beforethey get down to 3. I realised that my dd's day is pretty much the same but she has a 7oz bottle before lunch at 11am and then "lunch" at more like 11.30. SHe still takes a bottle at 2.30 but it's usually a bit smaller. that way when we cut out the 10.30 feed she was still having 4 bottles/feeds and could easily manage the minimum 12/20oz milk (depending who you ask) a 5mth old should be having. I think if I chopped out another bottle then dd wouldn't go through the night. Just thought I'd mention this. Maybe introduce a bit of milk either post or pre lunch and then you could slowly cut down the 10.30 feed and drop it that way? Dunno, just a thought.