September 2014 - Babies turn 1!

[lilone1234]

First birthdays are starting to arrive and our babies are becoming toddlers! What will the next year have in store?

Breakfast is porridge, weetabix or toast here. If I have time I like to do scrambled egg with leeks and ham. I can spoon feed DS super quick so time isn't an issue. We call him dustbin child since he literally eats anything and will shovel it down.

I have a nap problem ladies. DS is a little poorly so that might be why but the last 4/5 days or so he won't go for his afternoon nap until about 2.30. This is far too late since he will happily do a two hour nap at the moment. Any ideas why this might be? He is also doing two hours in the morning at the moment, approx 9-11 so I'm wondering if he's just not ready to back to sleep by his usual nap time of 1pm. It's just odd and rather sudden so thought I'd ask. Nursery seem baffled to. He'd only just woken when I got there at 4! They tried to get him to nap at 1 but he refused and then at 2.30 laid himself down on his nap mat and went to sleep.

Lilly I've found that DD's naps have changed in the past couple of weeks and she now alternates between having 1 and 2 per day as she was struggling to get to sleep around 1pm and wanting to go down far too late in the afternoon. I'm assuming it's part of moving towards 1 nap per day?

FATE what age do you start encouraging yours to feed themselves? CM was asking yesterday if DD feeds herself with a spoon yet and I was surprised and said I didn't think many did at this age.

Breakfast here is cereal most days, but other options include toast, pancakes or whatever we're having. DH is also a breakfast hero and makes all sorts of interesting stuff

I've found the same thing as Apples with naps Lilly. And I would agree that if he's having such a long morning nap that he wouldn't be ready to go down again only a couple of hours later at this age. For us it's generally 3-4 hours between naps now and sometimes only one nap all day! These tend to be grumpy days though!

Thanks for the breakfast input. Fate, can I come for weekend breakfast round yours? I'd also be interested in experiences of when baby starts using spoon/fork themselves. One baby from baby group uses a fork since 9/10 months and his mum has been putting him on potty since 6 months!

apples ds mainly feeds himself, though needs a bit of help spearing food, and normally reverts to his hands if I leave him to it as the fork isn't fast enough! This is quite a recent development though so I wouldn't worry

Naps are changing here too, half the time he just has one nap but only works if it's at least 90 mins or he's super grumpy in evening. Struggling with naps a bit at nursery, won't sleep longer than hour.

Mine sort of feeds himself but he can't scoop so I angle the bowl to get food on the spoon and he does the rest. Tried with a fork but he just pulls the food off with his other hand. Very deliberate dropping of food here too. Meat and carbs go in the mouth, veg gets dropped off the side.

CM was asking yesterday if DD feeds herself with a spoon yet and I was surprised and said I didn't think many did at this age.

True BLW would include giving the child a loaded spoon right from when first starting weaning, like acorn does. But I don't buy into this, seems like needless mess just for the sake of it, with no real benefit. Mine feed themselves with their fingers until they can use a spoon independently. I avoid giving food that needs a spoon until then, as much as possible.

I can't remember when that was with the others, but DD definitely isn't there yet. She has her own spoon when being spoonfed yoghurt. But I also have my spoon and do the feeding. I leave a bit in the bottom of the yoghurt pot to let her have a go with. Over time I'll just leave her more and more. It's mainly through yoghurts that I teach spoon skills (since it's the only food I give on a daily basis that needs a spoon)

Using a fork often comes as a skill at around the same time as a spoon - the stab food and into mouth movement. Knives I always struggle with introducing. Mine have been probably 3 or 4 before properly using a knife. We get stuck at the spoon and fork stage.

Lilly - I'd wake earlier from morning nap and/or try pushing the morning nap later. The aim being for one nap after lunch.

I say that though and DD is loving her long morning nap. I went through a time thinking she was dropping it, but she will still often have 90m in the morning and 2h in the afternoon. She still goes down OK still at 1pm after waking 11am, so no signs this needs to change for us yet.

E is quite fussy when it comes to breakfast, he will only eat creamy porridge that is meant for 4 months old :) he will eat toast and all manners of Ella pufftastic crap!!

E was really poorly the last week, he had a high temp for 4 days, stopped sleeping through stopped eating and had a rash! But he seems to have turned the corner now! Phew!! Still being a pickle with food but i think that it it stubbornness rather than illness now!

Still 2 naps here anything from 1hr to 2hrs :)

Well after all those days of difficult naps he went back to normal today . He must have known I asked you and thought 'ha I'll show her'. Thanks for the input though ladies, it's appreciated :)

Yeyyyy a new app !
This one is much more suitable for the time, the old one was terrible and very out of date

So ladies, how do you give your LOs dry cereal ? Very tempted to try, but I have been avoiding sugary cereals and there seem to be not many with no added sugar ??

Fate thanks for your post on sleep - i am pretty sure you are right, but am stuck in planning for change as work doesn't leave any energy for me at the moment

Happy birthday to all the other babies turning one, as we are in November I imagine we are all done now with bdays?

Had his development check yesterday and everything seemed fine - 98 percentile for both weight and height . HV was one the good ones too, answered my questions about all sort including discipline by the way. The answer to this one is it is way too early for discipline; if in danger move him away, otherwise distract him...

We are off to lake district this morning. Yeyyyy

Have a good time Nazly, let us know how it is with DS, it's a place I would like to try!

Interesting about discipline too, and interesting that others have had questionnaires and things at 1 year check. Confirms my thought that ours was a complete waste of time and didn't include half the things it should have!

I think all popular 'family' cereals have some added sugar so I think it's about looking for the less sugary. Probably plain shreddies/shredded wheat and I've given handfuls of dry Cheerios. It is a problem with all cereals though really...MIL is a nutritional therapist and basically thinks popular cereals aren't really worth eating but then at the same time setting baby up with a bowl of high quality granola isn't so easy!

Final party for my September babies done and dusted today with DS's 6th birthday party.

Nazly - not sure what you mean by discipline. I wouldn't use physical discipline on a child/person of any age, at all.

I wouldn't exactly use the word discipline, but teaching right from wrong with words like "no", "hot", "dirty", "dangerous" and so on - then I cannot see why there would be a time that is too early for that?

I've been saying "Ouch. Hot" from the very first time DD goes near the oven or fire. Or "No. Dangerous" if she tries sucking the charger leads, "Careful. Steps" and so on. Then just move DD or move the thing that she isn't allowed.

Fate, physical discipline??? Who on earth would believe in such thing in this day and age? Not anybody I know of!

With regards to the other things, I do that too, but to be honest it doesn't mean anything to ds as yet anyhow.

Every child is different and I don't know if others have experience similar to mine but if I say No to my son , and imply what he is doing is no good, he will definitely repeat it and waits for my reaction. This is a sort of recent development by the way. As If he wants to try to see if I'll have same reaction again.

I need to read, I always do, but in the most important area of my life I am not doing enough ...

Lil we didn't have questionnaire either ; I mean I think she had something but not me. She checked certain items and moved on... Lake district experience : i will update but till now we had a mixed day as the very first day ds got a cold with some bad vomiting not even keeping water down for a while... That through away all our immediate plans, replaced by staying close to out cottage and the town

I know what you say, Lol to your granola sentence .... I just don't want to give him extra sugar though... He has enough of it in natural fruits and his stupid nursery offers cakes and ice cream as desert some days... I wish there were better cereals in the market. Tired of vitabix now. Maybe I should start a business to produce good quality sugar free cereals for babies now I see the gap in the market? Or maybe big companies haven't done it for a reason,no market for it ?!?

pipers , I am no specialist , but I would not worry about height and weight ratio just yet; it can correct itself very quickly and easily soon... Ds wasn't always same centile for height and weight. Some time ago I felt he was getting thinner and thinner. Apparently he was actually getting taller... It comes as they grow and get more active. If you are not feeding him sugary and fat food then I wouldn't worry

Hi all.

Happy birthday to all the babies (and Fate) whose birthday's I have missed the past week or so. Hope you all had lovely days. I've been pretty poorly (had a flu bug type thing - temp of 39c, shivering etc) and now that has lead into an inner ear infection (not sure if anyone has ever had one but basically it causes you to go really dizzy and sick in a 'the room is spinning' kind of way). I think I'm over the worst of it now but still feeling pretty wiped out, but just wanted to explain why I've not posted for a little while.

Re: breakfasts Jessica has toast and yogurt most mornings, and we give her banana porridge most evenings for supper. She's quite fussy so it's hard finding stuff she will eat. She will now however eat finger foods. Hurrah! It's taken literally a year but we got there! Unfortunately this has coincided with her eating everything she can get her fingers on - this weekend alone she has tried to eat adhesive stickers, gravel, a sticker off a box, cardboard and a piece of cotton wool.

Re: Using a spoon, Jessica will try and she sort of has the right idea but not really mastered it yet. I tend to let her have her spoon now though and she will dip it in the bowl and / or try and put in her mouth so she's getting the idea but not really mastered the skill of it.

She hasn't yet 'got' using a beaker herself yet though which is a tad frustrating.

Re: discipline. We say 'no' loudly and firmly but she pays no attention whatsoever. She's a bit too much like me I think and blooming stubborn .

Have now started sleep training (we postponed starting from last week as I was too ill to deal with it). Cross your fingers for us!!!!

Hurrah for Jessica's finger food development KitKat. You reminded me of something DS (now 6) did as a baby. We took him on holiday and as soon as he was on sand he would start eating handfuls of it. Constantly. We just couldn't physically stop him 'cos sand was everywhere. His nappies were fun for a few days

Hey everyone, I've just realised that I thought I'd posted on Saturday but nothing ever actually made it to this thread. Ooops!

KitKat sorry to hear you've been so poorly, that sounds rubbish! Glad to hear Jessica's enjoying finger foods now

Fate sandy nappies sound like fun Thanks about spoons. I've not bothered with them, just given DD finger foods as it seemed needlessly messy, so I might try getting a few yoghurts and giving her then end of the pot to get started with. Good idea!

Nazly I wonder about sugar in cereals too. Me and DH don't eat any cereals really and I've just realised it's probably because they're so sweet. They have been useful for DD because I've not wanted to overdose her with bread! Hope you're having a nice holiday and it hasn't been totally dominated by illness.

Lil I think something like nutritional therapist must be a really interesting job - does your MIL enjoy it?

nazly my OH is a pretty strict paleo so we rarely have sugar/food containing sugar in the house. He does get a a bit of fat in the form of avocados/nut butters/whole milk etc but I thought these were "good" fats? We went and saw his brother on the weekend and his nearly 4yo is only marginally heavier..

He's at nursery 5 days a week now and the food they feed him seems to be good, he only eats breakfast at home with me mon-fri (own brand wheatabix with full fat milk). I know you shouldn't compare to other babies but he is so much heavier than others his age that I can't help but worry he started food really late as I had no idea he should be eating proper meals, having heard "food is fun till 1" so until about 9mo he was still on 4/5 bottles a day and some veg/toast as snacks. I'm not sure if this would have had an impact?

Pipers - How mobile is he? My DD was certainly a very chunky monkey until about 8 months old where you can see from photos that she noticeably slimmed/stretched out in line with becoming more active but food/milk intake remained pretty steady. (Of course now she's become a very fussy eater and probably isn't eating enough but that's another story!) Is he gaining or maintaining centiles? As I understand it, it isn't a concern at this age what centile they are on but the the graph anticipates a much bigger weight gain in early months which slows down as they get bigger so DD has followed this curve and stayed 75th centile since birth despite weight gain slowing. If his centile is the same I imagine he is following this curve too. If not, I still would bet that his weight will even out over the next year as he gets more active!

Those types of fat are certainly good fats and babies need to eat plenty of good fat. As MIL would say, Fat does not make you fat, sugar does! It's sugar, salt and highly processed foods that should be avoided. Doesn't sound like there's anything wrong with his diet!

Apples - She does enjoy it. She started it once all kids grown up so does it by choice rather than necessity and she practices what she preaches with it, so very helpful for us around her, and I have especially found it very interesting since being DD started weaning.

Does anyone have any tips for fussy eaters? DD was such a wonderful eater when she started weaning up til the last month or so when she started refusing home made purees (because I was trying to make them chunkier) and preferred finger foods. Now she picks and chooses what she wants and what she chucks on the floor (which I know is normal and part of childhood!) and it's so soul destroying when food i've lovingly made from scratch goes straight on the floor! I suppose persistence is the key?

lil E has turned into a fussy boy, I have mostly relied on jars and pouches and was slowly moving onto home made food. But I bad bug hit and it is back to square one.

Last week he ate bread. I texted his dad as I was so frigging happy (he eats toast, but not bread) and finally tried cheese yesterday. I just persist persist persist!!

E smacks and scratches me and his dad on our faces :( we say no and move him but he doesn't get it. We will just persist on that one too!

Hi all!

I find that DD usually spits out new foods, but by the third attempt she usually will tolerate them. So yes, persistence!

DD seems to have made a massive leap forward with language over the past few days. Suddenly she can say quite a few words and a few animal sounds! I'm sure no one else could make sense of her, but she makes sense to me Really helpfully for mealtimes, she can say more (mo) and finished (fish), which means considerably less screaming and food throwing!!!

Still not walking, but she's doing far better since getting a pushchair walker for her birthday.

Sleeping is now usually down to one feed at around 1am and a bit if a whinge at 5am. She's then awake at around 6am.

Anyone have any genius plans to prepare the little ones for the clocks changing? I really don't fancy bedtime at 5.45 and waking at 4.45 for the next six months!

tips for fussy eaters?

Bland food. :-|

For example if I make cottage pie and put "green stuff" (ie something utterly terrible like a few herbs) in the mix - it won't get eaten. Make it really plain and basic - just mince, onions (cut super fine so that they cannot be seen), peas, carrots and gravy - and it's lapped up by the children. Should I do anything totally extreme (hmm) like put philly or mayo in the mash on top and it will be sneered and baulked at.

In my experience most children like boring, bland, plain, unfussy food with not very many ingredients. Simple meat and three veg is by far the most favoured (and boring) meal for my children. Very different palate to an adult, IME.

I am no food snob though.

My children eat Cheerios or Wheatos (or worse) for breakfast . They also have been known to eat sweets and drink squash by the gallon. They are all very active, sporty and outdoorsy though, I cook their dinners from scratch, they drink plenty of water. They also like sugary sweet stuff - because sugary stuff is nice!

It's all about balance IMO.

Meat and veg are the best meals IMO too Fate. In purée form she gobbled them all up but as separate components she's no longer keen! I suppose it's just a case of her getting used to them and keep giving them to try!

So far DD hasn't hit the fussy phase, which I'm very grateful for! Her current favourites are toast, cheese and most fruits, but particularly raspberries, grapes, bananas and sultanas. She's also quite partial to yogurt at the moment.

We are, however, really struggling to get formula milk into her. She just spits it out, so I'm mixing it with her normal milk to try to get her used to it. I guess it tastes really different to non-dairy milk, but given she loves yogurt and cheese I didn't anticipate problems with milk!

She's also very into kisses, which is very sweet, but I felt less special when she kissed me goodnight given that today I've seen her kiss a book, the TV unit, the floor and her playpen bars

Food is still going great here apart from vegetables. Every bit of vegetable is picked up and dropped off the side. Some he even puts in his mouth but then takes it back out again and drops it off the the side . I can hide brocolli in mash and tiny bits of mushroom in mince and sauce but that's about it.