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?

I'm not great with dinner ideas either, but I'm not very good at doing new meals if there's more than a few ingredients, I get bored!

The main meals I do are...

Lasagne, freeze into portions.
Fish pie, freeze into portions.
Fish fingers/salmon/chicken/sausages/prawns with boiled cubed potatoes/potato wedges/pasta and veg.
Pasta with basil passata, or Philadelphia mixed through it.
Tuna with tomato sauce and roasted veg with pasta.
Potato and leek in a cheese sauce.
Beans/spaghetti hoops on toast.

I do a lot of the same meals to be honest. We are probably in a rut but it's hard to break.

We've just cracked 100% cows milk so now I need to decide if I want to ditch the bottles, or the sippy cup for a proper cup. Not sure which to do next to be honest.

Yay for teeth team!

E has been in cows milk since he turned one, we have had no issues and he drinks cold from the fridge. He has it in three 7oz bottles a day when he wakes, at 2 then at 6:30, before his bath. We stopped him associating milk and sleep when he was 9 months old

team yay for teeth, which ones?

Welcone back zan your life sounds busy, I work three days and I so tired I bow to your awesomeness!

I need a freezer so I can do more home cooked food, right now it is impossible :(

Thanks Lili, I think I need to prepare a list; I need foods that will be ready in 10-15 minutes; if possible at all I want to avoid freezing ; but I am open to slow cooker ideas ; I put the stuff in the slow cooker before I leave home for work and have some food when i get home ;
Pasta stuff will take around 10-15 minutes... But even that is some time not possible when we get home if we get home very late...

I wonder how many of you work full time now? I am have a bit o emotional issue with working full time and am rethinking if we can do anything in the next couple of weeks ; I am also physically struggling but thats more tolerable than the emotional side.
How anybody in the world can handle two babies at the same time ???

Lil I also guess it is more in your head ; I would say it is probably more about not quite getting your point of view rather than dismissing it, as he is not making any changes in his life style with changing the house , but you are if you see what I mean; i would just explain to him how even more important the new house is for you given you will be spending far more time in it...

It's the bottom two that are coming through. Her bottom looks like it's been set fire to, but other than that teething isn't bad so far. Hope I've not just jinxed things

My most successful quick finger food meal is eggy toast. Whisk an egg with a tiny bit of milk, soak a slice of bread in it then dry fry it in a non stick pan. Cut it into fingers and give it to DD with some olives, cherry tomatoes and sweet corn and she's a happy little eater!

On a quest to get some wellies or shoes, or just anything that will fit onto her stumpy fat feet! She wants to be wandering around, but I can't find any footwear that fits her.

Has anyone got suitably embarrassing Halloween outfits for their little ones? It was Halloween day at nursery today DD was Frankenstein!

Do even Clarke's shoes not fit her Team?! Have you tried Nike? I heard on a blog that they invest more in research into their kids shoes than Clarke's makes in profit in a year, but haven't looked myself.

Yes eggy toast/French toast is a winner here too. I made a bunch of pumpkin purée too and have been adding that to the mix so it's veggie French toast! Anything pasta too...also omelettes are pretty speedy and you could pre-chop veg to put in it.

FATE have all your los dropped milk naturally? Yes. I know families/children where the 'glass of milk at bedtime' carries on right through childhood for many years. But mine have stopped bedtime milk on their own (DD is doing this now, at 13 months) and when that happens, bottles change to beakers naturally.

lilone I recall feeling like my opinions at home mattered less when I stopped teaching and became a SAHM. Actually it was just projection, I needed time to adjust to my new 'role' in order to understand its value. DH considered my opinions just as much. In fact more because my thoughts also included the needs of the children, so mattered more than DHs.

I need foods that will be ready in 10-15 minutes

That discounts potatoes. Also most root veg that need peeling so add to prep time. Over-ground veg (broccoli, cauliflower, green beans etc) will cook within 15 minutes in the steamer. Or you could embrace frozen veg. I just have peas and sweetcorn frozen but the supermarkets sell loads of different frozen veg you could try. Frozen veg should cook in a microwave in 2 minutes.

So you could do a meat and veg meal in 15 minutes. If you want to add potatoes you could get some tinned new potatoes in. As long as the meat is defrosted, under a grill or in griddle pan you could do gammon, steak, lamb chops, pork cops, lamb or pork steaks, chicken breast, turkey breast. Any portioned meat (rather than a joint).

Pasta can be cooked in 15 minutes. So you could look into the jars for quick, easy meals. For example brown mince, add jar of Bolognese source while boiling pasta - that's done in 10-15 minutes. You could do the same with chicken and carbonara source. Or macaroni cheese. There are loads of pasta dishes.

Rice can be cooked in 10 minutes. So quick meals could involve ready-made jars. Sweet & Sour jar for example, with browned diced chicken or pork and rice. Korma, any of the curries.

To be honest if you want all of your meals ready within 10-15 minutes, you are going to need to embrace an element of convenience food (like prepared sources for pasta/rice) or frozen stuff. Personally I consider a quick meal one that is ready in 30 minutes and usually have a day or two in the week when I need a quick, easy, 30 minute meal. I would find it a challenge to find five family meals a week that are ready in 15 mins, if cooking from scratch every day.

How anybody in the world can handle two babies at the same time ???

Your LB must be nearly 14 months now? I had DC2 when DC1 was 14 months old. I realise now, looking back, how bonkers that was. It was planned too. I actually planned for a 13 month age gap but took a month extra to conceive. Madness. I wouldn't do it again!

Has anyone got suitably embarrassing Halloween outfits for their little ones

Tonight youngest is being a pumpkin. DS6 is a vampire. DS10 is a monster. DD11 is a zombie rollerdisco girl (her own put-together outfit that she previewed to me about 30 minutes ago - looks very cool I must say!). We are going with my niece and nephew Trick or Treating the houses near us.

We live in an area that very much embraces any reason to dress-up the house (Christmas, Halloween, royal wedding etc). Many houses covered in cobwebs, piles of pumpkins in doorways, front garden gravestones etc. Our house is all decorated up ready for the onslaught of children this evening.

Nazly - I wanted to go down to three days but my bosses wouldn't let me and their reason was total BS. So I'm looking for another job. Hours-wise I'll still be working 9-6 so DD will still be in nursery but I'd just feel so much better if I could have a day (or two) in the week spent together ( I miss her terribly)

Food - I'm getting stuck for ideas ( time and also our meals too spicy for DD!) so the suggestions on here have been great.
*
Milk -* DD is such a milk monster and has 8-9oz morning and night plus 6oz at nap time at weekends only. I've tried it from a beaker for her and she's not at all interested so I'm not sure how I'm going to get her off the bottle

DD also has fat feet!! ( she has DHs hand and feet poor thing!) They're wide and deep too (if that makes sense?). She still in Clarks cruisers for the moment until she walks properly.

Anyone still getting hugely irritated with their DHs after returning to work and still doing the bulk of the baby stuff? I keep having to get into a real grump with him and tell him that I'm exhausted from doing everything and he should help out more. He says I only have to ask but I feel like he should be able to see himself. So we keep getting annoyed with one another. I really hope a new job happens soon so this happens less often!!

DD was a dinosaur for Halloween. I went cutesy over scary

Hello all, it's been a while since I posted but I've just caught up on the thread and am amazed so many babies were also sick at the same time as M. The problem for us though, was that we were in POrtugal with a screaming baby who was head to toe in a rash that looked so much like Measles. We took her to 2 doctors while there and they said no, not measles but when I pointed out to one doc that she hadn't had her MMR yet he said ooohhhh. Then screwed up his face and said no, don't think so. Ended up trying to cope with a very sick 1 year old and 2 bored boys as the weather for the last few days was awful and we couldn't go out. Came home and our own GP diagnosed Measles within minutes of seeing M. She settled just fine back at home though so I think she just really needed her own surroundings while sick.

Lots of tantrums going on here too. And biting! The majority of the time she thinks it's funny but there are times when she is doing it through temper.

Clinginess is a major issue for us at the minute. I cannot do anything myself in the evenings as M will not settle for DP and will scream the house down if she wakes and I'm not there. On the one occasion I tried to go have a drink with a friend recently, M has woke and DP has rang me to say he couldn't get her settled and could I come home. Now, normally I would advise other people to just tell DP to get on with it but never in the 14 years of us having kids has he ever asked me to come home to look after the baby. That's how inconsolable M is when she wakes and I'm not there. I'm fine with it usually but just once in a blue moon I would like to have a night out with friends without waiting for the call to come back home. Not really sure what we can do to stop it? She just throws a fit if anyone but me tries to get her to sleep again.

Gosh measles is quite serious, I hope M is OK MissM. That sounds awful to have to go through on holiday.

What do you have to do to get M to sleep? We are at the age now that DD is just put in the cot awake and left, so therefore it doesn't matter who does it. There is no "getting her to sleep". I wonder if changing the way she is put to sleep may help?

Is she clingy in other ways too, or just bedtime? My DD cries when I leave her at my Mums house, its just separation anxiety and she will grow out of it. We are dealing with it through practice. Mum has said she is happy to have a regular slot each week when she looks after DD for a couple of hours, so that she gets more used to it.

Sorry I should have wrote German Measles (Rubella) which is not as serious for her but very serious for any pregnant women we came into contact with. I feel awful about travelling with her while she was infectious and would have (rather gladly) stayed put with her in Portugal while she recovered but the docs there didn't see it as measles so we weren't to know how serious it was. She was so sick though, it was awful to see her so distressed and know the medical advice we were getting was so wrong. I wanted to bring her home a few days early but thought maybe I was over reacting so stuck it out.

Fate, at night I will sit on the sofa and M will lay on my arm on a cushion beside me and be asleep within 5 minutes after drinking her bottle. There's no fuss, no tears and no tantrums. On a night where it might take 15 minutes to get her to sleep it's usually 15 mins of her staring at me, playing with my hair and me stroking her hand. Those nights are few and far between though, she is generally so easy to get to sleep the way I described and then DP lifts her upstairs to her cot while she is asleep. Some nights she will wake around 1am, some 5am and I usually just bring her in beside me and she'll fall asleep in minutes again. When DP tries any of this there's wailing, flinging, nipping, kicking and getting herself so worked up she's nearly vomiting. So it has just been easier for me to always do it. She adores DP during the day and would rather play around with him than my but sleep time is always when she looks for me. Even when she DID settle for DP a few months ago (we would take turns at night cuddling her to sleep) she would always lay staring over at me til she fell asleep.

I have no idea how I got my boys to go to bed by themselves at this stage. I really don't know how to change things with M as she is so content with how things are that I feel awful changing her routine but I don't want to be one of those parents who has to lay down with their 4 year old every night at bedtime just so they'll go to sleep. At this stage both my boys were happy to go to bed alone with a bottle and not need anyone to be in the room with them.

She is also really clingy during the day when it's just me and her here. She always wants to sit up beside me and just sit there, maybe watching tv but mostly just sitting there doing nothing. I don't mind this of course, it's just that it's started recently and I'm wondering if she's fretting over something.

She's also cutting back teeth at the minute.

Missmoo sorry to hear you had difficulties on holiday; we were just debating if we should have one overseas or in a centre parc and you scared me now a bit
Has she now recovered ?
Sorry, no idea on sleep issue; we have quite different but somewhat similar sleep issue too so I sit and listen

Babies with fat feet, I searched on Clarks web page and there was only two soft sole shoes as wide as I wanted so I ordered to be delivered to our local shop and one of them fitted. Wellies are a lot easier, we just dropped in a big branch of mother-care that has clarks babies in it, and the first pair we picked fitted, so quick and easy - but they are only suitable for babies who are very stable and confident on their feet - ds has been walking for a while, but if we didn't need them for rainy days I would have waited a bit more

Thanks for food ideas ladies ; brilliant
I am also looking at slow cooker cook book as I can set in in the morning and have food ready in the evening

Ladies and specially cumbrian; anybody with sensitive skin does bubble bath for babies ? What washing stuff do you use ?

Nazly I just use Johnsons baby bath and the shampoo on A. It seems to be fine on his skin. I also use it myself when my skin is playing up. Although I have heard very good things about Aveeno products.

missmo I hope M is doing ok now. I have no advice on the sleep thing. A can be a little unsettled if someone else looks after him (including DH) but he still likes his sleep so bedtime is never an issue.

Thanks ladies, she is completely fine now healthwise :)

Nazly, M was so well behaved on the flights (even the return flight which was sick on) so that part wasn't even an issue. And she really loved being allowed outdoors all day and enjoyed the pool after the initial tears at the water being so cold. She also loved just being pushed around town in her buggy. It has, however, put us off a foreign holiday for the next 2-3 years (also money being a bit of an issue, it just costs so much now with 3 kids) and have already decided on a log cabin in rural Ireland for a week or two instead because at least we know if the kids take sick we can stick them in the car and see our own GP within a few hours.

Forgot to say earlier that M was due her MMR the week before we went on holiday but in my stupidity I thought we would delay it until we got home because I didn't want any reaction to it to appear on holidays. How stupid was I?? Lesson learnt! Poor baby was covered head to toe in a rash so bad I was googling all sorts of things. I didn't even think to come here and post the pictures of it for MNers to help with, I read recently that they are very good at diagnosing rashes here!

Glad she's better MissM, sounds very scary.

How would M be if you say next to DP as he fed her on the sofa - so that she is in between the two of you, still next to you? Going to sleep on her own in her cot can easily be a content, simple, no crying thing too. But unfortunately given the habit M has for going to sleep next to you on the sofa, I think it's likely to involve tears and crying to make the change. So depends on your parenting style. Carrying on cuddling up to her as she goes to sleep isn't a terrible thing if you are happy with it.

I tried DD on kippers for breakfast this morning. She made such a funny face! Suffice to say she isn't keen, but kippers are quite a strong flavour so I'm not all that surprised.

Does anyone live/visit London often? Just planning our over-night family trip at the end of November. We go every year and do the tourist thing, but usually during the summer holidays. This is our first Christmas trip and I wondered if anyone had any recommendations for Christmassy places to go/see that are free not too expensive. Things like where are the best Christmas lights? I've heard about the winter wonderland (Hyde Park?) but am worried it will be too busy to be any fun?

I am happy with it 99% of the time. It's our own little quiet time and she is so easy to get to sleep like that. I just wonder am I making life difficult for future me if she won't go to bed alone when she's a bit older.

Missmoo - I have exactly the same situation in that he feeds to sleep which suits us perfectly 99% of the time but I also worry that I'll be doing it for years yet! Also if he wakes and I'm not there he just cries and cries. Of course if I am there he'll sleep till after midnight but if I'm out he wakes at 9pm

Fate - I live in London. Winter Wonderland is very popular so can be very busy especially on Saturdays. I would say going earlier on in the day is better as it's most busy in evenings. Oxford Street lights are the big ones that people go to see and they've already been switched on. Crazy! There's a winter market on the Southbank that starts 20 November which is very popular too.

Glad M is feeling better MissMoo! What a worry that their doctors completely missed it!

We put DS awake in his cot but have to stay with him until he falls asleep. We used to be able to leave him but as soon as he was able to pull himself up to stand he started yelling and crying if left. Of course now we are stuck with having to sit for up to an hour (sometimes) and we lose a chunk of our evening. Im not prepared to let him CIO and to be honest when he has become very upset in the past he makes himself sick. The joys of parenting!

Thank you so much lil, that is really helpful. We are going 22-23 Nov (Sun-Mon) so might leave the Winter Wonderland until Monday. I didn't know about the winter market, will give it a try.

You'll get there polka, I favour gradual withdrawal and was sitting in the room with DD until a few months ago. Just change positions a tiny bit further away every few days. Or have reason to nip out of the room quickly just after you've put him down (I used to put washing in basket) then come back in and continue with the sitting with him. It gets them used to the fact that you will come back, so that you can make the nipping out longer or more frequent.

We leave E in his cot and he self settles, I did sleep train him but it helps that he loves his sleep so is almost always happy to be in his bed.

Today though he was not happy, took three attempts for a morning nap and usually I would just keep him up till after lunch if he didn't want to go down but we had plans so in order to stop him being a grumpy bum I really wanted him to sleep.

Today he tried kiwi, he actually ate some, his face was brilliant :)

I love how E is evolving,he is changing right in front of me and boy is he delightful

Fate, winter market is my favorite, but then I just like that area all seasons - the rest I got used to over the years. But I am sure you'll enjoy it; it is completely different to summer and it is very nice.

Missmoo that should be so scary... Good tip about posting photos

I have done a flu jab this year and got dh to get it do , hopefully it will help us get through the winter easier with all the lovely viruses that ds is planning to bring home as present :)

Cookie I have the very same feeling about ds ; lovely to read my own feelings in your post. But I have to admit I also quite often get very upset about this whole stage passing by so quickly. I really don't want it to pass so fast , I wish I could stop the time.

Ds loves kiwi fruit actually, one if his favorites, he also loved lemon , oranges and all other citrus fruits, apples, banana, melons, all sort of berries - mmmm come to think about it, I can't remember if there is a fruit that he doesn't like but there are quite a few veggies that he doesn't eat now , despite being the first thing he ate as solid- he prefers raw to cooked though for veggies

I meant to ask this question here a hundred times - not sure if i ever did : has anybody got cabinet locks on kitchen cabinets ? I am searching online and am quite confsued...

Nazly cabinet locks are something we never bothered with. Not sure why, maybe laziness!! The kids like to 'explore' cabinets as babies so we'd move anything dangerous out of the lower ones and just let them get on with it. Really not the reply you were looking for, I know, but just had the thought to myself that maybe we should get some for M because she is a wrecking ball. Today I was putting her clothes away and every time I filled a drawer I'd turn to find her standing with it emptied out again trailing clothes everywhere!

Tonight M took some unaided steps without being prompted :D Just a few then she'd fall down and we'd all clap like lunatics so she knows it's something we're proud of and hopefully will be wanting to try more often.