March 2016 - quick, a new thread!

[Swearwolf]

Sorry for the terrible title, I saw the old thread was up to 996 posts and panicked!

Ooh don't I feel important

Dotty DS has lots of the same finger foods as MShip has suggested.

Bread - he has toast, crumpets, pitta bread, Philadelphia sandwiches (today's lunch!)
Fruit - soft fruits such as strawberries, mango fingers, satsuma pieces, banana
Vegetables - not so many but he's had broccoli florets, baby corn, sticks of pepper, sticks of cucumber
Cheese - cubes of cheddar, babybels are a particular favourite
Rice cakes

Next week I'm planning on giving him some pasta - bits of penne - and maybe making some risotto balls if I have time! He loves the fish purées I have done for him so far so I might also give him a fish finger.

Can anyone recommend a good sippy cup that your DS/DD finds easy to hold? DS loves water and absolutely chugs it down but he can't hold his sippy cup very well - it's a basic free flow tommee tippee one with two handles. He can't seem to work out that he needs to tip it back to drink and prefers me to hold it for him at the right angle while he spreads his arms wide like Jesus!

Thank you for the sleeping advice, he's been quite ratty at times today due to lack of sleep I'm guessing. Yeah I'm not too sure controlled crying is for us he just doesn't settle but I will try the shhh pat technique, I will need to look it up first fingers crossed tonight is a better night. Hope you all have a peaceful night if there is such a thing with a baby?!

We started weaning today, dd2 is 6 months old! we're doing blw so when we had our lunch we gave dd2 some steamed sweet potato cut into wedges, some broccoli, cucumber and rocket. Basically the veg/salad that us/dd1 were eating. She managed to pick up the sweet potato, get it into her mouth and gum bits off of it! Mostly though she just played around with it all, which was what I was expecting. It was fun, except for all the mess!

Dd2 has been an absolute boob monster the past two days, is feeding more often and wanting both sides, which she doesn't normally do. She's also had an extra night waking the past couple of nights and fed from both sides. Apparently there's a growth spurt around the six month mark so hoping it's just that.

Possibly growth spurt marmite - I just said to dh the other day that ds feeding like a newborn again !

Uuuuuuurgh, when you're trying to feed the baby to a sleepy state in a lovely calm darkened bedroom, and the bloody cat comes in all "miaow miaow miaow, look at me look at me STOKE ME AND LOVE ME AND PAY ATTENTION TO ME" and the baby is suddenly wide awake, laughing at her best cat buddy and trying to touch as much fluff as she can. Fucks sake. I've got her back up and we're watching Pointless with a glass of wine, total no go. Bloody cat!

Loving all these finger food ideas! We've just done veg so far, adding in fruit this week, then grains and dairy. Can't wait to give her a crumpet!

Thanks for the weaning tips & suggestions. We were out all day so there were no opportunities to start, really.

marmite "Apparently there's a growth spurt around the six month mark so hoping it's just that." We've had the same, as much as my pumping volume has increased, he's downing it all. Today he was going less than 2 hours between feeds, and I lost count of how many times he fed overnight. His napping has been a bit better too. Sleep + more feeding always seems like potential growth spurt to me!

Who suggested sharing my breakfast? I usually eat shreddies with milk and more sugar than is healthy! I can't cope with change first thing in the morning! I don't think DS2 should eat that! Might offer some banana though, should be fairly minimal effort!

Swear, we get that around 5am. Baby stirs, I try to quickly feed back to sleep. Cat hears all this and immediately rushes in, yowling, climbing all over me & the baby, up on the window sill, back onto my bedside table, chews the thermometer thing, chews my charging cable, drops to the floor to rummage around under the crib, and I'm now trying to feed while flapping around to grab/shoo the cat out again. Eventually I'll give up, pretend I'm going to feed the cat and shut her out. Back to bed, all back to sleep. Eyes close... and DS1 appears, followed by the cat, both pile into the bed. Baby's eyes pop open. All smiles. And I give up! Ugh! It's like a conspiracy!

On that note of early mornings, I better pump and get to bed!

Mship and Me thanks for the finger food suggestions, there's loads of things for us to try! I'm so scared that DS will choke but if I don't let him try he will never learn will he. Today he was completely uninterested in eating, and just wanted to wave his sippy cup about and blow raspberries at me with big blobs of butternut squash purée hanging out of his mouth! Lucky me!!

Me it sounds like we have the same sippy cup, a basic blue tommee tippee one with two quite narrow handles. DS only just realised today that he can pick it up so we are a bit away from him doing it himself, if I find anything that works better I shall let you know!

Haha Swear DS has been woken up many a time by our cat miaowing, she always seems to do the loudest miaow possible too, and purring, why is cat purring so blimmin loud! DH gave DS the cats tail to hold this evening. Why!! Luckily all was well but I thought I would have to intervene when I saw the cats tail heading towards DS mouth!

I've just had to completely change DS, he was absolutely saturated bless him! I don't know why, his nappy was completely secure when he went to bed. Had to put him in a fresh sleeping bag he was that wet! Now I'm lying here quietly waiting for him to go back to sleep while he quietly scratches his sheet. I'm going to be down in the kitchen in a minute making a feed aren't I!!

Dom We had the same problem with the cat with DS. We bought an automatic cat food dispenser. She figured out within about 3 days that hanging around the machine was a better bet than bothering us in the morning and it hasn't been a problem since. This is the one we have.

TheM, that's genius! We have a timer feeder we use when we go away, but that only does 4 days/meals. That would also solve the car-food storage problem we have. I'll have to have a serious think about it.

We had the exact scenario I described last night from 5am this morning. I couldn't believe my powers of prediction!

Fortunately, on DS1's second visit DH got up with him. Me and (poor snotty, snuffly) DS2 amazingly got some more sleep.

Can I ask a question, since I have been giving ds lunch. He's 25weeks now he has cut right back on his milk. He did have 4 8oz bottles a day now he is having 2 8oz (morning &a bedtime) then his other two bottles he is only taking 4oz each time. Is that enough milk? X

confused they should have at least 20oz a day until they're 1. It sounds like your DS is fine but then again if he's only having lunch and not any other meals yet it's a bit early to be dropping feeds. My DS is on 3 meals a day and has only just started reducing the amount he takes in some of his bottles. That said I wouldn't worry too much about it unless it drops more, just try and make sure when you introduce more meals that he has plenty of cheese, butter, milk in porridge etc.

I just spent ages peeling, steaming and pureeing a load of pears for DS (his favourite). It was only afterwards that I realised they were quite ripe and soft anyway and tried just giving him half a pear (cut into two) after his tea. He demolished it, so all that steaming and pureeing was totally unnecessary! Ah well ...

Thanks me.. I'm thinking if I introduce breakfast next I can make him porridge with his milk and that will get more into him. I expected him to drop a feed when weaning but not this much yet. I will see how we go over the next few days

Wow all this talk of weaning is making me think we ought to wean. DS2 is 25 weeks on Tuesday and grabbing at food from our plates and sitting pretty well. I just don't want him to stop smelling milky and I'm not ready for the inevitable rinsing tuna and cheese out of his skin creases at bathtime yet.
Perhaps I'll give him some bits later this week.

So anyone else SERIOUSLY broody? I cannot stop thinking about how lovely it would be to have another baby and add to our brood. Argh, somebody slap me. Not sure if it's because I go back to work soon and I'd like a bit more mat leave, or my brother's new baby who arrived last week at 32 weeks - a teeny 2lb11oz. Whatever it is it needs to go away, I'm not using any contraception and about to hit the 6month mark where I can't rely on BFing to prevent another mini magpie... Someone else tell me they're having crazy thoughts like this too, please?!

magpie, I'm with you on wanting to delay weaning (although we offered banana this evening - he was deeply offended!) but no way am I having any more kids! Broody at 6 months is crackers! Can you imagine having a newborn and a 15 month old?! Wait, isn't that what some here have?!

But, aww, 2lb 11oz! Super tiny! Hope she's all well and they're coping with the surprise.

Personally, though I am enjoying every minute with DS2, I am also looking forward to getting 'myself' back in a couple of years. There's things I want to do, but I can't at the moment. And I'm quite enjoying work...for now

I'm by no means broody! However I do have a 4 year old dd aswell as ds!

Me & dh have both said we kind of wish we'd have had them closer together, we got very used to having the odd weekend away with grandparents having dd no problem. Was a shock to the system going back to having a newborn. Having said that we had a night away last night!! Mil stayed at our house with kiddies and they were golden, me & dh were rock and roll and both asleep by 10pm waking up around 9am was bliss!! Came back full of energy to two very smiley children

magpie I have moments when I think maybe I'd want another one but then we have another difficult day and I remember why we want to stick at 2. I read (ages ago) that this is a typical time to start feeling broody because our babies are getting more independant and the memories of how god awful pregnancy and childbirth is are starting to fade a bit.

I'm quite glad I don't have pets, I think I would have a very low tolerance level for the whole house being woken up at 5am by an excited cat .

Ds2 is recovering from his bug, but I've caught it and so has ds1 . Its my birthday on wednesday and we'd planned to all go out for lunch and a walk so I really hope we are all better by then!

Wow magpie broody already! I definitely want a third but not for a while. It was quite intense when dd2 was born as dd1 was 27 months so next time ideally id like a 3-3.5 year age gap but we'll see what life throws at us.

My sister told me this weekend she's pregnant with her third! Only 9 weeks so early days. My nephew has just turned 1 so there will be just 18 months between them! She told me it was an accident but I know her well enough to suspect that it may have been planned on her part, if not her DPs. They had agreed to try for another next year but she's about to turn 38 so think she was worried about leaving it too late. Plus she is desperate for another baby as has two DSs and really wants a girl. I think she's mad having such a small age gap but there's 4 years between her two boys so not sure she knows what she's let herself in for!

Gave dd2 some courgette fried in butter today she absolutely loved it! I cut it into batons so she just held the courgette and sucked the butter off! Because we're doing blw she hasnt actually eaten much of the food yet but has swallowed some bits here and there. She hasn't gagged on anything yet but has made some funny faces when trying to swallow stuff. To those worrying about choking, all I can say is that I read recently that (with blw/finger foods at least) provided they put the food in their mouths themselves its really rare to choke on anything.

Why, why, why has my amazing sleeper totally forgotten how to sleep through the night he's gone from sleeping through most of the time to in the last 2/3 weeks only having slept through once. And the waking are not quick, dummy back in and straight back to sleep, it's taking half an hour or more each time to get him back to sleep. Exhausted!!

I'm in the same boat me (although DS never slept through) he's just become worse!
I wonder whether it's a sleep regression or something? Just seems strange! Hope you get some sleep!

Broody- yes I am.
Even though dd drives me over the edge some days yes I am.
Oh to have a lovely little newborn again.
No someone slap me!
I have seriously been thinking about talking to dp about having a close age gap and getting the baby stage over with in one kind of hit with two. Hmm...

FTM sympathies to you being up as well! DS eventually went back to sleep and stayed asleep until 6 which is positively a lie in for him so at least there's that. Just anecdotally I know quite a few whose babies have stopped sleeping so well at 6 months so maybe another regression?

You broody lot are mad. If I have another (DH says he doesn't want one) there'll be a decent age gap. I am an emotional wreck though about DS growing up, I felt really tearful the other day as I packed away all his 3-6 clothes and his bouncy chair - especially about the chair as he loved it so much!

Awful night here too! Awake at 10, 1, 3, and up for the day at 5. Usual pattern is one wake at 10/11 and another at 3/4 then up for the day at 6.30. Not having a three hour stretch of sleep has me feeling completely zombified. Slightly worried that DD2 has lost the ability to self settle. She's been great at just going down happily in her cot (at night, not during the day) but has suddenly decided that she will only go to sleep on the boob at bedtime . not sure if that's the problem or it's teeth or developmental or what but am hoping it passes quickly!

Broody already? That's crazy talk No way are we having a third. We've talked about it and are both agreed that we never want to go through pregnancy and newborn again, so DH is stepping up for the snip.

I'm back to work today, yay! On a pumping break now. DH I'm sure is battling grimly on through his first day home with a stubborn bottle-refusing mummy-loving everyone-else-hating baby. He's a brave man. T will get used to it soon, but it's hard for both of them, and DS too. He'll be spending lots of time with his grandparents at first.

Broody? Crazy ladies! No more here and even though I love dd to bits I know I'm a better mum to toddlers than babies. Find the whole first year quite tricky and confusing if I'm honest. It's slightly better this time round though.

Trin sorry to hear you are ill. We are all still coughing. E's sounds a bit growly now and I don't know whether to go back to the GP again. She is fine in herself and no temp, still taking milk. What would others do?

Mship sounds like you are enjoying work! Have fun!

Marmite I'm glad you said that your dd isn't really eating much at the moment. E is the same, really enjoying feeding herself but the food intake is minimal. I know from ds it can take a while but it's reassuring to hear you have one the same. We gave her a bit of pizza express pizza yesterday. She liked sucking that.

I've lost half a stone on weight watchers so far and am beginning to feel less podgy. I have been told my boss is having a big birthday party at the end of Oct and I'd like to look a bit more svelt for that. Stupid I know.