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

Gosh MrsElls how stressful! Your poor DS. Glad he's ok though.

Hope the colds are improving marmite. I don't think you can try and tackle any sleeping related changes when babies are ill, it's not fair

We have had a lovely Christmas Day and Boxing Day. DS has been thoroughly spoilt and got so many presents! He is a very lucky boy. He wasn't remotely interested in trying to open any of them but he did like the tags and bows very much. He also ate a full Christmas dinner including the sprouts, which have been repeating on us all day today. Bleugh!

Quick question, over the last fortnight or so DS has been refusing most of his bedtime bottle. We've had the same bedtime routine since he was about 2 months old where he has a bath (some nights) or play upstairs, then into PJs, milk, sleeping bag, books and bed. Lately he just doesn't want the milk, he's been having 2oz at best and that's if I really try to get it down him, he's become very strong willed of late and will push the bottle away. It doesn't seem to be affecting his sleep - he's always woken at 5.30ish for a bottle and he is still sleeping through to that time. So do I need to worry about it? It just seems awfully young to be dropping bedtime milk. As well as the 5.30am bottle he has one about 2/2.30 and those two are both 6-7oz. That's it though, he eats plenty at all 3 meals though and I get milk in him at breakfast via porridge or weetabix and he has yoghurt most days too.

me C has massively reduced her milk feeds as well, I'm still bf so have no idea on amounts but she has gone from 30-40 mins at each feed to about 10 mins max. To be honest she eats so much in the day i see her bedtime milk more as a drink and a signal to her that its bedtime than food.

Thanks MrsE, DS also eats tons during the day. He has tea about 5 normally so maybe he's just not hungry for milk by 6.30 which is when he normally has his bottle. When he goes to nursery (only 3 weeks away now 😥) tea is much earlier at 3.45 so I expect he'll want it then so I'll keep offering it for now.

Morning all,

Interesting talk about bottles. If anything, DS2 is having more milk these days (especially overnight 🙄).

He's pretty unreliable with solids still though - although during the xmas marathon he's been stuffing handfuls of turkey down. I think I need to sort out some better lunches & routines for breakfast & dinner when we're back home.

MrsE that's terrifying. DS2 did a similar thing at DM's the other day. Fortunately he missed all the hard surfaces and didn't have a mark on hims. I don't know how.

Exciting news about the crawling, marmite. We're still largely stationary here, thankfully!

Well, DS2 has another cold. So since he woke for milk 1.5hrs ago I've been trying to hold him upright to mitigate the snot, and have tried to get his inhaler into him again. Now lying here listening to him snuffle & cough. Poor dude.

At least he might sleep in the car tomorrow. 🤞🏼

After a week of him flinging food & bowls around at various horrified relatives houses I've just ordered a silicon placemat bowl thing. Anyone tried one? I'm hoping it'll revolutionise mealtimes!

Oh goodness mrsells how scary! I'm glad your DS is ok. I bet you could have done without that!

me and dom my DS is still wolfing down four 7oz bottles a day! He has three meals a day and I think he eats quite a lot, I've tried to give him more food and snacks to see if he will reduce the milk but he won't have any of it. He just loves his milk! me that is 😢 I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. I was on the phone to work today discussing my shifts and it only feels like yesterday that I was finishing to go on maternity leave. Whenever I think about work I get a bit tearful. Someone please pass me a grip!

dom not a silicone mat but I've got an unbelievabowl which has a suction base thing. It sticks to the highchair well but DS hasn't actually tried it yet. I will report back! No crawling here yet either but I think he really wants to. He is spending a lot more time on his front, and getting up quite high on his arms. He thinks it's hilarious!

We had a really nice Christmas, DS got some beautiful things and loved his Ella's kitchen Christmas dinner pouch. I can't believe our babies have had their first Christmas!

You know when you go away and your baby sleeps in an enormous travel cot. Then you get home and wedge him back into the SnuzPod...

He looks like a GIANT!

I think we need to get the other cot sorted this week!

Well C has started to be able to stand unaided since Christmas Day, only for a few seconds but she looks very pleased with herself, I am not ready for her to be even more mobile than she already is but I guess with a big brother to copy it was inevitable that she would be early. I did manage to get some cruising and crawling shoes from Clarks in the sale so at least her first shoes weren't a rip off.

What a hectic couple of days. Glad you all had a nice Christmas. Amazed by all the moving around/standing unaided non of that here.
DH's nan sadly passed on Christmas Day unexpectedly so that but a downer on Christmas, but DS loved it although he had no idea what was going on.
He now has what I believe to be chicken pox!! Whatever next! He seems to be picking up all sorts at the moment!
Any advice for chicken pox? Rang doctors yesterday and receptionist said they won't see us so clueless if it actually is chicken pox and what to do

FTM my DS had chicken pox back in the summer when he was only 5 months old bless him. The doctor did agree to see us as he was so young and they confirmed it was CP but there's nothing they can do for it so it was just general advice really. If you're not too sure I found the rash gallery on the Baby Centre website very helpful, DS's spots started exactly like the picture on there as little liquid filled blisters.

Poor DS was covered from head to toe in very angry spots but we were lucky in that he didn't have much else symptom wise apart from a slight temperature and obviously being very irritable. I had to co sleep with him for about 3 nights I think because he was waking every 30 minutes or so.

Another poster on this thread recommended Virasoothe and that really helped - it's a gel that you spray on the spots, quite expensive but we only needed half a bottle. Calamine lotion didn't really do much other than dry his skin out. I also put bicarb in his bath.

I think he had new spots appearing for about four days and then it took a week or so from the last new ones for them to all scab over. Mostly I just found it boring because we couldn't go out to any groups or NCT meet ups etc as none of my friends' babies had had it! Get yourself some good box sets on the TV!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope some of the little ones treated you to a lie in, unfortunately C was up at her usual 5.50 and dh is still snoring!

We were up at 6. 😩 Been training them to sleep later over the holidays, but I suppose we need to swing the body clocks round again. But still, could've done with the sleep.

Need to get DS2 sleeping through. I think the dream feed might be hindering more than helping.

happy new year everyone! we had a lie in today, miraculously. dd2 was up at 7.30 and dd1 slept till 8! ridiculous, given she normally wakes at 6 (or earlier!).

didn't make it to midnight last night, partly as too tired as dd2s sleep has been utter shit this month week and partly as she woke up at 10 and wouldn't settle unless she was in bed with me. we were hoping to sort out the co sleeping /cot refusal issue this week but she's been so ill that it would have been just too mean.

has anyone had any success introducing a lovey/comforter? am going to try to see if I can get dd2 to self sooth with one. when she was younger she would self sooth with a muslin but ever since seperation anxiety hit she won't settle for anything but boob or dh rocking her to sleep. I've got a comforter which I've started sleeping with and having in bed with us when we co sleep - is it just a case of getting her used to associating it with sleep then trying to get her to sleep with it instead of me?

happy new year everyone! we had a lie in today, miraculously. dd2 was up at 7.30 and dd1 slept till 8! ridiculous, given she normally wakes at 6 (or earlier!).

didn't make it to midnight last night, partly as too tired as dd2s sleep has been utter shit this month week and partly as she woke up at 10 and wouldn't settle unless she was in bed with me. we were hoping to sort out the co sleeping /cot refusal issue this week but she's been so ill that it would have been just too mean.

has anyone had any success introducing a lovey/comforter? am going to try to see if I can get dd2 to self sooth with one. when she was younger she would self sooth with a muslin but ever since seperation anxiety hit she won't settle for anything but boob or dh rocking her to sleep. I've got a comforter which I've started sleeping with and having in bed with us when we co sleep - is it just a case of getting her used to associating it with sleep then trying to get her to sleep with it instead of me?

Thanks for the advise me. I sent DH out for some supplies. DS seems to be coping fairly well he's slightly grizzly but nothing major thank god. More and more spots are appearing, he isn't as smothered as I would have thought though so maybe he has a mild case?! Thankfully I have another week off work - as I had annual leave build up whilst on mat leave so used 2 weeks at the end of Mat leave and saved 2 weeks for Xmas. It's DH's bday next week so will be nice. Fingers crossed DS is ok and non catching by next week when he's back at childminders.
Happy new year!!

Happy new year everyone! We I had a 6.30 wake up call yesterday morning 😕

Sorry to hear about poorly babies, it's never ending isn't it. Hope they are feeling better soon.

How's DS now FTM?

Dom I wish I could train DS to sleep later! I go back to work in 2 weeks and our current routine won't work very well at all then! At the moment DS wakes at 5/5.30 for a bottle, then goes back to sleep after 30-60 minutes of being awake (as do I!) until usually 8am ish. So he gets a full 12 hours but broken. Once I start back I'll have to wake him at 7 to be ready to leave the house at half 7. And I'll get up myself at 6.30 so it's hardly worth me going back to sleep after the 5.30 bottle although I'm sure sometimes the lure of an extra half hour will be enough! I'm hoping that DS will just magically adjust his routine?!?! I guess he might as he's likely to be going to bed slightly later as we won't be getting home until 6.30pm most nights.

marmite DS has a comforter, I think I just always put it in his cot with him and gave it to him to hold when he was going to sleep. Now it's a brilliant sleep cue for him. He has a dummy too (just for sleeping now) and as soon as he gets his dummy and his comforter he is instantly calm and ready for sleep, and puts himself to sleep by stroking the ears (it's a bunny with long ears!) Sometimes if the dummy falls out he sucks or chews on the ears instead which is a bit gross (it needs regular washing!) but gives me hope that he might be able to give up the dummy soon.

It'll bite us in the arse tomorrow when no one can get up, Me!

Usually, we're up at 6ish, DS2 will wake anywhere from 5:30-6:30 so I either leap in the shower while he's still asleep or feed him while DH is in the shower before swapping over.

We're then out by 7:30. DS2 will then have breakfast and a nap at nursery/childminder. He's the same in that he needs his first nap within an hour of waking up, usually.

It'll work itself out. It'll be like you've been doing it forever by day 3. and will probably feel like it too

No comforter here. I've tried, but he's just not interested. I need to sort something out, really. Need to lose the dummy. I try to keep it for nap & sleep, but I often find others (including DH, DS1, childminder & nursery) will just keep giving it to him whenever. Maybe we'll leave it till the summer holidays to lose...

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. It's been nice being off and seeing family. And the house is finally clean! (I've got a new app to aid motivation, btw. I can rave about it if anyone is remotely interested!)

Ooh Dom rave away, I could do with some serious motivation!

[[http://Tody by LoopLoop
appsto.re/gb/eLcFJ.i Tody]] - you put in your rooms and tasks and frequency you'd like them done, and it makes you a graph. And they have little bars that gradually go from green to red.

If you have notifications on, it'll have that little annoying red bubble with your overdue tasks on it. That and the red bars is enough motivation to make me actually do stuff. That and you can see just how long it's been since you cleaned the windows, or something.

I was using the home routines app, but I never got to the bottom of the list for each zone so stuff ended up never being done.

We've had it about a month now (it does plan sharing, so I've put it on DHs phone, and turned notifications on, and then everyone knows what needs to be done!) and it's working a treat.

I don't work for them, btw. I'm just shit at cleaning and quite like this kind of app!

Thank you Dom, I really like that! I'm rubbish at keeping on top of cleaning but I love it when the house is all clean. I also love a list and being able to tick things off when they are done so that app is perfect.

I have just hoovered the whole house, and got rid of all the cobwebs in the corners!

DS is going through a thing today of copying what we do. I was playing with my lip and making a sort of brrrrr noise, he found it hilarious and now every time I touch my mouth he does it! So cute 😊

Thanks for the reassurance Dom. If you can do it with 2 I'm sure I can do it with one! We'll find our groove. I can tell I'm anxious about going back to work as I keep having dreams about stuff like the entrance moving and me THnot being able to find my way in on my first day! I've got 2 weeks now to get us sorted, I've deemed iron on name labels for DS's clothes, I've got a list of stuff I need to get for my DPs for the day a week he'll be there (beaker, bottle, spoons etc) and I want to do some batch cooking to get the freezer filled with meals for us and DS.

That app sounds great, I'm a lazy bugger and have a cleaner to do all essentials but I could do with something to remind me to do the big occasional jobs that the cleaners don't do like clean out the fridge and cupboards, defrost the freezer, pull out the bed and vacuum underneath it etc.

Dotty that's so cute, DS has the odd day where he likes to copy but mostly just chats away to himself as if I'm just a spare part

Anyone else's baby going through a "naughty" phase? I know babies can't really be naughty but I really feel like DS is pushing boundaries at the moment! He keeps hitting DH and me in the face, it doesn't hurt but we obviously want to discourage it. We've been telling him no firmly and moving his arm away, his bottom lip goes and he starts crying so then I give him a cuddle, then he calms down and tries to hit us again! I know he can't understand what he's doing wrong at this age but not sure how else to deal with it!

DS is ok thanks me. He has more spots and the Ones in his ear seem to be bothering him bless him. I've read to Bath them in bi carb soda or oats?! Not sure if it works?
He seems to be dealing with it ok but he's a bit more grizzly today bless him.
Good luck with the return to work... I felt really anxious like you but once the first day was out the way I was fine- took me a few weeks to find a routine that worked but we got there. Take my hat off to those of you with more than one!
DS is also going through a mischievous stage like your DS he hits us and I sternly say no but he always comes back for more. He used to cry when we told him no but he just smiles now.
Thanks for the app recommendation dom. I find it so hard to keep on top of things during the week so this may help!

C can definitely be mischievous, if I ask her to put something down she drops it, smiles and picks it back up again with a twinkle in her eye. With ds I always tried not to say no but rather tell him what I wanted him to do i.e. Instead of 'don't stand on the chair' I'd say 'please sit down' or 'we sit nicely at the table'. At 3 he is pretty good most of the time and if I ever do say no in a stern voice he knows I mean business and generally cries and says sorry pretty swiftly. I know at this age they don't understand but if its something you want to try its good to get into that mind set from the start. Not sure what the positive instruction for hitting would be though...

C has just been massively sick, all milk and one giant piece of mushroom, firstly I think I would have struggled to swallow something that size whole but secondly we haven't had mushrooms for about 3 days and that wasn't at our house I did panic slightly thinking she had found it on the floor or something! Between that and having whole blueberries rolling round in her nappy yesterday I don't know what is going to come out from where next!

Thanks FTM and MrsE, glad mine's not the only naughty one! Good tips on wording things positively, I'm conscious I don't want to be saying no all the time.

MrsE I find there is no rhyme or reason to DS's nappies, his diet is pretty consistent from week to week and yet he goes from runny to hard to having whole undigested peas to smooth again! He has once vomited up whole bits of food too, hope your DD is ok and hasn't been sick again.

DS has been an utter nightmare for naps today. He had 20 minutes this morning and then the same after lunch. I thought I'd managed to get him resettled but then before I'd even got downstairs back to the monitor he was moving and up again. Have spent the rest of the afternoon unsuccessfully trying to get him back to sleep. I hate days like this and think being on work so that getting him to nap is someone else's problem! Then I feel massively guilty for thinking that!