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

Day naps? What are these things you speak of? she's not a great napper so they are a bit hit and miss and only ever a maximum of 30 minutes.. Also we do have a couple of evenings when we are late back in (thanks to Southern trains! ) so the problem those days is that she might have fallen asleep in the car but evenings when we are at home she will probably nap sometime about 4 for half an hour..

I bath her about 5:30/6 and then she has a bottle and she falls asleep by about 7 but it's only ever a 30 minute nap whatever I do so she either wakes, eats again and goes straight back off but more often than not she's either wide awake and happy or wide awake and crying until 9ish...

There's no correlation that if she's fallen asleep in the car versus not napped since 4 on her being worse in the evening in fact that sometimes makes it better!

I'd sort of accepted it as at least we were getting sleep but as she settles better for DH he's starting to get a bit miserable over his lack of evening.

Actually writing it down maybe I should make a note of naps in day versus how she goes down of an evening and see if there's a correlation..

Amazing plugged duct story ffaux! TMI alert: I took the plunge and popped 5 milk blisters with a sterile needle then slowly pulled out about a metre of stringy milky stuff. Yuk. BUT if (probably WHEN) this happens again I will be recruiting DH for ten ffaux method which sounds much simpler! I'm much more comfy since doing it and the redness is starting to go down too.

Have fun at the pool swear!

vroc I second me and maybe, what time is her last nap roughly? I tend to aim to have DS waking around 5pm from his last nap so that he's ready for sleep again at 7 (doesn't alays go to plan, but that's the idea...)

Sympathies to those with early risers. DS1 was like this at this age, and to be honest still wakes earlier that the rest of us but can now read or play with lego until a more civilised 6.30 and the benefit of this is that he goes to bed at 7 despite being nearly 6 years old, earlier than lots of his friends so we still get a nice long evening. It's all swings and roundabouts!

glad things are improving magpie. Hope the consultation with bf lady goes well.

you have my sympathies maybe - dd1 was/is an early riser and for a while was a regular 4.30-5am waker, even now (she's almost 3) it's usually 5.30. We had some success with the gro clock when she was about 18 months old or so, but once we potty trained her at 2.5 years it all went to shit (no pun intended) as she poos first thing in the morning so wakes up at 5/5.30 and needs the toilet so obviously has to get out of bed. She will generally go back in her room then but the damage has already been done in terms of waking us (well, DH at the moment) up! Re: struggling to get back to sleep, I find that when I am struggling (like today when I was on MN at 5am and thoroughly woke myself up), I do relaxation breathing that my yoga teacher taught me for labour - breathe in for 3 (or 4) counts and breathe out for 5 (or 6) counts. Essentially you want the out breath to be longer than the in breath. It always works and eventually I can get back to sleep. also lol at your DH suggesting you nap in the day as if! I have a lot of envy for those people who can nap during the day but I just can't, and YY to having to do housework when baby is asleep or being on MN, this is why my house is a state

Has just taken me an hour and a half to get DD2 down for her first nap. She's been really struggling with self settling since her tooth starting poking through last week, which she was ok with (for her first nap at least). Her first tooth is pretty much all the way through now but can't feel her second so not sure if it's teeth or just general fussiness.

magpie as a person that pops and picks anything I find that mildly fascinating but glad it's helped improve things!!

Excellent story ffaux!

That sounded gross, but glad it's getting better magpie.

We used to have a morning pooer too marmite. There's nothing quite like being woken up by an arse-wiping demand! (Then he went to just after everyone saying goodnight)

Hi all, mostly lurking these days!

Welcome KT, sympathies Magpie. Your story was fascinating for me too as a spot squeezing fanatic! Glad things are improving.

It's great to hear all the weaning stories, glad to hear it's all going well. We are well and truly on three proper meals plus pud after dinner too. Thankfully it seems to have done the job and Z is finally gaining weight at a good rate (albeit he's still tiny compared to all your babes at just over 12lb!). He absolutely loves his food although finger food is still proving a bit of a challenge as he can only hold onto rough things like toast. Fruit and veg sticks are still too slippery and just slip straight out his hands! I've found the baby wafers which you get in multipacks in the supermarket in various flavours are great to give whilst sorting the rest of the food out as he gets so impatient! They are big and rough enough he can hold them and get them in his mouth with no problem.

Tried little sandwiches with cream cheese the other day which went down well (although had to hold them and allow him to bite bits off) and he's generally getting very good at eating lumpy food and biting off bits of food like melon and banana which I hold for him.

Sympathies for those of you sleep training/struggling with sleep. We did cc with DS1 at 7 months which sorted night time within a couple of nights. I'm not rushing Z to drop any night feeds yet as he's still tiny and can do with the extra milk. Most nights he goes from bedtime at 6.45-7.30 until 4, wakes to feed then down til 6am ish. I should feel really grateful but am struggling with the early starts (DS1 has always been a late riser and for his first year I regularly got to lie in until 8-9am! (Very spoilt I know!). I just have to accept that this time round I have a child who wakes at a more 'normal' time!

Some way back on the thread people were talking siblings sharing and no room for two beds Dom? Swear? And your plans for bunks. How old will your older DCs be to go in a top bunk? Or what's your plans? We have no room bed and cot and DSs 1 and 2 will need to share. dS1 is just 3.

Well I'm hoping mine won't have to share missi, as we're moving in the new year (building a house!) but if the build gets delayed and/or the baby outgrows the compact cot, they'll have to. Ds is going into a high sleeper anyway, I'd thought about putting the cot underneath, at a right angle if that makes sense, so space for drawers etc next to it. Ds will be four next month, but he's very agile and always has been so I think he'll be fine.

Glad to hear Z is getting on well Missi and putting on more weight now that he's well established on food. I can't believe he's only 12lb though, DS is a bit of a chunkster and he was 17lb4 his last weigh in which was about 3 weeks ago!

DS has been an absolute nightmare for napping today. He had a really long one this morning (2 hours), then half an hour 1.30-2 and has refused to nap since. He definitely won't make it through to bedtime at this rate but just won't go down!

Ugh so DS eventually fell asleep 5 mins after my last post ... far too late for a nap for him and I only let him have half an hour. Predictably though it made bedtime challenging. Unfortunately Wednesday nights I do an exercise class so it was DH who put him to bed who has no patience and no confidence really in settling DS because it's nearly always me who does it ... I've got home to DH reporting that after he just wouldn't settle DH eventually let him cry himself to sleep. So cross! He said it only took 10 minutes and I have left DS to cry myself before but never longer than 3/4 minutes. I don't have any issue with controlled crying etc but it's the sort of thing that needs to be discussed and planned first imo. I wish DH would just put a bit more effort into helping with bedtime more so that he learns how to settle him instead of giving up and resorting to this.

Hello all can I rejoin? It's been a busy but lovely summer and I'm so sad that it's ending and ds is back to school next week. I'm not sure what E and I will do without him. I've had a quick catch up on this thread but must have missed loads.

E is now 14lb 7oz and 26 weeks and we just started weaning yesterday. All this has involved so far is sucking cucumber and pepper, accepting a bit of pear and apple purée but loving the spoon more and looking disgusted at the taste of a bit of chicken. Ds took ages to wean so I'm expecting her to take a while too

We had the 4 month sleep regression very late, where she started waking every hour or two for no reason which has been just exhausting. Now she is back to waking for one feed and sometimes just to have her dummy back. Naps are awful, maybe 30/40mins at a time if I'm lucky but it's reassuring to read that lots of the other babies are the same. I did see a few sleep plans on the Internet with all these 2 hour afternoon naps and panicked a bit. I don't really know how to sort naps though as we are having work done on the house to I can't put her to bed as its too noisy. Naps out and about don't last as long as they did before either because she is too nosey.

Do you mind if I join in here? My daughter is 6 months next week. She hates pretty much all real food but will have a chew on a rusk if the feeling takes her. I'm not sure how to go about weaning because of it. She's a large monkey (in 9-12 month clothes for length!) and about 11kg. I'm not exactly tall and she's swamping me. Her dad isn't that tall either. Sleeping is no issue- 8-6 - so the food issue isn't really an issue (on about 48 oz of milk a day) but I'm concerned she doesn't like food. Is this normal?!

welcome glue! I've no experience yet but I've heard often that 'food before 1 is just for fun' so I'm guessing babes will all take to weaning at different paces, and when they are ready. Is the 48oz FF? We were discussing earlier in the thread that the US advises no more than 32oz which is about 33 UK oz, but there seems to be no such advice in the UK, and I'm not really sure where it comes from. Baby Centre does say most babies at 6mo take 900ml which is about 31-32oz, but again 'most babies' does not mean all babies! My DD is taking about 34 and I've read about many babies taking more than that. But half of that is BM and I'm guessing there's no limits on that

Glad you enjoyed the boob story and great you are doing better magpie! Definitely try the DH method next time - he loved it as he rarely gets boob action these days! It's effective because unlike with a baby, you can say when it hurts or when he needs to suck stronger. It was instant relief!

missi so great to hear from you, I have been thinking about you! Sounds like Z is eating like a champ - is he 9/10 months now? wow! Are doctors happy with his development etc? It really is incredible progress considering how early he was.

We are on crappy 30 minute naps here too, and too-early wakings. vroc our evenings sound identical to yours, so would be interested to see if you can crack it! Glad these issues seem to be more the norm.

All my US friends seem to have babies who sleep 7pm - 6am with no wakings and great naps, so I was worried it was just me getting it wrong! I have noticed a difference here though - they seem to be keen on getting babies on a schedule much earlier than us, which kind of makes sense when you think that many of them were back at work between 6 and 12 weeks. For example many of them had babies in their own rooms at 3mo, sleep training at 4mo, weaning at 4-5mo and on strict feeding schedules. Not all but there's definitely more of a trend. They are also very sunshine and rainbows about everything so I appreciate mumsnet as a place where I can say something like I 'can't be fucked making purees', or have a bit of a whinge without judgement!

french sorry to hear about your DH friends - I wouldn't like that either, YADNBU

swear how did swimming go? I really want to go!

Welcome glue! Your dd is still young at not even 6 months so i wouldn't worry that she isn't interested in food. As ffaux said its 'food for one until they're one' in other words when they are this little its just about getting them used to different tastes and textures! Lots of babies don't really start getting into food until 8/9 months.

Having said that we saw my BIL and his wife at my ILs last weekend and their baby is now 11 months and still pretty much just eats rice cakes and veg BILs wife is very funny about food (for herself) and is convinced baby has gluten and dairy and soy intolerances. Hasn't been to a doctor about it but according to her baby wakes up at night after she gives her any bread or dairy. But also seems like the baby wakes frequently regardless so i have to admit I'm very about it all. Anyway I guess my point is that if you reach 11 months and your baby is still not really eating then its starting to be a problem but if you're baby isn't interested at 6 months its pretty normal and there's plenty of time!

We've still got two weeks till we wean dd2 as im waiting till she's six months to do blw. She is getting better at putting things in her mouth though and this week has started sitting unassisted for a minute or so at a time, so really think she is getting close to being ready now!

Had my work meeting on Tuesday and it was fine, but i agreed to do some more work and i woke up this morning suddenly thinking about all the work i have to do when I go back! Im back at beginning of December but really need to start doing a bit of prep work from now but keep putting it off!

Welcome glue, from experience with family fir some weaning just takes a while with little initial interest. I think the general advice is that it can take numerous tries of the same food before a baby takes to it in any case. I've also regularly heard 'food before one is just for fun' - though I'd really hope for some decent intake by one tbh.

missi great to hear from you again and glad Z seems to be thriving. Eating full meals while still so small must make him look very cute and precocious to those seeing you out and about.

We have had sleep 9-6 for around 7 weeks though for the last 10 days DD has woken and needed dummy to settle around 4. It is a later bedtime than other babies we know irl but naps are generally okay and, selfishly these times will suit when I am back at work and need to leave the house at 7/7.30 so we are just going with it.

ffaux most of DH's friends are forces/ex forces and so levels of banter are high, just not keen on suggestions I talked DH into having a baby (he did need 5 years to reflect on the suggestion though!!) that will hasten him to an early grave.

Welcome glue! I agree with what the others have said, but if you do want to broaden her palate then as French says it can take up to ten tries to get used to a taste, so I'd keep trying different things. Maybe since the rusks etc have gone down well it would be worth going for something quite sweet and mild like banana or sweet potato rather than trying to get her on something quite bitter like broccoli right away?

ffaux, swimming was good! Summer holidays and with older kids though so it was busy and noisy, she mostly just looked about wide-eyed but I got a few smiles and leg waggles. I put her in one of those neoprene wraps and she was still blue around the mouth after twenty minutes so we had to get out, so I felt a bit sorry for ds. But we had a good time! I'll definitely take her again once ds is back at preschool.

Hi Glue just to agree with everyone else your dd sounds totally normal to me. My ds took ages to wean and really didn't eat a lot, he also totally refused purée but we got there in the end. I think he didn't really eat much until around 10-11 months to be honest. I'm expecting dd to be similar so am trying to relax more with weaning her.

Ffaux well done on going back to work, sounds like you did brilliantly. It makes sense about US parents being more organised in terms of routines with such a short maternity leave. It always amazes me though how people can get their babies into such clear routines. I don't think I'm cut out for that. It's interesting about the milk too, I've not heard that here. E is an awful milk drinker really. At the moment she is having maybe 25-26oz a day. I was convinced she would have lost weight when I went to the clinic this week but she had actually put on and jumped slightly above the 25th centile so I guess she knows what she needs and I need to trust her more.

Hi Purple! Neither of my boys slept more than 35 minutes for naps at this age. DS1 eventually started taking longer naps but I think he was 12m+ at least.

Hi glue. Wow, that's an impressive weight! My DS2 seems big to me (he's 5 months today, been in 6-9 month clothes for a while) at around 8kg. The food thing seems normal. Keep trying, keep offering the same stuff. I'm sure she'll get there.

I know a bunch of dieticians (proper, qualified ones) and I'm pretty sure "waking up" isn't a sign of an intolerance! (I have a barely controlled irrational fury at self-diagnosed "intolerances". It's none of my business, it doesn't matter what other people do. It's none of my business...)

I was always amazed at people with schedules and routines. We just couldn't manage it with DS1. DS2, however, has pretty much set his own routine. We're away at the moment and he is hating the messing around with his bedtime routine. (But on the other hand we've had a couple of 4-hour stretches which is brilliant!). So, in short, I think these routines often depend on the baby.

I can't believe it's September already. It's been a lovely summer, I'm not ready for it to be Autumn again.

haha dom I am exactly the same as you when it comes to self diagnosed intolerances, but accept that it's none of my business even though it still irritates me. I have tried to gently suggest to DH's SIL that baby doesn't show any other symptoms of intolerances (e.g. no green nappies, no ezcema or other rashes, baby has gained weight spectaularly from 75th to 98th pcentile is bf) but it's difficult as don't want to overstep the mark. I think some babies are just very active and can't switch off at night - DH's niece is very like DD1 in that she is hitting all her physical milestones quite early (e.g. both walking at 10 months) and DD1 was just a very wide awake baby and even now just doesn't sleep much (8.00-5.30, sometimes more like 8.30-5.30 and often doesn't nap and she's not yet 3). However as I said DH's SIL is a bit funny about food (she once told me sugar was more addictive than heroin ) so think her default position is just to blame that.

it's funny the whole 'food for fun until they're one' thing as the advice goes from that to 'at one year old they should be on three meals a day'. but how would you go from food being fun to being three meals a day overnight?! obviously that's not what the advice is but it makes it confusing to know when babies should be eating more food, it's kind of a grey area I guess (and as with everything, all babies are different and have different needs blah blah).

DD2 had her usual two wakes last night (10.45 and 2.45). I woke DH up after the first one as she was fussing after her feed and didn't want to sleep and I was knackered so he settled her. He then got it into his head that I was struggling and so when DD2 woke up at 2.45 he got up and got her for me (think he was half asleep tbh given she is still in our room). Then this morning he asked me how the rest of her night was and said he felt like it had been a 'bad night' because he'd woken up. I had to laugh and tell him that what he experienced was my idea of a 'good night'! He was then very appreciative towards me and extra nice, giving me a hug before he left for work and telling me he loved me etc. He does get up with DD1 at the crack of dawn (5.30) and I think he had kind of forgotten that I get up in the night with DD2 and how tiring it is having your sleep interrupted so was a bit of an eye opener for him.

DD2s naps have gone out the window at the moment, she just can't seem to settle at all . I really want her to go to sleep now so I can watch last nights bake off and it isn't happening! This second tooth/developmental leap/whatever is going on with her needs to pass now!

marmite I just had the exact same battle with DS - he refused to go to sleep for me to watch GBBO! After battling for half an hour I gave up and dumped him in his bouncy chair in front of the TV with me where he promptly dropped off. I think sometimes he actually likes the background noise of people chatting or the TV. (He has white noise in his cot but not sure it's the same.) Only slept for 35 mins but it was enough for me to finish the episode (started watching it when feeding him earlier!)

Glad you managed to watch it me! I tried to do the same with dd2 but she just cried when i tried to put her down so i had to keep trying to get her to sleep in our bedroom.. Managed to get her to sleep by feeding her to sleep on my bed at 10.15. She's now had a mega two hour nap giving me time to watch gbbo, do some tidying and have an uninterrupted lunch of perfectly fried eggs on a bagel. Bonus! Glad she had a long nap this morning as she's basically refused to nap in the afternoons recently and I've got mum friends visiting today and there will be far too much excitement going on for her to sleep!

Thanks Dom! Amazingly she slept for an hour this afternoon and basically put herself to sleep in her pushchair while we were eating lunch which is unheard of!

Not a great night sleep last night, lots of little wake ups plus the usual wake to feed. Tonight we've put her in the travel cot, home is really messy as we are having a loft extension so we don't have a room for her yet. I had been cramming her into her Moses basket still but we've been at my mum's for the last few weeks and she slept in a cot there. I just think she got used to spreading out. I will report back in the morning if this theory of why she is waking is correct.

Me E always has a short morning nap, the only one she is consistent with, and I put her in front of the tv then. It seems to work to send her off. Doesn't work any other time of day really though.

That's good to hear Purple, DS very rarely naps in his bouncy chair. He sleeps so much better and longer in his cot than anywhere else but the last few days it's been a real battle to get him to have naps in there (he goes down fine at night, generally). For a while now I've been rocking him to sleep then putting him down, but he won't let me rock him these last few days, just gets more and more wound up!

Today was terrible for him, he had 35 minutes this morning, 20 minutes from 1-1.30 and then another 30 minutes from 2.10-2.40. That was it, the whole day! He was really flagging later on but after the disaster of yesterday's late nap I decided to just keep him going and then started bedtime early, he went down at 6.30 with little fuss so I suppose I should be grateful for that but selfishly I need the break from him in the day that decent length naps gives. Just to get on with jobs and then have a few minutes to myself to enjoy a cuppa in peace! Super jealous of your DD's two hour nap marmite!

Ffaux, great to hear from you too. Hope work is going ok. It's crazy how different the system is in the states but definitely makes sense why babies are got on a schedule much earlier.

We had the most recent review with Z's neonatal consultant last week (he's being followed up til age 2 as he was born prior to 30 weeks). All seems great! He's rolled front to back but not back to front yet (altho the last couple of days has started twisting to the side so don't think it'll be long). He can just about stay upright when placed in a sitting position for a moment, leaning very far forward tho. Everything seems to be on target and within the 'normal' range which is so relieving. It's great to hear about all your March babies development as I can see that he's more or less tracking the same path, albeit slightly slower which is to be expected. He's now 9 months!

French, I know what you mean about looking precocious when out and about eating food like a one year old but only the size of a 3-4 month old! I'm sure I've had a few looks from other parents as he doesn't look even slightly like he's 6 months old, i think they probably thinks I'm completely ignoring the guidance!

Did my first full KIT day today, felt great actually to be using my brain properly for a difference purpose than naps/nappies/food etc. Just about to write a new flexible working request to drop from 4 to 3 days per week. This is after doing the sums and seeing that even with the 15 free hours for DS1 it's still going to cost £14.5k per year . Properly shocked me, DH doesn't take home much more, bloody ridiculous. It will mean that we're actually worse off me working 4 days than 3 so there's no incentive to do it. No idea if work will approve it though. DH is still talking about how he'd like to be a SAHD (bearing in mind he's not yet done one day alone with both boys!) but I really don't want to go back to work full time. The time with your babies is so short and although I'm not cracked up to stay home full time with them I want that extra time. We'll see,....!

Welcome Glue! And hi again Purple too! My friends little girl was the same with her milk, a proper milk monster and barely interested in food until around 1. Now at 3 she still loves milk but eats a fairly balanced diet so I wouldn't worry. They're all different and some, like both my boys (who were both weaned early, DS1 for reflux as advised by paed and Z due to his prematurity) devour everything they're given like it's going out of fashion and others, like my friend's little girl not so much. They all get into food in the end!