August/September 2019 babies - #3

[Stroan]

Just spotted we were about to finish the last thread....

There's a 9/10 month HV questionnaire?

And thanks. This mummying business is hard. I get cuddling the baby and keeping them fed, warm, clean, and dry. But teaching and guiding a baby is not coming naturally. I'm really not much of a talker. It's the biggest thing I miss about baby groups. Even if I'm not talking, at least someone else would be for her to listen to. I've resorted to putting on the news for her to listen to (with the added bonus of faces to look at). See if that kick starts some proper babbling. Definitely going to be slow to talker this one.

@Dyra my health visitor just went through it with me on a video call and filled it in for me. Nothing to worry about just a few questions on what they're doing. I had to wrack my brains for a few of the questions like doing they look for a toy if you've hidden it under a blanket' 🤷🏼‍♀️

Arlo seems to love the heat - 30 degrees last night! He slept from 7 til half 2 and then 3 til half 5 last night which was a welcome break from getting up every 2 hours for the past 2 weeks!!

Hope everyone has a good night tonight 🤞🏻

No sign of our review here yet! I think it’s nearer 12 months here.

There’s info about it in the NHS site
www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/baby-reviews/

It's really nothing to worry about @Dyra . Ours was a phone call and all very casual. I will also hold my hands up and say the baby years don't come naturally to me. If it's any consolation, my best friend had her baby 3 weeks before I had DS and she is aaaaaaall about the reading, chatting, baby- adult interaction and her baby isn't saying anymore than DS (which isn't a great deal 😂).

We finally managed a bit more sleep last night. She wouldn't settle in the evening but then only woke up once between 10 and 5.45 which was a welcome break from the 3/4/5 wake ups we have been having!!
We've had the questionnaire through the post - mostly I'm not worried and think the HV will be happy but gross motor is our issue. She can babble fine but still hasn't ever rolled, has no interest in us holding her up standing etc She's just chubby and content 😂 She can sit up though

@Littlehouseinthebigcity my potato baby was like that until about 4 weeks ago, he just decided he needed to be off one day. Although he still doesn't crawl he will now pull himself up and cruise around furniture. He used a pincer grip for the first time today too. With babbling were on "n" now so get "nonononono" all day 🙄 I think with movement, especially at the minute we're so available to them at all times they don't really get bored enough to be motivated to move. Try a little neglect

Haha @kyles101 I'm totally on board with the neglect but my DD1 waits on her hand foot and finger so she never needs anything 😂 I love 'potato baby' - so accurate. Pincer grip is pretty decent here though. Mostly thanks to her love of peas!

Hi all, how is everyone?
We've had some great sunny days.
@dyra we installed velux external blinds to the upstairs of our house and thus has helped the Temperature if the nursery. Also just been dressing Arthur very lightly at night.
He has been sweating loads though so I've been making sure he drinks lots.
Arthur has started not wanting to feed in the usual stock feeding position and now feeds like splayed vertical. I've started laying down on the sofa with him laying on top of me. I have no idea how he manages if but it's quite funny and awkward at the same time. I won't be able to do that out and about hehe

Well we stopped the medicine four days ago and he's done a soft poop. Hurray so I'm pretty certain it was due to not drinking enough.

DH just shaved his face and Arthur's so funny with him. I think he's actually loving it! I was worried he'd cry but no, he keeps touching DH face and laughing!

Today has been a day of two halves.
Alice only had one wake up in the night. (Hooray!)
DH got up with her this morning so I could sleep in. (Luxury!)
She had her morning nap in her cot! (45 minutes in the day to myself? Unheard of!)
After her nap, I finally got around to lowering her cot. (Getting things done!)

Thanks Alice for that wonderful kick straight to the phone..... 😒

Anywho.... After lunch it all went a bit pants.

Afternoon nap was on me again. (Sigh...)
Tried to put up a blackout blind in the nursery, but Alice was terrified by the sound of drilling. No matter where she was in the house. (Poor baby)
Then we find we can't drill deep enough into the window recess for the wall plugs. There's something too hard for the drill bit about 2cm in, and we need a depth of about 2.5 cm. (Of course...)
Finally, Alice was cruising happily as normal, when she lost her balance, and fell badly. She was right by me and it was so sudden, I didn't have time to catch her. As she fell, she whacked the side of the face on her walker, so she has a reasonable bump on her head and a little bit of a black eye. She's fine. Wasn't knocked out, eyes fine, no lethargy or vomiting, ate and drank as normal at dinnertime. She was crawling and cruising as soon as she'd had enough of fuss and cuddles as well. But still.... (My baby got hurt! 😭)

Felicity slept eventually last night 12.30-8.30 without a wake up. But it was in the bedside crib that she has NEVER slept in until now which is ridiculously too small (only still up as it was a crash barrier for co-sleeping! She was in a right state with the heat unfortunately.

Today she has had 2 amazing naps of 2hrs and 2hrs 15. But didn’t wake up from nap 2 until 6.45pm so late dinner and still very much awake and watching old glastonbury (she is her father’s child and loves music-DH was a radio presenter).

But it is better than the hysteria in the heat!

Ok, that one was my fault...

@Horehound Hooray! Sounds like Arthur's got himself worked out. We really don't know why Alice's nursery gets so hot. The only direct sunlight is in the morning for only a couple of hours. The rooms that do get direct sunlight get it for most of the day, and are still somehow cooler. Glad Arthur approves of DH's new look.

LOL potato babies! I miss the potato stage....

Couple of questions:

1. Alice has started hair and ear pulling (only on her right side) when she's upset. How do I get her to stop?
2. Alice has a couple of teeth poking through the gums. But they seem to have stalled coming any further. How long do they normally take to come through completely?
3. Since they're there, I've started cleaning Alice's teeth. She seems to like it. I get a few brushes in before she grabs the brush and chomps it. But.... Where do you store a baby's toothbrush? In their room? In the bathroom?

@dyra poor baby, it's awful but they are hardy wee things. I actually dropped arthur when coming out if the bath and he landed head first into the marble counter top 😩 it was horrific and he has a big bash at the front of his forehead that bled and left a big scab..that was February and I can still see a slight red mark there. I felt so guilty. But he got over it much faster than me! They are much more resilient than we think hehe
That's so typical with the blind, isn't it?! Hope you get it sorted. If the rest of the house is cooler just leave her bedroom door open maybe?
We didmove Arthur room to the one beside it and that has helped along with the blinds but I've not got round to putting a new shelf up for his teddies or his bunting which my granny make for him with his name on, so it's not very homely. Need to do that soon. Bummer I out loads of stickers on his first room and I can't remove them or it takes the paint off! 🤦

To your questions

1. just move her hand away each time? I've seen Arthur pull his hair and I just say no and move his hand. I think that's just them finding their hair?! Ear pulling could be teething, I don't move his hand for that. Usually five calpol if he seems in pain.l but that's it
2. ageessss Arthur bottom teeth took two maybe three months to fully come in. His too two have taken a month at least and are not fully in yet.
3. we have a little bamboo cup we keep in the living room and just take it to wash it then put it back in the cup. We do his teeth brushing there :)

Felicity’s toothbrush and paste lives with ours, hadn’t occurred to me to do anything else! We brush at the sink in front of the mirror, I usually do mine as she likes to copy.
I sort of hold her on the edge of the basin and let her feet dangle in. She likes to play with the water too.

Felicity has had a few knocks, one nasty one, DH was changing her on the changing unit and she slipped and cracked her head on the edge. It was horrible! It was at the start of lockdown so we called 111 and the children’s hospital called back and gave us things to monitor. She was fine, lump and bruise though.
We thought she was ok but wanted to check in with someone and also there was a little voice in my head that said if she was to die and we hadn’t told anyone she’d hurt herself we’d be suspected. I know that sounds mad to think like that but my anxious brain does all sorts. So I felt we needed to “confess” that she’d hurt herself. Complete mum guilt even though it was DH! I was in the room though, was complete accident as he hadn’t appreciated how she was flinging herself back at that point (she was about 6.5 months).

I am sure there will be plenty more where that came from!!

HV team did call though as the hospital automatically tell them, so had to listen to a lecture on safety. Which was fair enough but made me feel worse!

All these poor baby bumps! Alice had another two this afternoon. Both she wound up falling backwards during Dadwatch. First one she landed on the rug, second one she hit the floor. All ok again, but so many head knocks (she also keeps bumping her head gently on things while moving around and bending down) can't be good for you. Silly baby.

@Horehound Thanks for letting me know about the teeth. For some reason I thought they only took a few days! 😅 She's only a couple of days in, but both bottom teeth are definitely coming out together. The hair pulling is definitely self soothing as she's also doing it while falling asleep. I just worry. I had a minor case of trichotillomania when I was younger, and don't want her to follow those particular footsteps. Shame about the stickers. Arthur's first birthday is coming up at least.

In the end I decided to put her toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom with ours for now. Only problem is I keep forgetting to brush her teeth in the evening. I usually remember just as she's falling asleep.

Amazing to see Felicity getting so much better with her sleep @Megan2018! Hope all the babies are sleeping much better now it's cooled down again. Long may it stay this way.

@dyra that is so interesting because I actually have trichotillomania! Have done it since I was around 8urs old and now 33 still do it. So I completely understand your worry. The same thought went through my mind when Arthur did it but my mum made a comment about him finding his hair so I just presumed all babies do it. I'll just continue to take his hand away.

Yes we put the tooth brush in the living room because we kept forgetting to do it!

Also how did you overcome it? I think I'll always do it unfortunately. I do not have any control. I try to keep my hair up as much as possible these days but I hate it up.

We are the same with forgetting to brush teeth so I've started keeping it next to the nappy changing things so when she's having her first and last nappy done it reminds me!

That's a good idea @yevans :)

As Megan says, there will be lots of bumps to come and the guilt will be a part of that. I don't think guilt and worry will leave us now!

Does anyone else watch "This is us"? It's so good but so emotional I cry almost every episode! Just finished season four and now I feel lost. Need something else to watch.

@Horehound TBH it never really went away. I pulled much less after I'd been confronted about it, but never really stopped. It did help when I grew my hair long and I keep it in a ponytail permanently. Nowadays, I only tug at my hair when bored/distracted. I only pull out white hairs and PCOS chin hairs. I'll check out that show, but at the top of my to view list is the Eurovision movie!

That's a great idea @yevans. Wish I'd implemented it before I forgot again! 🤦🏻‍♀️

We met a mum and baby from my NCT group in the park this morning. We were intending to social distance, but the babies had other ideas. They power crawled at top speed towards each other the second they were put down on their mats. It was so lovely seeing them socialise, we didn't have the heart to separate them. I miss baby groups so much... Before lockdown Alice was an antisocial potato that could just about sit up unsupported. Now she's so much more active and interested in the world and all the babies in it.

Ah well that's good you dint need to pull. I especially like white ones as they are so thick!

Oh yes we have the Eurovision film bookmarked for watching this weekend. Currently watching designated survivor.

Oh that's so sweet about the babies. We've had family round to our garden, there was no way I could keep Arthur from my mum. I think it's pretty low risk really. Considering people are queuing for hours right beside each other waiting to get into shops..we've not been anywhere or seen anyone else really.
We did our first tiny talk session, or rather I did because Arthur needed a nap was pretty good actually! Would be so good to be at the class physically but it did work well over Facebook.

Omg I love designated survivor!!

@kyles101 haha yeh it is good. Can't believe I'm so late to the party!

We went to the zoo today! Alice spent most of her time people watching, but she did enjoy looking at some of the animals. Any bird was a huge hit (except the pelicans, who were a bit too big and close for comfort. Meerkats, otters, prairie dogs and zebras all were closely analysed and excited noises made. She could take or leave the rest.

Aaah how lovely @Dyra we went to the zoo on Sunday, DS absolutely loved it! I was surprised just how much - he particularly loved the penguins and meerkats!