August/September 2019 babies - #3

[Stroan]

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

Milk feeds for us have reduced in the past couple of weeks, she was having them every two hours or so during the day and that's gone down to every 3/4 hours now. And suddenly overnight she went from feeding every 3 hours at night to going right through from 6.30/7 to 5 in the morning, without even waking!! I'm still in shock as she has never done longer than about 4 hours at night in her whole life 😂

With weaning we are now on 3 meals a day, we usually eat dinner when she's gone to bed but tend to save her a bit which she has the next day but breakfast ideas I'm struggling with! I find toast/bread tends to block her up so trying to reduce that but if anyone has any ideas of what else to feed her at breakfast please let me know!

@Stroan I've had to starting taking Ruth into her room where it's quiet to feed as she's the same, very distractible. I feel your pain!

@yevans I give Arthur either weetabix with milk, a fruit purée pouch, slices of pear, yoghurt and blueberries cut up.

I was just looking online for suggestions and I see boiled eggs or omelette. We have given Arthur strips of omelette for dinner before and he wolf's it down!

Yoghurt or fromage frais also make for good breakfast. Otherwise, Alice has Weetabix (really helps with constipation!) or porridge. I throw in some tinned or frozen fruit (defrosted!) for good measure. Eggs are an excellent treat. Alice does like a good fried egg. If I'm in an especially good mood, I'll make pancakes.

Does anybody else have a reverse gear only baby? She's a few weeks into doing it, but seems no closer at all to working out how to go forwards...

TMI, but it's good to know that's what that discharge is.

Wow Alice has got a fabby mum making her pancakes!
I've not done a fried egg...how do you feed it to her?

Ah you see I think it's sometimes good to share the tmi stuff because we shouldn't be left wondering what's normal or not! Hopefully helps someone who maybe Google's in the future!

I believe the American term is 'eggs over hard'. I fry the egg as normal, pop the yolk, and flip it over to fry the other side until the yolk is completely cooked. Then I slice into strips. It's pretty much a plain omelette with less fuss.

And agreed. Many are the times I have googled an issue and a Mumsnet thread has come up with the solution. I love to look at the dates and realise that half the time the babies in question are now in secondary school!

Haha yeh that's right and I've done the same!

Cool I'll try the egg tomorrow I think!

@yevans I struggle with breakfast too but more because ds doesn't seem to like most breakfast things! He'll mainly just eat fruit like mango or kiwi and can just about get yogurt into him!

He's also allergic to eggs so that rules a lot of stuff out 😩 although discovered you can make a "egg" out of flax seed to use in things like pancakes

I think chickpea water is an egg substitute too? So you cold make up some hummus and use the water for something you need egg for - channeling some nigella vibes.

Banana pancakes go down a treat here - overripe banana mashed with an egg and a dash of cinnamon fried, easy and gets wolfed down.

Excess discharge here too, and excess emotions too mid month come to thing of it!

Ds had his first night in his own room last night, and tonight looks to be his second! He's cut two top teeth in the last 2 days, but one middle and then the one next to, not the other middle!! Poor lopsided babe!

He does the cutest snorty laugh through his nose at the minute when he is eating, like we're sharing a little joke. So sweet.

Slightly off topic but anyone with older ones got any tips for potty regression!? Am being driven absolutely potty by dd1 - she was pretty reliable prior to lockdown and now most wees result in wet pants! She makes it to the potty for the rest of the wee but it's resulting in multiple changes of clothes a day and is driving me mad! I've tried being nice, Ive tried being cross, Ive tried being indifferent and nothing seems to work!!!

Hello thread!!
We are tootling along - well impressed by the pulling up babies! Mine is still only just rolling, she's not very keen...
She's most keen on lunch and dinner though! We are doing absolutely straight BLW, and keep forgetting to cut things into sticks, so she's figured out how to squish whatever it is straight into her face regardless. Messy but effective!
Re sleep I am totally failing to get DC3 into her cot. I can sometimes put her down there for an hour at bedtime, but she's not keen. I can feed her to sleep lying down and creep off with her in the middle of the big bed though, which is not ideal but does save my sanity a bit. Slowly slowly, I guess.
@Littlehouseinthebigcity all I can say is that it will pass eventually, and my advice is to breathe deeply and be neutral about it. DC2, who had been rock solid for over a year and totally independent, toilet-wise, is currently a- refusing to go without the adult of her choice (always the one who is least available) and b- refusing to go if anyone else suggests it, until she has been running round in circles holding onto herself for at least 20 minutes. It is completely infuriating, and results in puddles in the toilet doorway. DC1 was similar, and notoriously did several pees and a poo while being carried on DP's shoulders, and denying it strenuously. It did pass. The more we talked about it the longer it took. And the poo washed out of DP's jacket...

Hey everyone Arthur is struggling with constipation. He builds it all up and then poops once a week then it starts all over again. Last week I called the Dr and he prescribed lactulose. We have his first dose and then Arthur unpacked and my Jove it was a lot of poop although I think it was down the the fact we were stuffing him with fibre rather than the first dose of medicine. And it wasn't actually very hard it was like in-between playdoh and me whippy I'd say.
So then I've given him his medicine two times a day for a week yet still no poop until last night where he did one small harder ball and then a putty like one today.
I don't understand how he can still be constipated even taking the medicine.

When I think he isn't pooping I really reign in carby stuff and give him prune purée and try to get him to drink more water etc but even with that he still doesn't poop.

Any advice?!

Argh, so difficult. DS now generally goes 3 times a day, but for that I must ensure he has fruit with every meal, prunes (3) with lunch and plenty of water. Only one meal will be carb heavy. Otherwise we're straight back to play doh uncomfortableness.

Poor Arthur. Constipation is rubbish.

I'm much more mindful of what Alice eats now after I inadvertently inflicted constipation on her a few weeks back. I was effectively giving her too much of the BRAT diet (Banana, Rice, Apple and Toast). Good for helping with D+V in a poorly baby, not so good for a healthy baby to poop! There was also too much steamed carrots, potato, swede, cheese and yoghurt in her diet, which didn't help.

Now, I make sure she gets Weetabix with a handful of berries a few times a week. She still gets BRAT stuff, but not as much of it. I've also swapped to half and half bread for sandwiches and toast. I second getting lots of water each meal. I give the sippy cup to Alice and let her go to town. All this seems to be working well for us as Alice is going once a day again.

Try other 'P' fruits? Pears, plums and peaches, as well as prunes, are good for constipation. Adding a little pear/prune juice to his water in top of the purees could help. Berries are good too. Swapping to sweet potato instead of regular potato might be a good idea too. My friend's baby had to have bananas completely cut out of his diet for a few months as they'd stuff him completely.

Keep doing what you're doing, and he'll soon be right as rain. With nappies both bountiful and regular!

Hmm ok I think we're still going very wrong then although I do give him slices if pears and blueberries every day. Avocado fairly often but I have also given him small pieces of banana plus toast although I'd switched completely to brown bread.
I'm trying to make him drink more although can't be sure how much exactly he's drinking and like this morning he hasn't even had breastmilk, took a few slurps and stopped .
I did think that even with some of the wrong food that the medicine would have helped but maybe not. I'm Gona make my mission today to make him poop. Poor we thing. He's farting like a trooper and occasionally I see him straining so he is definitely trying

It doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong at all.

With all that fibre, Arthur might just be especially prone to constipation at the moment. Poor guy, but I imagine he'll grow out of it.

Good luck with your mission. All the bicycle legs today!

He had a bug feed before his morning nap and then when I went to get him after he woke up I could smell he's done something. Little did I know just how big that something would be!
Omg. It was absolutely massive. Started off hard then ended in big soft poop.
So that's him unclogged again so fingers crossed it doesn't just start all over again.

I have another question! Re. Reusable nappies if you use a disposable nappy liner what is your system?
We have the changing table in Arthur's bedroom but I find it tricky to get the nappy into the bucket and then I have a poop on a liner or a pee liner and I can't leave Arthur to get the poop in the toilet etc
So what do you do?

I’ve found you all again! How’s everyone coping with lockdown?

@Horehound I just change my LO on her mat on the floor so I can leave her and go pop the poo in the toilet etc, although she has started using the side of her cot to push herself off the mat! When DD1 got too mobile I just started changing her in the bathroom.

Glad to hear he managed to unclog! Hopefully he keeps it up :) In regards to reuseable nappies I mostly use reuseable fleece liners but used the disposable ones with DD1. For Catherine I tend to just leave her and go sort the nappy in the bathroom (where we have the nappy bucket) but that's coz I change her on a mat in the middle of our king size bed and she can't roll yet! (I have a disability and can't get on the floor, and there's no space for a change table). For DD1 I used to push the nappy to the side/pop it folded closed on the floor, sort her out in a clean nappy then pop her on the floor/in her cot with some toys then go sort the nappy/bag and bin the liner.

Yay poop 🥳 I forgot pears - DS demolishes them! If they're nice and ripe I just nibble off the skin and he goes to town. Can't leave him for a moment with it now as sooner than you think he's down to the core which is obviously a massive choking hazard.

How's everyone doing with the lock down? We've actually moved my mum in now, she's on her own and was not coping well. It's so much nicer for me to have some company during the day too as when DH has work they can be long days.

Have had a revised chat with work and am going to go back 3 days at the end of next month instead of 5. Would love the reason to be different obviously but I'm pleased to have 3 days rather than 5, although a little anxious about nursery.

Huzzah for the unclogging! 🥳 I was wondering if there was some left of the initial constipation that was being stubborn. But to have withstood laxatives for over a week is more than just stubborn!

I change Alice on the floor now too. Little minx is always rolling to one side to grab at things.... No messes yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Glad work have agreed to the change in hours @kyles101.

Lockdown is going as well as can be. We've been quite fortunate as DH can WFH, and if I wasn't on maternity leave, I'd be working in the hospital. DH is loving getting to spend much more time with Alice and seeing her develop. Definitely doesn't want to go back to the office once it's all over. I'm missing baby groups as a reason to get out of the house. I'm not good at going out for walks without a destination and something to do there on my own. Missing our families too naturally. Both sides haven't seen Alice in person since February. We're just hoping they get to see her before she turns 1.

A growing source of stress though is that I still don't have a confirmed nursery place for October.... I have an agreement in principle via email, but I was supposed to be sent the contract to sign the day lockdown started. I have to tell my work by July what days and hours I need. I'm hoping that with the nurseries reopening, they'll be sending out contracts soon.🤞🏻

I still worry though. If I can't get childcare, I'll have to give up my job (which I love), pay back all the enhanced maternity pay (quite a financial blow) and be a SAHM (which I don't want + we can't afford).

Thanks all and yes, he does love pears! I give him slices every day and he wolf's them down :)
He's had porridge with raspberries this morning so will see how that goes!

Like @dyra my husband is also loving getting to spend more time at home seeing Arthur and no commute so he's getting back an hour and a half there too. Plus saving money in fuel so that's a bonus.
I have up and down days really but on the whole coping well. I just miss being able to see my parents etc. That's nice you have moved your mum in @kyles101

We actually just reserved a nursery place in the town we both work. we got a zoom tour and I have word of mouth that it's amazing. It looks great and also means the private nursery my husband wanted is off the table since it's further away in the opposite direction.. didn't make sense to me to put him there so I am glad my husband conceded!
I have said 3 days a week to nursery and my mum and dad will take Arthur two days a week so if I do go back to work full time then we are covered for the week. I haven't actually asked my work yet but I do want to go down to three days a week(for a wee while at least). Unfortunately I just got an email last week telling me I am at risk of redundancy so I might not even need a nursery place at all 😬
We would be ok to cover mortgage and bills but we'd have no money for any kind if fun.
Oil and gas Industry is so volatile :(

Hope you get yours sorted soon @dyra

Wet nappies I'm still using the changing table but I've decided we can use the wet bag to put everything in whilst I see to Arthur then once he is sorted I can deal with the stuff in the bag.

So no poop yesterday...hoping not back to square one :(

Honestly I should just post on here when he hasn't pooped because then the inevitable happens!

🤣

Babies know.... They always know....

Just a thought for anyone whose little one is struggling to poop! What we did for dd and are starting to do for dd2 is sit her on the potty at a time when she's likely to need one. I'm not saying try and potty train them but the squatting position which the potty sits them in is a natural one to help them go. Dd2 was screaming at her nappy change today, sat her on the potty and she did a massive poo - sometimes it just needs a bit of encouragement. Added bonus, especially if you use cloth, is less pooey nappies!!