August 2021 - They've been here for half a year

[BertieBotts]

Can you believe it! Our lovely little ones are (roughly) halfway to their first birthdays.

Welcome friends old and new for discussion of sleep, teeth, weaning, milestones, navigating post-baby relationships and the whole existential dread of parenthood... I mean those amazing moments when they make your heart melt. Or produce a poo that makes the wallpaper melt. Oh, all of them. Nothing is off limits because it's just good to know that somebody else has been there.

Ladies, I'm watching this wonderful Japanese series on Netflix called Old Enough and I thoroughly recommend! It's only 10 mins per episode and the premise is toddlers and young children run errands on their own (they are supervised but unknowingly and not by their parents but by camera crews and shop workers etc are aware they're filming the series, so they aren't alarmed and they offer a little bit of extra support). It's magnificent to watch how smart they are ❤ xx

Glad babies are doing well with the food. I'll be trying the squashed blueberries next I think.

I only have 3 days of maternity leave left! I can't believe it. 😢 It's gone so fast and I'm not ready at all. I've got Friday this week and all next week off as annual leave so I'm not really back until the 3rd. I don't feel like my brain has room to deal with work tbh. I hope my manager isn't expecting much of me.

@Ready2020 oh no that's so soon. I hope it goes well. I'm off 3 months longer but already worried about leaving the baby/ brain functioning properly...

Does anyone have suggestions of easy cookbooks for shared babies/family meals?

Hello everyone, hope you don't mind me jumping on the post. I had my little boy Jago in August but didn't join mumsnet until a little later and since then have observed this thread from afar. Thought it was finally time to say hello though! I can't believe they are 8 months old and well on their way to their first birthdays now. There were times in the early days I couldn't imagine ever getting here and actually feeling like I (slightly) know what I'm doing!

@Ready2020 I know how you feel! I've been back at work a few weeks now and it's a struggle I have to say. But you'll get by. It's almost like returning to newborn days when you just have to prioritise and if your house is a mess etc then so be it. I'm definitely less productive at work though.

@WolfMother326 have you tried What Mummy Makes? I'm not much of a foodie but find her book so useful. It's very simple, everyday recipes with some really useful tips on storage, time saving etc.

I have 1.5 months left, but I'm taking the view that I will not be putting myself down and I'll return ready to work. My mental capacity hasn't decreased, if anything I am even better organised and better at multitasking and I intend to make full use out of it, in work and outside of work. I might live to regret this approach, but I find that fearing the return is really unhelpful to me. I look forward to being back, actually, I'll have a full day off with DS and the weekend and with some wfh it's a much better work life balance than I would've had pre-pandemic, so I'm embracing it! xx

Welcome @PurplePetalPip and what a cute name your LO has!

I'm back to work in July and dreading it :/

We have got so comfy in our little routines and i haven't even thought about nursery yet

I think the difference might be that I'm not that fussed about my job. It doesn't interest me that much tbh. I'm applying for different things though.

I'm still a bit worried on how much milk Rowan gets from me now. She loves her food and I feel she just isn't interested in taking in much milk any more. She feeds to sleep and currently going through a good sleep pattern so wakes at midnight for a feed then again at about 5am when I feed her to sleep in the bed with me. I then offer her boob during the day but she never has a good long feed, more just a few sucks at a time.

Is the point that her calories are meant to come from me? Or nutrition in the milk? What is she getting from me that she can't get from her meals? If she's choosing to not feed as much I guess it's OK but can I give her something else to make up for it? Like supplements. She gets yogurt and milk in her porridge so has dairy.

Hi ladies!

Sorry I got totally lost again in the thread. Hope you're all doing ok!
I've had my first week back at work now and it was actually nice to get a little break from mummying!

Pregnancy going well so far too! Just very very tired!!

@Ready2020 I think so long as she's feeding at night and taking food it's ok. Night milk is full of nutrients apparently. Can you take her to a quiet room for a feed before naps?

@Jessicapebbles wow I must have missed that you're pregnant! When are you due? How is your Crohns? Hope all is well.

We just had a nanny/babysitter do a trial day and it was great. Will only have her one morning a week but it's amazing getting a bit of help as we have no family around.

My app hasn't been working for a bit for some reason.

I'm back to work on Monday. I'm actually looking forward to getting back into the routine of it all. Dd has been settling in to crèche the past 2 weeks and seems to have settled fairly well though they are closed all this week for Easter so fingers crossed she will be fine again on Monday as it's a full day.. full week really.

Ds on the other hand is incredibly anxious since dd started crèche. I'm not sure if it's because he thinks he will have to go too or if it's just the change. (He didn't have a good experience last year when he had to go to a different one as my mum was still shielding but he's going back to mum before/after school again anyway so he Really don't need to worry) he has been my shadow the last couple of weeks 🙈

@Ready2020 dd doesn't drink much milk during the day now and the crèche have said she will only be getting one bottle during the day around 2 with them and will be trying to do food instead. We will have her 6-9 month hv check tomorrow so will get to check her weight at least for that. I've been trying to wean off breastfeeding. Especially with ds being my shadow all the time and then dd wanting to breastfeed constantly and all night I was struggling so now I have her on mostly formula and she gets mostly a comfort breastfeed after her bottles during the night but that's it really. But some nights she could take 600mls of formula overnight - 3 full bottles

My app has been being funny too, won't let me see threads I'm on for some reason.

I'm currently not planning on going back to work till September (though I think basically the whole of August and maybe even some of July will be annual leave, which will be a nice relief on my bank balance!). I'm starting to feel more ready to go back which is a relief - the limiting factors now are a couple of trips we have booked that would make going back impractical, plus my nursery place is not till September and they've so far not had any availability earlier, and he's also not yet on a bottle or eating loads so I worry he'd go hungry!

I've been wondering about if I want to introduce a bottle or not. I hate pumping so it would be formula, but I'd need to be sure to get a dairy free one. My main worry is I have friends who introduced a bottle alongside BFing and it really affected their supply so they've ended up having to stop, which I'd be really upset by. On the other hand, it would also be nice to have some freedom to do something for longer than a couple of hours without needing to worry about baby!

@biscuitcat dd has always had the odd bottle and my supply has been fine. Ds was tube fed then bottle fed then breast fed with a bottle every couple of days to keep him taking it and I breastfed him until 15 months. I went back to work at 6months for him and he would breastfeed at night maybe take a bottle during the day with my mum but would then take a feed as soon as I got home from work regardless of how long it had been since he took a bottle. Sometimes he'd make do with just solids until I got home too. This time round with dd I'm ready to stop tbh. Ds is so anxious and clingy atm I need to be able to have time for him and that means being able to get someone else to give dd a bottle or tbh even if I give her the bottle it's still faster whereas breastfeeding I was finding it was a never ending night time all night cluster feeding session and I just can't keep doing that.
It's certainly do able though if you want to introduce a bottle and still breastfeed too

We've also been primarily breastfeeding but give 1 or 2 bottles a day, since my baby was born. We still use slow flow/newborn nipples for the bottles so he can drink the formula at a similar rate to bf. It really takes the pressure off.

For those who feed to sleep: how do nurseries or carers get the baby to nap? Do the babies just adapt? Worrying a bit about this.

@WolfMother326 dd only ever catnaps for us at home (with a 4 year old about it's usually just too busy I Think) on her longer nursery settling in sessions she slept between 1hour30- 1h45 mins both days.. how I don't know! It's been a 20-30 kin max atm this week even when we have set time aside to make it quiet for her. And they won't give a bottle before sleep time either

Testing.... is this working? My app has been really dodgy.

@Ready2020 yes your post worked. Mine has also been dodgy!! I'm currently on the website rather than the app which is partly why I've been a bit quiet lately, but also because I don't really have anything interesting to add of late 😂

im reading anyway and hoping everyone is keeping well!

Oh!! DS IS SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! And goes to bed at a decent time! I honestly never thought I would see the day!

Whatever has happened to MN?! I am on the website too, but it's just as dodgy! This new platform isn't user-friendly at all, I can only see a few posts on any thread I click on before it goes blank. Very frustrating.

Quick questions ladies! How often do you wash baby sleeping bags and their bedding? (obviously unless necessary if dirty/soiled)? Leo has been in 6-18m sleeping bags and I do wonder if they'll last that long, I wash them quite a lot??

Second question to those of you with LOs in nursery - please help the FTM out, what labels did you use please? My nursery requires pretty much everything to be labelled, including his bottle which will be sterilised there. Any tips please? I don't know what's best for clothes, shoes, bottles...I'm not labelling his dummies, right?! xx

It's bloody awful the site re-platform! Sorry for not really catching up.

Raging at OH this morning. He is off for 2 weeks as of next week to take DD as I go back to work. I'm still up feeding her during the night. Last night was awful, up 4 times! OH doesn't get up for her as she only settles for me. OH gets up early with her so I can nap.

OH asked this morning if next week I'll be getting up with her to give her breakfast and her morning nap walk seeing as that's the arrangement we have when he's at work.... well no! He expected me to be up every 2 or 3 hours at night, up at 6am, out for a walk then start work all day. Just so he can get a couple of hours extra sleep then do nothing as he's off.

Not only that but in that 2 weeks DD starts nursery plus his mum is down to help him. You'd think he had no bloody clue how to look after his daughter. I've been doing all that myself since birth. Feck sake.

@Ready2020 thats not on at all! I'd be fuming x

@WolfMother326 Sorry I'm so bad at checking in on here! Yes I'm 10 weeks with baby 3!
Tiredness is slowly subsiding, no sickness so I'm hoping that means we're all good on that front!

Hope you're all ok xx

@WolfMother326 Also - Crohn's is hit and miss at the moment. But I'm hoping as pregnancy progresses it will settle again!

Hi girls. Unsure if we're still on this thread or a new one.

However I wanted to let you know that unfortunately baby no longer has a heartbeat (11 weeks). We're devastated obviously but just cuddling our earth babies even tighter.

Appointment tomorrow to talk next steps as nothing has happened yet naturally.

@Jessicapebbles I am so so sorry!