March 2008:A new thread before they start crawling!

[turtle23]

Thought it was about time....

Tee hee. G cries when he finishes one. I think it's because he can't get to the little bit trapped in his fist. Shame.

OMG @ your weaning tales.

Shit, maybe I should have done a bit more homework on this.

We started weaning DD three weeks ago and all she's had is sweet potato (mash and very unsuccessful finger food), carrot (mash and extremely popular steamed carrot sticks), pear puree and baby rice.

I initially totally bottled out on the BLW and did baby rice and then pureed pear but then once she was having them and I was convinced she was able to swallow I relaxed a bit and tried carrot sticks.

But you guys are doing all recipes and fancy things. Poor DD only has steamed vegetables, no oil, no seasoning. No wonder she eats so little (about 1 icecube worth of veg mash for lunch).

JFly poor you with your shoulder, that sounds very sore. I wrenched my shoulder once years ago (by falling off a rope ladder over a ball pool ). Make sure you get some physio if you can. It can take a long time to heal such a big and complicated group of muscles.

LOL @ hellyberry back again. Surely it's too early for Hallowe'en names now?

Right I'm off to read the weaning board and see if I can learn something.

Here is a question I have been wondering about but now feel foolish to ask: is it OK to give them raw fruit or must it be cooked? e.g. I'm thinking of cutting up an apple and just giving bits to DD to eat. Bad idea? I will peel it.

I feel so ridiculous to be worrying about this.

BTW we managed to solve our sleep issue - DH and I have decamped to a different room. It turns out WE were disturbing HER

evening all. Very impressed with what all your LO's are eating, mine likes purees and yogurt but nothing else. Have tried him on slightly thicker stuff but he just spits out the lumps in disgust. Likes a bit of rice cake or the wotsit-like carrot sticks from Organix but only as teething relief, then gets narked when they disintegrate and teething pain is still there.
Finally got a full night's sleep last night, i think putting bolster pillows down the length of the cot helped him feel more secure and stopped him bashing his head on the side bars. He's crying a bit tonight as his teeth are really hurting, one day they'll come through! I can feel the tip of the front one but it just isn't breaking through the surface yet

DH has the first of our Fridays off to look after LO, I expect him to be frazzled when i get home from work. He has the cheek to want me to get home early so he can get into Cardiff for a book signing - I pointed out he could take LO with him, but he doesn't think he could cope if E starts crying while he's in the queue....men.

Jaysus, the weaning board is rough.

Wow, I thought people got wound up about BF/FF.

The phrase "tied their babies down and shovelled mush into them" was used to describe people weaning onto purees pre the 6 month guideline.

I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and steal ideas from you lot

So, raw apples, OK or not OK?

skidoodleraw apple not the best idea ime, raw ripe pear fine but apple has a tendency to break into small pieces which could cause choking, i would leave apple for a bit

aitchs blw blog gives some good ideas for finger food even if you dont want to blw, but would like some inspiration for food stuffs

i did actually see a baby being force fed puree recently, baby was laid down flat on back and hands held down as the food was forced in from as baby moved head from side to side but i think it is pretty rare

after feeling a bit at your offering for your babies, i made polenta and roasted butternut squash tonight.

Anyone know a good recipe for butternut squash soup for the majority of the squash for dd and i? am baking bread so could be a good lunch after the gym tomorrow!

this is os simple and so damn good. but them i'm a sucker for their 'buy ingredients button' on their recipe pages. lazy moo, me...

anyway, apple - i tend to eat about half the apple myself, especially the skin and then give the remainder to gg to suck, chew, graze, handle. he gets a great deal of pleasure/learning/fun/juice/teething relief out of them but cannot nip/bend bits off, as he might be able to do from a slice. did the same with ds1, and as their teeth come in they kind of learn to scrape bits off safely. as a bonus, ds1 still eats at least 1 apple a day.

oooh, i was pretty hardcore on BLW with ds1 myself, much less so with gg, as he's too damn hungry and ds1 simply wasn't. so you tell em to come on over here if they think their al denta pasta is hard enough

ooh, good luck fn41 and dh on the end of first week!

LOL at skidoodle running back to us for comfort

You could try grated apple. I haven't tried raw apple for reasons littleducks says, but grated would probably do away with choking worry and should be relatively easy for baby to pick up if you pile it in a big enough clump. May experiment with that with DS tomorrow.

The raw fruit that has worked for us as finger food is pear, nectarine and banana as they are nice and soft and DS can gum them really easily. Is it wrong that I find watching my poor boy chase disintegrating, juicy, slippery fruit around the high chair tray so amusing? Raw papaya was yesterday's new discovery - but so juicy that it was easier to mush roughly with fork and give on spoon. DS couldn't get enough of it and wolfed down half a papaya in about 30 seconds...

Fn41 - apart from yesterday's papaya, my DS refuses anything lumpy. Likes purees, likes all sorts of finger food but loathes the inbetween .

and for the poor baby littleducks saw. It's my big worry with giving DS puree as I think it could be very easy to start trying to force him to take it without even realising it. I try to treat puree on a spoon as just another finger food on his tray and grit my teeth when he flings a spoon loaded with beetroot at my lovely sparkly dining room wallpaper...

Final message of night, honest, and completely off the weaning topic. Does anyone else dress their DC largely in babygros? My NCT friends came round today and commented on how L was still in his pyjamas. He'd just got up from a nap, so I think they thought I'd changed him for bed and hadn't got round to changing him back into an outfit when actually he just spends all day in babygros I've had quite enough of dealing with socks that don't stay on so he only gets jeans/cords on special occasions now! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a bit odd (I think babies look really cute in babygros) as well as a bit slovenly in my baby-dressing duties!

dd wore some lovely dresses (sp? my brain is broken ) and such when she was tiny but i have deliberately kept ds exclusively in babygrows as i realised when dd was a bit bigger that i couldnt put her back into babygrows as she was too big and walking wearing shoes so her babyhood was over at one i am keeping ds looking like a baby to keep a lid on my broodiness!!! We have some lovely babygrows as well, kids always point out he is a 'superbaby' when he wears the one with the superman logo on the front and ds loves the attention. You should dress your baby in whatever you like though as now dd is two she has suddenly developed a strong opinion on what she should be wearing. HQ-thanks for the idea will try grating apple soon, had forgotten that trick

Wow, impressed with the weaning. My dd is 7 1/2 months now and still hardly eats anything. Very much still on single items rather than recipes. She loves her spoons though! Porridge, fruit, yoghurt, toast (her favourite) and veg sticks. She's had a bit of cottage pie, maybe I need a book of recipes! Made the mistake of trying mango and now that's all she wants.
HQ - agree on cuteness of babygros! I do find dungarees good though, still 'all in one' and comfortable and a bit tougher on the kn ees for crawling.

Oh and I finally found some socks that stay on - Tescos!

noolia - thanks for the tip. tesco socks are one of the few brands I haven't
tried so will pick some up this weekend and give them a go

I clearly have a big issue with cold feet - my other favourite outfit is a long sleeved vest and then those trousers that just look like the bottom half of the babygro with feet enclosed! V. difficult to get hold of in bigger sizes though - I've resorted to charity shops and TK Maxx as our Mothercare is out of the bigger sizes. If anyone spots any, can you let me know?

I despaired of getting socks to stay on, but as I have a daughter I put her in tights. Had 2 unforeseen advantages- I got a lot of pairs of shorts in the summer sales to go with them and with patterned tights she really does seem to feel her feet are toys.
I never got on with babygros- the logistics of aligning poppers at 2.00 in the morning was a parenting challenge too far.
Vertbaudet often have footed (?) trousers, certainly do in the pyjama section.

falke cats pad socks are v. good for staying on. the smallest size are still a bit big for g, but really thikc and warm. have rubber dots for gripping, when that is needed soon.

weare - I am actually considering tights for DS for winter!

back on weaning topic, the pitta pizzas I mentioned that I was going to make were a HUGE success (finally got round to them today). DS has just wolfed down 2/3 of a pitta himself with barely any mess. I'm sure he would have eaten more but I ate the rest - for quality control purposes, honest

I split a pitta, spread the insides with some homemade tomato sauce, added some thin slices of cheddar and then toasted in the toaster (I have one of those sandwich cage things). Sliced it into fingers and plonked in front of DS. He ended up ripping the bits of pitta in half as they were a bit thick with the stuffing so guess I could grill half a pitta with sauce to up the veg to bread ratio.

god i'm bored. it's making me fancy a fag. think will have nap instead. roll on the w/e, for a change of pace.

im on the 'sorting the house out' thread if you want to join merry? am trying to get kids to nap atm, but the dont really want to and i would love to, so perhaps sleeping more fun

sorted the house the last 2 days, sudden excess of energy. hence onset of boredom now. had a rest. still a bit bored. aha! baby wakes, something to do...ttfn. good luck sorting!

holy superbabies, batman...DS just got himself onto the sofa. I'm terrified. Is he a freak? He did have a cushion to climb up on, I hasten to add...

I did spaghetti bolognese BLW stylee yesterday, messy but DD loved it! Her favourite foods are philadelphia on toast/pitta/bagel, cheese, broccoli, grean beans, semolina and mash potato. Oh and she adores yoghurts! The thing I love is the noises she makes whilst eating, she's all "mmmm, nom, nom, nom, mmmmmmmmmm".

I'm doing a mix of purees (at nursery as that's what all of the other babies have and she was getting upset at not having the same and just having veg to chew on) and BLW more at home.

SIL had her baby on Sat, got to 10cm after long induction and then needed c-section. Harry born at a healthy 8lb 11oz and I'm going up to see them for cuddles this weekend [excited].

XP and I are currently in negotiations about trying again, me going back to work has really adjusted the balance between us and I am back to being me and we're being equal parents which is equating to happiness all round, so we'll see on that note.

DD fell out of bed earlier this week [bad mummy] I keep forgetting that she is mobile! Hope everyone is ok and has a fab weekend

Oh IWASO - the trouble begins! DD can't get up on to the sofa but she does pull herself up in the cot and on my coffee table, found her on the lower shelf of coffee table the other day. So glad DD is a shorty, she has no chance with my sofa!

prison cell playpen?

Ewe - good news on you and your XP. I think it is brilliant how the two of you keep talking and keep trying and wish you lots of luck that things work out well

Off to a 3rd birthday party today. Introducing DS to shepherd's pie tomorrow. So far so mundane... However I am on a girls' night out with my best friend tonight while our DHs babysit. Booked a ludicrously expensive restaurant for 9pm - plenty of time to get trolleyed on ludicrously expensive cocktails in the bar beforehand . Not very credit crunch behaviour, but then I've not been spending on going out for months so have decided to have a blow out!

Oh, it is scary having babies that move! DD is loving edging her way around. Woke up this morning to see her peering over the top of her cot at me! She doesn't have controlled descent yet though. I'm finding it quite hard to impress the need for constant viligance on dh, he hasn't realised how quickly she can move yet . She thinks the new fire guard is a climbing frame - I think we might have to get an inner and an outer one!

re:weaning (have lots to say - dd better eater than sleeper!), have been doing blw and puree simultaneosly since the beginning (5.5 months). she also loves yogourt and have given raw apple for a while now. just did avocado and chickpea spread on taost fingers which she loved but good idea about the fruit puree, will try that!

cucumber is her fav finger food. puree favs: butter bean/tomato/ onion/coriander and spinich/carrot/basil (thought she would hate but she loves. also just tried cous cous and it was a hit - mixed it with the annabel karmel tomato/cheese/carrot recipie.

sleeping not improving but i am trying another round of sleep training and it went well the first night. she's currently in her room trying to go to sleep but doing more babling than anything else!