September 08 - New Year PFBs, Last Year BFPs!

[ninja]

Hi - welcome to the new thread!

Just looked at the high chairs, really like the ikea one. We want something that we can fold away as we don't have a lot of room but that one looks good and is half the price of the 'cheap' ones in Asda. Do like the tripp trapp but it is something ds would end up sitting in, like the pram, the carry cot. the moses basket and the car seat.

Robyn is now sucking her fingers about 90% of the day, yet she won't suck them to sleep. I still end up feeding her a little, if I don't she screams for 2-3 mins until she drops off. I don't like leaving her to cio but she only does it when she is shattered and I can't feed her, such as out for a walk, so hoping it isn't doing too much harm.

DH said last night I will have to stop falling asleep with her in bed. I have been so shattered that I just drop off. I used to prop the pillows up and sit and feed her but found that it made loads of squeaky noise and if i dropped off my arm would sag and Robyn would jerk back to sleep.
How do you get them to self settle? If i try and soothe her with my hand on her chest she hates it and it wakse her more.

hopefully ds sleeps 9-9:45, 12-2:30 (or later if I'm asleep!! and anything between half an hour and an hour between 4 and 5. He seems to have a sleepy time at about ten to four each day, so I put him in bed and get him up at 4:45. He's often grizzly by 6:15 but the bath time totally revives him. He has a feed at 6 before his bath, then a top up snoozy feed before being in bed at 7ish. HTH.

ponymum you sound just like me when I did weaning the first time round, but once you get started you'll soon get into the swing of it. FWIW I have no intention of doing BLW. I loved making a ton of purees in one evening, freezing them in little pots, and not having to prepare any food for the next month. I didn't sterilise anything, and warmed stuff in the microwave and made sure i gave it a jolly good stir. I always gave dd some finger food to go with her meal (rice cake, banana, bread etc) but she couldn't eat as much as she wanted that way, which made us rename it 'Baby Limited Weaning'.

highchairs We don't have much space so went for this booster seat instead of a highchair. There are lots of booster seats on the market but this one has a really solid feel to it, a nice curved seat for little bottoms, is very easy to clean, and has lasted fantastically. Dd still sits in hers up at the table and I should imagine will do for a long time to come, and we've got the identical one for ds to start using when the time comes. When we go to my parents we just chuck it in the car, and it easily goes in the understairs cupboard if we have guests and need to use the chair that its parked on. I highly recommend it to those with a small house or budget!

Both kids are asleep, I'm off for a nap too...

starlight - no I haven't posted on the weaning threads. I was too scared after reading some of the nasty responses other people got!

hopefully - craving your muffins! I used to make some with pumpkin, honey and yoghurt... now where did I put that recipe..? (Voice screams NO, NO, don't think about baking now that I finally have a diet going in the right direction!! Gaaarr!)

And I totally agree with confusion over rush to wean. Why would anyone hurry to make their life 10 times more complicated?

I am going to start making purees and putting them in the freezer this weekend! Going to do butternut sqaush, parsnip and carrott to start with

I promise I'll be nice to you hopefully. I'll probably be late and will have forgotten a child and have another one still in his pjs.

Today Andrew is experimenting with his lunchtime nap- by trying not to have one. Grrr. Yest he slept for over 2.5 hours, today half an hour. And when he woke- still tired- I couldn't even try to settle him in his (our) room as ds1 had just gone to bed and wouldn't go to sleep if he could hear ds2. So I've just spent half an hour pushing him up and down the kitchen where he has finally gone off again. Seems that if he falls asleep in the car before he would normally be going to sleep, even for 2 mins, it messes up his sleep for the rest of the day.

We bought a plastic monstrosity high chair which we'll have to use again. It is one that reclines which was useful at the start with ds1 as he wasn't 6 months when he started food. The main reason for getting that one though was that it does different heights and the tray comes off completely so we thought it'd go at the table with the tray off but of course none of the heights were right and the shape of our table meant that didn't work.
I do like those cheap versions of the triptrap though. I wanted the triptrap originally but refused to spend that much money on one.

the legs of the ikea chair simply screw off to make it v portable. it is v light but sturdy and it just wipes clean with no tricky grooves to test your cleaning skill.

debi everything you say bout your plastic highchair is so true bout mine, wonder if iys the same one? but different design on seat

Looked at the ikea chair on ebay and unless you live near someone who won't post you are looking at over £20 yet at ikea they are under a tenner. Have to pluck the courage to visit ikea in leeds now as they do look good.

Just had Robyn weighed she is 18 weeks, 19 on Friday and is now 11lb 5 ozs. Her chart has her in the shaded bit. HV did her length and height 60cm and 40.6cm and she said she was in proportion just not putting on weight quickly enough.
To her credit she didn't try and get me to introduce formula or weaning but she wants me to get her weighed regularly from now on.
I think she is just going to be a slow grower.

Anyway going to start planning pureeing as it is about the only cooking i can do successfully

I've been reading a book about BLW and it makes total sense to me so i'm going to attempt it rather than purees, but I have an Annabel Karmel book at the ready too! I think that everyone is different and certain weaning strategies appeal to different personalities.

DD was bought a plastic high chair monstrosity for Xmas, totally wouldn't have been my choice as I would've liked a small wooden one but i'm grateful for having it, one less thing to mess around trying to find and undoubtedly saved me a fortune.

We did the deed the other night, it's taken DP 4.5 months to pluck up the courage, I was ready months ago, bloody wimp! Anyway, it was fine, no different than pre-pg I don't think so nice to know I got an 8lb 2oz baby out of there with no lasting effects!!

Hi all - well things have moved on since last week.

We're still waiting for the referral to come through from the paediatric dietician (the GP has definitely sent it) but the Nutramigen is working a treat. I tried it all last week with half breast milk and she was totally normal baby on it. Updated the GP in Monday and we are now giving it to her straight up and it's wonderful.

In aadition, she also seems to have gotten over her bottle aversion and is now happily taking bottles as long as the milk is warm (she's a real fusspot, DS has it how it came).

My plan is now to start phasing out BFing as she definitely uses me as a dummy at night. DP looked after her during the night on Fri and Sat and she only woke up once on Fri and slept right through on Sat, whereas last night for me it was back to every hour.

I've also started her on the bay rice once a day, which is going really well and she seems to absolutely love the flavour.

So my big issues now are all sleep related. Since she's started rolling she no longer wants to be on her back so we've had to stop wrapping her, but she still takes out her dummy and bats at her face which wakes her up. She really likes having her blanket loose over her face, but of course there is the SIDS worry re. this. How does anyone else do it?

Also I know that quite a few of you had the night waking problem at 4 months, but has this now settled down for you or is it still continuing as I am struggling with virtually no sleep at all at night.

Oh and to top it all off I got a call from my boss earlier telling me I am at risk of redundancy. I will find out on 9th Feb.

yes, i'd gone off the tesco one, i'm really thinking bout getting the obaby one and its all your fault MN!!

anyone want to buy a huge useless plastic luxurious reclining highchair??

sunshine at your possible redundancy news but at least it will sort out your return to work problems!

It won't because I need to work (financially as well as for my brain) so will need to find something! Very worried tbh as I've built up a reasonable reputation, have a lovely boss, and am able to leave on time to collect DS from nursery. Would really worry about starting again at this stage.

fingers crossed for you then sunshine

On the high chair debate DS has a Trip Trap which he still loves using so we have just bought Effy another one and she's already sitting in it quite happily. We do also have a Handysitt, which we found great for having in the car for when we went anywhere but it's a bit bulky to carry around, and a Handbag Highchair, which I alwasy had in the bottom of the pram.

Have just dropped off the registration fee and deposit at A's nursery... at least there's 6 months before he has to go there, and I really like the place, so I'm feeling that it's an opporunity for him to have more fun, rather than just somewhere to put him because I have to.

Very glad he doesn't have to go to one of the other two I saw, both are OK and have outstanding Ofsteds (allegedly, the site claims there's no reports within 3 miles of me), but one had bored staff not interacting with the kids and dirty floors, and the other was great except for the sarcastic owner. Piles of money, but still only 2/3 the price of the nursery everyone tries to go to (oh noes, A won't get yoga lessons...)

Before I know it, I'll be worrying about getting into primary schools! Ran into my ex-boss this morning who tried to get me to do exactly that...

After ponymum's comment - I confess too - everyone seems to be raving about BLW but I can't find specifics. I'm not sure it's for us (I like Carrie's description of purrees/mashed foods along side finger foods like bread - sounds like a good combination, that way I can be sure she's getting enough veggies etc) but a brief summary of the principles of BLW would be really helpful, if some star woman would oblige. Like ponymum I looked on mn but most threads seem to be arguements about which is better!!

Oooh - on a lighter note, am proud as managed to make a home made chicken pie for tea last night!!

Carriebo that's interesting - perhaps I should attempt longer afternoon nap before attempting to abandon it. He tends to doze for 15-20 mins, wake up, and then would doze some more, but I usually just get him up rather than letting him doze.

Lollipop congratulations! I'm going to the doc on Monday to get everything checked (again), as I'm still fairly uncomfortable, so DP's not getting anywhere near me till I've had that double checked. Once it's checked, I might start contemplating the prospect!

Sunshinemummy that's brilliant news! So glad she's doing a bit better, and hope you get the night time sleep sorted. And hope you don't get made redundant.
I've been pretty lucky in that T is sleeping much better now growth spurt is over - he usually does one stretch of at least 5 hours, then feeds and does another hour or two.
However, he does love having a muslin over his face as well. If he wakes in the night he will usually be settled by draping it over his mouth and he rubs his lips over it. A couple of times we've left it there as I think it's fairly difficult to suffocate on a muslin (I have stuffed one determinedly over my mouth to check ), but I still worry about it, so can't really advise.

NC I really need to start thinking about (a) whether I'm going to go back to work and (b) childcare for if I do, can't believe you're already organised!

BLW: If you wait till 6 mo. you can give them the same things you eat when you make it and when you have it. No extra work.

the only consideration is when to add the salt to dishes. So, give them the veg, taties, meat, etc from the sunday dinner but skip the gravy. No mashing, chopping etc needed. Just let them get on with it. I'd recommend giving a baby a piece of broccoli and half a yorkshire pud on the tray rather than a mini plate of the lot. Will control the mess that could occur.

Do not expect them to eat any much of it at first.

The dominant practice in the UK is to have them eating 3 square meals and pudding by 9 months. Current weaning guidelines by the DOH is that the majority of a baby's nutrients at this age should still be coming in the form of milk. So at 9 months in actual fact, most baby's on BLW will still be getting most of their nutrition from milk and just starting to eat appreciable amounts of food.

The best thing is to not worry about what you should do to BLW and to use your creativity. If you go to Aitch's site at www.babyledweaning.com, she has an area for FAQ for newbies. Whatever you fancy, just see if it fits within those broad guidelines.

ROFL starlight

So sorry about redundancy worries sunshine

As I said earlier, we use a booster seat as our dcs permenant highchairs, and they're great for sitting them up at the table with us or having the tray, and for out and about we use the totseat (there are lots of cheaper imitation ones on the market).

For some reason I'm soooooo sleepy today. Yaaaawn.