September 08 - New Year PFBs, Last Year BFPs!

[ninja]

Hi - welcome to the new thread!

Just got a chart from a baby group which shows different development times - it has clouds for 'stormy' perieds and there's a big one over 14.5 - 19.5 weeks! Thought this might make you feel better.

The next one is at 22.5 weeks.

Had a visit from a lovely HV (sadly not mine). Very into weaning at 26 weeks and being relaxed about it.

Anyone's lo's gone 9 days without a proper poo? M had a really small one a few days ago - but at the moment is SOOOO smelly, I can't wait for this one to come (but am secretly hoping it comes while DH has her )

Hopefully yes Breast Milk has more fat and nutrition anyway, solids won't help weight gain. My DD1 LOST weight when she started on solids.

DD1 went from 25th to 75th so equally there must be some babies who go down. Hope you're not feeling too concerned about it.

'I assume I'm doing the right thing just BFing more?'

Absolutely. Call one of the bfing helplines if you want 'expert' reassurance.

What percentile was he at 8 weeks?

The percentile charts are not an exam or competition. You don't get full marks for getting him to 100%.

Offering more breastfeeds is absolutely the right thing to do. If anything, it might actually help to drop the ff for a bit and re-establish the baby/boob relationship but this isn't essential, just maybe helpful. i.e. going back to pure supply and demand newborn phase and (sorry) forgetting about routine for a little bit.

As for being a bad mother. Don't be daft.

And weaning? - Ask your mum which she thinks has more calories, pureed carrot or milk!

My friend has just gone into hospital with pre-eclampsia She's been feeling rubbish for a while but put it down to a stressful handover to her mat cover at work and sleeping badly. She's 36 weeks tomorrow. Her BP is something over 97. I have no idea what that actually means - how much higher do they let it go?
We were supposed to be going out for a curry tonight and our other friend and I have bought tons of 'baby shower' type presents as a surprise, we've got bags of them! I was so looking forward to surprising her with it, and enjoying the curry! Even if they let her out after monitoring I doubt we'll be going out.

After the recent extra feeding by ds, I now have exploding boobs again! At singing group this morning I leaked through breastpad, bra, vest and top. And my cardigan is too tight to do up

hopefully don't shoot me for saying this, but if you are determined to do routine, then I'm afraid you're breaking one of the golden rules of not letting your baby self-settle. They say that however your baby fell asleep, is what they'll need to get back to sleep when they wake up. For us with dd, this was the dummy, and we had very disturbed nights for a long time. T is obviously used to being rocked, cuddled or fed to sleep, so is looking for this when he wakes up in the early hours. I'm not criticising, it sounds like you have lovely daytimes and are really enjoying life with T which is brilliant, but if you want to change the overnight waking, I'm afraid the key might well be in the self-settling at other times. Personally I like to be at home at lunchtime, and put both dcs to bed and have a couple of hours to myself/the housework. Oh who am I kidding I'm on MN. But on the days we go out, I put ds to bed at 12, and once he's asleep I move him to the buggy/carseat. HTH. And I really wouldn't worry about the weight - ds has dropped to 9th centile and no one has mentioned ff to us, he's clearly well and happy with plenty of nappy output. You're doing brilliantly so keep ignoring the ff/weaning voices!

CarrieBo I know what you mean. I'm actually thinking of trying to settle him in his cot after his 10:30pm feed, as he is literally asleep within about 30 seconds of finishing the feed now.
The lunchtime one I'm figuring we'll begin to have his nap at home when he's old enough to not fall asleep the second he goes in the pram (probably in a month or two when he goes into the 'seat' bit of the pram and I can occupy him, rather than being in the carrycot), and that will improve things on the self settling front.
In all honesty, I'm not that fussed about the night waking for another couple of weeks, at least until I know he's properly gaining weight - gives me an opportunity to stuff more calories into him!

Ninja and Starlight thanks for the reassurance! Makes me feel less cross about the night feeds too, as he's obviously needing the calories at the moment.

CarrieBo, sorry to hear about your friend. If she'll be stuck in hospital for a while she'l probably love having you visit and give her pressies though.

Weaning, Katie is 5 and a half months now and desperate for food. She eyes my food up, tries to grab what I'm eating and even got hold of her sister's spoon the other day and tried to ram it into her mouth. So, today I let her have a little bit of apple pure which she was very keen on. I'm planning on just letting her have a couple of teaspoons of fruit or veg and maybe a ricecake to chew on for the next couple of weeks as I'm in no rush to have her drink less milk.

how exciting that katie's grabbing spoons Sassa

A is 20 weeks this weekend. I've been letting him 'sniff' my food, to get him used to different food smells. Yesterday I let him lick my banana, he got very exited and actually started gnawing on it but when i pulled it away he pushed all the little bits in his mouth out so he is clearly too young for swallowing anything other than milk. Today i let him lick a bit of my pear. Each chunk I ate i would offer him to look at and when he moved his hands from his mouth and opened up i let him taste it. He seemed intrigued!

excited not exited

Sassy and Digi - I think that's what the start of weaning is about. A bit of exploration not 3 meals of tastless baby rice a day.

We finally got a poo, yippee. Hoping there's be less pumping tonight in bed . I'm putting it down to the lovely baby massage I gave her this morning.

Hooray for the poo Ninja

M was eyeing up my raw carrot stick the other day so I gave him one. He held it, rammed it into his mouth and sucked on it for quite a while. It was quite funny to watch. I think it felt on his gums (it was straight out of the fridge) more than anything.

Hopefully - ds has dropped a couple of percentiles since he was born and it wouldn't surprise me if he drops some more in the coming months. The boob is no longer the be all and end all for him, and as long as he's happy and still growing (albeit at a slower rate than previously) I won't worry about it. Mankind survived before the invention of scales and charts

I agree with sassy, digi and ninja. If Andrew tries to grab something I'm eating and it's something suitable for him to eat then I'm not going to stop him grabbing it and stuffing it in his mouth, it'd be interesting to see what he does with it. At the moment though he only goes for crisps and chocolate and I'm thinking they might not be the best first foods.

And thanks digitalgirl for reminding me how old ds2 is. I couldn't think earlier if he was nearly 19, 20 or 21 weeks but I know he's a day younger than A so you've sorted that for me.

CarrieBo hope your friend and her baby are ok, I don't think the blood pressure number really means anything on its own as it's what it's like compared to her normal blood pressure that gets the midwifes worried. Mine was something over 110 at one point in my 1st pregnancy and its normally something less over about 75.

MOTHERS
Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it.
Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox.
Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.
Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of carpets.
Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.
Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?' and get their answer when a little voice says, 'Because I love you best.'
Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or years or grade...It is marked by the progression of Mummy to Mum to Mother...

The Images of Mother
4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mummy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mum knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother doesn't really know quite everything.
14 YEARS OF AGE - Naturally, Mother doesn't know that, either.
16 YEARS OF AGE - Mother? She's hopelessly old-fashioned.
18 YEARS OF AGE - That old woman? She's way out of date!
25 YEARS OF AGE - Well, she might know a little bit about it.
35 YEARS OF AGE - Before we decide, let's get Mum' s opinion.
45 YEARS OF AGE - Wonder what Mum would have thought about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE - Wish I could talk it over with Mum.

Starlight that's fantastic! you'll be brilliant, really hope they manage to raise the funding, an ante natal class would be very lucky to have you as a teacher. I still fondly remember your lessons on 'the survival period', which i clung onto when T was being absolutely horrendous in the early days!

Jeez, T clearly not remotely ready for weaning - I can sit and eat a 3 course meal in front of him and all he's interested in is flapping his arms around and grinning at us!

Deb I love that

Starlight Congrats on the news. And how is it one simple sentence
'And weaning? - Ask your mum which she thinks has more calories, pureed carrot or milk!'
Makes you think. Obviously weaning is about giving baby the chance to defelop tastes of different food and get used to textures way before they need them. It would be pretty silly to start weaning the day before you stop giving them milk. They need time to learn all about eating.
So why do so many people (usually mil's) including health professionals say 'they are hungry start weaning them' I have a friend who started weaning her son because he was drinking 9oz bottles at 2 weeks old. Surely a few spoons of baby rice didn't suddenly fill his belly up??

That sounds ace, starlight. you definitely have the personality and knowledge for that.

Hopefully, about T dropping %iles. Some babies 'catch down' after birth. Also look at your size and your dh's size. If you two are not big people then T wouldn't be either.

I am avg for height but well below avg for weight. I have a v. slight frame so to make me 'average' for my weight would actually make me overweight, iyswim. DH is avg for height but above avg for weight. He has a big frame so to be avg for weight he'd look gaunt.

So, look at your build, your dh's build and factor those things in when you think of how much T 'ought to' weigh.

And what you say is right, offer more (or longer) breastfeeds. Formula is no more calorific and solids have less calories.

Hello all...

DS2 got a horrid cold/cough thing
Its interesting to hear all the differing views on weaning...with ds1 I weaned at 19/20 weeks. Went very well. However, ds2 is such a different baby....who knows when he will be ready? Cant even remember what signs to look for! Isnt it lack of tongue thrust/able to sit well/hold head up well/interest in your food????

DS2 is definately interested when we eat and makes cute slurping noises as if he is joining in!!!

Got his 4 month check with HV next week, so no doubt it will be discussed then.

Have a great weekend!

Bah - was going to have meal out with MrNC on thursday, but sitter ended up having to look after friend who concussed himself tripping over and landing on her computer...
So she came up on friday. i was a bit queasy but when mrnc came home we decided to go out anyway.

got 50 yards away and had to come back to throw up. spent rest of evening on bathroom floor. still, at least had sitter and 2 bottles of ebm so didn't have to worry about him.

feeling a lot better today but A is a bit fussy and pooing for England - I'm assuming just carrying on bf despite me throwing up all evening is ok? he had about 300ml formula last night which is probably it. tomorrow we'll try pizza express and A can test a high chair!

next week he has his 4-month jabs and I have the MMR as I've never had it or measles or mumps (had rubella vax), and we have a local measles outbreak that's killed a couple babies and put 1 in 10 in hospital.

That's great starlight, from all the advice you've given on here I think it sounds perfect for you.

Hope you feel better notcitrus and hope A doesn't catch it too.

I went shopping today and got 2 really good bargains. One was this in WH Smiths. It was only £5, reduced from £20! DS2 had vouchers from Christmas so although we need more books like we need a hole in the head I had to get him it. Its got 5 books including a cloth one and a bath one and a set of flash cards. It's definitely worth the money and the shop in Basingstoke had loads so worth a look if you're in a Smiths anyway. In fact I bought 3 altogether for presents for pregnant friends.

The other bargain was a dress for my cousins wedding in March, it was in Kaliko in Debenhams and was reduced from £100 to £20!!! As soon as I saw it I wanted it and couldn't believe that the only 1 they had was my size.

Foxy, DP and I are extremely average height and weight, so there's no reason to assume that T should be anything above 50th, and 50th to 25th doesn't sound nearly as alarming as 98th to 25th!
Thanks everyone for the reassurance - hoping that increased daytime feeds will improve the situation! T has yet to get round to demanding a feed during the day time since I started this strategy, but he looks pleasantly surprised every time I offer.

NC poor you with the illness, and yes, keep feeding! Hope the jabs aren't too awful.

Had a really lovely normal day today - went shopping in Southampton (OMG, I love TK Maxx, got loads of cute baby clothes and some kitchen stuff insanely cheaply), and met up with a friend who's 14 weeks PG - was so nice to be able to chat about it with one of my 'old life' friends. T is sleeping in car seat in front of the telly now we're back.

Re T's night waking, we've decided to try a couple of things:

• Offer more daytime feeds (doing this anyway due to low weight gain!)
• Settle T in his cot after his evening and 10:30pm feeds (shouldn't be too difficult now his evening routine is so much more settled and predictable)
• Not leap up at the first little grizzle when he wakes at 3am and 5am (DP admitted he has reverted to picking T up at the first grizzle, and sometimes realises he isn't even properly awake yet - he used to do this, and when he stopped T began to go a little bit longer every night). We're going to give it a good couple of weeks of doing this, which should give my supply plenty of time to adjust to any changes in demand, and give this sleep regression phase a bit of a chance to sort itself out before we try anything like PU/PD etc.

i agree starlight you'd be perfect!

debi aw! (btw A is DS1...haven't got round to making DS2 yet!)

Went to my two little brother's birthday party today. It involved coming face to face with my ex-step-mother (their mother), but we rather civilly stayed out of each other's way. It was a very noisy party - full of screaming 5 and 9 year olds but after the initial shock of crowd, noise and the smell of fried food, DS shed a few tears then actually fell asleep whilst the 5 year olds were singing Whitney Houston lovesongs on the karaoke at max volume.

After all that excitement, A settled down for his bedtime feed but kept shoving his fingers in his mouth at the same time. Eventually pulled off and just went hell for leather on his fist. So decided that he'd had enough, gave him some teething powder and put him in his cot while he still seemed to be in a good mood. 30 minutes later he was fast asleep with NO whinging . I have to watch him fall asleep though, I can't leave the room...am too worried he'll be sick and rub his face in it so I sit there watching him fidgit and squirm while I clutch a muslin ready to wipe away any regurgitated milk.

hopefully A doesn't seem to have worked out that after 2 weeks of 'not being picked up at first grizzle' he is STILL waking between feeds. Grrrr. DH reckons we have made progress and that at least he's not pacing the house for 30 minutes twice a night. Hoping tonight will be different (she says again).

DG don't you just love the eternal optimism?! Every night I say 'tonight will be different'. Very impressed with the whinge free settling though!

hi everyone!

stalight, you'd be brill!

nothing much to report here, DD had not fever today, after 2 horribe days really, but still on funny, only really fed one side at the time all day... hope she'll be back to "normal" (whatever that is realy) . and as she's sleeping, her brother is calling me... night night