Sept 08: We'll soon be weaning, and of a full nights sleep we're dreaming ......

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Hello ladies.

Pull up a chair, grab a biscuit and lets start talking about puree vs blw and sleep deprivation

Sorry to hear sleeping's not going well for some of you.

On the BLW front, this is confusing! C isn't really eating enough to drop any milk feeds so I'm now feeding her 4 or 5 bottles a day and 2 lots of food. fair enough but when tea takes an hour and she's still hungry afterwards and the kitchen looks like a bomb's hit it, I feel like I have no time to do anything else but cook and feed her! Eat myself?? What's that??
Any magical tips [grasping at straws]?

Digi, total sympathies both in the work conundrum and in the attempt at sleep training. I know what you mean about being inconsistent, how easily it's done, and how guilty it makes one feel. As to my return to work, I visited the campus nursery (our office is inside one of the London Met campuses) but it was full. I would love to have him accepted there, as he would be in the same location as me, and it means I could even pop round for a bit of a BF lunchtime. I'm on waiting list, though. I confess that there is a part of me who is quite missing work, and in a way I think I'd like to go back 3 days a week soon... I think I am going to persevere with one bottle a day for a couple of weeks, then maybe introduce another. If I can be in morning and night breast feeds in a couple of months, I think that could work. Also, I feel that bottles may help get him into more of a routine, which will help when we start work.

Hopefully, you may not like this, but some Spanish mums swear for a very non-medical constipation remedy for babies: they stick the end of a parsley stalk up the little darling's bum. I can't vouch for it, but thought I'd mention it. Well done baby T on his first weaning poo explosion, though!

sunshine - I've been avidly googling the ellevill Zara, but it only comes up in russian sites. It could be me being thick... - where did you get it? It sounds quite good.

God, after I gave Diego baby rice, he conked out and slept but woke up screaming and distressed. He seemed VERY upset and would not be put down. I thought i had over riced him, but it was a poo explosion that he needed out of his system. It was very liquid. Would that be related to his first bottle of formula?

Sorry about the biblical post...

Pacita It depends of the amount of material and the position you use with the Storch, but put it this way, if I went to Tenerife I would not take the Storch, I will take a Gauze one, like the Calin or the Gypsymama gauze( £45.00)They are the thinnest around. Or a Mei-Tai

INFO this morning I called the Cow and Gate info line about the drinking water and they told me that up 12 months it is strongly advisabe to give them cool boiled water to drink. Thar was what I remembered I did with my ds. SORRY
Lorea weights around 8 kg.

Blimey you've all been busy today, took me ages to catch up.

plusonemore its good to see there's another boy out there like my ds1 in relation to potty training. They sound similar. I'm not worrying about mine yet, will maybe give it a go in the summer if he doesn't totally freak out.

carriebo and ponymum we once went to a pub for lunch with about 6 friends where you ordered and paid for main courses at the bar but they took your dessert order at the table and you had to pay for it at the end. But because everyone had paid for their mains and all their drinks we all forgot about dessert and all left. We then realised in the car that noone had paid for desserts and that earlier our debit card had been swiped as we had a tab on our own drinks! We went in and settled the bill in case they took extra off us when they realised we'd gone. DH then had to round everyone up at work on the Monday to get their £4.50s off them all.

we left ds2 crying for about 20 mins in his bed last night at 2am as he wasn't settling when dh held him and I couldn't face feeding him yet. Gave in eventually though and fed him and then he slept till 7! So still can't work out what to do.

carriebo I agree with what you say about leaving them to settle themselves- only problem we have with that at bedtime is that after his bottle ds2 will not wake up at all to be put in bed very awake, he's usually slightly with it but not really awake. And then when he cries at night I'm so scared of him waking ds1 that I daren't leave him crying (although I don't think he did disturb ds1 last night)

Off to Liverpool tomorrow for my cousins wedding on Sat. He's in the marines so I'm hoping for some hot men in uniforms to look at! Not quite figured out how to feed ds2 in my dress but never mind.
I've never been to Liverpool before, any tips of what to do on Sunday there?

pacita I've got this one. you'll see there are 2 uk stockists, same prices more or less

Robyn six months today, 26 weeks tomorrow (or in 2 and 1/2 hours)
Birth weight we think about 7lb 10. (We're convinced the birth weight was wrong so have been working out what could of been on the scales to up the weight)
Weighs 13 lbs
Don't know how as she feeds an enormous amount.
'Celebrated' her 6 months by visiting sister and robyn has decided she will talk to us. Ok it is only baby babble but she does it almost non-stop. She is at that point where you can tell what her voice is going to be like.

When I had dd1 you gave boiled water until 1 year old and as the water in Hull was that disgusting we boiled it for another year or so until she started drinking juice. Now we use a water filter but that is again to help the taste, and I don't like the scum you can get when you make peppermint tea.

God just worked out that is less then 1lb a month.
Trying to console myself that maybe she will be a slinky child and buck the trend of obese lazy children. Don't want her growing up like mummy

Happy 6-months Robyn!

Erin was 7lb 10oz at birth and last Friday weighed 15lb 15oz.

DH has been out with friends tonight and is currently on the train coming home. He is famous for falling asleep on trains and buses so fear he will end up at the end of the line and pay a small fortune in a cab home (again). Anyway not staying up any longer so nighty night all!

sunflower they ARE beautiful, those wraps. A bit pricey, but gorgeous.

Starlight are you sure??

Pacita lol at the parsley up the bottom! Give it another couple of weeks and I'll probably be despeate enough to try it.

Barnpot that's brilliant news, hope he continues to improve.

Imoscasmum I definitely feel we're on an endless cycle of BF, proper food, clear up mess, nap, BF, proper food, clea up mess, nap, and so on. I'm hoping it will improve when he finally drops a milk feed somewhere along the line and/or cuts back on a nap somewhere and/or gets quicker at BF or proper food.

Starlight what a pain - you'd think by 6 months we'd be beyond all that. I was so lucky in that mine cleared incredibly quickly with treatment from doc when I had it. Are you sure that's what it is?

Poor you Star off you pop to the docs today then theres a good girl

had a worse night last night, woke and fed at 10.30, 2.30, 4, then woke at 5 and i gave him a cloth which settled him (he loves putting it in his mouth just like his big bro) and then ds1 woke 5.45, then came into our room at 6, all up 6.30. He is so snotty this morning, it seems to be pouring out of him and his eyes are all watery too, poor baby.

Fingers crossed some of you will have had a better night!

Sounds like thrush to me starlight. Get ye to the GP's.

The whole parsley up the bum thing reminded me of something my friend used to do for her little boy. She used to load a cotton bud with vaseline and smear it just inside his bum hole. She swore by it.

sorry star, go to the GP asap, you don't want it to get worse!

DD's just screaching in her chair, she's such a happy baby (even though hopefully lollipop and eandz woudn't say so). she's just enjoying emptying her tommee tippee cup on the tray . for the first time this morning she acutally took the cup to drink herself as suppose to just play with it, she was really enjoying it (just filtered water here, as advised by HV, though I'd boil it at PILs as the water there is disgusting, though at least is not brownish anymore like few years back)

right, off to get the day started!

OMG, had an epic lie in till 8:15! T fed at 11:30 last night, then DP managed to resettle him at 2:30 and 4:30, and he had his 'middle of the night' bottle at 6am and conked out for another 2 hours! Well, I don't know how long he was actually asleep for - I was awake from 8am and could hear the odd head turning movement over the monitor, assumed it was in his sleep, but when I went in at 8:15 he was staring around happily, so I suppose he could have been up for a few mins already. Another first!

lol at your happy baby Sunflower. I live in hope of T figuring out the tommee tippee cup. Might try it with the cap off for a few days and see how he takes to that - will get him a doidy cup if it looks like being any kind of success.

Starlight hope you're on your way to the doc's.

Plusone we have a cloth addict here too - his favourite is his cashmere blanket, despite my best attempts to get him to fall in love with muslins. Sorry about your bad night!

star sorry to hear that. I think the ladies are right and a trip to the GP may be in order.

2nd bottle of formula last night. For some reason he was not into the idea to begin with, but took it afterwards. I'm going to give him boiled carrot for lunch. That's a suitable first veg, no?

Well done T!! Feeling better for it Hopefully? And the sun is shining today.

having a good day so far - C had a huge milk feed and ate porridge and watermelon for breakfast and is now conked out in her daytime grobag, so I've managed to hoover and prepare the cauliflower cheese for tonight's tea (great tip from DP, ex chef, for quick cheese sauce - take carton of full fat creme fraiche and melt it gently in pan. Add grated cheese and heat gently till all is melted in. Et voila! It will keep like that for up to 24 hours too).
Hoping to get out later and feed ducks and get a cuppa in a garden centre. I'm keeping food to breakfast and dinner at the moment, so daytime is just easy milk.

Star go to docs - poor you.

hopfully I let c have full tommi tippee cup of water to play with drink from and then once it's gone everywhere and not in her mouth, I have doidy cup to one side to make sure she has at least one drink of water.

imo how do you make your LO's porridge?

And this daytime grobag idea sounds interesting - is it just a grobag that he can wear outside his cot?

Sorry for the (probably very obvious) questions.

Pacita the porridge is Hipp banana prooidge that she loves. I just mix 1.5 tablespoons with 3 tablespoons of warmed formula and feed it to her. She then has watermelon as finger food.

The daytime grobags are 1 tog bags for summer sleeping/daytime sleeping (Mamas & Papas sell them) and she sleeps much better during the day in them.
not obvious qns at all - I've only just discovered them!

Poor you starlight hope you get it sorted.

great news barnpot!!

hooray for the lie-in hopefully

thanks for the cheese sauce tip imo will use that next time.

Last night after A cried himself to sleep he only woke up around 1:15 and a quick shush-pat sent him back to sleep. Then he was up around 5 but got himself back to sleep. Phew, progress. So looks like I'm feeding before bath from now on.

DH moved the cot into his own room this morning. There's still loads of junk in there, but I wanted A to have his daytime naps in there so that it wasn't a big shock come bedtime. He is currently on nap number 2.

Must go prepare lunch before he wakes up. Am attempting an omelette (bloody hell, I have completely forgotten how to spell that), will probably just pick out the veg to give A so they're slightly eggy but he's not having a great big mouthful of egg.