Sept 08: the thread for when they may start crawling, and there will definitely be some separation anxiety bawling ....

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Welcome ladies

Well, there's no crawling going on in our house, but there's defo some separation anxiety bawling going on .... tears, screaming, the works - oh joy!

Glad to hear T is finally obliging, Hopefully, I remember the first 4 hour stretches with elation...

We also had a better night at Pacita HQ and today I feel a bit more human. I dare say I'll be able to steam veg without incinerating them.

Ladies, what are your baby menus for today? I've done a boob breakfast, plan a butternut squash and chickpea lunch (pobably pureed, with a carrot stick to hold) and rice porridge with Ella's fruit puree for dinner. Does that sound vaguely ok?

After going on about not giving babies too much salt yesterday I'm now concerned that ds2 is getting too much. I don't add salt to anything I cook but we do eat packet sauces, jars of things like pasta bake sauce, sausages, bacon etc quite often. Then there's the salt in bread, weetabix etc too. When we have sauces he doesn't eat much of the sauce but must still be having some.
I got thinking about it in the middle of the night when after screaming even when held for about 40 mins last night at 1am I fed him and he had a big feed even though he had had about 2 weeks of lasting till at least 3am and so I hadn't thought he could be hungry. Then it dawned on me that he'd had a kids pizza for tea and so was probably thirsty as that must have too much salt in it for him.
He's also losing interest in milk during the day which can't be helping.
You're right imo this stage is hard work.

pacita today dd has had 1 oatibox for breakfast, mashed up home made cottage pie and fruity pudding for lunch, and for tea she'll have blw avocado on toast,cheese to chew on then banana for pud.

She is too young to know about the banana and choc muffins I have just made .

Pacita You are doing fine, honest.
I am going through the same. The Spaniards are very quick in telling you all the things you are feeding your baby and shouldn't. I don't care any more. If it was for my mum I will be feeding Lorea potatoes and carrot all the time.
Great tip: Red lentils and cous-cous, they take 5 min to cook and it is a great sopurce of protein to mix with any veg.

Pacita, a few menus/ideas for you:

bkfast: porridge
Lunch: chicken kiev, peas, sweetcorn and potato. Raspberry and strawberry.
Dinner: beans on toast

bkfast: porridge
Lunch: halibut in cheese sauce. Satsuma.
Dinner: spag bol. Strawberry and raspberry.

bkfast: porridge
Lunch: fruity chicken and cous cous. Banana.
Dinner: Tuna pasta. Humzinger fruit stick.

bkfast: porridge
Lunch: Pasta in tom and veg sauce. Satsuma
Dinner: Falafel and baked beans. Grapes and a strawberry.

bkfast: porridge
Lunch: roast chicken dinner. blueberries and banana.
Dinner: cheese and ham scrambled egg. Satsuma.

The above is an example of what M has. It's a combination of our left over dinner from the night before, or stuff I have batch cooked and frozen (cheese sauce, fish, tom and veg sauce, chicken and fruit puree). Most meals are a combination of spoon fed and finger foods.

I find batch cooking sauces and freezing them in ice-cube trays a great way to stay organised. I also put a crap load of veg in the sauces, so if I don't have time to cook veg that day I know there is already some in the sauce.

A's having breakfast between 9 and 10, then bf lunch (at 1pm my breast was squirting...), then tea round 4.30 to 5.30.

Breakfast is readybrek or babyrice mixed with organix 'fruit cereal' which is mostly powdered banana and raisins. If he eats it all I offer mashed fruit and greek yoghurt (today's was kiwi, which he wolfed down. Avocado and pear was a hit, too)

Today's tea was mashed sweet potato with bolognese sauce. Yesterday was sweet potato with cheddar. Previous two days were bol sauce with the beans in it. Then yoghurt. And some finger food to play with while I mash stuff - been bits of chicken for the last few days. You can probably guess what MrNC and I have eaten recently...

Although he started having a screaming fit tonight just before dinner when I changed his nappy, and carried on throughout the meal (but grabbing the spoon off me and putting food in his mouth, then screaming once mouth empty again). In the end I applied lots of Bonjela and took him off for a nap. He stropped, so I've pulled the blind and put his musical mobile on.

Cue perfectly awake charming baby playing with his toys for the last half hour. Don't know whether to try more solids, bf, or bath now!

Can you overfeed babies at this age? I swear A will eat all the greek yoghurt in the world - over 150ml after a savoury course and chewing some meat!

Whoa, ladies, your babes put an awful lot of good stuff away! I think I need to start being less of a scardy cat with what I give Diego. He's not yet tried anything with gluten, cow's milk or meat. he'd get pissed off wiht me if he knew what his MN mates eat!

I was wondering that too nc, I'm sure ds2 would have kept eating the macaroni cheese he just had for tea forever, he didn't show any signs of stopping himself, although he didn't complain when I stopped giving him it.

very impressed with baby lollyheart and all his skills. After showing off with a bit of backwards crawling a couple of weeks ago ds2 has shown no signs of doing it again. He spins round when on his tummy but thats it. DS1 was a bum shuffler and as ds2 spends most of his time sitting up I wouldn't be surprised if he is too.

..for all those of you finding this stage hard...me too! I was just saying it to my sister earlier today. Its exhausting and I worry all the time Toby is not eating the "right" stuff or enough of it...sigh...

I followed your advice today ladies of 'nature's homemade purees' and took a banana and avocado out for ds's dinner, so all I needed to borrow was a fork and bowl to mash it, result!

I need to do more cooking, I batch cook once every few weeks and stock up the freezer which saves me having to think every day about what to feed ds and makes the whole thing much easier I find. Dh made the most enormous amount of chicken casserole and poor ds has been eating it every day coz I can't cook more til I've got some empty pots to put it into! The GF weaning book has some great but very very simple recipes like the corn chowder and leek and potato thing. I'm a terrible cook, the smoke alarm going off is essentialy the 'dinner's ready' gong in our house. I've ruined lentils recently and there is only one ingredient in that...!
I'm going to play with fire here, but hopefully, did the days T slept better coincide with you spoonfeeding rather than BLW? I'm happy to hear that there was no connection, but I know that ds started sleeping better once he was eating a load of food.

Yes, this stage is exhausting and driving me insane! TBH I'm rushing dd's weaning as much as is sensible because I'm desperate to get both the dc's on the same food at the same time. I might scream if I see any more weaning spoons or little bowls. The dishwasher has been on every day recently and the kitchen feels like a canteen

I've just half remembered a good baby recipe for roasted mix veg, it works for adults and kids and can be portioned off and frozen. I'll dig it out tomorrow and put the recipe on here, I remember it was a no-brainer.

Yes, this stage is exhausting and driving me insane! TBH I'm rushing dd's weaning as much as is sensible because I'm desperate to get both the dc's on the same food at the same time. I might scream if I see any more weaning spoons or little bowls. The dishwasher has been on every day recently and the kitchen feels like a canteen

I've just half remembered a good baby recipe for roasted mix veg, it works for adults and kids and can be portioned off and frozen. I'll dig it out tomorrow and put the recipe on here, I remember it was a no-brainer.

I know what I've been meaning to ask - anyone gonna do babysigning? We did it with dd and it was soooooooooo brilliant. We won't go to the sing and sign classes this time, but I realised that 6 months is a perfect time to start. We just did please/thank you, eat, drink, milk, all gone with dd every day at this stage and at 9m she did her first sign. It was brilliant to give her a voice before she could actually speak, and now its a great way to remind her to say her Ps and Qs, and often her signing helps us understand what word she's trying to say. And its an excuse to watch Mr Tumble - its education dontcha know. Just wondering if anyone else is into it or if I'm flapping my arms like a loon all on my own
Right, off to watch tv and write dd's birthday thank you cards.

Oops, I got a 'server timed out' message so hit 'post' again and it seems I didn't need to.

Carriebo we've been doing a combination of loading spoons and passing them to him and him feeding himself since he started weaning, so no particular change that I can identify. I think his sleep is basically just improving - it's not the night feeds that are the problem (he only feeds once or twice) but the needing resettling, which i think stems from his gut trouble.
Some days he just sits there with his mouth open waiting for me to feed him, other days I can't get a spoon past him shoving pieces of meat/orange into his mouth!

I found the early days of weaning hugely stressful, but I'm getting into the swing of it a bit now - because T is increasingly able to feed himself, I can just sit there and knit/read a magazine in between offering him the odd spoonful of food and making encouraging noises. once he's begun to fill up (which often requires a spoonful or two) he likes to sit there and feed himself for anything from 2 to 20 mins.
Today he ate:
1 full slice of cheese on toast
half an orange
a plum
some leftover lamb
a couple of tablespoons of baby rice (in the absence of anything else to offer him on a spoon!)

Ouch - I am sat here with ice packs stuffed down the leg of my trousers after throwing a freshly made cup of scalding tea all down my leg

pacita today A had oatibix for breakfast, then we went to Ask for lunch where he had some of my salad and some of DH's pizza crusts and then 3/4 of a nectarine (I always carry some sort of soft flesh fruit). Then for dinner he had some roasted sweet potato wedges and some greek yoghurt with strawberry mush stirred in. That's quite a lot for him. I wasn't expecting him to have any dinner at all as he'd had a late lunch and quite a lot. But I guess today was a hungry day. But er, yes loads of cow's milk and gluten. Probably explains the little patches of dry skin appearing on his face and back

meglet I don't think you can 'rush' weaning...I think if your baby is happily eating everything you give her then she's the one doing the rushing. A still refuses certain foods I give him (particularly reheated food, the snob will only eat freshly prepared).

hopefully ouch indeed! Hope your leg doesn't blister.

Have just eaten a delicious fish pie, am hoping A gets over his reheating snobbery tomorrow and gives it a taste.

ILTMIMI that's one hell of a menu! Does he still have room for milk after that, and do you ever give him anything on a spoon?

hopefully ouch and ouch, how is the leg?

hopefully and i hope someone made you a new cup of tea to make you feel better!

carriebo - I've got a list of things to do in Suffolk for you. Have you got an email address to send it to? Or are you on FB (I don't go on there often so I can't remember who is on there!)

hopefully - I hope your leg is ok.

pacita - yes he does have meals off a spoon, usually dinner as he's getting tired by then. And yes he still has milk feeds, but they are separate to his food. He only has a small amount of porridge, so his first proper meal is lunch.

Ouch Hopefully I hope your leg is better today.

Weaning is still going very slowly, but she is starting to get the hang of it and loves pear slices, mashed up bananas, blended carrots and mashed potatoes. I think another fortnight and she will be ready for more adventurous foods

We went to a nice wedding on Friday (SIL's wedding) and Erin was so well behaved - a complete little star! I can't wait to see the professional photos.

On a good note, our house search is hopefully over. After so much searching, and lots of disappointments, we had an offer accepted on a house yesterday I am so excited and keeping my fingers crossed that it will all work out.

So what plans do you have for easter?? I am running a 5k tomorrow, a christening on Sunday and also hoping to visit a local working farm to coo at the baby lambs.

If I don't get on here over the next couple of days, hope you all have a lovely weekend .

EXTRAEXTRAEXTRAEXTRA***

Diego slept for 10 hours for the first time ever last night. I can't quite believe it myself. My boobs couldn't believe what hit them, either. He went down at 8:30, did not say boo till 6:30. I don't know whether it's because he's got a bit of a cold or whether to put it down to the porridge and fruit compote he devoured for dinner.

The funny thing is I feel dreadfully fuzzy headed...

Go Diego Go!

I've been waiting ages to say that!

I always feel terrible when I've had a good nights sleep as my body has got so used to a crap night!

Pray tell me, people, why on earth is he so grumpy when he's slept so much?

pacita - maybe cos he had slept too much...i found with my dd1 she slept for 9 hours and then 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon...but dd2 is different as she have 11 hours sleep and then 2 hours sleep thru the day as she have a solid 1 hour in the afternoon. you will have to work out the times that is best for your child as every child is different. They can sleep up to 16 hours all in all