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!

Wow ponymum lets hope you all get better soon.

You have to use water that has been left no longer than 30mins so its hot anough to kill the bugs in the powder.

I used to put cool boiled water in the bottle and add the powder when needed,but that was before the guide lines changed.

Fraser is now walking along the sofa and even stood unadied for a few secs why is my last baby growing up so quick

Im also off on holiday tomorrow so should be packing not mning

Thanks, I think I can just about muddle my way through that. More questions though: How long can you keep a bottle after it has been made up? And can you heat it if it was presumably made with hot-ish water then cooled down? (Nursery ask for 'made up bottles' to be supplied each day, but I can't reconcile that with these guidelines.)

starlight - But I presume you didn't post a video of that online. Or did you?

starlight you can't just say something like that and not give us more details!

Off to sleep now!

Wishing ponymum + dd a good weeks recovery and debi and lolly a wonderful holiday each.

world health org guidelines here on making feeds, it also explains how best to make up feeds in advance, if you have to. Bottles last 2 hours

Ponymum most nurseries refuse to make up bottles, which does mean that if you want to follow the guidelines to the letter you're left with no option but to send cartons of formula rather than powder.

T's morning waking has been creeping earlier again - we've had 3 mornings of a 5-6am bottle before properly getting up at 7. Grrrr. Hoping he'll solve it on his own eventually.

No crawling/standing here - it's still a fairly safe bet that T will keel over if left sitting for too long...

Thanks for the congrats all. Was supposed to be going dress shopping this afternoon but looks like friend can't come along now (work issues) and don't want to go alone so may postpone it. Must admit I'm enjoying the being a bride to be bit with the dress, shoes, hair thing!

Effy made more progress this weekend. She's now able to get from being on her front to sitting up, which is a real relief. She's really starting to pick up speed with the whole body pop crawling thing too.

She's so much fun too. We play lots of games together now like mimicking (where she mimics my sounds and facial expressions and vice versa), peekaboo and she bangs her hand on my mouth while I make a woo sound (like a red Indian) and she does it when I bang my hand on her mouth. She's so smiley we have a lot of fun together.

Starlight Mr Mckenzie must love that skill!!!!

Have found my old baby books for dd1 and ds. Robyn has a lot of catching up to do. DD1 was walking around furniture at 8 months and had the biggest shock of hair.
Am secretly quite glad that my little baby is still not mobile. She is really nosy so on the move she will be into everything.

ponymum as you know my dd was bottle fed, and we made up every one of her bottles the night before, putting the powder into very hot water, cooling them quickly and storing them in the fridge. We never had a problem, and I would take them out in a cool bag with mini ice packs (from Barnitts!)
Now what I do with ds is put the water in the bottle, and leave it at room temp. At the feed time I add the powder, quick warm in the microwave ( and, [bad mother emoticon]) then give them a really good shake and off you go. If you give the feed immediately then any nasties in the milk don't have time to grow, and if you have throughly washed any milk residue off the bottles then there's no harm them sitting around. I honestly think the guidelines are the most certain way of scalding the inside of your baby's mouth if you haven't cooled the bottle for long enough.
I agree though that cartons could be best for nursery as there's no milk sitting in bottles needing to be kept at a certain temp.

I'm giving very serious thought to giving up bf. I really don't enjoy it, never have (other than for the excuse to sit with my feet up and eat biscuits!) but it was so convenient for feeding a small baby. Now that I have a weaned baby who'll take a bottle I don't see any point in doing it any more. If ds was really enjoying it and taking lots of milk then I'd be ok with carrying on, but he just messes about. debi was it you only giving a bf in the morning? Did that work ok with your milk supply? The convenience of not having to go downstairs first thing to make up a feed is pretty much the only thing stopping me from giving up!

And debi I love that psalm - its the one my chum asked me to read her while she was in labour so it brings back happy memories!

Seriously people, i leave you for FIVE HOURS and no one posts! Shall change my name to 'thread killer' with immediate effect...

carriebo don't do that! Although - where is everyone? I have felt like a bit of a saddo all day, hanging around on and off MN as I am stuck home in bed while DH has looked after DD. What did I do before MN?

plusone thanks so much for the WHO link. In fact, DH has been doing it pretty much right once I read that. As long as you make it up while the water is above 70 C, then cool it quickly you can store it in the fridge and heat when needed. Yes, it's not the absolutely perfect way, but DD is 8 months old, not a newborn, so I feel pretty comfortable with that I think. Definitely won't use this method for taking milk anywhere out and about though - only for use straight from the fridge at home.

starlight, I'm v impressed that you can get your boob in your mouth!

Happy holidays to those who have gone off on their hols

I hope you're now on the mend Ponymum. Blimey, you've been through it.

Nothing much to report here. I usually comment that M is quite a placid little thing, however he is starting to get really arsey if something he shouldn't have is taken away from him. Even the distraction technique doesn't work!

Hi all

Havent read all the posts....dc currently rampaging in my bedroom...

Cant remember, but are any of you co-sleeping? Its the only way dh and I can get some sleep at the mo dont mind so much but toby now wants to sleep on his front which worries me a bit. We have got a bed guard on one side of the bed and one of us is usually on the other!

Really struggling with finger foods too - he wants them but because he has 4 teeth now he just bites great big lumps off things and then chokes any tips?

Toby and Tom both got colds and I seem to have a horrid sore throat type thing...sigh. Could do without it really.

Hope you are all well x

ponymum I use cartons....much easier (I am VERY lazy)

sunshine wow! Congrats!! I LOVE weddings...sigh. It was mine and dh 10th anniverary on friday (not that we could go out with 2 poorly dc) Seems like yesterday, then I look in the mirror and see what its done to me!!!

Toby is also getting very frustrated when he cant do things/reach things/when I take something off him...this stage is VERY trying

chortle.....

Aargh... A has finally got the hang of crawling! Except for when he forgets again how the legs go and gets stuck again... He's just retrieved all the toys from under his cot and is now having a great time banging a rattle on the radiator.

Tell me what stair gates to buy! None of our doors close so will need a few.

Time to go round babyproofing a bit more - SIL2ds is now walking, and after a weekend of watching the pair of them the house is in total chaos!

carrie i still just bf once a day, the first feed in the morning (6.30/7 ish) and supply has been fine. Its just so much easier at that time and i cant quite bring myself to stop completely...

Apparantly M has down a couple of little crawls too (according to DH and DD1), I suspect they were more like worm shuffles

What she has done though, is just wake for one feed for the last few nights, and last night that was at 5.30

I may be speaking too soon, but she may even sleep through before I go back to work (Not that I will, I never do)

This is a nice age - lots of smiles and no talking back. I can still feel I have a baby and that people are goign aaaah when they see her.... not for much longer thouigh

notcitrus ...stairgates...hmmm...do you really need loads? surely just top and bottom of stairs? You need to weigh up the trip factor versus the not-permanent-damage-to-wall factor. So if you go for lindam tension ones they have a bar at the bottom you need to remember to step over, if you go for the screw to the wall ones then you dont (but you have to screw them to the walls!) I tried to put a lindam one at the top of my stairs but when i had finished i stepped back and realised the tension thingy had just pushed my bannister out to a 45degree angle! so i have a screw one at the top and a tension one at the bottom (well i dont at the mo but i will have soon!) HTH

notcitrus Uurghh, stairgates. Since we first put them up for ds 2 years ago my toes + legs have been constantly bumped and bruised on them. DC's are fine, pity I'm not . My stairs have plaster board walls so had to get screw on ones. But there is a tension fit one across the kitchen door. I think they're just as strong as each other.

Echo the urghhh sentiments about stairgates. We will probably only get one top and bottom, but we also have a fairly big step into the kitchen, so will have to teach T to go feet first or something. Although at current rate of movement I won't have to worry about it until he's about 2...