Sept 08: They're under starters orders .... and they're off .... well, some of them!

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

I thought I'd use this title as not all of our delicious babies are on the move yet, including mine

ds2 accidently walked across the kitchen yesterday! He didn't really mean to, he stood up at 1 of the kids small plastic ikea chairs and it moved forwards, so he stepped forwards to stand himself up again and it happened again, kept doing that until he got to the door where the chair stopped moving away from him! It was quite amusing to watch, he was a bit confused.

He's still not crawling properly, commando crawls using 1 leg and drags the other one behind him!

debi if you give orange juice at the same time as iron rich foods the vit c will help the iron to be absorbed.

sunshine I was thinking just that today about my 2 - dd was excellent at finger feeding, but ds puts nothing in his mouth except the odd bit of bread. I fed him a strawberry today and he bit mouthfulls off til he'd eaten the whole thing, but I could sit him in front of it for hours and he might pick it up eventually but he wouldn't eat it. And he absolutely will not open his mouth for brocolli! Dd loves broc coz she's fed it to herself practically every day since she was 6m so I'm worried that ds will be a fussy eater as a toddler.
We've run out of pre-made meals in the freezer for ds, so I'm gonna see what gina and annabel suggest for 9-12m foods.

We're on the market and have our first viewing on Friday!

Carriebo I'm glad someone else has the same worries and it's not just me! I have pics of DS with huge slices of melon and he used to eat anything. I was wondering if the fact that DD has allergies has put me off being as adventurous with her.

At the moment she has lots of pasta with either hom made sauces or plum superfoods mixed in. She also eats a lot of sweet potato and fish fingers.

The other thing is she is really particular about what she will and won't eat whereas DS would eat anything. I tried to give her something with salmon the other day. She had a mouthful, pulled a face, then another mouthful to check I had tried to give her something so patently revolting, then refused to open her mouth again!

debi High iron foods are red meat, dried fruit and iron enriched cereals like weetabix.

ah good, forgot about cereal. He eats equivalent of 2 whole big weetabixes every day, that's got to be good.

He's taken to climbing the stairs! Its quite entertaining, he cries a bit as he's doing it as it's hard work but he doesn't like it if you pick him up. So he struggles up with me behind him gently pushing him up and then has the biggest smile on his face when he gets to the top!

I love MN. I started a thread about illegal loft conversions and got some really helpful replies so I've got a much better idea of questions to ask at the viewing of our dream house tomorrow.
Am trying and failing not to get very very very excited!
Now to spend the rest of the evening making food for the freezer for ds, he's eating us out of house and home!

Have you seen what Foxy is doing?
It's on Facebook.

I can't see Robyn being a fussy eater, she eats everything I put in front of her and was eating rocket today. She has whole milk on her cereals as I can't be bothered to express.

This will probably come back to bite me in the arse. DD1 was a brill eater as a toddler but as a teenager her diet is awful

One more thing - a friend had a baby recently and I'm worried she might be heading towards pnd. She's devastated that she had an emergency section instead of natural birth, and in shock coz her ds came 3 weeks early after very rapid onset pre-eclampsia (hence the section). Feeding is going fine, but she's clearly very upset and panicking and asking for reassurance and advice about absolutely everything in a way that makes me really worry for her.
What's the name of the person at the hospital who can talk you through your birth after the event?

debi is it Foxy whose sister is in X-factor?

NO she is shaving her hair off for charity

i think it's digitals sister who is in x-factor.

I have to go and see what foxy has done!

carrie at our hospital the service is called 'birth reflections'. I did it about a year after I had ds and it was excellent. They clarified why I had had an em cs (my memory had been a bit fuzzy) and the midwife admitted the post-natal care was crap, which made me feel better as I thought it was just me being a crap mum.

Thank you meglet. I dream of being told the post-natal care I had after dd was crap, would make me feel much better! Didn't realise how bad it was til I'd had ds and seen the 'good' side! Never mind, it was years ago now.

Wow, brave Foxy!

I think I must have the only BLW baby who has regressed in his eating skills. After his initial enthusiasm at 6 months he now is very picky about what he puts in his mouth. Given the choice he will squish and throw 90% of what is put in front of him. He would happily survive off breastmilk alone and in fact has done for about two weeks when he was teething and had a mild virus. I'm hand/fork/spoon feeding him most food. I don't really know how to break this cycle.

I also wonder if this is connected to his terrible sleeping He wakes hourly till about midnight. About 2-3am will not be returned to his cot so sleeps with us. Then still wakes at 4am grumpy and restless for a feed. But it has to be a sitting up feed. Not lying down. And then regardless of how late he went down or how little sleep he's had he usually wakes Between 5:30 and 6. Again don't really know what to do other than hope that one day he will learn to selfsettle again.

Very excited about my Dsis getting through to the xfactor boot camp!!!

Digi that's really exciting.

Off to HV today. Checked DDs leg creases yesterday and they seem fine!

Those of you doing blw/finger foods, do you put the whole meal in front of your babies at once? We have to just put a few bits at a time on his high chair tray as if we give it all he either whacks at it and bats it about so much it all goes on the floor or else he eats it too fast and gets indigestion.

He drank half a cup of cows milk this morn so maybe will give him formula then if he's going to drink a reasonable amount.

I'm doing a drama cover lesson at the moment and they're wtching Mr Bean, I'd forgotten how funny it is.

Also went to HV today. No book pack, but we did discuss ds sleeping/feeding habits. They're referring us to the local nursery nurse and paediatric (sp?) nurse to look at working out a program to get him eating more during the day and breastfeeding less at night. I have to think about when I will be ready to start this. Ds is showing no signs of self weaning and will easily wake several times a night.

debi when I do a BLW meal for dd I give it to her in dribs and drabs. She swipes it off in excitement if I give her the whole lot in one go.

DD is very grumpy today . I'm certain its her teeth, but there's only so much calpol ishe can have. She thinks teething gel is hilarious, then usually bites me. And DS is getting really possessive with his toys so I kept having to break up toddler / baby 'arguments'. Roll on bedtime.....

we have that possessivness over toys too, it's hard work isn't it? And I can see why ds1 thinks its harsh too, he's always getting told to be gentle/give it back/move somewhere else to play etc etc Don't think he quite understands that ds2 doesn't understand and isn't being mean when he's stealing the toys.

Slightly calmer day at work today, we had 5 teachers in the dept instead of our usual 11, yesterday we only had 4 (and an extra year group to teach as the year 6s were in too)! And tomorrow it'll be 4 again.

Debi we give Robyn a bit of each and when she is left with 1-2 bits on her tray we give her another round. She tends to get very excited when she gets a new round of food and will drop what she has and reach for a new bit, even if it is the same type.

Have had a funny day she has had four naps today lasting about 3 and a half hours. Usually we struggle with getting 1 out of her. SHe has been dribbling for days so think it could be her teeth.

Foxy is giving her hair to a wig maker for kids who have lost theirs. Good on her and hope she raises a lot of money

Saw HV and all is well. DD is now on 25 percentile for weight and head circ, and 9th for height so is obv. short and wide! HV was really rather nice and helpful, bit of a relief, and we did get our book pack!

that's impressive of foxy. I looked for her on facebook but she isn't my friend anymore

I have just listed my first ever things to sell on Ebay, and I have a watcher already. I am so excited! Anyone want a hornby train or two?

T fell asleep on his bottle earlier, was so cute. He hardly napped at all today, as I woke him up from a nap at the childminder and he never went down again. He has however needed resettling twice since then, so I'm not expecting it to make a lot of difference to my night.

So impressed with Foxy

debi thats a relief, she wasn't on my list either. I thought i was going mad! She must have had a cull.

Ex p is back from Benidorm, and the abuse and stress has started again. He spent all afternoon giving me grief on text + phone when the dc's were having a nap. Then, as usual, I got an apologetic e-mail this evening saying he was sorry for treating me like crap when we were together and he knows he screwed up big time . I don't think he's ever going to sort his head out.