April 2009 - Chapter 4 - Rollin, rollin, rollin............and they are over but the arm is stuck

[PuzzleRocks]

12 Feb: Skiingone: MARIANNA 4lb 4oz
20 Feb: Glaskham: RUBY MARIE 4lb 3oz
04 Mar: Barbarella: ESTELLA, ROSANNA, OTIS
05 Mar: Kazkiss: ISABELLE FLORENCE 4lb 6oz & OLIVER THOMAS 3lb 7oz
15 Mar: Babypringle: OSCAR WILLIAM 7lb 2oz
28 Mar: Claireykitten: VIOLET ROSE 7lb 9oz
31 Mar: Mumblemum: ORSON XERXES
02 Apr: Oddeyes: ELEANOR 9lb 8oz
03 Apr: Bleuravin: MEGAN LILLIAN CONSTANCE
03 Apr: Bumpalump: JACOB 8lb
04 Apr: BabyBolat: KARAHAN 6lb 5oz
05 Apr: Mrsfossil: ISLA LILIAN 7lb 10oz
05 Apr: JumeirahJane: MILLICENT ROSE 5lb 15oz
06 Apr: BoffinMum: FELIX DAVID GORDON 7lb 9oz
08 Apr: girlylala0807 JAMES EUAN
11 Apr: SpringySunshine: GEORGE NATHAN 8lb 15oz
11 Apr: RachelinScotland: CLEMENT JAMES 8lb 14oz
11 Apr: Lou031205: ISLA SOPHIA 7lb 9oz
11 Apr: Electra: ISABELLA CAROLINE 6lb 3oz
11 Apr: AuldAlliance: ALEXANDRE 7lb 6oz
12 Apr: Phdlife: Name TBA GIRL 9lb 3oz
12 Apr: BethDivine: Name TBA GIRL 9lb 9oz
13 Apr: MathsMummy27: AMELIA CHARLOTTE
14 Apr: Purlease: ADAM 9lb 2oz
15 Apr: Juwesm: HUGO GEORGE 9lb 2oz
15 Apr: Bronze: ISAAC JOHN
15 Apr: HeidiT: HEIDI
15 Apr: Kalikaroo: Name TBA BOY 8lb
15 Apr: Minush: ZAFIRAH ROSA 7lb 12oz
15 Apr: FatandFedup: EMILIA ROSE 7lb 6oz
16 Apr: PuzzleRocks: HOLLY ELIZABETH 8lb
16 Apr: Brettgirl: HANNAH GRACE 6lb 15oz
16 Apr: ReallyTired: Name TBA GIRL
17 Apr: DungunGirl: ADEN LEE 9lb 4oz
18 Apr: Staryeyed: Name TBA BOY 7lb 11oz
18 Apr: Dawntigga: SAMUAL 5lb 11oz
20 Apr: LuLuBai: SEBASTIAN 9lb
20 Apr: Swaliswan: BETH 7lb 9oz
21 Apr: Kittycatisgettingfat: GABRIELLA AUDREY BIANCA
21 Apr: B52s: SAM MARTIN 7lb 9oz
21 Apr: Schulte: HAZEL LOIS 7lb 9 oz
21 Apr: Mrsgboring: EDMUND 8lb 12oz
23 Apr: Tristaleejac: LEWIN 8lb 4oz
23 Apr: NuttyTaff: TIAHNA SKYE 8lb 8oz
23 Apr: Purplemonkeydishwasher: ISLA ELIZABETH 8lb 14oz
24 Apr: Soon2befamilyof4: TALIA 7lb 6oz
26 Apr: Carameli: THEO LAURENCE 7lb 6oz
26 Apr: Surprisenumber3: EVIE ANNE 8lb 2oz
26 Apr: Bicnod: OSCAR MATTHEW 8lb 1oz
27 Apr: Lauren61: OLIVER STEPHEN 7lb 7oz
27 Apr: Gingersarah: VERONICA ROISIN 9lb 1oz
30 Apr: MegBusset: ARCHIE 8lb 15oz
01 May: Satheresitting: Name TBA BOY
03 May: Conkertree: Name ANGUS ANDREW 8lbs 8oz
06 May: Frekkles: HARRIS MERLIN 8lb 5.5oz
07 May: TarteTatin: ALBERT JOHN
10 May: Ilovesummer: Name TBA BOY

p.s. I know it's a sample of one baby, but solids did NOT help DS1 sleep through the night. In fact, he started waking up more as his gut was adapting to food, and he was very unsettled for a while. But the plural of anecdote is not data, so I'm not pretending that means anything significant.

pps just read those two posts back and I sound like a patronising old mare, so please feel free to hurl abuse at me, Feierabend!

Sometimes I type faster than I think, and as you know this is something I feel strongly about.

Oof, hello all.
11:30pm here, so just catching up before bedtime. WFH, I hope you are right about the 4mth growth spurt. Alex has been waking me up at 11 or 12pm, then again 2 or 3 hrs later and then again about 3 hrs after that. Yesterday, he woke me at 12, 2 and 5 and at 5 he was raring to go, so DH took him out in the pram to get him back to sleep.

The weekend with the horde of friends was fun in the end, and the babsyitting was fine as the two eldest girls bathed the younger ones and got them to bed. However last night was a bit of a disaster: one of the friends' daughters had a bad epileptic fit, and then at 1am a skylight in the spare room fell shut, smashing in the process and sending shards of evil glass tumbling 10cm from the sleeping head of a visiting child. They may not be offloading their kids on us very often.

Still boiling here: 27° at 11:30pm, and 32° in our bedroom.
A has got a red back from the sun, despite having been kept in the shade of the trees all afternoon at the lake.

Good morning

Can everyone (yes i'm looking at you Guimauve) please, PLEASE, stop talking about bloody spiders, it's making me feel queasy. I don't even like typing the word. I beg of you.

My baby is still trying to crawl. All weekend she has been up on her knees and then shuffling/sliding forward. She can cover quite a distance.

Feierabend - We had planned to go to PYO on Saturday but other things came up. We shall probably go this Saturday. Shame we missed you. I assume you went to Garsons.
How busy was it, being a weekend and the school hols?
"Dinner plate"? Please tell me your DH is prone to massive over-exaggeration or I may just lose the will to live.

WFH/Auld - Holly is definitely having a 4 month spurt. She seems huge all of a sudden. DH and I were a bit weepy last night, wondering where our tiny baby had gone. And I have temporarily lost my fab little sleeper.

Auld - Gosh, that must have been scary to wake to sounds of breaking glass. I'm glad nobody got hurt

Auld- OMG how horrible about the skylight. thank goodness no one was hurt! And glad everything went well with your guests. Your poor LO with a sunburnt back!

Puzzle- so cool abt the crawling trials Must be exciting for you to watch.

Moo got herself sideways in her cot 3 times yesterday evening and was screaming bloody murder. Neither Dh or I can figure out how she managed. Think turning a hummer around in a single garage...well, ok, double garage...still mind boggling.

Well Moo slept through the night again, 9 hours, so I think I'm taking her back off the rice cereal to see what happens. I don't want to push spoon feeding in this house because I've read that there have been some links found to over eating in the future (and I assume that 's not just for mommies finishing off babyies' meals ). My biggest worry is that Moo's really a creature of habit with her night-time routine and she may not settle tonight if I don't give her something from a bowl with a spoon...so I was thinking that IF that seems to be the problem I would spoon feed her some ebm and see what happens. (nothing like manipulating and lying to your kids nearly from the start ).

I just want to point out -not that I'm advocating solids necessarily- that in the past parents would chew food for their babies and then give it to them to eat... so while babies might not be evolutionarily ready for foods at this stage parents have been giving babies solid-like foods at an early age for a good long time. And what harms and benefits this has had is a little hard to determine.
Now we've theorized in this house that perhaps when you've chewed the food and then given it to baby, your own saliva would help break down the food as well as the work the baby's digestive system does on the food. Hard to say really though and I'm still not giving Moo solids... the rice cereal I did give I would not have called solid or even paste, it was really only slightly thicker ebm. (but my definitions may differ from others)

I do think that like information on things one can eat during pregnancy and the like as well as what is best for babies is a little tough to determine properly. In pregnancy it's because we're all so very different and it's the same with babies. Babies mature at different rates and it's harder to determine what a baby is feeling and why they are feeling it because you cannot really have a 'constant' while doing tests and you cannot just ask them... the guidelines and 'rules' set out are there to protect the greatest number of people/babies. And it is so hard to really know if our little ones are the exceptions to the rules.

So I really feel for us all once again struggling with doing what is the best for our precious ones...because none of want to hurt or harm them. We simply want them to be as happy and healthy as they could possibly be (which will make us happy and healthier too)

(This is pretty much an excerpt from the 'discussion' DH and I had before we gave Moo rice cereal)

WFH I just KNEW you were going to contradict me don't worry, I don't mind. I agree that breast milk has more calories than a bowl of carrot and apple, but it's easier digested, hence baby gets hungrier sooner. And a bowl of porridge made with breast milk surely has more calories than just the same amount of milk, and again, takes longer to digest.

I also agree that feeding them more is harder on us, which is precisely why I can't wait for H to have proper food. FWIW DD1 never had a 4 month growth spurt, well not that I noticed anyway, and H is not having one either (yet?), she has just needed more night feeds since week 12. I also know that solids won't necessarily make a baby sleep through but at least once she has solids I can be more confident in ruling out hunger as a cause of waking.

We started DD1 on purees at 5 1/2 months because of her reflux and she absolutely loved it, never had trouble eating from a spoon and ate silly amounts right from the word go so I would think she WAS developmentally ready, even if she couldn't sit up until a good few weeks later (she started crawling before she learned to sit). I dropped the dream feed as soon as she was on 3 meals a day and she has slept 11 hours a night ever since.

So, anyway, don't know why I feel I need to justify myself

Auld, glad that nobody got hurt, that's a bit scary about the window.

Puzzle, Garsons wasn't busy at all. If you go for raspberries, don't pick the ones in the first field, but rather the ones opposite the plums, they are much tastier (I think the variety is called Autumn Bliss). I made plum tart and have just had some for breakfast.

Well done Holly for crawling!

I had banana, potato, orange juice and rusks when I was 8 weeks old... hasn't done me any harm as far as I can tell. It did make me a fat baby though!

Good morning. Woke up to find Orbit in bed with us again, I think he's climbing in himself as I have very little memory of what goes on at night! Either I've perfected the art of lifting and feeding him in my sleep (but not of putting him back, it seems...) or he's just crawling in and helping himself. Hmmmmmmm.

Auld skylights and fits sound very scary! Glad everyone is ok, but it must have been exhausting. And sunburn, how horrid. Hope it gets better nice and quick.

Orbit is definitely more settled than he was at 4 months, and I remember it being a killer with DS1 as well - in fact I searched on MN and found threads from me on the very subject, saying 'Oh God, when will he settle down again!' but he did and Orbit has too. He still wakes once a night after his 10pm feed, but it's not 5 times a night any more. Thank God.

Puzzle go crawling! Orbit is mainly focused on sitting up, but keeps pitching forward onto his face. Are any other babies sitting successfully yet? He seems remarkably uninterested in crawling, still hates being on his front.

bebemoo yay for lots of sleep! Hope you're feeling nice and refreshed by it. Orbit has started rotating in his cot as well, he chases his stuffed monkey round the cot during the night and ends up upside down (that's when he's not in bed with us).

And I entirely agree with you that babies mature at different rates and that parents would have chewed food for their children originally - I guess my feeling on it is that you can't tell when their gut is sealed and ready for solids, but you know it will definitely have happened by six months.

So if it does no harm to wait, but it could possibly cause problems to start early for not much benefit, it makes sense to me to wait. But the six months thing is a little bit arbitrary, which is why the other signs of being ready are important, I think, such as being able to sit up independently and losing the tongue thrust reflex.

I think also I'm in no rush as I don't think it will make much difference to Orbit's sleep or general well being, but once you're on solids then life is much more complicated - at the moment Orbit and I can go out for the day and I don't have to stop for lunch if I don't feel like it, can just feed him on the run. As soon as he's on regular meals, then life becomes much more bound by meal times. So some of it is pure laziness and convenience on my part!

Anyway, have to go and scrub down our old buggy to photograph it and put it on eBay, and then fill in the form for my speeding ticket. such an exciting day.....

ooooh x posts Feierabend! I'm glad you're not cross with me - this is my personal soapbox thing so I do tend to go on a bit . I'm shutting up now.

And the long and short of it is always that you know your own baby best. Sounds like it did DD1 good, by the sound of it!

I agree WFH, I truly do. There are benefits and negatives to 'real' food. For instance,with 'real' food you could hand your lo some raisins and a sippy cup in their pushchair when they're peckish while now we have to sit down and feed them... but now of course, the milk they're drinking has been specially formulated to provide them with all their nutritional needs so they can just have a drink and you know they're getting a balanced diet. With 'real' food you have to make sure they're eating a balanced diet... This last point is why I think holding off weaning would also being a positive. Because by six months one should be able to give them a proper diet while at this age so many of the foods you can give them are high gi foods and digest very quickly (in part because you have to give them foods which have been partially/started to be broken down i.e. puree). When you give them proper solids then they have variety and you can mix high gi foods with low gi foods and make sure they're getting enough fat and protein and carbs to fuel their active little bodies

There is just so much information and it's very overwhelming in many ways. In part because of course with the studies that have been done and the new information that they have found, new thoughts and ideas have been put forth. Yet, as Feier points out, the 'old ways' did not harm all babies and so 'common knowledge' seems to refute what has been reported by the scientists. Which is, in part, where the slight distrust of scientific knowledge comes from...
And if we're to be honest this is also part of the formula vs breast milk debate...
If you think about it too much it is a hairy situation you have to admit

But on to other things...
I'm packing up 3-6month clothes today and I'm debating about whether or not I ought to put them and the 0-3month clothes in the attic or not...

Have any of you thought about the next baby?
Dh is quite keen to have babies close together, I'm rather keen to have them a couple years apart (though not too far apart as I'm not getting an younger despite all the youth potions I've tried- there's only so many spells a girl can do......)

Next baby?? Noooooo! No more babies here!
Talking of babies though, I had AF when E was 10 weeks old (which I thought was quite early as she's exclusively BF). Well now she's 17 weeks and I haven't had another one. Anyone else experienced this?

Now, the weaning, touchy subject I know. But I was very shocked when I went to see HV to get E weighed last week. She said 'are you going to wean from 17 weeks?'. I said I thought it was 26 weeks now. She said 'we recommend 17-26 weeks now'. 'That is quite a wide scope' says I! Anyway, I went away still planning to wait until E seems ready (no set date in mind). And the following day she brings round leaflets stating 'weaning your baby 17-26 weeks'. Now, you know my views on the weaning thing (having already been TOLD to wean at 16 weeks - even though DS1 was 6 weeks early (so really he was 10 weeks!), but this was 10 years ago and 5 years ago and I appreciate things have changed and that there must be reasons for them and so was happy to go along with them as far as I could. E is definitely hungrier later, she still won't accept a bottle, nor a dummy, won't go to anyone but me and uses my nipple as a dummy, comforter, everything - she is permanently attached. She also wakes in the night now (from 0-15 weeks I think she only woke during the night twice ever!). Now it's a few times a night.

So, now after everything the HV has said, I am tempted to start weaning her. I haven't yet, and I'm not going to immediately. But I am so tired, have to think about my other 2 children (whom I have no time whatsoever for because I always have E attached), and I am starting to feel exhausted and down. If I only had E, it would be easier, but my other two are getting so pushed out If I express, she won't take it, I don't think she likes teats. I have now bought a sippy cup suitable from 4 months and will try her with that. I just think if someone else could feed her occasionally, I would feel a huge weight lifted.

Sorry to go on but having a bit of a downer with the whole feeding thing at the moment.....will go and have a good old catch up now. Have been out every single day for last couple of weeks, am quite an expert at BF in pizza hut, at Alton Towers, garden parties, shopping malls etc!

bebemoo I think there's advantages either way with the next baby - close together is good as you get the baby stage out of the way quicker, further apart is good as you have some time to recover and the older one understands more about what is going on.

FWIW, the baby we lost would have arrived when DS1 was 2 and a bit, while Orbit arrived when he was just three. A friend from antenatal had her second at the time we would have had our second, had we not lost it (are you following me? Keep up at the back ) and she has found it hard work having only two years between them. She's had quite a few problems with jealousy, while DS1 seems to have been much more accepting of Orbit. Mind you, Orbit isn't stealing his toys yet.....

A good book to read is called 'Three Shoes, One Sock and a Hairbrush' and is all about having your second child. It makes interesting reading and I found it spot on about the emotional aspects of having another one.

That said, a friend of mine's second baby is due a year to the day after her first arrived - now that is quick work! Not sure it was entirely deliberate....

But on the problem of vests etc....even if you got pregnant now, it would still be 9 months before you needed those clothes again, at the earliest, so you could quite happily put them in the loft, I'd say. Unless you have loads of storage space in your house where you can stash them.

Morning surprise! Sounds like you are having a tough time of it, poor you. Orbit is quite demanding of the boob, but he will take a bottle so on that front I have it a bit easier. Am sure you've tried everything on the bottles, but am going to say Dr Brown's? Or nuby teats? DS1 wouldn't take a bottle for ages but then took one with a nuby teat. Or those Closer to Nature Tommee Tippee ones?

HVs are bonkers aren't they, not one piece of consistent advice between them. My friend in Newbury went to her weaning chat the other day and was told in no uncertain terms to wait until 26 weeks and to do BLW - others are still saying 17 weeks, and purees only, while others still say that BLW is dangerous. Madness.

Orbit has got hold of DS1's helium balloon and is trying to eat it.....think that's a suitable weaning food?

WFH, how high pitched would his voice go?!

I have tried lot of different bottles/teats, she just pulls a face like she's sucking a lemon and pushes them out. Am hoping this sippy cup will work, will try later.

I don't think I know much about BLW. E grabbed a raspberry yesterday, squashed it and then stuck it in her mouth anf partly up her nose -does that mean she's ready for
raspberries?

balloons as weaning foods? hmm you may have something there

the HV randomness certainly doesn't help matters with knowing what to do does it!?! I really think that it ends up being personal preference even on their part!

I'll look up that book. and post a thread to get opinions...though i'm not exactly sure what topic it should be under... should I put it under pregnancy? or parenting? or is there a better place I haven't found?

I have 5 years between all of mine and that has worked for me but my friend has 14 months between hers and that has worked for her too! A couple of my friends have 2 years between and they have found that hard at first but I think that is the age gap most people aim for (I personally liked having each one at home alone with me for 4 years and enjoyed doing age-related activities with them - swimming groups etc). But also I understand about getting all the 'baby days' over with close together, so I really think it is personal preference.

Couple more questions! - what would I do without you lot?!

Any babies in their own rooms yet? E is too big for her cradle now, needs her cot but not sure whether to move it into our room or not.

Third lot of injections - is it REALLY three separate needles?

Yup, three needles - two in one leg, one in the other. Orbit was much less angry about these ones though, I wondered if it was because he has fatter legs now so it didn't hurt as much?

And Orbit is in with us still, probably won't move him until he's about 7 or 8 months.

Surprise - yup, 3 needles

Thanks, I will keep her in with us I am sure, will just get DH to move her cot into ours tonight. I put her in there when I have a shower in the day etc, so she is used to it and quite likes it

Was Orbit okay after the injections? Am supposed to be going bowling and for lunch afterwards.

A hasn't had any jabs (or jags, as we Scots sometimes say). The doctor here said to wait as long as possible because now it's a 5-in-one injection and is tough on wee babies. As A is going to a CM, not a crèche, she said we could put it off a bit longer.

He will be in our room for a fair while yet as, at DS1's insistence, he will be sharing with his big brother. So we're waiting till A sleeps through before embarking on that little experiment.

can you put third lot of injs off?

my hv said we could... so we've not done it as first week they were due moo was sick 2nd we were holidaying and 3rd I just plain old forgot and didn't get back from Bracknell in time...will have to do it this week