November 09 - solids and crawling underway but sleepless nights still here to stay!!

[scarlotti]

New and shiny thread

Thanks MissI. I am mostly doing baby led weaning, but James doesn't really eat that much. It's great to keep him happy while the rest of us are eating, but I think he gets frustrated after a while and just wants milk from me. When I give puree he will eat the lot, but I'd rather not give all purees...
I think it's quite a lot to do with me being disorganised too! It feels like another one of those things that gets more complicated with two: life just can't revolve around him the way it did with DD. I need to get used to this!
I don't think you need to bother about weighing stuff out by the way, or at least, I never did.

Ninja Ooh tell us more about your April wedding! Is DP working with your mum again? DH is just there for fun so I am having fun planning what I will get in return (and I think I am still owed from last year too )

Hmm just read that back and I sound like I am neglecting him. I don't think I am!

Laugs yes he is with my mother, brother, sister (and their partners), his cousin and his Dad. I feel very left behind.

I spent most of today in A&E. My health visitor said that after 6mnths they could have cows milk on their weetabix. Alfie has been having cows milk on his weetabix and it has caused a problem with his bowel and he has been passing blood. It's also the reason his eczema is so bad. I feel awful that I didn't realise earlier or that he had milk in the first place

Glad to see that some old faces have returned. Welcome back.

ninja, sorry to hear about A&E, that sounds terrible. But you shouldn't feel awful for giving him cows milk if the health visitor told you so. They should know that stuff and we should be able to trust them.
Is Alfie ok now?

laugs, Paula eats really a lot but I do know a few people with babies who didn't eat much until they were 8 or 9 month. And I read somewhere that in the first year they still get most from the milk and solids are more for pleasure. So you don't have to worry.

Here, everything is fine, sleeping is a constant up and down so business as usual.
Oh, and we bought a baby paddeling pool and Paula really enjoys it. It is so cute.
And I'm not a festival widow but a football widow
I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine and Come on, England!

Ninja Ursi is right, you can't blame yourself! Babies are going to come into contact with cows milk at some point, be it on their cerial or fromage frais (very good weaning food for Joe) or cheese, etc. How will you know it's going to cause a problem until you try? Of course you'll try and blame yourself though, it seems like a natural mum reaction, just how I blame myself for every sniffle, bump and poorly Joe gets.

Whilst typing this I just saw Joe sitting properly whilst watching baby tv! He's been trying for about a week but needed to prop himself up with a hand on the floor

Oh and Ursi, I'm a footie widow too. I tell DP if he wants to watch a game he has to buy me a good magazine so I won't mind him hijacking the TV! You should try it

Oh Ninja poor you! I was given the same advice though, so don't blame yourself. You know now, and you can work around it now, and that is the main thing.

Those of you who have used the minipill - if you miss one, how long do you have to use extra protection for? I missed one two weeks ago but have been on it since, but a condom split last night Should I go get the MAP just incase?

SirBoob really glad to hear you were given the same advice. I was starting to doubt myself and wondering if I had misheard or some such.

The registra at the hospital said defo no cows milk under one even on ceriel (sp?). Such conflicting advice is so . Registra appears to be right on this one for Alfie though.

Can't help on mini pill I'm afraid but you call NHS direct, I'm sure it's a fairly standard question that they get asked a lot.

Hello all!

I've been away this past week so not been able to catch up on all the gossip but hope everyone is ok. We spent a lovely week in North Devon with some friends and their children and had such a lovely time. The weather was fab all week and we went to the beach every day, we stayed on a farm too so loads for the kids to do everyday, they loved it!

Millie's sleeping is still not good though, she ended up sleeping with me and dh shared a room with ds! I really need to sort her sleeping out, but we are moving to Singapore in three weeks so I'm thinking there is no point in even trying before then.

Ninja agree with the others it's not your fault, you were only following advice from the hv. Hope Alfie is ok now.

Sirboob not sure about the mini pill, can you check with NHS direct?

Is everyone doing 3 meals now for the bubba's? Millie is having 3 meals but breakfast can be hit and miss. I haven't bothered with snacks yet and our day goes:

morning - boob then breakfast
mid morning - boob
Lunch - boob then puree and finger food (depending on if i'm out or not!)
Mid afternoon - boob
Dinner - boob then dinner, finger food and whatever ds has but mashed up
Bedtime - boob, then another couple of boob feeds in the night.

Does that sound like a lot of milk feeds?

Right, will try and catch up on everyone elses news now!

Ninja I only saw HV Friday so am sure of what she said. We were talking about breakfast and I asked if I should mix with EBM, and she said I could, or could use full fat cows milk. Its so much more confusing than I thought it was going to be!! How is Alfie doing today?

I'm a bit cross at these HV's and cow's milk advice, as I'm sure you are too Ninja. I've learned the hard way about allergies and cow's milk is the most common allergen for babies. If it's being introduced under one year old at all, it should be in a partially denatured form, e.g. yoghurt, fromage frais, cheese, cooked milk, etc. Poor wee Alfie. Leave well alone for now Ninja and introduce yoghurt etc. bit by bit when he is older. With dd1 it was one spoon a day for a few days, the 2 spoons, etc. But it should be under gastro/dietician advice.

Sorry I haven't been on in ages. Busy here with life and keeping abreast of leaving dos at work, housewarmings, etc. I echo FP about having 2 and finding it hard to get organised. I get food organised for everyone, then remember I've forgotten about the baby . And because her diet is so restricted she can't have what we're having and so she ends up with a plate of potatoes or something equally riveting. Poor thing. We were at a party past night and she was tucking into salmon and cucumber, after having had tinned mackerel for lunch. BTW does anyone know if you're meant to cook these tins of mackerel or can you eat straight from the tin? I just gave her a fillet as was and then wondered about this afterwards. I'm not a fish person so don't have much of a clue

Sorry t hear of sleepless babies. It wasn't so long ago that we were one of those so my thought are with you. Daytime naps are still fairly non-existent but we do tend to get a 7/8pm-5am stretch, and then a bf in bed with me and another doze until 630 or so. So far so good.

Need to go and find dd1 and check she is not begging next door for lunch. This whole next door kids thing is new territory for me. They seem to prefer our garden for playing in. This week they have used dd1's hooplas as frisbees and I've had to ask them to retrieve them from over the fence, and raided her craft box without asking and left paint all over my picnic table. They are lovely kids, but I'm having to work out what my boundaries are without being The Grouch Next Door.

There seems to be contradictory advice then. I just looked in the NHS Weaning pamphlet I got from the doctor's surgery (published 2009) and it says "Cow's milk is not suitable as a drink until your baby is 12 months old but can be mixed with food or used in cooking."

I hate the way you get so much differing advice all the time, it causes so much unnecessary stress. Can they not just make up their minds and stick to it?!
Sorry to hear about Alfie, Ninja, and that you were made to feel guilty about following that advice.

I am totally sick of Glastonbury now. I need to sleep!!

BTW, what are you putting babies to bed in in this weather? James just had a nap and the room was 24 degrees. I put him in a nappy and pillowcase sleeping bag. Does that sound right? (DD is now insisting on jumping around in a pillow case too )

Laugs I just put annabelle in her popped up vesty thing (cant think of proper name) as our house is sooo hot at the mo.

Ninja sorry to hear about Alfie's poorly tummy. I hate the fact that no information given from one HV to another is ever the same too. hope he feels better soon!

Ninja Sorry to hear about Alfie. Don't put yourself through any guilt!!

Our bedroom has hit 30 degrees today. Too blimmin hot to expect C to sleep. I've dragged out the aircon unit and fiddled with that trying to get it to work and made myself very hot in the process. I can't put it in our room as it's too noisy. I've got it on the landing and hoping it makes an impact before bedtime. C has been sleeping in a vest and nappy.

Well, C is now (sort of) sitting! He's not that keen on the idea, but very able to do it. He's nodded off early tonight downstairs, hoping it doesn't disrupt his sleep tonight. This heat has got to all of us today.

We are back to BLW with very little spoonfeeding. C prefers to feed himself and doesn't even like me to hand him the food, I have to leave it on his tray for him to pick up. helips your feeding routine sounds like mine. I'm bf him more since we've gone back to BLW, but I don't mind really.

My DH is back late tonight. He's been in Bulgaria since Monday. I've not had much time to miss him, but I'm now really looking forward to seeing him safely home .

Sorry to hear about Alfie ninja. I was also told cow's milk fine and it's on my weaning plan sheet HV gave me. I've been using it warmed (cooked) on weetabix too. So far no problems but it's interesting what you say hobnob
that it can start probs without us knowing until it's too late and they're in pain

Lots of DHs away or footy-ing!

That was meant to read 'warmed (cooked?)' as in..does this count?

Ninja sorry to hear about Alfie, hope he's on the mend now. DH and I are on the up, thanks for asking. Lots of changes have happened, with positive consequences so am hopeful things will now just get better. We go on holiday in 10 days so that should help too.
DD's exams are now finished and went well. Now we wait until the end of August for the results!

Ioan didn't feed last night He woke at 4am and I gave him his dummy, he went back off to sleep then woke at 6am! He was quite happy and then fed around 6:15. He seems to wake for the day around then so that's fine. Dare I wonder if this is the start of things changing?!

Footie widow here too. We've had a nice social weekend though with kiddies parties, picnics and bbq's so busy but nice.

I've also joined a gym - it's about time the flab went so am on a mission now!!

Oops, I have been giving Millie Cows milk in cereal, didn't realise this was bad. Did the same for ds at this age and he is fine. Not sure what to do, keep on with the cows milk as she seems fine or express?

I'm wondering if I'm confusing advice for sensitive babies with mainstream advice now? I've been reading a couple of heavy duty tomes about allergies and intolerances so I maybe have. It seems sensible to introduce 'sub-strength' dairy first, especially if the wee one has eczema, but then I only know that through my experiences with dd1. If your LOs are fine with it then that is great. I think sensitivity to dairy dwindles after a year so the advice would be aiming to avoid problems with those that might be sensitive under 1yo.

ANyway, Ninja I hope that he improves quickly and that you get some proper advice from a non-baby-brained professional.

dd2 has taken off in the past couple of days. She had been planted sitting on the floor for at least a month, but has now worked out that rolling gets you places. Great fun to watch. She still has eyes bigger than her stomach at mealtimes though and tends to end the meal thrashing back and forth in her chair trying to move a lump of food in her gullet, I presume. Either that or she's a mosher.

Meant to say scarlotti I've been thinking about you and DH and DD recently so I'm glad to hear that things are on the up.

Ninja very frustrating to get such poor advice, hope Alfie feels better soon.

scarlotti how exciting! Hope it's the beginning of a new trend. We had a blissful 6 weeks early on when M was sleeping through the night but that stopped around 4 mos and we've been trying to get back to it ever since!

helips I think if there's been no adverse reaction you're fine to continue with the milk?

FP My LO also hates to be fed - if the spoon gets near her mouth she grabs it with both hands (with messy results). Unsurprisingly, very little eating is getting done here!

In such a strange place right now - we're currently living on one salary plus savings, looking for better jobs, about to move into a bigger flat, but also looking for houses as my parents want to help us buy. So if we can get some more income, we'll be set to buy a house, but if we can't we'll soon run out of savings and have to downgrade our whole situation. It's exciting and terrifying! I sent in my first job application today - wish me luck

longwayaway good luck with the job hunting and house hunting

hobnob thanks glad to hear dd2 is doing well too.

Milk - I'm going on the basis that he can have full fat cows milk in cooking (so on cereal) but not as a main drink until 1yr.

Food - I keep giving food until he decides he's had enough. Some days it's loads, others not so much. He blows raspberries when he's done so it's obvious!

Sleep - the all nighter was just a one off, shame. Am ok though as now feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel so fingers crossed it will all sort itself out over the next few weeks!

hey all, A has had a little bit of Ice cream before (only a taste) if she was going to react to milk this would have caused it already wouldn't it? With ds I gave him milk as 6 months with his cereal but am worried now.

Good luck longwayaway hope you get the job and home you wish for...

I've been on the go all day and am now bloody knackered! Ds woke at 5.30am, we went shopping, then to the park, then to toddler group, then dropped him off at Sil's so I could take Millie swimming, then picked him up, then dinner, bath, bed....phew! Dh is out so at least I've had the telly to myself!

Oh and I've just realised it's not 3 weeks till we move but 2....aaarrgghh! not even packed yet!

helips, so exciting (not your day, the move obviously). Do you have to pack everything yourself or do you get help from professional movers?

longwayaway, good luck to find the right job and home!

cowsmilk, the advice I've got is to wait with cows milk at all until 1 year. (But then this is the slightly outdated book). I think I'll follow it as I was always under the impression that Paula would vomit more if I had lots of dairy products, so I guess she is in fact a bit sensitive.

Oh and tooth no 8 finally cut through. So I'm hoping this is it for a while.