March 2010- Group Therapy on the cheap

[ValiumtheConqueror]

And cupcakes

bumbo - one of the many pre birth ebay purchases i made for £5 DD enjoys sitting in it for short periods currently - same as anything Ive introduced her to - the door bouncer, the bouncy chair - building up time spent in them as they all seem to require different muscles.

name - I rarely call DD her real name - like Manda I worry she'll never learn it - i call her 'baby' a fair bit and also 'rabbit' and 'little roo' and 'roobit' I also call all small peoples hands paws and Im also concerned she'll grown up thinking she has paws!! Imagine the school day she finds out that they are hands.. I like your story behind James' name manda

Weaning - Im leaving it to 20 weeks at least and following Smac down the BLW route I think. However i have given DD a drop of what ever Im drinking occasionally (she drinks plenty of bathwater too!)

tonight DH and I are going to work on getting DD to drop one of her night feeds by DH going to settle her if it hasnt been 3 hours or more. She has just thrown us a 'test' by waking up at 10pm (went down at 7.30) and so far so good - the iPhone white noise app working its' magic.. I tried to settle her at 1am the other night but she could smell me I think and started crying properly rather than grizzling. (BTW *M'elk - I think Mumsnet are working on iphone app - I asked)

Why when i've never NEEDED a washing machine have two packed up in 4 weeks? First broke so bought a new one and 4 weeks later second has the same fault as the first. Not a good month with Grandma, washer and knacker crashing into our car and peeing off. Not great on £123 per week!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Manda - bought on ebay fpr £10 - great for that amount but wouldnt fork out 35!

and now the kettle.............

Scooby If you bought the machine new at least it will be covered by the warranty...won't it? If not then can you get another one off Freegle?

Manda I've been thinking about a bumbo, DD is getting fed up of the bouncy chair - she's trying to pull herself up in it and gets very cross!

Smac I've been planning on BLW too, DD has been eyeing up my dinner for a couple of weeks now though, she's 15 w/o tomorrow. Not keen on the idea of having to mush up/puree stuff unnecessarily. I put a tiny smidge of banana on her tongue earlier but she didn't notice it was there.

Siamese Some of those are names used for DD as well, although the favourites at the moment are 'Snoggy Boggett' (it's from my mum, I don't know where she got it from!) and 'Tatty Bonce' on account of her messy hair.

Pacific, sorry the paeds appointment was a disappointment, I was hoping you'd get some help.

For those wanting to see their notes, a friend of mine had birth counselling (7 weeks prem birth) and said she felt it helped her as she wasn't sure she'd be able to go through having another without it. I've avoided it as despite really wanting to know why DD was ventouse (particularly now after normal delivery of DS) my post natal notes were so full of bull like "BF well", which she wasn't at all I figured I'd just get cross.

Nicknames: Sweet boy, Wee boy and full name when required, like when his bottom explodes.

Bumbos: we have one, used for a short time with DD but not really all that useful for her. We are trying to retrieve it as DS is a bit stronger and more interested in sitting up. But for weaning we'll get another Stokke Trip Trap which we think are great. DD still uses hers at 3.5 and will do for some time.

Weaning: will follow some BLW, as we did with DD. I found some video of DD having her first food the other day which was hilarious. I've borrowed the Gill Rapley book as that wasn't available last time and am disappointed to find it's in the "rabid" advice category of parenting books in that if you don't follow their advice they tell you your child will grow up to be a fat lazy delinquent. But the bits that make sense I'll try and follow. DD's nursery couldn't get their heads round the idea at all, so we ended up doing a mix of both and she's a relatively good eater and we never had any stress about eating solid foods as opposed to purée, probably because she always had finger foods.

Right, busy weekend trying to have some sort of normal life around televised sport - not only do I have the farking football to contend with but 4 hours of Formula 1 and 2 hours of Moto GP. TTSP - and at least Alex will grow up but sport seems to happen every bloody year!

Manda - Simeon's been in his bumbo for about 3 weeks. Happy times with him on the table as we eat. Makes him feel more like part of the family.

everyone else Hi

Minor miracle in the sleep stakes last night. He went to sleep earlier than usual (normally goes to sleep between 8 & 9) at about quarter to 7. Woke a few times until I got into bed too at about 11 and realised a group of kids outside periodically squealing with laughter were disturbing him so after telling them to bugger off politely asking they keep the noise down (actually, this is what I did although I wanted to do the former - I do remember what it's like to be young ). So I fed him (over & him back to sleep within 10mins) and settled down myself. Kids did indeed bugger off about 11.30, and I was asleep by midnight.

He woke to be fed at 5.59am! I could not belive I'd gotten six whole hours! and that he'd slept 7 hours straight. From there he only dozed on and off (as did I) until we got up at 8. He's had his breakfast, a bath, some boob and now back in bed sleeping. Today is, so far, A Good Day.

Well, I bid on, and won, a bumbo with tray in apparently 'brand new' condition for £25 including delivery last night after reading what you all had to say (thanks for the input!). Then I saw the red ones and... I'm winning on that too! I'll kept the aqua one at DP's mums if I end up with the red one as we are there every sunday for dinner so I'm sure it'll come in handy.

Right, I think I'm gonna jump in the bath whilst I can... toodles!

(oh, before I go, want to send a hefty portion of this good feeling I have today to dear PD. It seems odd to not see you post regularly and I truly hope things are improving for you and Joe)

really intersted in trying blw never heard of ot before sounds like a great idea ie no more pureeing but hv knew nothing about it

had bumbo with ds4 it was brilliant took it everywhere but sold it when i thought dc8 would never happen must try to get another on ebay soon.

nn as she was nameless for so long percy ie little person is still a favourite . although dd2 14 has named her rafiki after lion king character as her frowns when not amused are so reminscent of said baboon.sad thing is she responds to this as much as too her really name. i can see myself filling in forms with felicity known as rafiki and or percy .

Our neighbour gave us her baby's bumbo. It seems really nice but DS didn't like very much. I'll try again later. This one has a tray which might be useful once we start weaning.

I'm still very confused about weaning. Our HV said we could start any time between 20-22 weeks and 6 months, but that according to the latest guidelines we should wait till 6 months. On one hand I wanted to start to see if DS's bowels would work better with all the fruits and vegetables, but on the other hand I'm afraid that he's digestive system stills immature. There are no official guidelines on weaning premature babies, but "Bliss" says any time between 5 and 6 months actual age. HV pointed that if we start before 6 months is just baby rice, fruits and vegetables. After 6 months we can give pretty much everything.

Yesterday we went out for a meal. We were celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary. A friend came and looked after DS but thank god he slept all the time
I'm working today need to finish this paper with my supervisor, but I'm so so slow... I think it's going to take ages to finish this paper. DH is looking after DS and enjoying some father and son time.

Enjoy the weekend
x

Planning to blw here so will start weaning when dd grabs out for food. She looks interested already but her motor skills aren't nearly as good as she thinks they are . Watching her try to levitate into a sitting position when she's lying down is particularly entertaining.

Sleep still all to pot so hoping some of your recent good luck on that front, manda, will rub off on me.

Oh, and I think I have mastitis. Right boob is full of rock hard lumps. Hurts a lot. Feeding helps a bit - and also hurts more - but the lumps just reappear. Owwwww.

Buenos Dias ladies....I return to you from forrin shores with my 4 month old who is weaned, fully potty-trained, a brilliant swimmer and speaking Spanish like a native. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. As if. I return to you with a baby who sleeps worse than she did when we left, who spent the last three days with dehydration because she decided she didn't like the SAME formula when it came from a different country. But who is soooooo cute, rolling over and smiling and generally being yummy.

Oh, and I a) did it (please see my earlier comments about full-service holidays and shaved legs) and b) gave up bfing. It worked quite well actually as cold pools and cool beers helped ease the pain, and I return to visit Rigby and Peller for dust off fully underwired bras and co-ordinating knickers. I shall ceremonially burn the evil fetching feeding bras and maternity pants.

But first i shall find a quiet couple of hours to catch up on two weeks of chat. Two hours? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

waves to all, hopeeveryone is ok! not much top say but i am lurking!

Fliss-bought new from currys.hotpoint coming tomorrow to look at it but they suspect the cause is ive been using too much detergent! Wtf! Wtf! Yeah rite! If THEY decide that then they wont fix and im liable 4 callout!dont think so. I use the correct amount and what a stupid claim anyway.not impressed. Seems to me its clearly not fit for purpose. Feel a fight coming on! Just back from emptying grans flat. Had to be done reasonably quick as she was a dss case so you only get a few weeks. Hope youre all enjoying the sun.im in the house with a drooling sore toothed boy x

Still working on this damn paper and just stopping for feeding DS. It's incredible how my brain stills slow... Hopefully this will improve over the next months and it will be up and running once I restart my PhD.

Sariska hope you are better.
scooby Hope your DS gets better. Mine is also teething.
Valium do you think it was the water that gave formula a different taste?

Hope everyone is enjoying the good weather.

evening all

unbelievable couple of weeks. won't bore you with details but it involves an inordinate lack of sleep, an incredible failure on the Supernanny technique (47 times in an hour at one point) and two beautiful daughters who have made me smile and cry too many times this fortnight!!

what to comment on, well, um...
nicknames we have always had ridiculous nicknames for DD1 and 2. So far the longest we have for DD2 is: "Theo-dora..Dinky-dora, wouldn't you like to know..."

Hey y'all. DH poorly again. Internally bleeding testicle has given way to tonsilitis. And a weekend of nights. Sad time for MrD.

Nicknames here: Simeon is known as Simmy. Simmeister.Sim. Lickle man (by DD) Zimmyaaaarn (imagine saying Simeon with a jamaican accent. Also DD) Oh and Snodgehog.

BLW will still puree as with older two as I'm fairly convinced that they can't get the AMOUNT of food into them that they need by just self feeding but I would ABSOLUTELY recomend putting steamed veg etc in their hands and letting them gnaw away. Much better in the long run with the transition to lumpy stuff.

for the record I LOATHE weaning. It is my LEAST favourite skill to teach. I have succesfully sleep trained 2, potty trained 1 and bottle trained 3 but never have I gone through weaning without getting snappy and narky with DH and generally stressed. But then I am a stress head.

Love to you all - apologies for total lack of postage from here. Life has well and truly caught up with me and Simeon is finding sleeping VERY tricky with the heat.

Sorry to hear of everyone's woes and I hope it gets better soon for us all. Time we all got a break from the mastitis, sleep deprivation, poorly other halves/other children and from the grind in general methinks.

Alex decided that he was absolutely not going to feed this afternoon during the football unless he could see the tv at the same time. So I had to shift him from cradle hold, which we have now mastered and which was clearing my blocked ducts quite nicely, to rugby hold so he could see! Funny child.

Valium, I hope you managed some relaxation on your holiday. Apparently the same product has different recipes to suit local tastes and regulations so the same thing tastes different in different countries - sorry to hear that it ended up with a dehydrated baby for you tho.

Anyone else just too hot? I know I shouldn't complain but DD is miserable in this heat, it makes her really narky.

Hi, we're back from Sweden. Had a great time in our summer house, which is actually my mum and her siblings' summer house but hey ho, I'm glad that I impressed y'all... Anyway, it's 2 little red houses between the sea, forest and flowery meadows and it's beautiful! Kids had a great time. Midsummer is a big thing in Sweden, we had a midsummer pole (fertility/fallic symbol I believe), flower wreath on DD1's head, consumed herring, strawberrys, schnaps, etc. I blamed breasfeeding for only having a tiny schnaps but the real reason is it tastes horrible! Plane journeys were a breeze with DH being there, me barking out orders throughout the trip... "landing soon, get the baby carrier ready!", etc.

Hope you had a good time too Valium despite various problems?

Bumbo yes from us too, DD2 had been in it for ages and I agree with Arcadie, it makes her feel more like part of the family sitting on top of the dinner table.

Names... For some reason I have started calling Isabelle "Isabellini" or just "Bellini". I have no idea why. I thought we would call her Issy more, but we don't so much. DH also has lots of silly names for her. It's part of the fun of having a baby!

Weaning. The official recommendation is to wean at no earlier than 6 months but no later. So, you're supposed to start exactly on the 6 months "birthday"?! Ridick! We're probably starting purees at 4 months, although I'm intrigued by Blw, might combine... Last time around we did home made purees but DD1 would only eat jars! Haha. So this time we probably won't bother. Carrot puree jars were the favourites.

About Downs, I was wondering about that too, how they diagnose it. But yeah surely someone would have said something?

I said in my last post that Isabelle doesn't like tummy time. Well now all of a sudden she's doing really well, holding her head up high and almost rolling over. And that's without any "training". I remember trying to teach DD1 how to crawl... this time deffo won't bother with such things! Everything will happen when they are ready.

sorry I really don't mean to be judgey pants about this but I really shudder when I hear you say you put the bumbo on the table. It is really not designed for this and clearly say so on the box. I know we all have different opinions on risk etc (think we covered it on one of our ante-natal threads - someone's DH thought it was ok to drive a landrover aged 3 or something). We have a hard tiled kitchen floor and the thought of DD2 falling from the kitchen table on to the floor makes me shiver. I just would never do it myself.

annamama totally agree there is not a switch that goes off when baby is exactly 6m saying feed me solids now! Which is why I like BLW and you take the lead from the baby, if they can physically put food in their mouth then they are probably ready to start the weaning journey regardless of whether this is 22w or 27w etc.

arcadie sorry to hear that DH is still poorly. Complications following vasectomy is exactly the reason that DH won't consider it and his work colleagues all like to share horror stories!

Right would love to witter on a bit more but have to take the girls out to Jambori and we aren't dressed yet!

Anna, you are back- we'll have to make some plans to meet during the big hols, or I might go mad!! Glad you had a nice time and I hope you didn't dance round the Maypole- don't need anymore babies on the thread just yet!!

Weaning- we are in the zone. BabyV screamed blue murder every time we ate on hols that i started handing her things (DD1 helped of course) and i figured by the time she'd noshed on chips, asparagus, ice-cream, chocolate and tapas, i might as well go ahead. Just been standing in the 'goo' aisle at Waitrose and all the purees sound so good I doubt I'll even bother making it myself this time [and the Bad Mother of the Week goes to.......Valium] I will give finger food too so throwing a little BLW in there for good measure

BabyV has a whole bunch of nicknames, Bella primarily, but also Button, Bunny, Angelfish, Bella-Boo, Dimples, Baby-App (ToddlyV was widget for a long time, but BabyV is the iPad generation!!)and Dumpling. i love the swet nicknames you give kids. I used to call ToddlyV Dumpling but got in trouble at a kids party for 'giving her issues about her weight in the future'. She tends to be Doodlebug now but was also several of the afore-mentioned. Part of the reason we chose her middle name was so that she could be CJ as it's very hard to shorten Cecily in a manner that is satisfactory to me people.

God, I do witter on- first day back and relishing my day alone with BabyV whilst ToddlyV is at nursery.

Smac - you're right, it says not to put the Bumbo on a table. But at the moment it's not moving at all even when she moves a lot and we put it f-a-r away from the edge, I guess we are judging the risk of her falling down as extremely small but this will probably change, ie if it starts moving even a millimetre it will no longer be on the table.

Oh the thought of anything happen to my kids is horrifying! So no offence taken at the warning.

A warning from me: If anyone has a Jane double pushchair or similar, when there's no toddler in the front and a heavy changing bag hanging off the handle, the pushchair can topple over! I was a bit shocked when I realised this, and now put the changing bag at the front when toddler toddles about...

Yes Valium, I'll email you...

Forgot to say... MummyElk - guess what, we saw an ELK! Yes a real wild one. I've seen them before but DH hadn't so he was really happy.