march lambs 2010 come on ladies

[vegasbaby]

Jul: If Sam is still having tummy problems try eliminating the cereals for a day or so and instead give more fruit. I find that is very effective in helping them go when they are a bit backed up. Fruit has a lot of water in it and they are more willing to eat the fruit than drink water.

Lynn: Glad to hear that Nate is feeling better. Sounds like EJ has an appetite like my Charlotte. I swear the girl is a bottomless pit.

MM: Can't wait to hear if she wins. I bet she will!

Cocoa: No sending her back. I'm sure it is just a phase and will pass quickly.

Last night we ended up getting invited to a reception for the opening of the new arena in Orlando (DH's company has season tickets for the local team). As this was a family event we brought Charlotte. She had a great time and even got her photo taken with some of the cheerleaders. As you can see she is a bit confused. A fun and free night out. Can't beat that!

 

[julchen_79]

What an adorable picture Vegas!!! Love her little outfit too

 

[Emskins]

MM-voted for yur Ella..good luck!

HC-a tooth at last!

We are still waiting for some teeth action , my poor miss has been suffering

Cocoa-I hope the day got better for you

We had the osteo today, it went better than last time in that there were moments of crying instead of the whole session being crying.

 

[CocoaOne]

Fab pic Vegas!

Emskins - sounds like an improvement!

M got a little better when I went to see my friend. I need to hurry up and make this sling so I can wander about with her, she always likes to be up high and looking around when she's fussy.

 

[greenlady]

Cocoa - glad to hear M perked up.
Vegas - cute pic
Em - hope the CO appt helps somewhat. x

I have had a bit of a downer day. I dunno what it is, just talking to my mummy friends who have stopped BFing and are all nicely getting into routines and managing to cut out night feeds... its hard hearing this after being up around 5 times last night. Only 3 were feeds but still. And she didn't even eat that much.

So I've got a million things going on in my head, Should I be structuring a routine more? Should I be doing some intensive sleep training? Maybe I should introduce a bottle of formula once a day, probably late evening, to help her sleep longer? I don't seem to get more than 1 bottles worth per day when I pump. And she's so distractable when feeding that I really dont think she's getting enough in the day, also how can I get her into a 3 or 4 hourly routine when she's hungry more often because she doesn't eat enough in one go? Do I force her to go longer between and therefore she'll eat more when the time comes?

Ah I'm just musing. I'm knackered and for the first time its kind of affecting my emotions. Normally I don't let stuff get to me, but I find myself feeling jealous of my FF friends who are able to structure their days so well.



Oh and to top it off Mrs has had two days in a row of only having 3 half hour naps. SHe's totally knackered all the time as well - she's happy mostly but it does mean that really upset crying is a daily occurence. She has really been straining to get her poos out as they are quite solid. She is enjoying her solids but gets cranky towards the end of eating. Like she's full but gets upset anyway when the food stops coming.

Grr just ignore just having a moan. I was about to google 'sleep training techniques for babies' but now I just want some dinner and wine and to go to bed.

 

[CocoaOne]

GL - You've been weaning Flora off a dummy haven't you? I was going to say - could you try offering the dummy once or twice before giving her boob to make sure she's really hungry at night

As I mentioned, we'd been leaving M to whinge for 5 mins before going to her, replugging or settling, then leaving it another 5 minutes before going in. It seemed to be working for a while but I think she's regressed because of this growth spurt. Do you think the same could have happened with F?

What sort of routine do you envisage having (ideally)? What's your current feeding and sleeping pattern like? Unless she's losing weight or doing less wet nappies- I'd say she's probably getting enough milk from you. But if you do give a bottle before bed, it is probably worth pumping too just so your supply doesn't drop (can be an issue past 6 months and you might want to pick the feed up again)

Also, the FF might make her constipation worse as her belly won't be used to digesting it. Have you tried a bit of OJ, or offering pears and prunes to her? What sort of foods us she having? Lots of cereals or starches could be backing her up?

Sorry for all the questions - just thinking out loud

Oh meant to add - M's naps have shortened again to around 40 mins. Putting that down to this blimmin growth spurt too.

 

[Seity]

Happy 6 months M!
Love the picture vegas!
GL - Hope the sleep improves. I have to do a bottle before bed or I won't have enough milk for Gabriel's night feeds. I think your friends are just lucky because he doesn't sleep any better with a bottle then he was doing with the breast. Lately he's waking only 3 hours after falling asleep for his first meal of the night.

I'm amazed at how much solid food all of your LO's are eating. Gabriel's definitely curious about it, but doesn't do more than taste most things. He only eats maybe a tsp worth of food before he gets bored with it. He much prefers his milk or formula still. I made pancakes for dinner last night and made one the size of a quarter and he did eat most of that.

 

[lynnikins]

aww pancakes lol now i want some mmmmmm lol

EJs not been so much into solids today i think his teeth are really bugging him as even with paracetamol regualrly though the day then i couldnt do anything but hold him this afternoon and he was boiling hot even though he was just in a bib and nappy poor thing i hope he sleeps well tonight he didnt sleep at all this afternoon

 

[greenlady]

Well I was just starting with only giving it to her at naps and bed time. SO I guess no not really off the dummy yet. She will take it in the night once but next time she wakes she wants a feed... at least I think she does because her crying escalates even with the dummy until I feed her. Last night I managed to pat her back to sleep (holding her) at one waking when I thought she'd need a feed, so that was good but she wa up and 1 and hour and a half later anyway.

Yep I think there's some regression/spurt going on but I am going to try not be so quick to repsond to her. I think I'll even stop using the monitor at night, she's only in the next room.

She's not losing weight she's bang on the 25th centile. Has always been perfectly on the line as well. Ideally I'd like her to go more like 3 hours between feeds, but I'm all a bit confused with weaning when I should be doing BF in between iykwim? So its roughly like this now

Wake and breastfeed around 7am. Breakfast (solid) at 8-8:30 (but usually with a small BF as well just before or just after). Nap around 9:30-10, lately only for half an hour but occaisionally more like 45-1 hr. BF around 11. Lunch around 12:30 (again depends what I'm doing today I was at swimming so lunch wasn't until 1:30). Again with a little BF top up. Nap after this.... today the nap was before lunch because of swimming. then another decent sized BF and short nap in between and dinner at 5. I am still BFing at each solid feed because I thought at first they still primarily needed milk.

SHe is eating some purees I have given carrot, sweet potato, swede, butternut, sometimes slip a bit of broccoli, she has banana at breakfast mostly and I tried a bit of porridge yesterday. I have given her melon, carrot, broccoli, rice cakes, pear and strawberry as finger food but mostly this doesn't actually get digested. Today I got some organice baby food stuff called Ellas house with prune in it. And I put a bit of OJ in her water because she wont drink it otherwise. I haven't given her that much starch but I guess the sweet potato is. She loves it!

I don't really want to FF in my heart... but I also don't want to be feeling so out of control. I would pump at the time she got the FF bottle because I'd want to keep my supply up. think its part of BFing that you can't schedule as well, maybe I'm just having a low moment, because I'm tired, but its not all that bad really.

Thanks for your concern hun I'll get over it. We've got a lovely lasagne to eat now. I am pumping this evening and am going to try a dreamfeed at around 10 (I've never done one before).

ETA sorry for such a long post

 

[Kel127]

Seity- Connor loves pancakes. He easily ate a full sized pancake plus hashbrowns and eggs. He loves food and will anything.
GL- I give Connor a bottle of formula before bed, and he sleeps though the night. I don't know if its because of the formula or if its just because he is a good sleeper. I only put Connor on a feeding schedule becuase he has so many different people watching him during the week that he needed some kind of structure.
Vegas- Love the picture, she is so adorable. I showed my mom and she thinks charlotte looks like the female version of Connor. Connor is also a bottomless pit, he only quits eating because I stop giving him food.
MM- I voted

I ordered a new cord so hopefully it shows up soon so I can upload some pics.

 

[CocoaOne]

GL - M is the same usually - she'll cry and make me think she's hungry but I'm not entirely convinced. She probably just does it for comfort, but it's hard to know when they need the food.

Your schedule is nearly identical to ours (pre-spurt) The banana at breakfast could be the poo-stopper - they are really binding for some people (I get awful bloating with them)

Good luck with the dream feed, remember that they sometimes take a while to make a difference, so dont lose heart if it doesn't help tonight.


Lyn - poor EJ

Seity - M doesn't actually swallow much food TBH. She actually tried broccoli tonight, it's taken her ages to even touch the stuff

 

[greenlady]

Kel - I'm going back to work in January so a routine of some kind should be vaguely in place by then. I do think it would help me, mentally, a bit if things were a bit more predictable.

Cocoa - that's the problem with BFing, you don't know how much they got in the day so how do you know if they dont really need the food at night? Having written it down the schedule isn't so bad. I might be making things worse for myself by being out and about a lot in the day and working with my husband as well. I might try writing everything down for a few days and then try to set some rough guidelines for myself when I see how it all pans out.

And thanks for the tip on the banana. It seems to be the only fruit she'll eat so far except melon, I gotta get some more of that.

 

[lynnikins]

GL hun this is what EJ's day looks like

7:30ish wake up , EBM bottle
8:30ish 2-3 tblsn porridge with fruit or yougurt to sweeten
9:30ish BF
10:30 Nap
12/12.30 BF
1pm Lunch, Rice cakes with avacado or dairylea or Pasta with small amount of sauce
playtime
3/3.30 BF
4/4.30pm Nap
6pm BF or EBM bottle
6.30, Dinner Vege finger food then fruit slices
8.pm EBM bottle
8.30 Bedtime

when EJ was getting distracted alot i found taking him to the bedroom to sit on the bed and just let him feed and pop on and off till he was definatly done ie.. flat refusing 2-3 times, then we would stop the feed at that. now hes a bit better but still pretty easily distracted lol
for the last few days though with his teeth hes been all over the place like was feeding at least once every hour this afternoon just short feeds as i think it was too sore for him to feed for long periods

 

[greenlady]

Yeah I forgot to mention that bedtime is at 7, after bath and EBM bottle at 6-6:30. Last night she was a bit distressed after her bath in the living room so I fed her in the bedroom (just BF as I was saving EBM for the dreamfeed) and she just wanted to go to sleep. I managed to get her to have a decent feed then just put her to bed and it was only just gone 6.

Good news though, the dream feed seemed to work! I gave her 4 oz (thats all I could pump) at 10:30 and she didn't wake up until 4:30! She also went back down without her dummy. She squeaked a bit after about 10 minutes when she woke up enough to realise the dummy wasn't there. But I left her and she was asleep within 3 or 4 minutes. She then woke up at 7. So I feel like a billion times more human today which is great. She's down already now for a nap as she was just behaving tired . So we'll see how the routine pans out today.

Thanks for you advice girls.

ETA the bath wasn't in the living room! she was on the sofa with me where I usually give her a bottle.

 

[CocoaOne]

Fab news! Everything seems more rosy when you've had a bit of sleep too! Maybe the earlier night helped too? I've read that a slightly earlier bedtime can help some babies- theory being that they are too tired at 7 etc so they enter a deep sleep quicker, and then wake earlier. But I'm too chicken to try putting M down at 6:30 incase she then wakes for the day at 3am!

 

[lynnikins]

ive found if i get EJ into bed before half 8 that he sleeps till closer to 8am but if its after that he gets up at 7

 

[CocoaOne]

^ see. Maybe you should try putting Flora down at 6:30 instead of 7 to see if that helps?

 

[vegasbaby]

GL: Sorry you are having such a tough time of it lately. Glad you had a good night last night. I agree with Cocoa about the banana being the potential clogger.

Seity: I wish Charlotte would actually show a little restraint at dinner. Last night I offered her toast, chicken and cheese and she was cramming all three into her mouth at once. Mind you a lot of the food I give her still ends up in her highchair or on the floor. The dogs really love Charlotte's mealtimes.

Lynn: Poor EJ, hope is feeling better today.

Kel: One of these days we are going to have to get our babies together. Charlotte is starting to realize she is not the only child in the world. Yesterday we went to the park and she was just staring at the other children. Of course I think she was wondering how they walk when she doesn't.

 

[greenlady]

Yeah I might put her down earlier because she also seems really tired after bath time and has a screaming fit while I put her pyjamas on. It just seems so early but anyway its good for me I get an evening and in winter it'll be dark anyway.

So good sleep begets good sleep, she had a 1 and a quarter hour nap this morning. She had a short nap about 12:30 but only just had lunch now because I've been out. She'll have another nap soon then that'll probably be it so I guess if she's awake at 3:30 she'll have to go bed earlier than 7 otherwise she'll be knackered.

Actually just realised we're going to SILs house for dinner so its going to throw things out a bit. Oh well.

Vegas - cracked me up the image of charlotte trying to get everything in her mouth at once!

 

[lynnikins]

unfortunatly ej woke this mornig with a terrible cold and his temp has been up all day but his eating is a bit better hes just really quiet too