Babies Born ~ November 2012 #1

[No.5]

Cass glad you've for your happy baby back

Auds glad Sadie is doing well too Not sure about IKEA to be honest. It was only their car park that got flooded so would think they'd be open. Oh actually I'll ask DH, he was over that way today. He said they were open.

DD amazes me. She's rolling; giggling up a storm and today I put her down on her tummy and she commando type crawled - 3 times! Time is just going by too quickly. Trying to sort out a routine of sorts in regards to nap times and school runs. Miss A used to scream the car down but I've put some toys in with her and she seems much happier now, would rather not wake her to feed or put her in the car though!

[Cassius2]

Schonell: crawling!! far out that is so cool!!

I am also beginning to realise that Miss E needs some toys or visual fun when we are out and about. she is definately leaving that newborn baby phase behind now and is needing that bit more stimulation. i finally put up the mobile for her and she is just transfixed!

Oh man, I hate having to wake DD3 up when we go out. so so crazy to wake a sleeping baby hahahaha. we have to do though so often...poor kids, so different from our first baby when we could work more around their schedule and timings!

[No.5]

I wouldn't say he's crawling just yet, but she's certainly trying!

DD has to be woken up lots to go out too Cass. Feel horrible for doing it but she takes it pretty well.

Time is going so fast

[RhiChiChi]

Hi all,

Been reading but not posting as I've been on my phone alot lately, rather than the PC.

Great to hear all the bubs are doing so well!

Miss K is good, still detests the car a bit and likes to skip her arvo sleeps, so it's a battle with her until she crashes at night. Luckily DH is home earlish so I don't have to rush around to get dinner and the likes done. Saturday arvo/nights are the hardest as he plays cricket and if he has a 'home' match it is a 50 minute drive to get home. So usually dinner is a little later and I am juggling two kids in the bath/shower.

She slept through last night (8pm-8am) but I think it was a once off as we went away for a couple of days and our 'routine' was out the window. We'll see how she goes tonight but I am certain she'll wake at least once. I love how much more interactive they are. She 'chats' to us and watches us, particularly DD. She also is quite vocal in letting us know when she doesn't like something!

Glad to hear none of you were affected by the floods. I've been watching a bit when sitting on the couch feeding Miss K.

Everyone keeps asking when I am going to start her on food....! I remind them whilst she is roly poly, she is only 13 weeks old.... She certainly isn't ready for food and is happily bf!

Miss R is off to school tomorrow! I am so excited for her and am looking forward to spending more one on one time with Miss K and fitting in some time for myself. Need to get those kgs off!

[Cassius2]

Hi girls!

How are those with kids in school going now that school drop offs are on??! man, i despise getting up early i am so lazy lol.

RCC: i am loving her sleep through!! (and am totally jealous hahahaha). i too have had a few nights lately where it is just me and the girls (DH has soccer) it works out AOK, but there is a different logistical nightmare to try and contain that's for sure. i tend to get DD3 off to bed first and then have the girls sit down and read a book and they are in bed about 20 minutes later (around 7.30). kinda getting a pattern...kinda.

I can't believe the food talk is happening already! what are the recommendations now? when i had DD1 it was 6 months and with DD2 i think they were back to 4 months...wonder what it is now

Schonell: it is amazing how much these little bubbas can tolerate with being the second born kid huh?! i am amazed at how unphased DD3 is with the intense hugs and play that DD2 always wants to do with her! i wait thinking that DD3 will cry but instead she tends to just shriek with joy lol.

How are our other Mamas going???

AFM: we are all really good here I am loving that DD3 is starting to like being around and lying around and watching us all do our thang. it means that i can get a bit done while she is awake. she is interacting so much more too which is great when we are out and about, she is taking in her world so much more. she is starting to roll over on to her side now and grab her toys...and eat them
Her sleep is AOK. not sleeping through but she is easy enough. we get her down around 7pm now and she wakes for a 5 minute feed around 12.30 and then is down until 5-6. after that we snuggle in bed and she and I doze off intermittently until around 7.30...pretty nice i must say! love those morning cuddles
realised that i had given away our bumbo baby seat the other day so hopped on ebay and bought another one. DD3 LOVES it! she can only handle a few minutes at a time but she gets really excited when she knows she going in hahaha.

[RhiChiChi]

Hi mummas & bubbas (& other little ones)!

School drop off is annoying me. The daily grind of fighting traffic (we don't live within walking distance), getting out of the carpark and driving back home only to do it all again in the arvo is unappealing. I have been jokingly (half serious) saying to DH we need to move closer to DDs school..... I like where we live & our home is more than comfortable plus we have a great backyard for the girls to play in, all set up with cubby house, trampoline, sandpit, swings etc.... but the daily commute annoys me. I so look forward to Wednesdays for the day off, which will end after Labour Day weekend :-/

Well, I spoke a little too soon about Miss K's sleep. It's been back to three hourly wake ups & it is killing me! Her 5.30am wake up is terrible as I need to go back to sleep as I am sooo tired but I then have to be back up again at 7am to get Miss R ready for school etc.... ugggh! I am hoping it is just a small bump in the road. She is also feeding strangely - she has some really good feeds, then snacks in the arvo until early evening, which is painful b/c I can't get much done, so I tend to do as much as possible in the morning and during the day until Miss (cranky) K starts her usual unsettled period....

Cassius - It's such a great time atm with the bubbas, I love the interaction and babbling. Even though they are still newborn, you can see their personalities coming into play now. Miss K is not interested in her toys, unless you are playing with her - I thought she'd be rolling soon but it seems like it is too much effort for her! lol She is so roly poly that I think there is too much weight to roll over with! lol Thanks for the tip re: the bumbo. My gf was going to buy one for me but they had a recall on them to instal the safety belts, so she gave me a gift voucher to get one instead. I haven't been to the store to purchase it but will consider that. We do pop her in the highchair to give us a break from holding her & she is happy in there for a short time but then she get bored or something b/c she starts to whinge!

With the food thing, apart from Miss K not being interested (she is 4 mths today) given she is bf I will wait until closer to the 6 month range and will be doing BLS. I did a bit of purees with Miss R but then couldn't be bothered so she just ate what we did - best thing I ever did in the end! Miss R eats a good range of foods, just not huge amounts but then again she is only a wee poppett. I think Miss K will be bigger & taller than Miss R.... just looking through Miss R's baby photos and DVDs etc.... Miss R was quite petite from a young age & still is. I am sure the MCHN will give me some info on the latest about introducing solids.... I'll just smile & nod... lol

[luna moth]

Hello! Sorry, have been a bit absent.

We are going great! SaySay is in a lovely little routine now - 7:30-7 overnight with one wake up, morning sleep from 9-10ish, midday sleep 12-12:30, then BF, then another hour - synchronised with her sister which is ACE, and then a catnap at 4, often in the sling while big sis goes wild at the local park.
She has started having fun with toys and things too, she's grabbing them and putting them in her mouth already! She has a little pink elephant that she loves. It's funny because my lovey as a baby was an elephant. But her favourite thing of all is Big Sister. She gets all the smiles and giggles, and it is just adorable. Next up is Daddy. I'm just the milk bar

schonell - we have crawling here too! She works her way right up the cot, it's pretty funny. We finally got to ikea and got big sis her big girl bed. It's been great, although we've had the odd surprise when she wakes up. One morning she just came sailing into our room on her bike. Today she started "fixing" things, with her hammer O_o And one morning I came out at 4:30 and found her asleep on the couch! Soooo funny. She's been so happy about the transition, it's been wonderful

RCC - we're waiting for 6 months to start food. DH has an inflammatory bowel disease and his specialist has very strongly recommended we wait. So May 18 it will be! We'll be doing Baby Led again, it worked so well last time. She loves being up at the table with us for mealtimes, so we're thinking about setting her up a high chair of some sort.

Cass - SOOO glad we're not dealing with school drop offs! Hard enough with play groups and stuff. Hate waking her, I'll only do it for swimming lessons. Speaking of, we start baby lessons NEXT TERM. Holy McWow.

Where is the time going?

[Cassius2]

Hi girls!

RCC: omg i would hate to have to commute to school on top of having to wake earlier than normal! I am soo grumpy in the mornings but thankfully school is just down the road and is literally a 5 minute drop off/pick up. and it is so true that it seems that we just drop them off and then it is time to pick up again. especially if DD3 has a big nap...my whole day is sometimes literally tied to the house (like today right now lol).

we will also no doubt wait until 6ish months. we did BLS with DD2 and it was awesome. sooo not going back to the hard work of purees

Audax: our babies sleep pretty much the same i am so so relieved that DD3 is a decent sleeper. DD2 was so much hard work. having a 'normal' sleeper is great!

and woo hoo for the Big Girl bed transition!! it is sooo awesome when they LOVE it and love the Big Girl-ness of it all.

ooops, DD3 just woke up from her 'raging out of control' morning nap! BBL!

[Cassius2]

ok, so i got distracted and it took me a few days to get back

All good here in fact we have had some really wonderful cruisy days and....DD3 has slept through entirely for the last two nights...it feels really weird to wake up at 7am and go 'what? where? how?' lol. i expect it all to come crashing down at some point in the future though hahaha. but for now i have been enjoying it. she really is a sweet kid and quite chilled out. i have been able to pop her in her bed fully awake when tired and she takes herself off to sleep. so different to DD2 who was fed to sleep and had to be deep asleep before i could pop her down. DD3 is much much more like DD1 who was also chilled out in that respect.

I have also been loving how lately she has taken a real interest in her Big Sisters. yesterday was hilarious as DD2 has decided to TT...well, wear knickers at least...she is weeing everywhere hahaha. Anyway, so there we were for the 100th time in the bathroom while DD2 was trying to go to the loo (she decided it was poo time...it wasnt lol), so she is making all these horrendous pushing noises and scrunching up her face and out of nowhere DD3 just cracks up laughing! in the end DD2 was making all the noise to just get a laugh out of DD3 and they were both cracking up...it was so so so funny!

[luna moth]

Haha Cass! Funniest thing here is Big Sister shaking the sleigh bells. Has o be her. If her dad or I do it, well, whatever, but when it's the big sis, it's hilarious.

There's a bit of catnapping going on here. Don't know if I should bother trying to fight it or not.

[Cassius2]

...I'm too lazy to fight

does a quick feed in the room and back to bed work at all?

[RhiChiChi]

Hi all,

I hope you and your little ones are well

Audax - Go Sadie! What an awesome routine! Am so jealous! So hear you on the milkbar bit! DD gives me smiles but only b/c she knows she is going to get fed! lol

Cass - Aww, your girls sound too cute! They really are too funny! I love seeing all the little personalities come out!

AFU - Miss K is so funny. She has this crooked little gummy smile that makes me laugh so much, then it sets her off giggling. She babbles non-stop and is still fixated on her big sister.

Looking forward to starting solids & getting some tips on the BLS - it's been about 5 yrs since we started solids with DD, so I am a little out of the loop with what you can & can't give ie: honey etc...?? A few of my friends still do the purees - they do a batch once a week and it sounds convenient somewhat but I really haven't the inclination or space in my freezer to do it. I just want to plonk food on the highchair tray! I am sooo lazy! hehe

Miss K is a notorious catnapper in the afternoons, so I run around crazily in the mornings to fit in as much as possible. The late arvos and early evenings are horrendous -she still cluster feeds and as soon as she goes to sleep I feel like she is up again! I thought she was trying to push out her sleeping overnight but we are still waking around 4-6 hour blocks after her last evening feed. I can't complain though as she does settle straight back to sleep overnight - so much better than what Miss R was like but then again she was ff not bf so hard to compare the two.

[Cassius2]

Hello girls!

RCC: i dont have a great deal of advice re the BLS. it was something we did without really realising that it was *something* ITMS. one day DD2 was sitting on my lap the next moment she had a fistful of spaghetti bog in her fist and mouth lol. I literally just took her lead. there was no pressure for her to eat. we offered her the exact same meals as us, no specially cooked extra meals or anything. that is what i love about it. it is SUPER easy and the kids love it as it is a big ol' mess hahahaha. for snacks out and about i would pack fruit like pears and nectarines and arrowroot biccies...DD2 loved those haha. oh and steamed veggies etc. and a whole lot of leftovers...and from day dot that would include lasagne, lambchops, risotto etc. it is super easy. there are some FANTASTIC blogs out there that i stumbled upon when someone was horrified at DD2 at 5.5 months eating a lamb chop so i thought maybe i was doing something wrong. I came across a dutch site that was really helpful and straightforward called: borstvoeding com

on the honey thing i think it is best to wait until 9-12 months? but this is from a far and distant memory and cant remember very well...something about babies being vulnerable to botchulism. but not sure as i didnt do the research myself (we are not big honey eaters ).

AFM:Miss E has a cold a lovely present from her Big Middle Sister....it was one of those slow-mo scenes where my snot-riddled 2 year old leant over the baby and with boogers smearing her face kissed her Little Sister...i couldnt leap over fast enough and sure enough. 3 days later lol. it is a *little* bit funny though because poor Miss E woke up totally perplexed as to why her nose wasnt working. i thought she would be upset by it but when i walked in she was trying to breathe through her nose and then would burst out giggling at the fact that she couldnt i breed strange kids man.

[luna moth]

I fought the catnap. I decided to give it a week and see if fighting helped. It does help, but she has a very clear preference for just the one long sleep a day. Morning sleep is 45 minutes, middle sleep 90ish pls boobie snooze afterwards, afternoon 30 minutes. It fits in pretty well with DD1, so I'm rolling with it.

We did the same with BLW, although I did read the book! DD1 grabbed a cucumber stick from my plate at 5.5months, and never really looked back. She had a bit of whatever we were having at mealtimes. She snacked on fruit and veg from about 7 months. Not much went in until 9-10 months (same week my AF came back) then BAM! She was all about the food.

[RhiChiChi]

Thanks so much for those tips ladies about BLS! I am so gonna do it that way - wait and see what DD takes from us eating. I put a spoon to DD mouth the other day to see if she was up for anything but she didn't do anything apart from look at me. I bet she was thinking what the heck is mum doing?! haha....

What was the book you read Audax? I tried to find one today at a baby store but they had a baby puree one. Great work on pushing through the catnap I bet she is happier for it too when she wakes!

I'll check out the blogs Cassius - thanks for that tip. Sorry to hear Miss E is unwell, poor bubba. Touch wood Miss K hasn't had any illness yet, she ocassionally has crusty boogas and that is it.

I tried to express today - hired a medela symphony from the chemist & I got not much, less than 20mls.... I'll try again later or tomorrow.
I think DD has settled into a feeding & sleeping pattern so am feeling like I could make a dinner one night out with my gf's but don't want to chance DH being stuck if she wakes for a feed. I haven't taken a huge note of the pattern but it crossed my mind that she is sleeping for a longer bout overnight, almost through the night. I should write these things down than rather trying to recount it days later! My brain is still suffering fade outs and the likes!

[Cassius2]

I think DD has settled into a feeding & sleeping pattern so am feeling like I could make a dinner one night out with my gf's but don't want to chance DH being stuck if she wakes for a feed. I haven't taken a huge note of the pattern but it crossed my mind that she is sleeping for a longer bout overnight, almost through the night. I should write these things down than rather trying to recount it days later! My brain is still suffering fade outs and the likes!

I would also love to have a dinner out now. Miss E is asleep by 7-7.30 and would love a night with the girls! we do have a monthly meet with my MG but they all meet up at 6.30 so it kinda counts me out which is a bummer (I am the only one with baby #3 and so they get to leave the toddlers at home with partners...).

Audax: haha, i like how you roll i am happy enough with Miss Es day naps too. she is such an easy baby...but i do wonder if that is just because DD2 was such a (cute) terror.

And now i think i might be getting sick and I have a slight concern that AF might be on the way I have had some brown/old blood show up this morning....argghhh! i never had AF show up so early! with DD1 it was at 7 months and DD2 it was at 15 months (the month before i fell pg with Miss E lol). i certainly hope it isnt!!

[luna moth]

I have had three nights out! We make the most of grandparents visiting here! It has been really nice. Saysay's so predictable. A few weeks back we had friends over for lunch, they were a bit late. She started crying as we started eating, and I said "is it 1:30?" And whaddya know... It was 1:28!

RCC I read Baby Led Weaning by Gill Rapley. We armed ourselves with a nice simple high chair and lots of long sleeved bibs. Oh, and a drop sheet for the floor! She just used all our normal cutlery and crockery.

DD2 is quite different to her big sister. A better sleeper, but not so good a feeder. Not as engaging, but happier to be with new people. And they look totally different too!

[RhiChiChi]

Hi all!

Miss K has started rolling, started on Saturday and now rolls around her cot so she is in sleeping bags now, which has not helped with her sleeping, in particular day sleeps. She takes her dummy out or rolls over and won't roll back so cracks it. I've resorted to leaving her to whinge/cry a bit because otherwise I am constantly in her room during this time. A few times I've been out for a walk with the pram and she has had a snooze but that is short lived :-/ luckily she is still settling straight after her night feed and has a good block of sleep otherwise I'd be going crazy! If all else fails I'll resort to trying to wear her so I can get somethings done! Makes things a little difficult because if she has had no sleep and I've had to go out to pick Miss R up from school she is a nightmare in the car! Given she doesn't really like the car anyway it makes it all that much worse! I also had to pick Miss R early up from school today as she wasn't feeling well. On the way home she vomitted in the car, so between putting her in the shower, feeding Miss K and trying to settle her to sleep, washing and cleaning the carseat and car etc.... my plans for housework today have gone out the window!

We saw the MCHN on Monday. Miss K weighs 6.7kg now, a total gain of 1kg from last time. Her weighT gain is a little under what is the 'norm' for bf babies (130grams per week from memory) but she is still ropy poly and the McHN was ok with it. She asked if Miss k is interested in solids - how funny since we were just discussing BLS. Told her no and she was going to give me info on purees but told her that we are going with BLS or Baby Led Weaning as she called it. They haven't embraced BLS in our council so she didn't have any info but said she did it with her son! She said just keep an eye on acidic foods and avoid nuts,honey until around 12 mths. Don't go back until Miss K is 8 mths now, I declined the 6 mth visit but said if Miss K is not interested in food around 6/7 mths I'll come in for a follow up.

Well, looks like Miss K has finally settled for a sleep fx but Miss R had woken and wants some chicken soup.... Looks like I'll put that cleaning on the back burner for tomorrow!