Archive | June 2011

I think I’m starting to get a bit confused with the “building up” of food and drink for the baby. Maybe its information overload or worrying unecessarily but I think I may be after some advice from other parents out there.

The reason for my puzzled state goes something like this. My, now 6 month old, baby boy has never been fantastic on milk and its always been a bit of a challenge to make him drink all his bottles. I think on a GOOD day he manages about 20oz. On a NORMAL day this can range between 15 – 20 oz. The Health visitors have never seen it as a problem, as he is following a line on his growth chart and is consistent in his growth pattern. So…not the best milk drinker, but so far, so ok.

Now. Since food has been introduced it is becoming even more difficult to get him to drink the “required” 20oz a day. Apparently that is what the guidelines say. And apparently after 6 months this becomes even more important due to depleting baby iron reserves. At the moment he us having 2 meals comfortably a day and in the next month or so I should be building up to a 3rd meal.

My worry is that milk is just going to get pushed out even more than it is doing now. Having scrutinised a few suggested baby meal planners it looks like baby should be having about 4 bottles and 3 meals a day. That sounds like a heck of a lot of food and drink to give to my little one even in a couple of months time. And for one who seems to have a dislike of milk anyway its like the perfect little “get out of milk, free” card for him. He loves food and wolfs it down. It just the milk he doesnt seem keen on…or the bottle? Or the brand of formula? Or…hmmm, I don’t know what.

At the moment I’m thinking I’d like to stick to two meals a day so that the 3rd “meal” could then be a bottle of milk. Or maybe substitute with something like a yoghurt or milk based pudding. Have other parents done this? Does it work? Will it give him enough of what he needs to keep going/growing/thriving? Or should I be giving him smaller portions of food and that way he has to drink more milk?

I would love to hear what other parents are doing / have experienced. Do people out there have milk-haters, food lovers? Did milk get crowded out of your little ones diet earlier than you wanted? Did you sneak it in every other which way instead? Basically, as you can see, I am a bit… ok…a LOT confused.

Listography – Inventions

Jun21

This is my first entry into Kate’s Listography linky over at Kate Takes 5. This week the theme is Inventions we would invent to make our lives easier. As you can imagine a lot of them are “new baby” related.

1. The Complete Baby Steriliser.

This fantastic gadget would pick your bottles up (by some clever magnetic radar thing) and draw it into the sterliser. It would then proceed to disassemble all the bottles into its varioues components, wash them thoroughly and the finish the job off by stertilising them. It would even have a timer on it so you’d have freshly sterilised bottles waiting for you when you woke up or came home from an outing.

2. The Baby feed maker

This not only makes up a baby’s feed for you but self fills itself when baby has decided he wants more. How many panicked trips to the kitchen would that save.

2. The self washing and cleaning car

No car would ever need washing again, ever. Inside or out. As soon as it detected you had left it would scan itself and hoover up, get rid of all the empty bottles, toys, wrappers etc and clean itself inside and out.

3. The Meal Dispenser

You pick from the gadget (or even the app on your iPhone) what you want to eat and the Meal Dispenser goes about making it. Completly nutrional and healthy. It even washes up once you’re finished!

4. The Ultra Light Baby Seat

How heavy are they! Are they filled with cement? Anyway, this ultra light baby seat would be just as safe and weigh about the same size as your clutch or handbag. It might even just clip itself into the car so no more faffing with seatbelts or bases.

5. The Tummy Firmer

A magical pill that snaps your tummy back to EXACTLY what it was before you were pregnant. No more need to excercise like crazy or watching what you eat.

What Happened Last Night

Jun20

Last night was a bad night for baby. He had spent the evening throwing up owing to a nice little bug that’s going around. It then took till 9pm to settle him down completely. I dropped into bed by 11pm, tired, hoping we would both have a good night.

What happened next was a bit of a blur, but it goes something like this…

Baby was completely unsettled most of the night and crying on and off. I decided to cradle him in my arms and sleep sitting up. I’d just about dropped off when the OH started sleep talking.

“Let go of my arm.” I ignored it. He sleep talks quite a lot and I’ve learned to filter it out, whilst keeping an ear open for any funny bits. Tonight wasn’t funny and so I ignored it and tried to settle to back to sleep again.

He repeated it, this time tugging at me. He’s also done this before too. Ignoring him again I carried on trying to sleep.

“Let go. Wake up!” Tugging harder now he suddenly shook me out of sleep. I sat up in bed puzzled. I looked over to the basket where baby had been sound asleep all this time. It dawned on me I’d been dreaming but hugging the OHs arm tighter and tighter thinking it was the baby.

I think I need some proper sleep.