April 2010 Younger Babies

[kbs]

Hi everyone!
I thought I would get us started this month before it's almost over (time seems to have sped up for me!). This thread is focused on babies less than a year old, though all are welcome!

Me: 35
DH: 35
DDs: Adeline & Elinor 4 1/2 months

Accomplishments: Totally sleeping through the night! Yay! The last 4 days the girls have gotten up at 8 which is amazing and the exact schedule we wanted.
We've also just started giving the girls rice cereal. Addie really seems to like it, but Ellie not so much. Of course part of me thinks that it's because I'm not the one giving it to her (right now they are getting it during the day, while I'm at work). But I'm working from home tomorrow, so I'll get to test that theory.

They are both also working on rolling over, but aren't quite there yet.

Challenges: Naps. We're still having a hard time getting them to nap in the crib. Ellie actually will, but Addie just really doesn't want to. I don't know why. But this means that they don't really sleep much during the day. They take maybe 3 cat naps of about 2 hours in total, which doesn't seem like a lot to me when their day is about 13 hours long (they go down around 9 following their 7:30 bottle, baths and then a story). This week by bed time they have been total wrecks. Its just surprising because they sleep so well at night and when they were tiny, napped A LOT, albeit not in their cribs.

The girls have gotten lots of Grandparent love the last two weeks. My mom was here for a week and then my in-laws have been here since Friday and leave tomorrow. I don't know - maybe all the excitement from having people fawn over them all day is not helping the nap situation.

Catching up from the activity on the previous month's thread...

Maria- Glad to hear that Christopher's check up went well. I hope that the Christening this past weekend went well and that you managed to find something to fit your big guy!

MinEaston- that sounds like a brutal wake up schedule through the night. Hopefully you managed to crack the code to get longer intervals.


Linsleyd- I didn't know that about Amelia's fingers. I hope that the surgery goes well. Poor little baby to have to go through that! Thanks for the encouragement about the weight- Ellie is slowly gaining weight and I'm not fretting so much about it anymore, though I'm still worried about Addie being too big. I swear she feels like she suddenly gained a pound overnight!

PoppyJ- Ugh. i'm so sorry to hear about that rough schedule Gage is putting you through every night. That's just brutal.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!
-Kim

[PoppyJ]

Kim, thank you for starting us this month. Time really does get away from us- doesn't it?

Me: 34
DH: 40
DD: Avery- 3 next month
DS: Gage- 6.5 months

We had a couple of breakthroughs yesterday. First, Gage took a couple sips of formula. This is huge for us because he has refused all bottles, no matter if it was filled with breastmilk or formula. A couple sips is not much but it is better than nothing.

The second breakthrough is he ate banana yesterday. We have been trying to go him to eat solids for a few weeks with no success. Finally yesterday he ate some banana. I am going to try him on carrots next. Hopefully he will like it too.

The last one is I only had to get up twice last night. Yeah for me. I know that this is all going to blow up in my face, but I will take what I can get.

Kim, it sounds like the twins are doing really well. Sleeping through the night?!?! Good for them....and you. I hope the naps get better. Gage is still napping in his swing. I want to get him sleeping better at night before I work on the naps.

Hope everyone had a great Easter too.

[kbs]

PoppyJ - Everyone has to start somewhere, so a few sips is a start! Hopefully it just means every time he takes a few more and before you know it you won't be able to pry the bottle from his hands.

Question for you and others who are feeding solids, in the beginning how often do you feed solids? Right now we are just trying once a day to try and get the girls used to sitting in the high chair and having a spoon jammed into their mouthsm but I feel totally clueless about when I should increase. And when you start introducing real food, do you still feed them the rice and oatmeal cereals? I feel so dumb with this stuff. I know I could easily look it up but I don't feel like weeding though the millions of pages I'm sure will turn up and would rather just know what other people are doing.

Thanks!
Kim

[MinEaston]

Just to respond quickly to Kim, and I'll post more with my update later...

Check out wholesomebabyfood.com (http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com) - it's a really well done website with lots of ideas, and it also presents a very balanced view of introducing solids, with links to some interesting studies and concepts.

As an example, I read the "Baby Led Weaning" section with interest. Nicholas doesn't like to be spoon fed, but seems to enjoy picking stuff up with his fingers, so I think this is going to be my approach.

[linsleyd]

Well, Amelia's surgery was canceled Friday since she had a little cough and the anesthesiologist was hesitate to intubate her because of it. So, big old stressful situation. We took her to the pediatrician's right after we got booted from the hospital and she is now on nebulizer treatments. :(

Her surgery is rescheduled for next Tuesday but if there is any chance of a cough it gets rescheduled again. The fun!

In between all of that Amelia is doing awesome and is such a freaking hoot! We didn't begin feeding her solids until she turned six months and went straight to stage 2 twice a day and she eats maybe half a fruit in the morning and half a vegetable at lunch; daycare also mixes in about a T of oatmeal cereal. On the weekends we'll feed her three times a day if she wants.

I waited until she was six months mainly because she is so tiny, I wanted her main nutrition to be from breastmilk and also she had no interest in it until then.

Kim - yay on sleeping through the night! We are so not there! :D
PoppyJ - glad you are getting somewhere with the bottle! Amelia was awesome on the bottle immediatly and she was breastfed but she went on a bottle strike about two weeks before she was going to daycare. That was a lot of fun trying to find new bottles and all the other tricks to get her to take it.

[aggie94]

Hi all! Lots to check in on lately.

Me: Eva, 36
DH: Che, 38
DD: Iris, 6 weeks (OMG, where has the time gone??)

We have continued to struggle with BFing, so I called the lactation consultant to come back to the house for another consult. Not only was she able to get Iris to latch on the left side right away (something she hadn't done in almost a month!) but she also showed me how to nurse her lying down. OMG, what a lifesaver. I'm actually getting a little sleep at night now. I am also off dairy at her suggestion; she is confident it is dairy and not caffeine causing Iris's diaper rash and some of her other issues, like gas and general fussiness. It's amazing where you can find dairy in all of its forms, including non-dairy creamer (WTF?) and McDonald's french fries. Seriously?? But at least I have my morning coffee back (with a switch to soy creamer).

In other news, Che came home last night after spending 2 days in the hospital for bacterial pneumonia. :eek: He was in really rough shape - passed out twice (once at home, which led me to call 911, and again at the hospital), projectile vomiting, dizziness, ringing in the ears, headache, overall body aches and pains, coughing, etc. Thank GOD my mom happened to be in town; not sure what I would have done if she hadn't. She was supposed to fly home yesterday but since he barely got released from the hospital last night, she's staying another week to help me out. He's doing a little better but still very very tired.

Oh yeah, and Iris started her 6-week growth spurt the morning after Che was admitted to the hospital. So she's been pretty much nursing every hour for the last 2 days. When it rains, it pours! :rolleyes:

Kim - sleeping through the night is quite an accomplishment! You give me hope that someday we might get there too. :o

Poppy - glad to hear you're making bottle progress! I feel very fortunate that Iris goes between bottle, breast, and paci with no problems. At least we know when I go back to work in a month that she will take a bottle no problem.

Linsley - sorry to hear Amelia's surgery was delayed. :( Hope you guys can go through with it next week.

[linsleyd]

Oh man Eva - I'm exhausted reading everything going on in your lives. Thank God Che is ok - that had to be incredibly scary!

[PoppyJ]

Oh man Eva - I'm exhausted reading everything going on in your lives. Thank God Che is ok - that had to be incredibly scary!

I agree, Eva. Wow. How scary, but I am glad that he is home and recovering. I had to go on a dairy free (and soy, nuts, egg, and wheat free) diet when I was breastfeeding DD so I know how it is reading all those labels and how dairy can show up in anything. Is it helping Iris? At least you're getting your coffee back. :D

Linsley, I am sorry that Amelia's surgery was cancelled. How is her cough?

Kim- I really don't remember how or what I did with Avery, but I think it is just one meal until they get a hang of it and then increase to two. I started both Gage and Avery with avocado and veggies. I really didn't feed the rice cereal much. I mostly went with barley and oatmeal. Not sure why but that is what I did.

I shouldn't be the one giving advice on feeding because Gage seems to be resisting all things not breast. He is not really eating solids at all. I might be able to get one or two bites in him, but that is it. He is not making anything easy....good thing he is so darn cute. He is just all smiles and giggles. Nothing makes him beam like his big sister. She can make him crack up. It is the best thing to see...melts the heart.

[aggie94]

I agree, Eva. Wow. How scary, but I am glad that he is home and recovering. I had to go on a dairy free (and soy, nuts, egg, and wheat free) diet when I was breastfeeding DD so I know how it is reading all those labels and how dairy can show up in anything. Is it helping Iris? At least you're getting your coffee back. :D

OMG, eliminating dairy is one thing. But dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, and nuts?? What does that leave - grilled chicken breasts and vegetables? :eek: I would cry.

Unfortunately, even though our LC is certain caffeine is not affecting DD, I have noticed that we're back to dealing with tons of tiny little watery stools since I started drinking coffee and Coke again on Friday. And our ped was convinced that caffeine was causing that. During the week I was off, we had noticed a significant improvement, which changed again within 2 days of starting back up. So now I'm off dairy and caffeine. :( I hope those do the trick. I would even be willing to eliminate nuts and eggs, but soy and wheat would be soooooo hard.

[Bawstinn]

Wow, thought I posted at least once this month but I guess that is not the case.

Maria: 40
David: 36
Christopher: 10 months (where does time go??)
Madeleine: 3.5

My boy just keeps on growing ... at least his thighs are. I am eagerly awaiting summer so I don't have to worry about getting them into pants.

His baptism was the day before Easter and he did well during the 2 hour service. At one point he realized the reverend was mentioning his name, so he'd look up and point, yelling da-da-da-da-da. No crying though, so I was happy.

Dare I say we finaly fell into a sleep pattern. Some nights he'll sleep straight thru and others he gets up once to eat. On the nights he doesn't get up to eat he is up at 5:30; the other mornings (weekdays) I get him up at 6:30.

I think we are finally getting some top teeth although he doesn't let me look. He is chewing on his fingers a lot though and there seems to be more drool.

I also think I'll have a walker before his first birthday. He cruises along furniture (forgetting to hold on as he goes from couch to love seat and back), will walk for a few feet when you hold both hands and is spending more time just standing w/o holding on. He is trying way to hard to keep up with big sister.

Kim - not sure if I was more relaxed w/ number #2 or what, but Christopher only ate cereal for a short time. Once he was self-feeding I ditched the cereal since he really wanted to feed himself instead. Only thing he doesn't fight me on is applesauce and yogurt (2 of his favorites).

I started w/ cereal just at night to get used to it. Then he started getting it during the day at daycare (at breakfast and lunch).

Got to get back to work. I think we need smoe pictures in this thread though!

[aggie94]

I think we need smoe pictures in this thread though!

Oh, alright. You twisted my arm. :o

This is from Easter, although we didn't take her anywhere. Just put her in a cute dress to take some pictures.

http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hs465.snc3/25527_1409703239917_1152560242_1491088_3356164_n.j pg

[PoppyJ]

Cute, cute, cute.

[hollysmom]

OMG, eliminating dairy is one thing. But dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, and nuts?? What does that leave - grilled chicken breasts and vegetables? :eek: I would cry.



Robin's tummy had me on soup and oatmeal for weeks. No caffeine either...fortunately I was working from home when Scott was flying so I was able to stick to those restrictions fairly easily. Was only going to the office 2-3 days/week.

I started both of mine on a little cereal at night pretty early (2-4 months) and fed them in my lap - imagine the baby up on your thighs with your feet on the coffee table and knees bent. Then finished them off with BF and put them to bed. A little cereal at night helped extend the BF a bit and I got to sleep with less interruptions (especially on the days when I had to go into the office).

BTW - Iris is absolutely beautiful!

SSM

[aggie94]

Susan, funny you should bump this thread with that comment from me, as I've now gone Top 8 free (no dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, or shellfish) in an attempt to figure out what Iris is allergic to. :(

[kbs]

Thanks for the feedback everyone on the solids! That link was helpful, and we've kind of stopped with the cereal for now but I think that once May comes we're going to start again. I think it's as much of a change for us as it is for the girls- it's just so convenient to throw bottles in the bag when we go somewhere and once we start food it's like a whole other set of planning that has to be done. I think I need to be eased into these things. :)

Eva- I'm so sorry to hear about your DH's illness- that sounds really terrible and scary! I hope he's on the mend now. I'm sorry I'm not able any advice with BFing- I had virtually no milk and so I stopped after 5 weeks (and only one baby would latch and even that was a production every single time)because it just became too much and not enough hours in the day for both babies. It sounds like you may have some success with changing your diet even though at this point you must just be eating lettuce. Sorry that you had to pretty much give up anything worth eating! Hopefully it pays off though and Iris's tummy starts to feel better. She looks super cute in her Easter dress!

Maria- a sleeping pattern! YAY!! Sounds like Christopher will soon be chasing his sister around- then he can put those chubby thighs to good use!

Linsley- I'm sorry that Amelia's surgery got postponed. How frustrating. Hopefully her cough went away so that it could be done this week.

I would gladly post a picture if I could figure out how- I tried once and it didn't work and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Also, I found out yesterday that the girls are getting a cousin! My sister in law is pregnant with baby #1 and due in December. We are so thrilled for them - they have been trying for awhile.

-Kim

http://www.flickr.com/photos/salmonfam/4541223570/

ETA- I give up on the picture! I can't figure out why it won't show. I'm using the link from Flickr and it's a public picture and I wasn't signed in when I copied the link. ?????

[aggie94]

Kim,

I can see your pic by right-clicking the question mark and opening the image in a new window. Your girls are so cute!!

To get the picture to post here, you have to right-click on the picture (in Flickr) and copy the *image* address (accessible through "Properties" on a PC), not just the website link. The address should have a .jpg extension. Then, in your post, click on the "Insert Image" box and paste the image address into the pop-up window.

[PoppyJ]

Susan, funny you should bump this thread with that comment from me, as I've now gone Top 8 free (no dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, fish, or shellfish) in an attempt to figure out what Iris is allergic to. :(

I am really sorry that you are going through all of that. I know how tough it is...I went on a 2 month restrictive diet and we could never determine what she was allergic too. She was pretty bad though...blood in the stool, acid reflux, gassy, and very uncomfortable. It all got better once we put her on prescription only formula.

Good luck and I hope you find the culprit.

[kbs]

Thanks Eva! I'm going to try this again...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2742/4541223570_f40a74e00b_m.jpg


Yay! I don't know why it's so small but I'll take it! Addie is on the left, Ellie on the right.

[MinEaston]

Kim & Eva, what beautiful little girls! My office blocks picture sites so while I've been lurking and reading, tonight is the first time I've been able to see pictures.

Maria - 10 months?! wow!

Poppy - any more progress on solids? Nicholas seems to do pretty well in the middle of the day, but less so in the evenings or first thing in the morning. I think he too is going to be a better self-feeder. He can really go to town on Gerber puffs and Cheerios!

Linsley - how is Amelia? Did she have her surgery?

As for us, we are doing pretty well here, but we're struggling with several wakeups during the night, and just today, our first potential cold/ear infection/eye infection. Pollens are at their absolute WORST here in Maryland this year, and just last week I had to keep Anna out of school because of goopy eyes which resolved in 3 days on their own. Today, Nicholas' daycare called with the same issue. I was able to take him to the pediatrician (2 blocks from daycare) right away and she would "bet her farm" it's viral, but his ears were red. I filled the prescription for the eye drops but not the antibiotic. I'll give it another couple of days and if he doesn't seem better I can take him in on Sat morning to get his ears checked again. He's acting perfectly normal otherwise!

We are making progress on solids, and I have in fact started giving him a 6-oz bottle of formula at bedtime. I'm able to keep up with him for his daytime bottles and I nurse him as often as he wants in the evening before he goes to bed. And when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

We are days away from crawling, I'm fairly certain. Then, big sister Anna's life as she knows it now will be over. Maybe that will inspire her to keep the playroom tidier, instead of strewn with her toys.

I'll join the picture bandwagon. Both were taken Easter Sunday. The first one is just Nicholas. The second one is my mother with her three grandchildren - Nicholas on the left, my nephew Will (4 months) in the middle, and Anna (5) on the right. Yes, we did in fact get the cousins matching sailor outfits :rolleyes:. My brother is as fanatic as I am about sailing. Anna's a girl all the way and was extremely proud of her Easter dress and curly hair.

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff86/sailinggal71/easter2010_NGL.jpg

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff86/sailinggal71/easter2010.jpg