MSE Parent Club - Part 2

Sami_Bee

Becles wrote: »

One irritating thing he does is ringing me from the school bus and when I pick up he says "reeet ma s'meee" as that must be how cool people speak on the phone :rolleyes:

what does that even mean?
my dad answers the phone "t'reet?" if he knows who it is but thats just him being a wiganer :rolleyes:
I say "hello" unless its my sister when I say "oh whats occurring?" :cool:

purplepatch

Sami_Bee wrote: »

what does that even mean?

I'm thinking "All right mother, it's me" roughly translated :rotfl:

purplepatch

MaximumImpact wrote: »

hey guys..I'm after a bit of advice if possible...I have a 4 month old boy who was born 2 months premature..He is still very tiny (11lbs) but his appetite isnt. At the moment he is taking 6 to 7 bottles a day of 6 ozs plus a breastfeed in the morning and during the night. I also give him a bowl of baby rice at lunchtime......

He still seems hungry and is chewing his tongue and his hands an awful lot. I tried to broach the subject of weaning with my HV who put me in my place with her normal style and told me that it would be at least another 3 months before he needed any rice or cereal.....

I'm gutted enough that I just couldnt keep up with the BF and I was gettin so tired that I was getting angry with him, so decided to start on formula (weak, I know).....would have liked some support from the HV but that isn't ever going to happen (superior mug cow that she is) so I thought i'd turn to some other mothers and ask what you all think????

DS gets hysterical now when he is hungry and never seems satisfied..should I go against the HV and with my own instincts that he needs more than just milk or what should I do?????

An unsupportive HV, nooooooooo way?!! :rotfl:You'll find lots of moans on here about HVs.

Well when my DD1 was a baby the advice was to wean at 4 months anyway, so I did the same with DD2 even though they'd changed it to 6 months by then. She didn't take to it for ages, til after 6 months in fact, but that's another story.

Thing is with your DS is that he was 2 months prem, so I'd imagine he needs another couple of months for his body to develop etc to get to the same stage as a 4 month old who was born at term. I'm no expert though.

What do the guidelines say about weaning for prem babies? Still 6 months or do they say you should add on the period between birth date and term date?

Hopefully someone with experience of this will be along soon. And don't feel guilty about the BF. I couldn't do it with either of mine, hate the way they make you feel bad about it. Formula does the job too. Are you using the hungry baby formula? I found that helped a bit.

MaximumImpact

Thanks for the reply....SCBU and Bliss both say that when it comes to weaning, you go by actual age not corrected age...I tried to explain this to the HV but it would appear that she is more experienced than the most respected premature baby charity and the prem baby nurses in Special baby Care....Bliss recommend weaning after 17 weeks and little one is now 19 weeks....he's putting on an average of 13 ozs a week, which seems to me to be a little excessive!!! I have just put him on to Hungry baby in the lase week but no difference...still hand gnawing and sleeping for 1 hr after a feed and the waking screaming for more....

Getting very confused now!!!

Agutka

MaximumImpact, there are phases in the little ones' development when they go through periods of behaviour like this. It doesn't last long, if it makes you feel any better. Have you heard that it might just be a growth spurt? They get hungrier, but it settles back down within a week or so. Lots of us on here went through that tear-your-hair-out stage. Or three. Eventually you start calling everything 'teething' :rolleyes:. Hope this is what you are experiencing, and don't take his crying personally. He is obviously not starving, bless.

As for the breastfeeding, they give up on you when you give the bottle (after a period of disapproving) but it is worst when you're still trying. When I said I was doing mixed feeding - bottles with a little boob thrown in - I got 'looks' from everyone. It was horrible. Though, again, it doesn't last long.

purplepatch

MaximumImpact wrote: »

Thanks for the reply....SCBU and Bliss both say that when it comes to weaning, you go by actual age not corrected age...I tried to explain this to the HV but it would appear that she is more experienced than the most respected premature baby charity and the prem baby nurses in Special baby Care....Bliss recommend weaning after 17 weeks and little one is now 19 weeks....he's putting on an average of 13 ozs a week, which seems to me to be a little excessive!!! I have just put him on to Hungry baby in the lase week but no difference...still hand gnawing and sleeping for 1 hr after a feed and the waking screaming for more....

Getting very confused now!!!

In that case, if that's what they recommend, then you surely aren't doing anything wrong by introducing some baby rice now. After having 2 babies, I definitely advocate the 'following your own instincts' method of mothering and as for HVs, I didn't bother with them second time around at all. Went for the obligatory checkups you get called for that I couldn't get out of, but nothing else, didn't even take her to get weighed. I could see she was thriving, didn't need them to tell me that :rotfl:

Good luck.

MaximumImpact

HV said it was a growth spurt but it's been going on for just over 2 weeks now and my instinct tells me it isn't because he's had growth spurts before and he's never been like this!!! I'm just worried what to do for the best to be honest...my mother says to go with my instinct but I'm worried about what the HV will do if she finds out that I've gone against her instructions.....

Agutka

She will do nothing.
Go with the advice of Bliss and forget the HV. If he's ready to eat rice then let him.

Sami_Bee

Maximum - will he not take more milk at a feed? does he drain his bottle?
if he does you could up his bottles to 7 or 8oz and if he drains them too then go up to 9oz

Ps she won't "find out" if you don't tell her but she wouldn't go calling the social if she did

MaximumImpact

Sami-Bee

TBH, he's so tiny that i don't think his tummy can fit anymore in....he doesnt drain the bottles completely but nods of to sleep with a few mls left in it...but give it half an hour and he's awake and yelling for more!!!

I've been sat having a serious think tonight and I really don't want to go back to the clinic because I'm fed up with being made to look stupid in front of the other mothers...I missed a couple of weeks due to Xmas/New year etc and she was on the phone asking questions....she took me to one side when I first started going to warn me about letting my DS co-sleep saying that i was 'putting him in serious danger'...I told her I had been given a leaflet from the hospital about it and her reply was 'I don't think so, we do not encourage that sort of behaviour.....' She basically called me a liar.

I guess I am just at my wits end with it all now...I am worried sick that she will report me to Social Services if I stop going or not do as she says...