MSE Parent Club - Part 2

lwcus78

Keely, i recently read an article saying that colds are really worse for males than females!!! Something to do with females having a stronger immune system to protect them during pregnancy?! I didn't show it to my husband!!

Can someone recommend a good book or website for advice for babies 1st year. I was suprised the HV provided no booklets.
Sam's colic has settled down a bit thanks to colief, he's sleeping in his own cot too now which i'm much happier with. He loves being swaddled.
xx

Welshlassie

lwcus78 wrote: »

Can someone recommend a good book or website for advice for babies 1st year. I was suprised the HV provided no booklets.
Sam's colic has settled down a bit thanks to colief, he's sleeping in his own cot too now which i'm much happier with. He loves being swaddled.
xx

I like the Jo Frost one. It is split into 4 quarterly sections and includes what you can expect them to be doing around this time, types of games/play activities to do with them, sleeping and feeding advice and other Super nanny type advice. I found it really useful and referred to it regularly over the fiest 9 months.

lwcus78

Just out of interest, has anyone tried gina fords's little contented baby routine? It sounds very strict however, some of my friends swear by it?
Also, wondered if anyone could give me advice on breastfeeding. My milk supply seems to be adequate throughout the day, however approx 10pm sam appears to be extra hungry and i'm wondering if I have enough milk for him. Has anyone else had this problem. I'm thinking of expressing a feed during the day and giving it as a topup in the night using Dr Browns bottle. Sam is 4 weeks old.
Sorry so many questions, can you tell i'm a stressed out, worn out new mum!! (but still loving it!) xx

cha97michelle

morning everyone.

i thought i would add my two pennorth about books i've liked.

for babies:

• smart start for your baby - penny warner. It is a week by week guide to what they could be doing development wise and suggests how to encourage it
• 125 brain games for babies
• contented baby - gina ford

for toddlers:

• toddler taming, here too, it all seems to make sense
• gina ford potty training
• entertaining and educating your preschool child - ideas of age appropriate things to do with them.

gina ford routine, i try to use her feeding times but i am less convinced by her sleep times. it hasn't worked for either of my boys. it's a good starting point for getting into your own routine though.

lwcus - your baby might be having a growth spurt. I personally would persevere with the BF as your supply will then increase to match him. I found when i started mucking around expressing, particularly that early, it started mucking the whole feeding up until i never had enough milk to feed him and DS1 ended up on formula. DS2 i persevered and fed him till 5 months.

Welshlassie

lwcus78 wrote: »

Just out of interest, has anyone tried gina fords's little contented baby routine? It sounds very strict however, some of my friends swear by it?
Also, wondered if anyone could give me advice on breastfeeding. My milk supply seems to be adequate throughout the day, however approx 10pm sam appears to be extra hungry and i'm wondering if I have enough milk for him. Has anyone else had this problem. I'm thinking of expressing a feed during the day and giving it as a topup in the night using Dr Browns bottle. Sam is 4 weeks old.
Sorry so many questions, can you tell i'm a stressed out, worn out new mum!! (but still loving it!) xx

I used to find that Rhys would feed almost continuously at about that age from about 7pm until 9pm. I decided he was topping himself up to sleep longer at night and he would regularly do about 6 or 7 hours from about 4 or 5 weeks old.

Shortly after this I started expressing first thing in the morning to give just before we went to bed (around 10:30) to get him longer through the night (known as a dream feed), initially we had to wake him, but after a few weeks (3 or 4) he'd take it asleep and it would be gone in a few minutes. Because it went down so quick, it seemed to sustain him for longer and he wouldn't need a feed then until 5am.

DH used to do the dream feed so I could go to bed earlier and get more sleep in before the early morning feed, it also meant that Rhys couldn't smell me and was more accepting of the bottle from DH.

Good luck, you get used to surviving on less sleep and as a result get so much more out of the day. They are worth every lost wink of sleep

Dormouse

lwcus78 wrote: »

Just out of interest, has anyone tried gina fords's little contented baby routine? It sounds very strict however, some of my friends swear by it?
Also, wondered if anyone could give me advice on breastfeeding. My milk supply seems to be adequate throughout the day, however approx 10pm sam appears to be extra hungry and i'm wondering if I have enough milk for him. Has anyone else had this problem. I'm thinking of expressing a feed during the day and giving it as a topup in the night using Dr Browns bottle. Sam is 4 weeks old.
Sorry so many questions, can you tell i'm a stressed out, worn out new mum!! (but still loving it!) xx

It's totally normal for the baby to want to feed a lot in the evenings - I think they all do that. I wouldn't worry about your milk supply, as long as you feed on demand I'm sure it's fine and you're doing a great job. :T

I haven't personally done the Gina Ford routine, but know people who it worked for. Equally, I know people it didn't work for. :rotfl:

I did do the potty tranining routine by Gina Ford and it worked perfectly - whether this was just luck (as DS1 seems to have better bladder control than me :rotfl: ), I guess we'll find out in a few months when potty training DS2.

Ooh, I've got a poo story today! :j :rotfl: I let Alex walk around nappyless this morning (after his usual morning poo), so there he was, happily munhching on his toast, and then - :eek: :eek: :eek: - a big smelly one appeared on the floor - thank goodness we have wooden floors downstairs (although it did go everywhere :eek: )

daphne_descends

lwcus I am sure your milk supply is fine, but if you do give top-ups you do risk your supply and sadly this is the beginning of the end in many cases, it's a vicious circle - you think you have less milk, so you top up, until you do have less milk, so you top up more... etc. Keep feeding on demand, as Dormouse says, and you will be fine. Babies go through all kinds of growth spurts and night-time feeding is often increased as this is when your supply is most boosted. You're doing great

Baby books - I suspect I'm in a minority of 1 here but I do not think any expert could possibly know what is best for my child, better than me. Mumsnet.com has great updates on what to expect in terms of development but they all do things in their own time anyway. I let Elliot find his natural rhythms and built his routines around that. As an adult, I don't always feel hungry or tired at the same time each day, so why should a baby I like Jo Frost but think she places too much emphasis on discipline at an early age, before children are actually being naughty and are just discovering/exploring the world. I think a lot of self-proclaimed guru's don't actually like babies or children very much

SusanC_2

lwcus78 wrote: »

Just out of interest, has anyone tried gina fords's little contented baby routine? It sounds very strict however, some of my friends swear by it?
Also, wondered if anyone could give me advice on breastfeeding. My milk supply seems to be adequate throughout the day, however approx 10pm sam appears to be extra hungry and i'm wondering if I have enough milk for him. Has anyone else had this problem. I'm thinking of expressing a feed during the day and giving it as a topup in the night using Dr Browns bottle. Sam is 4 weeks old.
Sorry so many questions, can you tell i'm a stressed out, worn out new mum!! (but still loving it!) xx

I used it but not to the letter. I think it can be easy to take a routine as meaning you must not feed a baby before a set feeding time but really it is that you ofer the baby a feed by a certain time if they have not seemed to need it sooner. I found her advice on expressing invaluable as it meant I could have OH do the 10pm feed while I went to bed early. I completely ignored how long she seemed to think you should feed the baby for though as they seemed to be completely unrealisitic to me (although as she says they are only guides). For example she might say that you should start a baby feeding no later than a certain time (e.g. 2pm) and that you should not be still feeding them after a certain time (e.g. 2.30) but my daughter's feeds (even ignoring toilet breaks) were anything up to 70 minutes. I also ignored the weaning stuff and nappy changes as I did BLW and EC. I tended to find we were on an older age routine for sleep and a younger age routine for feeding. Overall I found it very useful but I used it as a guide to help me - not as a strict set of rules I had to follow.

Savvy_Sue

If you WANT a poo story, DH was once late for work because DS1 starting poo-ing as he took the morning nappy off. So he cleaned it up, and DS1 poo-ed some more. So he cleaned that up, and out came more. And so it went on: I think we were holding DS1's little legs in the air for about 20 minutes before he'd finished ...

nadnad

thank goodness for in the night garden! Oz is extremely grouchy, due to lack of sleep - too busy rolling onto his belly every hour last night then wedging his legs in the bars, banging his head off the bars, reaching his arm through the bars to try and touch me, and also he seems to be teething at the back of his mouth. I can't see in properly but his little fingers are jammed back there.

but night garden to the rescue cos its keeping him quiet for 20 minutes. and relax.

oh home soon. thank goodness.

how much tv does everyone elses little ones watch? Oz is nearly 6 months and i let him watch maybe 2 programs a day.