MSE Parent Club

jenpoptab

Dormouse wrote: »

OMG!!! Can you get her to have a chat with Alex, please - I'd kill for 10 hours' sleep!

yeah me too

Snaggles

Sorry!

When I say 3 hours, it's normally about 3 hours from the beginning of one feed to the beginning of the next, and she can feed for anything up to 30 minutes, so it can be as little as 2.5 hours break, which leaves me feeling a bit like a milk machine, but I do LOVE it (most of the time anyway ).

jenpoptab

Snaggles that's what it's usually like for me, 3 hours from when I started last feed. Am BF until late again tonight and late feed will be bottle one in hope that it helps Hayden sleep a bit longer than if he has boob, although I think it's a myth that they formula keeps hunger at bay.

Dormouse

Typical - since my last post, Alex went 5 hours between feeds (that's a first)! Wish he'd do that at night.

SusanCarter

Alice goes 3-4 hours between feeds in the daytime. She has four breast feeds through the day and one expressed bottle at 10pm and the feeds average about 40 minutes (although they can vary between 10 and 70 minutes!). She used to wake up for a night feed at anything between 2.30 and 6am but eventually dropped that feed.

Snaggles

70 minutes!!! Ouch! :eek: :eek:

SusanCarter

70 minutes is pretty unusual though.

SusanCarter

A question about weaning for those who've done it: When they need to be weaned, does it happen suddenly with no warning or do they show gradual signs of needing to be weaned? Just wondering as we're away visiting my husbands parents the week before Alice turns six months and I have visions of her suddenly waking in the middle of the night while we're away.

purplepatch

SusanCarter wrote: »

A question about weaning for those who've done it: When they need to be weaned, does it happen suddenly with no warning or do they show gradual signs of needing to be weaned? Just wondering as we're away visiting my husbands parents the week before Alice turns six months and I have visions of her suddenly waking in the middle of the night while we're away.

For both of my DDs it was very gradual. At first you are only introducing new textures and then new flavours so the amount they are taking is only small. They still get their nourishment from the milk - you won't find that she is starving all of a sudden. Saying that, you do often find that babies who have been doing a good stretch of sleeping at night do start waking around the age of weaning - that's usually a good sign of them being ready.

In your shoes I'd play it by ear, if she's still satisfied with her milk feeds, I'd probably leave it until you get back from visiting and start weaning then, when you're back in your home environment away from distractions. It often takes a while for them to get the knack of simply swallowing the food - my DD2 took a good couple of months to really get going.

Lu_T

SusanCarter wrote: »

A question about weaning for those who've done it: When they need to be weaned, does it happen suddenly with no warning or do they show gradual signs of needing to be weaned? Just wondering as we're away visiting my husbands parents the week before Alice turns six months and I have visions of her suddenly waking in the middle of the night while we're away.

Hi Susan

HVs recommend weaning around the 6 month mark, but it won't do any harm to hang on a week or two as long as baby is happy. Imogen was weaned pretty early - 17 weeks - which isn't recommended any more, but she was on 45oz of hungry baby milk :eek: and had been reaching for things we were eating for a number of weeks.

As Purple says, at the start it's about taste and texture rather than filling them up. If you wanted/needed to start weaning before your stay you could just take some baby rice which you make up with baby's normal milk and perhaps a carrot or some sweet potato to mash. You'll probably find she only takes a spoon or two to start with so you could cook, puree and freeze the veg into cubes and it would last you all week. At first you just do it at one meal (opinions vary which one) so it wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

I found this book really useful. http://www.nctsales.co.uk/prodshow.asp?id=254&cat=69&scat=81&parent=69

It takes you through the theory and what to do in a clear way and then has recipe suggestions for when they are older. We're still using it for recipe ideas.

HTH;)