The new rolling ILX parenting thread, since the other one was getting unwieldy

I read the other day that the average kid is 'ready' to be potty trained at two and a half, so the closer to that age you start them, the less time it will take to crack. But in reality they are probably all different.

Question for parents of older babies/kids: what age did they start having 'finger food' as opposed to just mush? Alice (nearly 7 months) has had bits of toast and rice cake and she LOVES it, but she does often cough and choke a bit afterwards which freaks us out and makes us think that she's not ready after all.

Oh yeah and I hope both Ophelia and Beeps feel better soon!

We tried some little puffs, and they didn't seem ready (coughed, etc.). I think we'll wait until their top two teeth come in before trying that again. On the other hand, my wife has been putting her cheffing skills to use making them all sorts of yummy mushy stuff to eat. They get squash, blueberry-mango sauce in their cereal and yogurt, sweet potatoes, avocados, etc. We even gave them some mashed chicken and plums, which they seem to like.

This photo was taken in Oct '05, so Ava was eating toast just shy of 8 months. But Tallulah (8 months yesterday; two teeth coming in) doesn't seem ready yet - she's still working her way through the frozen mush mountain in our freezer (bags of cubes of chicken, pumpkin, sweet potato, broccoli, etc).

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/51570525_a063c21189_m.jpg

"POOS, PARENTS and POWER"

lol - and yes, losing play time was a huge part of it, I think!

I'm trying to remember when my kids started on "finger foods..." honestly, like the potty training, I think they are all different. It took Alex a lot longer than it took Julia; J. wanted to eat whatever we were eating by the time she was probably 10 months old. (She did not always get her way). Alex, on the other hand, I was worried would want to live on breast milk, Cheerios, and the occasional yogurt forever...

Archel, I have a GREBT recipe book (for children aged 4 months till a couple of years old). If you like, I can scan a few recps and email them? It's in English, so quite understandable. ;-)

Today I made tuna pasta bake from it. She took out the peas. hah. Tomorrow I'm making meatloaf with tomato sauce from the same book. I'll probably throw in some mashed potatos. It's extremely easy to make larger portions so the adults can join in. hah!

http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintroductie/vast_voedsel/rapley_guidelines.html

I just sent a friend this link, it's an interesting perspective on starting solids. I started spooning goo into my kid's face around 7 or 8 months, and when he got finger foods down around 9 months, there was no looking back. He's only now liking mushy food again now that he can use a spoon. But I know some kids like the mushy stuff for a long time, Sara is OTM above.

This is a Dutch site! Borstvoeding means breastfeeding in Dutch.

Ophelia has been using a fork for quite a few weeks now. She is mastering it slowly, but over half of the time we still have to feed her.

What I don't get it is the five veggies/fruits per day. I'm not sure we achieve that but I'm not *that* worried about it. Today I made a veggie sauce (tomato/pepper/onion/carrot) and meatloaf. She loved it and so did mummy and daddy. It was adapted from that *kiddie recipe* book. She doesn't eat that much carbs: no cookies at all, a few slices of bread and that's it? Rice and potatos? Very little to none.

the face betrays the sentiment:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/4788/cheeriy7.jpg

breathtaking shot, Sunny.

Ava and Tallulah are finally in the same room; for the last few weeks T has been in her little rocker-cot on the landing, now she's too big for it and she's in Ava's old cot in the room we're still calling Ava's room.

We've got one of those zippable cat-net things over the cot to discourage Ava's midnight mountaineering. Last night was bliss - T slept all night and so did Ava. They've both been down without a peep (well, Ava was talking to her toys for a bit an hour ago) for four hours so I'll now creep upstairs, bash the stair gate into the nappy bin and ruin it.

thanks, alex!

michael, i wonder when the giggly bedtime girl talk will start. does anyone here have girls and boys? we seem to all be one sex baby families.

THe giggly bedtime girl talk starts around the time your daughter can *vocalize* I think. I can't remember when it started for Ophelia. A couple of months back? Around that time. It's become more complex in the sense that you can tell she's sort of talking to herself (or to her teddy bears).

I'm not counting any chickens yet but we've three relatively incident-free nights and a much less whiny Ava than normal. If baby sis wakes her up, we soothe T and encourage A to go back to her own bed; for the last few weeks, we've been defying midwife advice and opening Ava's bedroom gate when we come to bed, and locking the stair gate (with bathroom and office doors shut), so if she does wake up in the night she can just run into our room and climb in with us rather than the old 2am wailing-at-the-gate routine - this meant none of us actually got enough sleep (T, too, was probably waking up earlier than normal with the landing being flooded with daylight around 5am) what with Ava sticking her feet in my face and insisting that we look for her "blankie" under the covers at 4am.

In the new regime, Lulu is sleeping better (in her crazy tent-like structure) and Ava is much happier to go back to the room with her beloved sister in (even though she doesn't try to play with her) than she was when it was just her room. I haven't heard "Mummy Daddy bed?" in two days...

And here's the girls watching Sesame Street (Guess That Shape and Color) in perfect harmony:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1193/764341894_b542d9cf70.jpg

Aw, Michael. How could anyone resist those eyes?

I have ordered a bed rail 'cause these days co-sleeping seems to be the only way we all get some rest. Howie's eczema is still bad (we are still waiting for hospital referral) and he still seems to be hungry in the night (regularly feeds 3/4 times), I am too much of a softie to do anything other than go with it, so co-sleeping seems the sensible option for now.

I got lucky with this shot of the Boy.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1213/751111020_292f28bff3.jpg

Although 9 year olds can certainly be very difficult at times, it's just great to see them revert to little kid mode on a bouncy castle. We had it in our garden for Mae's bithday and so they got a good hour of bouncing before it was invaded by her friends for her birthday party.

Meg, how many months is Howie now? I think around the age of six months they really don't need night feedings. I know it's easier said than done,but try *postponing* feedings (for example distracting Howie or something).

I fear O's UTI might come back: she seems to hurt when peeing. :-( It's difficult to tell really, but at times she cries for no reason whatsoever and then we check her diaper... which is wet. Not a good sign. :-(

Fellow Ned, your son's hair meets with my seal of approval.

does anyone here have girls and boys? we seem to all be one sex baby families.

aldo and onimo have boys and girls. Scottish people be better at varying their babies!

Nathalie, Howie is 4.5 months so could still be hungry, he does seem to feed well at night even if strictly speaking he could go without it. It's just hard getting him back to sleep without the boob!

Poor O, I hope she is OK.

4,5 months? Feed Howie! Actually I think at four months O slept through the nights. Woke up maybe once or so but on the whole she slept through the night. Just do what you feel is right. :-)

She'll be okay. I hope. We're going to the doctor tomorrow but we might have overreacted. Well, better to be safe than sorry, I guess. I really hope it clears up one day. I really do. Poor thing. :-)

Yeah, everybody's baby but mine sleeps through! :(

His sleep was really good until about 6 weeks ago but has been a nightmare since then... just waking and waking and waking. Am really hoping it's just a phase as I'm bloody knackered. Co-sleeping does help, though.

Maybe a stupid thing to ask, but have you tried a night-light (as we call it here)? Is the room completely dark? Some babies don't like it.

BTW Kim Clijsters, the tennis player, is PREGGERS (har har that awful word).

Owen is in this frustrating phase where he wakes up at 2am and blabbers to himself for a while until finally freaking out around 3am. We can't get him to go back to sleep, but if we feed him before 3, he wakes up again at 6am for another blabbering session. If our house was bigger, it wouldn't bother us too much (we would just let him blabber), but since we hear everything, it's driving us CRAZY. These guys are on such a sleep see-saw. Nowadays, BEN is the one who sleeps through the night (or WOULD, if it wasn't for Owen the Loudmouth). Twins...

Shit, what have I gotten myself into... again. At times I do freak out over the fact I'm getting a second baby. I'm already knackered as it is. :-)

(The spell is broken, btw; Ava is howling and no amount of gentle persuasion by Pam is going to get her back into her room tonight. I better go up and stake a claim to the three inches of pillow I'm allowed on occasions like this...)

Michael, have you tried going "cold turkey"? I know it's hard, but she won't really have any emotional scars from it either.

I think she's illin', actually - bad nappy rash (she tells us herself - "nappy rash hurting"), bit of a temperature.

We've done the leave-her-to-wail thing for up to 45min in the past but she scares T with her tantruming, so then we've got two screaming kids. And, really, we can hardly complain about our neighbour playing Neil Diamond really loud at 6am if we're subjecting her to that.

It's OK - I really think we've made some progress with Ava not always wanting "mummy daddy bed" and last night was a fever-induced glitch. I hope.

Fellow Ned, your son's hair meets with my seal of approval.

-- Ned Raggett, Tuesday, July 10, 2007 2:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

He wants dreads (after seeing Ed's pic!).

Haircare is a constant battle with our two. They both hate having their hair dried and brushed. There used to be a little girl who lived next door to us who cornrows and you could hear her crying when she was having them put in. We thought 'how cruel' but now we now that even trying to drag a brush through a child's hair can result in disproportionate screaming.

I just want to bitch and moan for a bit about what a heavy bugger my boy is! It's nice to have a big healthy kid but I'm such a weakling, I weigh 115 and he just passed 31 lbs. I think I mentioned we threw out the crib six months ago because I was regularly pulling muscles throwing him in. So he has his crib mattress on the floor for naps and then spends nights in our bed. And he's a year and a half, it's not like I can avoid picking him up. oh well, just like anything else, it'll all change in a few months.

oh and we were totally on the way to potty training and then I spent a week at my folks' and now the potty chair is no longer fun. :(

I fear potty training. :-( I mean, I don't really, I just don't know how to start. They tell you to just put the baby on the pot (sans diaper) and hope she urinates or, uh, poops. *sigh* I am tempted to wait till september cause then she moves up to an older group which means she will be potty trained there (in the creche I mean).

115 pounds? Sheeit. I weigh more. Even without baby bump. ;-) But I understand your discomfort a little. I got used to it after a while. I remember at one point my shoulders and back hurt. But enough practice cleared that up.

I made an appointment with the doctor but tried to cancel it cause I think we're just freaking out over the UTIs. She said for her it's okay but she recommends to come anyway just for a check-up. I guess she's right. Hopefully it'll be ok.

I totally just thought of you: "at least I'm not pregnant too!" :)

What I did with potty training is naming it when I saw it (and letting him run around without a diaper a lot)--but we started this as soon as he could stand, maybe before. Then one day I asked him to pee, and he did, and I cheered, so that was the next step. Then asking him to pee on the potty. He'll do it when we prompt him and was starting to do it spontaneously until this trip. He does not want to poop on the potty but he will tell me when he is pooping (with a hand sign), so that's progress. But now he doesn't even want to sit on the pot to pee when I ask, who knows. It's tough because he doesn't talk much and he doesn't have the motor skills to take off his pants, but if he's naked, he does great! And he stays dry for naps and sometimes even overnight, which is amazing considering how much he still wakes up.

Woha! I know about the "leave the diapers" nekkid routine but I'm not ready for THAT. I can't do that cause I run the shop and she runs in it. :-) I can just picture her pooping/peeing while I am serving a customer. :-) Still, I probably should start. Maybe the UTIs will disappear magically that way? :-)

Well, holding her while pregnant isn't what scares me, it's the TWO KIDS part that scares the frigging shit outa me. My husband and I sometimes talk about it: OH NOES SECOND BABY SOON. Then we revert to ignorance phase again. ;-)

Teeny, you have one big beautiful son - Ava's almost a year older and is only around 29lbs. Lulu is making up for it though - nearly 19lbs at 8 months! Picking 'em both up at once is the thing that really tests the thighs...

New pics of Alice! I think these photos must be BEFORE dinner, since there's no way she'd be that clean afterwards...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1327/786951640_a9d4796c4e.jpg?v=0

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1209/786951598_2e0a545d9a.jpg?v=0

aww! bright eyes!

Oh Archel,so so so cute! Does she already try to grab the food with the spoon?

what a great smile she has!

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1006/797022301_9840de5888.jpg

babymkII at 25 weeks. :-)

Wow! That is some CSI-level imaging technology.

do you know if its a boy or girl yet nath?

That's AMAZING!

Yes, it is amazing that I know it's a... baby. ;-)

OK, time for more pix...

Rompin' in their rompers!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1334/825281014_3c7ebe6cbf.jpg

Owen loves goatees:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1370/824403659_d7cb635195.jpg

The difference between Ben...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1297/751247963_47ce78441a.jpg

and Owen:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1437/752098950_e4ec173513.jpg

I have never seen this thread before. I wonder why.

Anyway, I am now a full-time stay-at-home Dad and I think I'm beginning to get he hang of it after a few weeks of THE FEAR etc. I think we are doing OK. Does my swede in at times though.

I wonder if this will work:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1270/829072512_23ecfa3ac2.jpg

This is us chiling out. Must have lasted all of five seconds.

So how is the experience? I can't imagine being a fulltime parent. Even the first week, after delivering OPhelia, I coudln't wait to get back in the shop. I could *do* it, but I prefer being in the shop. (That said, I work far less than I used to, I feel extremely guilty about this yet I can't seem to up the work amount. It's partially a lack of energy, being pregnant again does drain you from some energy.) Anyway, PJ, I am really interested in knowing how it is! Same for Teeny, how are you feeling? How do you organize your day? Do you guys plan to remain fulltime parents until.. when?