ILX Parenting 5: I'm a big kid now

p whitey centric numbers there, yeah?

― pull up to the shrink with my feelings missing (m bison), Sunday, February 3, 2013 9:15 PM

it varies depending on time of year and skin type, or course.

― kate78, Sunday, February 3, 2013 6:37 PM

re: childproofing - I was suprised at how little a problem this was for us the first time around. it seemed like the key thing was to have things at kid-height that were exclusively hers. made her less interested in other stuff. like, if you have shelves, make the bottom shelf all kid stuff. .

I find wires to be a big problem, since modern life seems to involve a lot of plugging and unplugging of devices (laptops, chargers, iphone speakers, etc.).

yeah you can do kidproofing in phases and adjust based on what you learn about their personalities/how responsive they are

after 10 months or so they start to learn what the look of horror when they pick up your original press band of gypsies means, ime

lol my records are jammed too closely together on the record shelf for little hands to pry them out

K happens to really like pulling books off shelves, tearing and eating paper, pulling cords, eating plants, etc.

my little brother use to eat the hell out of one of Mum's pot plants, a great big rubber-tree palm. she ended up throwing it away because it was too big to put up high and he would NOT stop eating it

v weird

lol we can't keep any plants alive inside so no problem there. eating paper now, that would be a problem...

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4128/5004122808_06a994ea57_z.jpg

looks delicious

nomnomnom

jimi looking a little scared there

Relax, it's a CD-R...

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/58/164424008_c3f325686e.jpg

aww, cool eyes ^

My son with pink eye and an ear infection at the doc
http://i47.tinypic.com/eq6lc2.jpg

oh jeez sad face ahoy

;_;

my friend's toddler discovered he could put a cd on each foot and skate around the hardwood floors on them.
it was potluck when you opened a cd case whether or not it would be playable -- always an exciting surprise

aw, cute kids y'all, and I love the photo of lil tracer with the record

(Photo from Ava is from June 2006 - aged 16 months

p whitey centric numbers there, yeah?

― pull up to the shrink with my feelings missing (m bison), Sunday, February 3, 2013 9:15 PM

it varies depending on time of year and skin type, or course.

― kate78, Sunday, February 3, 2013 6:37 PM

― kate78, Monday, February 4, 2013 11:25 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

belated doh

Ben is asleep on my shoulder after a pretty extended motorboat mouth noise jam on my part, my lil gummy bear

srsly what was I doing with my life before him??

<3

you coo now, but give it another six months and you actually will not be able to remember

shut up shut up shut up shut up

I wish I could tell my 25-year-old self that he's not going to "miss out" on anything if he were to get a bit more stabilized, but then I wouldn't be knowledgeable of that information had I not lived it.

In other words, I have no regrets.

I want another one......then again. I have very vivid memories of what life was life before sib #1 and it sort of wrecked my lil world for awhile. But for now...anyone have tips and/or advice for weening? I have been trying, guess not hard enough. Was today that we need to make it happen now.

like, getting a kid off breastfeeding you mean?

Do you 'need' to wean, or just think you should?

I don't want to start the whole BFing debate again, but it can be hard to find support if you don't want to do things that are expected... I let Aidan self wean and he stopped at 23 months, M is still going strong at 20 months, though we are going to start night weaning in a few weeks as I've had enough of having my evenings wrecked.

Our son breastfed until he turned three. We had to switch from natural milk to formula for our 2 1/4 year old daughter and she will still take a bottle at night, but usually won't wake up screaming for one anymore.

my daughter just stopped at around a year. like, would physically turn her head away when my wife tried to nurse. it was interesting. every kid is different! altho imho if they're old enough to use words to ask for it, time to quit. ymmv obviously

we've "started" weaning around a year, although there's really no such thing as starting to wean I guess. I mean we're increasing bottles, reducing other feedings. But ulitmately it seems like there's going to have to be a defining moment where it's like "no, you don't get it" and she's going to go through the pain of that. I don't see another way around it.

Sorry, just realized I spelled [Push Th' Little Daisies] ween instead of wean. But yes, off breastfeeding. The pediatrician said she will not like solids so long as she can breast feed. Also said I am probably not producing enough, but she just nursed for a good 45 minutes...I'm not running out just yet.

The problem is more of how to get August to eat more solid foods regularly. Sprouts seems to be what she has liked the most and even then, just about all of it will end up everywhere but inside her tummy. I try to guide her so that she doesn't turn it over but when I start doing that she shuts down and will become disinterested in the whole thing. So I let her turn it upside down and squeeze it all over herself, the chair, the floor... in the hopes that she will become interested in consuming it. She will then swish it all over the tray like finger paints then chew on her hands and fingers for a bit then want out.

I am now doing the cereal in a sippy cup with some warm water, a little, and she seems to like that a bit more and will finish half of it. I put in less than 1/6 in the sippy. She will play with apple slices, bananas, avocado but not eat any of it.

I had planned to breast feed her until 2-4 teeth appeared and figured she would naturally start wanting what we eat. She just got her one lil tooth last week. When I took her to her 9 month well baby, the doctor said she is losing nutrients, must feed her solids NOW, losing vitamin D and iron, both not found in breast milk so must get her vitamins asap....left me anxious (easy to do these days).

Since she was born, to insure my breast milk is "top shelf", "premium quality" I juice daily , consume nutritious foods, eat hard boiled eggs, get my protein, homemade chicken soups, complex carbs (despite a desire to go paleo) and I take vitamins. August weighs 21lbs, 12 oz . The doctor said breast milk starts to become sweeter as time goes on and it will be harder to get her to eat solids. But I have tried those Sprouts and other baby foods, they are all pretty sweet, or sweeter than I thought they would be.

I am in no hurry to get her off my chest, just anxious about her getting the nutrients, the nutrients....

Babies are tricky with solid food and I imagine they're all different. K loves cucumber! She literally ate an entire persian (small) cucumber in one sitting the other day. She also loves chicken. She loves having a "whole" fruit like an apple (completely peeled and sliced down to smaller size) to gnaw on but generally won't eat fruit pieces. She hates picking up things that are wet or saucy. She doesn't like being spoonfed some things but she likes getting yogurt.

All I can say is (1) don't give up the first time she doesn't eat something -- try it with her a few times, model the eating for her, feed it to her a couple times, etc. (2) try a wide variety of foods (3) if she really like something, you might just wind up having to give it to her every day, (4) routine and schedule help

doesn't breast milk have loads of nutrients, if you're eating well? i don't get it. haha your description of those early stages of eating have a VERY familiar ring to them.. we also took the "let them play" route because it seemed better than them refusing. it's worked out pretty well, i think. there's a book called "baby-led weaning" that's pretty popular but my memory of it is that it's all kind of common sense stuff. could be worth checking out though? as far as getting off the b00b, at some point the lovely emma b starting only doing it before bed-time, and gave bottles the other times, and then finally went whole-hog and gave the bottle at bed-time too. there wasn't any issue with that iirc. i imagine it's at least a question of if YOU'RE ready, as much as it is if the child is.

kinda surprised yr pediatrician would say you got get 'em off the tit BEFORE solid foods. not my experience at all. we started feeding solids (mashed up bananas, avocados, apple sauce, etc.) to my daughter at 5 mos at she macked down on 'em, but she didn't stop breastfeeding until about 6-7 mos later. so idgi. but yeah every kid is different.

never bought babyfood (aside from the initial infant rice cereal, which we would add to her milk). always mashed up our own food. worked out pretty well.

are we differentiating between breastfeeding and bottle feeding here...? cuz my wife would pump and we would give my daughter breastmilk in a bottle (sometimes w/the rice cereal) and iirc actual breastfeeding kind of tapered off to a before bed/middle of the night thing for awhile until she ended up refusing ye boobs entirely.

I was going to try pumping to transition her off. We have been introducing solids since 6 months and planned on making our own baby food but she never liked anything we made, didn't like store bought until Sprouts. I however did start making a mental list of my future diet should I be lucky enough to live to a ripe old age and lose a few teeth.

Tracer, will look for that book, I feel I have no common sense with this right now. Breastfeeding keeps August very happy. But yeah....I don't think I am ready yet. Have to get there too.

I guess I would like to get her o where she eats something for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then I can nurse her to sleep. That is where I'd like to be by the time she is a year old. More or less....

did anyone else read this? http://www.kveller.com/mayim-bialik/mayim-bialiks-4-year-old-son-is-officially-weaned/

Actually I guess I'm using "wean" wrong -- we started her on solids at 6 months and she basically gets most of her nutrition from them or bottles now, but she still breastfeeds idk once or twice a day? And I think completely ending it will be hard.

I wish were there.

*we

the doctor said she is losing nutrients, must feed her solids NOW, losing vitamin D

I'm a non-parent so I don't usually feel qualified to post here but I'm going to call out your doctor because vitamin D is not an essential dietary vitamin and it's synthesised by our bodies when we're exposed to sunlight. Food consumption has very little to do with the whole equation. School biology lessons taught me this, come on!

The pediatrician said she will not like solids so long as she can breast feed.

this is not true

Tera, FFS at your paed, he's talking bollocks. your BM is the most calorific thing you can give her, and still has everything she needs. Paeds don't advise getting off formula to get babies to eat solids, why do they think they won't eat solids with breast milk?! Just because it's sweet? What do they think the human race did before formula?! (apart from breastfeed for a whole lot longer than 12 months...) Re vitamin D, there are concerns at the minute that people don't get enough daylight to be able to make enough vit D but you can take supplements and she'll benefit through your milk, or you can get supplements for her to take directly. She's not going to get more vitamin D just because you've weaned her off breastmilk

Here's some good links to help you decide what you want to do http://kellymom.com/ages/weaning/considering-weaning/weaning_intro/ I really like the kellymom site for good BFing support.

I did 'baby led weaning' with both of mine (in the UK weaning is starting solids, rather than stopping milk) it made sense to us and it was fun. We just eat healthily and gave them what we were having, and we all got to sit around the table and eat at the same time, very sociable! I once tried some of the rice cereal as we got a free sample, have you tried it?! It's rank! I refuse to feed my children something I wouldn't eat myself.

Aidan took to food like a duck to water and was down to three feeds during the day at 12 months. Molly's been a lot slower and though she eats she still doesn't eat loads and breast feeds a lot. I'm sure if I weaned her from the breast she'd eat more but she'd miss out on the continuing benefits of breastmilk and I'd loose the ongoing health benefits too. The mantra of BLW is 'food is fun until one'

Then there are the non-nutrient etc. benefits of BFing too - M started having a total meltdown on the train on the way home from work/nursery yesterday. I couldn't figure out what her problem was so couldn't fix it. 60 seconds of nursing and she came off happy as larry, and the rest of the passengers heaved a sigh of relief.

in the US weaning is starting solids, rather than stopping milk

Really? I thought there was loads of confusion when the 'baby led weaning' thing became big, as lots of US mums called self-weaning from the breast baby led weaning. Maybe it's changed since 2007 when I had my first.

The other reason why I'm glad we gave them the food we made is because I don't trust the companies that make baby food. this is quite gross and looks pretty well researched http://www.thealphaparent.com/2013/02/the-truth-about-baby-food-jars.html

well, i guess there may be.. er... regional differences within the US but in my specific case with my first, pre-2007 btw, and general impression of what was going on with our peers i would say that notwithstanding my pretty mainstream trad pediatrician and even with our own non-"hippie" tendencies we were more the norm and there was no question about pro-bf/slow weaning no pressure regarding the stopping of breast milk. my kids were still nursing once or twice a day until after the age of 2

Wow, that's fab! There's so much society pressure to wean after 6 months in the uk, and BFing after 12 months, while more common now, still gets people staring at you as though you've got two heads if you dare to feed in public (if they actually realise what you're doing that is!)