Hello Mudduh Hello Fadduh: ILX Rolling Parenting Thread

Alice is three weeks old today, hit 6lb yesterday and seems bursting with new found strength. She wriggles all over the place and is having fewer deep sleeps and more cat naps with alert periods. I think I need to get over the feeling that awake = bad, and start thinking about how to entertain her when she is.

Oh and responding to the sandbox thread: hi Nick! Pint sounds good - parenting looks more manageable through a beer fug I find.

Oh I gotta tell you all this! It's the funniest thing. I've been telling it to everyone IRL (heh). Every night I'll read a little to O and then she'll stand up and page through the book (I'm holding). She loves to point to pics and text and then I'll tell her what it is. After about ten min I'll put the book away and say:"Now it's time to sleep, don't you think?" OPHELIA TURNS AROUND, FLOPS ON HER BELL! And she puts her thumb in her mouth and turns her head away from me. Yep, she puts herself in the sleeping position IMMEDIATELY.

She's always been easy. Sometimes she refuses to have her morning/afternoon nap but evenings she's always up for sleep.

Turns ONE YEAR in 12 days. I CAN NOT WAIT! :-)

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Tallulah is now 9 weeks old and she still wakes for a feed at least once a night (which is how it was for the first 10 days, but nothing like the carnage of weeks 3 through 7 when a milk tanker wouldn't have sated her); at 8 weeks she was 4kg (birth weight: 2.1kg) which is fairly remarkable porking out. Lots of eye contact, smiles and gurgly giggles. Still worry about her sinus congestion issues and she barfs far more than her big sis ever did, but she seems to be thriving.

Ava is nearly 23 months and the most frustrating/wonderful person on Earth. Her tantrums are getting pretty ferocious now but, by golly, she's a treasure most of the time. Can manage most of the alphabet and has counted to ten at least once; knows lots of colours, calls her sister "Yuyu", has a fixed, consistent vocabulary of about 30 words, plus about 2,000 that we don't understand. Says "Oh...no" and "Oh....dear" and "Sorry Daddy" when things fall over or spill, which always makes us chuckle.

I guess it depends on the age gap; right now, Ava can't be left to her own devices because she rarely plays/draws quietly on her own - she runs, jumps and climbs on everything and is a general danger to herself (see black eye pics on Flickr!). When we finally get the nursery sorted out and get some stair gates fitted (still don't have them in place - we have gates in the kitchen/hall doorways instead), her room will be more of a playspace for her, where she's less likely to hurt herself or break/ingest something she shouldn't. We're hoping for a calmer time of it then.

So Pam has to deal with a super-energetic near-2-y-o and a very hungry newborn (though she's given up the breastfeeding - T's been on formula since week 5) and sometimes it's nearly impossible.

But...they will grow up and entertain each other and it'll all be fine. But it's hard right now. Getting them out of the door to go anywhere seems to take the best part of an hour.

sorry, rambling. :-)

a child development person I know says 3 yrs is ideal spacing...something about less competition but they still have enough in common. My sis in law has 4 and the last 3 are 2 yrs apart or less, she seems to do great but I don't know how.

Nathalie, don't worry about "nipple confusion." I have my own unproven theories about it (that it's bullshit) but if you soldier on, your baby will easily handle going from nipple to bottle. My wife pumped for a year and nursed mornings/nights. I have found that, more than anything else, a lot of parent's problems with their kids is myopia. Also Natalie, there's a learning curve to everything and when an infant is involved, it seems like we try out think our instincts at every turn. If you love having your shop, then fight your way through the tough times and you'll come out okay on the back end. Love your kids to pieces, do the best you can with your spouse (or partner or whatever), and things will get better.

I say this after what was easily the hardest month of my life, a time where my uselessness to the planet was particularly obvious.

My kid never had the slightest issue taking a bottle, even though we were bad about giving one every few days so he'd "be used to it." We gave a bottle of breast milk when we needed to, which was not often--every couple of months--and he'd always take it. He never seemed to care much for formula but we didn't give him any until 11 mos. I don't remember when we first tried a bottle--4 weeks? but it was after my supply was well established which is the important thing if you want to breastfeed longterm, they say.

otoh, my mom said I would never take a bottle but I don't know how hard she tried, y'know? so yeah I largely agree with don, although you never know what weird outlying issues like frenulum or palate problems might be present if there's a feeding issue. So yeah, you'll know when you want another one and you'll figure out how to make it happen!

oh and my kid has the puke now. :(

xpost - when I was student age I had this compunction to go to the loo if I felt even the slightest twinge in my bladdal area. Nowadays if I'm sleepy and I need to pee, even quite badly, I just tell my bladder to quit it and turn over.

I didn't look for the "other side" because formula manufacturers are prohibited from saying their product is as good as human milk. This is close: http://www.enfamil.com/app/iwp/Content.do?id=-8739

It's a tough line to walk--you want to encourage breastfeeding strongly because it's so good, but you don't want to make new moms feel bad if they need to use formula. We could be doing a lot better job all the way around.

better sourcing here.

It is a wrench - Isabel has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she simply can't be awake and alert enough to exclusively breastfeed (or even breast and express) - we managed this for around 2-3 weeks and she was dying on her feet so we switched to breast in the day, formula (given by me or the in-laws) at night if she's not feeling up to it. In our particular circumstances I can't think what else we'd have done - and Lytton seems to be thriving whatever he eats - but it is harsh: there's a strong class element in the breast/formula divide and neither of us directly know any parents who are including formula in the feed at all, so we kind of guiltily shut up when the subject arises.

The thing that nobody warned us about as parents is the amount of crappy passive-aggressive competitiveness that childrearing brings out, even among people who had their kids 30+ years ago! (this is *NOT* directed at anyone on ILX - Isabel doesn't even read it and I've only ever found this thread informative and supportive, or else I wouldn't even be saying this!)

You're not alone! I would talk about my young men all day if permitted.
Christmas, or any gift-giving holiday you observe, is the single greatest argument against having more than one kid. My boys are 22 and 24, and I still worry like crazy about present parity. Argh.
But if you have two, they'll have each other to commiserate with when you become senile and unbearable.
There you have the pro and con, folks.

they'll have each other to commiserate with when you become senile and unbearable.

Hahahaha! OMG TOO TRUE!!! I don't know what I'd do without my sister and brother to talk to about our mom!

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"Dada, baby K wants to play in the snow!" *attempts to dump 11 month old in snowbank*

Pic is from halfway through the first 26" storm, but before the subsequent 16" and 10" dumps. It's been a good year to be a kid in Denver. Since Andrew is still not yet 3, it's pretty tough sledding for him, unless I transport him to the hill, as well as up it.

Generally, small kids in snow is a bit of a PIA, you just have to groove on their joy. But oh, if those ill-fitting mittens come off in the snow pile, prepare to evac quickly. Who wants to make a million dollars with me by marketing mittens that have a cuff that cinches securely under the armpit?

This thread makes me miss my baby Sarah, sometimes. But then, she's turned out to be a pretty cool human and I don't have to clean her diapers any more. Or do her laundry. So hey, it evens out.

I can still remember how those little pink pjs felt. How they smelled. *wistful sigh* No, I don't want another one. I just wish there were some way to do a complete sensory recording of some times, y'know? So you could uncork it years later and smell baby powder and Johnson & Johnson shampoo and the remarkable and unmistakeable scent of your own child.

I make a point of hugging mine as much as she'll let me, these days. She's not a baby any more, but she's still my baby. And I insist on Mom Hugging Rights.

(She doesn't seem to mind. And now when I visit her, her new friends want hugs, too. ;D )

why aren't boys allowed to love their moms the way girls do?

gender roles but you can always ignore'em. ;-)

ophelia's still not walking (indie style) but cruising around at 200 miles per hour. yesterday she CLIMBED THE STAIRS! i was with her but damn it it was scary to see how fast she was! she did manage to say 'koek' (cookie) while pointing at the cookies. :-)

when i put the book away in the evening and say it's time to sleep, she cries for about 15 seconds and then turns around to sleep. very cute.

there was a case in the news of a couple of heroin junkies who hadn't fed their baby for 24/48 hrs. the poor thing died.

hmm
i think she might be into this but if i'm gonna make ice cream it's not gonna be pea-flavour.

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Alice had her fancy hearing test yesterday. She had to wear some funky headphones and have sensors stuck to her head - slept right through it. They weren't sure they'd get a reading because babies with cleft palates usually have too much fluid, but her right ear is perfect, hurrah. In some places they only test one ear, since one good ear counts as being able to hear, but here they do both so her left ear has been referred for an even fancier test.