E is now coming into her seventh month and i don't really know anyone with a baby that age, i'd love to see how she is doing, i worry that i am not doing enough with her, that in some areas i am moving her too fast and in others perhaps not pushing enough, not a competition but a comparison of MY actions... and i would love some advice or reassurance/feedback on this from anyone.
It has been suggested that i might be a little pushy with her food and with her in general, and when i read up about it online there is such differing information on it, i decided to wean her traditionally, because although i loved the idea of BLW, it is not practical where i live to have the baby chucking her food around. Her weight is 16lb 9oz and she was 29 weeks yesterday, i have started her on a full time eating plan now
05.00 bottle
7.00 Breakfast
12.00 Lunch and pudding
17.00 Dinner and pudding/fruit
19.00 bottle
23.00 bottle
and throughout the day if she is peckish i will give her some apple or a bit of yogurt and fruit.
I thought this was reasonable, she has never taken more than 150ml / 6oz in feed and this gives her 450 ml, although it is more like 350 because she only finishes a whole bottle in her morning feed... The general suggested amount seems to be 600ml whilst weaning up until a year.
E's dad took her to the HV for her check on tuesday and she has said she should only be taking one or two bottles a day, and she has just crossed onto her second percentile (whatever that is, although it has been explained and i have read up about it i still just don't get it) so are they saying she is overweight? Because the way it was intoned to me suggested it was, but since i wasn't there i can't tell.
I have been introducing her to finger foods and lumpy foods as well, i got her some spelt biscuits and give her pieces of fruit, and although she sometimes gags and chokes, she generally recovers quickly and i never leave her whilst she is learning to develop these skills, but a couple of people have suggested that i am being too pushy and expecting too much from her, it feels right to me, but i do worry that i'm going to put her off or something.
I moved her into her cot a couple of months ago and although she only sleeps till about four, from 7pm-11pm and then 11.30pm-4am she sleeps well, and then i feel guilty because i take her into bed when she wakes at 4am so i can sleep a bit longer, i get told often that i am making a rod and all that, but i have neighbours surrounding me and i can't always get up at 4am...
I don't know really, just having a crisis of confidence i think, she is a really bright and cheerful baby by nature and i worry if i am doing something wrong then i'm not going to notice or something similar.
Jellie you are doing nothing wrong and believe me if I had a baby who woke up at 4 I'd take her into bed too
Jellie - you're doing fine, I know how frustrating and tiring it is to have a baby that wakes. There were a few occasions when I took DD into our bed so I could get some sleep. The only thing I would say, is that if you make a habit of it, she might learn to expect it and not sleep as well in her own cot.
You're doing fine xx
Jellie it's all fine n well people saying your making a rod for your own back .. and tbh you may well be but we all need sleep and if it was a choice between getting up at 4am and being knackered all day and taking her into bed with you for a couple of hours and being a fully functioning mammy all day i'd take her into bed.
My ES was such a bad sleeper as a baby I was permanantly knackered I took him into bed every night cos I quite simply couldn't stay awake any longer you sound like a fab mum n it sounds to me like your doing great. Your DD doesn't sound atall overweight either, I really wouldn't worry. x
Jellie Is it that E is actually unhappy at 4am or is it just that she is awake?
I had one who was frequently awake in the middle of the night and between the 2 of us (DD and me LoL) I learnt that as long as she was clean and not hungry etc she would just play quitely in her cot often dropping off to sleep again.
Have you tried to leaving her? She might surprise you and just play happily.
She's fine, you're fine and a good mummy to her.
She doesn't seem unhappy when she wakes, she just seems wide awake and ready to play... Thanks for all your replies, it is much appreciated
DD used to wake at 5am and I always brought her in bed with me, laid on my side and fed her back to sleep, which is a big no no with some people. When she got to 8 months old she just stopped waking up so early, and started waking at 6.30ish. I think I miss that cuddle in bed more than she does! So if you're happy and it works for you then I wouldn't worry too much.
With regards the milk, DD is 12 months now and she still has 3 bottles a day (mid-morning, mid-afternoon and before bed). She also gets milk and dairy in her other meals. Her weight is fine as far as I know. Milk should be the main "food" until they're 1, so I'm surprised the health visitor said she should be on fewer bottles, unless she was suggesting that she's filling up on milk and not eating solids as a result, but it doesn't sound as though that's the case.
With regards the food, if she's just gagging rather than choking I would think that's fine. My first child wouldn't eat anything solid until he was 2.5 years old and we had to see a feeding specialist. As a consequence I pushed my second child a bit quicker than I perhaps should have done, but it's certainly done her no harm.
With regards percentiles, my understanding is that if they're on the 50th percentile they're "average". There's a kind of "danger zone" if they're at either extreme of this, so say the 0-5th percentile or the 95th-100th percentile. I think you must have got a bit of a confused message, because if she was on the 2nd percentile I would say that her weight is quite low compared to the average.
All in all it sounds as though you're doing a fab job! Those crises in confidence are a right pain, but we all have them!
By jumping 2 percentiles, sounds like her weight has moved up two percentile lines, so if she was on th 50% line at birth, maybe she's now on the 75% line or something (can't be bothered to get my red book to find two lines!). SO she's gaining weight quicker than average.
At seven months DS was having an a bottle at 7am, 3pm, 7pm and a dream feed. He didn't always take the DF. As RC said above milk should be their main food until one. If you are concerned about her milk intake you could always give her a bottle in the afternoon or a yoghurt or rice pudding with dinner. My son was never a huge fan of milk and still isn't. He is nearly two and he has milk on his cereal and unless he asks for it he drinks water all day.
2 bottles at 7 months???????????????
Fin is 16 months and he still gets three a day - OK, they are only 4oz each, he's never really taken much more than that, but 2 bottles at 7 months is crazy. I wouldn't necessarily listen to the guidelines on the formula, mind, because they are there to keep you buying milk; but even at a year old and throughout toddlerhood I'm sure current guidelines on cow's milk is around a pint a day (though some of this can be from cheese, yoghurt, puddings, custard, or vegetables and fish like sardines that are high in calcium).
Can't help with the centiles, I'm afraid. Ellis never got off the starting blocks on his chart, and with Fin they don't really use them anymore. And we were never trusted with our own red books, so I don't have anything to look up. IIRC, at his last weigh-in (aged 14 months), Ellis was on the 4th centile; Fin's first and last weigh-in (at 6 months, LOL, you're so much more chilled with your second!) he was on the 10th centile 'but we don't really bother with it anymore'. I don't know what it means, I think it means that 96% of 14 month olds were heavier than Ellis, and 90% of six month olds were heavier than Fin; but I'm not sure.
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