Health Visitors… aaaaaaargh….

Seriously the level of conflicting, or just plain wrong, advice out there is appalling…

Two gems from a trained professional health visitor today at a weaning workshop for 6 month olds:

1) Add juice to their beaker to encourage them to drink water.

2) Try giving them marmite on toast for extra flavour.

Extra sugar and extra salt at 6 months. Shocking.

That is all.

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Crying it out – could you?

Well we have hit that point in every babies life (I think!) where sleeps deteriorates rapidly…  From my repeated googling the consensus is that it s a combination of a 4 month growth spurt (there’s also some lovely tips to get through it on this page), sleep regression (this is a great article) 19 week wonder week and of course the dreaded solids debate…

It’s tough.  BabBee has gone from 1 wake up a night to sometimes 5 – which is bad enough – but made worse that he no longer falls asleep again immediately after feeding.  I am tired.  I haven’t written anything for a week as I’m so tired (and also a little overwhelmed, how do people keep up with reading other blogs!?!).  But as much as I don’t want to create a monster, if he cries I go to him and do whatever is necessary to make it stop.  Fortunately DaBee is totally on board and (with a sharp kick in the leg to wake him up if needed) will also comfort his every whim.  I can’t help but wonder if we are “making a rod for our own back” (etc etc!)

To be clear BabBee is generally a good sleeper.  He settles himself at night and has regular naps in his cot when home.  If he is whinging but I can tell he will sleep I will leave him – but these new night awakenings are much more dramatic than that and need intervention.  We have tried patting and comforting, gentle rocking, sticking the thumb back in and they will work temporarily but he will generally wake again pretty quickly and need feeding, and then feed a lot!  So I am resigned to it, he clearly needs the food – and the quicker I feed the quicker he will go back down – I’ll worry about that rod later!

But to get to the point, another (not friend) mummy (lets call her Cowbag) told me how she left her baby to cry for 15 minutes and she’s much better now.  15 minutes! She obviously justified it by saying how dreadful she felt but if you can not go in for 15 minutes you can’t feel that dreadful.  It is of course the controversial crying it out, or more accurately The Ferber Method (some interesting science here)

I can’t ever imagine doing this… I’m far too “attached” but at 4 months???? Really????  Could you????

 

The changing face of Motherhood

I have always been quite a straightforward person, some might say harsh.  People say things like “at least when I ask you I get an honest answer”… which I know is a back handed statement about my inability to put up with idiots.  But since having BabBee opinions appear to have changed and I was recently described as an Earth Mother.  DaBee laughed his head off at that (and said I was as much of an Earth Mother as Hitler!) but it got me thinking about how having children changes you…. hmm…

I knew that after having BabBee I “would change” as 46,000 people had told me this, but how far does it go?  Now I am very pro breastfeeding, baby wearing, baby calm and use cloth nappies – that’s all pretty Earth Mother.  I walk most places – I was definitely too busy (and too lazy!) before.  But most of this is down to the gift of time on maternity leave, not the new “spiritual” connection I have made with the world.  I still get annoyed with people but knowing how small the mummy circuit is I think it is wise not to piss people off, and therefore try harder to be diplomatic.  What I would really like is for my non-baby and my baby friends to fill out a questionnaire but lets be honest this is all getting a little self obsessed…  I think I am supposed to be obsessed with my baby – mot the inner workings of my own mind!!

I guess the ultimate change is all that love you have for the new little person in your life and no one can doubt or deny that.  I guess the impact of the Bigger Change will emerge later – does anyone feel they have been intrinsically changed by the occasion of birth… I am interested?!