Solids.

This week we have started on solids. This has been really exciting!

After seeing our child health nurse earlier in the week, she pointed out at our visit that Morgan is ready to start trying solids, basically put some food on her tongue and see what she does. She can sit up straight, likes to sit at the table and watch at meal times and has doubled her birthweight and is now 8.3kg.

So we came home later that day with some baby cereal ready to try the next day. Well. She loved it. Surprise, surprise. I am very sure she would have kept going, but we did not want to over do it.

Today we are going to try her with some apple and see how she goes with that.
I cannot wait to share our solids experiences!

Aimee. X

Turns out persistence works... Sometimes..

Somedays morgan will settle herself. Others she will not have a bar of it. At night she tries so hard not to go to bed. She use to sleep from 9 till 7 in her cot beautifully. Now if I insist on her going into her cot, we end up still awake at 11.30pm!! And even then, she is only going to sleep because I do what I probably shouldn't and put her into bed with us. And yes I'm aware of the risk of SIDS. The bonus of this is she sleeps from 9 till 7. I can attend to her much quicker if she does wake and she goes back to sleep much quicker with no stuffing around. Downsides are she somehow hogs the bed and all 3 of us fight over blankets.
I find it very amusing that she knows as soon as she is in the cot at night as she sleeps perfectly in the cot during the day. Oh well what ever works I guess.
Aimee. X

The dummy debate.

I was one of those mums that said while pregnant that I did not want to use dummy with Morgan, unless I could help it. But having a baby who loved to suck and wanted to use me as a dummy, I gave in when we got home from hospital. She only has it to sleep, and spits it out once she is down. John and I do not have a problem with this, but I have been caught with remarks about it, even in public. The public like to tell you what's wrong with you baby, even though you know very well that they are not hungry, wet or any of the other things they like to tell you. What I am getting at is do what works for you. You may not want to give them a dummy, but it may buy you an extra hour of rest. People may offer opinions but in the end if it works, it works.
Aimee.

Persistence has paid off.

Today marks the day that Morgan fell asleep by herself in her cot with little fuss. No screaming fit, no getting over tired, no daddy home to feel bad that she is grizzly. Let's hope we can continue this happening. It's taken me a week to get her to this stage if not longer. Makes me feel much better. And now I won't have to deal with the "just let her scream and go outside and ignore her" comments. Because lets face it, that makes mum, dad and baby feel horrible. A music box with pretty lights and continually putting her dummy in is all we needed. No fancy rocking cots, no rocker just persistence.
Aimee.

Playing catch up. 13weeks

I have finally caught up with this new growth spurt. The not sleeping and extra feeding that Morgan requires at these times is quite stressful.
After seeing the child health nurse Friday and coming to the conclusion I'm just a stress head and was over tired, Morgan now weighs 7.7kg and is thriving. She can now roll from front to back and back over. And I doubt it will be very long till she can work out this can help her get places. I find myself asking John where our baby has gone. She is learning new noises everyday, her new favorite is to squeal, knowing that it brings everyone over to check on her.
Her sleep patterns are coming back now too. Makes planning easier.

One more month till vaccinations.
One more till we can start solids.
One more till I have to organize going back to work.
And not long now till another wonder week and she will be learning another group of skills.
This is a great adventure and I am enjoying every minute of it!
Aimee.

Breast feeding.. Again

I hate growth spurts. It takes days for my supply to increase. And mean while I end up with a very hungry baby.

Last night after thinking she was full, giving me all the signs that she is full other than not wanting to sleep. Come 11.00pm after being awake since her nap at 6.00pm. I decided to give her formula as a top up. She drank all 120ml of it.
Although this made me feel bad, after thinking about this, i figured there was no way of knowing that she was not getting enough. Unless I express all the time and then feed her the correct amount each time. And let's just face it, who has the time to do that? Tonight I'm going to start a formula top up at around 7.30 and see how that helps. Will post later in the week to let you know how we get on.
Also seeing the child health nurse tomorrow to see what she thinks and also to confirm if she is teething or not.
Aimee.

Rock and Rhyme.

Today we attended our first rock and rhyme session, with another mum from our chat group. (http://www.linc.tas.gov.au/events/whatson/linc/rock-and-rhyme-sorell2)
We sang songs, read books, and played musical instruments. Morgan really enjoyed this. She loves being showed books and being sung too.
Will be going back next week, and I highly recommend! Cause let's face it, babies do not know you cannot sing. :p

Mothers groups/ chat groups.

I was very disappointed that they no longer have mothers groups. I remember when mum had my brother and off she went each week to a different mums house to enjoy mummy conversation, play time/ social interaction for their children and do forth. But the budgeting for these groups has been cut, leaving mums without this great program.
So when we had our child health nurse visit, she mentioned the child health organization where holding a chat/morning tea group at the community health center.

So along Morgan and I went, we have been going every Monday since Morgan was 4 weeks old. It is great to have other mums to talk to, and to compare as get good advice. The babies range from 3months to 7months in our group. The youngest are all starting to "talk" to each other and love watching the older babies try to crawl and try to talk.

I really wish the mothers groups still existed, but for now I really enjoy theses 2 hour sessions and making to friends.