Tooth No. 3

So when did tooth number two arrive I hear you ask? Well it pretty much came at the same time as CC's first tooth so it was overlooked from the diary aspect. This little slither of sharpness appeared a day after CC celebrated turning 8 months old. It's at the front on the top on his left. It would explain a rather tetchy night!

I hithered and dithered if it was teeth which were causing his unsettled manner, and considered getting a sachet of the powdered gold (Ashton & Parsons teething powders). The elusive powders are like hen's teeth to obtain - apparently because of the bureaucracy in Brussels regarding herbal remedies, the manufacturer instead of paying £100,000 for a licence to continue producing the powders has chosen to simply pull the product from production. I had only three sachets as a friend had managed to obtain a box from a back street pharmacy in Aberdeen and kindly gave me some. So they are not to be wasted!

A few evenings beforehand CC had been crying in the most heartbreaking manner for about 1 1/2 hours and no amount of cuddling or dentinox would settle him. I went and got one of the wraps of powder and poured it's contents into his agape wailing mouth and I kid you not 3 minutes later the tears had stopped and he then settled himself to sleep! Therefore I really don't want to waste the remaining sachets on a false alarm!

I have subsequently managed to purchase another box - so hopefully future teeth won't be so troublesome!

On another note the loveliest thing happened the other day when I walked into the bedroom whilst CC was having his afternoon nap. He actually started laughing out loud in his sleep. We will probably never know what babies dream about - but on this particular day there is no doubt that something in the land of dreams was causing great amusement to the sleeping soul. It was infectious and I left the room with a huge grin on my face.

Just a wee app trial!

Turns out blogger now has its own app which lets me upload pics too. Hopefully this won't prompt me to become too lazy regarding uploading proper edited pics from my camera! Technically it should mean that there's no excuse to not have any pics at all though - even if they're poorly edited phone ones....

Oh and you can save this one as you go - time to retract my previous blog!

It's so easy to start taking things for granted.

This is kind of an ironic post as I'm writing it because I lost a post I was in the middle of writing!

Everything is so fast paced now - technology has moved on in such a way that there's no patience left in this world. The development of the smart phone means that we no longer have to wait until one task is complete before we start another. For people like me this can be a good thing - I frequently flit between tasks in my day to day life (much to BFS's despair) feed a baby, paint a wall, bake some cakes, do some accounts etc. however when you use a device which allows you to do this 90% of the time you start to take it for granted that everything works this way. When you do actually undertake a task within the 10% parameter that doesn't allow multitasking (ie write a blog post on a phone app instead of the pc) it's pretty stupid to 'jump' to another application to respond to a message which has just popped onto your screen. The result is that you lose the thoughts which took a bit of effort to pen and you get so frustrated you can't be bothered trying to recreate the humorous approach you strived for in the first place!

Hence this post instead. Do you remember the days when you actually had to finish a text message and send it, and wait to make sure it had actually sent before you dared press any other button on your phone (and god forbid a call came in whilst you were waiting for this to happen!)

I almost can't....that's how quickly we take things for granted...and that is a scary thought.

Turned the feeding corner.

It appears to have happened overnight, but Cc has turned from the weaning nightmare into the mouth agape, can't get it in fast enough feeding monster. It officially happened two evenings ago where I mentally noted that it had been the least stressful dinner feeding since CC had his first spoonful of solids. Every meal since has gone down a treat - and that's without the banana blackmail. In fact his banana intake is now limited to breakfast time (he's been a tad constipated so I'm trying to avoid anything binding!) in fact he actually scoffed his weetabix sans banana today as I had ran out!

I have to confess that every meal has been supplemented 50:50 with 'lovely lentils' but this can only be good right? He's now had beef, salmon, chicken and even liver no question. Long may it continue...

It's common sense really!

It occurred to me today that CC was not likely to learn how to be mobile anytime soon unless I stopped plonking him on his butt every time I put him down! Because of his stature he's been pretty solid at sitting upright from a young age (starting at 20 weeks) and because of this I've always taken the easy option of placing him on his toosh when I need both hands for my chores! He can sit happily for an age as long as there is activity going on around him.



Although he has mastered sitting, he can't roll over (because he's never on his back outwith the confines of his restricting cot) and he has never been given much tummy time so has had no inkling to get mobile. I decided tonight to rectify this and placed him on his tummy instead. I was pretty amazed at how quickly he moved on from the skydiver position to actually getting his knees under himself in an attempt to shuffle himself forward to reach the items of interest I'd placed just out of reach in front of him. I have to continue with this and give him that important time to let him progress naturally.

I do wonder if he will be a crawler like BB or a commando boy like LL? Watch this space...

Missions bottle & sleep through...

CC has done a remarkable job of mirroring his closest brothers sleeping habits at the same age. i.e. unlike his biggest brother he is still awaking at 7 1/2 months for a few wee feeds through the night. This doesn't bode well, along with the fact that he still hasn't fed from a bottle, for his pending visit to his Gran's for the weekend in 2 weeks time!

We decided to start a mission to get him fixed!

It started 5 nights ago when he had a grizzle at 10:30pm and both BFS and I were still fully awake and alert and downstairs watching the box. I quickly boiled the kettle and scrambled together a formula feed from the box which had been sitting unopened on the kitchen worktop for about 2 weeks in anticipation of this moment. It was definitely on the spur, and there was no time for any hesitation or mental preparation for this wee milestone. We saw an opportunity and grabbed it!
BFS marched upstairs with the bottle in hand and I sat on a step and listened to the tug of wills going on in the bedroom. Eventually he re-appeared brandishing the pretty much untouched bottle and informed me that CC just kept dosing off with it in his mouth. He then duly informed me that I was going to 'have to stop feeding him at this time'!!!! Yeah - I've only been trying to do that for the past three months! I'm not spending all this time with a small person power sucking at my boob through choice! I too would like for a bit of respite that is longer than three hours - it's only been 206 days (and nights) of enduring this so far....

Anyways on the back of this failed effort BFS decided to take the bull by the horns (2 days before returning to work and therefore leaving me with the brunt of the hard work) (did you nibble at that?) and do the 'night shift'. ie getting up to our crying loon and trying to settle him back to sleep without letting him feed. I fed him a last feed at 10:30pm and the plan was to not let him have any more milk until at least 5am. He did a triumphant job - albeit succumbing to the tiredness and eventually taking him into our bed for the last stretch. He did last until 5 for his feed though. BFS informed that on the second night CC did go back to sleep a bit more easily than he did on the first night, but I did awaken again to find them both snuggled up on the other side of the bed again!

The big test came the next night as BFS had returned to work and CC would smell the milk on me and be less likely to settle. He fed at 10:15pm and actually slept until 3am. When I picked him up he tried latching onto my neck, then he got my hair and started sucking on that, I lay him back down and gave him my fingers to play with and suck on, but my nails kept catching on the roof of his mouth (ouch) I found a dummy in a drawer and cleaned and tried that - all the while making loud shooshing noises. Eventually he flung himself on his side and started nuzzling into his pillow (his signal that he's going to attempt going to sleep) I continued shooshing and crawled back into bed. I then recorded myself shooshing for 5 mins for future use and dosed off. I think this took about 45 mins. He woke up again at 5 so I fed him and he then slept (in his own bed) until his usual 7 am rising time. Phew.

Last night came another breakthrough in that, because he hadn't stirred when I went up to bed, I made up a formula feed and went upstairs with the mission of lifting him from his bed and trying to 'dream feed' him the bottle. Well it worked! He took it all without any problem and I lay him back down feeling pretty chuffed with myself - thanking that (as many know-it-alls have advised) he would sleep longer having a formula feed in his tummy. Total bollox. He actually woke up 2 hours earlier than the previous night at 1am! Aaargh. It just shows there are no rule books for babies! He was pretty frantic, but settled surprisingly well with a chew on my fingers and playing my pre-recorded shooshing on repeat! He woke again at 3am, I didn't pick him up this time and just let him chew, then at 4:30am when he grumbled again I fed him as I was pretty engorged having missed the 10pm feed.

Slowly but surely we're getting there. Not sure whether to do the dream feed thing again tonight or not. I think it may have given him wind last night and that's why he woke early? Anyways really sore boobs for me today having dropped that feed, but I probably need to stick with it now if I'm going to start getting him weaned off...

Well, that didn't last long!

The usual distractions have gotten between me and the pc and the resolution to provide more pics hasn't fully been implemented! Some have been done so it'll just be a case of picking them off as and when.....