T did a double feed again last night half 1 and half 6. Thankfully my OH did the half 6 one as I was pooped!
Why's and when's; why is my baby crying and when is the right time to...
Every question a new mother must ask herself 100 times a day!
My why's and when's of the day are why is T crying?
He's normally a very chilled out baby, and crying is nothing that, a feed/nappy change/nap won't fix, rarely he cries for a cuddle. But there are times when none of those things will stop him, then what do you do?!
So I'm trying to fathom out his why for the day, when he woke for his half 1 feed, he didn't do his usual increasing whimper, he just did; eyes open, SCREAM. Very unlike him. Woke the whole house up (which makes me feel useless as I faff about trying to get milk sorted whilst trying to soothe him!) once he had his bottle inside of him he settled. Then the half 6 feed followed the normal routine.
He seemed fine throughout the day, and I decided to call some assistance from my best friend in making a homemade lasagna and cake for my OH just to show I love him (bork I know but I do these things occasionally) so had everything timed to perfection, OH came home, ran him a bath and stuck tea on whilst he was in. Then about 10 minutes before everything was due to be ready and everything needed prepping and dishing up, T threw a hissy fit. I'd left him in the front room with The Daughter, and she came through and handed him to me as she didn't know what to do. I did my usual attempts at soothing (making a shooshing noise followed by 7 rounds of Twinkle Twinkle) this was not effective and then the oven timer went off 'serve me serve me!' so palmed T off onto OH whilst I dished up, then fed T even though he wasn't due a feed for another hour. He gobbled 3/4's of his bottle then pushed it away with his mouth pursed and his 'i'm full now mother you may put the bottle down' face on.
Then came the when. The OH and I had a discussion and decided that maybe now was the time to start weaning him onto his baby food. They tell you the baby should be at least 17 weeks old before you start trying him on baby food (T is 16 weeks and 5 days) but to look for other signs that he's ready such as chewing his hands: done that for about a month, showing an interest in our food: again about a month, he's so curious he almost face dives into our plates, licking his lips: been doing that for about a week and that's about it. Although T has been watching us eat and now sits and chews nothing whilst we're eating. So we made a judegement call and decided to have a bash at it.
So in the handy booklet that appeared through the door at the beginning of the week (complete with free spoons and porridge!) it suggests that they have a teeny tiny bit off the end of a spoon and they will mess about with it and most likely spit it out, but it gets them used to the texture. Not T, he scoffed the lot, so we tried a little bit more, scoffed all that, all the while he was giggling his little ass off, obviously delighted that we'd picked up on all the signals he's been sending us.
I wonder now if we should have tried this earlier?!
So back to the why, not long after this milestone, T decided he was tired and went to bed at 7 (hooray we achieved it!) but we can hear that he's having little cries and screams in his sleep. Is he in pain? Is he having nightmares? How do we knooooow!? Back to the when; when he was about 7 weeks old I had to take him to the 24 hour Drs as he screamed for a full day, I had spotted a white lump on his gum and he was showing a few signs of teething, told the Dr this and she laughed at me and said it was far to early. But kindly gave us permission to give him Calpol.
Calpol; is the medicine of miracles. On the most occasions that we have given him it, he has slept through almost a full night. I checked later with my GP who told me a) Calpol doesn't make babies drowsy (I genuinely got concerned that I was drugging my child) if it's pain that's disturbing T's slumber then Calpol obviously removes that therefore enabling him to sleep peacefully and b) that the nasty lady Dr shouldn't have laughed at me, although his teeth may not be cutting, his gums are hardening in preparation and the bones in their mouths move causing them similar pains to cutting teeth. So I was right, HA!
Mothers know best is the cliche to become a new mums mantra, YOU know what your baby is like, YOU know his cries, so YOU know when there is a problem, NEVER feel ashamed of asking for help or feeling like a paranoid mother. I've learned that now.
So we shall carry on with the weaning tomorrow and hopefully T will be a happier boy in the morning!
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| Sad baby :( |
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