Posts Tagged "babies"
Gagging Not Choking
I survey the carnage.
I have been cooking. With three cupboards, an oven that doesn’t work properly and one work surface measuring less than half a metre wide, preparing food becomes a complicated dance of pirouetting, rearranging and balancing, with a few swear words thrown in for good measure, and giving everything at least 10 minutes longer to cook than it should.
The dishes are piled high in the sink, with me somehow managing to use every utensil I own just to cook chicken and rice. I have spilled sauce on the hob and on me and may have inadvertently ‘lost’ some onion down the side of the cooker. You know nothing ok? We’ll just pretend that didn’t happen (or that I dropped some pasta down there yesterday).
But, I’m done. And nothing is burnt. Bonus.
I stick my head round the door of the front room where Kai and his dad are zoned out in front of Gigglebiz – ‘Little Britain for toddlers’ my hubby has described it as. Spot on. “Kai, do you want some food?” I ask while doing our ‘food’ sign that Kai’s just beginning to start to copy “It’s time for tea!”. “Yeah Yeah!” shouts Kai jumping up.
Wrestled into his highchair Kai is soon tucking in with gusto to his rice and chicken. He grabs his fork for good measure and gives a few half-hearted stabs but it is soon forgotten in favour for great big fist-fulls alternated with delicate pincer-grip motions, picking up tiny grains one by one and examining them before down they go with a enthusiastic lip smack. Big bits of chicken are chewed and quickly devoured. Water is quaffed and waved about and dripped onto the high chair tray to make patterns with. When interest starts to wane, daddy steps in with the forgotten fork and I watch as they share their special mealtime game of ‘one for me one for you’, amazed that Kai is finally letting us near him with utensils after months of refusing to eat anything off a fork or spoon except Kai ambrosia (yoghurt) and that only because hands just don’t get enough in quick enough.
I love mealtimes.
They are my favourite part of the day. Ant is home from work, bedtime is fast approaching and ensconced in his highchair with a big plate of food before him Kai is (usually!) at his most charming and entertaining. Mouthfuls for him are usually alternated with tidbits offered to daddy and me, and sometimes the cat for good measure. He sings, he chews his way through enough food to feed a small army, he pulls glorious and comical faces as he tries and assesses new tastes and at least half the offered food ends up on his lap, in his hair or on the floor.
It is glorious.
At not-quite fifteen months old I have to say that I think eating is one of Kai’s party pieces. The way he gets through a meal is usually enough to stop most people in their tracks, and make them smile and comment especially when they realise how old he is – an age when a lot of his peers are still only just being weaned of mush and onto ‘grown-up’ food.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am far from proud or sure of many things I have done as a mother. But Kai’s weaning is one thing I think I’ve done rather well. In fact, both Ant and I are in complete agreement – weaning Kai the way we did was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made as parents. I talked a little about it previously, but the long and short of it is this:
We held off weaning until Kai turned six months old, despite everyone’s abject horror and insistence that we were starving the poor child. And then we did something that everyone thought was completely mad (and by everyone I mean my mother – come on mum I know you’ll admit it). We didn’t give him pureed baby food, we just gave him big chunks of proper food to pick up and gnaw on himself. He could choose what to eat or not to eat and how much. And if he didn’t want anything at all that was fine too. It’s known as ‘Baby-Led Weaning’ but personally I think it should just be called ‘common sense weaning’.
“But he’ll choke!!” was the first objection. Well actually, no. He didn’t choke. He did gag a lot to start with which everyone PRESUMED was choking, but look – he’s just coughing and learning to move food around in his mouth and not bite off quite such a big bit next time. And he’s already tucking into the next piece. It upset everyone else far more than it upset Kai… Gagging is a natural and pretty essential reflex if you’re going to learn how to eat safely.
“But he’s not really eating anything!!” was the next concern. OK – granted, not an awful lot got ‘consumed’ as it were in the first few weeks of weaning (although the first time it did the resulting nappy was a shocker I can tell you!) In fact, not really till Kai hit about 10 months old did he start eating consistently. But look again. This boy is hovering above the 75% percentile on his growth charts and I’d done my research – milk, breast milk especially will meet up to something stupid like 98% of his nutritional needs for the first year, and still provide the vast majority well into his second year. So there was no rush. Exploring tastes and textures were always the priority to start with – if in doubt I just kept repeating the mantra “Food under 1 is just for fun”. It worked – just look at him now.
“But he’ll be a picky eater if you let him choose what to eat – he won’t eat the right things!!” I never really got this argument. He has tastes, of course he does, and preferences same as anyone else. He still thinks broccoli is the devil’s fare no matter how many times I offer it him. He loves sweet things, but will choose fruit over a biscuit any day. Strawberries don’t even touch the sides. Some things (like potato) he took a long time to warm too but now are his favourites. Other things, like carrot, he seems to go through phases of liking. One thing I have noticed that if offered a good variety of foods, over the course of a week Kai will usually eat a good balance of protein, carbs, diary and fruit and veg. 
But not all in one meal – sometimes all he’ll want to eat is pasta, or cucumber. But the next day you can guarantee will be a ‘chicken day’. I’m working on the assumption that somehow, intrinsically, he knows what he’s doing.
“But you’re encouraging him to play with his food – what about table manners?!”. That’s for next year. At the moment we’re all about the fun. Babies wash. Floors wash. We wash. It’s not a big deal. Flinging didn’t last long and once Kai learnt what ‘no’ meant it got short shrift from us. But if you want to draw patterns in your spaghetti and smear Shepherd’s Pie in your hair? We’re ok with that.
Now, 8 months after starting on our weaning adventures, not one person questions our decision. The results speak for themselves. My dad is evangelising baby-led weaning to the girls in his office, my mum is humbly proclaiming that she has ‘learnt a lot’, and the mother-in-law is glowing with pride.
So there we go. One big success story. Nice to share one of them for a change!
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This post was written for the Carnival of Eating over at Tired Mummy’s Blog – please pop over and lend it your support.
And If you want to learn more about Baby-Led Weaning as an option when weaning your babies I would really recommend this blog and forum for tips, recipes, and much needed reassurance when you’re getting started. Or talk to me!
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Read MoreThe Sleep Deprivation Carnival 2009!
Hello all!
I’ve got something a bit special planned for you this week – Sleep is for the Weak’s very first Sleep Deprivation Carnival 2009!
Now doesn’t that sound fun? And not at all weird and depressing?!
As most of you know, sleep is an especially big problem in our house. Kai has never slept well, rarely managing more than a couple of hours unbroken sleep at a stretch until recently, and having immense difficulty both falling and staying asleep, with a horrendously out-of-wack body clock that still often thinks that 4.30am is a very good time to wake up and start jumping up and down and screeching like a frickin banshee.
It’s been an especially tough couple of weeks for one reason or another (as you’ve probably noticed from all my “I’m tired!” tweets! – sorry about that, very dull I know) and I thought what better way to put the ‘fun’ back in ‘barely functional’ than to host my very own carnival.
I know I’m not the only one for whom sleep is a difficult issue. Like it or not, sleep deprivation is a real experience for most parents with a new baby and effects everyone to a greater and lesser degree. If you’re lucky, it will only be an issue for perhaps the first few weeks, but for more many of us, severely disrupted or lost sleep can be a major problem for many months (or even…dare I say it…YEARS! *gulp*).
In the middle of those long nights and exhausted, bleary-eyed days, sometimes a sense of humour and the solidarity and support of my fellow parenting peeps (and chocolate and twitter of course) are the only things that gets me through. So I thought it would therapeutic and a bit of fun to invite you all to share your sleep deprivation stories.
You could write about:
- The worst night’s sleep you every had
- Something stupid you did while seriously sleep deprived
- The sleep problems you may be experiencing with your child at the moment (you never know, people may have some tips for you)
- How lack of sleep has effected your day-to-day life
- Your best sleep deprivation survival tips or no-sleep remedies
Or even better
- How you survived sleep deprivation and came out the other side and now have babes that sleep like angels -giving us poor parents still in the thick of things the hope that THIS WILL PASS!!
Write your post (or use an old one) and either post a link in the comments section below or email me using the contact button on your right. Next week I’ll post a review of all your submitted stories for us all to share in.
Feel free to use the badge at the top of this post and link back to me if you like, or just to make it extra easy for you here’s a HTML code that will insert the image directly into your blog with no uploading required (cause I’m nice and super clever like that):
Joining me from Twitter or Facebook and haven’t got a blog? You can still take part! Just write and submit your entry via email and I’ll be sure to include them in the round up next week.
As an extra bit of fun I am also inviting you all to submit photos of yourselves looking seriously sleep deprived.
Here’s one of my very brave friend Mark to start us off who is busy looking after his very elderly grandpa (which I think counts as parenting in any one’s book)…
Again, email me your pics and I’ll display them in a rogue’s gallery next week. My lovely husband Ant and fellow sleep-deprivation partner will pick his favourite who will then be awarded a random sleep-themed not at all crap fabulous prize. And just to prove to you that Ant has suffered with the best of them, here’s one of him to add to the mix…
Enjoy and good luck! The deadline for submissions is midnight next Sunday 27th September so don’t miss out!
P.S. If you fancy giving this venture a plug via the share buttons below that would be just FAB and I will love you forever.
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Read MoreOut, Out Damn Spot!
My mum has this theory that we’re all born with a ‘guilt’ gene that gets switched on when you have a baby.
I think she may be right.
It’s probably next to the selfish gene actually. Trying to steal it’s cake but then feeling dreadful about it afterwards.
Since becoming a mum I seem to live in a state of perpetual guilt, and the last couple of weeks have been no exception. In fact, I seem to be finding a whole range of new things to feel guilty about lately. Here is a ‘brief’ (ha ha yeah right!) run-down:
Source of agonising guilt #1 – the whole work/mum/wife/housekeeper balance thing
I want to be a good mother, I want to give Kai lots of one-on-one attention and fill his days with fun things to do.
I want to be a good writer, I want to do something for ‘me’ that is separate from my identity as a mother and gives me an important feeling of self-worth. I NEED this in a way that is hard to describe.
I want the house not to look like a shit-hole.
I want to be an attentive and caring wife, putting Ant’s needs before my own sometimes and be prepared to compromise. And not be a grumpy cow all the time.
Why is it I only seem to be able to achieve one of these things by neglecting all the others??
Source of agonising guilt #2 – I have been hiding out
For some reason I’m finding the whole sociable aspect of motherhood really, unbelievably hard at the moment. I’ve always had a bit of a reclusive nature when the chips are down, retreating to my duvet and my head when things get tough. I’ve been so tired lately. Kai’s been sleeping very badly again and I’ve been desperately trying to juggle all the things in guilt-trip #1. Since Kai came along the duvet days are less practical so the head retreats are getting more and more attractive and pervasive and I find myself avoiding social contact, hiding out at home or doing things with just me and Kai. Which is rubbish frankly, rubbish for me and especially rubbish for Kai who loves, and deserves, lots of time with other children (hence the guilt trip)
I don’t know why. The Competitive Mums / ‘Other Mother’ brigade don’t help – since I always manage to come away from their company feeling about as competent and worthy as dung beetle with two legs that can only go round in circles and not even shovel poo very successfully (which is an apt metaphor for motherhood if I ever heard one).
But they’re not the ONLY mums. There are nice ones! REALLY nice ones who make me feel safe and accepted and not judged. Granted, they’re in the minority but still. They are there.
So why am I avoiding them??
And lastly the biggy…
Source of agonising guilt #3 – a new tough love regime for Kai
I’ve talked about Kai’s sleep problems before, and also that I long ago made the decision not to use ‘crying-it-out’ as a solution. Once again I will stress, this is not about my judging other mums, but about me saying that I don’t believe letting bad sleepers cry it out is the only way to teach them to sleep. Maybe the quickest, but not your only option.
We’ve made real progress with Kai over the last few months. On a good night now he is quite happy to have a good long feed till he’s nice and sleepy and then lie down in his cot and go to sleep on his own (without his dummy!!) More often now when he does stir he will settle himself and go back to sleep. Until we come to bed that is. Then ALL Kai wants to do is sleep curled between us, feeding on and off for most of the night, and fidgeting and fussing. I’m exhausted. I’m loosing weight again, I’m looking tired and worn out. And actually that second part of the night? It’s getting worse.
On the one hand all the old problems are still there, the extreme wakefulness, the very real difficulty in getting back to sleep when he’s woken up, the possible nightmares/teething/tummy aches/fact that it’s a Tuesday, or whatever other mysterious thing it is that seems to make sleep such an issue for him.
But on the other hand? He’s not a little baby any more. He’s eating well, getting plenty of food and milk during the day. He’s coping better with separation and is secure and confident. He understands when you say no and bye bye and what it means. He’s also learning how to get his own way – unlike when he was an infant, what Kai wants now isn’t always what he needs.
Right now, now he’s older, secure and healthy, what he needs is sleep. He doesn’t need milk all night. And my instinct tells me he’s ready, ready in a way he hasn’t been before.
So we’re making some changes.
I’m not expecting him to go without comfort at night. I don’t think my role as parent ends at 7.30pm. But I am expecting him to go without milk. At the very least getting down to maybe only one or two feeds at night.
I’m not leaving him to cry it out. But I am accepting there may well be some crying involved. And as my very lovely friend pointed out to me today:
“A child fussing and crying in the arms of a loving parent is not the same as crying it out” – thank you again Ruthie, I needed to hear that.
So there we go. Not unreasonable I think but still,
GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILT GUILT!!!
So come on then – as a parent what’s your big source of guilt right now? Purge people, PURGE!
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Read MoreGo-Go-Gadget Mother
I was recently asked by someone representing a big name toy and baby supplies company (yes I am totally bragging!! My first PR contact!) if I would like to contribute to a booklet for new parents on the essential items all parents need in preparation for the birth of their first baby.
And this got me thinking (and of course going yes! yes! yes! where do I sign!)
What DO you need when you’re having a baby?
And my answer came as something of a surprise.
Not much. In fact I struggled to think of many ‘must haves’ at all.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like stuff as much as the next person. But if you’d asked me that question before Kai was born I’d have been able to list off REAMS of items that I was sure were an absolute necessity to raising a healthy child and, most importantly, being a good mother. In fact, I was rather obsessed with having the right stuff.
I spent a long time before getting pregnant fantasising about having a baby. I’d imagine what it would be like to have a enormous bump, spending entire mornings with pillows stuffed up my jumper, admiring myself in the mirror and going ‘Oooh’ when I bent over (and eating lots of chocolate – oh wait, I did that anyway). Of course, in hindsight, I would have had a more realistic experience had I strapped a wriggling 8lb puppy to my tummy that liked to use my ribs as a kick board and head-butt my bladder, and stuffed a water balloon down my kegs that would leak slowly and at embarrassing moments, like when I laughed and sneezed. Oh and then just to REALLY get in the right frame of mind I would have to eat enough cheese to give me raging heartburn and come down off some hard drugs to give me that whole crazed mood-swing psychotic edge. I was a delight when I was pregnant I can tell you.
Anyway. When I did get pregnant I was beyond excited. This was it! Everything I had ever dreamed of! But what I hadn’t realised was that inbetween the getting pregnant bit (which was fun!) and the having your baby bit (not so fun!) there are 40 long weeks. 40 weeks!! That’s a long time. Once I had done with the puking stage (which lasted a good half of it) when I was too busy doing anything apart from trying to sit upright without hurling, I began to get a bit bored. Well, not bored so much. Antsy. I was fed up sitting around on my rapidly expanding ass. I wanted action.
So in typical Josie fashion I bought a file and some index dividers and some pretty paper. And then proceeded to read every baby magazine/book/online guide I could get my chicken-greased fingers on (the chicken is a GREAT pregnancy story – I’ll save that one for another day). And I made notes, and cut out pictures.
I planned god damn it. I planned my giant ass off.
Because I was determined to be a good mother. And reading all these magazines I quickly learned that good parenting = getting the right baby equipment. Obviously! Because bringing a baby into the world without a ready prepared co-ordinating nursery, room thermometer and ergonomic bath support? Well, that’s nothing short of neglect.
And then, after 40 long weeks and one day, Kai arrived. Beautiful, demanding, wide-awake Kai. Who from day one had very fixed views of the world and what he wanted from it. And that was a world in which fancy gadgets had very little place.
Here are the things that were especially useless:
1. The beautifully co-ordinated nursery – he still hasn’t slept in it for any length of time. It is currently surving a far more useful purpose as a place where we shove a lot of crap storage room and place to keep the ever increasing mountain of laundry.
2. The changing bag (that matched the pushchair of course!) – it survived 9 months before being ripped apart by Kai and having various baby-led weaning food-stuffs leak all over it whilst in transit. It was also far too small once I started needing to transport said foodstuffs and toys and sippy cups and spare clothes and sun cream and my bottle of gin (joking) and everything else. My advice? Go to TK Max and get a big, cheap messenger bag or a rucksack and throw everything in there. You’ll cry less when it gets wrecked.
3. The baby swing. Bought in desperation for our power-screaming colicy baby. It was very expensive. It had four speeds AND music. Of course he just screamed all the louder when you put him in it. Only, to music with a kind of rhythmic WAAaah WAAaah. It was quickly retired to the attic.
4. The bath support. We used it, oooh, three times? Then realised it was far less fiddly to just dunk him in there.
5. The Bumbo – Kai HATED it. And at four months old worked out how to catapult himself out over the back. Attic!
6. The very firm and unmouldable (and expensive) breastfeeding support pillow. Probably self-explanatory. When I lay Kai on it it put his mouth about four inches higher than my nipples. So when my back gave in I just used a pillow. A normal household multi-functional pillow. There’s a novel idea for you. Get this – it even comes with removable covers! That don’t cost extra!
And MOST importantly:
7. The baby books. None of them were written about Kai or seemed to bare any relation to the knowing, determined child I gave birth to. And worse, not only were they useless, they made ME feel useless. Life got a lot better once I relegated them to a high shelf and the charity shop.
So the lesson from this tale? Your baby really needs nothing but you. Your arms, your patience, your love. And most of all your permission to be as unique and unpredictible as they like. Yes it’s a soppy ending but it’s true, and a lesson I have learnt every day many times over.
NOT us... but you get the point.
Next time we’re just getting a new baby sling and that’s it. Oh and a vibrating baby bouncer (that one WAS a life saver), and we’ll re-use the co-sleeper crib but OF COURSE we’ll need a new mattress. And I want an electric breast pump next time.
Actually pass me that Mothercare catalogue? Oh and them post it notes, thanks.
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So over to you (cause I’m loving the comment love) - what was the most useless item that you purchased or were given for your first baby?
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