February 2017 Babies Club

fits

December first and it’s 3 days a week

catrionanic

fits wrote: »

December first and it’s 3 days a week

Ah not long now! Are the boys going to a crèche?

I work 2-3 days a week. Great to have the money, but I’d love to be home full-time if I could!

fits

catrionanic wrote: »

Ah not long now! Are the boys going to a crèche?

I work 2-3 days a week. Great to have the money, but I’d love to be home full-time if I could!

I have very mixed feelings about it. One baby still feeds a lot. And the trust you need to put in the Childminder! I’d love to stay home too but I think I’d also find the toddler stage exhausting full time. Although who knows. We have managed pretty well so far. Job will be super flexible which is great. I can do whatever hours I want. Pay is terrible but can’t have it every way!

Off to Childminder now. Have yet to leave them longer than an hour!

deh983

Hi all hope all is going well for everyone.

I’m looking for some lunch ideas. She’s not a big lunch fan but I normally give her finger food toast etc and she doesn’t eat much of it. What are ye all giving?? She has 5/6oz bottle around this time too but I find she is hungry then around 4ish which is too close to dinner

greenttc

deh983 wrote: »

Hi all hope all is going well for everyone.

I’m looking for some lunch ideas. She’s not a big lunch fan but I normally give her finger food toast etc and she doesn’t eat much of it. What are ye all giving?? She has 5/6oz bottle around this time too but I find she is hungry then around 4ish which is too close to dinner

I always find that lunch is a meal that I am able to have prepared well in advance cause it is more hectic as in I might be out or something so its good to have stuff in the freezer.

So, I have made little egg muffins, just beat eggs add any veg you like and some cheese and bake in mini muffin tin then freeze them all.

Look up pea fritters on line, they are a big hit! Again freeze a big batch.

Mini cottage pie pies, roll out shortcrust pastry and cut to suit your mini muffin tray then fill with mince/veg mixture and top with mash then freeze.

Look up recipie for pin wheels online, more pastry with various fillings, loved buyy my wee man and easy to freeze.

Pasta muffins, macaroni, veg tomato paste cheese and egg mixture, into the.......mini muffin tin ( make alot in my tin as you can see!) And bake, they turn out like little pasta bites!

Into most stuff I try and put some kale sprinkles, this is basically kale whizzed up in the food processor until it is very finely chopped and it goes into everything, brilliant to get that iron that they need.

When I am not rushing around I sometimes make cheese toasties with different veg etc. French toast (really just eggy bread), omlettes with everything added in. Steamed veg like carott brocolli cauliflower, I always have bags of frozen veg that can be done. Salmon is a big hit with him so always have some.of the donegal catch fozen salmon darnes, they are individually packed and just need to go in oven for 20 mins.

Fruit, orange segments, pears, banana, blueberries squashed between your fingers....

Hope that gives you some ideas, sorry for the big waffle but sometimes you can pick ideas from other peoples ramblings!

I find the aileen Cox blundell baby led feeding book very good or Pinterest!

greenttc

Would definitely love to hear ideas from others too for all meals!

deh983

greenttc wrote: »

I always find that lunch is a meal that I am able to have prepared well in advance cause it is more hectic as in I might be out or something so its good to have stuff in the freezer.

So, I have made little egg muffins, just beat eggs add any veg you like and some cheese and bake in mini muffin tin then freeze them all.

Look up pea fritters on line, they are a big hit! Again freeze a big batch.

Mini cottage pie pies, roll out shortcrust pastry and cut to suit your mini muffin tray then fill with mince/veg mixture and top with mash then freeze.

Look up recipie for pin wheels online, more pastry with various fillings, loved buyy my wee man and easy to freeze.

Pasta muffins, macaroni, veg tomato paste cheese and egg mixture, into the.......mini muffin tin ( make alot in my tin as you can see!) And bake, they turn out like little pasta bites!

Into most stuff I try and put some kale sprinkles, this is basically kale whizzed up in the food processor until it is very finely chopped and it goes into everything, brilliant to get that iron that they need.

When I am not rushing around I sometimes make cheese toasties with different veg etc. French toast (really just eggy bread), omlettes with everything added in. Steamed veg like carott brocolli cauliflower, I always have bags of frozen veg that can be done. Salmon is a big hit with him so always have some.of the donegal catch fozen salmon darnes, they are individually packed and just need to go in oven for 20 mins.

Fruit, orange segments, pears, banana, blueberries squashed between your fingers....

Hope that gives you some ideas, sorry for the big waffle but sometimes you can pick ideas from other peoples ramblings!

I find the aileen Cox blundell baby led feeding book very good or Pinterest!

Wow!!! They all sound amazing. I’m lucky if I can manage to make her toast!! I’ve screenshot this so thanks a mill.
She just doesn’t seem hungry around this time but then it catches up on her in the late afternoon. Will definately have to up my game when I see what your doing!!!

catrionanic

Okay so lunches over here are nowhere near as impressive haha. We don’t have a freezer, just an ice box which is most full of breast milk. So our lunches are more simple as I don’t have time to cook a lunch every day!

We tend to do finger foods for lunch. Easy stuff like bits of cheese, cherry toms, cucumber, peppers. Rice cakes, bread, pasta. Yoghurt and bits of every type of fruit. Scrambled egg, wee strips of chicken or fish. I often throw in a few of those wee baby snack things you can buy - apple biscotti, sweet corn puffs, tomato crispy things.

Sometimes I do a spoonfeed from a pouch or of the previous night’s dinner.

I have no excuse not to put more effort in really, as I’m only in work 2 or 3 days.

greenttc

No need to up your game I honestly just think it makes my life easier to have a day of cooking and make loads of all this stuff and freeze them, then i just pull a few bits out and defrost them, a minute in the microwave for most things, quicker than toast! The beauty of it is you could just defrost one small thing maybe at four when she gets hungry again and it hopefully won’t spoil her dinner, maybe she is more of a smacker.

My son can be aaaaawful at eating sometimes, you make him some lovely dinner that took a while to prepare and he just isnt in the form to eat at all and other days he is ravenous and will eat anything, you just never know, so frustrating! So i find having little bite size things mean you can start with one and see how you get on cause it is so quick to prepare.

Also should have added to the list above, goats cheese spread on rice cakes or mini baby bel cheese are popular with us too andare quick and easy!

greenttc

Oh god caitriona i could not survive without my freezer!!!!!! As you can see!

We do raw veg like you too but my wee man just doesnt like it as much, would be alot easier though! He out right refuses to eat those pouch meals too, just shuts his mouth and turns his head!

Id say he would love those puff things though but i havent tried them yet

catrionanic

New tricks here are pointing to where he wants to go, making snorting noises when I ask him what the piggy says, and half-using his walker! I still need to grasp the back of his jumper and he’s not really steady enough to use it himself, but he flies along looking pure delighted with himself (but also slightly demented) as I run along behind him!

Decided on the joie spin 360 car seat, so that’s been ordered. Got a good deal in Black Friday sales. It was pricey but I figure there’ll be another baby along behind him to get use out of it too!

Sleep is amazing this last two weeks. He usually wakes up once a night. Takes a while to get him down as he’s playing me up a bit (but will go straight to sleep for his Daddy), and naps are still only 20-30 mins long, but I’ll take it in exchange for all the wonderful sleep we are getting! At long last!

fits

Where did you get the joie spin? We have our eye on it too.

Sleep terrible here. Twin 2 woke every hour last night and woke his brother every time so I had to tandem feed them back to sleep. I’d be looking at separating them if I could. Twin 2 having a growth spurt or something. He is ravenous.

greenttc

I have the joie spin 360 and have used it for a few months now as thw car seat from the travel system was just too heavy for me.

I LOVE the joie spin, mostly live the spin part cause it makes it so easy to use, no stretching! It is fairly comfy looking. It also reclines a bit which I like to use in the hopes of wee man sleeping on longer journeys. I also like the tiny feature of two little fabric loops either sode of the chaor which I hook the two parts of the buckle into, it means they are out of the way when you are putting your baby in and you are not searching underneath them. Such a simple feature yet brilliant!

The bad parts, I think there are two, the first is that I have read that despite it saying it will suit them up to 4yrs old I have since read tall babies may be out of it as early as 2 years old. And secondly I find that the straps get a bit twisted sometimes which is annoying but if you are careful and take your time this wont happen.

Overall I would buy it again if I was getting another chair. Even that it will save my back for about two years is worth it!

fits

We are going to keep our lads in the infant seats for another few months. I just don’t take the seats out of the car now. But thought it would be handy to have a second set of car seats hence the looking. Interesting about growing out for height. The lads are 9th and 25 th percentiles for weight but 50 th for height so that’s something to think about. Daddy is tall too and it was the only seat we tried which fitted behind the drivers seat with him in it.

catrionanic

fits wrote: »

Where did you get the joie spin? We have our eye on it too.

Sleep terrible here. Twin 2 woke every hour last night and woke his brother every time so I had to tandem feed them back to sleep. I’d be looking at separating them if I could. Twin 2 having a growth spurt or something. He is ravenous.

Very.co.uk. They have the pewter grey one for £199 including the base. Plus £3.99 delivery. Apparently they’re low in stock though.

Edit: I should say, delivery up north. Not sure whether they deliver to the south or not

catrionanic

So sorry to hear that sleep is awful. Every hour is TOUGH. Have you any plans to put them into separate rooms?

When we have baby number two, they’ll have to share a bedroom. Which may mean lots of wakeups!

greenttc

Oh, actualy, it ght be worth saying that when i got mine i wanted to get it in smyths as the had a 20% off sale but at the time i had a one for all voucher to use which smyths wouldnt take so i went to halfords and they said they price match so was able to get it there using my voucher. Point i am making is that they price match so may do that for you if delivery will be expensive or a problem, worth ringing amd asking anyway. Also they had it in black where as smyths only had red.

smaoifs

Developmental check today. She's 20lbs and is 73cm long. Delighted with everything!

tangobelle2010

smaoifs wrote:

Developmental check today. She's 20lbs and is 73cm long. Delighted with everything!

That's great. Always a relief to get that over with.

After two weeks of having a great sleeping, settled baby, another dose of cold arrives! Its such a winter of discontent and its only November! Bracing ourselves for a rough night ahead.

She's flying though. She's so fast now walking along with the furniture and is saying dadada when her dad around and gagaga when my dad around! Its just amazing to hear

catrionanic

Great to hear fhat all the babies are flying it! Hope sleep isn’t too awful tonight tango. We were down to just one wake up for a while, and then back to two (which is good, given his past record!), but has now increased to three unfortunately.

Are any babas in the group being raised bilingually? My husband speaks only welsh to the baby; no English at all. Just in the last couple of weeks, he’s starting to show real understanding of both languages, which is really cool!

tangobelle2010

catrionanic wrote:

Are any babas in the group being raised bilingually? My husband speaks only welsh to the baby; no English at all. Just in the last couple of weeks, he’s starting to show real understanding of both languages, which is really cool!

Yep. I speak Irish so we're raising our kids in both Irish and English, as my husband doesn't have Irish (though he's trying). It really is amazing to see the comprehension and switching between the two languages as needed. I'm referring more so to my toddler than my baby though at this point!

catrionanic

tangobelle2010 wrote: »

Yep. I speak Irish so we're raising our kids in both Irish and English, as my husband doesn't have Irish (though he's trying). It really is amazing to see the comprehension and switching between the two languages as needed. I'm referring more so to my toddler than my baby though at this point!

Ah, maith thú! Tá sin ar feabhas!

Wish my Irish was good enough!

tangobelle2010

catrionanic wrote:

Ah, maith thú! Tá sin ar feabhas!

Go raibh maith agat!

Welsh seems like such a pretty language. Do you speak any yourself? That'll be awesome to have a wee boy fluent in Welsh and English. Fair play to your hubby for doing it! If we didn't live in Gaeltacht I don't think I'd be as keen on speaking it to the kids. All the local schools and nurseries here are Gael scoils so for us its better to speak Irish now so there's no difficulty at school.

greenttc

Wow, so envious of your multilingual babies, it really is such a great thing for them to have,lucky babies!!!

Nothing more than english in our house im afraid!

I think our wee man understands some words but isnt even close to saying anything other then lots of sounds! No mamamamamas yet although plenty of dadadadada but he doesnt know the significance of what he is saying so I am not too put out!

Great to get your dev check done smaoifs and that all was well. We had ours a few weeks back and now we have a standard dev check with the doctor (not gp) coming up soon which I didn't know about! These babies are well checked!!!

Hating this wet weather we are having, really curtails outdoor activities! Not good!

Just a few weeks till back in work again, trying to savour every moment now.

I read a poem thing earlier in the week and it was saying to basically cherish every moment with your baby cause it may be the last time you have that moment and you dont know it. Like the last time they slept while lying on your chest, you didnt know when the last time would be etc.I miss that! The whole thing really hit home with me!

greenttc

Oh, I found the poem again!! thought I would put it here for you all, brought a little tear to my emotional eye!

The Last Time

From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,
you will never be the same.
You might long for the person you were before,
When you have freedom and time,
And nothing in particular to worry about.

You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
And days will run into days that are exactly the same,
Full of feedings and burping,
Nappy changes and crying,
Whining and fighting,
Naps or a lack of naps,
It might seem like a never-ending cycle.

But don’t forget …
There is a last time for everything.
There will come a time when you will feed
your baby for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.

One day you will carry them on your hip then set them down,
And never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
Then never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
And it will be the last night you ever wake to this.

One afternoon you will sing “the wheels on the bus”
and do all the actions,
Then never sing them that song again.
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,
The next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face.
They will run to you with arms raised for the very last time.

The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time
Until there are no more times.
And even then, it will take you a while to realize.

So while you are living in these times,
remember there are only so many of them
and when they are gone, you will yearn for just one more day of them.
For one last time.

-Author Unknown-

catrionanic

I’ve read that poem a couple of times, green, and cried my eyes out both times! I’m such a sop.

This wet weather is awful. Not getting out at all is hard work and makes for a grumpy baby.

Liam fell off the bed today! Sometimes, when it’s hard to get him down for a nap, I feed him to sleep on our bed and then barricade him in with pillows. Heard a massive crash and bolted upstairs. Was worried he may have hit his head on the radiator knob, but 5 mins on the boob and he was right as rain again thankfully. He is now napping on a quilt on the bedroom floor lol.

Will you be going back full time? Is the wee man going to crèche?

greenttc

Oh god I am such a sop, that poem just said everything I am feeling!!! Don't want to go back to work even though I couldn't do this stay at home mom thing full time at all!!!

Yes full time for me, 9 to 5, aggghhhh!!!!! My parents are going to give minding himself a go, more worried for them than him though, it wont be easy and I do feel very guilty but they are insisting. It is so expensive for childcare though and living in dun laoghaire rathdown doesnt help with the most expensive fees in the country!!!

greenttc

God, i hope poor liam is okay! That is very very scary indeed. I cant leave my lad alone for even a second he rolls and clambers over everything and will pick up pillows and move them out of his way.

Floor is the safest place for them isnt it, cant fall too far on the floor!

fits

Glad Liam is ok but it must have been a fright. I have the safety first bed guards on my bed. Was worried about twin 1 for a while but he knows how to get out of bed now and the top half of the bed is well barricaded. I’d prefer to have them on the floor too but not possible here. We plan on single mattresses on the floor in their own rooms when we move into our house but that is months away

That poem is sad. I don’t think there will be anymore babies for us so I really try to treasure my time with them.

catrionanic

Thinking more and more about baba number two these days (must be the hormones since I got my period back), and I really don’t know how I’m gonna go through pregnancy again. Just thinking about it fills me with dread and I feel sick 🀢