Tricky Tuesday

So I know it's Tuesday and I was going to do another Top Ten list but as Doof is unwell at the moment I thought I'd share two little tricks instead - both of which have come in handy a lot over the last 48 hours...

Trick 1:

When your baby has a blocked nose it can interfere with everything (Dispelling myths 3) so I use "Snuffle babe" vapour rub to help unblock Doof's nose. 

The only problem is it says to rub it on their upper chest - but by the time Doof is wearing a vest, a babygro and a sleeping bag it's questionable how much will ever make it from his chest to his nose. 

So we have tried all sorts...

- putting some under his nose on his sheet once he is asleep (downsides: he might move his head away from it and even worse he might rub his mouth or eyes in it)

- rubbing it on the top bit of his babygro and sleeping bag (I still do this and think it is more effective than the sheet but he can still turn his head to the side and so miss out of the nice fumes...)

- finally I figured out the solution. I wait til Doof is latched in for a feed and then carefully rub a small amount of vapour rub on my boob under where his nose is. The vapour then has at least 10 minutes to work whilst he feeds, it is in close proximity to where you want it to be (ie his nose) and there is no danger of it getting in his eyes/mouth etc. This is especially useful as often the time the blocked nose bothers them most is when they are feeding.

Interestingly the company 4little1 have brought out a vapour ring which sits round a bottle and releases vapour as the baby feeds. I like to think of this as the breastfeeding equivalent :)

 

Trick 2:

Doof hates being given medicine (Dispelling myths 2) which is especially annoying as he's on pretty high doses of vitamins twice a day and has already had 3 bouts of high temperatures. I tried distracting him, slipping it in the side when he was BF, using a syringe, using a spoon etc etc. And then I found this:

It is a dummy with a hollow tube through the middle of the sucking part and a reservoir into which you put the medicine. So when the child sucks the dummy they slowly also suck in the medicine. There is also a plunger so you can 'help' the medicine along if they're not taking it quickly enough.

Initially I was skeptical as Doof has never had a dummy but as soon as I showed it to him, he reached out, took it and put it straight in his mouth!! If I wasn't with him all day I'd assume someone else was giving him a dummy all the time, seeing how natural he made it seem! Anyway he loved it, it does the job, I love that he gets his medicine when needed and it even works when he is stressed out and feeling rotten with a high temperature as it is soothing to suck the dummy.

Hope these are helpful to someone :)

Top ten teething toys

So for the first “Top Ten Tuesday” I thought I’d cover something topical. Doof has been “teething” for the last 2 months with constant dribbling, intermittent red cheeks and a love of chomping on anything to hand…so far no teeth though!

So here are his top 10 teething “toys”:

1.A muslin – when I was pregnant everyone told me how useful muslins were and to stock up on lots. Good for spit up, moping up food spills, emergency wraps for poop leaks, sunshade on buggy etc etc. No one ever mentioned how lovely they were to suck on – Doof has one pretty permanently in his mouth...

2. Mummy’s hand – not sure if I am tasty or just easy because I’m usually nearby!

3. His fingers

4. Daddy’s arm – can’t believe the hairs don’t put him off…

5. Playmat arches – just odd. Surely there are nicer things to chew than this?!

You can see a theme starting to develop here. All the purpose-built “teethers” that I bought are largely ignored in favour of any/all of the above – useful when we were on an airplane, less useful when out in a café and I want my hands free to eat!

But moving on to actual teethers – sometimes the shop bought ones are used for their intended purpose (other times not!)

6. Nuby BugaLoop teething ring – we only bought this last week after seeing a friend’s baby with one. Instant hit and he loves to chew it. Although if anyone knows why he chooses to chew the spiky hard bits I would love to know!

7. Nuby keys – easy for him to hold, occasionally get chewed but think he enjoys rattling them around more. These can also be put in the fridge which might be useful later on when (I suspect) the teething gets worse :(

8. Plastic balls (bag of 100 from Tesco) – these came as part of a ball pit but he loves to try and eat them. They’re perfectly sized for his little hands and slightly squidgy so he can get good hold of them

9. Sophie the giraffe – a massive hit for everyone else it seems but I don’t think she has ever once made it into his mouth. He enjoys squeaking her and throwing her around but never chews on her. Below is the closest he has ever got… his finest I’m-threatening-to-eat-you look

10. Cooling teethers (loads of different makes, we have a Boots one in the shape of a hand) – I bought the Boots hand one after noticing how much he liked to suck on my hand. Sadly he has not been fooled at all and has no interest in the “fake hand” – teething fail

So there you go – Doofy’s top 10 solutions to teething. If I only bought one item it would be the Nuby ring – less than £3 and worth every penny for when we want to avoid being excessively dribbled on!

Neglectful...

So the title isn't as bad as it sounds - I'm referring to my blog rather than to doof :)

Recently I haven't been the most diligent blogger – think due to a combination of:

- getting out of the habit when on holiday

- making sure I don't write anything that violates the new gmc social media guidance

- being distracted by trying to do business start-up

But most of all... the fact that doof seems to have gone backwards in the sleep department. Pre-holiday he'd sleep 7pm-3am, wake for a feed and then sleep 3.30-6am. Bliss. Then post-holiday jet lag meant his body clock was all over the place. That was swiftly followed by a bout of gastroenteritis, a growth spurt, a developmental leap and now... I have no idea why but the last 2 nights he has woken up every hour :( :( and when I'm this tired I struggle with anything longer than a sentence (thanks twitter – at least I can still use you!).

So I’ve decided to do a blog "makeover". From Monday it'll be all change and I’ll see how it works and if you like it. The plan is to have some 'themed' days so posts on certain days will be specific whilst others will still be my general waffling :)

So far I have:

Messy Monday (nice excuse to do messy stuff with doof!)

Top ten Tuesday

Food/Photo Friday (alternating)

Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Even more importantly - does anyone have any ideas why doof is suddenly waking every hour overnight or what I can do/try to stop it?! There is one very tired mummy here!

The art of weaning

I've decided it must be an art because it is so messy...

So our weaning journey has been somewhat different from the nice relaxed let-baby-take-the-lead approach I had envisioned. When Doof was 4 months old he got diagnosed with an almond allergy and so we were prescribed an accelerated weaning regime by his consultant. 

So there I was, sitting in clinic one moment thinking that baby-led weaning was going to start in 2 months time... to suddenly being told that in the next 2 weeks I needed to get him onto fruit, veg, peanuts, sesame, egg, fish, wheat and dairy!

So our schedule was this (only including new additions each day):

Day 0: nothing (pre-clinic uncomplicated bliss!)

Day 1: baby rice

Day 2: banana, carrot

Day 3: butternut squash, apple, pea, spinach

Day 4: peanut butter

Day 5: nil new

Day 6: yoghurt

Day 7: mango

Day 8: sesame

Day 9: fish, apricot

Day 10: rusk, blueberry

Day 11: sweet potato

Day 12: egg

So there it is - a super accelerated regime. None of the "introduce-one-new-food-every-3-days" that you read about in every book. 

Luckily Doof rose to the challenge and ate everything offered to him (hmmm let's hope he keeps that up even when a toddler!). The hardest one was fish - my culinary skills didn't amount to much and the cow&gate fishermans pie did not go down well. Although who on earth would like cold puréed fish pie?!

I love this look of ectasy on his face during his first ever meal :)

The main downside to this has been the laziness it has encouraged... Doof has very little interest in finger feeding. He just opens his mouth like a little sparrow and waits for the spoon/piece of pear/rice cake to magically make its way in... I try to encourage finger feeding with each meal but not sure it can really be called FF if he doesn't use his hands at all...! 

Next week I will be getting out the plastic tablecloth, covering the floor and going cold turkey on the feeding. Let's see what happens when he is armed with a spoon and no magic helper feeding him - wish us luck :)

So conclusion so far... if he gets this messy when I feed him I can't even begin to imagine what's going to happen when he's in charge!!

Disclaimer: Doof was specifically prescribed this rapid weaning based on the results of his allergy tests. It goes against all the DoH guidance!

Sleep

Doof can sleep anywhere. Anytime. Anyhow. But usually not when I'm trying to get him to nap!

Top to bottom:

- in the car on way to the airport



- after swimming class



- in the baby carrier



- out of the baby carrier



- at a restaurant



- on daddy



- on mummy



- in the buggy



- after a feed



- and luckily sometimes in bed at the right time :)