Thursday, July 16, 2009

struggles and joys

There have been some wonderful joys with our little munchkin over the last few months which bring smiles to our faces and love to our hearts but there have also been a few struggles which have left me wondering what the heck to do!!! Maybe I can call on my beautiful friends for wisdom??

Firstly the joys:


1. Being a big boy 'A' took a little longer than average to do the whole rolling thing! He can still only roll from front to back and he really doesn't care to do it very often! He still can't reach his feet to grab them to roll from back to front! He did his first roll with Nanny in England (Nanny was very very chuffed (pleased) - Mummy was in bed!) but just for Mummy he did another one when she woke up!

2. 'A' has just started to clap his hands and even more recently wave! Such cuteness and of course very advanced!

3. When Daddy gets home from work 'A' gets super excited and smiles and kicks his legs and flaps his arms - I hope he doesn't take off doing that! It is so cute to see him respond to his Daddy like this and his Daddy is pretty chuffed too.

Struggles:

1. Apparently solid food just isn't for 'A'. I tried him with some rice cereal when I was in England when he was about to turn 6 months - the first day he was a bit interested but thereafter he has not really given much time or thought to eating solids.. I have tried him with apple, pear, butternut pumpkin and banana but the kid is JUST NOT INTERESTED! It is starting to become a real area of frustration for me and I am not sure what to do. He is still at the top of the scale for weight, weighing in at just over (9kgs) 20lbs - so he isn't going to waste away any time soon. I know you shouldn't compare and it's dangerous business, but all my friends kids who are the same age as 'A' have taken to solid food and are going great guns. I have always had such a lot of milk - from day one (even the nurses mentioned how much I had!), 'A' has always had very big weight gains and I still seem to have so much milk - still leaking and still needing to wear those annoying nursing pads (hope that's not TMI but just wanting to fill you in on where I am up to)!!!!!! I have had a few successful mornings of shoveling some pear or rice cereal in - but he still hasn't been all that into it and I just don't think he is ready - he isn't opening his mouth like a little birdie greatly anticipating each mouthful. You hear all different advice, people saying if he doesn't start now he will miss the boat, but then other friends saying how many adults do you know who still only eat breast-milk - he will figure it out (so so true my friend!) So I don' know whether to keep on keeping on and trying him each morning or to wait a while until he shows more interest? Please let me know if you have any similar stories or any top tips! I was really looking forward to this time of steaming up veggies, trying different foods, nursing a little less, having someone else feed him for a change but it isn't all going as expected. I thought 'A' would totally love food as he is such a chunky monkey but I guess he is lovin his Mamma's milk too much!
I am going to try and drop the 3am feed I am still doing to see if that makes the munchkin hungrier for food!

2. Also at 'A's 6 month check (I took him today so I was a bit late as he is almost 7 months) they noticed that his fontanelle is pretty much closed - this is quite early (normal is 9 months to 2 years) so they want to check it again in a month. I stupidly looked up what this can mean on google and it's not very good - but as long as his head circumference continues to grow normally and he reaches his developmental milestones it will hopefully not be anything to worry about. It can mean surgery to allow the brain to grow but this is worse case scenario! Please pray it would all be fine!

Anyhoo - that's all for now folks. I am sure I have more joys and struggles to add but I will maybe blog again about them laters..

5 comments:

Alison said...

Hi mate, it took ages for Hamish to get into solids too. I tried from 6 months but I think it was more like 9 or 10 months before he showed any enthusiasm. It did feel a bit pointless to start with! Now at 1 yr he has all solids and loves it, so don't despair!

There's plenty of different opinions out there about when they should start solids - google 'baby led weaning' if you want some reassurance about leaving it till later.

I'll call you soon to catch up :)

Ruth said...

Hey lovely Nixter - it's great to see you blogging again.

You've summarised so beautifully the joys and frustrations of babies. Sure all the details vary with each baby - but pretty much there are always highs and lows.

Little 'A' is gorgeous - so cute to hear that he's waving and clapping. That is adorable.

You are doing a great job with him. It's also so lovely that your mum got to see his first roll. So precious. And how adorable he is so attached and excited to see his Dad after work. That's just wonderful.

Praying for you with the solids - it can be such hard work. It's never been a stage I enjoyed with my babies.

RodeoClown said...

Hey Nix,
Aravis only really started eating solids at about a year - she would have a little bit, but didn't like it at all.
Now she's 18 months all she wants to eat is weet-bix :S

We were a bit stressed, as both boys had weaned themselves by a year, but we had to force Aravis to do it.

6 months is fine to be completely milk-fed.


As for the not rolling heaps - Aravis took aaaaages to crawl, and then to walk. They'll get there in their own time.

Aimee said...

Hi Nixter!

Yay for the crawling, clapping and enjoying his daddy - how delightful!! He sounds like such a lovely, happy little boy.

And from the photos, he's healthy and growing well, so praise God that even if he doesn't like solids much yet, he is still obviously getting the nutrition he needs (and sounds from your descriptions like he isn't really waking hungry at night, maybe he just wants the comfort you provide??)

P didn't really take to solids until she was 9 months olds and started to crawl then all of a sudden she started demanding solids because she was so hungry from burning all that energy. If it's still a problem as he gets older you could try offering some food before milk, but I wouldn't be concerned at this stage.

Will pray that medically A will continue to be healthy. Go to God, not google! ;-)

xx A

Gordon Cheng said...

Re not eating food, my own attitude to the girls was that by the time they reached the age of 20 there wouldn't be a problem, so if they didn't want to eat just at the moment that was fine. Sure enough, 6 months later there were no problems.

Probably sounds a bit callous I know, but it worked!