Monster

Poor Monster he really is a Monster these past few weeks. He’s been teething since 4th December. 3 teeth have arrived in that time and number 4 is pretty much through but still causing him trouble. Teething in this house means not sleeping much, drinking more milk, being off food, generally wanting cuddles or just crying & squirming and not knowing what to do

To top it all off, Monster has had what I am now calling teething tummy - a bit like Delhi Belly! Ad of course, teething tummy comes with his lovely friend - a bright red bottom! Poor baby.

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Well I was going to write about how Monster had successfully weaned himself down to 3 bottles a day - morning, mid-afternoon and bedtime. But then the Worst Night & Day Of His Life occurred. He’s had about 5/6 bottles of milk today after spending most of the night whimpering or downright screaming (sometimes in his sleep!).

His upper laterals are poking out and we’re just waiting to hear the ping of the gum bursting, its that close. Poor Monster was even off his food and I bought him a croissant as a special treat too!

The normal teething strategy wasn’t working today either. We tried everything - Ashton & Parson’s, Nelson’s Teetha and ended up slathering his gums with Calgel, and dosing him with Calpol. I think this is the only time he’s ever had Calpol during the day when he hasn’t been ill with a fever.

Odd though, despite not breaking through yet, we had a weird calm period just before dinner. The Calpol would have worn off so it wasn’t that. He just sat quietly and read his books then devoured a whole chicken fillet for dinner! I wonder how that bodes for my sleep tonight?

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You either hate it or love it right?  Well, not Monster.  Totally unphased by the smearing on his toast this weekend.

I’ve been umming and ahhing over giving it to him because of the salt content but gave in on Sunday when we had the old fashioned “tea” with toast & jam.  Monster had marmite and some peanut butter.

He definitely preferred the peanut butter!

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A fab easy lunch to whizz up in no time - pasta, peas & pesto. This may have been Monster’s first attempt at pesto but he ate it with gusto and only attacked the peas once most of the pasta was gone. yum!

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www.kensharp.com

Ken came round last week to take a few happy snaps of the Monster family. We were really pleased with the results. Probably no more expensive than Venture Studios to be honest but the photos are done in your own home / garden / local park.

It was great fun.  Email me if you want to see the pics

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I’ll have a P please Bob.  And another.  And another…. and so it goes on. Monster has discovered the joys of the lovely little round thing and boy are dinners going to be easy from now on

The pincer grip is coming along very nicely thank you very much although success rate is probably still under 50% so fun to watch!  Tonight we did pasta (fusilli longhi) with peas and cream cheese.  Dinner just went on and on and on!

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Well a friend of mine asked about toys recently and what Monster was into and when so I thought this might be interesting for others to read as they are coming through behind us.  Here’s what I said:

A baby nest might be fun now he’s starting to get interested in sitting although it may be a few months before he can sit unaided.  Monster was 6.5 months before he sat unaided and it was instant change on the toys front.  We did get a bebepod / bumbo for him from 4-6 months so he could play sat up which really helped with the frustration.  Rattles were good and things that they can grab onto easily as of course they can’t let go very well for a whie yet.

We got a baby wind chime from the charity shop - its by Baby Love but I’m sure others do something similar.  Monster loved it and I’d often have it dangling above him or just in reach while he was sat up.  Unfortunately, its not the best noise so it drove me crazy!  We still have it attached to his playpen and he’ll bash them occasionally but that’s probably a toy that can be recycled now.

Monster didn’t play with anything except his babygym up to the 6 month mark really unless he sat on my lap and looked at books with me although he just wanted to chew those until about 8 months.  Once he could sit up though, we ditched the baby gym and gots lots of texture type stuff, things with buttons to bash (see http://www.adamandclaire.co.uk/images/RIMG1037.JPG), crinkly paper books were a big hit as he liked to chew them and they made a nice noise at the same time.  We started to get multi-texture toys then.

Oh, I’ve just rememebered the whoozit (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manhattan-Toy-201220-Baby-Whoozit/dp/B0000A1Z3X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=kids&qid=1202067962&sr=1-7).  Similar to what you’ve just bought perhaps but we had a big and a small one.  Still have both somewhere but I can only find the large one at the moment!  That was a big favourite for ages but has now fallen by the wayside.

Monster has been crawling since Christmas pretty much so toys are so passe at the moment.  He’s into shoes, standing & chattering to himself at his playpen, the dog’s water bowl and any gadget that someone has stupidly left lying around.  Definitely not keen on toys that look like toys.  I’ve just made him a treasure box which has everyday objects inside for him to discover - toothbrush, hairbrush, a tub with chickpeas in to shake, clothes peg, bottle stopper, lots of different textures and odd shapes.

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Well I know most people on the BLW forum can get a bit stressed about how much their LO might or might not be eating. I was there once so today I’ve get a bit more detailed log of the Monster and his food. It was a fairly typical day for being at home although when Monsterdad is around there does tend to be a bit of an eating competition going on

Breakfast

About 1/4 oatibix. He didn’t eat much of this because I made it too soggy and I had raisin wheat so I had to share.

Close to 8/10 raisin wheat. He used to eat max of 5 so this is an improvement on pre-Christmas eating.

Snack

Mid-morning snack as he didn’t want his milk of2 organix crisp thingies. I happened to be eating them as they are now out of date so let him have a couple. He then went back & drank all his milk

Lunch

Stilton potatoes from last night’s dinner. He had the equivalent of a whole medium potato, there was some cheese still clung to it but probably not much in quantity terms as of course it was melted. With his potato he had 1/4 rice cake, a whole petit filou, a dried apricot cut into quarters and a few raisins / sultanas.

Snack

We are now doing snacks in the afternoon when we used to do afternoon tea. I still do afternoon tea sometimes but dinner tonight (if I get away from the computer!) so snack at 4.30pm. He had 2/3 organix crisp things, a dried apricot cut into quarters and probably half a dozen raisin / sultanas.

Dinner

Lamb stew with apricots, carrots, onions, garlic, the usual! It was morrocan style on the spice front. Bruno ate a rice cake dipped in the sauce too - he currently needs his rice cakes quite soggy as those teeth bite off chunks that are far too big to eat. He probably only had 1 chunk of carrot and a few chunks of lamb with the 1 rice cake but overall it topped off a fairly good day’s eating. He then had a few dried fruit bits.

In addition to the above, Monster also had half a litre of milk (that’s excluding the middle of the night feed!)

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It is actually advised not to give babies mould ripened or soft cheese. I think the same rules when you’re pregnant apply to babies. No idea what the magic ages is for being allowed something as delicious as stilton but I decided it was 10 months and 1 week (we were given some ripe stilton, had loads of potatoes it seemed a natural conclusion).

So, how’d I make ‘em? Well, I boiled a load of tatties, bunged them in a dish, poured over some milk and sprinkled on the cheese with a bit of thyme. Covered the dish with foil and cooked it on ooh about 180c (we have a super duper new fan oven which cooks heard ‘n’ fast) for 45 minutes. I then took the foil off and cooked it until it was golden & crunchy enough on top for my taste. (I did say before I’m not great at writing recipes )

Monster devoured his potatoes and probably had the equivalent of a medium sized baked potato not to mention his first taste of the blue stuff. He hasn’t come down with listeriosis so it might be on the menu for lunch again today just to finish it off!

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