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Jan 17, 2013

R2BC: The snow workout

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This week seems to have flown by and it’s already Thursday, and that means: reasons to be cheerful.

  • Little O has been settling back in at preschool much better and has had a good week. We had a large snowfall on Tuesday and so our journeys to and from preschool involve stopping every 100m to eat the fresh snow.
  • All this snow on the pavements means that I get an extra workout each day, pushing the boys in the buggy and on the board!
  • And the snow means that the days are not as dark as they should be, which gives me hope that spring will be on its way soon (fingers crossed!).
  • Baby E has cut a new tooth and it didn’t seem to have been to painful a process as we only realised once it was poking through his gum. That’s tooth no.3 now – he’s a bit of a late one on the teething front.
  • We are starting to find the time to get the apartment even more organised – a big task after living on a building site for four months.

After a couple of weeks of readjustment, we are getting back into our routines and life is settling down and becoming a little easier. And that feels like a huge relief. Who knew that Christmas would prove so disruptive!

 

Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy from the Heart

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May 2, 2011

Taming the teeth

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Following up on a previous post that I wrote about Baby O and his biting habit. I looked at a number of ways in which we could halt this and, on the whole, we have managed to bring the biting down to only a few times a week from a few times an hour.

In the end, we combined a couple of the methods that I had read about and every time that he has bitten us, we’ve placed him in a corner and told him a firm “No”. Then we’ve left him there (but not left the room) and we’ve tried to focus on the bite that he’s given. Then, when he has crawled out of the corner, we give him a hug and say “We hug, we don’t bite.”

I am not sure how much of this has helped to break the habit and how much was just him getting through the biting phase, but I’d like to think that some of what we did has helped him to stop.

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Mar 22, 2011

Kisses… with teeth

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Baby O now has four teeth – two at the bottom and two at the top – and they are sharp little fangs. He is also at the stage where he is learning to gives kisses. Unfortunately, he has  not yet learned that these two should not be combined, and the result is some nasty little nips from him, mainly so far on my shoulder and Husband’s thigh, but also on my chin, lip and neck – ouch!

I am not really sure how to deal with this. It hurts like hell a lot and, while I love that he is growing increasingly affectionate, I am also concerned that he may start “kissing” other babies like this. I don’t want to stop him being so affectionate but I want to stop the biting in its tracks. So far, we have just been telling him “No” when he bites but he just gives this cute little grin and carries on.

So, I put the mighty Google to the test to see what other suggest and found the following suggestions:

  1. Bite your baby back – This is just not an option that I could consider, I’m afraid. I know they say only to bite gently so that it doesn’t leave a mark, but I cannot believe that this is a good idea. I’m no psychologist, but I would have thought that this would give them the idea that biting is okay if we do it too.
  2. Cry – I like this is an option since I know that Baby O has reacted before when he has seen me upset. However, I am not sure how easy it is to turn on real tears as they suggest. I’m willing to give this one a go though. And maybe the tears won’t be so hard to come by – his little teeth are so damned sharp…
  3. Say No – Well, that’s what we’ve been doing and it’s really not working out so well for us so far. He just seems to think that it is a game that were playing and that biting is the way to win. One of the sites I found confirmed this – Aha! Parenting gave some really good tips.
  4. Put your baby in Time Out/on the Naughty Step – Given that Baby O is not yet eleven months old, I think that Time Out/the Naughty Step is too advanced for him. Good to know for when he’s a toddler though (but please let him have stopped by then!). One drawback is that we don’t have a step – haha!
  5. Squeeze your baby’s lips together – One poster on Babycentre suggested gently squeezing your baby’s lips together when he bites so that he cannot do it again. This is also something I am willing to try, if I can get Baby O to keep still for long enough for me to try…
  6. Put their own hand in their mouth as they try to bite – I can really see this one working as a deterrent, although it is a little cruel. I know that Baby O isn’t biting to be naughty, but just because it’s something he’s learned how to do with his new teeth and because he doesn’t know that it hurts. This is something that I think I will try if some of the other options fail.
  7. Ignore them and focus on the bite – This is one of the main suggestions from Dr Laura Markham on Aha! Parenting and is something that I have seen one of my mamma friends use to great effect. Dr Laura says that when your baby bites you, you should put them down straight away, do not engage with them, ignore them for a whole minute  (but don’t leave the room) and then focus on where they bit you to show them how much it has hurt you. Be dramatic about how much it hurts and cry about it. Afterwards, tell him how much it hurt you and then say “We don’t bite. Biting hurts. We hug” and give him a hug. I like this method as, to me, it will show Baby O that he has done something wrong but does not involve a great deal of punishment and since it should also teach him that biting hurts and suggests some other way of showing affection than taking a chunk out of my arm!

So what do you think? Which methods have you used and have worked for you? Do you have any great tips for stopping a little one from turning into a little vampire?

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Feb 16, 2011

Top teeth torment

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So as to remind myself next time we go through this (when I will yet again have blocked it out forgotten), I thought I’d write a little update on Baby O’s teething. So far, he has his two front bottom teeth (I know they have a specific name, I just cannot remember for the life of me what it is…). These arrived just after Christmas and just after New Year and I do remember at the time being very glad that they came through as pair so closely after one another. The only thing that I have to go on is a friend reminding me that at the time I had called it “three clingy, grizzly weeks followed by three days of hell”. That’s encouraging…

It now looks as if one or both of his front top teeth will pop through soon. So far, we’ve had a couple of weeks of him just not really being himself. Then the grizzling escalated a couple of days ago, and yesterday afternoon a fever popped up. Baby O has not had a fever before (not a real one, anyway – Husband is apparently an expert on such matters and can list all the times of the day and night when a fever peaks – I just think that these fevers must then have damned good alarm clocks…). Anyhoo, yesterday he had a fever of 38 degrees in the afternoon (not so high, I know), rising to 39 degrees by 8 o’clock yesterday evening. I decamped to our bedroom with him in the early evening with some bedtime story books and settled him down with me for a nap, as he had napped poorly during the day. When Husband came home at 9 o’clock, we were still curled up there. And, yes, I had to admit to Husband that I did like some aspects of his fever just a little: it has turned Baby O into a snuggly, huggy little baby – something you couldn’t accuse him of being before.

Today, we’ve had the same pattern of fever and crying (in fact, sobbing would be more accurate), but, joy of joys, when I applied Bonjela to his upper gums this morning, I felt a definite lump, and certainly larger than in previous days.

Let’s hope that this day two of the “three days of hell”. Please, please, please…

(And, yes, I know that the following teeth will probably only be worse, so the headline is a little dramatic, but that’s how it feels just now. My little boy is so lethargic and quiet and in pain…)

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Feb 10, 2011

Teething troubles?

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Photo © English Mamma

I was all primed to write a post about teething after New Year, as Baby O’s two first bottom teeth cut through immediately after Christmas and then straight after New Year. But then I got caught up in preparing to go on holiday and then being in Thailand (bliss!) and then recovering and readjusting to the cold, and now that I have sat down actually to write the teething post, I cannot really remember what happened.

I know that there was some waking in the night and some crying and a little bit of Calpol and some soothing back to sleep, and I also remember nappy changes that revealed a baboon’s bottom, it was so red and sore. I know there was a LOT of drooling, with clothes having to be changed during the course of the day as they became soaked through. But none of the details have stuck… And the worst is that we now think that a top tooth is on its way, but we have so little recollection of how it was with the first two that we have no indication if the tooth is nearly through or still has some way to go. Occasionally, we can slip a finger in to check, but most of the time Baby O seems to be under the impression that it is okay to bite the hand that feeds, and damn, but those two little bottom teeth are sharp! It’s like feeding time at the zoo if a finger goes anywhere near his face: he grabs whatever is passing, stuffs it in and clamps down hard.

A friend has reminded me that I told her at the time that we had three weeks with a grizzly Baby O and then three hellish days and then the first little pearly white popped through. Why do I not remember this? I suppose as soon as one painful phase is over, we mammas just block it from our minds and focus on the positives. Either that or I have a really bad short-term, medium-term, long-term memory.

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Feb 1, 2010

Coming apart at the seams?

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East Lothian Museums

The first week or so of the third trimester is proving a bit challenging. First, the heartburn. Then I found that where the skin on my belly had been itchy, I had unknowingly scratched at a couple of moles. Cue an appointment booked at the doctors to get them checked out. And now, I have brushed my teeth a bit too hard, forgetting how much more sensitive your gums are during pregnancy, and have split the gum on one of my front bottom teeth. And cue an appointment at the dentist in a few days to check there is no infection.

I was only saying the other day to Husband that my midwife appointments were so short as I have so few questions or things to tell her – at least now I’ll be able to share these with her!

On the bright side though, no swelling or waddling to report!

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