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Latest post on 01 October 2013 - 12:42

Hi TDB, We've been having the same issue for a few months now, I have tried various diapers but the only solution that is working for us is that I change her in her sleep before I go to bed. In our case I found she's more "productive" between the time she sleeps and say 10 or 11pm. I tried to see if I could regulate her water intake so that she drinks more earlier in the day but most days it's a struggle to get her to drink enough and for some reason she seems really keen to drink water later in the afternoon so I don't want to compromise that so I let her be and keep changing diapers.... Sorry, not a very sofisticated solution:-) <em>edited by Big blue on 01/10/2013</em>

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Latest post on 29 September 2013 - 14:03

Foolnightsleep you haven't mentioned (or I missed it), will either set of kids use school transportation, will they be dropped off by you, by you and your husband? That could determine what geographic location might work best, along with whether either school is in your of your husband's route to work. You should also bear in mind the general direction of commute traffic which tends to be from north to south (think Sharjah to Abu Dhabi) in the morning; I'd say the West to East direction (think Jumeirah to Arabian Ranches) is always relatively busy though maybe lighter traffic in the morning; you'd want to be going against traffic if at all possible. Plot your options against these factors and see what might work best. From the ones mentioned here I'd say The Villa may be a bit of a hassle going in and out, not familiar with Layan, the Lakes I don't think you can find much if anything within your budget and I don't think it's particularly convenient location-wise. Silicon Oasis is very close to DESC but then if you were to drive to DC you'd need a good 30 mins if not more, unless traffic on Hessa earlier in the morning is more manageable. Locations that are kind of in the middle like Barsha or Victory Heights could work but that would be assuming both you and your husband do school runs or that one set of kids goes on school bus, otherwise not sure how you'd make it to school on time. Hope this helps a bit!

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 16:41

Hi there Swedish Girl, It could be a phase, possibly a developmental milestone or teething or attachement issues. DD is almost exactly the same age and we have been through a couple of phases like that. Have you noticed if perhaps she is more interested to eat if for example you are at a restaurant? Or not sitting in her high chair (assuming that she does now), or perhaps that she wants to handle food herself? Ours went through a phase that she would gladly eat things she could pick up but not if i gave her the same thing myself, so I tried to give things that were solid enough that she could grab and eat. When did yours start solids? You mention she was BF till 8 months but was she having any solids prior to that? Hi Big Blue! We eat out fairly regularly (once a week on average) but haven't noticed her being more interested in food when in a restaurant. She's noticably more frustrated at meal times and sometimes cries and whinges in her high chair. If we take her out and let her sit on our laps she calms down, but still doesn't eat. Thing is as well that I'm of the attitude that babies ofour DD's age should be allowed to play with and investigate food, even if they make a mess. But my DH gets irritated by the mess she makes and so when he feeds her (at least twice a day as he is at home with her fulltime) he makes sure that she can't reach her plate/bowl/spoon and only gives her a couple of small bits of food to feed herself. For that reason it's difficult to say whether she would prefer to feed herself. Last night DH agreed to try my method of just letting her get on with it, which resulted in food pretty much everywhere except in her mouth... We started introducing solids at about 6 months. We would feed her pureed food whilst sitting in our laps, supplemented by me BF her as well. At about 8 months she started sitting in her high chair and has gobbled down food until turning 1, which is when this period of not eating started (roughly). Grateful for any further advice you might have. Hi Swedish Girl, Not sure what advice I might be able to give as I only have experience from my DD, but if she's frustrated at meal times I would guess she might either be over hungry in which case you could play around with the timings or maybe not hungry enough and sees it as being "enforced" on her so again maybe play with the timings? I know people say to have a schedule but you could try a more laid back approach whereby you offer littles things throughout the day to see if she's interested. The point being to establish whether for instance she doesn't want to eat anything solid because she's teething or because for some reason she doesn't like the ritual/timing of her meals. I agree with you about babies investigating and exploring with food and if your DH is the one looking after her during the day and is against that, it could be affecting how she views eating and could also be leading to her frustration once meal times approach. However, since as you say she's been eating fine until recently, just wait it out for a bit, it could just be a brief phase. Continue giving her options and see what happens. Good luck!

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 16:32

Lilypad our DD had 4 teeth at 10months but I'm not sure this made a difference to her eating as she was chewing and still is on the sides where she has no teeth. Have you tried giving her finger food-type things to see if she's interested and if the reaction is different? You're right she should be having loads of meat by now for the nutrients but it may be tricky if she's choking (or do you mean gagging?). If gagging, maybe she doesn't like the texture/temperature/taste/amount of food in her mouth. Regarding spices, i give DD what I cook for us but I have reduced the amount of spices I use and I don't use spicy things like chilly flakes etc. Dr said a bit of salt is ok, and that's healthier for us too so I use less salt in general. There were some threads recently in the baby section about feeding issues I suggest you look at in case your DD has other, if I could call them, underlying issues that are causing her to have these reactions-assuming she's always had then since you started solids. Could be something physiological or psychological in nature from what I've read from other moms but I don't know much about these topics so best to investigate yourself. Could possibly also be allergic to something? Sorry can't be of more help...

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 15:55

I have a similar issue to those raised in the "babying our baby"-thread. Our 13-month old (first baby) has always been very easy to look after. She's hit all her development milestones and has been sleeping through the night (sort of) since she was about 4-5 months old. I'm a working mum and my DH stays at home with our baby full time. I breastfed her until 8 months when she jsut wasn't interested anymore. We then started giving her Hippo's organic follow-on formula, which she took to really well. We've tried to gradually introduce finger foods and we're now serving her smaller, cut-up portions of whatever we eat, such as fish & potato, spag bol or whatever's on the menu. We avoid anything super spicy but otherwise we give her "normal food". She's had quite a healthy appetite. Trouble is, she's now sort of stopped eating. I guess it goes back about 2-4 weeks, difficult to say exactly when it started. We are weary of forcing food on her and have never forced her to eat to date. At meal times, she will play and investigate the food but rarely eats it, no matter how we serve it to her. She might have 4-5 little pieces of something if we finger feed it to her, but she doesn't chew or swollow it and we can spot the bits of food in her mouth hours later. I thought that perhaps the food was a bit dry for her, so we started mixing it with her old pureed stuff. For example, we take some of our spag bol, cut it up and then mix it in with the tomato & veg puree she used to have as a little baby. But she refuses to take more than max one bite. We've even tried to go back to the purees that she used to gobble down, but she's not interested. To make sure she gets some nutrition in her, we've increased the amount of follow-on milk we give her. I feel really bad about this as now's really the time to up the intake of "proper food" and water, and reducing the milk, not increasing it. Does anyone out there have any ideas on what the reason might be for DD's sudden refusal to eat? At her 1-yr check up she was in fine form but I'm worried that she might start loosing weight soon if she doesn't get in to a good eating habit. I'm also worried about developing future problems around food. Other than this she's a happy and healthy little girl. Grateful for your help! Hi there Swedish Girl, It could be a phase, possibly a developmental milestone or teething or attachement issues. DD is almost exactly the same age and we have been through a couple of phases like that. Have you noticed if perhaps she is more interested to eat if for example you are at a restaurant? Or not sitting in her high chair (assuming that she does now), or perhaps that she wants to handle food herself? Ours went through a phase that she would gladly eat things she could pick up but not if i gave her the same thing myself, so I tried to give things that were solid enough that she could grab and eat. When did yours start solids? You mention she was BF till 8 months but was she having any solids prior to that?

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 15:02

[b'>Yes she can roll both ways Genie. She is just in a sleeping bag and likes to stick her legs through the bars of the cot. Also she's half asleep and usually has turned around 90 degrees so she's sort of wedged in. Cots should be bigger and round![/b'> In that case TDB perhaps the airwrap would help as it wraps around the entire bed and should prevent legs and arms from getting stuck between bars, or failing that, don't use a crib/cot:-) <em>edited by Big blue on 25/09/2013</em>

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 11:43

Exercise! may sound contradictory but it would help a lot. Does OH have any hobbies? He does, running and golf, but his hours in the office are making this impossible Does he also work weekends? If not, you could book a resort that has a golf course and combine a mini vacation with some outdoor sctivity. After the golf, book him for a nice Moroccan/Turkish bath and massage:-) Then dinner with some grape juice and if he doesn't sleep after all that....

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 11:38

Exercise! may sound contradictory but it would help a lot. Does OH have any hobbies?

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 11:27

TDB, variations of CIO didn't work for us either; I gave in and tried on 3 occasions because I was so exhausted and exhasperated with the sleep situation but we had very similar results to what you described and I decided I could not bear to do this to anybody, let alone my DD. I also have friends who swear by it but TBH I'm slightly opposed to the whole concept so i don't mind that we didn't go down that path. DD sleeps on a mattress on the floor, not a crib and she loves it; some nights she'll sleep through, others she may wake up a few times. Sometimes she self soothes, others she doesn't. If I can see it coming (e.g. she has a cold and difficulty breathing) I'll go sleep with her outright (the mattress is big, I believe it's called twin size, 140cm wide). Other times if she wakes up in the middle of the night and I'm too tired to do the whole moving back and forth our bedrooms I'll also just stay with her from that point onwards. The good thing with this scenario is that we are in her room, not ours and that i'm not breaking my back trying to get her back to sleep in a crib. There have also been times when I was a bit sick with a cold etc that if needed DH went and slept next to her. It is getting better as time goes by, she's 12 months now and I don't think this is creating a bad habit plus it's so lovely sleeping next to her and as DH says enjoy it while it lasts because before you know it she'll be kicking you out of her bedroom:-). Anyway, some food for thought in case you think any of this might help you...

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 09:59

Hi TDB, I won't comment on the sleeping part-I don't consider myself very sucessful there:-) In terms of the feeding, our Dr who I trust a lot and has a lot of experience advised me to cut out purees by 10-11 months as he said around that age thay start getting a bit set in their ways and you may have troubles later on, they may get lazy and not want to chew when they are a bit older. This can also have a couple of side effects, one is possibly overeating (as it's easier to consume bigger quantities in pureed form) and the other has to do with jaw development, chewing actually contributes to the healthy development of the jaw and jaw muscles. TBH the day he told me that was the day I stopped pureeing; initially i tried chunkier consistencies and a lot of finger foods and now DD will eat anything. Sometimes she will take a big bite, gag and spit it out but that's ok, she's learning. When we started she surprised me by eating things I never thought she would have been able to process so in a way you're right, although they are still babies perhaps we "overbaby" them sometimes. DH still freaks out when she's eating, telling me this piece is too big, this is too hard, this is whatever...but he accepts that she has made a lot of progress and that it's him being overprotective. DD has been crawling and cruising for a while but is not walking still and as Kiwispiers said, I don't try to make her walk, IMO as long as she's allowed to explore and there is enough stimulation in her environment she'd do it when she's ready. Bless your husband though, it's so sweet he wants to be so involved, maybe as others said pick you battles and in cases where a valid argument can be made for change he will probably acknowledge it (eventually;-).

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Latest post on 25 September 2013 - 09:02

Hi Issi, at different times i"ve seen those sold independently at Mothercare, Babyshop and some pharmacies too (the ones that carry Avent, I believe Supercare does). But it all depends on whether they have stock when you go, which is always a fun exercise in Dubai isn't it:-) Hope you'll find them!

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Latest post on 24 September 2013 - 10:34

Hello ladies, I was also told I was borderline when I was pregnant although my GTT results were all within the normal range. They sent me to see an endocrinologist who to be honest looked at me, looked at my results and said "why did they send you here, everything is normal". He advised that since I had gone to see him that it might be a good idea to monitor my glucose levels for one week twice a day just to make sure there was no reason for concern, which I did and all the readings were fine. DD was born 39w 5d, 3.550kg and no issues whatsoever thankfully. Although GD can be a serious condition, I do have the feeling Drs here overdo it to make more money out of all the tests etc. As long as you're seeing normal readings and have a reasonable diet and there is no indication from the scans that your baby is getting too big then I'd say don't worry too much about it, getting stressed out about non existent "conditions" is the last thing you need!!!

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Latest post on 23 September 2013 - 15:08

If you want to "test it out" you can try Hummingbird at DIFC, open from 7am to 7pm; they have their shortcomings (too expensive, quite busy, no outdoors space) but they are more flexible than other nurseries; once you register you are only committing a month at a time so if you send your son and for whatever reason it doesn't work out you won't have paid for a full term.

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Latest post on 23 September 2013 - 14:33

Thanks ladies definitely taking him out helps I think I just get the fear when he starts crying if I'm out that everyone will stare! :) good tip on the balloon going to try that out! Don't worry Debz31, anyone who's had a baby (unless they were super lucky and theirs was the calm sleeping angel model) know what it's like once they start crying in public. I went through a good 5 months before things improved and in the meantime I got a few strange looks on the street or at the mall when I couldn't calm DD down. As for the sleeping, well yes it would be great if they slept 20 hrs a day at this age wouldn't it, but again mine went through a period from about 1 month to 4 months that she would hardly sleep during the day; both myself and the nanny were spending hours and hours trying to get her to sleep to get a 10min nap in the end. Don't stress over it, you'll learn to go with your son's "flow" unless of course you're of the Gina Ford school of thought:-)

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