Muddling Through Motherhood The good, the bad and the guilt – through motherhood

We’ve recently joined the Soil Association and they sent a couple of free recipe books, including “The Organic Baby & Toddler Cookbook”. I was hoping it would be a sensible book, at least mentioning that there is no *need* to puree if you don’t want to, but no.

It mentions starting weaning at 4 months (although only ‘raw’ fruit and vegetable juices, but it is still NOT milk) and then talks about giving purees from 6-8 months, and introducing finger foods afterwards (although I haven’t read it cover to cover so might have missed something)

While lot of people will say that weaning at 4 months was fine ‘in my day’, guidelines now clearly state that food before 17 weeks (and most people will take 4 months as 16 weeks, I certainly did at that stage) is proven to be potentially harmful to your baby. Their gut matures (and is able to deal with digesting food rather than just milk) sometime between 17 and 26 weeks so the best thing is to wait until 26 weeks. (I didn’t quite but I will next time round!). The best piece of advice, whether you are pureeing or not, is to wait until your baby is sitting almost unaided in their highchair and can pick up food and bring it to their mouth.

I know people decide to wean earlier based on all sorts of advice from parents and friends and even health visitors – advice that they have every reason to believe, and I know that there are some very good medical reasons to wean before 26 weeks, but these are the facts. This is not a dig at parents, but a dig at people who should know better publishing books with incorrect advice.

Of course someone is now going to come along and tell me there is something different about ‘raw’ fruit and veg juice that actually makes it safe, but I’m pretty sure that is not the case!

Anyway, for information, the NHS weaning leaflet really gives the right advice on starting weaning :

At about six months babies are ready to be moved onto a mixed diet.
Try giving solid foods when your baby:
– can sit up
– wants to chew and is putting toys and other objects in their mouth
– reaches and grabs accurately.

It is normal for babies aged three to five months to begin waking in the night when they have previously slept through. It is not necessarily a sign of hunger and starting solids will not make your baby more likely to sleep through the night again.”
(You can read the whole leaflet here http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_084164.pdf: )

If you want to comment, you’ll have to do it on http://muddlingthroughmotherhood.co.uk as I’m still not bothering to check facebook and will eventually get round to taking my blog off there I expect.

Continue reading No, recommended weaning age is NOT 4 months

Its a bit late for these, but I’ve been doing ok on the challenges I set myself.

Tumble drier wise, we’ve been lucky with the weather lately and although it does get used for finishing off nappies, it is no longer full with whole loads we are too lazy to put out on the airer. Lets hope this continues when the weather starts to fail.

Supermarket wise, its been so-so. I’m not going to be able to stop shopping at ASDA without planning to the tiniest detail (and possibly bankrupting us in the process). While my planning is currently vastly improved (and I am starting to adjust plans as I go along, to prevent wastage) it is not at the stage where I can predict just how many bananas Rowan will want to eat in one day, so there will be times I will need to top up. Its not every day or anywhere near it any more though, and it is almost always with a list. I intend to carry on the way we’re going at the moment, trying to get as much fruit and veg from Abel and Cole (or alternative box scheme) because I can get in-season (if not exactly local) and British produce as well as foreign stuff that I know hasn’t been air-freighted.

And now I can’t remember what my other challenges were, if there were any.

I have a few challenges for October.

The first is a work one, which is to get our company accounts off to the accountant before the end of the month. This involves a fair bit of boring reconciliation which I have got behind on because of the accountants and our accounting software but I should be able to make a start on it next week.

Number 2 is to try to up my gym attendance to twice a week. I am pretty good at going on a Tuesday morning when Rowan is at nursery, but I need to try to find a way of fitting another session in. This won’t be easy with the amount that David is going to be away until Xmas.

The last one is to get a move on with my Xmas pressies. I need to find some good wool for the next one but the first half of the first present is almost done. My goal is to have 2 completed hat and scarf sets done by the end of the month.

Lets see how I manage with these!

Continue reading Update on some challenges

For various reasons I have cut down my online time quite significantly recently, including not checking facebook at all, and I’m finding that, at the moment I’m really making the most of those extra minutes (might blog more about that another day).

As I haven’t really missed facebook, I’m not going to go back on it until I do! My blogs will still appear on there as well as the muddlingthroughmotherhood site as I can’t be bothered to stop them, but I doubt i shall check in for a while yet, so if anyone wants me, email or text please

When I don’t have a book and a cup of tea waiting I shall write a bit more about what I’ve been up to lately.

Continue reading Switched off