Weaning News
The first Ms Fawkes was weaned in a weekend and took to the bottle like her father. We were spending the summer in France and French baby formula is creamy rich. Her eyes lit up, she grabbed the bottle and mum retired to take some paracetamol. Her mother's services were no longer required.
The second daughter is very different, she is six months old and treats the bottle with contempt. Mother is sleeping in the spare room, Father Fawkes is sharing a bedroom with baby and cot. Any sight of mother results in tears and cries demanding mother's milk and only mother's milk. Her father proffering a bottle is treated with total contempt. Her eyes say "Where are the boobs?" The bottle is spat out, hours pass, much baby formula is spilt. It occurs to Guido that the reason nobody has written a "Father's Guide to Baby Weaning" is because they were just too tired to write it.
Sleep deprivation is a recognised means of breaking interrogation subjects. The lack of contiguous sleep eventually dissolves the subjects will and mental powers. Guido is too tired to even want alcohol...
The second daughter is very different, she is six months old and treats the bottle with contempt. Mother is sleeping in the spare room, Father Fawkes is sharing a bedroom with baby and cot. Any sight of mother results in tears and cries demanding mother's milk and only mother's milk. Her father proffering a bottle is treated with total contempt. Her eyes say "Where are the boobs?" The bottle is spat out, hours pass, much baby formula is spilt. It occurs to Guido that the reason nobody has written a "Father's Guide to Baby Weaning" is because they were just too tired to write it.
Sleep deprivation is a recognised means of breaking interrogation subjects. The lack of contiguous sleep eventually dissolves the subjects will and mental powers. Guido is too tired to even want alcohol...
43 comments:
Congratulations. Wait til Mrs Fawkes is out shopping and baby tries to lift her top in the middle of waitrose for a suckle.
Little Miss Ratsniffer is similarly taken with Mother's Gold Top.
And looks on contemptuously at Daddy's flat, unproductive, and strangely hairy chest.
I have two daughters, the first one (now 2 years) was relatively undemanding but the second one (9 weeks) cries for attention like Cherie Blair on speed - wah wah wah! She's lovely really (daughter no 2, not Cherie Blair). Daughter no 1 is lovely as well!
Breast is best - my wife fed for most of the first year.
It's not the booze you need to avoid, it is the hangover - a demanding baby makes it 100 times worse!
Have you tried a bottle shaped like a breast ?
http://www.tommeetippee.co.uk/eaction/ecom.largeImg/closer_to_nature_150ml_bottle_twin_pack_with_slow_flow_teats/
Think positively.You might have had twins. With another fawkes or Fawksette, under 4!
Anyone else a bit concerned that talk of Guido Jr comes under the category of "Totty watch"?
Now, you know how Alistair Darling feels, working with "that strange man at No 10".
Never mind all that Tommeee Tippee nonsense, what you and Mrs F really need is a mannary gland.
My mother when watching the TV and a poor dithering soccer player would make a fool of himself.
She would reply '' You can tell he was bottle fed.''
1st son would eat or drink anything. Second son a bit fussier. Would only take SMA formula from a traditional baby bottle with a rubber teat at a specific feeding rate. Any attempt to change this would either result in spitting out the bottle or the issuing of projectile vomit. Refused point blank to take formula from an Avent bottle, even though babies usualy prefer these.
Try a few alternative bottles and feeds and see if that works.
Seconds are almost always more trouble, and if they're female, take it from me, they're still trouble in their 30's.
I'm sure you;'ve tried it already, but sticking the bottle in the microwave for 20 secs got my daughter round her fussiness.
Started her on Gina Ford last week and our lives have changed :)
I'm currently enjoying the fact that since we breast-feed and my partner has yet to begin expressing, I can happily doze the night away since I am unable to feed the baby.
Unfortunately I am aware that this shall change fairly soon.
A Swansea Blog
Guido, Hast not thou got one's own pair of 'man boobs' to fall back on ? Thy own lactators would work in a trice if thoust would take the old hormone injections [available for a very reasonable price from most of the farmers' co-operatives in the land] and as the old boys would say 'Bob is your auntie's uncle' - Job Done !
Your time will come.
After 3 months with my daughter giving me no sleep I moaned to my father and got no sympathy at all because I had done the same to him.
When my daughter rang up after 3 months of no sleep with her daughter ....... what goes around comes around
Labelled totty watch...?
Don't offer her any substitute at all - just say "There, there" over and over again. My husband actually bored my daughter into sleeping through the night.
Stick at it...we had the same problem with Clara (our second) initially.
Dissatisfaction with the bottle, only comfort from breast = comfort values still delivered but food values missing. Go to baby rice immediately and everyone will cheer up!
Good luck!
Got any remedies for nappy rash?
(Pull yourself together, Fawkes. FFS - baby chatter?)
coat mummy's milk tops in onions and then proffer to baby. baby will like the bottle after that
5 months no sleep and counting here with no2, the idea of drinking and going out seems ever more fantastical...luckily gordon brown has spotted this and massive tax rises will soon impose this on all and not just those crazy enough to breed.
Suffering succotash!... if only I could have laid a bet on Guido's blog covering the joys of expressing milk, I could have put all the worries of the world's impending financial doom to rest.
Wonderful - bottles shaped like breasts and serving warm milk - we chaps could all use something like that to send off to sleepy-byes happy and contented!
Seriously, accidentally "spilling" a little brandy, easily obtainable at all good estaminets in France, into the bottle has been known to work.
baby rice has no nutritional value.... breast milk is the best possible food, and is a complete food, even exclusively feeding up to 12 months in age, although in reality baby will probably want solids before then.
Keep baby in bed with mother - buy a bigger bed if necessary. Feed on demand if she can - sleep when baby sleeps. Not suitable for anyone trying to hold down a job.
Our third shared a bed with us until he was 18 months. It's not as restrictive as you'd think - it's amazing what they'll sleep through.
You have probably done this already, but do try a whole variety of different formula milks. We were having a nightmare with Cow&Gate and SMA and then tried Aptamil and it slipped down a treat. So shuffle around a bit...Also if she's six months now, try moving onto Formula level 2 or even 3, as they grow out of liking the early ones pretty forcefully! Finally, try different bottles and teat sizes - I've got a seven month old who's on teat size 3 and formula level 3 and is happy eating, whereas all other combinatios were a disaster.
"Guido is too tired to even want alcohol..."
And Diagio shares crash!
Any connection?
Styraight to Guinness is best by far - with a chaser last thing.
Stick a teat on a bottle of Margaux and you'll have no more problems.
Mongoose - Nappy rash: good old zinc&castoroil cream, lavishly spread.
Of course you should have thought about the sleepless nights BEFORE you had kids. My youngest is seven years old and still gets us all up in the middle of the night. Reason? GROWING PAINS!
My mother used to mix in a little bit of Tizer in my bottle. Never did me any harm.
"My husband actually bored my daughter into sleeping through the night"
This has probably set the pattern for her relationships with men in the future
"demanding mother's milk and only mother's milk"
Yes, mix n'match doesn't work, has to one or t'other but not both. Some formula can be hard - my eldest couldn't stomach one with added iron.
At six months need to try baby rice, get some bulk into her. A little scrambled egg is good too.
Too bad the old style Gripe Water isn't around anymore, that baby was fighting off snakes !
Have fun, it's worth it, really !
Old Scottish saying
YOU CANT BREED TAME RABBITS FROM WILD ONES
Guido, the solution is quite clear. You need a French holiday!
Hope someone warned you that the first five years, they're the worst. And the second five years, they're the worst as well. After that you go into a bit of a decline.
(with acknowledgements to Marvin the Paranoid Android)
Godfrey's Cordial, that's what you need, although it might be a bit difficult to get hold of nowadays. An 18th-19th century patent medicine guaranteed to "prevent the crying of children in pain when in want of proper nourishment". Typically compounded from brandy, treacle and opium, in variable quantities. You could probably knock up some yourself at home. That should sort out little Ms Fawkes's caterwauling.
You are mary Ann Sieghart! Well done. Now tell us about your trouble with builders.....
what is this weaning you people talk of?
I heard that a dram of whiskey/tot of rum/whatever of brandy/(fill in measure of Mrs Fawkes favourite spirit) drunk by the lactating mother 1 hour before the last feed does wonders for baby insomnia.
Commiserations to you both.
It too will pass.
[We bottle fed our two.]
Stop it you perv!
The midwife told Mr Sane she was making the formula milk too thick and making baby put on lots of weight. She told her she was breast feeding and the midwife told her she should bottle her milk!
Breast is best but you've got to get them off it at some point otherwise you end up like those sick women I saw on the telly last year breast feeding their kids at like 7 or 8 years old.
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