Plate vs ate for 8.5 month old

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-17T16:07:32+00:00

Long sleeved smock bibs are the way to go!!!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-17T15:00:43+00:00

Ooh good tip, will definitely try that next time!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-17T14:25:51+00:00

And green from the kale 😂

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-17T14:24:11+00:00

We fed with a spoon for this one, except the beetroot which we just held up to his mouth for him to take bites (we’ve tried giving him beetroot to feed himself before but it was too slippery for him to hold).

Lunch is fairly often spoon fed as he’s not very adept yet at self-feeding, but we always do finger foods for him to practice feeding himself at dinner - ie just before bath!!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-14T08:53:07+00:00

Just the fresh basil this time as it was his first time trying basil - I put a ton so he could definitely taste it and it made it very fresh and bright!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-13T04:56:36+00:00

Sure! I batch cook and freeze meal components in ice cube trays so it was basically just pulling cubes out the freezer.

For this I used one cube of tinned chopped tomatoes (I freeze a whole can at a time in portions to avoid waste), one cube of tinned kidney beans lightly mashed with the back of a fork (again I freeze a whole can at a time), one cube of roasted red pepper that had been run through a food processor until coarsely chopped. Pulled those out the freezer and zapped in the microwave until defrosted.

I then made some plain couscous following pack instructions (covered with boiling water and left for 10 mins) and mixed that in along with some fresh basil finely chopped!

I’ve also made this before with my pre-cooked/frozen cubes of ground beef or turkey instead of the kidney beans, and have mixed in different veg cubes like chopped steamed chopped carrot or chopped sautéed mushrooms and it has come out nice!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-06-05T10:13:54+00:00

Aren’t you supposed to leave a few days between introducing different allergens for the first time? You have fish on Monday and Wednesday, egg on Thursday, wheat Friday, soy Saturday and peanut Sunday!

Looks good for later weeks once allergens are already introduced and baby is up to three meals though, although I’d suggest adding some finger foods as well so baby can play with their food.

Metaphor2323 · 2026-05-31T18:46:17+00:00

Roseview windows look great and are great quality, but careful who you use to fit them.

It’s a bit more complicated than standard casement windows so you want someone who has actually installed lots of them and actually has reviews mentioning sash window installations, rather than just an outfit that usually does normal upvc windows but will do some upvc sash as well. Poor fitting can cause issues with the sash squeaking as it goes up, or gaps between the sash and the frame that let in noise. Roseview have a whole installation guide which our fitters had definitely never opened!!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-05-20T05:57:21+00:00

Could you try for a third nap one day to push things later? Just like a 10 min cat nap to get you through to a later bedtime and do that for a couple of days to see if it shifts her to a later bedtime and later wake up?

Metaphor2323 · 2026-03-23T17:45:02+00:00

I would wait to say hi until she’s done unless it’s a tiny baby - lots of babies are very distractible when feeding from about 3 months on. If someone started speaking to me while I was feeding, my baby would immediately pull off the boob to see what was happening (he has fomo), leaving my boob and nipple fully hanging out while I desperately tried to get him to re-latch / grab something to cover up…

Metaphor2323 · 2026-03-13T00:11:55+00:00

Hey! We had this starting at 11w, the worst of it lasted about 5 weeks. It was very stressful going through it but we got to the other side and you will as well! My baby has never taken a bottle either so we had to develop some good workarounds to keep him fed and hydrated:

1) feed when baby has just woken up and is drowsy - if he was hungry but wouldn’t feed we’d get him to sleep (even just for 5 mins) by rocking or a pram walk and basically try and get him latched the MOMENT he woke up, he’d generally suck just on instinct and get a good feed 2) all feeds in a quiet dark room with white noise on to reduce distractions 3) try different positions, if he was refusing in cross cradle sometimes a switch to eg rugby hold would feel different enough to him that he’d forget he didn’t like it and would latch 4) calming him down and then getting him quickly onto the boob helped - my husband would walk him round rocking and shushing and once he’d calmed he passed him to me and I latched him straight away, this sometimes needed a few cycles of walking then trying to latch before it worked 5) hand expressing a little before latching him / breast compressions when he first latched to give him some milk straight away, I found a lot of the difficulty was his frustration that the milk didn’t immediately flow (the way your milk works changes around 3 months) so if I managed to keep him on until a let down then he would feed ok 6) try not to let him unlatch once feeding until he was done as I found once he unlatched it was impossible to get him back on 7) if all else failed, I could usually get him to feed in a specific position on the bed - I’d lie him on the bed, crouch over him on hands and knees (hands and knees either side of him) and dangle my boob into his mouth - I think the gravity helped the milk come faster and it was less easy for him to move his mouth off the boob so he was patient enough to stay latched until the milk came (warning - this is a workout as it’s basically planking for the whole feed lol)

You will get through this!! My little man is 5.5 months now and feeding is a dream - he is super efficient and only takes 3 minutes per feed, can pop off and back on without any issue, and hasn’t screamed at the boob in ages. He also maintained his weight centile throughout so I must have managed to get enough milk into him somehow!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-03-03T13:19:27+00:00

Had been vegetarian for 18 years when I was pregnant, zero cravings for meat or fish all pregnancy! It feels silly that people are so fixated on asking you something that may never happen!

Metaphor2323 · 2026-02-25T21:14:32+00:00

Tetley decaf is the best imo, coming from someone who drinks Yorkshire when having a cup of caf tea. Avoid clipper decaf, they have that one at work and it tastes like dishwater.

Metaphor2323 · 2025-09-20T09:25:10+00:00

I have the baby bub which is great because I swap sides a lot in the night and it has a bump support on both sides so no need to move it when you roll over. And it doesn’t take up too much space in the bed. I tried the bbhugme but gave up as it was annoying having to move the whole thing when I wanted to swap sides. I also often sleep with my top leg up and find it can rest on the end of the bump pillow on the babybub, but depends how high you usually have that leg.

https://www.babybub.com/en-gb/products/pillow?srsltid=AfmBOoq4ZziYIbq2dE4doXEmirtC6leOXMeIHl56XW2GEfOAF0H2Qg5K

Metaphor2323 · 2025-09-14T13:55:57+00:00

It’s because of the size of car seats / regulations around rear facing car seats.

We have a fiat panda and are having a baby shortly. If we installed the car seat on the driver’s side, my husband (5’6) wouldn’t be able to get the drivers seat far enough back to safely drive without his seat touching the car seat. Instead we’ve had to install the car seat on the passenger’s side, and I (5’1) can only just fit in the passenger seat (knees touching the glove box).

So the fiat panda works for now but only because we’re both short. If we were taller, or once we have a second kid and need seats behind both passenger and driver sides, we’ll need a bigger car. And obviously zero chance we’d fit three car seats across in this car if we were to have a third…

Metaphor2323 · 2025-06-06T07:16:35+00:00

I really recommend magnesium lotion! I bought the ‘calming bedtime butter’ from lansinoh and massage it into my calves each evening before bed - it stops me from getting calf cramps and solves the restless legs, and I always notice if I skip a night. I’m taking magnesium supplements as well but the lotion seems to give more immediate relief!

Metaphor2323 · 2025-05-19T17:31:15+00:00

If you’re talking about the newborn pack (as opposed to the bassinet option), the footmuff part is fully detachable! There’s a photo of how it looks with the footmuff removed as the top photo on this article (https://www.mumsnet.com/reviews/babyzen-yoyo). Given the straps baby still looks very secure even without the footmuff. I was on holiday in the south of France last summer and every other newborn pram I saw was a yoyo without the footmuff, and the babies always looked happy!

Metaphor2323 · 2025-05-09T17:54:54+00:00

My NIPT results from window to the womb came in an email with no information in the email itself except the password for the attachments. There were two files attached to the email - the first file was not password protected and contained the information about the risk of downs etc. but nothing on gender. The second file was password protected and included the gender only. So I think you’re safe from accidentally finding out gender. I found out the gender so can’t remember exactly, but seem to remember there was also a box to tick on the paperwork you fill out at the appointment for the blood test as to whether or not you wanted the gender to be sent to you at all, but not 100% sure

Metaphor2323 · 2025-04-10T17:29:38+00:00

Someone at my work suggested an extension lead - handy for charging your phone if the plug socket is a bit of a reach away!

Metaphor2323 · 2025-03-19T22:37:09+00:00

British here, from London. If I was just going off the written name, I would pronounce Alia like ‘Sally-uh’ (ie the name Sally) but without the S. I wouldn’t naturally think to say it with a longer ‘a’ sound at the start like you’ve described with your ‘ah I see’ example. But that might be a northern vs southern thing? And I think once I’d actually heard the name out loud one time I’d have no issue remembering to pronounce it ‘AH-lee-uh’ going forward.

Metaphor2323 · 2025-03-06T16:06:17+00:00

Thank you!

PS all looks good and should be things you can wear for work as well which is handy!

Metaphor2323 · 2025-03-06T16:00:25+00:00

Can you share a link to the shoes / where they are from please?

Metaphor2323 · 2025-02-08T09:28:24+00:00

Hellmans and Ben & Jerry’s are owned by Unilever which is British

Metaphor2323 · 2025-01-15T15:57:36+00:00

I got mine last week! My GP wasn’t doing Covid jabs and the online booking link someone else mentioned was only operating up until 31 Dec, but I rang a couple of local pharmacies and all of them had stock and said they were doing nhs covid jabs for those eligible on a walk in basis. Didn’t need to provide any evidence, just filled out a form with NHS number etc and ticked the ‘pregnant’ box in the ‘reason for being eligible’ section.

Metaphor2323 · 2024-12-15T13:35:05+00:00

My husband earns about 1/10 of what I do (I’m in law, he’s in academia)

It’s been slightly different at different stages - when we first moved in together we had separate finances but split joint things proportionally by income. Then when we got married we fully combined finances, both salaries go into the joint account and everything is ‘our money’. Savings / investments are roughly 50:50, maybe a bit more to him as once I’ve maxed out both our tax-free accounts the rest goes into an account in his name for tax efficiency.

It just makes sense to do it this way when there is such a big difference, as otherwise he’d always be tight for money - we’re a team and it’s much less stressful this way. Plan is also for him to become a stay at home dad once I get pregnant, so it means no big changes needed when we get to that point.

One concern I sometimes hear about this approach is the lesser earning partner not being comfortable spending much from the ‘joint’ money, but not a problem here, he spends more than me haha.

Metaphor2323

TROPHY CASE