Random topics of the day: Baby Led Weaning and Enforcing daycare naps

mcatmay

Went to the pediatrician today and the little girl is doing great. However, i talked to him about the fact that she was becoming fussy at night and when i walked away from her, which was unusual for her. While he mentioned that some of it could be early separation anxiety, the first question he asked me was, "how well does she nap during the day?". At home, great. At daycare, we're lucky if she gets one 45 minute nap in. He stressed that overtired babies are clingy and needy and that i need to enforce daycare naps. So, ladies, HOW DO I DO THIS?! Do I just tell them to lay her down and let her cry, whether or not she's sleepy? Do I create a schedule for them? Tell me your secrets because I have no idea what to do, especially with a zillion other crying babies there.

The other thing the pediatrician recommended is feeding her what we eat. No purees, no bland food, just our food except softer and cut into small pieces. Reading online, this sounds like 'baby led weaning'. Has anyone done this? Good experiences? Bad? (more concerned about choking than allergies, to be honest).

As always, thanks for the input!

kastle

We did purees (but they were never bland. oatmeal had cinnamon, carrots had cumin, etc).  However, cooking the food to the point of puree but chopping it up shouldn't be too different.  Or, you could start with foods already very soft (like, bananas).  I have heard sometimes it can be difficult for babies to pick up slippery foods, so rolling them in crushed cheerios helps give a little friction.

WinesNotWhines

Daycare naps - I was just talking to a friend about this earlier today. I think it's hard for a lot of infants to get good naps at daycare, and yes, it does make them tired and more clingy. Most daycares are not going to do CIO or anything like that. If you have any other tips or tricks to get her to nap better/longer, than pass them on to your DCP. But if she's just waking up earlier because there's more activity, noise, etc., I don't know if there's much you can do about it. I'll mention that my kid never napped well when he was in the infant room at daycare, but after he moved to the toddler room, he started napping really well. All of the kids nap at the same time, so it's nice and quiet. I think the peer pressure also helps.

Eating - I think this is a personal preference. Some people are really into "baby led weaning" and don't do purees at all. But some babies like purees. I don't think there's anything wrong with either approach. We did a little bit of both. Pieces of banana and avocado are good first foods to try, because they're naturally so soft and mushy.

umdbride

I think we go to the same pedi because that advice sounds very familiar, lol. 

For napping, I'd try to ask DCP to lay LO down after 1.5 hours of being awake, and no more than 2 hours of being awake.  Ask that they develop a routine before putting her down so she knows it is sleep time (like put on sleep sack, rock, paci, and the rattle or toy she has at home, then in the crib).  I think if you're at a center though, you're just going to deal with bad naps until they have a structured nap time in the older rooms.  We do in-home and he still doesn't nap as well as he does at home, but at least they are in a separate, quiet place for naps.

On the food, we did something similar around 6/7 months and it worked out great. At first we did a combination of the fruit or veggie purees and the food we ate that was healthy, softer and/or smaller.  I felt like he got more vareity from the purees than in what we ate. Around 9 months he was eating so much of the food we ate that he didn't need the purees.  I think we stopped them completley by 10 months. Some first foods that worked well for us:  beef from beef stew, shredded chicken, pulled pork, tilapia, shredded cheese, scrambeled eggs, frozen veggies (I would boil a handful at a time), peas (just squash them a little) spiral whole wheat pasta, bannanas, sweet potato, avocado,  strawberries.

At first it was harder for him to pick things up than it was to eat, bumpies suggested rolling in crushed cheerios to help. He also tended to gag easily regardless of the food size, I think it was just a texture thing, but we would just keep offering something every time we ate.  I was amazed how much he could eat without teeth (he didn't get any until 9 months) and he LOVES food.

Be warned though, for us, introducing food really lessened his interest in nursing and even bottle feeding.  Between 7-12 months I was always nervous that he wasn't getting enough BM.  It was a struggle to get him to drink. I think it has worked out fine though, he's 22lbs and his iron and other bloodwork levels all came back fine recently. I'm still trying to get used to the fact that I guess he's just not a big drinker and I shouldn't worry about it so much!

tomandcourt

WinesNotWhines:

Daycare naps - I was just talking to a friend about this earlier today. I think it's hard for a lot of infants to get good naps at daycare, and yes, it does make them tired and more clingy. Most daycares are not going to do CIO or anything like that. If you have any other tips or tricks to get her to nap better/longer, than pass them on to your DCP. But if she's just waking up earlier because there's more activity, noise, etc., I don't know if there's much you can do about it. I'll mention that my kid never napped well when he was in the infant room at daycare, but after he moved to the toddler room, he started napping really well. All of the kids nap at the same time, so it's nice and quiet. I think the peer pressure also helps.

Ditto all of this! They can't let your LO cry it out, because it would disturb other babies. But they can try to make nap time as similar to home as possible. We sent a swaddle blanket, paci, and had them give J a bottle before nap time, much like we did at home (except BFing at home). We would usually get 2-3 short naps or 2 longer ones (longer meaning 45-60 mins). 45 minutes for the whole day is a little crazy, though.

Can you give them a general routine? Not a schedule per se, but a general
up for 1.5 hours, change/swaddle/feed/rock, down after 2 hours awake" kind of thing?  

Amy&Steve0421

Have you tried a 2-3-4 schedule?  At around 6 months is when we had success w/this w/Ben -

 https://alphamom.com/parenting/baby/the-2-3-4-sleep-routine/

mcatmay

Thank you all for the feeding advice - i'll have to bookmark this thread to come back to it. Ever since the pedi said, "EVERYTHING'S FAIR GAME" (ok, i may be exaggerating a little ;-), i've been trying to figure out what exactly 'everything' means and where the heck to start. You ladies give me a good start.I'm totally excited to be giving her options but a little overwhelmed at the possibilities and the sudden responsibility to feed her properly (it was so 'easy' before - here's some milk! still hungry? have some more!!! But pedi's tone when he mentioned 'horrible processed foods' made it VERY clear that he would be VERY disappointed if DD were to have any).

Umdbride, thanks for the heads up on decreased nursing - it would DEFINITELY be something i would become concerned about if i hadn't had the heads up. 

Amy&Steve, that 2-3-4 thing seems like complete brilliance! Especially at daycare, where she is so excited at seeing everything that napping is not high on her radar of 'things to do'.

As you all recommended, I'll try to establish a routine for naps at daycare but, here, we don't have a good one except, 'oh you look tired - let's lay you down' and then a quick feed and down she goes. She doesn't fight naps at all here - kind of makes me wonder if she's just so tired from the week that it's a relief to get multiple opportunities to sleep. Maybe i'll try to develop some 'physical cues' that tell her it's naptime here that might help her at daycare. 

RomeRomance06

I don't really have any suggestions for daycare naps. DCP usually tried a few different things. I know she has a very set routine (it's a small in-home) - turns down the lights, reads a book, plays soft music, etc. She also has a separate nap room for the babies so they can nap in the mornings. Not sure what your center's set-up is, but from what I understand that all worked for the kids at this DC.

We started with purees at 5.5 months. I bought a few of the Gerber ones to see what she liked, and then made my own and froze them. DD really liked purees, but after about a couple months, I started giving her puffs and I found she really preferred to self-feed. She would actually eat more if she was feeding herself. A couple times she coughed/gagged/choked on a piece of food but it always came right back up, so I wasn't too nervous except in the very beginning. Everything should be no bigger than a pea and she should be fine. Once DD started eating "real food" with real flavor she refused plain purees. The only thing she'll let me feed her now is yogurt, which she loves. Oh, and she loves the veggie/fruit combo purees in pouches, but I think that's because she can squeeze them herself. Just keep experimenting and see what she seems to take to. It really is fun. Good luck!

WinesNotWhines

T&C's post reminded me -- we sent a swaddle blanket to daycare, and then a sleep sack. They helped. If she sleeps with anything like that at home, send it to daycare.

Sofka

there are a gazillion organic, non-processed baby food options out there if you are not upto making your own food.

check out https://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com/

 

 

kafunder

I'd talk to your DCP and see if she has any suggestions. Our DCP followed our schedule for naps, so they were on the same schedule at home and at DC. She also recreated our nap routine, which was swaddle/sleep sack, white noise (using sleep sheep in each PnP), and put down drowsy but awake (no rocking or feeding to sleep). 

Also, our LOs definitely sleep more on weekends than at DCP. There is just too much going on for them to sleep for a long time, and they catch up on weekends, which is fine with us.

As for eating, we did purees first. I was too paranoid about choking to go right to table foods. We did 1 meal of purees at 6 months, 2 meals at 7 months, and 3 meals at 8 months. Feeding purees takes up extra time in the day, and it's all just for practice before 1 year old, so I wasn't in a rush to add purees quickly. And, we used all store bought food b/c it was just easier (mostly Earth's Best). 

pixieprincss

I've got nothing on the nap side, but as for BLW, we did this with DS and ADORE it. It just makes so, so much sense and is so easy.  Here is how we started.

lylahlove

Around 6 months, our in-home daycare asked if she could let Liam nap in the swing because he wasn't getting in solid naps - we said yes and he immediately got on a schedule with two long naps a day. 

We've now weaned him back off the swing and into his crib and he's doing great. Overtired babies are no fun to deal with  

Also, I can't recommend BLW enough! Our little guy has done so well with it. If you're interested and have time, I've done a few posts in my blog about it (BLW tag at the bottom of my blog). I would definitely recommend reading the BLW book. GL!

mcatmay

Thanks for the information on BLW...it definitely intrigues me, based on the reading I did last night. Still worried about choking hazards but i'm reviewing my infant CPR...hopefully that'll ease my mind.

lylahlove

mcatmay:

Thanks for the information on BLW...it definitely intrigues me, based on the reading I did last night. Still worried about choking hazards but i'm reviewing my infant CPR...hopefully that'll ease my mind.

I was definitely terrified of choking when we began BLW - but as I read, babies actually have a much lower risk of choking when they begin solids so early because their gag reflex is so high in their throats. They'll gag a lot but they'll very quickly learn how to move the food around with their tongues.

Liam gagged a lot the first couple months, and while it was hard to watch at times, he was never bothered by it and went right back to happily eating. It's all a learning process CPR was definitely good to have in the back of my mind - and know the different signs of choking rather than just gagging.