Answers to questions I didn't know I
needed to ask:
1) Yes, the World Health Organization
has recently changed its advice about weaning. (And yes, they spell it with a
Z, which is annoying and wrong.)
Apparently they've brought it back to
four months. They used to advise waiting til six months to introduce solids,
but every mum I know who's a few years or decades older than me started their
babies earlier than that. We started Logie a bit sooner too. Because he
was hungry.
Anyway, like lots of bits of advice that
have changed in recent years, it's changing back again. I can't actually verify
this because I have left my laptop at home and am on the world's slowest
computer, which has a nervy spas just doing a google search. Simply deleting a
word makes it freeze for five seconds. So if someone wants to double-check
this, knock yourself out. But Felix's paediatric osteopath (with a cool
hairstyle that makes you think 'Yes, short hair can look really good on some
people, maybe I'll have my hair cut too, and my hair that's always been thin
and frizzy will probably magically behave and suit being short') told me this,
and says that this will trickle down to the NHS fairly soon.
2) Yes, there is a vaccine for chicken
pox. Logie had it last week. It's routine in America, Australia and various
European countries. It'll probably be included in the standard national
immunisation programme in the UK sometime in the next few years, when they can
find the money for it. So one currently has to pay for it privately, but I
think it's worth it. It's 88% effective. Should stop him getting shingles in
later life too. One injection in the bum, which they can have as soon as they
turn one. Then a booster at around five.
3) There is probably a link between
cradle cap and reflux. (Felix has both. Logie had neither so I'm a novice in
both areas.) Something to do with a hormone and a milk protein. According to
the paed hair osteo. See above re my inability to look this up this too.
4) No need for google on this one,
because it's the paed osteo's own opinion: it's doubtful that putting babies
down on their backs has prevented more than two out of a million cot deaths in
recent years. The 'Back to Back' campaign was based on eliminating a number of
risk factors, including smoking and co-sleeping, which are now thought to be
the main culprits. There is no evidence about sleeping positions on their own
contributing to SIDS. But there are a lot more babies out there with flat
heads.
Questions I would genuinely like you to
answer, so please e-mail me back if you have any suggestions. Or tweet me. Or
leave a comment. Forward this to your friends, please - I really need answers:
1) If there is a hidden track on a CD,
and you are in the car and you like listening to that track more than the one
before it that officially has the number, is there a way to jump to it
directly? I refer you to the Bastille album and track 12.
2) Why don't more people make underwired
nursing bras? Or even ones with moulded cups? I know it'd be a bit tricky,
might include a few brains in the workshop scratching their heads, but come on
guys, you put a man on the moon, you want your wife's boobs to look good don't
you? (I'm assuming that there are zero females in the nursing bra manufacturing
industry - or only some kind of weird, misogynist, anti-procreation women.) I
usually wear Anita breastfeeding bras, as they're the only make that are
underwired.
It's bizarre that there isn't more of a
choice. Because our boobs are supposed to be so sore and organic and precious
and malformed when we are breastfeeding that we couldn't cope with underwiring,
or wouldn't want it? Not true. Because you're not supposed to be bothered about
how they look during this time of your life? Even less true. When you have big
boobs, are over 30 and on your second baby, you don't want your embonpoint to
look like a shelf. A spilling-over, horizontal, hammock of flesh with a line
cleavage that looks like a bumcrack.
I've recently started wearing my normal
bras with moulded cups, and been - quite frankly - amazed at how good my boobs
look. When you are fat, boobs are ALL YOU HAVE. Moreover, when you are fat
because of baby weight or being old, the fat is especially wobbly and oddly
distributed, so a decent bra is your true friend. You might as well draw
attention to the only bit of you that men might appreciate and thin women might
envy.
Having to strip to the waist every time
I want to breastfeed isn't terribly practical, but occasionally it's worth it,
so that when dressed I can look in the mirror without visibly flinching. Or
wear something nice, that requires proper scaffolding. Or simply something
low-ish cut, as nursing clothing tends to be; all v-necked tops and wrap
dresses, at least for those of us too meaty to wear jeans and a tailored shirt.
Nursing bras don't seem designed to go with nursing clothing - you can always
see the wretched, ugly bra that is unsupportive in both senses of the word.
So. Either tell me where to shop, or
take this idea and run with it. Set up a business. It's a gaping hole in the
market.
3) Why don't babies' toenails grow
anything like as fast as their fingernails?
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