We all know about the ‘baby blues’ – that weepy period many new mums go through in the week or so after giving birth. It’s attributed mostly to the huge hormonal shifts that occur in our bodies once baby is no longer in residence, and midwives and health visitors are well-versed in how to soothe and advise us on getting through this rocky bit – and make sure it doesn’t turn into something more long-term.

But what about, for lack of a better term, the ‘booby blues’? Weaning your baby, if you’ve been breastfeeding, is another period of great change – and not just for your baby! It’s not well-researched, but anecdotal evidence shows that many mums experience a significant shift in mood when they drop breastfeeds, especially once that last cherished morning or evening nursing session has bitten the dust.

Some of this is probably emotional, of course. One of the lovely things about breastfeeding is the closeness it promotes between mother and child, and few mums find themselves able to consign that relationship to history without at least a fond backward glance. In that illogical, direct-from-the-heart way we process things as mothers, weaning can look like the first scary step toward independence, and it’s all too easy to leap ahead and envision that tiny person with bags packed, on his way out into the big bad world without us. Who wouldn’t get a little teary?

And yet, for many women there’s more to it than that. Only a few studies so far have looked at how weaning can affect a woman’s mood, but all have found evidence that there can be a link between the end of breastfeeding and symptoms of depression. Which stands to reason, really – after all, lactation produces quite a few powerful hormones in our bodies. Prolactin, a.k.a. “the mothering hormone,” increases milk supply, but it’s also a potent mood-soother that relaxes and encourages bonding between mum and baby. Oxytocin, one of the strongest hormones around, gives us a strong sense of contentment (and is also responsible for that potentially embarrassing let-down reflex). When we’re weaning baby from the breast, we’re also weaning ourselves off of this potent cocktail of natural antidepressants. The problem is, we don’t know we’re doing it – so no wonder it takes us by surprise.

“It was like I had hit a brick wall. The feelings of sadness and despair hit me so hard and suddenly, that I was actually shocked and confused,” writes one blogger. Another compared it to “the worst PMS I have ever experienced,” and a couple of poor mums even assumed they must be pregnant again because their emotions were so unpredictable. Their experiences are echoed all over the web; the scientists may not be researching this stuff in the lab, but it looks as if we mums are human guinea pigs, like it or not.

And yet, there’s hope: in a victory for modern motherhood, the power of the Internet is working in our favour. After popular parenting blogger Joanna Goddard posted recently (and bravely) about her experience, the Huffington Post picked up the story and ran a fantastic piece that has sparked lots of talk and doubtless helped thousands of mums who were secretly wondering whether they’d gone crazy. The unspoken secret of weaning is out, ladies; and no, it’s not all in your heads.

The good news in all this is that for most women who get weaning-related symptoms, the weepiness and irritability will likely pass in a few days when your hormones settle down, so tuck yourself in, treat yourself kindly and hang in there.

If you don’t start to see light on the horizon within a couple of weeks, though, please don’t suffer in silence. Go see your GP, and take a copy of this blog post with you. Ask him or her to look at the research, and explore your options. You’re absolutely not alone, and there’s effective help out there.

Weaning gradually is also a smart idea, if possible; after all, there’s no sense in going cold turkey unless you have to. Drop one feed at a time, and wait at least a few days before you try dropping the next one. And remember, the breastfeeding may be ending, but the cuddles never have to!

-Amanda

Have you experienced symptoms like these during weaning? Please share your story below, if you feel comfortable doing so; it just might help another mum!

Many of you may know that over the past five months, we’ve been raising funds for Bliss, the national special-care baby charity, through sales of special promotional packs of Plum. We chose Bliss as our charity partner because of the outstanding work they do to help premature babies and their families. We also knew that parents who choose Plum are very supportive of charities like Bliss, and we hoped that the donations we raised together would go a long way toward helping the littlest babies get a Plum start, too.

We launched the campaign at Christmas time, and whether it was the holiday spirit or the chance to win one of 100 £25 hampers of Plum goodies, you responded with enthusiasm. Over the next several months, our Plum parents helped us raise an impressive £30,000 to help babies born too soon, too small, or too sick to make it without specialised help – a wonderful result.

And since the Plum community had made the donation possible, when it was time to actually give that money to Bliss, we thought it would be only fair for some of them to be there to share in the moment. We put out a general invitation, and three intrepid mums answered our call, babies in tow. Each of them had a very personal reason to want to thank Bliss for the wonderful work that they do, and we were incredibly excited to have the six of them present the £30,000 cheque on our behalf.

And what a day we had!  When we strolled into the Bliss offices last week, we were expecting three mums, three babies, and a whole lot of chaos. Well, we got the chaos bit (in a happy way), but we ALSO got a bonus – three little superstars who were more than happy to pose, smile and all-around ham it up for our delighted photographer. Bonus!

Here are a few shots we just had to share:

Now that's a big cheque! Everyone got in on the act... from left to right: Plum brand manager Ranjit Gohler, Kate Harrison with baby Abigail, Louise Crankshaw with little man Barney, Charlotte Pundyke with baby Connor, and Catrin Evans from Bliss.

Barney, the elder statesman of the group at a ripe old 22 months of age, was born 7 weeks early, and mum Louise still takes him to a Bliss-funded playgroup. He ably took on the task of signing over the £30K on our behalf. Thanks, Barney!

Adorable Connor is 13 months old and was born 10 weeks premature. He looks awfully chuffed to be presenting the cheque.

Little Abigail wasn't up to signing, but she helped with some parent packs. Abigail was born at just 27 weeks, and fit in her dad's hand. She's 6 months old now, and doing very well indeed, thank you.

One for the road? Barney with his knapsack full of goodies, ready to hit the road.

We had such a wonderful day! Big, big thanks go out to Kate, Louise, Charlotte, Abigail, Barney and Connor  for coming along to share it with us, as well as the lovely folks at Bliss for hosting us. We’re definitely hoping to plan more collaborations like this in the future!

If you could choose a charity for Plum to support, what would it be and why?

A big ‘thank you’ to all of you who added your 2p, and your comments, to our Facebook poll today! HQ was very pleased at the turnout – which means we might be doing a bit more of this in the future!

In the meantime, though, the winners of today’s three £20 hampers are…

Clare Wood

Kate Dunn

Steph Kavanagh

Congratulations! If all three of you lucky winners would kindly email your name, address, the age of your baby, and any dietary restrictions he/she may have to yummyyummy@plum-baby.co.uk, with the subject line “£20 hamper winners – Facebook poll”, we’ll get that right out to you!

love,

Plum

Serious question: When did guilt become an expected part of motherhood? Surely someone, sometime back in the mists of history got away with raising a child WITHOUT BLAMING HERSELF FOR ANYTHING. Right?

Not these days, though. Now, it’s a lot more common to wonder what on earth we’re going to do wrong next. Disposable nappies? You’re killing the planet. Cbeebies while you shower? You’re rotting baby’s brain. Going back to work? You’re abandoning your child. Staying home? You’re lazy. And for goodness sake, don’t even think about giving that little darling anything but homemade organic puree at teatime!

There, there. We’re here to tell you that whether that voice in your head belongs to a relative, an imaginary judge, or your own sky-high expectations, it’s okay – even healthy – to ignore it. Because after all, while guilt can sometimes motivate us to try harder, it can also be draining, depressing and downright awful.

Haven’t convinced you yet? Chew on this: You weren’t raised in a perfect environment, and you came out just fine. See? We’re right, aren’t we? Our parents may have got away with (depending on your generation) drinking and smoking during pregnancy, driving us in the car without seatbelts (let alone special car seats!), leaving us with teenage babysitters, letting us play outside all afternoon unsupervised, and regularly giving us fish fingers for tea. And WE ALL CAME OUT FINE.

Which is not to say, of course, that you should go around lighting up like crazy or letting your baby crawl around in the car. But hey, go easy on yourself.  Your life is what it is, and if you’d rather spend an hour cuddling your little one instead of steaming and pureeing in the kitchen, no one has the right to tell you you’re doing it wrong.

Modern families simply operate on a different principle than our parents’ generation. Time is ever more precious, and sometimes that means outsourcing the tasks we don’t enjoy to give us more time for what’s really important – whether that means having a cleaner in once a week, getting takeaway occasionally, or even buying ready-made baby food.

We say, ditch the guilt. We’re here to help by giving your baby the very best organic meals we can dream up, with all the superfood nutrients we can cram in there, so that you don’t have to worry. (Well, not about dinner, at least.) If you pick up a pouch of Plum, you really can be confident that it’s nutritious, balanced and tastes great. Which means we’re doing our job, so that you can do yours even better.

Parenting is a challenge, but remember, you’re doing the very best you can, and being ‘good enough’ really is good enough for your child. Sure, the laundry may be piling up, and perhaps you haven’t gotten around to joining that baby signing class just yet. But it doesn’t matter. As long as your baby knows you love him, he’s going to turn out fine.

What do you think? Do you try to ditch the guilt, or embrace it? What gives you the guilts no matter how hard you try?

Vitamin D has gotten quite a bit of press lately, and with the rain pouring down outside and grey clouds overhead, it seems like a good time to talk about the ‘sunshine vitamin’ – or our lack of it.

As illnesses go, rickets sounds downright Victorian, with connotations of poorhouses and chimney sweeps, but it’s making a scary comeback in the UK and other countries in the higher latitudes. It causes symptoms like softened, aching bones, muscle weakness, and poor growth, and some doctors estimate more than 1 in 1,000 children have it, though many go undiagnosed.

How does this happen? To put it simply, rickets is what happens when babies and children don’t get enough Vitamin D. And the ‘sunshine vitamin,’ as it turns out, is in very low supply around here, especially in the short days of winter. Our bodies make it in response to sunlight, specifically UVB rays, and in the winter, when the sun stays low in the sky, nowhere near enough UVB makes it through the atmosphere to fulfil our bodies’ needs (even if we weren’t all covered up!) It’s so common to be short of D that a recent survey showed more than half the adults in the UK didn’t have as much as they should in the winter and spring.

Some people are even more likely to be D-deficient:

• People with darker skin, because they need more sunlight to generate enough vitamin D; the same survey above showed that as many as 9 in 10 people of Caribbean and South Asian descent had low levels

• Vegetarians who don’t eat fish, or vegans

• People who cover their skin for health or cultural reasons

When a woman with low vitamin D becomes pregnant, her baby is born with low levels as well, and if she chooses to breastfeed, she won’t have enough of the vitamin to pass along in her milk. (Formula milk has added vitamin D, so bottle-feeding parents don’t need to worry – but, doctors stress, this isn’t a reason not to breastfeed, as it’s easy to supplement!) Add that to the advice many mums are given to protect their babies from all direct sunlight, and you’ve got a virtual recipe for rickets.

No need to panic, though – vitamin D is one of the easiest vitamins to get, because you don’t even need to ingest it. Ten to 20 minutes of sunshine on the face and arms without sunscreen, three times a week, is enough to give you and your baby a healthy dose of D without putting you at greater risk for sunburn or skin cancer (after that, though, it’s best to cover up or use some sunscreen). If the day is cloudy, or you have darker skin, you’ll need a few more minutes; sunlight coming through a window doesn’t count.

You can also get some vitamin D through food, though it’s hard to get your whole requirement this way. Some of the best food sources are oily fish, like salmon, mackerel and sardines, so these are great foods to get your baby used to early on in weaning. A few foods, like some breakfast cereals and margarines, contain added vitamin D, but the UK hasn’t yet taken the further step of adding D to milk, as they have done in the US since the 1930s.

The third way to get your D, of course, is by taking a supplement, and some doctors are now arguing that all of us in the grey, rainy UK (kids too) should be taking regular supplements, as it’s simply too difficult to get what we need the natural way. Luckily, it’s not hard; adults can take tablets or get periodic injections, and children and babies can take the vitamin in liquid form (you may even be able to get them free of charge). If you’re breastfeeding, and you’re concerned about your vitamin D levels, check with your GP or health visitor; he or she may want you to take a supplement yourself and/or give drops to your baby, just to be sure.

Do you think the UK should adopt a policy of adding vitamin D to milk, as they do in the US?

This is it, folks, the final two winners of our app competition!

Today’s winner of the £10 Plum hamper is Susan B!

And, the long-awaited winner of the new iPad 3, is…. Farhana H!

Susan and Farhana will also get an email from us confirming they’ve won. Congratulations to everyone who’s won in the past two weeks, and thanks for helping us celebrate our new weaning app!

Love, Plum

PLUM BABY OATY CHOMPS BARS – PUMPKIN PIE VARIANT (5 X 20G)

20^th April 2012

We have identified a potential product quality issue with our recently-launched Plum Baby Oaty Chomps Bars – Pumpkin Pie variant. As a precaution we’re withdrawing the product from the market, even though there is minimal risk.

The bar was launched in January this year, and so is only in a limited number of Sainsbury, Boots and Booths stores, as well as a small number of independent shops.

The product quality issue relates to mould which has been found in a very small number of bars from one specific batch, which passed all Quality Control checks at the time of production. We are currently investigating this fully.

Plum prides itself on years of consistently offering high quality products and a stringent policy on product quality, which is why we have decided to withdraw it from sale immediately.

We would advise any mums and dads that have this product to either return it, or dispose of the product and send the wrapper back to us, at Plum for a complete refund including postage and packing, at Plum Baby Ltd, The Old Boathouse, Taplow, SL6 0AA. If you have any questions or queries please contact us at customercomplaints@plum-baby.co.uk; or call us on 0845 389 0061.

We hope any concerns mums and dads may have are answered and reassured by the steps we’re taking; we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience.

Please note no other product is affected.

Thanks

Plum

Here’s a hypothetical question: You’re standing in your local supermarket, and someone offers you £5,000 if you can pick out the one food in the place with the most antioxidant power. What would you grab?

Have you taken a minute to think? You might have tossed a bar of dark chocolate into your trolley, or a bottle of red wine – both of which are, indeed, high in healthy antioxidants. If you headed for the produce section, you might have grabbed for broccoli, spinach, or red cabbage – and yes, those are good, too. But the real winner is smaller and sweeter… and blue.

The ORAC scale is a measure of a food’s antioxidant activity in the body – in other words, how hard it works to keep our cells healthy. And of the foods we tend to eat regularly, blueberries come out tops. (A few other foods, like pomegranates and acai berries, rank higher, but they’re much harder to find!)

The nutritional power in blueberries comes largely from their colour; the beautiful deep bluish-purple of a ripe blueberry is thanks to natural pigments that also happen to have a handy superpower: they absorb free-floating oxygen in our bodies (aka “free radicals”), which would otherwise harm our cells.

Even among blueberries, however, some types are better than others; wild blueberries (including the native European bilberry) score 65 percent higher on the ORAC scale than the ‘domesticated’ type – which is why at Plum, we get as many of our blueberries as we can from forested bilberry farms in Poland and Scandinavia. Because they grow naturally in the forest, they have to be hand-picked, which of course makes them a bit pricier. But these little bundles of power are truly a superfood – and at Plum, we care about stuff like this.

Did you know?

Our blueberry, banana and vanilla puree has been our best-selling recipe virtually since we introduced it back in March 2009!

Like many things in the wonderful world of babies, weaning can be more complex than you’d assumed. Especially if you happen to wander into a store specialising in ‘baby gear’ – you might well walk out thinking a combination steamer/puree device with a vacuum-sealing attachment was something you couldn’t possibly live without.

Pshaw, says your mother-in-law. “When [insert name here] was a baby, we didn’t even have bibs! I had to wipe his face clean with my hair!” Okay, so perhaps we exaggerate slightly… but surely, there’s a happy medium out there between massive overconsumption of stuff we’ll never use and ending up without the things we really need? If only you had your own lab, with thousands of willing testers who would give you the real low-down…

Hey, you do! At least, we do here at Plum. The testers were you Plum parents, and the ‘lab’ was thousands of kitchens and dining rooms across the nation. All we did was survey you to see what you really, really couldn’t live without when weaning. And the top five answers were… drum-roll please!

Ice cube trays

A good-quality ice-cube tray can be your best friend when weaning (well, that and a really big pack of baby wipes!) With a little advance planning, you can make and freeze enough cubes of different purees to last your baby several weeks; just spoon the puree into the trays, then pop out the cubes once frozen and store them in freezer bags.

The cubes from a standard tray will weigh around an ounce each; when you’re first starting out, one may be enough for your baby’s lunch, but soon you’ll find yourself reaching for two or even three. This also makes it super-easy to try out different combinations and see which your baby likes best!

Two tips for the wise, however; always label your bags of pureed goodness carefully (after all, pureed pumpkin and mango look a lot alike when frozen!) and always add the date they were made. Frozen purees should be safe to eat for up to 2 months, but they’re really best eaten within a month to avoid off flavours and freezer burn.

Easy peas-y: If you’re planning on making lots of purees at home, it’s worth investing in a silicone ice-cube tray; they last forever, and their flexibility makes it easy to pop the cubes out once frozen. This extra-large blue number from Betterware would do the trick nicely.

Spoons, and lots of them!

Some babies can be fussy about putting hard metal things in their mouths, so if yours is one of them, try one of the smaller, soft rubber weaning spoons.

Trend alert: This funky-looking spoon from Tomy sits upright on a weighted base when you’re not using it, which keeps it from coming into contact with less-than-clean surfaces. When your baby gets into the act, the rounded handle is easy for little hands to grab. Plus, it just looks cool!

Bibs

Buy as many as you think you’ll need. Then double it. For feeding, especially early on, size definitely matters – the more of that little bod you can cover with bib, the less you’ll need to hose down later. This is even more true if you’re trying baby-led weaning. Sleeved bibs are worth a try, too.

Mess-catcher: So-called ‘pelican bibs’ have a pouch on the front to catch dribbles and crumbs. Make sure you get one that’s easily cleaned, though; these funky ones from Bibetta are made from soft, easily-cleaned neoprene, and you can turn the pocket inside-out to get rid of all the gunk (they’re also machine-washable, hooray!)

Unbreakable melamine or plastic bowls, in small sizes

These don’t have to be fancy, they just have to be available, dish-washable, and unbreakable (trust us, when your little darling learns to drop things off the high chair, you’ll understand why!)

Bargain of the day: At a whole 90p for 6, IKEA’s KALAS children’s bowls are hard to beat. And they’ll work a treat for breakfast cereal later, too.

Face-washers or muslin cloths

This one pretty much goes without saying – weaning is a messy business, and while wet-wipes are convenient, it’s hard to beat a good old face-washer or muslin for absorbency, machine-washability and overall convenience. Keep a neatly-folded stack in a box or basket next to the high-chair – you’ll thank yourself for it.

Buy a dozen, you’ll need ‘em: Again, for affordability, IKEA is hard to beat at 79 pence for 4 brightly-coloured face cloths (hint: you do want coloured ones, as white get stained and dull very quickly!) ASDA also offers a pack of 3 printed muslins for £3.50 (see left).

Optional extras:

Hand blender – extremely handy (pardon the pun) for making purees directly in your pot/steamer. Less mess = less time washing = happier parent! Good models are available from Bosch, Kenwood, and Dualit.

Plastic painting tarp or splash mat for under the high chair, especially if you’re keen to try baby-led weaning – those finger foods can turn into missiles before you know it! (Alternative: Dogs are excellent floor-cleaners, and soon learn to hang around at mealtimes!)

Best of luck, and remember, the mess only lasts for a little while! Your baby’s adventure with food will, with any luck, last a lifetime.

And just for a bit of real-life humour, our fave weaning quote (courtesy of Mumsnet):

“You need a baby, some food and a PVC home. 

Add food and baby together and stand well back (but be alert for any choking).
 Eventually they become acceptable to society and you are able to take them to restaurants – the following month they leave home.”

When we launched our recent campaign in aid of the national baby charity Bliss, we were amazed by all the messages we got from mums and dads, telling us how Bliss had touched their lives when their babies were born prematurely, too small, or too sick to make it on their own. Their stories were very moving, and the gratitude these parents obviously still feel for the help they received at such a stressful time was very clear.

Your support has made all the difference.

The Plum campaign has turned out to be a great success, raising £30,000 to help Bliss with their essential work. After all, as one mum said, “You never expect your baby to need special care… it just happens.” And when it happens, parents need plenty of support and information to help them understand and cope with what can be a very tough time indeed.

Bliss offers that support in lots of different ways; for instance, they have a free helpline staffed by trained advisors who can talk to family members about their feelings and concerns. They operate support groups for families, and provide one-to-one counselling if it’s needed. And when it’s finally time to take baby home, Bliss provides parent packs with heaps of helpful information on how to make that transition as confident and smooth as possible.

We’re beyond excited at being able to present this amazing charity with a cheque for £30,000, but as we were planning the presentation, we had another thought.

Many of you have clearly been touched by Bliss, and since your purchases of Plum are what has made this donation possible, we’d love to invite a few of you along to help present the cheque and meet some of the people who make Bliss happen.

If you’d be interested in coming along, and you’re able to be in London (with or without baby in tow!) on the afternoon of Thursday, May 3, please send us an email at yummyyummy@plum-baby.co.uk. Tell us your story, and why you’d like to attend and show your support for Bliss. Depending on how many replies we get, we may not be able to ask everyone to join us, but we thought you deserved to be a part of what should be a very special day.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s amazing what £30,000 can do – and you made it all happen! Here’s what your funds could achieve, thanks to Bliss:

• Fund the Bliss helpline for 9 months
• Provide counselling for 75 families
• Pay for 15,000 parent information packs
• Cover the cost of 60 support groups

So if you were one of the parents who bought a special Bliss pack of Plum, give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back! You’ve helped a baby who really needs it.