June 2013; Toddling into our second year!

[BeanCalledPickle]

New thread ladies:-) I think we filled about ten threads when pregnant and this is only our fourth post natally!

[SunnyL]

I'm in!

We're certainly quieter than we were before babies but maybe that's because our babies now do most of the talking.

If only I knew what she was saying....

[BeanCalledPickle]

I look forward to her being able to communicate. She does understand though, you ask her questions and she nods yes or ignores you if no:-)

Glad Lilly likes nursery as much as Polly. I too like to think we have the perfect balance. We each work four days with me off Monday and DH off Wednesday and then three nursery days.

I seem to be having an easier ride of it than many friends who were very much number one parent in their houses. The fact DH took two months paternity leave and now has a day with her a week means that there is no automatic heading to me for comfort. He is just as good. I think paternity leave should be compulsory:-) Deffo makes life easier for mum!

[Mrs81]

You may be on to something Bean. Generally speaking, I'm still the go to for comfort.
Last night was miserable in the end. DS wouldn't be comforted by either of us, lots of screamy crying, back arching, resisting being cuddled, etc. In the end I had to bf to calm him in down - which I've not had to do for ages. I've been assuming this is all teething angst but to be honest it could be absolutely anything. How are other babies coping with teeth? Bring on communication!

[HungryHorace]

I'm with you, Bean. DH looked after DD when I went back to work and will look after DS too when I go back in Jan. DD will be comforted by either of us, which is great, especially as they're occasionally tag teaming us at night.

DD understands loads of stuff, but doesn't have much communication back to us yet. She's finally walking properly too after months of cruising and doing a few steps, just not enough to be deemed independent walking. We need to get her feet re-measured soon too, but will probably get John Lewis to do it as we need to pick up a safety gate from there in the next week.

She's into everything. It's a nightmare trying to keep her from fiddling with stuff!

[BeanCalledPickle]

Top tip on shoes is to get them measured properly, have the novelty of buying new first shoes and then hit eBay which is absolutely heaving with barely worn tiny shoes. Have also started buying lots of boys clothes for polly. Jeans and cords are essentially the same and this way they don't all have to be pink!

[HungryHorace]

Boy's' clothes are blue, green or brown it seems. Not overly inspiring! But to make a change from pink, I can see the attraction.

I read that you shouldn't buy secondhand shoes. It is probably a myth perpetuated by Clarks though, isn't it?!

[HungryHorace]

Interesting autocorrect there...boys' (thanks, iPad!).

[cuphat]

I'm glad the babies are enjoying nursery.

DD understands lots too; she seems to have a very good memory as she'll remember things after hearing them only once or twice (definitely doesn't take after me!). She puts her hand up for yes which is very cute! It makes things much easier as I can say "do you want water?", "do you want to sleep?", do you want to go for a walk?" etc and she'll put her hand up if she does. She shakes her head for no. Either that or pushes your hand away if you're trying to offer her something! If someone says "well done' to her, she claps herself (as happened at baby group yesterday). I'm loving this age, they're so cute.

How are you getting on with the two of them, HH? Are you managing to breastfeed with DD to look after too?

After not having any teeth for over a year, six have appeared in the space of a week! DD has coped ok with it; she struggled more months ago when they must have been moving below her gums. She already has a molar at the bottom when she only has one tooth in total at the top; the HV told us they always come in a set order, so she was wrong!

[RueDeWakening]

I'm oot in!

M has finally cut some of the third molar today, hurrah! It's been a complete bugger and giving him gyp for the last 3 weeks at least. We're not done yet though, he's been whimpering in his sleep already tonight

cup not sure what your HV would have made of my DD then, she cut her bottom two middle teeth, then at the top the two just next to them came through. She looked like a vampire for ages :o

[Mrs81]

Cup - your hv would be delighted by ds: he has a third molar poking through. So three molars and a canine all making a bid for freedom at the same time explains a lot of our problems at the mo! Doesn't equate to more sleep but it does make it easier to understand why he ends up in bed with me and dh ends up in the spare room...

[cuphat]

Ha, what a shame I have no reason to see the HV, I'd love to show her! It looks like a molar is coming through on the other side too.

[AlohaMama]

Hello ladies!! Sorry not been around much of late. Too busy spending all my time on pinterest planning decor for the new house assuming it all goes through than on here! Am loving this age - it's so much fun watching them learn to do new things. Still no words though, mind you I can understand pretty clearly what she wants by the volume of the scream.

I second Bean on ebay for shoes. Particularly winter boots, which I've been buying very cheaply. E was measured at Clark's and I'm just buying that size and the next one in the hope that will cover us for the winter.

How are the new mums of 2 getting on? Hope it's all settling down for you.

[Mrs81]

Good morning
I could do with tapping in to your collective experiences. DS has been sleeping really badly for a couple of weeks now (awake every 1-2hrs all night long) and we are all knackered
Until now, our default fallback position when he doesn't settle has been to bf because a- it calms him down and b- he would generally sleep for several hrs after that. But I don't want to keep doing that. My nipples are shot to pieces, it doesn't have the samw staying power it used to and ds isn't really feeding, rather comfort sucking and I'm not a dummy. plus I'd like to stop bf soon but that's for a whole other day
I assume other babies have horrendous nights from time to time (if not then !). What do you do? Do you spend a long time pacing/rocking/cuddling? Are there a lot of tears?

[MadameJ]

Mrs, my dd still has shocking nights but we made the decision to night wean a few weeks ago as like your little one she would wake to comfort suck and it was driving me mad!! We had a few rough nights, instead of boob I offered water and rubbed her back. I really hope I'm not tempting fate but things have definitely improved and we have even had a couple of nights of sleeping through :-)
But the biggest bonus for me is dh can now settle her so it's not always left to me x

[Mrs81]

Thank you Madame. Sorry to hear your nights have been grim also. ? But yippee to improvements!
I think we need to bite the bullet tonight. We did this earlier in the summer and it worked for around a month. He was sleeping for 9-10hr stretches, having a quick feed and going back for another couple of hrs. DS could be jolted out of his fankle by some music or similar and then gently coaxed back to sleep in his cot. Now it's all gone to pot. It has become too easy for dh to hand a screaming ds to me my boobs and flee to the spare bed. And it's been easy for me to pop him on because I can't stomach being cried at for 30+ mins at a time over and over. But it's not helping any of us really.

[RueDeWakening]

Tbh our default if m is waking for no particular reason is nurofen. It's usually effective, and we blame teeth. It usually is... Can't remember the last time I did a night feed.

[Mrs81]

We've been nurofen-ing/calpol-ing just about every night for the past 2 wks. It helps a bit

[SunnyL]

We've got a bit of the opposite problem today. She was a bit under the weather yesterday and was sent home from nursery. She then slept from 7.15 to 9 am and has just gone down for another nap. she hasn't eaten anything since a biscuit yesterday afternoon and has barely drank today. She's just a floppy clingy baby today. Barely a smile out if her too

[Mrs81]

Oh Sunny That's hard going xx
How are her nappies? Given that it's a Friday & the weekend looms is it worth getting some advice from the gp? Ours is great re babies/children. Even if appts are all full then the duty gp will phone and discuss - which to be honest is all that we've ever needed in the smattering of times ds has made us particularly worried

[SunnyL]

luckily my dad is a GP (retired) which means I have a very useful 24hr phoneline for advice. Annoyingly we're meant to be going on holiday tomorrow on a long drive north to Skye. She's not the best traveller even when well so it could be an interesting journey

[cuphat]

Well, after saying that DD has slept through for months and has been fine with teething recently, we have just had a few bad nights! There seem to be a couple more molars coming through. I've been offering water, giving anbesol and then cuddling her while talking in a whisper, which seems to send her back off to sleep - if she's going to go back to sleep! We had a really bad night last night as she woke up at around 1 but didn't seem tired at all and so would not go back to sleep for a few hours. At one point, we thought she'd gone off to sleep, so we fell asleep ourselves and then discovered an hour later that she was just sitting up in her cot cuddling her teddy. As she was happy to sit and play with a couple of toys we left her to it and she eventually fell asleep.

[cuphat]

Hope your DD gets better soon and is ok travelling, Sunny.

[SunnyL]

sadly I'm now sharing my bed with a poorly little girl who stinks of puke and DH is in the spare room. Her mattress was soaked through so pulled her into bed with me.

Great holiday so far!

[Mrs81]

How is your dd today Sunny? Did you manage to get away?

I bought ds a duvet and pillow today (thank you Ikea!) and he has settled really well in his cot so far tonight. He had become too wriggly for sleeping bags!
Last night was grim; must have been c9-10 wake ups over the night. Eventually he slept best in his pram (it fully reclines and I'm totally grateful we bought such a swanky pram - it has been worth every penny and more!) which wasn't ideal but at least stopped him chomping on my boobs all night long!

Hope everyone is doing well

Night night! x

[HungryHorace]

Mrs, DD will not take to the duvet / pillow I've got her. Stubborn child just stands up in bed if the duvet is in it. We've got her in sheet and blankets for now to try to wean her onto it. Madness!

I refuse to pay out for 18-36 bags and she's nigh on too tall for the 6-18 month ones, so she won't be in sleeping bags again! I'm debating just having DS in sheets / blankets from the word go to avoid this problem in the future though it may be just DD being a pain.

We had a weird night with DD on Friday night. She woke up inconsolable about something and took ages to be calmed down. She was clearly trying to tell us about it, but obviously can't talk, which frustrated her even more. It took a good 40 minutes before she'd go back to sleep in her bed. I'm not sure if it was extreme teething or a night terror / nightmare. Poor sausage. :-(