Summer holidays are over, the PESH are bringing their bumps and baybees back to school

[TheOriginalWinkly]

Pack your giant pants in your satchel and maternity pads in your pencil case, it's the antenatal thread for BESH graduates

CRESH

Faith - pinky faithlet arrived 14th April 2013
Pinkr - suitably pinky one arrived 25th August 2013
Jethro - blue one arrived 23rd September 2013
Noks - pink one arrived 12th January 2014
Frankel - large pink one arrived 10th March 2014
Merks - pink one landed safe and sound 21st March 2014
Sinky - Stubborn blue one arrived 26th March 2014
Driz - blue one arrived 12th June 2014
Kat - pink one arrived 21st June 2014
draf - pink calf on 1st July 2014
winks - a pink one dragged out kicking and screaming on 4th July 2014
euro - a pink one in a hurry to see the world, born on 17th July 2014
dor - a pink one born at speed on 28th July 2014
ginge - completing the ESH Summer of Pink on 23rd August 2014

PESH
Buggerlugs - Buglet due 20th October
Fankle - ESHlet expected 4th January
Cunty - Minichops expected 7th February

My first droid last time was fairly average. Went straight back to super tampons. Not had one yet this time, have a spa afternoon on Sunday so place your bets as i am sure i had signs of ovulation.
sorry about the funeral winks, hope your journey there is ok.

That sounds tough for her, winks. I hope your trip us as ok as these things can be and your flights are poonami free.

I think the CRESH are child rearing evil selfish gags, aren't they?

I had ewcm earlier this week so I think droidal return is imminent for me too.

I've had quite a nice day. I went out for lunch with one of my new colleagues and had wine which was ace. I even managed to squeeze into some of my old work stuff for the occasion. And I managed to avoid the third round of jabs- kfzk took her while I was at lunch. :). We are now steeling ourselves for the arrival of the mil in a couple of hours.

I've had the odd glass of wine during pregnancy and since birth but not more than one in a session and probably no more than about 8 in total. I am now a complete lightweight and very cheap date! I miss guilt-free drinking!

Yep, droid has invaded. Quelle surprise! Explains my horrendous mood swings of late though.

Heck, I found it hard after a normal full term birth with quick recovery. That is because it is hard! Don't let her knock your confidence, you had a difficult start but you have done great.

I cant remember what her thing was apart from the whole EASY thing. I read the book once but was annoyed by her totally bogus breastfeeding advice. I seem to remember it being more flexible than Gina but still if you did anything different you had fallen into "accidental parenting" which was her way of saying rod for own back, a concept that i think is untrue for young babies. I tried her pick up put down thing but it was an epic failure. As with any book, your baby csnt read it, it might have some tips that will work for you and some that won't. Read it and pick the bits you like and ignore the rest. Unfortunately I think many of these books fuel maternal anxiety by telling you that what you were doing was wrong.

I agree. I think most books are designed to make parents feel inadequate.

I bought that book (the only parenting one we have) and immediately took against it. I didn't realise it was a routine book. That is not how I want to parent (I'm not judging those who go down the routine route, it just didn't feel right for me). C has found her own preferences (I wouldn't go as far as to call it a routine) for some of her day and the rest of the time we just go with the flow, which is right for us. The book is not what I wanted at all so I have only opened it once. I should have bought something else but C was nearing milk meltdown when we were book shopping so our choice was rather rushed!

Some of my August group have done that from around that time and it seems to be working well for them. We are following the SIDS advice to the letter (i.e. that all naps are in a room with you for the first six months) as prematurity and low birth weight are two SIDS risk factors. She naps in the living room with us in the evening until we go to bed. I'm managing not to be too anxious about her generally but SIDS is something that worries me. I guess I am still waiting for something to go badly wrong. It's a hangover from the years of ttc and not believing it would ever happen for us.

I agree with euro. e still sleeps in a room with a parent due to sids advice and will do till at least six months. We did try earlier with M but it was a disaster, he didn't settle upstairs and our evening was spent going up and down and i watched the monitor more than the telly. When we gave up and kept him with us it was less stressful. We just put him in the carry cot of the pram or he slept on one of us. Unfortunately it took till 9 months to get him to have a bedtime routine that involved being asleep in a cot by 8pm. Am hoping for better luck this time!
ive just re read some of that book and I think i dislike it more than i did the first time. I am struggling to find bits of it that i think are good although as with all of these things it depends on your baby. Eventually a routine becomes a good thing, although i hate the Gina stuff for little babies, some of her toddler advice is really good and helped me get a nice lunch break in the afternoons. Oh how i miss that time now!!

We also stuck rigidly to the SIDS advice and kept L with us at all times till 6m. I didn't follow any books but a friend did Baby Whisperer and it suited her first but not her 2nd. I think the EASY thing is sometimes useful when you are in a mega fog and can't think what the hell you're doing so sometimes I'd think, ok we've done a feed, let's have a play on the mat and then try a nap. L usually fell asleep after a feed though so I always followed his lead.

He was a Velcro baby but once he moved into his own room at 7m he seemed to like his own space (sick of the sight of us?) and always has ever since. Terrible sleeper till he could walk but great ever since apart from teething/illness/growth & development spurts. Now he wakes up in the morning and says, mmm I had a nice sleep!

We did and are doing the same. Naps in the same room as us and then she will go into her own room at about 6 months. I too have a terrible fear of SIDS.

As for the routine stuff we try to keep things regular and normal and we have a routine shaped mainly by The Little Mister but I don't get too hung up on it at the moment. That will have to change when I go back to work though as things will become a little more regimented.

Just to add a different voice, J didn't fit his Moses basket anymore at 3 months, which is where he napped and slept when we weren't in the bed attached to the bed nest. Then he went in his cot in his own room for naps and soon also for the first part if the night sleep. He moves to a bed nest after the night feed (anytime between 11pm and 4am). He finds it difficult to fall asleep when there is lots of light and we're doing stuff. So it seemed sensible. Also, we got our sechslife back a bit

And we have had a bedtime regime since 8 weeks, worked v well for lembie. He sleeps 7-7 with (sometimes many, sometimes once) feeding between.

Like Lembie, E has had a bedtime routine since about 11 weeks. She outgrew her Moses basket by 9 weeks and, as she likes to thrash her arms about, she hated sleeping in the pram in the house. It was important to me that I had a small amount of me time in the evenings, doing everything on my own it meant I would have gone nuts without those couple of hours while E was asleep in her cot in my room. I took into account the SIDS advice and as E was a full-term baby, a fatty healthy weight and the other risk factors (previous history, drink, drugs, smoking, etc) were not applicable so I made an informed decision. She had a monitor next to the cot and I checked on her regularly. You have to do what works best for you.

SIDS rates peak around two months. If I thought I could get away with it now I would perhaps put E to bed an hour or two before me now she is 4.5 months. As for her own room I'd actually have to get around to sorting it and assembling the cot....

Spa afternoon with fri3nds was just what I needed, so relaxing!

Passes matchsticks to bugs. Lembie fed at 3am (and at 11pm) and I scared myself with sids advice and lay there listening to his breathing between 3 and 5 am. Yawn...