April 2015 thread 7: Our viable, wriggling bumps have us walking belly-first into the new year!

[BrixtonBunny]

New thread xx

Oh my! Building furniture this morning. My abs are missing in action I actually can't lift anything so poor DH has had to do loads!

We build a sideboard today. Took us an hour and a half lots of swearing and bickering but it's up and we are quite impressed even though the doors aren't quite right it'll do till we get fed up of looking at them wonky.

catsofa I'm using the Dylon hand dye. With the green I followed the instructions with the 250g of clothing but the first lot was pretty dark and I added another lot of stuff into the left over water when it was finished (pretty much double the original batch by sight), this time with the purple i added stuff in an item at a time till I got the desired shade, but I think i've put too much in and some of it's looking a bit tie dye, guess we'll see when I take it out in half an hour :S I didn't go for the machine stuff because last time I used it the colour turned out horribly and our machine is only a couple of months old and PiL would murder me if I broke it with dye

urgh! DD was clearly a fish in a previous life! every time she sees a body of water she tries to get in it, including the bucket of dying clothes >.> the purple things seem to have turned out all right, have put a second lot of muslin cloths in to get some really pale purple ones.

Don't forget you accrue holiday Hidingthefear, so you'll have 37/52 worth of holiday to take or get paid too. Or is that the two weeks you're talking about carrying over? Statutory holiday entitlement is 4.54 weeks I believe so you should get 3/4 of that at the end of your maternity leave.

Well after a very productive day I'm feeling very fed up!! Dh was supposed to be home early as there wasn't much on at work today and I'm babysitting tonight but he's only just picked dss up so will be another 45 mins :( would just like life to get a bit easier for a while and give me a rest!

Just bought a manduca carrier with 25% off, hooray!

I've got 2 blocks of 6 weeks to work with a week off between before maternity leave. Got to love term time working patterns. Officially my mat leave starts on the 13th April but I'm off the 2 weeks before for Easter.

Must remember to put my matb1 in on Monday when I go to work and remember to copy it for DH before I send it to HR. My brain is a bit scattered and I tend to forget everything. Stupid baby brain. (I say baby not preg as it never leaves you!)

I've had a productive afternoon, bought some sheets for the carrycot £10 for 4 from Babies r Us, and a couple of white cotton hats from Mothercare. Then got home and put away xmas decs and cleared, cleaned and organised the kitchen cupboards so everything is now in date and tidy.

While we were in the baby shops we had a look at car seats and DH wants to know why I was planning to buy a group 0 then group 1 car seat when there are ones on the market that go from birth to 7 years meaning we'll only ever need one. I don't really have a good answer other than I like the convenience of a small car seat to move a sleeping baby, and that it will clip onto the pram. I've also read things recently about rear facing for several years which seems a good idea. He thinks this is all a gimmick (not necessarily the rear facing but the other reasons) and trying to make us spend more than we need to. I've said I'll come home and do some research. Has anyone got any useful car seat insights I can report back to him?

Oh and thanks for the reminder to copy MATB1 form before giving it to work Lauren - have made a mental note!

squatting I'll keep adding to it as I come across sizes, once I've finished my xmas dying spree I'll separate back out all the Saisburys things to get the sizes or go in there over the weekend and take a picture of the size chart on the multipacks as they have weights on that are missing from the website

I've decided as a new years resolution to start a blog, it will focus on the rest of the pregnancy and general mummy stuff is my plan, what sort of things would y'all want to see on a blog if you read blogs? at the moment I'm going with little anecdotes, things like hospital bag packing lists and reviews of 'stuff'...

Banana we've been through 3 car seats and DD is 3&1/2. The first was part of a travel system so it clipped on the pram lasted for about 9 months, then we got the next one up that was rear/front facing and reclined which lasted her till she was 3 then I got a high backed booster seat that had a 5 point harness and detaches from the booster base. Only just got rid if the harness and started using a real seatbelt with it about 2 days ago. She is very excited to be a big girl with a new seatbelt. I'll keep her with the high back for at least a year then she can just have the booster seat till she doesn't need it again.

I'd recommend Kiddicare's own brand car seats reasonably priced about £25-40 depending on offers, easy to fit only thing is they have the alarm thing on the harness and sometimes they beep if your driving without a DC in the seat! But if you fasten it first it's fine or do what I do and turn the radio up louder to drown it out.

Boo that sounds brilliant! I think lists are always helpful (right up your street ), I also like reading honest blog posts about the problems and difficulties of parenting (and how to deal with these) as well as the lovely stuff. Can't wait to read it!

We've ordered our pram now - very exciting (and feels very real )!

Oh I forgot to say the middle car seat was suitable from birth so if you didn't want a pram compatible car seat you could get away with 2 reasonably priced seats.

Boo your blog sounds great, I'll definitely read it. I like Brixton's suggestion about the difficulties of parenting.

Thanks Lauren and Squatting, all useful info. I think DH is a bit naive as he thinks a baby is just as likely to wake up being moved in an infant car seat as it is being moved from car seat to pram. I disagree! I'd appreciate any other comments from experienced mums. I'd been looking at a Cabriofix then 2-way Pearl. Ultimately I think if I really want the two stage seats he'll go with it, he just doesn't want to spend money unnecessarily on things we don't really need.

Hi hope everyone's ok today!
Have been feeling exhausted today, couldn't even be bothered to log in earlier to chat

Fed up of partners family arguments, it's really getting me down. Being dragged into them as usual. There's a new drama every week and this week it has been us in the firing line.
But how the heck do you distance yourself from "family-in-law" when you're still with the partner?!
I suffered with palpitations for a few years (outcome was eptopic beats/extra beats) with no medication. But they have been 100 times worse these past few weeks.
Everytime his phone rings or he receives a text message, I get palpitations thinking oh great what now?! Sometimes mainly at night I feel like I'm short of breath. I can't cope with this stress! Feeling very teary.
Actually feel like I just want to move to another city/country. If it wasn't for my mum I would probably have already of gone.
And I feel bad for my partner with saying this. As all he does is work hard to pay the bills and look after me/us but I can't see a way out of his family otherwise :-(
Sorry to be a dreary Deirdre tonight.
X

Boo thanks for the spreadsheet looks really useful - hadn't realised there was variation between all the different shops! I've got a few newborn bits so far but going to move to buying 0-3 incase I have a bigger baby! Don't want to get too much though (which is going to be hard!) as gender is a surprise so want to be able to get more specific things when baby is here.

Re maternity leave - I'm planning on taking it from 38 weeks but take 3 weeks holiday first so will end work at the end of feb - part of me would like to work longer but I'm already struggling a bit with 48 hour week and a 70 mile round trip in the car every day. I do want to finish then just a bit worried incase I get bored waiting for baby - I'm used to being busy and tend to get restless if I'm sitting around the house all day.

Thanks for info re car seats - mental note to check how long mine will actually last!

Hi squatting.
Thanks for replying, yes he agrees with how difficult they are. But it's hard for me to get in his mindset as I don't know what I'd do in his situation as my family couldn't be further different from them! It's a hard one as he has a child that we see regularly otherwise we would move away, which we have both said.
I feel like at the most all he can do is "put up" with his family being the way they are. I suppose I'm answering my own question really. There's not a lot I can do unless I was to leave him or move away. And obviously neither I would do lightly, as I feel guilty just thinking about it.
We've been together a fair few years so that must count for something, but his family seem to have coincidently got worse over the past few months.
I feel like I'm worth more than the stress now that I have something more important to think about and look after. I just feel a lot more protective of myself now and for my baby and have got to do what's best for us :-( x

Boo I love the spreadsheet!

Penguin - try to use the time on yourself. Once you have the baby you'll wish you did! There will be no time to be bored i assure you. I used the time off before DD came (a couple of weeks) to fill the freezer with food so we would all be deliciously well nourished with zero effort after she arrived. Plan to do the same this time but will need longer to achieve the same result due to dear DD - also I'll need to cook for her come to think of it...

RL - sigh. Sounds like you're already quite good at detaching and not getting too involved so play to your strengths.

Smog, thank you. I suppose I have come to be quite good at that. I suppose it's all easier said than done but you know when you really need to be strong. X

Mine were in the same car seat that can be rear facing and then forward facing and last up to 18kg (which was 3 years in my two's cases!). It doesn't come out but then I don't like travel systems which I'm happy to elaborate on if you'd like but I know that they suits lots of people. My experience is if you get them used to being moved them they can be moved iyswim.

I think this has to come down to your oh RL20, it must be really tough to live on tenterhooks all the time but he has to stand up to them and say you don't want any part of their drama.