Further freakingly fantabulous adventures of the 40+ Mummies Part 2

[blueblackdye]

Our 2nd thread is full but it won't prevent us from laughing, moaning, keeping on supporting each other, sharing and chatting over our new life with 1 or 2, even 5 children !
Here you go, fantastic 40+ Mums, a brand new thread for all of us, old friends from the pregnancy thread or new joiners

Please all wish my little fella lovely sleeps tonight. Last night he went down at 7 woke at 10. 2 3 and 5

LRM I'd eat cereal three meals a day if I didn't restrain myself!

Gave DD Piriton tonight in desperate bid for sleep (in my defence she has been complaining of being itchy quite a lot...). Now DH using POWER TOOLS outside her window and she is stirring. Give Me Fecking Strength.

LRM hope baby sleep dust wafts over your house on the cooling breeze...

Sending over Mr Sandman to all of us.
Welcome to Wilts. I am 42, London based, DS is 4.8 yo and DD will be 11 months tomorrow ! They are the reason of my life, I m so glad, blessed and grateful to have these little cheeky cuties.

Got to spend day with in laws tomorrow. First time since their disastrous trip and our row in May. I feel so blank in my heart towards them all: I want to be bigger than that (and outwardly am...have made fairy cakes, got T's footprint done on a mug to match one from DD etc) but feel hollow at having to make polite family talk with somebody who can understand me so little she thinks I don't care enough about my children and feels sorry for my husband. Any sage advice (or @ss kicking) welcome!

Right am stupid to be up so late, night all

Hello everyone - brief respite in the mania... Baby W is MUCH calmer and not in pain any more, it seems. Her immature gut is being tended to - I'm dairy free (and am the worlds least likely vegan, so it's not easy...) and she has prescription formula for her top up bottle, colief for the lactose and lansoprozole for the reflux. I HATE being the sort of person who knows the names of medications; my mum can reel off all her 1000s of different tablets etc and I do NOT want to be her... Also HATE giving medicine to BabyW - she's so tiny and cute and trusting and should just be having boob, bottle and sucking her bunny's ears.
It really has been a hellish few months but hopefully on the sunny side now. Rant over.
DS's birthday yesterday - three! Imagine! Went on a steam train and I haven't seen such pure joy in my life. It's his party tomorrow so I am melting into a puddle of stress, as his fire engine cake sags mournfully in the cupboard. Off to make magnetic fish game for kids to whack each other about the head with tomorrow. Sorry to post and run but Craft We Must for a |Better Britain.

Scarecrow. Wow your dust worked only woke once in 12 hours! !! Send me some more please. Better still he woke and went back to sleep all on his own x

scare prob too late but my tactic with people who deeply pain me is to examine what I need from them and try not to need it. Combined with compassion but that's really hard.

mrsw glad baby w is feeling better and ds is being cute. Good luck with the party - it will be fine.

lrm baby monkey pulled it off! I'm praying for a repeat performance!

AFM tensions beginning re mil. She doesn't seem to want to leave ....

Xxx

Scarecrow, hope you survived the day with in laws. I m very lucky mine are quite ok. I quite like Somewhere's advice. I tend to play the Asian card: put on a smile, nod to everything, bite my tongue and do what I feel right for me. Ignore them, you are a great Mum, L is lovely and T v chilled, it shows how much they are confident, thanks to your relationship with them, at this age they feel our mood and they react the way we do. As you said before, happy mum, happy child.
Somewhere, hum mil wants to stick around, can DH suggest something to her ? Like "should I drive you home Tomorrow morning or after lunch?"
MrsW, hope the 3 yo party goes well today
LRM, I need D to share a bit of the dust from Scarecrow with A, please. She now wakes up every 4 hours.

We have the hottest day of our trip, 30 C, atm hiding in our room, nap time anyway for the 2 kids, I have spa appointment in 10 min and another one tomorrow. A tasted sand yesterday, hope she understood it is not eatable, will see tomorrow if she repeats her mistake or not.

Wave to all from Algarve

A celebrated her 11 months yesterday btw!!! Can't believe a year ago I was packing to go back to my Mum's to give birth

Ps: I seem to be as big as a year ago though :(

Bbh. Sending sleeping dust by way of carrier pigeon! !!

Oh oh, I am falling behind again. Welcome, wilts, and lovely to see knicky and chairman and eagle and midget and everyone else!

scarecrow I am a pianist and I work a lot with singers. My specialism is music by women - will never take part in a concert unless there is at least one piece by a woman. My first degree is in composition! I wrote two songs for DH as my wedding present to him and haven't really written since. I miss it... Must start again. Ps hope your in laws were ok. And that your serenity is intact.

bbd I am at your wonderful sounding holiday. I hope it is wonderful family time too.

We went for a walk by the river today, then had lunch at our favourite country pub before coming home and spending time in the garden and with the new tunnel we bought BG. He was thrilled and spent ages dashing in and out. He mostly wants to practise walking though - still holding onto our hands, but the seven-league steps are getting more manageable!
Sleep is utterly dreadful though. The last two nights he has screamed almost nonstop. He is asleep and picking him up does nothing, he just thrashes and goes on yelling as though he is in pain. We wake him to break the cycle but the minute he is back asleep, it all starts again. He sounds in pain. I am going to ring the paediatrician tomorrow, but if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!

Sorry, I am very bad at replying to posts. I love reading everybody, you help keep me sane!

Hello all

Bit of a crap day today. My dear sis who is a single mum, she has 2 kids, 3yo niece is lovely but 5yo nephew is a bit of a bully. He made my ds cry today in what felt to me like a really horrible way, and my ds seemed shocked and momentarily deeply upset. There's a history of this (i once posted on AIBU about it and got flamed by some quite horrible people) and I am always hoping it'll go away as my sis is my best friend and its so great to hang out together. Nephew seems to get better but then backslides. Ds seems very resilient but I can't really tell. I suppose it could be worse but it has cast a pall over the day.

somewhere, really feel for you: can imagine how difficult that must be. Is it something your sister is aware of?

Somewhere, that's a tough one to deal with. Had the same question as scarecrow, does your DSis understand that there is an issue?

Have to write a paper today. Am already procrastinating...

Just lost my post! Grrrr

Yes she does know. Without wanting to be disloyal her life is pretty stressful and she didn't choose a great dad. I don't think there is much she can/will do beyond what she's already doing - send to room, discuss rights and wrongs. Nephew is an odd cove - very bright, often charming, very moody, precocious and a bit evil (that was what got me slated in my previous thread!) but he throws sand in people's faces and pushes over little girls at the soft play venue.

The occasion this weekend was my dear niece's birthday party.

There was a piñata and all the kids hit it fairly hard except ds, who said it would hurt the donkey if he hit it. Maybe I just have to accept this is his character - a softer kind of boy - and the swings and roundabouts that come with that.

Maybe I got too upset - maybe this is all about my issues?

Nonetheless I'm sick of nephew. My sis threw two consecutive parties for neice, on sat for grandparents and on sun for kids. There were incidents on Saturday too. Altogether too much time in nephews company for me and for ds.

Sorry for me me me post.

So sorry for the hard times being had.

goat, the sleep/screaming thing sounds just awful. Could it be night terrors? Does he scream when awake at all? I hope the paediatrician is useful.

somewhere, that sounds really difficult. What a terrible situation for you and your sis. I guess she knows that people get fed up spending time with her boy. But at the same time once you have kids of your own it's difficult to spend time with other children who upset them.

Actually that brings me on to a good friend whose daughter is close in age to DS. She is terrible at setting boundaries and caves in to every tantrum. The dad is the same. Consequently they have the toddler from hell and they want to come round tomorrow and trash our house (again). I'm trying to put them off and feel really negatively towards them. Her mum even told her to start getting on top of her DS's behaviour and she feebly said she'd try. I'm biting my tongue too much. Don't want to lose a friend by upsetting her, but don't want to lose a friend by avoiding her. Aaaaargh!

Anyway, food to eat and TDF highlights to watch .

I'm going to take my own medicine. What I need from nephew is ability to hang out harmoniously all day, as its amazingly restful to kick back with family/oldest friend for company while the kids play. Well I will just have to nor have it, or have less, and see other friends more. Whilst remaining compassionate towards nephew - he's only a child and has had a tough time - and sis.

Chair sorry for me me. Fasting today. Your dilemma is v similar. Will be intersted to know how you solve it. Xx

Somewhere, thought you'd stopped fasting? Or did I mis-read? Curious if it affects bf after a while: I guess not as long as you drink plenty of water?
Re sister, tbh none of my sisters' children have noteworthy behaviour but young children make. It hard to enjoy hanging out with friends/family, if not impossible. I have just sort of half given up trying recently, instead try and have odd kid free time, or more precisely toddler-free time. However thinking as I write your DS and so I think DN too is/are older, so that should be easier....if it was not for the bullying. I think if your sister is aware there is little you can do beyond supporting her, though for DS's sake you are right about letting go of hopes of a sisterly catch up. Really feel for you on this...

Chair, I your friend aware/struggling, or does she just have a different approach to parenting? I have read a few MN threads on similar situations and the awareness of parent seems make quite a difference.

Goat: the piano. And voice. Wow. I have a (now not so) secret hankering to take up the piano, but as I barely have time to think one times will stick with listening for now. I had hope to renew my love of classical music in maternity leave but now we've taken computer/TV away we've also got rid of CD player too (ie was all in one). I love that you perform too. Am in awe, and feel a certain peace thinking of your gift. DH plays self-taught guitar to dd lots, and lets her puff away with harmonica - which she "gets" so much better than I ever have/would. She also sings to herself quite a bit, all of which I love.

T's colic much improved by Infacol in double dose. Reflux seems in someways worse, or maybe I'm noticing it more. As we are off on holiday week today I'm going to try to get "emergency" GP appt tomorrow. Had him weighed today and he's gone back to 25th centime (was born c 25th, was nearly 50th at 6 weeks and is 12 weeks tomorrow): I'm not worried as such, but with reflux symptoms thought I should get it checked. The HVs were so nice and reassuring and un-worried about centile drop, telling me he was gaining weight well and not to worry etc: it made me reflect how unnecessarily Knicky and some others among you (Eagle?) have been given a hard time.

Meant to say Goat, DD has also been waking a lot at night: not as bad, but screaming/crying, sometimes almost as if still in a sleep state as in hard to connect to to calm her down...sometimes several times a night, probably at least two. I have put it down to her virus last week, including a temperature of over 40 for brief times... She is still just recovering I'd say, but nearly there. What did doctor say? Do hope you got reassurance and or some answers...?

Oh dear, this situation is tricky. Somewhere, have you noticed what triggers the bullying? Is it when nephew starts being tired ? Can you talk calmly about it with your sister? Chairman, same as for Somewhere, do you think you would upset your friend if you just talk about facts ? I have never experienced that and I m interested in your solving options. DS had one friend who was hyper energetic, I must say I was relieved he wanted DS to come to his house rather than coming to ours and during the nice season we usually meet them outside. But my issue is slightly different as he was not a threat to DS physically, he was just the kind of kid who likes tearing things apart, breaking stuff and kicking a lot throwing massive tantrums until he got what he wanted. At some point, I put a bit of distance because I fid mot want DS to copy the same behaviour.
Sorry I have no advice but I do share your pain

somewhere I guess balance is what's needed (and sanity sometimes). It's absolutely essential for us to spend some catch-up time with people we feel relaxed with and for our older ones to have safe, enjoyable play. We want to steer them to become friends with our friends' kids, no? Building up enough resilience to cope with your neph's behaviour is vital. It's sad that this means less time with your sis. This will pass though. I'm convinced that excepting serious issues positive parenting wins through.

Interesting re illness and distress in the night. DS had a bad cold last week and had a temperature at times. I slept with him for a couple of nights because he woke up wailing. He's sleeping through again now.

So, my friend. I'm afraid it is about her and her DP. I've tried to structure stuff with her DD when they've been here. Last time she started throwing DS's toys around and I told her gently that if she carried on I'd have to take the toys away in case she broke them. The throwing stopped. I also persuaded her to participate in our tidying up 'game'. Friend said DD never tidies, it turns out she's never asked her to help. They're scared of upsetting her so tiptoe around her. Her diet is awful too - lots of cake and crisps because that's what she asks for. It saddens me. Bright and funny toddler who is becoming more and more brattish. I think I might try to broach it. Need to figure out how.

Hi there

scare fast bore warning. I've found the full 5:2 fast sent me into a vortex where I craved spoons of cream and whole bars of choc on non fast days (NFDs). This isn't supposed to happen. There is a whole spectrum of techniques however from 4 day 'zero' fasts to just skipping one meal at random. There is something called 16:8 where you only eat during an 8 hour window giving yourself a 16 hour fast. Last week I did that. There is something that feels so good about fasting. So much so that I craved a tougher fast yesterday and did it. I'm listening to my body though - if you wake up on a fast day feeling like a ravening vortex you've prob overdone it.

chair I like your point About resilience a lot. I think I felt really crushed by it and made it worse for ds - they take their cues from us. I felt so spooked - ghosts from my past- but am working hard to keep that at bay as its the last thing ds needs - he needs guidance from me. Nephew and his crew are a by comparison quite a street bunch and I guess ds is learning what works and what doesn't in different milieus - better now than in teenage when its so much worse. Still working it out in my head.

Baby crying got to go

Good news - I've organised so many play dates I won't have to see my sis for at least a fortnight. ( we usually hang out once a week - it's too much).

My son is actually fairly in demand by the softer more retiring boys and the younger boys with the summer birthdays. 'Are you telling me he's king of the nerds?' says my DP.

chair how do you build resilience to bullying-type unpleasantness - any tips?

Ps scare if anything my milk supply got greater when I fasted. I can see you are intrigued - I think it might be up your alley.

somewhere when you talk about your ds it reminds me a little of The Lion Who Wanted to he Loved

chair and goat sorry if I mixed youup in previous post about friends and their mis?-behaving dc. Need sleep!

Has anybody found a cure for whining. I am ready to screech at DD like a rabid banshee. Block your ears