The Final Fruition of the Frolicking Forays for the First Time Frolickers

[Spirael]

We came, we saw, we frolicked.

Now our PFB has arrived and we can begin the stressful befuddled guiltridden exhausting wonderful journey of parenthood!

(Or at the very least we can stop bothering the antenatal bunch until they join us!)

wow roses double congratulations!

Think Rose has hit her 6 week growth spurt, feeding nonstop and I'm exhausted! Going to try and get out for a walk with her before she wants fed again, will try and catch up later :)

Morning all!

Wow I am double confused now... With Facebook and this. Haha. You'll have to excuse me if I get everything and anything confused - it was bad enough trying to keep up with a thread! Anyway, thanks for letting me join the group and see all the lovely babies! What a cute bunch we got!

highheels Rose was born on my birthday, great birthday to have :) I've only just realised.

halo just saw your post about H's sleep. I was talking to my HV last week and she said baby rice is rubbish and not to bother with it as it doesn't really contain anything more beneficial than the milk you mix it with. Have you tried her on an other solids yet?

pixie what a gorgeous name! Love it, so unusual and very pretty

Am off to have a quick shower before T wakes up...hope you all have a good day

Hi all

Ok, so evolution needs to come up with a better way of getting teeth, this teething thing is a nightmare! Lochie (poor bunny) is really struggling at the moment - he's got four coming through at once, which seems rather unfair! Cue much screaming, pooing, projectile vomiting, and very very little sleeping. I am knackered and it's so hard to keep calm and soothing when he's so grizzly - he doesn't want me to sit on the couch, he wants me on the floor with him, he wants to sit on my knee, but he doesn't want to sit on my knee, he wants food, but he doesn't want food... ad nauseum!! Am really hoping the teeth come through soon - the bottom two are through the gum line but the two at the top are still just lumps. Such a pain as his sleep had just got better following the troubles we've had recently - we had three whole nights of no wake-ups! Must keep repeating to myself 'he's in pain, he needs a cuddle, you can have wine when DH gets home..' At the moment, one of Lochie's favourite things is to come up behind me when I'm sitting down on the ground and sink his teeth into my shoulders. He also made use of me getting dressed this morning to chomp on my thigh... I actually have teeth marks from the other day when he drew blood! [mother to a vampire emoticon]

tribble great to see you back! Love the photo on FB, he's such a cutie!

bunny lol at walking bootcamp - is it working? I have to say, we took Lochie to the park on Sunday (pics on FB) and he was toddling around on the grass, and I got all welly! It was such a wow moment, my tiny boy walking in the park. [sniff, sniff] he's growing up!

halo hope the sleeping is improving, and I agree with bunny, it will improve. I know it seems dire now, but you WILL get to a stage where it's much better, and it will all be lost in the mists of time... until she hits teething/sleep regressions

whiteroses how are you feeling now? When is your first scan? So exciting, it's great to relive all the pregnancy stuff vicariously! Do you get extra scans because it's twins? And are you going to have to have a c-sec or is that a matter of how things go later on?

crazy welcome back! Good for you getting out and about - it's the best way to remain vaguely sane I found!

crazyb we must share a birthday then - obviously all the best people were born on that day

hh hope you get through the growth spurt intact

worrisome hope Lochie's feeling better soon and he stops his vampire act. I imagine once they're walking they really have grown up and become a toddler [sob] You could always think about joining roses in the second time frolickers section - she looks all lonely there on her own

Walking bootcamp had better work asap as Will's decided that between 4 and 5am is the best time to practice He's sleeping all the way through till somewhere between 4 and 6am, but then takes an hour or so to resettle. The problem is that by the time he's thinking about going back to sleep it's getting light and would rather start the day, or like this morning he only gets half an hour before he has to be up for nursery.

Hi,

Haven't been on here much cause of FB!

Tribble - yay on passing the driving course and good news about the birth de-brief. How are you finding expressing at work? Ae bosses/colleagues alright about it?

Bunny - good news about the sleep breakthrough! Standing in the sleeping bag is a nightmare though, isn't it? Hate it especially when LO's overtired and it's dark and he falls and hits his face off the side of the cot. Oh - just read about the walking practise... :( Though, as you say, at least you're not still up every 2hrs like you were.

WH- sorry to hear about the teething. Poor little Lochie. :(

As for me, yeh, I went for a private early reassurance scan. 7wks+4days after my period, but they dated me 6+2. Having said that, with DS's 7+3 scan, they had him at 6+0 so I've not really got much faith in such early measurements. My 12/13wk NHS dating scan is booked for Sept 20th - the day after LO's 1st bday. We don't get any extras before then but DH is quite keen on another private one. Apparently things are pretty risky at this stage and often (20-30% of the time) one twin's gone by the time they do the next scan. Pretty horrible. Anyway, all being well, I will get extra scans - I think one every 4wks. One at 16wks to check the hearts, and then 24, 28, 32, 36 are to check position. Depending on the position, I might have to have a section. That'd be if the first twin's bad. But if the first twin's good, even if the second twin isn't, I could attempt natural delivery with them trying to turn T2 as T1 is being born... Risk there is 1 natrual delivery, 1 section, and after 3rd degree tear last time, that freaks me out a bit - the thought that I could tear again, and have my stomach cut open too! I'd kinda rather one or the other if it has to be one at all! But anyway, there's a lot of ifs and buts involved. We'll need to see further down the line. Meanwhile, the first thing I need to try and get over is this stinking sickness. Bleugh!

Enough self-pity from me though! I'm currently hiding upstairs after throwing up and leaving poor Mum to deal with LO's dirty nappy, so I'm thinking the air's probably clear now and I should go down and be sociable! Just shows, we think we do a lot for our babies now, but 25yrs on, my mum's still running round in circles after me! They weren't kidding when they said motherhood's a job for life!

roses there is heaps to consider, and I'm sure you'll be fine. I'm a twin, and I was breech but as I was the second twin, my sister had 'paved' the way as it were! Plus it was before regular scans etc, in fact we were born in January and my mum didn't even find out she was having twins until the previous November following an x-ray! Can you imagine?? Sorry the sickness is still awful, have you found that it's worse with twins this time? I will cross my fingers that it gets better soon.

bunny grr to early morning practice sessions! I guess the silver lining is that he sleeps all the way through to then, but I can imagine thats cold comfort now!! Hope he gets the hang of it soon..

Yep am very proud of Lochie walking but it's really tinged with sadness, he's so big now too, he's really not a little baby anymore. I know that there will be so many more moments like this throughout his life and I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I feel like blubbing!! [big sook emoticon]

roses fingers crossed everything is fine with both twins. Ouch to the possibility of a tear and a cs incision, especially when you'll have a bouncy toddler to look after too. It's all a long way off and hopefully you'll get the birth you want. My SIL just had an elective section for her DC2, with a 20 month age gap, and she was back on her feet and able to look after both children within 2 weeks.

worrisome It's amazing to think that it's not that long since people could get to the end of a pg and not know they were having twins

Lochie is really looking grown up on all your photos - considering there's only 3weeks age difference between him and Will he just seems much more grown up. It's probably because Will still has no hair, no teeth and is fat still has his baby chub that I can convince myself he's still a little baby.

Walking practice didn't start till 5:59am today, so that's an improvement. I think it won't be long before he can stand unsupported, as he's balancing really well with just the fingertips of one hand touching something. He's really getting the hang of using his walker too - it's sooo cute to see him pushing it along with the hugest grin on his face. He's clearly very proud of himself

He's starting to get a proper little temper on him if things don't go his way. We've now had more than one occasion where I've been feeding him lunch while trying to eat my own at the same time, and there have been real tears of anger if I don't let him have a taste of what I'm eating. It's a slight problem when my lunch consists of 2 lemon cupcakes (I actually would give him a bite of cake, but DH gets all PFB over me feeding William junk!)

roses the sickness/exhaustion sounds awful - you poor thing. Fingers crossed all is well for both little rosebuds in these risky few weeks. My DH is a twin, and his mum said that though pregnancy (and BF'ing!) was tougher than it was with her others, when they were little ones it was easier as they played together and looked after each other (i.e. one would squawk if the other was hurt so she could leave them together for a bit).

worrisome, your tales of sleeping and teething are making my blood run cold with apprehension! Hope Lochie's in a better mood today? Its horrid when they are so unsettled. Good thing he is such a cutie :)

Feeling zonked today - after a fluke night of sleeping through last week we are back to multiple night wakings and a grizzly non-napping baby today. She's finally managed to whinge herself to sleep after I gave up on the rocking and put her in her crib with my hand on her tummy. Only problem is that it took so long that its not long till she's due a feed (she still feeds every two hours) so doubtless will wake up cross after twenty mins. Sigh!

Only two days till the long weekend of DH being on Daddy duty...

bunny it's true. All the best people are born on 6th July

hh how are you getting on with the growth spurt? I think my little truffle has been on a growth spurt since the day she was born. She never lost any weight and just gains and gains every time. I can barely hold her when feeding her now, little chubster!! The good thing about growth spurts is there should be a lot more sleep to help the development...hopefully!

roses sorry to hear you're feeling so rotten. Try to remind yourself this will pass! Hard at the time but in 3 months you'll have forgotten all about it. Really hope everything is going well in there and your little beauts are thriving. Are they identical..?

aww worrisome I know what you mean and T is only 3 months! When k look at the photos of her when she was box fresh it brings a tear to my eye... I'll never have that again. Even with the next I'll be sort of 'used to' having a baby if that makes sense. Not that it will be any less special, just different.

Cherry I am sooo happy about the BH weekend and we go away next thursday for a week, just to Rutland Water but our little family will have lots of time together so can't wait!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

Bunny Yes it was me with the welsh bloke who had the nice voice, I've not seen him in ages. Good news about DS's sleeping, it's hard to get frustrated with them isn't it. It does take a bit of effot to remember that x months ago they were doing something different. I find that hard with DS, he's a monkey at times but he's getting better with his sleeping all the time.

Worrisome I hope Lochie feels better soon.

Roses Oh you poor thing, I remeber you suffered really badly in your first pregnancy didn't you. Regarding the expressing, well it didn't get off to a great start, but after a cry on my boss it did get better. No one has really said anything, I suppose it's not a subject you bring up lots is it though. Though I haven't seen any of the guys who would probably take a chance and say something , we'll see how that one goes. Is the news sinking in yet?

We've had an ok week, DS is pulling himself up now and getting really frustrated when he can't manage it properly.

Me and DH have been talking, we're both very broody at the moment. DH came back from the supermarket gushing over a three week old baby he saw there. I've also been looking at newborn nappies as well and just itching to have another. It really isn't the right time at the moment, theres a few things I want to get over and done with at work before I even attempt that one. Plus I have the implant, you can't really take a chance and not take your pill one day. Ah well, .

Also just as an aside, I don't really use DS's name on here (due to possibility of being outed (although all they'll find out about is the state of my boobs and complaining about stinky nappies but there you go)).

tribble it's all coming flooding back about mr nice voice now

I wonder how long you'll be able to resist your broody urges for

cherry hope you get some better sleep soon

Have spent this morning walking laps of our house and garden holding William's hands - thankfully he's tall enough that I don't need to bend my back too far to do it. Every time we passed DH he would stop and wave to him for a while - the cheeky monkey just loves waving to his adoring fans

crazyb it's a great birthday! Just 3 days after moine though so I think I've probably had my last proper birthday celebration! Think we're coming out of the growth spurt, she's awake a little in the days again now (although still not very much) and feeding every 2-3 hours instead of every hour. She still goes a little nuts with feeding in the evenings though, but I believe that's fairly common. Past 2 nights she's gone 3 hours between feeds (yay!) so fingers crossed she keeps it up. Hope you and your little one are both doing well.

cherry hope you're having a good weekend with daddy on duty.

bunny love the stories of walking practice.

Well I can't believe my girl is 7.5 weeks already. She's now smiling away and has learnt to suck her thumb (soooo cute!). Sure she's growing every minute, she seems to be stretching lengthways and not really getting any chubbier, she's still in her 1 month clothes, they're a little short but still loads of room widthways. Hoping she's put lots of weight on when she's weighed on Wednesday as she was slipping down off her line a little (and I'm paranoid). She still sleeps a lot during the day, but that's normal isn't it???

Hope everyone else is well, sorry I'm finding it difficult to keep up with everyone and post personal messages just now but you know what it's like!

So when did anyone start to notice their LOs having any sort of awake/asleep/nap routine? We seem to be going from one extreme to the other here just now, either she's asleep all day (it seems) or else she's awake for hours, getting overstimulated and screaming and then she won't sleep. I struggle to get her to wake up when she's asleep, she opens her eyes then goes straight back to sleep, so am finding it impossible to do the suggested "don't let her nap for more than x hours at a time" thing. We had our first episode of screaming with real tears earlier, it was horrible :(

Hi all.

highheels My DD doesn't really have a nap routine yet although she has a vague napping pattern. At 5 months she can only stay awake for about 2/2.5 hours before needing a nap. If she yawns, eye rubs, fusses before then I try earlier but otherwise I clock watch to make sure she hasn't been awake too long. At the clock/tired signs I try to get her down. This used to be in the pram/car seat/bouncy chair/rocking her in my arms but now is in the cot. If you get the right window they should go down easier. If not they get a second wind and are often crankier and harder to get down when they next show tired signs.

If you have a day when they are awake hours and scream just try to start the next day afresh. Its not easy to get some babies to sleep and sometimes days just go a bit wrong!

At your LO's age she can probably only stay awake for an hour/1 hour 15 (this includes feed time). This is baby whisperer stuff but pretty much the only idea I've taken from hers (I've not read the book though)

I wouldn't worry about her napping too long in the day - as long as her night sleep seems ok too. If you do want to wake her wait until she is wriggling in her sleep as that is the light sleep they can be woken from a little easier (apparently, I don't wake a sleeping baby in the halo household!)

roses I am keeping all fingers and toes crossed that both twins are ok in there. I hope you feel better soon.

Things are getting a little better here sleep wise. Last few nights its been bed at half 6 (settling alone with dummy), awake at half 8 (dummy back in) and then feeds at 11, 1.30 and 4 before being up for the day at 6.30. Not great although we did have a 6 hour stretch the other day which was her personal sleep record! I wonder if I'll have to ditch the dummy before she sleeps through...

We are still holding off weaning properly as she doesn't seem ready. She is 22 weeks this week though so no rush.

hh I think Lochie was at least 6 months before he started having any kind of routine to his naps. Before then I adopted a similar approach to halo - watch for the tired signs and try to act on then. He's been a sleep refuser from an early age so I've always struggled to get him down to sleep if he's not tired. I found at that age he was really inconsistent with his sleep too - some days he'd sleep most of the day away and others barely at all. I remember one memorable occasion when he only slept for 40 mins in a 12 hour stretch! You'll get there, I would just take her lead and see what kind of pattern she falls into. I would also ignore the advice about not letting her sleep too long - if it's not affecting her night time sleep then let her sleep as long as she needs! Again, that's been the way I did things, but Lochie was a 30 min napper for so long that it wasn't exactly something I've had to think about!!

bunny sounds like William is coming along brilliantly with the walking!

tribble maybe you'll be the next to join roses in the second time club!!

cherry hope the sleeping is better and you were able to take advantage of your DH being home to get some rest!!

crazy have a lovely holiday!!

Well things are up and down here. Tooth #8 seems to have pokes through now but poor Lochie is still not a happy boy. Thank god for Calpol is all I can say!! His nights are up and down too, which I guess is understandable given the amount of pain he must be in. I can't decide whether getting 4 teeth at once is a good thing - I guess at least it gets them over with!

He's started bopping along to music which is just so cute and he managed to build a tower of 3 blocks yesterday which I was very proud of! He's funny with blocks and stacking cups - at nursery he has a set he loves and they've found it a good distraction technique for when he's upset! I wonder if he's going to be an engineer...

Oh and only one more week of mat leave . Where has the time gone??

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

hh We've only got into a predictable daily routine with naps since Will was about 7.5mths and went onto 2 naps per day. He used to take naps of anything up to 3hrs when he was Rose's age, so I think it's pretty normal for them to be sleeping for long periods during the day. I instituted a "routine" at about 10wks, which is when he started wanting to catnap rather than do long sleeps. I did it because he was getting very overtired by the end of the day, and DH would get home from work to find both of us in meltdown.

I'm pretty poor at noticing Will's tired signs - mainly because if you blink you'll miss them - so I do tend to clock watch and do things at set times, with a bit of leeway if he seems tired earlier than I'd expected. Like halo said, when they're only 7-8wks they can really only manage 1-1.5hrs awake (including feeding), so it's probably worth trying to get her to take a nap when she reaches that point.

Hope your weigh in goes well

halo that's great that Hannah's sleep is improving. We made the breakthrough to sleeping through once Will managed to put his own dummy in. Dummy replacement in the middle of the night is a pita, but remember that your DP can do that too

worrisome hope Lochie's teeth are better soon. I think we really underestimate how much pain it causes- I've had older children brought in for emergency appointments because they've been up all night with toothache only to find it's one of their adult teeth about to cut through.

Will's been bopping to music too - it's so cute although when he does it while he's standing up he looks like someone's dad dancing at a wedding And wow at the tower building - Will's more likely to be a demolition expert I think. His little report from nursery each day tends to read "the older children built a big tower of blocks and William clapped his hands when he bashed it all dow"

Enjoy your last week of mat leave

Poor William has been having some food issues this weekend. On Saturday he was having a snack in the garden and a bird ate his sandwich off his plate. Then yesterday we went out for a picnic, and a kookaburra swooped down and grabbed his lunch right off his spoon as I was about to put it in his mouth. We were quite lucky he didn't get pecked really.

Hey guys!

We're back from our hols after a disasterous start, which involved missing our flight and having to wait 12 hours in the airport and forking out £200 to transfer onto a later flight!! All of this with Robyn in tow and not enough bottles made up etc etc!!! Bloody stupid ryanair Well, it was kind of our fault but they could have been a bit more considerate. The short story is, left Robyns changing bag in the car (which was in the car park 10 mins away) and the passports happened to be in it as that was my hand luggage! We got to check in before we realised we'd forgotten the bag so the guy at the desk knew we were there. Anyway DP got a taxi back to the car park and collected the bag and passports and got back to the check in only to be told it was now CLOSED!!!!! 2 bloody minutes late and they wouldn't let us on the flight! Well my stupid hormones prevented me from being angry and made my cry pathetically instead :( Eventually arrived at my parents place at midnight instead of 9.30am as we originally would have!! Apart from that, the rest of it was good!!

Robyn also has her first tooth!! I didn't notice as it's almost impossible to see unless she's screaming - it's right round the side and kind of poking sideways out of the gum so not even sure which tooth it is but it's definitely something!!
Feeding and sleeping are also improving dramatically, she went 8.30-8.00 last night with a dream feed at 11pm. I've probably jinxed it now and will be back tomorrow knackered after only having 3 hours sleep or something!!

Bunny Thanks for reporting the post, I meant to do it before I left but ran out of time.

Sorry not to do proper name checks just trying to get caught up with everything.
Hope everyones well.x

Thanks for all the advice about sleeping and routines and stuff, we're just trying to keep an eye on the clock now and if we haven't noticed tired signs when she's been up for 1.5 hours try to put her down. Not bothering timing how long she sleeps or anything, she sems to wake up when she's ready. Had her weighed today and unfortunately she has only gained 7oz in the past 2 weeks, health visitor not very happy, feeling a bit crap about it as she's been feeding loads and I don't know what else I can do :(

Sorry for lack of personal messages, feeling completely knackered and a bit down.

mrsw glad you had a good holiday, even though you had a nightmare start. of the lie ins you're getting, now I'm back at work I get up at 6:30 whether or not William's awake - on Tues I left the house and Will and DH were snuggled up together in bed snoring away

hh sorry Rose's weight gain wasn't what the hv wanted. Did they give you any advice or just say they weren't happy?

Is she actually feeding loads, or is she just spending alot of time on the boob? It can be quite easy to get tricked into thinking they've just had a hour long bf when really it was 5mins of feeding and 55mins of comfort sucking. kellymom and [http://www.nbci.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=5&Itemid=17 Dr Newman]] have some good info on how to make sure they're getting enough milk.

Don't let them make you feel bad - you're doing your best, and if she's gaining some weight and seems happy and healthy then she's bound to be getting just as much milk as she needs. She might have a growth spurt in the next couple of weeks and catch up again anyway. It seems strange to me that there's soooo much pressure for babies to follow the percentile line they were born on when birth weight is a reflection of the conditions in the womb not how big or small a person will actually be. But I suppose it's hard to differentiate between babies that are dropping down percentiles because they're going to be petite, and those that aren't getting enough food.

William seems to have given up on walking practice this week in favour of working on his waving. If you say hello or goodbye to him now he waves and waves like a crazy thing

He's also been working on his eating, and seems to have learnt his lesson after his snacks got eaten by birds. The last 2 days, he hasn't dropped a single piece of finger food. He tried to feed me his piece of cheese on toast this morning too - he'd even pre-chewed it for me....yum

Oh, and I've finally figured out why I've been either tearful or in a foul mood all week. Got my first post-baby AF this morning - was actually pretty pleased to see my period arrive. Stopped bfing 8wks ago, and had expected everything to start working again straight away, so the lack of AF had got me worrying I'd be joining roses on the new list

Hihi...back a bit early from our holiday because of the rubbish weather; was going a bit stir crazy in the little but pretty cottage we'd rented!

worrisome can't believe your maternity leave is finishing already. How are you feeling about it? Part of me wonders whether I'll be grateful when my time comes as I am starting to miss being me at the moment. You'll have to remind me of this when I'm whinging about going back!

bunny poor William, what rotten luck having his food nicked twice! Sorry to hear about AF. Apparently the first one is horrific....hope you don't suffer too much. the waving sounds soooo cute! Love that age.

mrsw poor you, sorry you had such a nightmare start to the holiday. Sounds like it was worth the hassle though :) welcome back.

hh I totally agree with bunny - you are Rose's mum and you know best. These percentiles are rubbish and unless she's consistently not gaining much I really think you shouldn't worry. They definitely have peaks and troughs. Wait till next weigh-in then review it, I would.

Having said that, I'm having a nightmare with feeding at the moment. T seems to have regressed to a newborn and is chomping away on my poor nips. Have tried nipple shields for the first time today. They seem ok but very messy! Has anyone else used them? I can't work out how much milk she is actually getting! The upside is that she has finally taken a bottle, woohoo. I feel a lot better about that aspect now but was tempted to give up over the weekend as my boob was bleeding loads I am also getting a rash on the underside of my boobs where the milk touches my skin. It is driving me crazy!!! I'm allergic to my own milk ... still only 10 weeks or so to go then I've reached my BF limit woo! :)

Hope you all have a lovely week

Hi guys

Well, my maternity leave is over and I'm back at work Actually, it's not been too bad - it's really nice using my brain/wearing non-baby friendly clothes/eating lunch without having to share it with small grubby child again! Plus I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I've remembered and hopefully it won't take me too long to get properly up to speed. Lochie's doing well with the longer days at nursery although he's got a nasty cold and chest infection so I ended up having to rush home from work early today to take him to the docs because he was wheezing - he's now on anti-biotics, steroids and an inhaler, so hopefully he'll be better soon. He's teething again - but I think it's still #8 which seems to have decided to pop back into the gum for a bit His walking is going great guns though - he has progressed onto walking whilst holding things - on the weekend he was tottering around the flat holding DH's cell phone and it wasn't until he plonked himself down to chew it that we heard some voices coming from the handset - he'd managed to call DH's best friend in France!! Most amusing.

bunny lol at William giving you his cheese on toast! How is he feeling now with the hand/foot/mouth? Hope he's improving.

MrsW god that sounds dire, being stuck in the airport like that. What did you do about the formula - were you able to get pre-made? V exciting about Robyn's tooth too!

hh Agree re ignoring the HV's and waiting until Rose's next weighin to see how she's doing - hope you're feeling brighter about it now.

crazy very crappy about being allergic to your own milk!! Hope the nipple shields are helping now.

God, am knackered - this working lark takes it out of you! At least I'm working from home tomorrow so I don't have to tackle the commute. Having said that, I have really appreciated the time to read/listen to music while on the train!

Have a great week all!

crazyb sorry about your bfing issues, but yay that she's taking a bottle. I had to use nipple shields for about the first 6wks, and they were a bit of a faff and hard to remove without spilling the leftover milk all over myself.

Do you think T could be teething and using you to get a bit of relief? Perhaps try giving her a teether to munch on.

My friend had real problems with pain and cracked nipples at around the 3/4mth mark. Her DS was using a dummy but he was on the newborn dummies, and he'd got so used to sucking those that he stopped opening wide enough to latch effectively to bf. She got him the next size up of dummies and the problem was solved within a week.

worrisome lol at Lochie calling France Glad work's going ok, and hope Lochie's feeling better soon

Thanks for asking after Will - he seems to be on the mend now. His appetite is improving, although he's still quite wary of anything with lumps in in case it hurts him. Sleep is getting better as well after 3 nights of waking every hour or so. We've only had one wake up the past 2 nights, but he was quite difficult to resettle. I think part of it is that he's starving due to lack of food/milk for a few days.

He's still trying hard with his walking - although he's rejected his walker in favour of pushing his highchair around the lounge He seems to be plucking up the courage to stand alone - he generally only holds on with one hand anyway, but now he has a sneaky go at letting go with both. He chickens out after a second or so and then grabs back on

Ahhh bunny I could kiss you! The dummies sound like the issue. I fed her bare this morning and it was fine...think the big teats on the shields reminded her to open her mouth so it definitely sounds like you could be onto something! She is teething yeah, she has been cutting her first tooth since 10 weeks bless her and she is definitely using me as a teether...but won't use any alternatives I am offering. Doesn't help! I was considering giving up this weekend as I feel like I have a newborn again.

worrisome hate to say it but I do envy the commuting time to yourself. Something I definitely took for granted! Not sure DH realises how lucky he is to still have uninterrupted reading time :)

ouch ouch crazyb re the return of the bleeding nipples and the rash. Hope its getting better? Please share all your secrets on getting your LO to take the bottle! C is still refusing it here. Our evening BF is also what gets her super sleepy (although she does often wake up when we put her down, so hopefully am not technically feeding her to sleep?!) which is lovely, and my favourite feed of the day, BUT means that I always have to do bedtime and an evening out with DH/ friends/ myself is off the cards for the foreseeable future.

worrisome, how was first week back? are you f/t or p/t? Am starting to think about whether or not to put in a flexible working application, all advice as to pros and cons of f/t and p/t welcome

bunny hope poor Will is ok - saw your fb status - is he fully recovered now?