August 2010 - new thread ladies!

[Chulita]

New thread cos we've nearly filled the last one!

Hi, I am feeling very frustrated with the GCSE subjects my daughter has been offered at her school as optional GCSEs.There seems to be too many BTECs,and the GCSE subjects are very limited. For example GCSE Law, Psychology,Graphics, Business have not been offered.

The subject that are being offered as GCSE are as followed:
Art & Design
French
Triple Science(only for set 1 & 2 students.
Citizenship
Drama
Geography
music
Child Development
History
Technology-Food(catering)

BTECs on offer are:
Business
P.E
CACHE
Media

Is it just me or do other people also feel that the school is steering students towards studying vocational or BTECs at college?

Shouldn't secondary schools have emphasis on a variety of GCSE subjects and let students take BTECS at college if this is what the students want to do.
I don't feel students studying the above subjects have a good chance of getting in to Academic A levels for example Psychology,Law,Science.

I would love to hear from other parents what subjects their children have been offered and and how they feel about it. Is this normal for schools to do?
Other than speak to the school, what else can I do?
I am very worried to what is best for my daughter,as changing schools at this stage is
too disruptive. However at her current school I feel students haven't been given the chance to raise to their full potential.

Blimey. When I did my gcses it was all academic ( English, French, biology, maths etc.) - there's a long list of choices here! I can't help because it seems things have radically changed. In my mind I'd have hoped a good set of academic gcses would set you up for 3 or 4 good academic a levels which in turn would set you up for a decent degree? But maybe times have changed?

Crikey that does seem like a long list, when I was choosing my GCSE subjects we could only choose between history or geography, and one of creative subjects (art, music or drama).

All others were c

Crikey that does seem like a long list, when I was choosing my GCSE subjects we could only choose between history or geography, and one of creative subjects (art, music or drama). I did have the option of also doing GCSE German as I was in top set French (god knows how!) but I declined - it was only available to top set students.

All others were compulsory (French, English, triple science, maths, R.E, P.E). I didn't even know what btec was until I got to college and did btec national diploma in drama!! (I didn't want to do 'proper' A levels )

Hmmm what to do today? We fiiiinally booked Sophies birthday party yesterday at an almost local soft play centre that only opened 2wks ago!! It's 5wks today and has cost £7.95 per child for a 2hr party and they do the whole thing! Easy peasy and the kids love it - we took them yesterday after school to make sure they liked it - we had a hard time getting them out!! :)

Much love to all xxxxx

Ooops don't know how I managed that!! Posting from my iPhone so maybe I pressed something?

Oh my word. Alex (aka the boy who never sleeps) went from 11-5 then from 530-7.45 last night!!! In with me but neenz I took your advice and added an extra layer because he always kicks the blankets off himself (and me) in the night. I put his 2.5 tog grobag on him and it seemed to do the trick!!! Or was it a fluke and a one- off?? Will try again tonight. Thank you neenz!!!! Xx

Hi all

Yes neenz I am doing the blw thing, but had not thought of rice cakes either. I am pants with my imagination of food for my DS. He has alot of veg that I cook and have spare of for him, but through the day he gets a lot of fruit, but now will try the rice cakes and the pattie finger food things. No mindless pureeing in this household . Mind you my T loves his porridge oats in a morning, he can't eat them quick enough. I feed him the porridge as i have not tried him with holding his own spoon yet, but fruit and veg he feeds himself. Maybe time to see if he can hold a spoon, but omg, how quick out LOs seem to be growing, I am shocked to be thinking T could hold his own spoon.

Wrt to GCSEs, that does seem like a long list. It was all very academic when I went to school, with subjects like latin and english literature, englsih langauge and seperate science classes, (I hated latin and dropped the subject as soon as I could). But what is that citizenship thing all about, my oh my I am defo behind the times .

Vix my LO has a grobag and a blanket on, he was waking up cold before so I added the extra layer and now he sleeps much better. The room temp says 21 degrees, but he was still cold, so another blanket it was, it has not done him any harm. Hope Alex sleeps better for you.

Hi thedogwalker I just used ordinary cows milk - a friend has a ds who has an allergy to cows milk but he seems able to tolerate it in cooking, so I decided to just risk it on that premise.

Lots of teething and grizzling here too

My mum is down visiting at the moment (hurrah!) so apologies for not catching up properly but I just had to share my most recent awful-mum-of-the-year moment. We all went to the dentist yesterday and ds1 (almost 5 years old) had to have a filling I'm so ashamed . He honestly doesn't get lots of sweets or sugary drinks - strictly water only and the odd percy pig if I don't hide them properly and he spies them. But I admit we have been a bit more relaxed about biscuits and cake since G was born. And we've all developed a very bad habit of eating jelly beans in the car

So I've been reading all the food labels in the house today and am so shocked at the amount of sugar in Tesco's version of cheerios and fromage frais tubes! So they are both now banned from ds1 diet as he has them both on a daily basis (sometimes more than once a day!)

Bad, bad mummy

Oh Bouncing I bet you are mortified. It's easy to feel complacent isn't it when mostly the food you give them is good. We are a lot more lax about biscuits etc for the twins since Daniel was born. We are a bit rubbish at remembering to brush their teeth too.

Vix you're welcome! I could hardly believe it either that Daniel slept so much better just because of an extra layer. But two nights now and slept through twice! And he is hardly eating a thing either.

He is still only taking a few spoonfuls at each meal so i tried him with broccoli blw-style today and lumps of swede and baby rice to grab, but he didn't really put much if any in his mouth. If he keeps sleeping through I really don't care!

amminumber1 did you post on the wrong thread

Alex is eating lots now, breakfast lunch and dinner. I do a mixture of spoon feeding and blw. He adores my mix of spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and basil. I have one of those lindam mini blenders which is great for whizzing stuff down quickly.

Here's hoping for another good night!

Didn't get a good night at all he woke at least 6 times!

Oh Vix, poor you, is there anything wrong with Alex, Teething maybe??

Made Thomas the finger food pattie things today, pancakes aren't they really. I put in mashed banana and cinnamon and Thomas loved it. Made enough to feed a whole gaggle of babies, so will see how well they keep in the fridge. I used cow's milk and he doesn't seem to have had any reaction to it, it's not like these are taking over all his bf milk. I make sure he still has a good bf before i give him solids, don't want him to miss out on my milk.

Anybody got any thoughts on how long they will bf feed for? I go back to work in May, so will probably have to give up then, not that I want to, I just can't imagine expressign at work, or being able to express enough anyway. Your thoughts ladies please.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend and sending Vix and Alex some good sleeping vibes. Take care x

I'm hoping to bf to at least a year and then see how it goes but it might depend on how many more times I get mastitis!
Do you work 9-5ish dogwalker? Maybe he could have formula during the day and you could bf morning and evening. I think your supply should be well enough established to cope with that now

I'd like to bf for a year, no longer simply because I don't want to be pg and bfing. L self-weaned at 11 months so anytime around then is fine with me. dogwalker you may find that at that age T is only feeding in the morning and evening. L used to have morning, evening and 3 night feeds at that age, cc got rid of the night feeds and she dropped the other 2 herself. You could manage the 2 feeds outside of work hours and not have to express at work.

dogwalker I'm going back to work April/May and have started expressing to build up a supply of breastmilk in the freezer. I'm hoping to express while at work until G is one then let him have cows milk during the day and breastfeed morning and night until he self weans...that's the plan anyway!

Thanks for the advice, hopefully I will be able to just give him bf in the morning and evening. Sadly I am due a move at work, so I have to move from Germany to UK, so I won't be able to store up a supply of ebm in the freezer, otherwise that would have been ideal. But I now feel much better about it, I love bf and I like the idea that I can continue even when I return to work. Thanks for the confidence boost.

Hope you all have a good night, take care x

Just morning and evening (and night feeds!) definitely doable, dogwalker. I fed the twins till 13mths and only stopped cos me and Dh went away for a weekend without them. I think this time I will prob feed him at least a year and then until something crops up and I want to be away (although this time I might just start BFing him again when I get back). The twins went straight to a beaker so it was so much less time-consuming versus BFing both of them twice a day. But with only one baby it is less of a problem.

Daniel had slept thru for 2 nights but last night woke twice - the the twins woke up once each too . Hoping for better night tonight. He has been eating food better today including demolishing a big piece of broccoli and about a quarter of a pear .

Hi all, I have my return to work meeting today, wish me luck! My mum is babysitting but it coincides with naptime so I'm hoping she'll sleep through most of it.

We've had a couple of really good nights here - no 'sleeping through' but on Friday, we went to my parents and she fell asleep on the way, so slept 6pm to 8.30pm, came down and hung out with us for about an hour, then slept 10pm til 12.30am then slept until nearly 7am! and last night she was down at 8pm, then woke for feeds at 11pm and 3.30am then up at 8ish. Happy days! She's definitely improving

WRT how long I want to bf, I would LIKE to carry on with at least one feed til she's 2 but she may self wean before then. I go back to work at the end of May. I hope to bf morning and evening and express for a lunchtime bottle but we'll see how it goes.

Good luck bellygazing!

Terrible sleep again here he was just waking every 40 mins or so and wanting to feed. This even though he now has 3 'meals' a day and a load of milk from me!

Anyway, tmi warning but I just wanted to see if anyone else is having this.... His poos are now quite solid and when he goes (4 times yesterday after a 2 day break!) he really strains and cries :(. Common sense tells me it's understandable and presumably quite normal but thought I'd ask. I'm going to make his food a little less dry today, he'd mostly been on baby portidge for breakfast, fruit (banana or apple) for lunch and then for dinner he has mashed up veg (broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, potato, carrot and butternut squash).

I think I'll add more liquid to make it easier for him. He's been eating for 3 weeks now (started at 20 weeks). He is so hungry I didn't know what else to do and it wasn't a growth spurt as it was ongoing. He is very big for his age though and you just know when they're ready don't you?

*baby porridge not portidge :) silly iPhone!

vix J has only had a few mouthfuls of food so far but his poos have got a bit more solid. Do you give Alex water to drink with meals? Or if he can't manage a cup then maybe make his food more watery as you say.

vix S gets really constipated and struggles to push one out. He won't drink water either and has massively cut down on his milk intake so it's a bit of a struggle. I've started giving him apple slices boiled in the microwave that are full of water or broccoli florets that he can suck water out of. Runny food just doesn't go down the same! He was particularly bad when we first started but the last week he's been a lot better. Banana/potato/oats will clog him up so you could try swapping for pear/sweet potato/rice and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks girls! Chulita I'll try him with some pear instead of banana, better to give some variety anyway.

Slightly dense question about the patties linked to recently - do you mix the filling with the batter before cooking? And heaped or level tablespoons of flour?

Has anyone done Sing and Sign or thinking of doing it?