August 2010 - new thread ladies!

[Chulita]

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

Hi all, hope everyone has had a great Mum's day. It was my first as a Mum and my DH did me proud. Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and a lovely pandora bracelet with some charms on it, a little boy and the letter T, an angel, a loveheart and a scroll saying together forever. So well chuffed.

I only got to lost series 3. Have always meant to watch the rest but you know how it is and time just goes by. Currently watching Dexter, DH and I love it.

DH doing me a nice rump steak for dinner with garlic & rosemary potatoes, yum yum.

Take care all xx

LOL Belly Bacon sarnie on bread. Proper carb addict, eh? ;)

Agree Lost ending was rather lame. DH and I have just finished watching The Killing on IPlayer - sooo good. Anyone else watch it?

In sleep news E went to bed last night v easily at 6.30, woke at 9.00ish for a little cry, but resettled with a pat and a shush in his cot (usually needs rocking, if not boob), then slept until 12.17am. Amazing for him! The rest of the night was less good - he's just so unsettled from about 4 onwards, but still! It's a lot better than any other night we've had recently.

nat that's great news! Hope it continues to get better. We had a bit of a rubbish night, went to my parents so I could cook my mother dinner and put her down in the travel cot there at 6.45pm, no fuss. Then we got her up at about 10pm to go home. She grizzled at first, but was quiet but not sleeping for the 40min drive home. I fed her, put her down and she seemed fine for about 10 mins, then she had a mega crying fit including coughing/choking noises so I went in to check on her. She was on all fours in the very corner of the cot rocking away so not surprising not ocmfortable or sleepy! Ended up feeding her some more then she still cried when I put her down but fortunately only for about a minute then she slept til 7am.

I know that's not loads of wakings but the crying was v bad

Hello all

Hope everyone is well. I was so sad to read about Edgar's DS

We are all well. F is desperately trying to crawl but doesn't seem to have the co-ordination bless him He cut his first tooth about 10days ago and has now cut his second! It looks really sore though and he is suffering a fair bit with it.
Our nights are still a bit mixed. We have had nights where F has slept 7.30pm til 5.30am without a peep from him, and others where he is having a good 10mins of crying every hour or so. So frustrating!
The BLW is going well. He goes mad for strawberries

It is mad that people are going back to work. After having DD i felt so lucky that i didn't have to go back, but now with 2dc i sometimes wish i had a job to go to!

dave me ol' mucker, I'd wondered where you'd got to!

belly I hate it when they're crying and you go in to find them on all fours rocking and sobbing - there's just something about it that I find sooooo heartwrenching.

We're all ill here, well, DH and I are, S is getting over one and L looks like she's coming down with it so fun fun fun. S started pulling himself up yesterday and just won't stay on the floor now. If I hold his hands he does 'the ministry of funny walks', highly amusing

I don't type much nowadays cos since the new mn my internet doesn't work properly so I can't type at any speed and it drives me bonkers.

Hi all,

T is trying to become more and more independant. When giving him his porridge, he grabs the spoon and tries to feed himself. what a mess he makes, but hey ho he is trying. He is also teething again, he's got his front 2 at the bottom, but he's been bad last 2 nights, waking with runny nose etc, so I think more are on the way. He's not making any effort to crawl yet. He can spin 360 degrees but that's about it.

Been checking the local creche, for when I move in 13 days time. £50 per day, I think that is steep, or am I just not in the know .

Hope everyone is well. Take care xx

thedogwalker the nursery E will be going to is £48 a day which is unfortunately par for the course in Oxford. We have no teeth yet, E looks to be on the verge of crawling - but has done for about 4 weeks now, so it could be a long wait yet. She is never facing the same direction I put her down in in the cot tho. E also sometimes grabs the spoon, but I think when she is properly hungry she prefers me to do all the work and sits there with her mouth open.

Chulita sorry to hear about poorliness for you.
dave good to hear from you, glad BLW is going well and congrats on the teeth but sorry about your mixed nights, 10 mins of crying on an hourly basis sounds horrible

I'm still here! Tried to post on my phone last week while we were on holiday but it wouldn't post. We had a great time, lots of afternoon naps to catch up on sleep.

Nothing exciting to say except we loved the March For The Alternative altho nearly got caught in a riot on Regent St . Got away quick but it was very scary for a second.

I started sleep training D last night. He wakes each night at 3am and needs a feed to go back to sleep. Usually that's the only waking but sometimes it is more often. Anyway last night he woke at 2.30am, I went in, cuddled shushed etc but didn't feed... put him back down, he cried and cried... kept going back in at regular intervals. He eventually went to sleep after TWO HOURS! But then slept till morning. I am hoping tonight will be much better and tomorrow he will be sleeping through [hope]. he wasn't rooting for food so obviously isn't hungry.

I applied for a new job today as a breastfeeding support worker, only 10hrs a week, I'd like to do it as well as my current job which is only two shifts (afternoons) a week on a newspaper. Not sure if they will be up for that but it's worth a try.

Ooh, that's exciting neez! Is that with NCT or someone else? Will be SO rewarding. I was so grateful for everyone who helped me and E at the beginning - an absolute lifeline. Mad how easy breastfeeding is now.

Chulita poor you. So many people I know are ill. It really is the arse end of winter, isn't it?

DogWalker £50 per day totally normal round here - if not a bit more, tbh. I think we're actually going to be £50 worse off a month with me going back to work. Bloody ridiculous really, but I don't want to quit with the job markey as it is right now.

Belly :( I hate the crying.

E has had a couple of decent nights in a row, but quite wakeful tonight. Managed to settle him a couple of times with no picking up, then DH tried for the third go and a full on meltdown ensued. Now only a boob will fix it. Ah, well!

Neenz that sounds like a great job, I agree with nat, every person who helped me was a lifeline, really needed a helping hand. Hope it all goes well.

Hope the sleep training is going well. will keep my fingers x.

So £50 it is then, with living abroad for so long and T being my first child, I had no idea how much creches were. I only want him to go one day a week, so he makes some friends, whilst I am back at work. He has loads of friends here in Germany, but with moving house and me at work, it will take me a while to get to know the neighbours let alone poor little T.

Hope everyone is well and the Neenz household is on the mend, take care xx

£50 - I know that is normal in some areas but still... my CM is only £30 a day, and when it was x2 with the twins that was a big saving (nursery was £38 a day then). I hardly made any money either nat so I know what you mean... we actually decided that I would give up work which I was delighted with but then when it actually came to handing in my notice I couldn't do it! I just felt that I had worked too hard to get to where I was to just give it up with maybe no hope of ever getting a job in journalism again.

Could you look into childminders dogwalker? I was really pleased with mine and felt it was much more 'homely' than the nurseries. She had other children too so they made 'friends' as much as they can at that age (which is not very much!) The twins are nearly 3 and they are only just starting to really recognise and interact with my friends' kids.

The BFing job is with a local community centre which is funded partly by a trust, plus the NHS and they work with La Leche League, and I did the peer supporter course with them. They must have been given extra funding this year hence the vacancy!

I am so pleased to hear that the BFing support you got helped so much... it just goes to show support is important. Some people women will either BF or not and having peer supporters etc is irrelevant.

Some people think that women will either BF or not!

I didn't realise you were a fellow hack, neenz! Journalism is a scary place to work at the moment, since I've been on mat leave there have been redundancies and a couple of fellow reporters have left and not been replaced. Will be interesting going back...

Where do you work belly? I work on the Daily Express and Daily Star (Saturday TV magazines) as a sub. It's a pretty depressing profession at the moment, we haven't had a pay rise in three years and staff just keep leaving and not being replaced. I would never go back there full-time (being tied to a desk is too boring) but it keeps me ticking over two days a week (I'll go back in September). It is useful for contacts for the future .

Night 2 of sleep training went OK - he woke at 4.30am which is later than usual so that is promising (he usually wakes at 3am), cried for an hour or so and then was unsettled again at 6am but just needed a quick cuddle, then slept till 8-ish. Hoping for even better tonight!

Good luck tonight neez! E still having better nights here - still 3-4 wake ups, but am managing to settle him in cot and not always needing to whip out the boob.

And, personally, every single scrap of bf-ing help made a huge difference to me. Without it, would never have got E's tongue tie diagnosed and definitely would have given up and been properly depressed about it. It's insanely valuable work.

I don't even like my job, so it feels a bit stupid to be losing money going back to work. I am just scared of unemployment with no end on the horizon. Would be a huge knock to my confidence. I still want to apply for a place on a midwifery degree this autumn, which would mean unemployment for a year or so would be meaningless, but want to hedge my bets. What if I quit my job and didn't get a place on a degree?

DogWalker - when are you moving back again? Good luck!

that's fab that there's a paid job going in bf support neenz! I would love to do that. i've got one more week of my peer supporter training course then will probably start helping at one of the groups
must dash, J grumping

neenz, have messaged you. Good luck with the sleep training.
nat sounds like it's slowly improving for you, it will keep getting better and the fact you can settle in cot/without boob has got to be a really good thing

Well, Elodie slept through again last night, 7pm to 7am so that makes twice in 7.5 months . I'd love to think that she will get there on her own and start doing it as a regular thing but that may be wishful thinking. What was nice though is that this time she went down without a peep at all and slept without any disrupted patches - last time she did it she cried for about 5 mins before falling sleep and I think did a little bit of whinging in the middle of the night before dropping off again without me getting up.

Who would have thought we would end up so obsessed with sleep? Not to mention poo, pureed mush/finger foods...

Belly that's great news on the sleep. Night 3 of sleep training here and Daniel slept through too! Well he had a bit of a cry at 5.30 but I didn't have to get up . Really hoping this is it now. With the twins I had to make a firm decision at around this age that I wasn't going to feed in the night again, I would just cuddle/shush back to sleep. I think they were 10mo actually, but I found that after sleeping through for a while they'd have a couple of unsettled nights where I'd feed them back to sleep and then soon they'd be waking every night and we had to start sleep training all over again.

Nat I don't enjoy my job either! But I definitely know what you mean about being scared of leaving altogether, I was the same. Good luck with the midwifery course.

All the enthusiasm for the BFing job has made me wonder whether I should have applied for the 27hr-a-week post not just the 10hr one . Well I don't think I'd want to give up my other job yet, but will have to see what happens at interview (if I get one!)

Where is everyone? Dan had a terrible night thurs, I think he is ill again, but slept through again last night after I put him on his tummy! Now I feel like I have discovered some sort of magic baby sleep trick. I never did it with the twins cos it just gets hammered home that they must sleep on their backs.. but once they can roll over it's ok for them to be on their tums.

Out enjoying the lovely weather! Hope Dan is feeling better, it's so horrible when they're ill. J sleeps on his tummy now and seems to sleep better - although now he will rarely go to sleep in his pushchair as of course he can't roll over in it.

neez I've been tempted to try that. Thing is, Eli has become so lazy about rolling (or has totally forgotten how to do it?!) so I haven't done it yet.

Dunno where everyone else is - apart from rejoicing in this gorgeous weather - we're just ticking along here. Good nights, bad nights... But E is just such a happy guy at the moment, and so much fun. This is a great age!

i think it's more about having the strength to lift their heads up so they won't suffocate. Even if they're not rolling over well, i think it's ok as long as they hold their heads up well.

Dan's baptism tomorrow - really looking forward to it.

Hi all, isn't the weather lovely ?

I've had a couple of nice days - although a bit mixed as far as E is concerned. We went to a wedding on Friday and E was good all day, I had intended to take her home round bedtime rather than going to the pub afterwards, but my sister convinced me to come with them - which was fine while we were there, got her to sleep for about an hour in the car seat. She was all happy when I got her home, dressed her for bed and put her down - 10 mins later she was crying a lot, cuddling didn't work, extra feeding didn't really help. We were at my parents sharing a room so I took her into bed with us but she was still crying. We ended up having to put her in the cot and getting into bed a couple of metres away and listen to her crying herself to sleep. It was horrible,chronic overtiredness I think but there was nothing I could do to stop the crying.

Yesterday we went to Bournemouth for a surprise 30th birthday... unfortunately despite giving an extra hour to make sure we were there on time we hit the mother of all traffic jams on the main road into town and spent 2 hours in a traffic jam. E slept for 2 hours, then we all started getting a bit hot and bothered, she wouldn't drink water or really eat much of the food I had brought so I ended up doing a back-seat breast-feed twisting over her into her carseat .

Nice to hear Dan slept through for you neenz Hope the baptism goes well, we had E's in January and it was a really lovely day.

Hello popping on to say I'm ( finally) pregnant with number 4! About 6 ish weeks so early days.

Yay gya :) Congratulations! Now does this put you late Nov and the same thread as me or just into December?!

Everything seems to be going well here still. 9+4 today. No word of a lie I have a bump already and lots of people are guessing. I guess its the short gap between 1 and 2, and my muscles just giving in instantly. Its kinda nice though - have sorted through all my maternity clothes today. Sickness has more or less disappeared the last few days which makes me nervous, but other than that have hugely sore boobs and totally shattered all the time. I'm currently wondering if its a boy this time because I was just constantly sick with Belle and couldn't eat for 12 weeks - eating for about 12 people this time! lol

anyway wanted to let you know that DH has been given a diagnosis finally... Transverse Myelitis. He has a lesion on his spine (at the top) which was probably the result of an infection, and it is causing the the problems in his hands. They don't really know if it is going to get better or not. We're all reluctant to try the drugs option at the moment because they don't guarantee it making it better and have really nasty potential side effects. So its just a continue to wait and see. He is having another MRI scan soon to see if there has been any change, worse, same or better and the neurologist will continue to monitor him 6 monthly for now. If further lesions are found in the future then a future diagnosis of MS isn't out of the question, but for now they believe this is a one off occurance and we just have to hope it eventually gets better on its own. To be honest we're not really hopeful because evidence suggests that if there is no improvement in the first 6 months after initial onset then a full recovery becomes less likely. Not out of the question though... just gotta wait and see.

ooo also Belle's birthday fundraiser is coming together and I'm overwhelmed by the amazing support! (See my blog for full update - too much to type out again!)

Rightio, love to all, Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weather! x x x