Sept 08 - No no no, ME do it!

[CappuccinoCarrie]

Shiny new thread for Christmas!

just having a pants week workwise. Finding it hard to be motivated and am unfocussed. Then spent ages planning something (wasn't anything special but due to unfocussness it took ages) and the class were on a different planet. Not naughty, just nothing there! I'd pretty much told them the answer about 14000 times but they still couldn't tell me it.

Don't think it helps that we've been planning holidays for easter and the summer so think my brain is on holiday mode!

debs DD is still in the cotbed. She's staying in there until she decides to climb out, DS was 3.2 before I had to take the sides off.

I'm going to put a stairgate on her bedroom door soon so when the time comes for her to change to a bed she can't run riot around the house at all hours. Mum has lent me her drill and I have all the stairgate fixings ready to go, I think I can doing it without a DIY disaster .

starlight a window box goes on the outside of a window. You can grow flowers or herbs or small veg in them. A lady I work with was showing me photos of a squirrel sitting in her window box today .

I have no idea about World Book Day. What do they do once they are dressed up? Talk about the character they are dressed as or just have a normal day. TBH (and don't laugh at me!) I was thinking about making a couple of costumes in the next couple of months so DS has some fancy dress ready for World Book day when he starts school next year. I'm thinking about Max from where the wild things are (fluffy grey wolf suit) and Charlie (as in Lola).

Oh ladies! I've just had a 3 hour sleep! I'm doing a nightly Feed and about to use debs dangling technique for burping (haS worked wOnders). ThAnks all for your fab advice, I think you are right about the fOremilk issue. I'm doing block feeding with breast cOmpressions all day today and it seems to work. Will let u know how this goes. For now I just look forward to another 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

Diego came out of the Cot, also a stokke, in November as dd has it now and I wanted him not to feel he had been displaced by his sister. He was delighted with his big boy bed though. Hopefully, do you have another Cot for your new lo?

Happy bday, carrie!

Oh and funny typing is because of one handed and on phone, sorry!

ILTMIMI I've never made crumpets (although I do plan to!), but randomly DP has made them lots of times - I think it's something he used to do with his granny. He said it's quite easy. I am having cravings for the banana pancakes the hairy bikers made last night.

DP has informed me that we are going shopping this weekend for baby things. I think he's got bored of the endless lists without much actual result

Pacita we have a bedside cot for LO when it first arrives. It's not massive, but a bit bigger than the small version of the stokke cot, so it should last 4-6 months (depending on whether this child is as enormous as T!). If T doesn't want to give up his cot at that stage (I expect we'll let him choose, unless he's trying to climb out or something), we can borrow the cot my mother has for him at her house, and baby can go in that until T is ready to move on out.

Breast compressions are, I reckon, the least glamorous thing it is possible to do. I remember feeling I had reached new lows in turning into a dairy cow when doing them. But they did have the desired effect in getting T to take a full feed! Am sooo not looking forward to BFing again, mainly because of the lack of sleep etc (and toe curling latching!). I didn't mind it after the first few months, but I'm looking forward to getting those out of the way this time.

debs75 A is still in a cotbed, and hasn't really tried to climb out (and being a shortarse he can't), although he does try to climb in! Dn could climb out so doesn't have the bars on his cot at home any more but does here - he's never climbed out as the ceiling slopes to just above the cot. Heh.

He'll grow out of his growbags soon though - do other people use a normal duvet folded in half under a mattress or get special small ones?

And a dim question about potty training - how do you clean a potty after use? Or do people really not bother in which case don't they smell? People keep telling me that it's so much easier once kids aren't in nappies but getting a child to a potty or toilet regularly seems so much harder than a few nappies a day! So far A likes sitting on his potty a few times a week but nothing going in, which I figure is fine for his age - you're supposed to only try once they know they've peed, is that right? [ignorant emoticon]

notcitrus you can buy cot duvets and covers. I got Robyns off ebay, about £10 for the pillow and duvet and £8-9 for the covers.

NC Yes, I also have the same question about potties! Somebody answer please. I am going to have to face this sometime. Nappies seem so much easier to me...

With ds1 if it was a wee in the potty I used to tip it in the loo, flush away, wipe it with dettol spray and kitchen towel and leave to air dry. If it was a poo I would flush the contents down the loo, then wipe with wet wipes to get any stubborn poo off then spray with dettol and air dry.

HTH x

I also used to wash it every few days in very hot water and washing up liquid/flash....

Blimey Becaroo you put me to shame with cleaning!

I have to say I much prefer knickers to nappies, C and I happily visit the loo together and it's so much nicer than having to change a wriggling toddler. I drove to bristol with her on my own last week - a 5 hr drive (and we got stuck in a massive jam on m6) but we only had 2 stops and no accidents or stress. She is very good at holding on now - after 3 months nappy free she's learning quickly and even has one or two dry night time nappies a week. If she needs a poo she always gets out of bed to the potty and only wees in her night time nappy.

With the potty - a wee, i tip it down the loo, give it a rinse with water under the tap in the sink and dry it with loo roll, job done in 2 mins. A poo, I tip down the loo, wipe with loo roll and spray with dettol and dry with kitchen roll. Not really a bother either, and C can do 3 or 4 poos in quick succesion!
I am encouraging her to use the toilet seat so much easier. She uses the travel toilet seat outside the house and uses the little loo at nursery but, so far, will only poo on the potty.

And C has been in her bed since last July. We did it for selfish reasons tbh. We were away to Spain in Sept and didn't want to lug a travel cot or hire one. She has done brilliantly. We have a stair gate at the top of the stairs (for night time only now tbh - the one at the bottom has gone and she is free to go up and down during the daytime) but she rarely gets up at night and sleeps very well in her bed and the duvet was a godsend during the very cold weather.
the only downside is if she wakes early, she comes into our room but that doesn't happen often.
The brilliant thing is that last week we went away and had 2 double beds in our hotel. She had one and we had the other. We asked for extra pillows and stuffed them aound the bed but it was ace. We also have dream pod tubes and sheet - really excellent.

Hopefully am v jealous at your home-made crumpet man!! (YKWIM!! )

Oh and notcitrus for me, the whole - take em and plonk em on the potty every 10mins when you first train - didn't seem right to me. i took the BLW approach to training
Basically (and this was during the freezing snap in Dec), I turned the heating up for 4 days and let her run round half nake4d. I put her in knickers so she could feel wetness and then just kept asking her if she needed a wee etc.
The first day was wet but after day 3 she cracked it and has gone great guns. We had to sing to the poo to get it to come out for the first time on the potty but IMO poo accidents are easier to clean up than wees (if poo is solid of course).

And the potty doesn't smell - of course if you leave a poo far ages it will but why would you? If the potty is needed, it has to be cleaned quickly. HTH.

hmm..still not convinced about easier but you've all made pottying sound less scary, thank you! I think it's the frequency that's going to be the pain, having to do it every couple hours so about 7 times a day instead of 3-4. Oh well. SIL was worrying as dn is sitting on his potty loads and sometimes even peeing in it (hence A copying), but he has a book that tells him once you use the potty all the time you get REALLY COOL PANTS. Except she couldn't find any pants deemed cool enough (and A would probably be fussier seeing as he loves certain of his nappies 'Want orange one. No, want STARS nappy!').

Luckily, Sainsburys are selling Peppa Pig boys pants, which dn loves, so that's sorted...

Is a dream pod one of those little air mattresses with built in sleeping bag? I need to get one of those as A will grow out of his travel cot soon! Or maybe not - there are great advantages in a short child. Even if auntie does insist I must be feeding him depleted uranium (he's not fat but really heavy, more than dn who is 6in taller!)

NC Toby is rather sturdy too...not fat at all, just heavy! ds1 sings "he aint heavy, hes my brother...." which is hilarious

wrt potty training, I got loads of grief with ds1 because I didnt do it sooner from family and "friends". You know what? I waited til I thought he was ready and he was dry in one day. Night times took a bit longer, but hey, thats what pull ups were invented for!

Will try Toby during the summer hols (so he will actually be the same age as ds1 was). If it doesnt "take" I'll put it away and try again later.

You are much more relaxed about this stuff with your 2nd dc!!!

DS has been in a bed since Christmas, we didn't make a fuss about it, it just 'appeared' one day and he's been great, he's never got out even though he climbs in and out by himself for naps and night time, he just doesn't go wandering, its like it hasn't occurred to him! We had cot duvets for DD but they were too small and just fell off when she rolled over. DS has a full size single duvet with the bottom third folded under and a bit tucked down the side between his mattress and the wall.
Still at the thought of potty training after the nightmare we're continuing to have with DD who's nearly 4...!
NC I think the thing you're talking about is called a 'ready bed'.

We have a ready bed (airbed with sleeping bag sewn on) and I can imagine it's great if your child doesn't think it is the most exciting thing ever and therefore the idea of sleeping in it is totally laughable. Pumping it up and letting it down can waste an entire morning though...

Am still backing and forthing about nursery. Lots of people telling me he'll settle down eventually, which I don't doubt, but since we're in the fortunate position of being able to choose whether to send him to nursery, I want him to want to be there, not just settle there. Anyway, we'll see how it goes next week.

T has this quilt for his bed, which is obviously way thinner than a duvet, but as it's pretty much single bed sized he normally has it folded in two, so it's pretty cosy. I figure it will unfold when he goes into a big bed, which will be when the weather is warmer. Genius or what?

Potty training - I am in denial. T has started occasionally mentioning when he wees, and always tells me immediately when he poos, but we still haven't actually bought a potty and/or toilet seat. I think we'll try to use the toilet as much as possible straight away, as he's a pretty big chap, so should be able to get onto one of those toilet seats (with a step) pretty easily when he starts. Suppose potty useful for out and about though. Ugh, it's all so gross though. I'm definitely with you NC - I really don't find a handful of nappies a day any drama, but really not looking forward to potty training.

hopefully Toby would happily sit in a dirty nappy all day!

Tip for you all........

When your child has really bad diahorrea from suffering gastroenteritis and has filled their potty with said diahorrea DO NOT run upstairs with the contents of said potty to empty it and miss the last step

We just redecorated. It was easier.

....we have a downstairs WC now thank god!

had a bewtter day today

ds2 is in a toddler bed. He needed to go in it as ds1 had got too big for it and so needed his big bed and then we had visitors so the toddler bed couldn't stay in the spare room anymore. He's got cot duvets with a fleece blanket too.

We never used a potty with ds1. he didn't come out of nappies until he was 3 and went straight to the toilet. I'll probably try to get ds2 out of them in the summer but not doing it until he was well and truly ready worked well with ds1.

Becaroooooooooooooo that story is really, really grim!

Becaroo that is dire!!! :)

A dreampod is a single bed sheet with 2 inflatable tubes that fit into it.
You put it as a sheet on any single bed,and blow up the tubes using your own breath.
Dead easy, v good quality and it means any single bed is a safe bed.
We even yook one of the tubes to bristol and put it under the double sheet and it worked well enough.

Totally agree that LO must be ready to come out of nappies.
C so was. Getting her into the nappy everyday was a challenge and she just wanted to go on the potty.
Now she's only in a nightime nappy and that's becoming a struggle (using pull ups). She doesn't want it on but definately isn't ready!
She is so much happier in knickers and the last accident was weeks ago.

Re: potty training. I am going to try and get DD to use the toilet straight away as I hate cleaning potties. We have one of those fancy loo seats with a smaller inner seat for toddlers (although I have to re-attach it) and a plastic toddler seat to put on each time it's needed. I'll see which one she prefers. We start potty training on April 16th as we are quiet for a couple of weeks after that and it gives us all summer to crack it if it's a nightmare like DS's potty training. Can you tell I'm not too optimistic .

at "we start potty training on April 16th"

debi it's even in my blackberry calendar so I get a reminder that morning .

meglet

we should bbm.

I'm not too sure I want to potty train. I know N's in the mood for it since he's really excited about doing his poo's in his little potty, and he's gotten the right idea through his friends etc. I just wish he'd verbalize more. He can only tell me when he's going to do a poo.

Toby has no idea at all yet

He doesnt tell me when he has done a wee but will tell me if his nappy has leaked.

He will sometimes tell me if he is pooing....

Me; "Are you pooing toby?"
T: "yes mummy. Wait!"
Me: we have to change you toby or you will get a sore bottom"
T: "No""

sigh.