June 2008: new year, new diets, new resolutions, but when push comes to shove creme eggs are still the solution!

[KnittingRocks]

Sorry, couldn't cope with Christmas anymore!

LOL Neenz, the things we do. I'm trying to get Iestyn to be delighted in the splash the poo makes when it is in the toilet. The potty poos were just too much for me with my oversensitive sense of smell (and gag reflex).

Dewin - oh no re: lecturing! I split a couple pair of trousers when I was pregnant at work but I always knew it had happened. Did you have another pair to change into?

Just quickly - Dewin I won mine on ebay for £60, but that is the bottom of the range for a second hand one. No-one else bid and the lady I bought it off said she was disappointed with that price. My theory is that she is in Brighton so the circumference for "collection only" is halved if you are on the coas. Secondly she said in the listing that her toddler had ripped the mattress. In fact the mattress is only a piece of foam in a cover, and the small tear makes no difference. I was intending to buy a replacement mattress anyway as per SIDS guidelines, but then I couldn't find one and went into labour an hour after erecting the cot (was W waiting for a bed?), and I didn't bother . BTW did you see my earlier post for you about why I can't lend you mine? My Mum has promised it to someone.

Oh God Dewin huge sympathies!! what did you do?? It sounds like you have lovely students, though. I am impressed by the red knickers though bet they were too!

I have just found preschool gymnastics classes in our area, they will take them from 3 onwards. I'll have to talk dp into taking her though which might be a struggle, but they are advertised as not needing parent participation so that might swing it for him!

Thanks guys, neenz I have been doing the things that you suggested already, but good to know T had a similar thing. Yesterday morning was similar to Monday, then suddenly the afternoon was so much better, we went next door so she could play with the neighbours' 3yo, and used the toilet there quite happily 3 times, asked to go and everything! If I ask her at home if she needs to go, she gets annoyed with me for asking!

dewin sympathy on the trousers situation.

systems great that you have found a gym class for C - let us know if we can expect to see her at London 2012!

I saw on fb that knitting has but A into a bed - is there only me and dewin left with caged toddlers at night?? we have bought a bedside thing for C, we just haven't got a bed for her yet! We need to redecorate the bedroom that she is going to share with D and then we'll move her, so we've got another 3 months to do that in!

Quick post to mark my spot - I've been reading quickly lately to keep up, but by the time I've got time to post I forget everything!

S has been in a bed for quite a while (maybe from about his 2nd birthday?). He was a lightbulb moment away from being able to climb out of it so we decided to uncage him before it got to that stage. It's still hard work settling him to sleep at night, but fingers crossed, it's been a bit better lately. I'm very of anyone who has a child they can just pop into bed and then leave!

We're going to give potty training a bash this weekend. I meant to get the gina ford book but haven't got round to it yet. Any top tips welcome!

In other news, I'm going to take S to the GPs to discuss his height. Probably a bit of a PFB over-reaction, but I started worrying about it again when my insensitive toddler mum friend was laughing about how small S was compared to the other children . I measured his height and he's now just below the 9th centile for height (after being on 75th centile for length at birth). There are a few other children we know that are quite small too, but even though they're a few months or more younger, they've overtaken S in height. Some googling has thrown up some kind of disorder that slows down growth between 6 months and 2-3 years old (which fits in with S's growth patterns), so I spoke to our HV team on the phone who recommended seeing the GP just to make sure all is ok. I'm sure I'm just being a bit paranoid and will hopefully get some peace of mind at the docs.

The GF method is pretty common sense. Top tips - have lots of clothes and stuff on hand, but particularly cloths and disinfctants etc for wiping.
I had a bad one this morning though. I got up and dressed smartly for my University Council meeting. Iestyn went to the loo, and suddenly realised that he can spray his wee. Far, very far! I did a mad jig to try to avoid the spray whilst simultaneously trying to put a finger on his willy to point it down.

I think I escaped, and nobody did comment. But I can imagine them afterwards saying 'great girl, great academic profile, but didn't she smell a bit like an urinal?'
[Yes, it reflects the extremely lowered standards these days - I didn't have time to change.]

KeepCalm how tall is S? I wonder whether I can match - or beat - on the height! Iestyn is short. His shoe size is 5 1/2, still.

lol dewin, I know what you mean - I am always just wiping baby sick off my/Daniel's clothes and not changing and hoping I don't stink! Red knickers better than off-white! What does iestyn do at nursery wrt going the loo? Are you around next week to meet up?

Spider, been thinking about middle of the night wakings after going into beds - I remember we did go through a stage where they would wake in the night quite distressed. When in cots we would just go in, cuddle, back in cot and leave the room. They would be crying but at least contained in the cot! When they went into beds we obv had the prob of them getting distressed and getting out of bed and screaming at the gate. So DH got into the habit of lying with them cuddling them until the settled down - well that turned into a disaster cos then they started waking in the night shouting 'cuddle! cuddle!' so we had to stop that. We just had to be hard on them and let them get out of bed if they wanted to. They always got back in eventually! it did settle down in the end.

Keepcalm, it took us a few days for them to get used to even sitting on the potty. I used to wait for them to start weeing and then throw them on! That was the biggest hurdle for us I think - just getting them to understand what the potty was for! I really hope your GP can give you some reassurance re S's height. I am sure it will all be OK. Someone has to be on 9th centile.

I can't believe the twins will be 3 in 12 weeks!

Biscuits, hope you had a better day with the potty. Whenever I ask Theo if he wants to go to the loo he says "No thanks, Mummy!"

Thanks for the tips!

Dewin I'm not sure off the top of my head what his height was. Just a wee bit under the 9th centile on the red book graph. I'm not concerned about him being below the 9th centile per se (after all, someone needs to be ), more that he has steadily dropped down the height centiles since he was about 6 months old. There's no signs of him settling at a centile point yet, the line is still heading down iyswim. I'm sure it's fine though.

Just a quick post on phone - keepcalm if you fb me your address i'll send you my gina Ford potty training book.

KeepCalm maybe the answer is to just not take him to the clinic ever - that's what I do!
I reckon if there were adult centile charts, I'd be pretty low down on them.

keepcalm Fraser's tiny too - but DS1 is starting to sprout and has caught up to everyone in his class. (Not the tall kids but the medium ones with parents about our size) so there's such different growth patterns. That being said, we did get Fraser checked out by a GP because he was small (and then got the GP's agreement that we don't need to measure/weigh him because he's fine) so it made me feel much better.

Neenz - you have just described the last 6 weeks prefectly. Good news: P slept from 7.30 to 6.40 this morning.

Thanks Abdn, that's useful to know. I always find it quite reassuring to know that there are a few shorties on here! Dewin I certainly wouldn't get above the 50th centile for adult height, and if they did it on leg length alone then I'd be referred for tests .

I'll just take him to the docs just for peace of mind.

Biscuits - will do, thank you muchly!

Spider, I realised today that I still have your sleep book I kept planning to send it back a while ago, but the weather kept putting me off going to the PO and it ended up in a cupboard! Sorry - will send it back. Or I could just hold on till you move to Scotland

DH working late tonight so S and I are having our tea in the living room as a treat. Am contemplating another attempt at a blog while S has fish fingers in front of bob the builder.

Spider - great news on the sleep!

Waves hello - midterm break here so I'm trying to organise a special time for the boys tomorrow - I'm feeling guilty for working and feeling inadequate compared with the fab job our nanny does. So I think I'll stay offline for a couple days and spend my time mucking around with the kids. Hugs to everyone with sleep issues - there's not much worse.

marking my spot and letting you know I still have a caged toddler here too.He has never attempted to climb out yet so we're very happy to keep him in there!!Stefan was out by 18 months!

Short post - have a horrendous eye infection and can't see very well. (Never had anything this bad before - just a pink eye or sticky last time I had an infection.) I look like I've been punched properly!

Also, missed several posts - several answering me. I swear they weren't there yesterday! Anyhow - the knickers; well, I had no choice, had to go back in, only had a 10 min break, and no, no spare trousers. I pulled my top down as much as I could, and did strange Carol Vorderman writing on the board, basically backing up to the board and not turning my back on the class! I am so shamed!
Mind you, if I had been commando I would have felt the split.

Spider thanks for the hammock advice! I'm going to leave it a bit, I have time, and see how things develop (my friend's baby will be 6 months in July, and she was intending to use her hammock for a year as their second bedroom isn't big enough for 2 cots really and would involve chucking out furniture! but her DS1 is threatening to climb out of the cot, and may need a bed, so the baby would have the cot).
If there's any change of plan on yours, would you consider me? I will pay rental and return if you find it's needed in the future!

Yaay, Deb - Iestyn is still caged. Anybody else? Only the three of us?

Marking spot. Neenz - just twelve weeks? Wow.

Yes Dewin - will give you a shout if the hammock becomes available.

Evening all. Dewin, I was at your Carol Vordemon act. Good that your student told you about it.

I'm feeling a bit deflated after picking up S from nursery. Had a crap day all round anyway, and when I picked him up I told the woman in charge of his room that we were going to try potty training this weekend. I got a face and she told me I was going to be disappointed. They always put him on the potty at nappy changing time but he's never had a wee yet. So apparently he doesn't know what it's for. I told her that he'd been talking a lot about wearing big boy pants and telling us when he's going to have a poo etc, and she said, oh I'm surprised.

She might be absolutely right and we're not stressing about cracking potty training this weekend. If it doesn't seem to be happening we'll go back to nappies quite happily. She then went onto talking about what a daddy's boy S is (very true) and how unusual it was for boys, because mummy is normally the favourite etc. All true maybe, but I came away feeling like she thought I was a crap mum and that she knew my son better than me.

I'm being completely over-sensitive obviously, but still I feel a bit rubbish. DH has had to work late because of a complete nightmare at work and we were so looking forward to getting home sharp tonight, putting S to bed and enjoying a well earned glass of . Meh.

Abdn, I hope you had a lovely few days with the boys!

1. my boys are daddy's boys too.

2. neither of mine had any success with potty training until we actually started with no nappies for a full day and then it went very smoothly.

3. that woman is a bit of an idiot if she thinks that she can predict how a kid will do based on other kids - they are all so different.

4. nursery staff watch four or six kids at once, not one or two. We know our kids better - as I realised when ds1 was really unhappy and the staff didn't pick up on it because he internalized it.

Had a lovely day with the boys!

KeepCalm wise advice from Abdn. On the potty training, I agree with Abdn. Iestyn did not do anything on the potty before we started training (actually he did one wee, 6 months ago). I felt - and my Mum, potty trainer extraordinaire agreed - that there was little point in attempting to put him on the potty e.g. at bathtime, or between changes - what on earth did they think they were going to achieve there? If he's just had his dirty/wet nappy off he's surely unlikely to do anything in a potty?
So just take the leap. The first day is pretty crap (and there will be much actual crap too as well as wetness all around!) but it gradually gets easier.

Mind you, what do I know. Iestyn is potty trained - but not at nursery!

I'm going to make you all very now. I spent the afternoon with Amber and her girls. My goodness, they're beautiful! Amber is looking fab, but I can't get over how gorgeous her little girls are - small, and all smelling of babies and everything!

Thank you both! Wise words which have cheered me up no end. DH also came home and I shared my woes and he also said lots of lovely things.

I was a bit at the whole, 'he doesn't do anything in the potty at nappy changing time' - if he's filled his nappy then maybe it's because he doesn't need to go yet ?

Anyway, am much chirpier so thank you again. All the other staff in the nursery room are lovely too, so I'm not going to let this woman put me off.

How lovely to get to see Amber Dewin! at the whole smelling of babies!

Right, where's that ...