June 10 babies are growing apace, teething and crawling all over the place.

[CantSleepWontSleep]

Here we are ladies. Let's see if we can manage to chat a bit more on this one :).

justbeme that's hilarious, Seb too loves toilets - must be a boy thing!

Another loo lover here!

Either it's not just a boy thing, or Ruth's a tom-boy.

I think the seat just happens to be at the perfect height to chew

Ruth went in the sea today for the first time. She wasn't too keen, but was surprisingly ok with sand, given her hatred of grass.

But she seems to be learning how to throw the most amazing tantrums if she doesn't get her own way, with screaming and either thrashing around or going limp so you can't hold her! I dread to think what she'll be like when she reaches 2...

Hello [waves, brushing off cobwebs..]. I haven't been on MN for ages, but have tried to do a quick catch up of recent posts. It's nice to hear everyone has similar challenges!

DS2 is also a loo lover, much to DS1's amusement... he's crawling, climbing, and 'walking' holding on to two fingers, but isn't quite ready to let go yet! Interesting to hear about the naps, DS1 tends to have his bottle at 6am, go back to sleep until 7.30ish, and then will have an hour or so at 10.30 if we're at home. He then goes down around 14.30 for a couple of hours (sometimes 3 if we're lucky). DS1 was the same, loved a long afternoon sleep if at home, but not so great if out and about...

Up until a couple of weeks ago he ate everything in sight, but recently he's been a bit off his food and I'm putting it down to teething Nappy changes are also becoming difficult - he is a champion wriggler, so think we're going to start using pull ups now he likes being on his feet.

My return to work is looming in a few weeks time, and given this is most definitely my last maternity leave I'm feeling a bit :( about it, but need to go back financially. I'll really miss my boys though :( :(

Happy birthday wishes to all those who have celebrated, or are about to. DS2 and I have the same birthday (quite a birthday present last year ) but still have no idea what to do!

Hi all, not been on for ages as moved house and had no internet for a while, then the day the internet was connected my laptop melted or some such thing.

Fergus was 1 on Saturday and he stood on his own for the first time to celebrate. He has just started taking some steps also. We also took him to the theatre as they handily had a show specially for babies on that day. It was actually great, there were about 20 babies (6months to 1.5) and all of them sat transfixed for 1/2 hour. Some ideas for homemade presents here. Making him a book full of photos of all his favoutire people and things (cows sheep and ducks mostly). A friends children made him one using on old harback baby book from the charity shop, lots of pictures cut out of books and some sticky back paper and I though it looked like a great idea so am going to try one using photos. Also hoping to make him a treasure basket type thing with lots of items which are not actually toys but that he will have fun with, getting all my family to put one or two things in so should be quite interesting.
Sleep here is beyond awful and so not improving, He can easily be up about 10 times a night and 4-5 is a reasonable night. Best case scenario is twice. Have been trying the whole crying to sleep thing but really not good at coping with it in middle of night. He seems overly obsessed with milk still and I cannot seem to get him to settle during night without out. How did you manage greensnail or anyone else. Any ideas gratefuly recieved here. Fergus has also gone from being a great eater to spitting out anything with the slightest lumps in it and saying bleh to loads of things he used to love. Is this normal?
Nice to see lots of old names back on here again

Just quickly, Seb had a 2/3 week period of eating pretty much nothing, a typical days consumption would consist of a few raisins, a weetabix & a yoghurt plus 3 bottles of milk. A couple of days after his birthday he now eats everything in sight so who knows? Could be he's having a growth spurt now, his teeth were troubling him (although none came through), he had a bit of a bug? No idea.

goodname I think we were just very lucky that when we decided to tackle Alice's night wakings/ feeding we caught her at a point where it wasn't too hideously difficult. I think having a very definite plan which DH and I both agreed on was important. We sat down in the evening and agreed our plan together and wrote it down so we both stuck to it. To start with our plan was that I would feed Alice at 10pm and 2am and DH would go to Alice for any wakings in between those times and settle her without picking her up. He plays her CD, gives her dummy and strokes her head until she settles. We also agreed that if it was really hideously bad then at 4am we could give up for the night and just bring her into bed with us. I think this really helped us keep going with the plan as we knew that even if she wouldn't settle then we wouldn't have to keep going all night and we could give up for the night without giving up completely if you see what I mean.

She was pretty rubbish last night though and wouldn't go down at bedtime tonight so maybe its all about to go wrong again.....

Photo book is a great idea. I keep meaning to make one for the girls as they love looking at family photos and I get fed up of lifting them up to see the ones on the wall.

Re photos - we're going to get ds one of these for his birthday. Love that you can record a little message to go with each pic!

Variation in eating habits all quite normal goodname. Ds2 seems to go off most solid stuff whenever he has a cold or (we think) he's teething.

sorry got to go - just brought ds down as poorly and miserable

We got Ruth and her cousin this for Christmas, which is another nice alternative for children's photo albums.

It's lovely as a cloth baby book, and really easy to put the photos in and out. Not too easy though- Ruth is an incredibly determined paper eater, and she's only managed to get one picture out so far.

I got dd a little photo album from poundland that she adores. The best thing in it is the photos of me before, almost during and after her birth. She adores them. Also, I don't mind if the album gets rough usage because we can just buy a new one.

I do assume it will eventually be destroyed by one of them, though.

RE: sleeping. Essentially we did CC, although we started with me sleeping next to the cot mainly to reassure DD who is sleeping next to him. At first I patted him, then after a few nights I just was there, then I was in my room and visited every couple of minutes while he cried. Maximum crying time was twenty minutes and I can cope with that (and, more importantly, so did DD).

Everyone is much happier now.

Once we had broken the back of it, I stopped doing CC (mainly) and I go to visit to pat him and reassure DD. Having said that, he slept all night til 6am last night (and for about 3 nights before that) so much better. DD did wake them up with a nightmare but that was before my bedtime so doesn't count.

I would say, either one of you doing it or a completely united plan otherwise things could get very tense and the children confused.

Is anyone else here suffering from ever earlier morning wake-ups? This morning it was 04.30, after a few days of 05.30 - it just keeps getting earlier. No discernible difference in routine, and in fact one night even later bedtime didn't help. Sad thing is, once he's awake, he's very reluctant to go back to sleep! Normally when we're at work it's 06.30 get up, but we're on holiday this week and it's rather annoying!

Daniel is always up by 6, usually earlier. I'm sure it's because he needs a poo. HE usually does abotu 3 by 9am. Some people say wake them up 15 minutes before their usual wake-up time, but I've never done it. Age is the only thing that has worked for us.

DS seems to have decided to wake at 5 the last few nights. We did wake to sleep a while ago and it worked brilliantly, until his whole night routine was upset by something, so I think we'll try that again. Worth a go!

I read the thread in the sleep forum about taking them outside before bedtime, so after dinner we walked to the allotment with Jack in the carrier - whether it works remains to be seen....7am would be nice....

Happy birthday to all the babies who have already turned 1! I can't believe how fast this year has gone.......and I am so in denial about Mia's birthday in 3 weeks! :)

Thanks for all the food ideas, especially from LaT - I feel quite inspired. I think part of the problem is that I got into a bit of a food rut, especially on the days when its just Mia for lunch and I couldn't think of any new ideas. But I'm now off to try noodles, more rice things (as unlike my other dcs she actually likes rice!) and some of the mixes like salmon and pesto that had never occurred to me - and that I hope the other DCs like too :) Yes, the problem is mostly with protein, but its all a bit random - some days Mia will happily eat large amounts of salmon/cod/chicken/whatever and then she will totally refuse to entertain even the suggestion the following day....

She's down to 2 bottles a day (morning and bedtime) but turns her nose up at milk in a cup in the afternoon, even though she's happy to drink water out of one and I am certain she would take a bottle with total joy at that time....sigh...

Delighted that you've semi-solved your sleeping arrangements LaT....are you feeling better? Very envious of D's mobility....Mia is still stuck fast and not very happy about it...:(

Lovely to see you last Sunday !

Back again. What else was I going to say last night....

J slept through for only the second time ever one day last week! But has since got bad again due to a cold type bug - snot and dribble and gunky eyes galore! Hopefully it won't last long and he'll get back to improved sleeping again soon.

We have found something for his main birthday present at last. Bought him this the other day. Hoepfully it will hold his interest enough to deter him from climbing up and standing on the rockaboat swing seat in the garden!

Still no teeth here at almost 11 months. Are we the only ones?

Was indeed a lovely surprise to bump into you :).

Oh, good choice CSWS. They have one of those at soft play and my DDs love it - its one thing they play with together which is nice. They mainly post balls through the post box to each other and Alice likes playing with the birds on it as well. 4 teeth here.

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Oops, sorry about the above post - I got attacked by a toddler demanding the cbeebies website!

I was going to ask if anyone has any bright ideas for teaching Alice to safely negotiate the step down from our patio door. I keep finding her precariously balanced on the doorstep and I think its only a matter of time until I find her flat on her face on our gravelled patio area. If she was crawling I would teach her to turn around and go backwards, but she's a bum-shuffler so its not so easy. We have the door open a lot to let DD1 potter in and out as she wants to and the sandpit is just outside the door so it's a big temptation for Alice to try and get out there.

Hello everyone - been such a long time! [waving and grinning a big freckly grin]. Happy Birthday to all of the Wonderful Ones! I keep saying it but MY it's gone so fast!

We've had a brilliant few weeks. From birth, Emma woke at least twice a night for a feed but suddenly, two weeks ago, she just slept through and has done ever since - [those with bad sleepers- look away now] - usually from 7pm til 8am! Actually, perhaps it could be a ray of hope to those with bad sleepers. I never thought it would happen, I was anticipating awful nights of CC in a desperate effort just to get a good night's sleep. I never thought it could suddenly just happen! It has also conincided with her first 3 teeth, a groovy, speedy but ridiculous asymetric 'crab-crawl' which I read on some website is a 'red flag for autism' [shakes head and rolls eyes] and the dawn of the Purposeful Finger Pointing Era.

She is a really happy and determined little creature and I'm absolutely loving it at the moment. She is so different from her big brother and the more her character emerges, the more the differences amaze me.

I'm going to try to drop in more often as I love hearing everyone's updates. I've been noting down a few food tips as we've been in a serious rut revolving around avocado, yoghurt and blueberries.

Greensnail dont know how to train alice to go down steps safely, will have the same problem with fergus when he bothers walking properly as he is also not a crwaler. He has managed 4 steps on his own now tho - yippee. Anyway was thinking what about just putting down some foam squares at your back door like these ones from elc (www.elc.co.uk/4-Recreation-Mats/122877,default,pd.html) then it wont matter quite so much if she falls?
Madame freckle thats great about the sleep, fergus is still bad but at least I dont have to deal with early mornings either, he generally sleeps til 8. Actually think I would prefer a few night wakings and a later morining than starting the day at 5! Emma sounds very cute, love it now fergus does that finger pointing thing to, he also says something that sounds very like 'whats that?' This is a great age I think, well on the days when I have a had a decent amount of sleep anyway!

goodname, that is a brilliant idea, thank you. Why didn't I think of that? In fact I may even make a little path of them going from the back door to the grass so DD1 doesn't need to put her shoes on to cross the gravel!

Alice is also great fun at the moment. She's saying loads, her best new word this week has been hoover and she also says something that sounds like "what's this?" She was being so cute today turning on the music on her toys and then dancing with a big grin on her face. Its a shame they have to turn into 2 year olds eventually.

Daniel amazed me by going down the steps sensibly ie going on to his tummy and sliding down but that was before he learnt to walk. He has now decided to propel himself forehead first into the concrete at every opportunity he gets.

May well invest in the crashmats.

Lovely to hear from you Madamefreckle. It's a fearsomely cute age, isn't it? I would just love to go back and see DD at this age again. Unfortunately she was about this age when my mother died, so I don't really remember much about what she was like.

The pointing is just darling, although he has started to point to my breasts when he wants milk, or to me when someone else is holding him which is embarassing.

He absolutely loves Ds schleich animals and went to bed with the calf in his hand today. He is pretty much carrying one of them all the time, mooing which is lovely, or one of her wind-up dinosaurs. Very not good for a year old baby, but he just loves them.

But then, I found 1-2 with DD just wonderful and am trying to reconcile myself to officially not having a baby come the first of July.

Filly - is Mia going to be your last baby? If so, you want her to stay wee for a while, don't you? I do kep trying to persuade Daniel to be a baby, but he just isn't interested.

Oh, the other supercute thing he does is cuddle, now. If he fancies one, he climps up and gives us a big kutch. Awwwww.

Oh, the other thing he has developed is a Vincent Price-style wicked laugh. He has his usual baby giggle and then he breaks into a deep, slow 'Ha ha ha ha ha' as if he is about to bite some young virgin's neck

Can you tell that both my children actually slept all night last night?

Ah, see I find the pointing to the breasts thing fabulous as it is so much more discrete than DD1's loud "me need gug" whining. I was thinking today I don't remember much about when DD1 was this age either although for me it was for much happier reasons as I think I was just too caught up in pregnancy yuckiness.

Do you really think they're not officially a baby once they are one? Alice is still very much my baby, but then I suppose it will be a bit difficult to say she's not a toddler once she starts toddling.

Have been offered a job today, which is great as it means I don't need to pay back my maternity pay. Also means I actually have to go to work which isn't so good but I suppose it might make a nice change :)