July 2010: Drool it, maul it, crawl over it - that's how our threadbabes would eat a creme egg. But why the Creme Egg?!

[CakeandRoses]

Will that do us?

/panic

Yay for sleeping through woodlands. It's the best feeling, isn't it?

woodlands that's amazing! Congratulations! (welcomes woodlands into the sleeping babies club and explains about the freemasonesque levels of secrecy).

How annoying Viksam- my DH does that as well, waits till I am getting out of bed before offering to do it himself. I'm properly awake by then! I got up with J this morning but have just had a lovely nap with him and DH (who was still in bed). Now DH has taken him to his swimming lesson - I felt like I ought to go too and swim some lengths, but I fancied just having an hour off duty and MNing with a coffee catching up on the washing and stuff.

Yes, J has been in our room with us all this time - it's because DH works from home, often very early in the morning or late at night, and his study is what will be J's room (2 bed flat). However we can't keep him in with us forever, and I'm convinced we disturb each other, especially as he nearly always wakes when we come to bed. Plus I can't wait to be able to go to bed early if I want and read with enough light to see, or watch a TV programme in bed, or whatever, without worrying about waking J. Until now J has slept in a 3-sided bedside cot which is great for soothing him in the night as I am lazy and it means not having to get up. DH is convinced it will be a nightmare moving him, but I'm definitely ready to do it now. We'll have to move DH's desk into the living room which is not ideal, especially as I will also be working from home when I go back to work in two months time.

My dp does that too viks, you'd think they would realise we need a break too. Definitely get him to treat you to pizza for lunch.

Woods R's still in with us and will be till we get a bigger house as we only have 2 bedrooms and I don't think its fair to make j share with r. Bet you find he's more settled in his own room.

Congrats woodlands and I snorted at needle's advice to keep it quiet :o

I TELL dh he's the one getting up just so there's no room for doubt. I tend to do all the wake-ups for both children (dh used to deal with F's but I'm better as getting him back down quickly) so it's only fair he is the one to get up after a full night's sleep, imo.

Arrghh for your night chul :( Any progress with potty training?

In car going to london now. Planning to go to a newish veggie place called Otarian which has had great reviews.

stac sorry for your yuk nights too. Re the house next door - it's been sold now :( We just can't stretch to it with me working part-time for the next few years. Dh and I used to earn similar money so me only working part-time makes a big difference to our income.

Oh no vik, the lodge only overlooks countryside not sea! Should we reconsider? ;)

tsc, melissa, wss can you recommend any nice resources for learning first words? F knows his alphabet (by sight and sound) and will want to think about simple words next I guess.

tsc F is constantly asking me about letters and asking me to ask him, iyswim so he's ended up learning them without any real effort on my part. I learnt to read at 3 and was bored shitless at school but I think things have really changed in (good) schools now. My friend's very bright dd was reading before school but the school were brilliant and have really supported her learning so she's never been bored. This has made me much happier about F learning to read before school otherwise I'd have felt like you do about it.

Re DP: think he needs to state clearly what/how he's going to change things, ie - going to meetings, not drinking at all etc. If he can't do that then he needs to understand its time to pack his bags :(

Your nights with F sound so crap. Is his chest still bad and is that why you're not putting him in his cot at the moment?

His singing's impressive :) A gets too excited with nursery rhymes and starts body slamming us...

how do we define sleeping through?

oh and date night: we're off for a meal and then to see needle's disliked Thor.

where are you all??

Im here! Kept checking in to see if anyone had made an appearance.

I define sleeping through as 9 or 10pm when I go to bed til 6 or 7. That way Ive had a decent sleep and dont actually mind him waking up early.

Ive only ever had this sleep ONCE since he was born though.

cake its not completely terrible. As an action movie its ok, but as a movie about norse mythology it's absolutely diabolical!

Hi ladies

not much to say for myself. I'm in such a bad place. M is angry and shouty and screamy ALL the time and I spend my days crying too because of it. And there is nothing I can do about it. Not how I imagined motherhood.

Thanks MLIC. I will crack this quiche one day

Thanks MLIC I think I will do that. I will get her to her doctor tomorrow and will discuss her diet with her. This behaviour can't be normal. Over here the HV stops working with babies older than 6 months, so after it will have to be the doctor.

I'm just reading the baby whisperer and it seems I have fucked her up quite a bit. In the book it says children M's age should play independently for around 45 minutes. M can't even play that long with me, never mind on her own. On her own she can play for not even a minute. Seems I have also made her have prolonged seperation anxiety. Unfortunately the solutions she suggests I have already tried and they don't work. I will continue reading the book to see if she comes up with something better.

And who knows, maybe the doctor can help us.

trud it will get better. I know it's hard when they're like this. G is pretty clingy at the mo and I have resigned myself to having to carry her around for big parts of the day. I find getting out of the house as much as poss helps - just a change of scene for all of us.

In fact I just had to leave this post for 10 mins to go and hold her as she was being all cry-y

cake no, I don't use any "resources" either, they don't start school till 5 here and it's all quite relaxed when they do so A is happy learning bits and pieces from preschool, TV and books.

tsc C and her "speaking through the medium of dance" - love it. Made me laugh.

Well I feel like a new woman, G slept till 6 this morning! Yes I know that's early for some of you but it's a bloody lie-in round these part, compared to the week we've had. Apart from anything else it meant being up in the dark for only an hour instead of two.

And I am off to pub quiz tonight so a night out. Yay, will be a good day.

Mlic the one sleep thing seems to be working for us (fingers crossed)

Oh, and I'm so glad that you had a better day with W. Good days help enormously, don't they.

Trudyla ignore the book

I'll say it again All babies are different and some will play by themselves at this age and some won't. Saying they should all be play for 45 mins by this age is bollocks (and I quite like the baby whisperer book otherwise)

There is no one-size-fits-all with babies. You have not fucked her up. Some are more clingy than others. That's just how it is.

Sorry for extended bolding but I just get angry when books make people feel like they are failing!

that sounds totally miserable trudyla. i hate it when J has a whingy day when he grizzles and cries on and off all day, and he doesn't have them very often (he had days like that on Friday and Saturday, teething I think). i can't imagine what it must be like to have that every day. Life is all so much easier and happier when he is a cheerful baby.

I agree there must be a dairy-free formula where you are. So many babies seem to be dairy intolerant - in my experience round here it seems to be about one in five.

Spent the day rearranging furniture - his room looks really nice now (shame about the rest of the house!). It is going to be so lovely to have our bedroom back to ourselves. We can't make the baby monitor work properly (his room is down the hall from ours) but we reckon if he needs us that badly, we'll hear him...

I called last night sleeping through as it was all the time from bedtime (7.30ish) to reasonable morning time (6.20am). But I think even midnight-5am is technically sleeping though, and J does do that fairly often these days.

I have to shout, I'm a long way away .