The CRESH spa and creche: we ALL deserve crap ham

[FannyPriceless]

Enter all ye ESHes. We've been Barren, we've been Pregnant - now at last we are Child-Rearing.

• Come share your questionable tips on raising a real live baybee!
• Compete with Cunty to take control of the bad mummy crown!
• Eat crap ham - after all, you deserve it!

I feel on a slightly different planet to you all, I don't even have a baby who falls asleep before 9pm yet. Last night I honestly thought she was going to be up all night, just wide awake and excited. Then she suddenly fell asleep.

Dreamfeed is not anywhere close to being an issue.

Sorry I don't mean to make you feel bad going on about dreamfeed. If you're happy, she's happy then it's all good. If you are getting fed up, maybe try and get her to sleep less in day, and maybe in the late afternoon so she's really whacked? We started putting him down to bed early quite early on but he would often wake repeatedly after this, we'd just keep putting him back!

I am laughing bitterly at the idea of Bob sleeping any less in the day. I think she managed two half hour naps back then.

I do find the dreamfeed stuff interesting. I would like the chance to try it. I am attempting to move bedtime a bit earlier but it's tricky. And I don't mind that much. She doesn't spend the evenings screaming, she's just awake. I do sometimes feel that I must be doing something wrong if everyone else's babies go to bed at 7pm. But I know from my NCT class that they don't. We have a mix of early sleepers, late sleepers and ohmygodjustgotosleep sleepers.

Back then=yesterday. Two half hour naps yesterday. By all rights she should have been passed out in exhaustion or a screaming wreck. Not smiling and excited.

Wowee that's some stamina. If she's not sleeping and not screaming then I guess she'll just get more tired as she gets more active. Doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about!

Hey all! Been a lovely day today n'est pas? Went to a French friend's barbie so have been practicing my rather crap version of the language. I can't wait until my son gets to the point of correcting me...

Medee don't know if it's any help but re dream feeds...we hadn't actually realised that it was what we were doing (or that's what it's called), but we gradually evolved to waking the Squib up for a feed at 10pm, having put him to bed at 7. We always do a nappy change as experience has previously taught us that liquid in will lead to more liquid out than the 7pm nappy can cope with, so he does wake up, but he's cool with it. I do primarily breastfeed, but due to weight gain probs early on we have always supplemented with formula for the last couple of feeds of the day. We used to find that at the 10.00 feed Squib was so sleepy he'd take forever to breastfeed, so what we now do is I sit in front of the telly and express from 9.30 till 10.00, then we do the nappy change at 10 and just give formula in a bottle. The expressed milk then goes in the next day's cereal (as it's less than he'll neck from the bottle), but if you are better at the supply side of things than I am you can just give it straight to baby - goes down much faster and everyone's in bed half an hour later. These days he'll usually sleep through 'till 7-7.30 the next morning, but previously (and, delightfully, last night) used to wake for one feed around 4-5am ish.

I am waiting for the magic moment when it looks like we can drop the 10.00 feed and I can watch the news for the first time in 6 and a half months, but not that much of a rush..

Normally she'd scream if she didn't sleep during the day honey, yesterday was just weird. And today she actually fell asleep after a feed and had a nap in the house, something that hasn't happened since she was a newborn. For one of them I even managed to put her in her cot and she stayed asleep. Weird.

Tonight I am experimenting with abandoning the swaddlepod. She is too long for it now. I am a bit scared, but she actually fell asleep quite easily. I just hope she stays asleep for a decent stretch of time. She treated me with a 9.30-6am sleep earlier in the week, but it's yet to be repeated.

muse do not fear. Squeaks did not go to bed before 9/10 pm until she was 4 or 5 months old. She had the late feed before bed. When she did start going down earlier, it became a dream feed. We just followed her cues to tell when she would sleep earlier. She spent months in between us on the sofa until I went to bed. And I recall a few nights of settling her in the basket and carrying her up at 10pm. It all seems so long ago now and a bit of a haze.

I think waking or not for the dream feed depends on your baby. I have a hyperactive, "spirited" child who always wanted to get up and play if I accidentally woke her properly at late feed time. And she never wanted to drink when awake - too much else to see and do. I figured the nappies can handle it; after all, they do now, with her sleeping through from 7pm.

I love the sleeps in the house. Mainly because I was like a demented nutter wheeling him around when he was about 3 months and refused to nap indoors.

We've got an emergency nanny for 3 days whilst I bugger off to bucks to get no. 3 finito. I have written a war and peace handover but can't think about fact I won't see him for 3 days. In fact I'm welling up now thinking about it. I'm only meeting her tomorrow to do the spanish inquisition and tell her everything about life here. Poor cow. She's got about 10 years more experience than me from her CV and is bound to be amazing, but has she looked after my precious FB???!!!!!

Oh poor you, it will be fine honestly. Think how lovely it will be to see him again when it's done, don't think about the time away.

I'm not sure I have an asleep baby, she seemed to be furiously handsucking when I went in. But not crying. So I left her. I guess we might have some horrible nights ahead while she gets used to not being in the swaddlepod. But we must battle through.

And thanks Casp, I am trying to move bedtime forward a little and watching for cues that she wants to go to bed earlier. It's not like I'd do anything with my evenings anyway, so for now it's fine.

Bless, Moo! I'm actually starting to look forward to going back to work because I'll get to have a few nights away from both of the little terrors darlings. Obviously I'm not looking forward to the bit with the exams. Just the bit where I get to drink miniatures and then sleep the sleep you can only get with no kids in the same bed as you.

Skype is your friend here. Don't how long it took me, a supposedly intelligent adult human being, to figure out I didn't have to hide under the desk in the hotel room to play peekaboo. You can just sit still and move the laptop!

Box I think I too could come to terms with it were exotic places, fine hotels and nights out involved. Sadly I will be in my parents spare room!!! Good idea on the video calling though. The poor child will be very confused. Ah well, I'm getting up early tomorrow now and driving up so I get tonight with him and can work all day today. I'm a bit of a hypocrite really because we are thinking of going away for a long weekend somewhere hot and leaving him with Grandma so I can't be that bad can I?!!!

can I just ask if anyone else had a puree lover and how/when they introduced thicker foods? HE will chew on a mini rice cake but my heart stops every few seconds as he nearly gags on the bits. All normal?

honey JB took Bear to Scotland for a few days in March and it was fine. Of course I missed him and was very glad to have them home - had the best smile EVER when I collected them at the airport. I talked to him on the phone although tbf he didn't say much back.

boxer That's very funny about the skype, and I think I too would've been diving under the table.

honey Bear has always choked on rice cakes, but I think this is in protest to their blandness! As for introducing lumpier stuff I just stopped blending quite so much.

Morning. Well, I clearly know absolutely nada about getting babies to go to sleep at their allotted time...was up till 12.15 this morning after the "dream" feed, trying to persuade a wide awake and playful baby that he should in fact be asleep...would probably still be there if it hadn't occurred to me to try putting him on his stomach. 10 mins of patting on the back and singing and he was finally out. Urgh.

Honeymoo I'd be a gibbering wreck at the idea of going away for that long, but as others say, I'm sure he'll be absolutely fine. And I'm still doing the demented nutter with a pushchair impression for daytime naps (although these days he's out pretty quickly once we go out, so I don't have to stay out for long). What did you do to achieve naps in the house? Leaving to scream (as instructed by HV) just would not work...tried it last night and was a disaster... Rice cakes are popular round here, as are soldiers of toast and [middle class, moi? ] asparagus - think he likes sucking the little bits off the ends. Tried the Organix cookie things and won't be doing so again until there are more teeth present...they just ended up as spitty biscuit paste smudged all over everything .

We use Skype a lot to talk to family back in Belgium. It's amazing how young babies can be to get the idea of interracting with a flickering image on a computer screen and realise that there's actually a person there isn't it? I daresay by the time our kids are our age they'll be interacting with people by hologram or something...

V. funny re diving under table. I'd have been doing that too...

I would also have been table diving

re the gagging, gagging is good, it teaches them how to deal with new textures, you need to be brave and allow them to do it a bit. Choking however is bad - gagging = loud, choking = silent.

Is there a 15/16 week growth spurt? I was up every 2-3 hours last night and each time it was two boobs before sleep again. And she fed a lot during the day. And this morning when TBG was about to take her out for a walk she lunged at my arm and desperately tried to latch on. To my arm. Nutter. So I decided to do a quick feed before she went. An hour later, they finally went out.

yes, think there might be actually Muse I love it when they try to latch on to various parts, a shoulder is a favourite here, although he has also tried tgo's nose.

PS I have posted cutest vids eveh on tother place. Pleeze to be admiring.

We got a great sleep last night - bedtime routine finishing with feed to 9pm, and no resettle needed. She then slept through till gone 6am! I did want to wake her about 4am, but she was so sound I left her to it. Boobs not too leaky this morning thankfully.

This afternoon, I am off out for a manicure and pedicure and MrM is in sole charge, with two bottles of milk in the fridge. He's dreading it as she was fractitious all yesterday afternoon and wouldn't nap. I can't wait!

Medee enjoy that sounds like the greatest night and day ever!

Muser yes to growth spurt for us at that time. Hilarious the latching on bit. I used to find his feeds way longer at the bedtime hour. I mean literally an hour when the rest of the time he'd be done in 10 minutes.

cossie choking and gagging scare the shit out of me. He was sort of silent and looking like he was gagging so I took it away - too chicken in the end.

light all sleep got sorted due to routine and one night of controlled crying. IF you've read Gina it is basically that. Unfortunately it is not just as simple as leaving them to cry, you need to set the day up so that they eat when hungry and sleep when tired. Even when Babymoo has an extra 10 minutes in the morning he will not sleep like normal at lunchtime. There is a bit of leaving him to cry the first few days, but he very very quickly cottoned on and now just goes straight off in his bed. However if I don't follow the routine and let him sleep more in the morning (even coming back from the shops) the lunchtime nap is buggered and we just go with the flow until bedtime. I'm a bit more flexible now about it now that I know he will sleep in his bed as well as his buggy but to begin with I followed it to the letter.

moo I braved it one morning and I gave a pot of purée then gave him slice of toast with butter and he ate some, well sucked the life out of it. Most ended up on floor. Then I decided to give him it more often as practice makes perfect and now he is a dab hand. Also good is really ripe banana as they need to chew and it breaks down easy. I gave him an Ella's cookie and it just ended up stuck to the roof of his mouth!

Horsey folk - what to do about bloat? Keep in during day and chuck out at night or not worry about it?

HIs car has packed up. Fuckstix. He's taken mine. Now stuck at home for rest of day. Lovely.

I swear the 12 week growth spurt only just happened as well. Never mind, hopefully tonight I'll get a bit more sleep. She's got some lovely new sleeping bags to replace her swaddle.

On BBC1 right now, Caroline question is channeling cresh.

Quentin doh.

Weaned ESHies: Does your babby have milk out of a bottle or a sippy cup now? I'm looking particularly at alps and cas here as those with closest in age babbies. Rastus still has a bottle but I'm wondering now he's nearly one (wtf?) whether he'd be better of being weaned off the bottle IYSWIM?