March 2005 part 4 - The nights are getting quieter.....

[BonyM]

Not that I want to tempt fate...

Well done Jo - keep us updated on your progress. I'm impressed you're doing the full marathon.

Pidge at Iris falling down stairs. Hope she is OK. You just can't take your eyes off them for a second can you. that you have heat in your house again. When I was trying to get Harrison to nap longer, I used to do the same when he woke after a short time as I do in the night - keep the blind closed, the door shut and wrap him in a blanket so he stays warm. Then I would rock him in the chair until (usually) he went back to sleep. Eventually, he just started sleeping longer (probably about 5 months old) and has been doing so ever since. I agree that it's important for them to rest well in the day as Harrison is cheerful all the time unless he's poorly so good luck

Hooray for Iris's first tooth - here's hoping better nights are on their way Harrison now has a little cleaning cloth for his four teeth. Going to try it for the first time tonight so that should be good for a laugh

I've added my details for the meet-up

Cristina - London (Wimbledon) - free any weekend, can travel
Busy - Reading - free any weekend except 28th/29th January, can travel and can pick up others

DD is much better today (wishing I'd sent her to school as she's driving me mad because she's 'boooorreeedd', so she keeps telling me)

Have a good weekend everyone - DH is away so I get the whole bed all to myself with no snoring to contend with

Iris is fine after her tumble down the stairs. But we had another terrible 5am start, except we had decided we should leave her to cry because we've tried all other techniques to resettle her, and on the days when she's got up that early she's just been miserable and crying off and on all day with exhaustion. So we left her .... and it took an hour and a half . Utterly grisly. She did then go back to sleep at 6.30am and slept for another hour. And since then has been on gorgeous form, much happier and better rested. And is having a really good nap now, whereas on the days when she's exhausted from getting up too early she tends not to sleep well during the day either. Urrgh - just hope it might have snapped her out of the habit. I feel terrible and guilty about it, even though I don't know what else we could have done.

Anyway, off to Somerset in half an hour ... bags and car packed. Now we just need Iris to wake up in time to go!

Well done JoPG on the Moonwalk.

As for the meet-up ....
Cristina - London (Wimbledon) - free any weekend, can travel
Busy - Reading - free any weekend except 28th/29th January, can travel and can pick up others
Pidge - London (E. Dulwich - not far from you Cristina) - in total chaos - no idea when I'm free, but go ahead and I'll fit in if I can!

will post more later
but what a few days we have had!

Well done Jo for enrolling. I've just joined a gym, stupid i didn't do it earlier as I'm back to work in just 3 months, so i hope to get a bit fitter and then i'll see how i feel about taking part in any long-distance walks. I'm absolutely fine walking, swimming, cycling, but there's little i hate more than running.

I've been feeling up and down lately, but the ADs are certainly having a good effect.

Have a nice weekend everyone. We are having football practice for Dominic tomorrow, then a Christmas party and a friend from Brighton staying overnight. Nothing planned for Sunday. Last Sunday we went to the London Dungeon which was much more enjoyable than I'd had imagined.

Sylvia is still awake (BF away) and her only nap of the day was 2 hours long (3-5 pm).

How is everyone? I hope you all had a nice weekend. I took DS and DD swimming yesterday. It was Sylvia's first time. She liked it, although she was getting a bit blue after 1.5 hours (a bit long but I couldn't get Dominic out earlier).

Hello everyone, hope you had a good weekend. It seems very quiet on here at the moment.

Harrison has gone on hunger strike Feeding milk good but absolutely refuses to have a spoon put into his mouth. This has been going on for about a week now but after a few days of stressing, I've accepted that it's how it is for the time being so no point worrying. He'll happily take food I put into his mouth with my fingers so he's eating bird size amounts of what I'm having at the moment.

I've been out today and bought a book someone recommended to me on finger foods so I'm going to cook some of those tomorrow in the hope that this is an independence thing and he'll feed himself if I put the food in front of him.

Doesn't seem to have affected his sleep too much (which was my real worry). Last night he woke at 3.30am but he settled back within about 10 minutes and then slept through until 6.45am. That's the latest he's ever slept since I stopped night feeding

Hope you had a good time in Somerset Pidge

Somerset was fantastic - got back yesterday and have spent today trying to emerge from the mountain of laundry generated. We were only gone 2 nights - how does that laundry chaos happen?!

Iris is much happier since getting over her cold and her first tooth. Hasn't stopped her 5am waking tendencies though. The weird thing is she'll often cry for 5 minutes then go back to sleep herself, but wake again 10-30 minutes later. I just don't get it. I can't figure out if she's genuinely hungry by that point, or if she's just awake and raring to go. But I don't think I can take getting up at that time long term, so we're going to have to try to solve this one somehow.

Good luck with the finger foods busywizzy. Iris has also been funny about her food recently. And seems to have got less skilled at feeding herself finger food stuff. I gave her a soft piece of pear at lunchtime, and she managed to gag on it and puke up a substantial part of the lunch I'd just spooned into her! Most frustrating. She is the queen of the rice cakes though.

Hi everyone - gosh, lots to catch up on - I've not been on here for a while - have been spending all my internet time trying to sort out a holiday for next year. Thinking of France as we can take the car so might be easier with all the baby paraphernalia!

Grace has her first tooth! She is eating and sleeping well at the moment - usually goes from 6.30pm-ish to about 5am when she has a feed and then goes back until about 7.30am. However - we went out on a Christmas bash last night so of course she decided to wake at 3am! There was no settling her so I finally gave in at 3.45 and fed her. DH had to wake her at 7.45 this morning!

As far as the meet-up goes - I am in Cardiff but happy to travel - a lot of you seem to be in London and that would be do-able (only 2hrs on the train, or could do outskirts by car). I was thinking with babies - maybe a Saturday to accomodate the workers? What would everyone else prefer? Maybe we could make it a 1st birthday bash in March? Weather should be better then as well.

Got loads to do today so will have to get on with it all - have a good day everyone.

I wonder what it was that Popsy was going to come back and tell us!

The meet up sounds like a great idea. I would love to meet you all and all the babies. You never know I may make it over!

Not much going on here at the moment, Niklas has a runny tummy and no appetite. its been going on for a few days, he was quite grumpy for a day or two but quite happy again now.
We have taught him to climb off our bed feet first so that he stops trying to nose dive off! I'm quite proud, its the first thing that I have really managed to teach him by getting him by repetition.
He has no focus or concentration and still doesn't do anything at all with toys except throw them, bang them, wave them in the air or stuff them in his mouth!
We got the next size up car seat yesterday. Niklas was so excited, he couldn't stop squealing and laughing as we were driving along!

We took Niklas swimming at the weekend, its funny he loves the pool, but hates going in the bath!

Busy - does Harrison have his appetite back?

Good to read that everyone else is doing well at the moment!

That's me off to bed!

Well done Niklas for learning how to get out of bed safely! For the new car seat too. Is this forward facing? I hope Sylvia will stop crying in the car once she's in a forward facing car seat. I took them both swimming again today and they liked it. Tomorrow i'll try the creche at the gym for Sylvia for an hour to start with.

Not much to say from my end lately. The days seem to blend one into the other at this time of the year. Frantically trying to put the finishing touches on our house for a Christmas party we are having here next Tuesday. Getting our new 'family friendly' King size bed delivered today. Lauren is well. Wriggling around like a little worm but still no sign of crawling. Taking her for her 9 month measles jab tomorrow. Taking my mum with for support as I hate taking Lauren for these things.
My cousin from the UK is coming to stay in Feb and is booking a whole lot of 'cosmetic' procedures to have done here. Like tooth whitening and various facial treatments. So much cheaper doing them over here than in the UK. Said she should have her gynae check-up while she's here. Will only cost her about 25 pounds for a check up with my wonderful lady gynae.
Hope all babas are well. Can't believe we're nearing their first birthdays.

Hello everyone.

Well we're having a pretty crappy week all told. Harrison is still not eating properly although I do feel like we're making progress as he is now eating breakfast and sometimes he eats tea. Other than that, we're just plodding away with this 'phase'.

He's also started waking at about 3 in the morning again before waking again somewhere between 5 and 6 and not wanting to go back to sleep. Last night, I went out for a meal with some friends from work. Got home at 1, Harrison woke at 1.15, again at 3.30, again at 5.30 and decided he wanted to start the day then. Feel a bit of a wreck today.

On top of that my best friends husband (the one I posted about a while back who has cancer and whose party I was going to) died suddenly at the weekend. My friend is obviously devastated and they have a four year old son who took 8 years to concieve and multiple attempts of IVF. Things just seem so unfair sometimes don't they.

Sorry for a sad post but that's how I feel at the moment.

Hope everyone else is well and happy

BonybethleheM (great Xmas name) meant to say that I think a March meet-up with babies is a great idea. I'll have a scout around and see if I can find a suitable meeting place. So far we have me, BonyM, Pidge, Cristina and JoPG. Anymore takers?

Busy - sorry to hear your bad news about your friend's DH. One way you could help her is to offer to look after her son for a few hours over the next few weeks, as she may have lots of things to sort out or just need some time to cry on her own.

Re the meet-up, perhaps somewhere your way as that would be do-able for us from London and Kent and a bit closer for BonyM too. There's a lovely swimming pool centre near Bracknell and a discovery centre, Lookout or some such name. If it's outside London I'd probably have DH with me as well as I'm not such a confident driver yet.

It's worrying when they don't eat, isn't it? Sylvia has come out of her hunger strike and is doing OK again. Not huge amounts but at least she eats again and breastfeeds too (which she'd cut on too before).

Sylvia's second half hour settling in at the gym creche went well; she didn't cry at all but she didn't move an inch either. I found her exactly in the same spot I'd left her. I don't want to label her, so as not to influence the way i treat her from now on, but she appears to be very shy... So completely different to Dominic.

BW - Very sorry to hear about your friend. It must be an awful time. DS1 is 4 and I just don't know how I would begin to explain something like that to him - I'm sure that you have been having all these thoughts and more.

It was DS1's nativity play today (he is in reception) and it was just so great. They all sang beautifully (well, it was loud if not exactly tuneful) and they all sat quietly (well, to be honest they did fidget a bit) when it wasn't their turn to sing. Anyway, I loved it and I can honestly say it was the best nativity play I have ever been to - I am prepared to admit that I might be a bit biased though. We took him out for pizza afterwards and generally had a lovely day.

Freya now has her top teeth, and has started grinding her teeth together which is just so horrible. I thought that once they came through her eating would improve, but tbh she seems to have regressed a bit and is back to eating baby mush. She can filter out any lump at the moment. Hopefully she will improve again soon, perhaps her gums are still a bit sore.

Went out last night with the six girls from my NCT class. I met them when pregnant with DS1 so we have known each other a while. We all have 2 children now, Freya is the second youngest. We had a great time, but inevitably it was an early start this morning - so off to bed now.

Jo, Harrison does that grinding thing with his teeth as well and it makes me physically squirm. I also know what you mean about their school plays. DD was Mary last year (when I was pregnant and hormonal) and I cried the whole way through, much to DH's embarrassment

Harrison has another tooth trying to come through which will probably explain why we've had a few 3am wakings this week. This will be his third at the top so once the fourth top one is through, hopefully we'll get a bit of a rest. However, he's eating well again today (second day in a row) so hopefully, his hunger strike was teething related rather than an aversion to the food I'm giving him as I've still got loads of pots in the freezer and I don't fancy eating mush

Spoke to my best friend last night and she is in bits about her husband. I feel so helpless as she lives about 50 miles away so it's not like I can just pop in and help out in whatever way I can. Just trying to be on the end of a phone whenever she needs me. Not looking forward to the funeral on Wednesday

Finally, I've heard from my boss about returning to work (or not maybe) I'm meeting with him and a member of our HR department on December 21st at 5.00pm (oh well, he said it would be before Xmas and it is, just) So not long now until I know if I'm going to be a SAHM.

Have a good weekend everyone.

busywizzy - so sorry to hear about your friend.

JoPG - the nativity play sounds gorgeous. I could still nearly blub at the memory of my dd1 being an angel at her nursery at 18 months!

Just spent the morning at an enormous softplay with my original NCT gang from dd1's days. We also all have 2 kids, in fact one has just become mum to her 3rd (that's 3 under 3 1/2!). And three more of us are discussing having a third at some point. What a keen gang!

Harrison woke just before midnight last night, crying and crying (teeth again ) and nothing I did was soothing him. He eventually fell asleep just after 1.15am only to wake again at 5.30. Couldn't settle him again so we've been up since then He's been grumpy and tearful all day, so unlike him and he only had a half hour nap this morning. Then he suddenly zonked out just as I was getting his lunch ready, so he's gone to bed and hopefully he'll sleep for ages (been there an hour already) I feel shattered and it's only lunchtime.

DH has gone out somewhere, DD has gone to art club so I'm now having a nice cup of tea and I'm going to try and sort out a March meet-up for us

Right, I have a suggestion for the meet-up but don't be afraid to shout me down if you think I'm being cheeky (you'll see what I mean in a minute )

I live in Hook which is right off junction 5 of the M3 and 15 minutes off junction 11 of the M4. Hook also has a main trainline from Waterloo which passes close to Wimbledon. We have recently had a new softplay area (Leo's Adventures) open up which is fantastic (big, airy, spacious and not at all smelly !!! ) Soooooooo....... I was going to suggest we meet-up there (how cheeky is that ) I haven;t suggested it just to get out of driving as I'm used to driving all over the place but I think it's probably about the middle of all of us - BonyM it's taken me about an hour an a half to drive to St Pierre from home, which is just as you come off the bridge and Jo, it takes us about an hour and a quarter to drive to Bluewater. Pidge and Cristina, you could come by train if you were reluctant to drive and the softplay is only a 5 minute walk from the station.

I go to Leo's for my NCT baby group each week so I could ask if we could reserve a table and some sofa's for us and then if anyone needed to bring older children (DD will deffo want to come and meet all the babies) they can have a run around too. The food is good and I'll be able to give everyone directions and advice about parking etc.

If we go ahead with it, I was thinking first weekend in March as I seem to recall most of the babies coming have middle of the month birthdays - is that right?

What do you think???????

Sounds like a great idea to me.
I can't do the 4th March, but could do either the 5th (Sunday) or 11th/12th.
DS1 (age 4) will probably want to come aswell, especially if he knows that there will be some other older ones there to play with.

JoPG my friends little boy grinds his teeth as well, am glad Caleb still doesn't have any teeth! Caleb can now say 'Cat' although mostly it's Ca, unfortunately the cat showed her appreciation by scratching his face could have killed her!! Still crawling like mad and is now cruising as well, still not sleeping well and ends up in bed with us 99% of the time.

Got a shock when my employers sent a letter through the post saying I owed them £2k in maternity pay! Told them I had gone back to work but in a different trust, flippin NHS. They've since sent me a letter saying it was a mistake and their records weren't up to date. Either way it gave me a couple of sleepness nights. We are soooo broke at the moment, can't afford any presents for each other and are only getting little things for close family. Not had any clothes in ages and what I do get I get from Charity shops. Either way could be alot worse so i'm not too down about it. Hope everyone is ready for babies first Christmas!

We've decided to try for another baby in January 07!

I can do all dates so far. Hook sounds a good meeting point.

I hope you & babies & older ones are all well.

Hooray, Harrison has finished his hunger strike and is now eating with gusto He has also settled back down at night again and is going 6.30pm through to 5/5.30am so I think it was all teething related. Unfortunately as it's not through yet, I expect this to be an ongoing saga until it makes an appearance.

Crawling update - he's still doing a beached whale impression each time he pushes onto his hands and knees. DH says he'll be crawling by Xmas ...... hmmmmmmm, pigs and flying spring to mind

Have almost finished my Xmas shopping and am going to write all my cards tonight. Trying to be super organised and have nothing to do next week as I have 13 coming for dinner on Xmas day so don't want to be rushing around at the last minute.

We've bought Harrison a few toys that are a bit more advanced than the rattles he currently has, but mostly new clothes. DD is still changing her mind about what she wants. Uh oh, I can see her deciding on Xmas Eve that she absolutely has to have something we haven't bought her !!!!

So three of us are confirmed for the meet-up so far, still need to hear from everyone else. It will be something lovely to look forward to after Xmas - it's just a shame Leo and Jambot can't join

Wow Shalaa, Caleb is so clever. Harrison's made as much progress with his sounds as he has with his crawling skills - zilch. He says rarararara but whenever I look at him and say dada or mama, he just laughs and trys to clap his hands. Hmmmmm good job I'm not in the teaching profession.

Hope things aren't too difficult for you financially

Busy - I didn't think Lauren would be crawling anytime soon but in the last week she has suddenly come on in leaps and bounds physically. Now think she will probably crawl by Christmas. It's amazing how quickly they'll suddenly get the hang of something. Very late compared to lots of the other babas, but she's getting there and she's now using me as her human jungle gym, which is actually great fun.
Anyone on egg yet? I've been told to leave 10 days after her Measles injection and then slowly start introducing first egg white then yolk. Apparently they sometimes have a delayed reaction to the measles and if you introduce it at the same time as the egg you may confuse the measles reaction with any egg reaction they may have. Hope she likes egg. Expands the old recipe repetoire a bit. Are any of you giving foods separately now or are you still mixing meat and veggies together?
Also, anyone using cow's milk for porridge yet? Have been told I can start, but thought you should only do this at a year??