The CRESH Creche and Spa - What's your excuse for not going back to work?

[Backinthebox]

Liking maternity leave too much? Can't be arsed to go back to your old job? Why not get made redundant, set up a company, have another baybee or even fall off a horse? Anything to spend more time with our little darlings! And it's so naice here - pass the gin!

light book sounds promising. I'll have to track it down. Funny you mention over stating the case. The BLW book is like that. Very much repeating the same 10 principles to pad it out to a book worthy size. Wish I had bought the recipe book instead as I think that would have been more use. Better yet just signed up to the forum for free.

silver glad the toofs are through but boo to the ezcema. My little bro (not so little now at 31 but still) had it really badly as a child and it was constantly bleeding etc, really horrible. now he still gets it a bit but I would definitely say he grew out of it mostly. Not that that is any help to you, but anyway.

okie here have this painful wedgey for being a smug domestic cah and keeping on top of your washing. Our washing stuff is in the cellar, so basically I deal with it these days when I can no longer get down the stairs and the smell becomes unbearable. When my mum is here she puts loads on consisting of one muslin and a baby mitt to keep on top of it. God bless cleaners for changing the sheets. I love my cleaner.

crystalmeth that is fab news about your course and stop being so worried about it all. As people have said, it will do you no end of good to talk to more adults and think about something other than teething or whatever, even if you are fucked in the head from knackeredness. I moan about being busy but I do like the fact my new work enables me to not necessarily think about babies needs every minute of the day. EVen if I was up until 11.30 making sodding chicken, apple and sweet potato last night.

Speaking of knackeredness, I am not too bad today as we all had a normal night again last night thank god. mainly cos I went to the HV and a trainee GP was there and said that when they are really grotty to give doses together of calpol and calprufen 3 times a day (6 hours apart) and the 4th dose of calpol at night. this seems to be working really well and smiling and sleep has returned to our household. I can see the top teeth nearly through now, so any day...

This week has been alotta lurking what with fooking riots, business meetings where I had to brief Grandad (not great at feeding or nappychanging) to sit in cafe outside said meeting with babymoo so I could go in. I won't be doing that again with white linen trousers on. Had to use bag to hide food stains.

Off to hairdressers tomorrow to get my barnet sorted. Looking forward to 3 hours of no interruptions, nice drinks and magazine reading.

Sorry Alps, also meant to say your boss sounds like a cunt. What, are people not meant to leave ever? does he ever read their contractual notice periods? What an arse.

Also Box, good news on removal of cast. Now lots of physio I suppose? You'll be pole dancing again in no time.

I don't think I have washed new clothes for a long time. I think I stopped after I used biological washing powder for a week or 2 and realised he has skin o'Teflon. (got told off by my nanny for that)

that's interesting on the BLW book - I am currently bidding on a copy on Ebay, so hope to get it cheap.

Hurrrah I got the 2 small people to sleep at the same time in the house on my own! An accomplistment indeed. I did have to lie next to mini for a time to convince sleep was a good thing and now he is in the land of nod.

Right Loz eczema. Get thy self to GP and get some steroid cream. You just need a pretty mild one (1% or less) and it is better to use this to keep on top of it than let it get out of control and the have to use a more stronger one. No more than a week on and week off for steroid cream and just a very mild one for the face. Ask for some emoilient to use every day. We tried cetraban (did not like - it can sting some but be good for others), diprobase, doublebase and epaderm. We settled on epaderm as it was the best for us however, different ones suit different babies so it is a bit of trial and error. You need to use a fair amount of this as a moisturiser to protect the skin barrier from harmful shiz trying to penetrate. We were advised to use approx. a whole pump dispenser a week. Don't be fobbed off with aqueous cream - it is shit and it stings and should not be used for eczema. I have also tried natural stuff like skin salvation (average success) and we use Weleda in the bath to wash hair and body - we didn't use Aveno as it is oat based and mini was not able to tolerate oats.

Cos is kind of correct in that diary free could help however it is worth asking what else could be the cause? In little babies food (of which they can exposed via breast milk) is often the trigger especailly if there is food intolerance or allergy, hayfever and asthma in the family. However, it is not really advisable to go cutting stuff out of your diet willy nilly. The casue of the eczema in our case was not only diary but wheat, egg, nuts and oats all of which mini was getting through my milk. So, yes cutting out diary may help but if other things are triggering also then you may not see a massive improvement. Worth a go for a time if you can face it and see if there is an improvement. If on formula already then you may want to speak to gp about maybe switching to a non cows milk formula of which there are a fair few to choose (not goat or soya though). Neocate is the most expensive so sometimes difficult to get but as it is amnio acid based and contains no animal protein at all it is best for little ones who can't tolerate CMP at all. If the eczema really doesn;'t get better then the next step is skin testing. Come back and talk to me about this if you go down that route.

Right, I am off to put a load of washing on

Medee, happy to post you this one if you want? You can post it back to me just before sprout turns six months as I would have thought you'd be up and running by then or you can then decide whether to buy it?

Also look here: think it pretty much coversost things in the book. Or go for thd recipe book. It covers the contents of the BLW book in the intro but would probably be more use!

thanks for the link, have bookmarked that link. If i don't win the ebay auction i will take you up on that please rocket.

Yep no probs. Meds just let me know.

Ignorant here...but isn't BLW just letting 'em eat a bit of what you're eating (which of course is already healthy and nutritious) without mushing it up? How can that fill a book? We ended up doing a bit of spoon-fed and a bit of finger food. Especially in the beginning, Squib would get frustrated at the speed he could dissolve the food in his spit in order to get it down the hatch, so I need to do a bit of shovelling and then give him summat solid to throw on the floor feed himself once he's no longer too ravenous - which then allows me to finish my meal in relative peace!

Thank god it's Friday. Am totally over the whole monotony of this looking after a baby lark today. Sleep, attempt to stop baby from putting inappropriate things in mouthplay, food, clean teeth, potty, repeat. Wears a little thin by the end of the week...

lightspaper I can't believe you just said that! Yummy mummies everywhere are gasping in shock & horror! Y'see the thing is my lurver, you cannae sell a book with 1 page. You need to show illustrations of e.g., carrot sticks.

light I am confused. I thought our babies were the same age? How come you are doing potties and teeth brushing. I am doing neither of these things.

Teeth cleaning is a bastard. Squeaks was bleeding when I did hers yesterday, so wonder she hates it. I now give her a paste-free brush to chew on while on the potty in the morning, and I do them properly for her in the evening.

Anyone got any tips on preventing a child screaming blue murder while you scrub their gnashers?

honey as soon as they have teeth it's advised to do brushing, we have one of those fingerr tip ones. Luckily artie things teeth brushing is great fun.

yup the BLW book involves a lot of repetition. I have both that and the recipe book, happy to lend both to anyone who wants a read.

Alps oh dear. You mean my belated application for NCT membership will now be refused? Can I redeem myself by setting up a direct debit with Boden?

Honey, wot Cosmo said. Sqiub's got 4 teeth through now, so figured it was time to start brushing. When I say brushing, I put a v.v. tiny bit of baby toothpaste on the brush and Squib pretty much takes over - sometimes I can just about jiggle the brush around in his mouth a bit, but I figure him chewing on it must have the same effect - plus he gets the benefit of the fluoride. The tricky bit is getting the brush back off him, but at least it distracts him from time spent on the throne.

The potty training thing is just me trying to do it the way our parents did at that age - I just shove him on it after every meal for 10 mins or so and see if anything comes out. Only started on Monday, so it's early days. Count so far is 3 wees, one poo. I'm not expecting it to happen quickly, but I'm hoping he'll gradually build up a habit. I'm at home dying of boredom at the moment, so I figured, why not? You can of course guarantee he'll do a massive dump in his nappy about 5 minutes after I've taken him off. Every time.

Wow that's really impressive. My approach (as with most things in life) is if I wait long enough he'll hopefully work it out himself. What's the average age people start potty training? I figured walking came first but clearly I know nuffink - I'm not even brushing teeth. Well, I did it once and he did think it was quite funny as I stood him in front of mirror. It seems a bit daft though when I give him dreamfeed later though, so obv wouldn't brush his teeth then. I don't suppose it matters though - more about habit from what you are saying Cossie?

It depends where you are. In the West now, most people don't even start thinking about it until they turn about 2ish - basically, it's baby led, waiting for the child to be able to control their movements and communicate to you that they want to go. In the third world, where there are no nappies, babies are trained to go when held over the drain or whatever within weeks of birth. Back when everyone used terry towelling here (like, our parents' generation), it tended to be started at about 9 months ish. Read an interesting article about it awhile back - basically, with more mums going back to work, and the convenience of disposables, the age for potty training has gone up and up over the last 20 years. I'm not comfortable with the landfill ishoo, not to mention the expense, so I'm giving it a go. Guarantee Squib will still be in nappies when he's 4.

Only thing I know is that summer is best time. You can have more nappy free time outdoors and laundry is easier to deal with.

so that one nice week in April we get then???

:)

Light that is really interesting. I guess also with more mothers going back to work and kids wiht nannies/nursery there is probably less impetus too. Path of least resistance and all that...

I have been out with people with teeny tiny babies. 2 six week olds and a 3 week old. They were all tiny and sleepy and did nothing but doze and feed. Meanwhile, my baby tried to steal my chips, knock my diet coke over, leap out of my arms, gummed a rice cake into paste and dropped it in my hand, and then tried to escape over my shoulder to see what was over there. When did my baby get big?

Oh and she fell off the bed twice today. First time I caught her. Second time I didn't. How does she move so fast? She can't crawl!

Yeah. Something like that. Think there was also some kind of Freudian thing about overly obsessive potty training leading to anal retentiveness. In the sense of bum-clenching, not of having an obsession with lining up one's paperclips. Or maybe they're connected? Could this explain Alp's boss's behaviour?

ahh, I have been outbid - Rocket, shall PM via FB. Why do people not compare the prices they are paying to Amazon - the book is 6.46 free postage there, on the auction it is now £5.20 including the postage of 2.99. That's not enough of a discount for a second hand product.

Wow I have been defriended by an ESH. I didn't know I did anything wrong, but apparently I must be very boring or faulty in some way. You know how sensitive I am about these things. Some people are just plain rude.