July 2010: the "a ffffew more birthdays, a ffffew more walking but are they all sleeping? Are they ffffeck!" one

[CakeandRoses]

kk yes im getting really excited now i have to be honest. I am really enjoying being pregnant but really want to meet my new son!
stac Work is hard but being at home all day is hard too, i think, so i enjoy the variation, just wish my hours could be less per day.
cake D volentarily puts his dummy in a pot in the morning and then doesnt have it again all day till bed time, apart from naps, which im starting not to give it if i can help it. Im hoping if i can wean him off it for naps it will be easier at night but to be honest im not to bothered about it now as i know it helps him sleep and sleep is everything in our house!! Dont feel bad cos u gave in, ur just being 'sensitive to her needs' (i read too much) maybe right now just isnt the right time.
mylife he is already walking very well, just wondering about things like feeding himself, changing his own nappy, dressing himself, going down the shops, walking the dog, doing the washing etc etc
We are havng the garden slabbed and all the gravel removed so D can actually go out and play soon!! Does anyone have a sand pit or any other equipment in there garden thats popular, i was looking at wooden stuff and came across a brilliant boat with a deck and an inside, fantastic if u have the space and the money! sadly, ours id the size of a stamp but we can get some bits a bobs in there.

vik A's only had hers for sleep for at least 6m but i'd still rather she didn't have at all, mainly just so it's not something we have to tackle when she's older and might cause sleep issues then. she's also doing my brain in with it at the mo, she rarely wakes up for it - she can happily sleep without it 'in' but she just needs it to drop off - but when she's teething and grumpy she'll keep throwing it under her cot etc.

just a quick post cos im on my phone in the park. Thanks for the responses about naps. I managed to keep him going til 1145 when he just nodded off sitting up in the buggy. Only problem is he had just 40 mins so fell asleep again in the buggy at 340 and is still asleep now. Maybe he's not quite ready for 1 nap then. Tbh he's never been one for long naps/good sleep so i don't see how it'll make a difference.

trudyla if I try and down drink its like my throat closes and as im swallowing it pours back out my mouth, imagine giving a newborn a fast flow teat on a bottle, thats what its like, I tried to drink some squash earlier half of it ended up down me and I felt like I was drinking for ages and I had only managed about an inch of the glass!
feel fine today though, been dentist and L had his first dentist appointment he got a sticker, although they wanted to see his teeth on my lap he got off and climbed onto the big chair!
mlic L's new word this week is bye bye but he says says is baab byeeEEE!

Our family dog is being put to sleep tomorrow I had to go and book it, she is 14 and is senile, cries all night liking the bed, its so high pitched it wakes the neighbour and has now started peeing on the rug, the floor under rug had fine sand on it I know that is the kidneys, my mum feels so bad as she still runs about and wags her tail like she is ok but vet says its quality of life and she is doing the right thing, I thought I would be ok but burst into tears standing in the vet!

tsc I forgot to say my friends lad climbed out of cot at 12 months in a sleeping bag, he is tall too, her dad drilled another set of holes to lower the cot a couple more inches that stopped him for another 2 months and by 14 months he was in a proper bed with a stair gate, he screams at the gate and normally falls asleep on the floor but its a better option that him hurting himself buy freefalling from the cot

mlic sounds like a rough time for your family. It's so hard with grandparents because they've always been there, you can't really imagine life without them. It seems like everyone gets cancer these days, utterly crap. Fingers crossed for your grandpa tomorrow!

dh I agree with mlic re naps in bed, in the dark. It might sound rubbish cos you'd rather be out doing stuff but imo you have to make a choice between going out when you want or trying to get a bit of routine. S still has 2 naps, one around 8.30 ish and one around 12 but some days if we're out we miss his morning nap and he's not too fussed. (I stick to 12 cos I relish every second of them both being in bed!)

tsc can Fongles have his own room? or is he going to end up sharing? We're debating putting S in a 'big bed' soon but he'll be in the small room so he can roam around and fall asleep eventually but it shouldn't be too much trouble.

viks all I really remember about L being 17 months is that she was totally adorable, into everything and really jolly. She couldn't use a spoon but ate fine with her hands, she could understand things like 'could you get me a nappy' but you'd have to really point to the one you meant :)

memphis sorry about the dog, it sounded like she lived to a good old age though so she was well looked after!

I met up with an acquaintance at the park and she was running late so I bought L an ice cream, then we had a run around and her 3 children had haribo sweets and shared with L, then they wanted an ice cream and she looked so confused that they were having one and she wasn't so I bought her another one (I ate most of the ice cream but still)...she's never had Haribo before (she calls them 'mummy's sweets' ) so I'm never going to stop her now and I don't reckon she's going to sleep anytime soon!

chulita I say things are for grown ups, L was pulling at percy pigs in m&s and I said oh no they are for nanny's as my mum hoovers them up!
mlic hope your grandparents are ok. Sad about their pets too but better than them being in a rescue center for the winter as the old animals never get picked, really sad about our Stella, she had 3 litters by 2 then we rescued her she has had a nervous shake from the trauma of bearing pups as a pup and her dog 'husband' dies at xmas, they were companions for 12 years, didnt think she would last this long without him, feel bad for mum as she will be on her own, I cant face it after losing my memphis last year, brought it all back.
Had to take Starkey vets today he keeps liking his arse he has a severe ear infection, scratches ears, licks paws infection spread to stomach then anal glands so anal clearing (sorry if your eating) ear drops and wormer cost £52 so I wont be getting any glasses again this month!

I meant licking not liking

I do wonder about dh sometimes (that's my dh, not desparatehousewife )

G woke at 1 crying (I think her molars coming through are giving her trouble) so I went and sat with her to get her back to sleep.

I heard A get up (woken up by G crying) and trot out of her room but I knew if I left G she would scream so I stayed where I was as I figured A would go into our room and wake dh and he would put her back to bed.

A couple of mins later I hear her and dh chatting so I think, good, he'll put her back. A bit later G was asleep so I leave her room. I find A trotting round the kitchen and sitting room, helping herself to crackers and chatting to dh who is in bed (our bedroom leads off the sitting room).

I said - dh can you put her back to bed please, it is 1 o clock in the morning to which he says "Huh??? What???" and other such confused sounds.

I say Never mind I will do it, take A back to bed, lie with her for 20 mins till she goes back to sleep, then go back to my bed at last (dh is of course deeply asleep again). Of course he had thought it was morning when A woke him and somehow it didn't occur to him to look at the huge bright digital clock by the bed and discover it was actually 1am.

Ok, rant over, as you were!

really sorry about your family mlic. it's awful to see a whole family affected like that

vik at 17m F was totally feeding himself, if messily. he understood most simple everyday phrases and would run to get things ready when we went to go out - eg our shoes. he was saying about 30 words/short phrases (random things like flowers, raisins and 'cup of tea' ). he'd ask for milk (meaning a babycino) when we went to cafes. He often sang nursery rhymes to himself.

man, all told he was pretty darn cute [pfbsmile] It's a lovely age.

chul you're doing so well without your dh there. i'd be whingeing like crazy. what time did you peel L off the ceiling?

trudy good to hear from you tho sorry things aren;t better. keep chatting...

rah wss!! very annoying.

it's the kind of dippiness my dh sometimes demonstrates at night too. he just slept thru A waking up crying whilst i was in the bath so i had to get out and sort her out dripping wet and boiling hot he then woke up enough to go on at me about his 'crap pillows'... ('well, they're obv not so crap as to act as an impediment to your sleep, darling husband or to make you go out and purchase some new ones from an actual store rather than think you've placed a fucking order with me"

oh and hot news here - i've started my period. am very happy and will learn from this.

Good news about the period cake. So you said you has miscalculated when you ovulated, does that mean you only use contraception around the time of ovulation and not at other times? Cos if so you are playing with fire, you know...

chulita how long are S' naps?

He used to always have his morning nap in bed, he'd still only sleep half an hour, as I said it was where ever he was he'd only sleep that long.

It looks horrible here today, really dark and grey like a winters morning. D is yawning and rubbing his eyes already, hes been up an hour.

wow cake sounds like F was doing loads, this is why i asked though as I think D is pretty good now, he has started to be able to follow simple commands like 'pick ur slippers up' 'give it to mommy' and hes starting to be able to manipulate a spoon and a fork but i must be a bit better at giving him time to learn. He doesnt say anything much apart from 'daddy' 'daddu' for everything, but his walking is really good and hes now standing from sitting, which he learned over the weekend.
Right, off to pooey work have a good day everyone!

L went to sleep after me, I went up about 9.15 and she sang me to sleep I'm going to have to drop her nap though, sad days, she's been hard work to get to sleep and then up at 6am. Once the 1st trimester exhaustion is over I'll drop it, I need a sleep at lunch time at the moment!

cake glad you're in the clear :)

wss that's so irritating but quite funny at the same time My dh is obsessed with knowing the time in the middle of the night so he's always checking. He often doesn't hear the dc, unless I'm ill then his supersonic hearing kicks in selective hearing anyone?

dh S sleeps for about 45 mins in the morning and 2 hours at lunch. If he wakes up nearer 7 I often don't give him a morning nap but if he's up closer to 6 then he gets one. He's in bed at 7pm on the dot and goes down without a peep (now that I bother singing to him).

mlic I sometimes read with both of them but S is happier slapping the book and it winds L up so he gets a couple of nursery rhymes while L chooses her 38 stories instead.

oh and cake I'm not doing well, I haven't cleared the living room toys away since last Tuesday and it's an absolute shit-tip. It's pissing me off but I've got so tired of being the only one putting them away! And I've been doing really scanky meals (speedy risotto, mash and fish fingers, pasta and tomato sauce) cos I can't face cooking just for us. Before I had children and DH went away for 4 months I lived off rice, egg and peas, lost a stone in weight but I can't get away with that now!

that's funny wss! Glad you managed to get her back to sleep OK.

J only slept for half an hour all day yesterday - nursery said they tried for ages to get him to sleep in the afternoon but he wasn't having it. We got him home very tired but cheerful, and he was asleep before 7pm - and didn't wake till 7am! Just goes to show it is better to put him to bed early. The previous two nights he only had about 9-10 hours' sleep so am glad he has caught up with a good 12 hours.

D is good at going to sleep, its somewhere between 7 and 8, usually half 7.

Hes taken 3 steps in a row and has done that a few times. I praise him loads when he does it but hes just so speedy at crawling he much prefers it.

yup wss, that's it in a nutshell but looks even dicier written down like that!

until the weirdness of last month, i had a perfect 26 days cycle, ovulated bang on time and knew and so it seemed pretty safe to not use contraception either side of my period - we wouldn't go all the way iyswim? used this before F with no accidents and fell pg v quickly both times when we started trying.

not sure what to do now as dh seems to have gone off condoms and we actually had a row mid-sex about contraception the time before the risky time.

have no idea what to do now (hate the pill)

chul those dinners sounds totally fine. probably a lot healthier than many people's every day dinners.

and re the toys - get L tidying up! F does the vast majority of his tidying, i'll just help with the heavy stuff.

take all the short-cuts you can and don't feel guilty - i'm in complete admiration of you managing at all.

re naps - we've found that F's settled in to a shorter 1 hour nap now rather than the blissful 2 hours of yore. if he sleeps longer than we/nursery wake him but he's started waking himself now. could you try and shorten L's nap or is she already only having an hour?

oh and the reason he did 'go all the way' the last time was that i was trying to make up for the last disastrous time and that i thought i was sure about my date

interestingly, dh was quite pleased at the thought of a no 3 so will have to make sure i'm the one more focused on preventing it!

Hmm cake, so you're using "natural family planning" as I believe it's called.

You know what they call people who use natural family planning, don't you?

Parents .

No, sounds like it has worked for you in the past, I would be too paranoid to risk it though. Thought about the coil? Or the mini pill? I'm on the mini pill and don't have any probs with it.

dh L took just a few steps for ages then one day decided to walk all the time and now he never ever crawls! It wont be long until you walk in the room and he is standing on the back of the sofa ready to jump off...yers this is what I found when I came back from making a cuppa this morning!
chulita I second getting L to start clearing her toys, I already say put your book back to L and he does. Have you told people in rl yet about being pg?
mlic thats rubbish about always being at the vets! Thinking of you and your family today.
Im staying in all day today apart from a small walk for L's fresh air, im going to do all of my ironing and sort our shit tip of a bedroom out and hopefully paint the front door but that may go out the wondow it looks like rain!

wss haha at natural family planning, around here its called the pull out method! I only know one person in tl who does it and she has 3 kids it took her 3 to believe it was the contaception, and now has the injection...which thinking about it im well overdue for.shit.

at 'parents'

my mother fell pg using the coil (she's uber-fertile and was sterilised in the end after falling pg using different types of contraception). i guess because of her fall i feel more in control working it round my cycle rather than trusting it to contraception which might not work for me.

re pill - i just have a thing about the hormones. i don't like the fact they can effect your personality etc.

have been building up to asking dh to have a vasectomy but then that seems a bit too final - plus i don;'t think he's exactly keen!