October 2011: our growing, rolling, sleeping (we hope) and growing more gorgeous by the day babies

[LittlePebble]

Our third thread!

Have had several a couple of glasses of wine and MIL gone to bed. On down side, she's left her 2 dogs in my living room and they sodding reek.

And I too am envious of the mojito, impressed by those coping without dp.

Sassy - how was house? (I think it was you viewing?!) I love househunting.

Feather much patience to you, I don't know how you didn't nibble her at least. Good luck with yours Peguin

Sassy how was the house? We exchanged on ours on Friday and complete on Tuesday so have been packing and tag-team baby sitting. Will miss our current house as it's lovely but need more bedrooms now P is here.

Cheeky how things get better and your Dad feels better too :(

of Mojito

Oh Cheeky sorry to hear about DC's must have been scary to have DD cough up blood (I would have panicked!) and Croup is horrible. Hope your dad is ok is he getting any help/ is anyone nearby?
Cheshire goodness don't envy you moving with a baby! Is the new house lovely though? We're desperate to move but think it will be about 18 months yet.
Rubbish nights sleep for me missing having DP here to take E so I could get another hours kip (the weekend is normally the only time I can get a catchup). Fuzzzy I've been thinking of you doing this all the time, well done you!

Well I managed to get phone on again
although dh commented that it was nice to have my presence for the evening so I think we're gonna have an allocated phone time then all phones/laptops to switch off so we'll actually need to talk to each other
I also would love to move to a bigger place but thanks to credit crunch and useless builders I'm in pretty serious negative equity so I'm stuck here for at least 10 years I think

Sleep wasn't too bad here, awake Midnight and 4am. We have been trying the "bedtime Poppy" and putting a hand on her tummy when we know she has just been fed so is not hungry. She has just complained for a couple of minutes then gone to sleep. This is DH's idea because he read some blurb on Friday and it seemed to work well last night.

Problem is now he has gone to let the chickens out and I put her back in her basket I have had to get her back out when she started crying as I can never tell what her cries mean. Am going to swot up on The Dunstan Method today and keep playing the cries, hopefully it might sink in a bit

Yes new house is lovely too Pebble and we both liked it as soon as we went onour first viewing. It will be great to have more space. We gutted oiur house though so I know it's just our dirt and whilst the other house is really clean (and we are getting cqrpet cleaning man in) I am a bit obsessed about using toilets other people have been using. No money in the kitty for my OCD though so I just have to get over it . I will miss our walk-in wardrobe very much :(

There are lots of people like that now Ed unfortunately. If you don't actually need to move then don't worry about it though, before I went on Mat Leave it was more of a problem for boyfriends and girlfriends who had bought together and were splitting up and in negative equity (and arguing over the pets and not speaking to each other!). I don't think we will be moving for a while after this either, unless I win the Euro and can move to the converted barn with 18 acres and stables which is for sale in our village for £4 million

Hope everyone has a good day, I will be having coffee and cake at some point

lp happy to hear you managed the few nights on your own (how sweet to hear dp coming home early ). I must say, although she has been a little terror the past few nights with the sleeping, in general she is great. It's like she knows it's just me and her, so to save my sanity she sleeps through the night! Don't know what she was dreaming of though as around 3am, she let out this almighty scream! Not a cry or anything, just a big scream! Even the cats who sleep in a little bed in my room got a fright and ran off! It was so funny . Who knows what's going on in that little head if hers

I'm quite settled where I am for just now. Had always planned to move before baby, but we will be here for another few years yet. I have quite a big flat (3 bedrooms) so im lucky in sense that S has her own room and I still have the other spare room as my extended wardrobe !! I'm just not overly keen on the schools around here do will def plan to move before then (oh what a thought ). I'm still studying for my degree so until im completed that and into a better paying job, iv not hope of borrowing any more for time being. I spent alot of time yesterday looking at jobs for when my maternity is up. I'm only part time (7 hrs) just now do trying to find something else to slot in with my current job. I think it's gonna be hard to find anything. It's panicking my slightly

Good to hear that things are going better with C scheh .

Welcome back bubalie !
Haven?t read it yet tally - it?s waiting for me on my kindle!
Great to hear the Glasgow ladies had a meet up.

jnice I hope L is doing better?

ed M has this from time to time, more when he has a cold ? sort of a mix between milk clots and mucus. Get well soon.

at MIL feather . It doesn?t seem to matter what you do ? bf, ff, mixed ? people will always comments on how there?s a better way to do it. I am ebd, so I got the ?he?ll sleep through if you give him formula? and in the first few weeks MIL kept telling me that my milk didn?t have enough nutrients in it and that?s why he was crying. The joy of ILs (and mine live next door to me!). One of the advantages of bf-ing is that my FIL scarpers every time I get my boob out

cheeky hope your Los are feeling better. Sorry to hear about your dad.

Cheshire DH has always been better than me at deciphering Ms cries. Exciting news about your new house.

fuzzygood luck with the job hunt.

M is sitting in the swing chair that a friend gave us. I don?t think he knows quite what to make of it!

Got a call yesterday to say that my new car is in and I should be able to pick it up by the end of next week. [excited emoticon]

ebf!

cheeky what a dreadful week for you. hope dc's and your dad get better soon. x

cheshire good luck with the move. we did it last year when the twins were 4 months!

well, it didnt blow my socks off. the top floor did. it had 4 beds and a bathroom with original floor boards and was gorgeous. the 2nd floor was the same, with 4beds and a bathroom, but it wasnt as nice. but it was still ok. it was the 1st floor that let it down. the hallway was really gorgeous with the original staircase (its a victorian 3 storey) but it was at the expense of the room sizes. there are 4 rooms and a utility room, but i couldnt see which one would be the kitchen. just not big enough. - not the house itself obviously 8 beds is big enough! but the room sizes on the ground floor.

we have seen a 5 bed in the same area, so i think we might have a look at that. its one of the most expensive areas in wigan, but i dont really want to go back. i like more rural areas, especially having kids. but my house preference is victorian.
said to lee, why cant they have a victorian house in the middle of a field with acres of land.

Oh I love old Victorian houses!! Dont know your taste, but I like them very modern inside. A friend of mine bought one a few years back and gutted it completely. Now it's very grand, but clean and fresh looking on the inside with a kitchen to die for . When I move, I want my house to look like that!! The area here with the big old Victorian houses have the downside of no land attached. Very small front and back gardens. I guess then they were all just packed in! Most are close to parks so not too bad, but still ashame. Good luck with next viewing

oh fuzzy that's sacriledge!!!!!'''

why have a victorian house and make it modern? im an original features person. i love original floorboards, cornices, fireplaces, anything cast iron etc etc. it even had the old radiators.

i hate modern. actually i like it in barn conversions and that's it.

i do also like cottages and farmhouses, but with original features. i wouldnt buy them if someone had modernised it.

forgot to say that i didnt need to top eva up at all yesterday- hooray. hopefully we are through it now.

went to see linda40 yesterday too. Riadh is so cute! he has a full head of hair, a little old face with a cuddly body and little thin limbs. he is beautiful and looked like a doll compared to my little crumper.

also- i am now the proud owner of a triple pram!!!! yeah!!!!!
my life starts here.
got it off ebay. only downside is its in coventry. so dp is over the moon with the 2 hour de-tour he has to do next fri.

Hello everyone, can I rejoin you all? Been busy with real life and enjoying Eleanor, and of course the breastfeeding, tea drinking and cake eating. :-)

Has anyone else hit the dreaded 4 month sleep regression/growth spurt yet? E was sleeping 3-4 hours at a time but the last week she's been waking every hour! Last night was slightly better, but still up 5 times. Hopefully we're on our way out of it, she does seem a bit happier today.

Hi Sound, don't scare me! Seb is sleeping 12 hours at the moment (good boy) and I'm loving it. I know I shouldnt take it for granted but I'm not looking forward to sleep regression. Hopefully got another month as he's only three months.

All this talk of new houses..... I saw a lovely 4 bed detached with conservatory and utility room for only £30k more than our 3 bed terrace ( same estate) which I was fantasising about. It needed a lot of work and I don't fancy doing that (again) with a new baby. Besides someone has bought it .

Well done sassy. I've been losing lots of things on eBay recently! Some people really get carried away and end up paying more than you would pay brand new on amazon. I did win a brand new Jo Jo Maman Bebe cot tidy for £5 yesterday which I was chuffed about but forgot about a cot top changer and missed it!

Is anyone else having problems with their knees? Mine can be agony. We change Seb on the floor-hence the need for the cot tip changer.

Sassy - I too love Victorian houses and we have one, but in a bit of a state. It was the only way we could afford one in this area! I love its features, but there is always something wrong with it. We madly moved in when ds was only one, and had to rapidly install bathroom, kitchen, do dampproofing, rewire top to bottom, install new boiler, redo drainage, board loft etc etc. In winter. We were mad and spent a few months living only upstairs with no kitchen. Even though we've done lots to it now, it still looks a state as we have no money to decorate properly!

We are a bit happier today as have had two good nights sleep, ds is much better and the reflux meds seem to be working for dd. She's sleeping better too so am hoping we are out of the sleep regression zone, touch wood. It may be due to me eating loads though, so I'll have to keep eating cake and cheese .

Tally - my knees are ok, but my hip sometimes plays up from standing holding e and rocking. We do have a changing table though and it helps. We didn't have one with ds and my back was always hurting.

tally i know, dp told me recently that someone had bid more for a 2nd hand computer game, than what you could get it for brand new. i was and silly buggers! luckily i got this for half the price of a new one.

cheeky we did exactly the same- new electrics, damp course, put in central heating, loft conversion, including new joists, knocking down walls, bricking up doors, knocking in 3 out of 4 of the original fireplaces- which somebody had boarded up- sacriledge!!
we seemed to encounter problem after problem. i lived at my mums for for 9 months, pregnant with twins and with twin newborns. and we moved in when the bathroom and kitchen were habitable, but not finished. we had a stone floor in the living room, so couldnt put the babies down and all 5 of us slept in one bedroom- the twins in their cots and me, dp, and dd1 on mattresses on the floor! and we could see up to the roof (like a barn conversion) cos there was no ceiling upstairs for a good few months!

i cant believe i lived like that now. we've still not finished either but its not lack of money as such, its lack of motivation.

fb well done on remaining patient, I know what It's like having a nightmare MIL

CD How scary!! Is everyone ok now?

Fd C screams out sometimes in his sleep too! Very startling, I worry he's having bad dreams :(

Hello sound ! We've had our 4 month spurt, but it was nowhere near as bad as yours! Are you bf??

can't believe you get 12 hours! C has got into the habit of waking in the night, he's not hungry because as soon as I put him on he falls asleep.

We're wanting to buy but we're first time buyers and our area is VERY expensive.

Well, C is like a reformed child with the new nap/sleep regime!!! As long as I go up after 5 mins to give him a kiss so he knows I haven't abandoned him, he goes straight off. I can't believe it, when I think how much I was struggling this time last week. Every day, 4x a day and bedtime too :) of course now I've said this he'll be a nightmare....!

tally my knees are in agony! Was beginning to think it was just me! I've been changing S on the floor too so think thats what's done it. Might need to get mat up onto table

Welcome back sound

sch so glad sleep is much better. S was in habit of 4 x 30 mins a day, but today has been a diff story. Think she is ready to switch to just 3 naps, but it's been a bit over the place. Usually has nap at 5.45ish for 30 mins then bed at 8, but this didn't happen as she was still up at 6.30 so just gave her bath and bottle now but has just dozed of while drinking. Might need to just put her to bed now and deal with the early start 2mrw

We have a changing table downstairs and.cot top upstairs I'm very lazy!

Sch sorry, I know we are very lucky and I'm appreciating it while it lasts...!!

Fuzzzy our timings are all over the place (Gina Ford would be appalled) but generally we aim for 3-4 naps a day. He just goes down when he's tired. We have started waking him at 7am for his breakfast so that we can fit in 5 feeds before he goes to bed between 7-8pm. Otherwise he ends up in bed quite late. We generally aim for feeds at 7am, 10, 1, 4 and 7pm but they can vary.

Glad to hear (if that doesn't sound too horrible ) that it's not just me with the knees. We don't really have rooms for changing tables. We use a mat on the floor downstairs and a mat on a blanket box upstairs (still means kneeling). We also do the bath on the bathroom floor. I hobble downstairs in the morning feeling like an old lady!

Yeah, that's much the same as us. Before it was feeds at 9, 12, 2.30, 5 then 4oz at 7pm and another 3 or 4oz at 8 then sleeping by 8.30pm. Naps (30 mins) were (wake at 8.30) 11, 1.30, 3.30, 5.45 then bed. All these times are aprox!!!

A nap in morning, longer sleep at lunch then nap in afternoon is what I think (hope!) she may fall into soon and so bed/wake maybe slightly earlier.

Yes for tonight I put her baby bath on kitchen counter and changing mat on dining room table . Knees can't handle it!!

our dinner table is just one giant changing table, we eat on the sofa's.

Haha! Mine usually is, but I had parents up for din tonight so it all got chucked behind the couch..