Caution! December 2011 babies can be hazardous to health, bank balances and carrot sticks!

[LittleMissFlustered]

Well last night was not good in this household - was DD2 tho was DD1 she had a very bad tantrum day.

Love opening the mail and getting a cheque rebate from the taxman

Today will consist of housework & more housework! Looks like a bomb has gone off over the weekend...

aethel nipple chomping sounds painful!

oi how exciting!

dsm fantastic news on the tax return, are we talking a holiday or a takeaway?

All ok here so far on Aptamil, though mid afternoon is usually her worst time.

Seven £87.20 so not enough for a holiday. However, is enough for new curtains and accessories in our bedroom

Ouch air! Made me wince when you described Hope's reaction to egg :( I hope she's feeling better soon. You probably know what to do given the allergies in your family but this book is really good for cooking with allergies. I got it for a friend who was struggling with her DS's allergies. I has a section for substituting things you use in your normal recipes with non-allergenic choices.

Hope all the other poorly LOs & mums feel better too...seems like there are lots at the mo.

Well done on the bf wind down Oi I'm sure any sadness about it will disappear when you chuck out the clunky nursing bras & breast pads

Welcome back tyel will you be down my way any time soon? Jealous of the clapping; I've seen a couple of 6 month olds do it now & it's adorable :)

Rocco's past the feverish stage of his virus but is now full of mucus & has a nasty cough & sore throat. He is miserable. Sleeping badly unless he's in arms. Crying lots. Keeps vomiting mucus which I've become adept at catching >_

Two snotty children = not much sleep. However I am on such a high over DS suddenly taking bottles, I don't care! I increased it to 6oz today and he wolfed it down. Will go up to two 7oz bottles tomorrow and see how that goes. May have to start sorting through my normal bras soon

Stick with it aethel. I hope your DS suddenly gets it before you have to go cold turkey

Hope all the poorly babies are much better soon.

DSM those cheques are lovely aren't they? I had one a few weeks ago for over £2k. Nice!

Still no luck with the bottles aethel?
Did you try a sippy cup instead? I can't remember if you have tried it or were considering it.
That may be the way to go. BOi is always grabbing at my drinks, so over the weekend, as I was drinking water, as he was sitting on my lap I helped him to hold a glass and drink from it. It was hard work as he wanted to hold it himself in his own bent-fist-grab-over-the-edge-stylee, and he wanted to put his tongue over the top of the glass into the water, so he didn't actually drink very much, but the interest is there! I'm going to start giving him water more often now that he's shown this interest. I bought a doidy cup (strange, open, slanted cup) but it might be easier to stick to the non-spill kiddy things instead...

Tonight I may possibly be braving the crowds to watch a burning piece of recycled 90s street furniture being passed from person to person. I'm not enthused but the kids are:/

Hee hee LMF, I think you'll go!

Well, oi, we've tried an avent sippicup. When filled
With water it is a plaything of delight, gets chewed and lifted and generally fiddled with and stuck towards the correct orifice.
When filled with breastmilk/formula it is the Evil Cup Of Dooooom!(TM)
We tried a doidy cup and he wants to tip it over himself, but not let
Us help him, so no way would he take enough milk in that way.
Next up is a Tommee Tippee first cup but I think again he'll like water in
It.

We are making slow progress with bottles actually, I'm offering twice daily aptumil and he's taking 1/2-1 ounces most times, but without a hassle unless he's tired. I'm just going to keep that up for the next two weeks and then we'll go to bottles in day and a night/morning BF: if that leads to a bottle strike we'll just do bottles (and pump a supply to let my boobs down slowly, it can go in his bottles). Don't these plans sound marvellous on paper screen!!!

I think we'll go in morning instead. We're home and shattered after a hellish few days. Dinner and trashy telly tonight I think.

I've started giving f puree and he loves it! I can't give him too much of it can i? He will scoff loads but it's just fruit and veg at the moment. Think I'm getting the balance of milk and food right but who knows....

hawthers, they usually p

They usually puke or cry if you overdo it hawthers! just keep up the usual milk amounts. (as long as they don't drop weigjt and are drinking their milk it's fine).

No milk at all taken from bottle this pm, but this baby led weaning is a giggle: DS ate most of a half banana. Wow. I like purees for them too, but lumps of stuff for sucking/playing are going to happen....

V sensible lmf, have a good evening. Hope it's peaceful for all you guys too!

Hope everyone has a quiet evening:)

I'm off to bed with some paracetamol and a bottle of water:)

Oh and honey, poor you! Sounds like you have Rocco's virus, you pften get different symptoms in different family members. Hope the boobs are less sore soon and that your throat gets better

Good luck.
In an attempt to show me who's boss in this house, BOi has been in the boob since about 7:30pm.
...apart from the bit when I changed his nappy and he tried to pee on me.
He's falling asleep now (on boob), I may regain my freedom yet!

Sorry we're going through one of our periodic plague waves, sounds like a lot of people are having a tough time!

Air, we have the same thing with DS, he will not stay still for his nappy change. He is obsessed with the changing basket, so twists himself onto his side to fiddle with it, and then sometimes turns himself the whole way over...

Oh, and DSM, Kate, my Mum got one of those for £700...and I got one too...where I had in fact underpaid for the past year (not on purpose, it's through PAYE) . Got so excited as I was pregnant and thought it could go towards baby stuff, and I have to pay back £112.

I'm not surprised you feel like crying HLC, people calling when DCs have just fallen asleep should be hung, drawn and quartered get my ire too. Even though it's not their fault as such, you still want to throttle them. Good luck with the projectile mucus catching...poor you and Rocco!

You'll get there Oi!

Sadly I've had a truly crap day: found out there'll be a significant change at the end of the year which will make my position at work very difficult, to the point I may have to leave (at best I'll find it truly grim).

To make things worse, the person that I'm friendliest with in the office appears to have waited until I was on leave, and then got the Chief Exec to change his mind about something. It was a decision that I'd advised him on and she'd never liked, and objected to, and now has made him change his mind whilst I was away and couldn't do anything.

I'm not really too arsed about the decision itself (though its an area I've got years of experience in and she's got none) but the fact that she'd be so duplicitous and stab me in the back over something so minor... really don't know what to do.

Oh well, dentist's in the morning, what fun

Northern sorry you've had a crap day. That's the only thing i dislike about maternity leave, being forgotten (on purpose or otherwise) when work make important decisions and changes. It's like you don't exist and then have to pick up the pieces when you return. I hope it gets sorted and doesn't affect you as much as you fear.

Sympathies to all ill babies and ill/tired mummys! I'm not ill this week but feel so tired due to some impromptu wake ups courtesy of ds. Thanks dude!

Got a kit day on Friday - think I'm looking forward to it in a way. Only did a half day training course when on mat leave with dd and the return to work was horrendous, partly due to the guy who's covering my post having to return to his post (im his manager) and not liking it so making things very difficult. So my plan is to do a few kit days and get him used to my return early on!! It's not helped by the fact that he acts all 'buddy buddy' with the team because he has to rejoin them at some point and I have to make all the unpopular decisions so I get the stick. Oops sorry for the mini rant - a bit left field!

Back to ds, he rolls over all the time now then gets frustrated and cries and lifts himself up on his arms. I forsee a commando crawl in his future...

Thanks HLC! I think we're aiming to come down Kernow-way for a flying visit in July but I think it will involve me taking the Friday night train down and the Sunday night train back up, as once I am back to work it's back to minimal holiday days. I'll drop you a line though, maybe a cream tea in Truro Hope you feel better soon, it's so grim to be sick.

aethel good luck with the bottles. Today was our first day attempting routine - DS breastfed early this morning, had two large-ish bottles of expressed milk mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and then breastfed just before bedtime. I see now how lucky we were that he took straight to bottles, I don't even want to think of how tough it would have been to go back to work in two weeks knowing that he was refusing bottles. I might have packed it in before I even got back.

Oi DS loves drinking water out of his doidy cup but he laps at it like a dog! It's hilarious. He makes incredibly loud lip smacking noises as well which crack me up.

LMF hope you get some sleep! I feel exhausted whenever I see you on the night shift!

hawthers what purees are you doing? big hits here so far are blueberries, pears, nectarines and the banana apricot porridge pouch from Plum (he loooooved that). He even ate some mashed up zucchini and a few spoonfuls of my tomato basil soup.

kate and dsm, jealous of your tax rebates. I've never gotten one of them, even though I pay taxes in two countries...

DH is much better today and cautiously back at work - he thanks you all for the well-wishes. I can put in a hearty plug for a new cookbook I just bought called Feeding the Whole Family: Recipes for Babies, Young Children and their Parents. I've cooked five things out of it so far and they've all been winners with us and with DS - I think it will be a family favourite!

Gosh Northern - I'm so sorry to hear about the return to work being so frustrating. Is there any chance of moving to a new job? New position where you won't be so affected by the change?

I feel really lucky that I don't have a "position" or a line manager or anyone that's been covering my work as such. My problem is more about being forgotten about so people don't give me work to do or staff me on projects - if I do too much work from home or leave the office too early (ie. before 7pm...and I have a 90 min commute ) I'm worried that people will forget about me and then I'll have trouble finding enough work to make up my hours targets. Oh well, my aim is to tough it out till December - if I can do that, I can manage a few more months and then get pregnant again and have a year's mat leave this time.

We have one of those Tommee Tippee cups which Eva seems to be getting the hang of, which is great as I spent a bloody fortune on cups for DS before discovering the tommee tippee ones so I refuse to buy another one

hawthers how is his weight now?

northern no suggestions but sorry you've had such a crap day.

aethel glad to see you're making some progress with the bottles. iTunes's just keep upping the amount of formula when he finishes it.

I'm very jealous of your meeting for cream tea honey and tyel. If anyone is ever in Southwold let me know!

I went shopping with my mum today, and got complimented in macdonalds on DS behaviour and DD's gorgeousness (is that a word?!) [proud mummy emoticon]. I bought The Woman In Black and we watched it tonight. It wasn't as scary as I expected but a brilliant film nevertheless, and Daniel Radcliffe certainly proves he's a better actor than Harry Potter.

Hi all, sorry for me me me and post and run, but does anyone have experience with nipple shields?

I've been using since ds was 5do, but he's started snatching it off mid-feed and chewing. I think it is just teething (I can see the tops of his bottom teeth!) as when I take it back from him he sucks/chews his fingers for a bit then goes back to feeding.

I've posted in the feeding section as well so maybe someone can either suggest something to stop this bloody annoying habit as it is really slowing down the feeds. Or reassure me that once the teeth are through he'll stop?!

I guess, I think my phone is battling with lmf's for the worst autocorrect!

Sorry kitty no idea!

managed to get to nearly 5 woop woop!

seven F's weight is now up to between the 9th and 25th centile although that is on bf with one bottle of high calorie formula a day. The dietitian and consultant want him up to the 25 ish so he'll be where he was born. He no longer looks like the little one at our nct group!

tyel Puree wise we've done apple, carrot, sweet potato, broccoli, parsnip, a bay of butternut squash, avocado and banana. He's also had some pea, green bean and nectarine blw style but was a bit hopeless. I've got a great one page sheet from the dietitian which tells me what I can give when, how lumpy it should be and ideas for what to try. If anyone is stuck for ideas its brilliant as its so short. I could try to scan it and email it to people of anyone is interested.

Just a quick one will catch up later. Sky slept in her own bed all night one wake up at 2:30 but I was back to sleep by 3am and woke at 6:30