Post-grad Brookers, over here! We will Brook No Argument that all Mini-Brookers sleep 12 hours a night and behave angelically during the day

[TooImmatureTurtleDoves]

Over here!

Ok I've just spent an age putting some photos on my profile, but before I open them up can Rubber or anyone else tell me how to add "my mumsnet mates"? I'm driving myself mad trying to figure it out. I've selected next to each photo "make visible to my mumsnet mates" but for the life of me can see no where where to actually input your names?...

Scarlet, Rubber did a handy little guide further down the page. She provided a link to the 'MyMumsnet' page, which is where you can access your 'Mumsnet Mates' list. You can get to that page by clicking on the 'MyMumsnet' tab of the options bar above.

I've just added you all as mates and put the "Autumn" pic back up. Let me know if you can't see it! Ninja the naming ceremony will be the first Sunday in November. So plenty of time to organise it when we get back in theory.

Interesting weaning chat. I'm taking notes!

TMI warning - my huge lump burst! It was honestly the most disgusting experience of my entire life to date. Sooooooo gross! That is all.

ooh hope it feels better with the pressure off scream. :(

re the holiday: yes we stayed on site in a hotel. we didn't stay in the most expensive hotel which is literally on top of the park gates, but the next closest (new York) which is the other side of the Village of shops and restaurants. it was about 5-10 minutes walk to the gates. the next hotel was maybe another few minutes round the lake.

hotel was good, with characters downstairs for photos every day, meaning you didn't have to hunt for them or queue in the park.

the ticket we got is a park hopper, ours was a 4 day so you could wander between the 2 parks any time. you could see the stunt show (also starring a 'real' Lightning McQueen) in the studios park then go to the bigger park in the afternoon. there are quite a few gentle boat ride type things, DS1 was quite brave at going on stuff though! also a 'car driving' thing.

there is a toy story themed bit in the Disney studios park which DS1 loved.

going to have to scroll back to see what you actually asked! we booked when they had a 'sale' in spring, think DH signed up to the website for updates.

oh the further away hotels all have shuttle buses, i read they were quite busy and a pita with a pram though. if you stay in one of their own hotels you get the 'magic hours' in the morning where you can enter the park early, some rides and queue areas start to open for hotel guests.

avoid weekends if poss, it was mobbed!

in terms of little ones, there are buggy parks outside things you can't take them into. i was paranoid with my new one and took a padlock after hearing about thefts online. you can hire pushchair things but they don't look v comfy and are not any use for wee babies.

there is a massive hypermarket nearby where we got drinks and snacks etc.

let me know if i missed anything. away to do the transfer..

That's really interesting thanks Jaggy

Sounds like it is pretty well set up, but I think for my money it sounds like a bit too much hard work with ds2 given that ds1 is frightened of people dressed up and scared of rides. So hoping he gets over this as DH has always said if we had kids he wanted to take them to Disneyland or disneyworld (one of the US ones). But we wouldn't do that until ds2 was big enough to get something out of it.

Ds2 is just at that stage now where travelling becomes the most hassle - needing a travel cot, food, snacks etc etc. we'd just made it through this with ds1 and I saw a glimpse of the future that didn't involve pushchairs etc - t'was glorious......

yeah, despite my panic reservations, it was a good time to go with R so tiny and portable. we were lucky though, we had no idea whether DS1 would like rides or giant characters!

oh one more thing - i bought an up to date guide book thing for my kindle, i read it on the way to try and get a plan!

i think I'd go back, but not until R was a similar age.

even nervous co sleeping wasn't quite working last night, R was ending up all wriggly and flappy instead of cuddling in peacefully. zzzzzz..-)

Photos now on...

Rubber thanks for posting those instructions and Scream thanks for pointing them out

Wants the radio alarm is a great idea. I might try that. He did manage to sleep until 6.20 this morning so we have improvement. Brooking that it's not a one off.

Jaggy thanks for all the Disney info, very helpful. I broached it with DH last night who didn't instantly dismiss it but looked a bit horrified at the thought of it being a holiday.

I definitely want to do the Florida thing but we'll have to wait for DD to be old enough to enjoy it as we'll only be doing it once, so probably another 7 years when DS will be 10 and she'll be 7. Can't really leave it any later than that or DS will be too old. So I was thinking the EuroDisney thing would be nice for DS in the meantime, I'm confident he'd love it.

Scream pleased to hear the lump has burst, I bet that was awesome

Lovely photos Scarlet . Both look gorgeous. Dd has amazing long legs doesn't she - lucky thing I have ridiculously short legs for someone of 5' 6'' 7'' - they're about the same length as ds1's

That's when we were thinking of doing a US Disney - when ds1 is sort of 8-10 so ds2 would be 5-7 ish I think. Hope they want to do it or DH will be v v disappointed! I think it's the holiday he always wanted when he was little but his parents couldn't afford iyswim so he wants to do it for ours if we can afford it.

Scream glad (I think?) your thing has burst. Does it feel better? Is it sore now?

Ooooh, what came out, Scream? I am disgusting, I know. Hope it feels much better with the pressure off.

Slightly better night in that M slept from about 8.45 to 12.30, which is her longest stretch in a long time. I went to bed at 10.30 so got 2 hours of that. Then she slept for another 2 hour block, a couple of 1 hours and finished up by sleeping from 4.30 to 7, hurray! It's an improvement, however small.

Scarlet, such cute photos! DD has such long legs! Your giant bear is scary, though - does it not freak you out?

All the Disneyland chat is v interesting. What do you mean, 10 is too old for Florida? I went to Disneyland Paris first when I was 15 and again when I was 20 and loved it!

Pomme, will try the extra spoon thing, thanks! Am also going to feed her in short sleeves so that she can't rub her cuffs in the mess - yes, her chest still gets covered, but if I can find some bibs then that won't matter so much. Think MIL is planning on buying her some plastic bibs.

Too yes the giant bear freaks me out! A friend bought it as a gift for DD clearly not considering that it is bigger than the average 12 year old and would need a bedroom of it's own. I'm keeping it for polite amount of time then it will have to be re-homed in the bin In the meantime DS has it in his room at the end of his bed. He loves it!

Too on bib chat, you can get long sleeved bibs like these which are quite good. And you can get plastic or material ones of you look around.

Plastic bibs are good but bear in mind nothing soaks into them so they stay quite dirty while they're actually eating and can provide another source of mess to wipe arms in and spread all over everything iyswim. But then they wipe clean at the end of the meal, whereas I have some material bibs which I have to put in the wash after each meal. So it just depends I think. Sometimes it's easier to absorb a bit of the mess on the bib and wash it, other times it's easier to wipe clean at the end of the meal.

Oooh btw, am going to attempt a beaker of formula with ds2 this morning instead of a bf - wish me luck.....

Too I cannot possibly describe what came out of the lump, I would be banned from MN. Suffice to say it was so gross I felt nauseous! feels inordinately pleased she's managed to work one of her new No Brooker words into a post finally!

The resulting crater open sore is still rather painful, but I'm hoping it'll heal over today and that will bring some relief. My main concern at the moment is whether the eruption took the blockage with it, or if it was just all the icky by-product which escaped. I'll have to wait and see if the lump regrows.

Apologies for the grossness, I just can't talk to anyone in RL about this and I desperately needed to go "ewwwwwwwwwwwwww" at someone

Loving the Disney chat. I went to Disneyworld Florida for the first time around 6 or 7 yo, with my brother who's 4 years younger, and we LOVED it! Since then we've been to Disneyland Paris a few too many times and the Disneyland near Los Angeles when my baby sister was old enough to enjoy it. I think Disney works for pretty much any age over 2! We rarely stay in the Disney hotels though, it's very easy to get to the Park gates from anywhere nearby.

Scarlet I love giant bears! DH got me a HUGE Hamleys bear for my 25th, he's literally 5ft tall and super chunky. He now lives in the nursery, with a much smaller Hamleys bear I bought for DD on his lap.

DD's sleep has gone back to the usual 2-3 hour wake ups the last couple of nights. Plus at 5am this morning we had an unwelcome return to the old bright-eyed bushy-tailed want-to-play-in-the-middle-of-the-night DD. Sigh. I feel like we've seen the light at the end of the tunnel though! Once we're back from hol and DH isn't around ruining all my attempts to be consistent I'm going to put some real effort into getting her to sleep well regularly.

ps Gorgeous photos Scarlet! Your two DC are just so cute! I love your DD's cheeky grin!

All these pics of siblings together are making me even more broody!!

Good luck biscuits.

Boo to a return to no sleep scream. Naughty dh for not being consistent.

Dh's bday here and I slightly ruined the morning by dropping one of the bottles of red wine my parents had bought him on the bedroom carpet. MASSIVE stain. Groan.

scarlet - dd is beautiful. Her physique reminds me so much of dd1's! Get ready for some very early and impressive agility, it's fun when you get over the shock :)

I went to Disneyworld in 2007. I was 26 and DH was 34 and we loved it :o We will take DD one day but will do Eurodisney first as it is a very long flight to have to keep her entertained. Those of you on Facebook will be able to see my pics, I couldn't resist getting the autographs from all the characters

too I tried him for the first time without it yesterday. I am not sure he is quite big enough as the top of the carrier came up to the middle of his head. I tried to physically turn his head but he just squirmed back. He fell asleep with his face against me and I had to keep checking that he could still breath!
We went to the toy library this morning and came home with a tummy time caterpillar and an activity cube! D is having a grump but is fighting sleep :( and I have loads to try and get done!

Can I straw-poll you ladies that have started weaning? What is your dd/DS typically eating in a day? Ds2 is on 3 meals a day but already I'm finding it a struggle to make enough variety of food iyswim. For example ds1 and I would generally have sandwiches for lunch, most days. But I feel obliged to make a more varied offering for ds2 so just wondered how much variety you ladies were getting in, and for those of you with older dc too how you're dealing with the whole 'feeding the family' thing?

I'm just lazy and we'd sort of fallen into a routine of what to eat. It makes my brain hurt to have to think about it

Love the lovely swimming - M has been asleep (bar a quick feed) since we got back at about 12.30. Plus I'm starting to chat with the other mums a lot more.

Wants, M used to fall asleep in the Baby Bjorn with her nose in my cleavage, and I kept having to stop and lean forward to check she was breathing! I suppose it's the same mechanism that keeps them breathing when they're bf with their noses pressed right into the boob. I never understand how M can breathe when she does that - especially when she was really tiny.

Scream, I feel less broody since M stopped sleeping so well. I'm sure the broodiness will come back in a rush in a few months! Besides, AF hasn't returned yet so I must not be ovulating, so I couldn't get pg if I wanted to.

Right, am going back to BLW. M seems to gag more on slightly lumpy puree - she did some quite scary gagging last night. Have found a fabric bib and will try putting her in short sleeves before we start. Avocado slices are on tonight's menu.

Good luck with the formula, Biscuits! Have you done it already? How did you go? Technical question - is a beaker a plastic glass, or is it one of those sippy cups with handles and a hard spout?

Still only feeding M once or at most twice a day, Biscuits. [lazy] I was wondering about the variety thing - especially since I'm still eating a paleo diet and there's no bread or potatoes or anything in the house. Yesterday she had full-fat Greek yoghurt for breakfast (and howled a lot later on, so I did wonder if she had indigestion) and mashed sweet potato with unsalted butter, a few squirts of bm (I got bored of hand-expressing v quickly) and water to make it runnier for dinner. The day before she had carrot and apple puree for dinner. The day before that it was apple puree, some banana sticks and sliced grapes. It makes my brain hurt to wonder about making her the same food as me - how am I meant to BLW when a lot of the things I would eat are cutlery foods, such as yoghurt or porridge or soup or curry? I made a week's menu plan for us that heavily features mince because we're a bit broke, but I can't BLW on mince. Oooh, maybe I could make her tiny little meatballs the size of Maltesers! How much effort am I willing to go to? And so far she hasn't eaten anything except fruit, veg and a bit of yoghurt - as she's 6 months, should I jump in willy-nilly with the egg, cheese, meat etc or should I let her get used to fruit and veg first? Can I fry things in olive oil?

DH just said he'd prefer M not to start eating meat with mince because mince has a higher risk of contamination with bacteria.

These are all the sorts of questions I have Too

I would think meatball wise or something like that they would be best with something fist sized so they could gnaw at it rather than Malteser size that they could eat in one? I know nothing though - it's a proven fact

It's this sort of beaker. I wanted one that was free flowing, not a non-spill one. Although this does of course make for more spillages!

I did it this morning and I think he drank an ounce or two? Some went in but he was quite grizzly about it and I'm sure he would have quite happily bf. He also seemed to be having tooth problems though that didn't help. All in all it wasn't exactly easy, but it was better than the first time with ds1 and not bad for a first effort I think.

Oh and Too I would happily be only giving E food once or twice a day but he is just wolfing down everything that goes near him! I have him a portion of butternut squash / other root veggies and he was still wanting more at the end and had a portion of pear too!