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!

Did anyone watch the audience? I cried at the end! What a hard decision, plus his mum came across as fairly toxic I thought . She was very manipulative.

Ninja I watched it and felt the same. What a tough situation and yes I agree about his mum. Disgusting that she thought he owed anyone anything for a decision she made when he was a child.

Didn't watch it but it sounds intriguing - what was it about?

Hope you've enjoyed a few drinks Scream. Make the most of a full night's sleep though. THat's my plan with for BFing too Scream. Carry on with first and last feed until first tooth.

Brooking for beaker success then Biscuits

Had a nice day here apart from DS's PITA behaviour My friend who is emigrating to Oz next week spent the day with us. We kept our goodbyes very brief with chat about Skype etc but realistically that was probably the last time I'll ever see her in the flesh

Biscuits watch it on catch up if you can.

A person with a dilemma is followed for a week by an audience of 50 random strangers from all walks of life. By the end of the week the audience have to come to a unanimous decision re what the person should do. The person is then supposed to follow the advice.

A middle aged man works on the family farm which belongs to his 2 elderly uncles. He is the only full time employee and works for minimum wage. He works above and beyond his hours and gets spoken to like crap by his Uncles. He is divorced and has 3 children who he sees every other weekend on his only day off. He has a girlfriend who is supposed to live with but hardly gets to see. Dilemma should he continue on the farm or not?

The audience can ask questions to anyone in his life over the week. So what seems a no brainer to start with actually ends up become quite complicated and the audience become quite emotionally involved.

Ah a friend of mine left for oz a few weeks ago - so to think I'll probably never see her again. Good that there are things like fb and the like, but it's not the same . Hope you and your friend can keep in touch though with Skype etc. I'm a bit rubbish at stuff like that. I'm not even very good at talking on the phone but really should try to improve I guess. It sounds amazing though how they're settling in and they have a gorgeous gorgeous house

I stopped bf ds1 shortly after he got his first tooth but I can't remember if it made a difference to the feeding (my overriding reason was that I was so desperate for antihistamines for my hay fever and knew I had to stop before I went back to work anyway).

Ds2 already has those bottom two teeth and they make it a teensy bit more uncomfortable sometimes. It's nothing major, but if he is having a 'fidgety feed' it all pulls a bit more. If he's having a nice feed it's the same as before. Now as for this top tooth that's coming through, it's taking it's own sweet time (has broken the skin but still coming slowly). I shall be sure to report back if that makes it more uncomfortable. In theory they cover the bottom teeth with their tongue, but that can't work for the top ones can it? Watch this space.....

Sounds interesting - I shall try to catch it if I get an opportunity.

And I meant to say that yes, I would love a whole night of uninterrupted sleep on my own - bliss! Hope you get the benefit of it Scream. I felt terrible the other week but DH was away with work and I actually quite enjoyed not having to listen to him snore. Normally it wouldn't bother me but i think when I'm getting up to one of the DSs the last thing I want when I get back into bed is him snorting away and flapping the duvet every time he turns over. If I had a choice between a romantic weekend away with DH or a weekend away on my own it would be a tough choice.....

Ah, who said romance is dead good job we aren't planning to ttc again

'The Audience' sounds interesting and a little freaky Which channel / when is it on?

Biscuits I'm very interested to hear how you get on with E's top tooth!

Too tipsy too remember anything else I wanted to say! Finally back in my room, on the last pump of the day! The dinner and drinks was good fun, until DH called me because DD was v upset and wouldn't settle Amazingly I could actually tell which cry it was over the phone (I never really believed that was possible!) DH had thought she was hungry but too worked up to feed properly, whereas I could tell she was overtired and just getting briefly distracted by the bottle. So we agreed a new strategy (bouncing on the gym ball instead of attempting to feed) and within 5 mins she'd calmed down, asleep in 20 After that I carried on enjoying my night!

Looking forward to uninterrupted sleep. I have to wake at 7 though, to have time to pump before breakfast sigh I'd have been up by 7 either to feed or pump anyway, the only difference is I can't go back to sleep afterwards!

Well I seem to be becoming a bit of a regular on the nightshift again here.

I don't know what it is that is making ds2 wake now? Teeth? It being a bit colder? I've been up since 4 trying to get the room warmer (I think our thermostat is a bit dodgy), apply bonjella, change his nappy etc. he wouldn't normally have needed feeding overnight so I figure there must be something else waking him? Typically DH wanders in and asks if I've fed him (which I am now). I managed not to throw anything at him for that though. It's weird, I feel as though because he would normally not wake up, there must be A Reason and I should attempt to find that reason first? I couldn't get him back to sleep though so am feeding him now.

Hope you enjoyed your evening Scream - that was impressive detective work for your on-call baby settling. I hope DH was suitably impressed and maybe starts to realise just how much you're doing looking after A all the time.

(Morning pump in progress)

DD slept 8 hours last night after that call with DH! So he now thinks dealing with her is super easy and what was I fussing about?!?! I'm glad she had a good night's sleep though, and I know DH wouldn't have been able to soothe her if she'd had a bad night, so it's better all round this way even though it doesn't leave me any room to gloat!

Poor little E Biscuits. I hope whatever the issue was last night has now passed!

Got to go and convince the hotel staff to let me keep my room until lunchtime for my midday pump now!

Great work settling A over the phone, Scream! And am so of a night's sleep.

I may have had a breakthrough last night. Maybe. We were merrily getting up every 2 hours, which is a bit better than usual, and at 2 I started feeding her and she started to look more and more awake and gave me big-eyed grins and started reaching out to poke my face. I thought oh no, she's all wide awake and it is 2 in the morning and I can't cope! So I put her down in her cot when she'd finished feeding, and went back to bed, quite expecting her to squall within 5 minutes. Lo and behold, I wake up 2 hours later! She never made a peep and just went off to sleep. Either that or she lay awake in silence for 2 hours and only then started to cry...I don't actually care if she did, because she must have been contented if she didn't cry. She was a bit unsettled at 4ish - I had to settle her twice and didn't get back to bed until quarter to 5, but then she slept until 7.20, which was great.

Well done Scream for diagnosing the cry over the phone. Sounds like you had a good night. Bet you can't wait to get home now. The Audience was on Channel 4.

AF showing no sign of giving me a break. I'm still changing every hour and getting a bit worried about it tbh. I thought it would have eased off a little by now...I'm supposed to be going out again tonight with another friend but I'm not sure it's such a good idea if I'm going to have to be traipsing off to the loo constantly.

DS has been making me laugh today. He's pretending to be Mike from Monsters Inc. You know the little green one with one big eye? He's going round with one eye shut and then lifting the other eyelid up and down saying it's like Mike's. He's wound me up all week being naughty (probably PMT on my part too) but he's being lovely again today.

Scarlet your DS sounds cute . Sorry that AF is still so horrid though . Don't know what to suggest other than brooking she buggers off soon

Oh. My. Goodness. I just had the most horrible time at the supermarket. Ds2 was asleep when we got there so I stuck the car seat on one of those car seat tellies and off we went. Within 5 mins though of being in the shop he woke up. All fine at first and then he just started howling . He doesn't like being in the car seat much when he's awake. Anyway, as if it weren't bad enough trying to finish my shopping with a howling child I had to endure the 'helpful' comments of various old folk . I did pick DS2 up for a little while but eventually he was too heavy and I had to put him back in the car seat. Cue more howling and more unsolicited advice. The prize goes to the bloke at the checkout who actually came back to the checkout to tell me that next time I go out I should take a bottle for him because that's what he wanted . Words fail me but needless to say I feel quite now.

This was a good hour ago and am only feeding E now (him having come home in the car and gone to get DS2 from pre school without crying any more) so he can't have been that hungry

Errr, trolly not telly. He'd probably have been a-ok if there was a telly!

at 'helpful' folk Biscuits. Did you smile and nod or say what you really thought?

Grimaced and nodded Scarlet and seethed inwardly

Things are looking up on the friendship front. I met a lovely lady today and we discussed cloth nappies over coffee! She has invited me to a gathering of a group of mums who use cloth,are or were breastfeeding and cosleep so I should fit right in!

That's great news Wants - sounds ideal

Excellent news wants sounds brilliant.
biscuits did you not use the old MN chestnut of 'did you mean to be so rude?' Pour yyourself some vino and relax. Some people clearly have no mmanners

It was mainly the fact that he came back to suggest it to me . As if I would never have thought of taking food for him. You're right. Wine o clock. And Chinese take-away-from-the-supermarket.

Back home with a gorgeous lady snuggled up asleep on my chest. Bliss.

When I got home she was happy to see me, but also seemed hungry. So I started bfing and she drank like a starving person! I really think she drinks the bare minimum she needs from the bottle (which we only provide cold) and hangs on for as long as possible waiting for the next bf! It was the very first time I've actually enjoyed bfing - just because even though she's been looked after perfectly for the last couple of days, clearly she loves bfing and it's something only I can do for her. It was nice. Wish it hadn't taken 20 weeks to find something I like about bfing!

at the supermarket morons on behalf of Biscuits! Clearly grounds for lots of junk food!

DS is now 8 days old, so here we are!

Can't possibly read back and catch up but hope everyody is well?

I can't believe you haven't got time to read back and catch up - what else could you possibly be doing?

How's it all going?

congratulations on the arrival of your DS munx. :)

been too busy with growth spurting, sleep regressing, probably teething DS2 and running back and forth to the toilet with DS1 to keep up.

he's doing not bad and we've even had a couple of puddle-free trips out.

just gearing up for the big 3rd birthday next week, bit worried my cake will be shit!

re the teeth, i fed DS1 till he had pretty much all his teeth and very rarely had a problem. he got his first at 6 months. i know you don't fancy it at all scream, but i read something about teeth when i was trying to catch up.

we were up at 1, 2, 3 and i lost count after that.

I've got DS2 in a long sleeved vest under his sleepsuit and sleeping bag tonight, convinced he was cold last night. DS1 used to sleep with a long sleeved vest all winter, he seems to love being cosy!

Can I ask a sterilising question? Post 6-mths the advice is to just sterilise everything that has had milk in it right? Obviously you have to wash it up first as well. Should I sterilise it only after washing it up (and then just keep it in the cupboard until i use it) or before use (keeping it sterile until I use it) or both?

Thank you for helping collectively with more of my stupid questions.....