These babies are going to be calm, easy and sleepy at all the right times, and we're brooking no argument about it!

[Biscuitsandtea]

In here ladies - the other thread was getting full up so I thought I'd better start a new one.....

Will do some links to / from this thread but in the meantime please make yourselves at home

Firstly I'm very sorry. No more drinking and posting! It was an unexpected night out and I destroyed my diet Great fun though! My head's better than expected given DD was up until nearly 3, and back up for the day at 7! I have reacquainted myself with my pump, and remembered how tedious and frustrating it is! Sigh.

Cakes don't worry about bad habits yet! I've been a 'path of least resistance' parent from the very start, and this week (post holiday) is the very first time I've attempted to enforce a specific bedtime complete with putting DD in her cot awake and NOT rocking/bouncing/cuddling/walking her to sleep. Despite 5 months of being held whilst falling asleep for EVERY nap and nighttime sleep, she's still taken to it really well. I've done every bad habit forming technique in the book and I still occasionally feed her to sleep in her cot with a bottle but she's still getting the hang of self-settling, and seems happy and comfortable going to sleep in her cot now at 5 months old. We've had no tears here. If she fusses I talk to her, and distract her with Ewan the sheep (thank you Pomme for the recommendation!) She's only started to cry in her cot ONCE so far, and I immediately picked her up, calmed her, and 5 mins later she went back in the cot and fell asleep! Just do what you have to do in the first few weeks, and worry about habits much much later on!

Too I hear all your stresses and I completely understand where you're coming from. However may I please also be allowed a moment of ! I'm sooooooooooo broody still! I desperately wish my DH was as keen to start again soon as yours! Between marriage issues, buying a new house next year, and my DH being a terrified of life the responsibility of a second child, I'm worried it'll be AGES before I can have another :( Sorry I don't have any helpful suggestions to your dilemmas though, I have the same queries as you! The wise experienced No Brookers with toddlers will have all the answers though!

Cakes welcome over and congratulations again . Please don't worry about getting into bad habits at 5 days old. Just enjoy the cuddles and go with whatever seems to make her feel happy and safe. I worried about in the early days with DS so got into a routine which in hindsight was far too early and I have awful guilt over it now. I've been the opposite with DD and cuddled her to sleep until she was about 12 weeks old. She is completely fine now at going to bed awake and alone and self settles to sleep no problem. Just enjoy your new baby and don't worry about routines, habits or anything like that for now.

Too have your next DC whenever it feels right. Don't worry about work. It's inevitable that you'd want at least one more DC anyway so really what difference does it make whether you claim mat pay again next year or the year after? Yes it's an inconvenience to your employer, but it will be an inconvenience to them whenever it is so you just have to do it when the time is right for you. Re the finances, you will make it work whenever it is. You've already had the biggest outlay and have all your baby equipment, the rest of it you'll find a way.

Too, I completely know what you mean about feeling broody! I keep seeing pictures of new babies (or even the brooking babies!) and get broody. I got broody seeing Fluff's announcement! I told DH "Aww, she'll be having lovely cuddles with a newborn baby" and he just looked at me. . We've talked about a 2-3ish year age gap in a dream world.... so realistically I can't even contemplate ttc until next summer.

We already know it won't be great financially - but that's one of the reasons for us having DC younger.

In terms of KIT days, I've done one. I haven't actually claimed for it either, and the deadline has passed, so need to work out what I do to get paid for it . I took a manual pump and pumped at lunch time, and wore breast pads the rest of the time. However, I had to express a bit into tissues at morning break (it was a training day) to ensure my boobs didn't explode, so realistically I think I'd have had to pump twice to survive. I didn't realise Iz ate so much!

Milk wise... I'm most likely going back for two days a week when she's seven months old (provided my SIL can look after her - we have to make a decision in the next couple of weeks!). If so, I'll be expressing for her. I can make up a feed in two evenings' pumping, and I'll also have to try and pump once or twice during the school day. Twice would be better, but I think with my packed timetables I'll only be able to do it once. I also won't go to formula unless I have to - mainly to do with lactose intolerance and to do with the cost - I'm a cheapskate me .

Cakes, I'd also say don't worry about routine etc! Like Scream I've also mainly gone for the path of least resistance - defintely as far as bedtimes and sleeping are concerned! My aim is to sort them out before I go back to work, but until then she seems to be happy enough :) I think I co-slept a lot of the first few weeks, then had a period when she was happy in the moses basket - and then went back to co-sleeping. Whatever worked and got me the most sleep! At 21 weeks Iz can self settle at night, still doesn't nap brilliantly but I think that's mainly due to her teeth.

Glad you had a good night Scream

Iz slept through the first baby group we were thinking of going to today - oops! By the looks of it she'll nap through the second one too.. ah well, lazy day at home then (and maybe a walk later!). Feeling a bit frazzled so think a lazy day is well needed. Accidentally inhaled a lot of chocolate over the past few days though, so maybe I should ensure I get at least some exercise... I can report, however, that the new Oreo Dairy Milk is pretty tasty!

Musical I really want chocolate now!

Dream hope everything's ok and the DC are all on the mend.

Scream I loved your drunken post! I watched the Bake Off last night. I want James to win now.

Cakes I agree with the others. Do whatever gets you the most sleep / least tears. I spent most of every night reclining on the sofa with DS asleep on my lap until he was 6 weeks old. Then we introduced a dummy and he learned to self settle a bit. and for you. This stage will pass!

Oh, Too I understand your stresses and will also be interested by the answers...

pet - dh picked James out as the winner from the first episode so I will be slightly annoyed at how bloody RIGHT he is about everything all the time if James wins!

yy to the blanket wrapped round them cakes - newborn snuggles, how lovely. Huge congrats!

scream -drunkenness! Yay! Also yay for the Ewan the Sheep dd2 bloody loves hers.

Umm, she loves it so much that last night I think she slept through! I don't remember anything past the power cut at 10pm and dh waking me at 6.55 this am. I may be wrong but I'm couting it as a sleep through. Im sure its a one off but I'll take it!

I've totally stopped bf in the day now. Do 6pm feed, any over night ones and a morning one if required. Im not anti formula but dd2 is a bit. She'll take 60ml max.So at 2pm I give her 60ml formula and a weetabix made up with 3oz cows milk! So she has 5 oz milk and an extra meal basically!

waveing to you all!!

DD much better, still hot, but not roasting, and super cranky, which is a vast improvement on not opening her eyes.

Going to try and put some more photos on fb for you guys think i'm a bit too into this fb thingie...!

Congratulations cake!!! I popped over the the ante natal thread but lost my post before I could say congrats and then all hell let loose here. I did think of you though, and lovely name- same as my DD.

Thanks all for the advice and hand holding.

Will try to do a proper post later....I can hear DS stirring, just as I sit down!

Brooking much appreciated, thanks again.

Glad dd better dream.

too I do hope I haven't put you off the toddler/newborn combo!

Too - don't worry about planning too much. DH and I had dd1, bought our first house, started a new business, got married, got made redundant and had dd2 all in the space of 23 months and it's fine tics, rocks, yelps etc.

Argh. DH is cross with me again because I haven't managed any housework today. I did walk the dog and make our bed (and pick up and fold his clothes ) but that's about it. To be fair, DS just would not nap in his cot today, apart from 20 mins this morning, when I was in the shower. How does everyone else manage the house? Especially those of you with 2 DC? I can't do housework with DS in the sling because I find it too unwieldy, and he doesn't sit and play by himself for very long. Though admittedly I did choose to play with him when I could have been washing up. DH did say I'm doing a good job looking after DS, which is all I was aiming for, really. Maternity leave is for looking after the baby, not the house, right?!

Sorry for me me me but DH is threatening divorce. :( Not seriously, I hope.

Totally agree pet, mat leave is for looking after the baby. You will not look back and regret spending time with your PFB. You may look back and say I wish I hadn't done so many jobs and just left ds to it when he was so little and adorable! I did jobs like kitchen surfaces, occasionally vacuuming with DD in sling (but she hated the vacuum, really scared of it so not often) or ran round when she napped in her cot (so after 9 months old) or after she'd gone to bed, or weekend while Dh played with her.

Pet I don't manage the house. I can cope with a lot of dust before it bothers me. Untidyness though I can't stand. Generally you will find my house tidyish but on closer inspection you will see that everywhere needs a good dust, polish, hoover or mop. It will get left until DH starts tutting about it and then we have a row and then he ends up doing it himself

I'm on my own with 2 DC most of the time. The small amount of time that DS is at playgroup is when I take DD swimming, do the food shop, iron and tidy up. I have no time for cleaning on top of that. I could stick DS in front of a DVD I suppose while DD is asleep but if the hoover's on he complains about the noise and if I'm not in the room with him he just follows me round asking me endlessly to play with him. So it doesn't happen.

Have you ever left your DS with your DH for a full day on his own? I suggest you do this on a day where your DH has been the one to get up in the night during the night before. So he gets up with him Friday night and then looks after him all day Saturday while you go out. See how much he can get done in the house.

If you think though he has a point and you could possibly do more, why don't you ask for his help on this occasion. So spend half a day this weekend where both of you clean and tidy up so that next week you're don't feel like you're climbing a mountain with it and can start from then?

Mwah ha ha. I am seriously considering going around the house taking photos of the rooms and then uploading them just so you can see how untidy it is, Pet. There are baby clothes (and some of mine) on the living room floor, dirty plates, books, junk mail, hairbrush, nail clippers, newspapers and DD1's memory box on the coffee table (just to clarify, none of this stuff is supposed to be there!). The sofas have more baby clothes, the sling, books (mine and M's) and, currently, a naked baby with a dirty face rolling around on a towel on them. I made curry for dinner and everything I used to cook with is still out, and the dirty plates are still on the table. The high chair is covered in curry. I could go on, but you get the picture. DH is like Scarlet, so he tends to tidy up. I tend to try to focus on the cleaning things, like cleaning bathrooms/kitchen/hoovering etc. This basically means that between us we manage to get the dishwasher loaded and unloaded once a day, and I try to keep the laundry from swamping us. Other things get done at weekends sometimes, by either of us. How long are your DH's hours? He should be pulling his weight with the housework.

Would write more but M howling and I need to bath her.

Really similar to Scarlet re the house. In fact I could practically have written that post. I do try to keep it tidy and generally speaking everything has a home and probably 95% of stuff ends up in its home by the time I go to bed. Cleaning however, I Just Do Not Have Time For. Ds1 does one morning and 2 school days at preschool (so 9-3:30) and in that time I feed ds2 (which takes flipping ages), tidy, iron, normally do a supermarket shop, and often see friends (so that I can complete a sentence without ds1 chipping in about the octonauts or something). If I have more time I attempt some cleaning but to be honest there just isn't time. I can only get stuff done while ds2 is asleep, and that would include the ironing at the very least, which fills up most of his nap time. If I want to do stuff while ds1 is here he'll follow me round the house, which makes it really hard to get stuff done, or has to be dumped in front of the tv.

So in short, not much cleaning gets done here. Fortunately DH is v understanding about it and can quite see that if it takes two of us most of the day to get meals in everyone then I ain't gonna get a lot done in the week.

In fact we were thinking about getting a cleaner to come in (I'm supposed to be researching this) even though I don't really think we can afford it. I was looking at sending DS2 to a childminder when he's perhaps 1 in order to have some time to get stuff done but DH made a very good point that it might be better to get a cleaner and I look after ds2, so outsourcing the cleaning rather than the childcare, and I think there might be legs to this argument! Will have to look into how much a cleaner would be though.

I'm the opposite, i can take untidy as long as it's fairly clean.

DH wants everything tidy and clean, he refuses to believe that domestic perfection is not entirely compatible with small children/babies/both.

i will quite happily sit and play for a bit if the dc look bored or unhappy, i think it's harder for DH to let go. he's great with them and doesn't neglect them or anything, but sometimes i want to say "just put down the Hoover!"

we're both off by the way as he's a SAHD

I think I need your DH to do a seminar Jaggy on how to actually Do Stuff without neglecting the dc! I'm hopeless at it! Doing the washing, preparing, administering and tidying up from meals etc just seems to take up all my time.

My mother assures me I should be able to do it all, but then again she used to leave me in a playpen while she did her jobs. And I have no recollection of my mother ever playing with me or anything. Just doing housework. She says I should do more housework so that the DSs learn that a clean house doesn't just 'happen' but since that was her strategy with me it didn't really work did it

I'm not saying i actually get a lot of cleaning done, I'd like it to be clean though.

I'm not saying i actually get a lot of cleaning done, I'd like it to be clean though.

Well, I certainly didn't learn that a tidy house doesn't just 'happen'. Despite Granny's best efforts to shame us all into tidying. My stepfather cleans all the time, so Mum just kind of abandoned cleaning to him when they moved in together. Dad used to get us to help him clean - he'd give us chores to do, and we used to start dinner for him from the age of 13 or so. But it wasn't in an organised way - all we ever did during the week was cooking, dishwashing, laundry and lighting the fire. Then he'd make us help do the things like bathroom cleaning at weekends. I remember Granny coming round and pointing out how dirty the cooker was, so it didn't work that well! I don't know how people do it. Maybe you're right, Biscuits, and it's because people used to dump their kids in playpens and get on with things. Mum and Dad used to play with us instead when we were little. Mind you, I do put M in her gym/Jumperoo and let her entertain herself quite a lot. But like everyone else, she has clingy periods of the day, particularly mid-morning, before she's tired enough for her nap, when she turns into Velcro baby.

DH and I have been having various housework-related fights arguments over the last few months, but right now we seem to have reached a temporary agreement that we'll both try to tidy up the living room and kitchen before bed. Okay, the living room doesn't always get done, but so far we've managed to do the kitchen every day for the last week (since we came up with this plan). I keep the laundry ticking over and do a lot of the cooking, and that's pretty much it. Sometimes I do a bit of cleaning when DH gets home and can play with M, but not often.

Pet, I think your DH is being v unreasonable. Just because he works out of the house it doesn't mean he gets a free pass from doing any housework.

Maybe I should do some cleaning in the evenings, but I would rather slump on the sofa MNing with a cup of tea and some chocolate.

Biscuits, I would love a cleaner! Your DH is right - go for the cleaner rather than outsourcing your childcare. We are hoping to be able to afford a cleaner when I go back to work, but I have no idea how much they cost.

I'm another one who lives in a relatively untidy and DEFINITELY unclean house! Tidy wise... like Biscuits, everything does have a place (mostly) - unlike Biscuits, it doesn't normally find it . I'm trying to make the living/dining rooms the exception as I'm teaching in there once a week now, and the kitchen's relatively tidy, but the study I'm in now is a complete tip.

Housework wise, I tend to clean the kitchen every night and load the dishwasher when DH is getting DD ready for bed - if it's bath night I sweep the downstairs hard floors too (I HATE a bitty floor). I try to hoover upstairs once a week while DH plays with DD, because we have very fluffy long haired cats and if we leave the hoovering too long the hoover clogs... but that doesn't always happen. He cleans the bathroom... He used to do more housework, but I'd rather he spends a bit of time playing with DD when she's in a good mood and I do it! I tend to get all the ironing done in a block one evening a week when she's in bed...

I try to have the dishwasher unloaded by the time DH gets home - normally achieved by doing one or two items whenever I head into the kitchen - or when DD is in her bouncer (she can spin round and see me in the kitchen while she bounces, so is quite happy).

DH did occasionally moan about how much I'd got done Pet until he looked after DD by himself for a day when I was on my last KIT day. He hasn't moaned so much since .

Too, I love the list of random things on your coffee table. Ours gets exactly the same, and ends up getting piled higher and higher until one of us cracks and has to tidy it all away! There's normally quite a collection of odd baby socks hiding on there somewhere...

I'm tidying the chocolates the in-laws brought us back from their holiday as I type

I luff you all. . Thank you for your kind words. DS napped well yesterday so I did loads to get the house tidy then. And a bit cleaner. I think it looks fine, actually. But I don't cook, food shop or iron (neither of us iron and DH shops and cooks because he's better at it, doesn't like my cooking and used to get home 2 hours before me before I started mat leave). So, looking at what you lovely people manage, I think I'd better get out the cookbooks and renew my efforts in that area.

Too DH is usually home by 4pm. And he starts cooking when he gets in - he does pull his weight, to be fair. I'm loving your description of your sofa, complete with naked baby!

Scarlet I'm like you with the tidy but not clean thing. And I would love to leave DH in charge of DS for 24 hours, but what about the bfing? My boobs would explode! I was thinking of leaving him with DS for a day but he's just attempted bedtime and DS ended up so distressed I've had to feed him to sleep (he doesn't usually need that before bed).

Scream I admire the way you got your DH to share responsibility for DD and learn to settle her. Wish I'd done that with DH though he would probably have divorced me if I'd tried . I hope you and DH's relationship continues to improve. Constant fighting is no fun, is it?

Biscuits I think your DH is right about outsourcing the cleaning rather than the childcare. You both sound so lovely - your DSs are lucky to have you as their parents.

Jaggy how does your DH do it? I start a job but then have to stop because DS begins fussing and escalates into crying if I ignore him.

Dream I agree - I think I'll look back and be glad that on some days I cuddled DS while he slept because he didn't want to be put down. And sang The Grand Old Duke Of York to him, and played This Little Piggy. Precious moments. But somehow I will have to learn to cook as well...

Biscuits

Musical I'm impressed by how much you get done. I think I need to get DH to do more with DS even though he cries when he's with his daddy so I can do chores then, knowing DS is in grumpy good hands.