Still brooking no argument whatsoever that these babies are happy, healthy and awesome for 2013 too.

[jaggythistle]

eh. attempt at new thread. yo.

I am really quite in the huff here as I'm sure I can feel AF coming on. I think I've had an extra month off compared to after DS1 but was hoping for even longer!

Sorry for me me me bit there.

stacks he may be having a bad few nights, a growth spurt, a developmental leap, who knows. My money is on him settling back into his 3.5 hours by himself soon .

On the subject of sleep, I cannot get mine to sleep, I just can't. They're coughing their guts out but 4 wake ups each, s up from 5:30am, s was in bed with us anyway. He's cot refusing from about midnight. It's terrible here!! Nothing to be done til they're well but survive...

jaggy, very unfair, bog off evil witch,she's pumping and night feeding doncha know?!

No Brooking hard for all the poorly LOs! Dream I hope your DC all get better asap! They've had such bad luck (and you!) they have more than earned some extended healthy time! I hope M is okay tonight Too? Anymore coughing?

Stacks I hope you and little T managed to get a good nap today in the end? How's tonight going?

Pet fingers crossed for DS to repeat his excellent sleeping until 2 again tonight, and then follow it up by sleeping on until 8!! Ewwww to the cat sick! Gotta love 'em!

Little A has a cold as well now. She woke up once last night, after having a massive coughing fit. She's been coughing and sneezing today, but it's her super grotty nose that I'm worried will keep her up tonight. She's also just had one new tooth arrive with two more clearly close to bursting through. Poor LO. Despite all this she's been in good spirits all day, and she went down well tonight. If she does wake in the night though I might give her calpol, just because even without a temperature I can't imagine that she's feeling great right now.

I expect this is just the first of many bugs she'll be bringing home from nursery though, so I've just started her on a baby multi-vit to boost her vit c intake. I know there's vit c in her formula, but because she's allergic to strawberries and lots of other fruit at the moment I just want to up her vit c levels in other ways. When she has more teeth she'll be able to eat orange segments properly, but without her top front teeth she's really been struggling with oranges. She's so fond of water that I'm loathe to introduce fruit juice yet, I'm pretty certain once she gets into fruit juice it'll be a battle to get her to drink water again!

Many thanks to Too! I've sent you my email address!

Hi everyone. First wake up of the night, after a 10:30 feed, T has fed and is now asleep... Just need a successful transfer. So far, so good for tonight though.

So sorry to hear about more (and continued) illnesses. I realised last night that me taking T along to these breastfeeding groups is exposing him and me to illnesses quite early in his life. So far no colds caught, but how long can you hang out with babies before you catch something??

I feel I should name check, but I'm too tired to remember everything I read now. I'll be a better Brooker tomorrow.

Second wake up, second feed success - second transfer success??

Not long IME stacks !! My poor babies started playgroups with DD young, 2 weeks, and are constantly ill. However, I found people take snotty, grotty, coughing toddlers to groups but usually not babies, DD was rarely ill til age 1 when her nap patterns meant we started making more groups

Oops, posted early... So i think baby groups are a safer bet.

Bloody awful night here, and at 6:30 I let s roll and fall out of bed. He made a huge 'bump' and was mighty p'ed off and howled. Oh, the guilt!!!!

Pretty bad night here, as well. It started brilliantly cos DS managed three 2-hour stretches of sleep (rubbish really but so much better than he has been) before joining us at midnight. Unfortunately he was running a temperature and after calpol at 3am I couldn't get him back to sleep till 4.30. I got him into his own bed at 5, then he rejoined us at 5.50 and was up for the day at 6.50. Am a bit tired but DH brought me tea so could be worse! Wondering whether to get washed, dressed and do an early dog-walk, or stay in pyjamas and try to get DS back in bed in an hour or so, then nap with him.

Dream you poor thing. I'm sure S was fine (these babies seem amazingly resilient once the surprise has worn off) but neither of you needed that in the night!

Stacks glad things are improving again. I think DS got his first cold at around 10-12 weeks after I took him to London (from Yorkshire) on public transport and stayed with my parents for a week. After that he picked up a few from rolling around with friends' babies and sucking their toys, but nothing really bad till 6 months. Then we got the Olbas oil, Karvol vaporiser, Vicks etc.

Jaggy was it a false alarm or the real thing?

Scream hope A is feeling better this morning. Btw DS has no teeth but loves satsuma segments. Sometimes I bite them in half before giving them to him, but he can cope with small ones whole. Not sure if they're heavy on bit C but might be worth a try.

B also running a temp, nothing too bad, 38.3 ish all night but he was waking every 15-20 minutes for large parts of it, very distressed, then dozing off again. S actually slept 10:30-1:45, down at 2 ish but up 4:30, then constant resettling (in bed with me with b in bed with dh) til 6:30 and waking for the day/ falling out. Perils of an unfamiliar single bed too maybe? DD woke 3 times, twice woken by s or b I think. I'm tired too.

I bite as much pith and skin off satsumas as i can!!

Speaking of temperatures, do people use in-ear thermometers? If so, any recommended brand? I haven't taken DS's temperature this time because he's not too distressed but I can tell he has one iykwim. Last time he had a high temp I used one under his arm but apparently that's not very accurate.

Speaking of recommendations, what about car seats? We've got a maxi-cosi which DS will be in for a few more months, but after that, what do you all use? I'm happy for him to go forward-facing and wondered about one which swivels to face the car door so you can put them in easily, but it's expensive. Any features that people with older babies / children find useful? Is it a good idea to get a seat that can be altered to last till they're 12, or keep changing seats every few years? Thanks in advance for your wisdom!

Dream :( for the poorly babies and tired parents. Sending virtual for you.

False alarm so far....

We had the maxi cosi cabriofix with base and then got the priorifix as we like the isofix.

I managed to fit DS1 in the 0+ seat till he was a couple of months past 1 I think. R is a lot bigger. I didn't think we had enough room for a group 2 rear facing one but we could fit it in the current car. I can't afford to get them one each though. DS1 might be big enough for a group 2 one by the time DS2 needs to move up.

Oops the cleaner just knocked on the door and I was so busy posting I didn't notice till she started ti open the lock. I totally flapped and shouted "THE ROOM IS IN USE CURRENTLY" I think I accidentally sounded grumpy. This room is huge and I couldn't run across to answer the door with a pump on my boob .

I meant group one rear facing. Duh .

R will get the priorifix I think and we'll get DS1 a new one sometime this year. DS1 is really quite little though. I think the group 1 goes up to 18kg and minimum for group 2 is 15? He is less than 15kg now anyway, so he might have to stay in it. Then we will need a plan b!

Pet I've just ordered an Axiss which is a swivelly one. Is that the one you are looking at? I got it for £140 through Amazon which is the cheapest I've found. I know Amazon are bad with the whole tax thing but they were cheapest and also I get funds for my Guide Unit by buying from them so by making them make a tiny charity donation it cancels out the tax slightly

I was told that seats are only supposed to be used for 6 years max so that put me off going for one that lasts until they are 12 but also 12 years is a lot of potential wear and tear too.

Stacks, I've been taking Iz to groups since she was 2 weeks old, and she got her first cold/bug at 7 months! Don't forget that BF gives them extra immunity.. but I think we were just very lucky too.

Scream, a la Pet, Iz also loves satsuma/clementine segments. I usually bite them in half first (half for her, half for me - don't think there's anything I'm not allowed to share now!), and she loves them. She got very excited the other day when she managed to nab a clementine from the fruit bowl, and then tried to bite into it...!

Sorry about the rubbish sleep Pet, but sounds like it wasn't as bad as it has been. Iz has also been doing lots of short stretches recently - going down for bed, then almost waking up as if it were just a nap?! Not sure how to sort that other than wake-to-sleep ing.. but I think it's her teeth bothering her more than anythign else...

Dream, don't feel guilty - happens to us all!

Good day here so far. Had to take one of the cats to the vets, and Iz behaved impeccably. She's now napping (in the cot, hurrah!) while I'm MN-ing . Aim for the week is to get her to nap at least once in the cot every day.

Can't believe we're almost half way through January already! Where's the time going?

That's the one, Rubber. We won't use isofix cos we'll need to keep swapping between cars.

Just had a nice dog walk in the snow.

Car seats. And swapping. Here is a precautionary tale...

In the Uk we have a group 0 recaro (brilliant), a group 1 recaro (bad), a britax group 1 (ok) and a britax group 1/2/3 (ok).

In Italy we have a mamma canguro group 1 (pretty good), a cybex group 1/2/3 (ok) and a TecTake group 1/2/3 (good, better than the Britax or the cybex). We have an Inglesina group 1 on order.

Weird huh???

Its really difficult when you both do both pick ups and drop offs. Changing car seats around 4 times a day is dispiriting and sometimes downright logistically challenging so we've gone all out and thrown a lot of money at the problem...

biscuits is alive and well on fb! Yay!

Oh and dream you asked ages ago about dd1 and the international school. She seems to love it bar the food (so bit worried about her doing a full day this Thursday). Loves her teacher, the other kids (although she can say their names!), loves the playground and the new songs she's learnt.
I am not so keen, it's massive, the ratios arent as good as the uk and the office staff and really rude.
I was thinkin of moving her but she seems so happy with it that it seems mean.
A seems to love her all Italian nursery. They are so friendly and happy there and the ratios dont seem as important there which is weird. The kids are so cute and friendly (they're all a bit older than A). One of them adores dd1 and when we go to pick A up he always siddles over and holds dd1's hand!

Arghhhhhhh!!!

I love DD so very much, and I feel so sorry for her with this terrible cold. It's just that she's been unable to sleep properly for over 24 hours now, poor thing. She was up and crying most of last night, and after getting up for the day at 7.30 (i.e. that's when I gave up on any thought of either of us getting any sleep) she then stayed up until 4pm before finally passing out for about an hour. She now won't go to sleep for bedtime, she's just exhausted and inconsolable. My heart is breaking for her, but I'm also going loopy! I'm so tired, and naturally I'm coming down with her cold. Every time she does her shrieking thing I just want to SCREAM (ironic I know). She fights everything I do - nappies, cleaning nose, picking her up, putting her down, lying down, standing up... Etc etc etc.

Just ARGHHHHHH....!!!!

Dream you are a saint. I'm going to have "WWDD" (What Would Dream Do) stamped on my arm!

No Brooking for all poorly mini no brookers to get better RIGHT NOW and have a wonderful night's sleep!

Apologies for the mememe, and thank you for reading my rant! I just had to get it out to prevent an imminent implosion!

I love WWDD scream!

She probably wouldn't resort to screeching like a banshee which is my current go to...

Brooking for your a's cold to disappear ASAP.

Apologies for my many typos in my post extravaganza this pm...

Oh, I can do screeching like a banshee... And will do if at least one of my dc is not well, fast...

That was what b and s were like scream, dh was so knackered he had to email his colleagues to warn them of the plague chez Dream. B was much better last night, shame s is a little menace anyway... The really terrible bit was just 3 nights, though I managed a quick escape back to be I've mostly been up since 5 though...

Pomme thanks for the cat seat info. I'll be dropping DS off and DH will be picking him up, so we will be doing a car seat fandango. But given your comment, maybe I should get a group 1 car seat for my car and we could get a 1-2-3 for DH's (impractical 2-seater) car. If you don't mind my asking, what features make your seats good or not? Thank you!

Glad your girls have settled in well. Fwiw I'd leave DD1 if she's happy. So A will be speaking Italian soon, huh? Love the little boy holding DD1's hand, too.

Scream :( Poor A must be so exhausted and unhappy (as are you, no doubt). No brooking that things improve asap. Perhaps call in support from family if you can?

DS is also struggling with a blocked nose. He was up at 5am today. I fed him back to sleep at 6.20 so he's snoring on my lap but I'm wide awake now (and need a pee).

car seat not cat seat.

Dream hope your LOs improve today so you don't have to practise your banshee wail...