December 2012: the little monsters continue to surprise us.

[MaMaPo]

I for one have a very surprising baby.

Well done Spotty - but another blocked duct? Poor you! Off to the bath with you.

Oh dear Prunella - clumsy baby! I would have thought he'd be fine.

C did her first bit of locomotion today (I know, she's way behind!) by scooting backwards under the coffee. I say 'scooting' but actually it took ages. She looked a little surprised.

Weigh-in today as well - she's 21lb3oz and 72cm - above the 91st for both height and weight now. She had a big growth spurt in terms of height.

She's already in bed - I could hear her blowing raspberries but all's gone silent so I think she's out. She napped really well today (1h50 this morning and 1h30 this afternoon) because we were just hanging around at home, so here's hoping for a really good night. She needed a long feed at 11pm last night which is weird.

Bloody phone doesn't always update so I missed your news spotty that's fan bloody tastic! Amazing news, what a load off your mind.
beasty how are you still alive?! Sounds like your nights are pretty rough just now.

Way to go little C!

Wow mama that's great!

Thanks WL I really don't want to go back to work

Dd won't go to bed and she woke ds up but it meant I got to feed him and he cleared the blockage. Every cloud and all that

Spotty, does DS do a dream feed? Not regularly, I mean will he feed in his sleep if you get him up? i'm afraid if I had blocked ducts I think I'd be often hauling C out of bed to feed and give me some relief.

I just realised I wrote that C managed to end up 'under the coffee'. Obv I meant table, she wasn't randomly wandering under hot drinks.

So I am completely at sea with the idea of renting/buying US carseats for our roadtrip (which starts in 6 weeks). Thank goodness I found a carseat forum full of knowledgeable people who are going to tell me exactly what's what. I'm so lost; I don't own a car, let alone a carseat.

Hurrah for bling-lined clouds spotty and major congratulations on the.job!

Poor mini-pru - O is crawling but also pulling up Very Unsteadily, so we feel your pain..

Sorry for those with sleep issues. We"re going through a good patch (although I've learned no patch lasts, bad or good) but a friend with a four Month old has just been told by her doula to let their very sleepless did CIO, albeit with one of them sitting beside her. Feel for all of them but nothing I can suggest to help.

That's appalling, utopian

Four months is so tiny

I haven't done a dream feed for ages mama but I would have tried it had it not gone.

Dd is still awake!! Mil said they all fell asleep today

I know spotty I've been having the 'if we won the lottery' daydream. What are the hours? Is it a similar role to the one you left?
I'm going to dream feed tonight as I don't feel that T has had much milk today and I don't want to feed her during the night.

DS is shrieking in his sleep with teething pain. He's had calpol, neurofen, anbesol, a teetha powder and I've held a sealed ice poo against his gums. There's literally nothing else I can do except hold him while he cries. Nasty nasty teeth hurting my baby

Pop obviously I've not put poo on his gums

I did wonder WillYou hope he feels better soon.

No WL it's completely different and less money but hey ho it's medical reception work (there's 15 receptionists ) it's three half days longest is 6.45 hours so that's good.

In the interview they asked if I could get childcare for over time and I said yes but there are certain days I can't bit worried about telling them that!

We had that all afternoon WillYou it's horrible but it does pass

willyou poor baby but you're typo made me lol!

spotty don't worry about it, they can offer you over time but you don't have to take it. You did really well to get it, I bet there were squillions of applicants.

Congrats on the job Spotty, the thing is if they want you to do overtime and can't you just explain when the situation arises. They can't expect you to have emergency childcare in place all the time.

Let's link arms and sob wait for the storm to pass Pidj.

Well done to the clever babies learning to shuffle/stand, we've had our fair share of accidents this week but they have to learn don't they? MiL came round and DS tried to pull himself up on her loads. In the end I had to ask her to let him try as she kept lifting him and he was getting irate as he wanted to do it himself.

Our microwave blew today (at tea time inconveniently) so DP's had to go for one on his way home from work. He's still not in, he's a good un!

Willyou I did wonder if this was a new teething remedy I'd not heard of

DS doesn't pull himself up at all yet and sort of shuffles backwards but no rolling. People keep saying I should be pleased cos it's such hard work once they're on the move..

Utopian what did your friend say to the advice to CIO? I don't think I could ever do that- I imagine it to be v distressing for all involved?

Hoping all babies are asleep.. I d

I know I told them it wasn't a problem though....actually I said it should be ok. There's really only a day and a half I couldn't do so hopefully it would be ok. Anyway it can't be as bad as my old job where if my boss disagreed with you (even if you were right) he told you off like you were a teenager at school

At least we can go on holiday next year now

Willyou I did wonder if this was a new teething remedy I'd not heard of

DS doesn't pull himself up at all yet and sort of shuffles backwards but no rolling. People keep saying I should be pleased cos it's such hard work once they're on the move..

Utopian what did your friend say to the advice to CIO? I don't think I could ever do that- I imagine it to be v distressing for all involved?

Hoping all babies are asleep.. I really feel for those with sleep problems I'd be going out of my mind!

Stupid phone fat fingers double post!

I did full on controlled crying with dd1 at almost 6 months as I was beyond desperate - waking about 20 times a night (not even exaggerating) for her dummy. Given my time again, I would still have got rid of the dummy but would have used a lot more cuddling! Poor dd1 was such a guinea pig for my clueless black and white parenting!

Just done a lovely dream feed, fab sleepy cuddle and kissing of pudgy cheek. I could sit like that for hours.

It's so bloody hard though WL, you have no idea how hard it is until you have them. You can't even imagine the scenario where you're up literally all night or where you can't put your baby down at all for days on end. You also have no idea what type of parent you'll be until you have them. Always thought I'd be really strict, turns out I'm a right soft arse

I dream fed and dream neurofened last night, it was lovely.

He's up again

Ooh, dream neurofen - skills!

Ds has suddenly started squeaking for a feed - he's been going 8-2 recently so this might be the next degeneration. Just in time for holiday with in laws.. hopefully not!

My friend's a bit I think. The awful thing is she and her husband were really keen to have a family and now they're genuinely having doubts about a second, but I know it'll get better and they are lovely people. I think it helped that I was really dreading the first year of ds so my expectations were pretty low. today's poo experience met them though

Hi everyone and very belated welcome newbies (as you'll soon find out, I'm hopeless at keeping up!)

Massive congratulations Spotty . Hope the sore boob is sorted soon though.

Willyou/Pidge - hope that teething pains ease soon.

I've got a little Mr Bump over here too. He seems to have a real knack for crawling into things/trapping himself under things then trying to pull himself up etc. Even if I'm right next to him, he'll find a way of bashing himself unexpectedly. Luckily it's all been pretty minor so far, only one or two red marks, and he seems quite undaunted by it but I think he's got the makings of a little dare devil.

We've almost completed three weeks without any nursery for DS1 - he doesn't start his new pre-school until September. We have had lots of fun, and I feel like we've spent some real quality time together. I would be lying if I said it hadn't been quite intense at times though. N is physically exhausting as he's so active (nappy changes have become a complete mission) and DS1 is mentally draining. The other morning he woke me at 6 am with "Mummy why do bats sleep upside down?" closely followed by "when I'm a hamster (?!?) can I have the cage we saw at the garden centre?" and "why do green aliens have three eyes but other aliens only have one or two?" Love his thirst for knowledge, but struggle to cope with ideas of reincarnation and extra terrestrial life before I've even got breakfast on the table.

It's so hard because I'm so proud of them both and love seeing how they are both developing in their different ways, but it feels a little relentless too.