June 2013; Toddling into our second year!

[BeanCalledPickle]

New thread ladies:-) I think we filled about ten threads when pregnant and this is only our fourth post natally!

Congratulations, cuphat, on your blue news! Watch out for wee, is all I can say. :-)

Pink, sorry about your dog. It's a shame, but if it's the right thing to do, then it's better for her in the long run.

And as for gloves, well, stick arms here too. If she keeps them on, which is hit and miss.

Like your DD, Pink, DD understands loads; everything I say, I think. But isn't as hot at communicating back. She will say 'there he / she / it is' and other bits and bobs, but I think sometimes I just don't quite hear her properly and don't catch it when she is actually trying to talk. Dim mummy.

Thanks, and thanks for the warning. Any boy tips gratefully received!

Boy tips you say? They wee all over the place as little tiny babies...ds once managed to widdle on his face when lying on the change mat. He looked quite surprised! As did DH

Sainsburys, Boots and JL all good for boy clothes that aren't pale blue or covered in blatent boy stuff...

Yup tried the mittens on a string thing. somehow they managed to come undone . As we have a dog we have to walk quite a long way. Losing count of the number of times I've had to double back to find hat and gloves. even found her hat stuffed in a bush last week.

Pink as a dog owner I know how tough a decision that must have been. just peg that as another reason not to go near your stupid arse of an ex. Not only does he not want to spend Christmas day with his child he made you re home your dog. wanker

Thanks Mrs . And the for clothes advice; I went into Mothercare and there was only one thing that I liked out of the whole range! I want more neutral stuff.

Urrrgh, yes, mothercare has been predominantly useless for clothes I found. They seem to have oodles of girl things and some garish boy stuff on the whole. Next also generally a bit pale blue. Or have things with ears on which weird me out a bit! We've had the odd thing from M&S, and I did a massive ebay haul recently and got lots of lovely boden and jl things that will last him an age

It's such a relief to hear it's not like that everywhere! Will have a look at the places you've recommended. Having a boy will definitely save me money as I see so much for DD that I can't resist buying. If it had been another girl the idea was to reuse all of DD's stuff but in reality I would have ended up buying lots more anyway.

Congrats on the boy cuphat. Now you know it will make name choosing easier (or is that already in hand?). I second Sainsburys for boy clothes. Plus once theyr'e a bit older, Joules do some lovely boys tops. I only get them off ebay though, too blimmin expensive otherwise.

Gloves is a loosing battle here too. We're off to Germany tomorrow so hoping that she'll be convinced to keep them on. I've got her snow gloves with velcro which hopefully will be harder to pull off. Mind you we've done some walks here in the bitter cold and she'll pull off her boots and socks

Have decided on the lack of talking front to book DD in with the doc (or HV??) in the new year. I figure if it's glue ear then at least it would be good to find out and get it fixed, and if it's not, then I will just sit back and wait patiently for the words to flow...

Sunny you never fail to make me giggle. Can you do daily quotes that sum it all up and make me smile too?!

Think I cried more today getting the ball rolling on the rehoming front than I did when I left dd's dad. Sure that says a lot. Hate feeling I have failed her, but know it is unfair while I get more sorted.

Took dd to a 'live' nativity today, there were llama, a donkey and a sheep. In the quiet part when dd clocked the sheep a very loud 'baaaaa' came from her, followed by her clapping herself and then giggling because the lady next to use laughed.

Thanks Aloha. We'd only been discussing boys names as I knew it was a boy after the 12 week scan. We've narrowed it down to three names. I've no idea how to decide. Thanks for the clothes recommendations.

Does your DD appear to hear you? I'm sure she'll start talking in her own time but it can't hurt to get the GP to check (can they just look in their ears and see?). As I've said before, the child of a friend didn't start talking until two but when she did she was talking in complete sentences straight away - they're all different.

My nephew that had glue ear could hear but it depended on the register. He also varied quite a lot. Some days were great others were really poor depending on whether he had a cold or not. His dad (my brother) thought he was quite wayward at first.

We have a history of wayward children in this family.....

What are your names? We are pretty set on Luna. I liked Kendall but then the khardashian connection was revealed to me and that was that

They're a bit safe for you I think! The only names we both really like are Thomas and James. We also like Harry and Lucas but we're not sure about those. I think Thomas is our first choice but apparently it will always get shortened to Tom and I'm not keen on Tom. Any opinions?

I have no problem with safe names except for their popularity. I have been one of three Sarah's in every class at school, every job I've ever had etc. I really want mine to not have that situation. On shortening I think you can control it up to school. You call him Thomas so will everyone else. But once school starts his little friends will make him Tom, or if a friend is Tom then he will be Tommy etc! But if it's at school at least you won't have to hear it:-)

Popularity has never bothered me. My name was very popular when I was at school but I haven't met any others (irl) since I left school! I didn't mind it at school either. We'd rather pick names we love. That's true re the shortening. Most people with my name have it shortened but I've always managed to stay the full name. It's not just school though; apparently a Thomas will always be called Tom as an adult. Thinking about it, I've never known an adult Thomas. At least James shouldn't get shortened. There still might be one we haven't thought of yet.

My cousin James is Jamie because of the school thing and it just stuck! I guess only you can choose the right name for you! I wasn't convinced of the merit of giving her a name we truly loved because that would mean she had a game of thrones name like Arya! I'm actually trying to be slightly more conventional with Luna though I suspct others may not see that. Also because polly is named for a song it seemed right to do the same for the second .

I was going to go and buy an outfit like you did but am I tempting fate before twenty week scan this week?

I never thought of Jamie! I think home schooling might be the way forward... There are other names I like, like Charlie, but I want one that sounds right for a child and an adult. Cute for a kid, but not so great for an adult. Ha, I really like Arya actually! I do like Luna but I must admit it doesn't come under my conventional list!

I think that what will be will be. Things can go wrong at any stage. I wouldn't buy anything big until after the 20 week scan though. I don't believe in tempting fate. With DD we had everything in the house before she was born; I know some people believe that having a pushchair in your house will make bad things happen.

Yeah I don't normally either. I think it's just because my liver isn't coping well with this pregnancy that makes me a bit more cautious. It shouldnt affect the baby but obviously there comes a point where you have to way up continuing with the pregnancy against damage to me. Normally babies are born around 37 weeks. I know it's better to let them cook longer but earlier doesn't sound like the worst thing to me right now!

All the Thomases I know as adults became Tom. Any James stayed as James unless they specifically wanted to be Jamie.

DS has a name that I assumed would be abbreviated by everyone else straight away but it hasn't been. He doesn't 'suit' the shorter versions somehow and I expect we will always call him by his full name, unless he has a specific request when he is older.

We were drawn to traditional names too, but DH vetoed a lot of names because they were 'dog names' to him He's never had a dog. But it put the kybosh on Benjamin which I love as a name Apologies to any Benjamins out there!

I hope it all goes well, bean. Are you suffering any side effects from the liver problem?

Thanks for your name experiences, Mrs. DH seems to want to decide right now. I'm so confused that I want to have time to to think about it more.

Cross post Bean. Sorry.
Are you and bump being kept an eye on? I hope so and that alleviates some of the worry.

As I understand it, planned earlier deliveries are generally less stressful than the unexpectedly early deliveries...? Not that I know much about these things mind you

Hmm the child's obsession with taking clothes off has extended to when she's supposed to be unconcious. Three times now I've gone in to see her before I go to bed and she's taken off her sleeping bag and at least some of her pj's. Should I be moving her onto a duvet or do I just supplement her bedtime ware with zipties and duct tape?

We moved to a duvet a few months ago...DD does escape it sometimes, but seems really snuggly in it too when she stays in.

Bean, what've they said about the liver issue? Monitor and assess regularly and decide from there? I hope all goes well.

DS is a 37 weeker (by my dates, which I know are right) and is fine. He was a VERY lazy feeder and had jaundice, plus was a bit shocked to be removed from his home, but there weren't any concerns. Unlike DD who had the SCBU stay!

We didn't choose DS' name til about 3 weeks before he was born as I had a wobble about the previous name (and I'm glad I did because my cousin and girlfriend used it for their rainbow baby son, following their daughter's still birth last year). I had to persuade DH to go with my choice as he really struggled to find any names he liked! The girl's name was far easier.

Dd has a duvet... sometimes she is under it, sometimes on it, sometimes beside it..... she generally doesn't like her feet being covered totally does not get that from me so it tends to go width ways and cover all but her feet. (luckily some sleep suits still.tollereated as long as not tight on the feet)
She does however love her pillow! That moves around the cot with her.

Good bed sets on ebay, everything in one and not too pricey. Didn't mind starting with one of those just to make sure it was semi tolerated!

Bean - no real comparison but with dd I had awful kidney problems, they thought they might have had to put a sent in to help or possibly a bag for the duration of the pregnancy. And possible early delivery. I was in hospital for a while. But, just as decisions were being made things settled much more and everything was scrapped. I hope that maybe for you, you too get a turning point and things go.on the up. I was around 27 was when things settled again. Fingers crossed for you

DS has a duvet too. Whether he will lie under it is another issue but he likes it being there regardless.

Sleepsuits all the way here and he takes no issue with them still. It just occurred to me that we will eventually grow out of sleepsuits and will have to embrace jimjams!