August 2015 - Jaffa cake wars and many Mugabe greetings to you!

[mzzzf]

New thread ladies - praying for a decent sleep tonight!!

Aww Bernadette sounds so cute! How old is she? My DD is 2 1/4 and is so funny and an excellent mimic.

We're all going to bed now. Everyone is in pjs and smelling nice and clean.

Ah ok Lily I understand why you'd prefer to be in there with a well timed kick now!

My DD had excema too but grew out of it. DS has the familiar dry patches as well. It's quite sad seeing their perfect skin looking sore isn't it?

Good luck with DH's night shift!

lily I'm sure he's fine. Like you said if he's no better tomorrow then at least you can ask the doctor on Monday. Good luck tonight.
nolonger she's 22 months. She's only in 12-18 month clothes though, she's really tiny.

Night night nolonger- yes it's horrible to see them with sore patches on their perfect skin definately! I'm hoping he will grow out of it- mine only appears very ocasionally so hopefully he'll be the same. I'm just putting sudocrem on it at the mo- looks awful on his head where it's the worse as it stays really white in the dry areas!

Thanks fatty!

Oh my goodness me! The poo when it came was a tidal wave of stinking mustard . She is so much more settled now though thank goodness. In the end it was the bouncy chair that jiggled it loose, this has happened a couple of times now so grumpy 1 has rechristened it the 'poo chair' - fair enough.

fatty I like the sound of your day. We are big dinosaur fans in this house.

nolonger glad you made it through the day. There is no such thing as too much telly in some circumstances. 2 is a lovely age, I really enjoyed 2-3 as I felt it was when grumpy 1 really became her own person. I also go to bed with the children regularly, if you can't beat them, join them. Vehicles-wise DH runs a 30 year old VW T25 camper called 'George' and mine is a 45 year old orange Beetle called 'Winston'. Neiher is an ideal family car but they are both so much part of the family that we can't get rid. Plus, we'd never be able to afford a holiday again if we got rid of George. There is always something falling off them though, these last weeks it's been my ignition and indicators and his brakes!

lily if he's giggling and responsive he's likely fine but always get him checked out if you are worried. It's a positive sign that your DH is volunteering for another night shift, maybe one night with you there to kick him will sort out his hearing issues . No giggles here yet, just massive gummy smiles, but she was only 8 weeks on Friday.

frolic grumpy 1 is a full on carnivore and I love it (MIL is less impressed but hey ho!). We have proper roasts on a Sunday which I hadn't done for years because, like you, I couldn't be a*sed cooking meat for one. It's a great fringe benefit of having kids

Well I've put ds downasleep three times in the last hour only for him to wake screaming after ten mins. And the only thing that seems to calm him is the boob. So we're falling into the trap of feeding to sleep, and then he wakes when he realises he's not attached any more.

Can I ask what you all do when you put your ds's down at night? Do you do the fabled ' drowsy but awake ' or wait till they're asleep and then move them? Does anyone feed to sleep? I try to get a dummy in before he notices he's not on the boob any more but doesn't always fool him!

Good luck with DH/dp doing night shifts lily and fatty. A big advantage of bootle feeding. No actual giggles here yet (10 weeks) . Big gummy grins, especially when we do the ymca dance

Effin I tend to feed until J comes off naturally, wind and then keep upright for 10 minutes, otherwise he tends to throw it back up again. This means in practice, he's usually fast asleep when I put him down, but it works for us at the moment.

I am currently trying operation get our evenings back. We have had a lot of crying in the evenings and J seems to get over stimulated if we try to put him to sleep in the Moses basket downstairs with us. So am currently feeding him upstairs with my bedside light on, as we do at night feeds, and see if he will settle. Don't have a monitor yet, so am not expecting to be relaxed, but I thought it was a start, at least - wish me luck!

Hope things went well tindel
Nathan sometimes feeds to sleep, other times the dummy works and sometimes he self settles. I'm not stressing it though. We will get bedtime sorted properly once he's older.
For some strange reason I'm still awake....

We're mostly a transfer when asleep household too. She has to be kelt upright for 20min post feed that she usually drops off.

Hope everyone's Saturday's have been lovely. Mines been awesome until about 9pm. DD has been on good form, out shopping and dog walking with BFF and me. Btw can recommend getting 'colour matched' in Boots! Anyway all going swimmingly. I didn't even get grumpy when coming home from being out all afternoon with DD that DH had done fuck all housework or bottle prep but had had a 'bad nap' so wasn't in a good mood as was feeling a bit headachey. Anyway so I cracked on, made dinner, ran DD's bath etc etc. So we come downstairs after the bath and DH says he happy to sling her to get her off to sleep, which is brilliant but mini mzzzf is having none of it and so starts a scream a thon. I offer to take her, but he says to got eat my dinner and make merry, so off I go. 20mins later and she is still screaming so I offer to take over again, again he refuses. So I back off, giving him more time to try to soothe her. But she's getting more and more angsty that I offer again to take her 10mins later and he says 'yes please'. So I take her, she calms down almost instantly (poor DH) but upon calming down does the biggest tidal wave of sick down me I have EVER seen. I mean it soaked my top, my joggies and my undies. My bra cups had a full liquid sick supply each too!!

I'm annoyed at DH for being too bloody minded and not wanting to accept help sooner AND for not being able to soothe her effectively on his own - as they essentially just wound each other up. It's a tough one to manage but I, somewhat heartlessly, feel that he needs to get a grip and up his game but how the heck do you say that to someone without hurting feelings as the man is trying with her. (He should have down the laundry and bottle prep though whilst I was out - but that's another story!)

Uurtghh thata good to get that off my, sick drenched, chest!!

In other news I bought a shocking pink lipstick annnnnd I've also eaten a good chunk of be box of lindor choc balls my friend brought with her FUCK diets!!

Oh and mini mzzzf is a right giggler. She'll be 12 weeks on Sunday and really does give the cutest chuckles. I actually think it's these that have made me bond with her properly, so thank god she's a chuckler and I'm hilarious enough to crack her up (Showoddywoddy!!!)

P.S. Get to sleep Fatty !!

effinIneffable I feed to sleep at night. We have a full sized cot the attached to the side of the bed, so I feed DS until he's asleep while sitting up in bed, then keep his head end elevated for about 15 minutes, then slide him over into the cot. All with him in his grobag.
In the daytime I just let naps happen and never actually try to get him to sleep, and basically just leave him to sleep where it's convenient if they do happen.

Omg this 'Extra hour' business is torture!! Literally saw the clock go from 2.59 to 2!! It's like Groundhog Day! arghhhhhhh!!

I hear that sister!!!! A loveky 'lie in' indeed!!!!

I've already made DH promise that when the beast wants to get up and start her day, usually anywhere between 6-7am then he has to do it this morning. To think I used to love it when the clocks went back...

Too true

Oh god, one of my boobs slipped free of my bra and I slid off the incontinence pad and now my entire side of the bed is SOAKED with milk. and I only changed the sheets yesterday, too.

Damn this motherhood stuff is glamorous.

effin at night I feed her and then we keep her upright for about 20 mins to stave off wind (not always successful). Sometimes she is asleep off the boob, sometimes she is drowsy and then rocked to sleep. We always put her down asleep.

During the day if I see a yawn I rock her to sleep. Sometimes she falls asleep on the boob but those times she doesn't stay asleep for long. The way I get a decent chuck of daytime sleep is by soothing and rocking.

I know that this contravenes the sleep training advice but personally I think they are a bit young to self soothe at this stage. I did exactly the same with grumpy 1 and she dropped her night feeds and slept through from 16 weeks and I had to forcibly wean her off her 2 hour afternoon nap when she went to preschool so it clearly didn't do her any harm. Tbh baby sleep is a mystery and they will all do their own thing regardless of what you try and make them do. So, do what makes you happy. I sing to mine - it soothes them and occupies me.

siani, mzzzf eugh for your messy nights. Hope you are clean and dry now

I feed to sleep. I don't get why it's "bad". I fed dd1 to sleep until I didn't want to anymore and then I stopped. It was fine.

Dh has always liked the sling because it was something he could do. He's very practical (and very strong- blacksmith) so I think the whole carrying thing appeals to him. People always coo over it because he's 6'4" and very muscular so babies look super tiny when he has them.

What are the odds? Dd1 is usually up at 5.30 so I was expecting to be up at 4.30 with her but she slept an extra 90 mins. Wow! Amazing! Dd2 didn't get the memo though (usually she does sleep) so I've been up for hours. Pants.

My sister and her man are here just now. They've been great playing with the kids and so on but I'm so looking forward to not having visitors. Grumpy cow so I am!

joskar I'm the same, like having visitors but do prefer having my house back to just us. I've found one of the benefits of second time around is feeling able to say no (and occasionally 'sod off') to guests

effin - if DS2 falls asleep while feeding I certaintly don't wake him up :) He doesn't do that so much now he's older (9 weeks) and on bottles rather than breast fed. We rock until he's asleep or bounce in bouncer or put him in the swing. We haven't managed (or even tried really) drowsy but awake. I know we did that with DS1 but I suspect he was older and I also suspect that DS2 is a different child and it might be harder with him. I don't rule out 'sleep training' if we need to but I think he's too young right now.

mzzzf - ah, giggles are lovely. I was hanging on for smiles for ages and I am really looking forward to giggles. As he didn't smile until 7 weeks I think it might be a little while.

Lily - DS1 had eczema as a baby. It was particularly bad on his cheeks. Very sad. It's much much better now (he's 5) and only really flares up in the winter. I don't much like sudocrem for eczema personally. I think it's quite drying. I know different emollient creams work for different people but we use QV cream (you can buy it online) and my sister always swore by Aveeno but we didn't get on with it. Epaderm is good for washing with. Don't bath him too often (not every day) and apply emollient cream regularly (we used to do it every nappy change). DS2's skin seems a bit dry but not eczema as yet.

We put DS2 in his crib at bedtime last night for the first time. He was asleep (see above) and did wake up a couple of times but we settled him back with a dummy and he then slept well. So that was quite a success.

We had some success - J didn't really stir once I'd put him down, although DH did go to bed about 20 minutes later. Had some decent sleep gaps, but found it hard to settle back down again afterwards.

Think we need a baby monitor to carry on with this successfully - any recommendations? I know we need a video one (J is quite a noisy sleeper), but the pads under the mattress to detect movement / heartbeat seem a little excessive or are they really useful?

Morning, wow it's been busy on here!

Sian hope you're feeling better now and bed is ok! I hate all the leaking too, though I think it's improved at lot now baby is three months old, I think my body is realising only to let down milk when baby is attached...finally! I have a cot attached to bed too, dp attached a full sized one as well.

Tindel I have the BT baby monitor with a light show. Baby and older dd love the light show, it doesn't have a sensor pad or camera, I've never thought either will necessary for me.

I'm finding baby loves watching CBeebies when older dd does. This gives me valuable time to do housework/cook or even have a break. She's not interested in other programmes so it must be the colours and songs of CBeebies. Tbh I don't think it does either of them any harm, they don't watch it all day and happy children and happy mum with it.

Gah! Sod the children, my boobs didn't get the message about the clocks changing and I've just leaked everywhere. And of course, unlike the early days where this was commonplace, there is not a breast pad in sight to stem the flow...

Giraffes oh I really hope it does improve! That's given me some hope.
It's ridiculous, it actually sprays if he hasn't fed for a while and I hear him crying. It's gone right through the mattress protector and got in the mattress, too.
Just to make sure I didn't get any ideas about getting away with just washing the sheets one of the cats got poop on the blanket this morning, as well.