November 2014 - The one where they outrun us!

[MrsAukerman]

New thread ladies.

You do have skillz Anna! I'm on my second and the still haven't graduated to pull ups or upright changes when both would solve a lot of battles!
Welcome jw and congrats.

Pull ups!! It hadn't crossed my mind but that might be the way forward for us seeing as it's laying down she has the issue with, Not sure I'd dare dry a vertical poopy clean up manoeuvre though!

Babydolly first pulled herself up at 7 months and was cruising shortly after and still didn't go more than 3 free steps until 13 months really. Everyone thought she'd be an early walker but she's way more into climbing.

So last night I started to do some sums about our savings and going on mat leave again, when I told dp we needed to save more money and what position we'd be in he said 'there seems to be a huge list of cons to having another baby and the only pro is that you want one' - yikes!! This is a bit of surprise to me as we've always talked about having another (well, since dd arrived anyway). We would have to tighten our belts but we'd be fine. But I guess trying for another isn't imminent! I think the sleep deprivation from babydolly has done a lot of damage...

DD2 was the same as babydolly lady, I thought she'd walk even earlier than DD1 (walked at 11 months on the dot) but she just loved crawling and climbing. She's finally cottoned on to how much fun toddling around is though. Finally got her feet measured yesterday and no surprises, she's tiny, they have to order in the very smallest and slimmest shoes for her as they didn't have them in stock! Also got her weighed the other day and she's still as she was, between 7th and 9th centile for weight and 50th for length. Nobody bothered at all. Actually, she's also eating loads these days, can hardly get enough food into her, so there must be some growing going on.

I felt really broody when DD1 was just over a year. We were going to try again sooner rather than later but then my work situation looked a bit insecure - oh, and we got engaged so I didn't want to be a pregnant bride!
Sleep deprivation definitely does damage, I can't even countenance the thought of another baby now, I just know we breed bad sleepers and dd2 has nearly broken us.

She did well last night up to a point - 7.30-4.30 then up coughing and just couldn't settle with the bad cough, poor thing. Took her about 2 hours to go back to sleep, she really tried to go back to sleep but was coughing too often :( I am not really sure what to do with her in general if she wakes between 3-5.30ish. I could take the pain of starting the day at 5.30 in theory and just hope that she'd stretch longer in time, but before then it's tricky if she's slept all night and is probably starting to feel hungry! A drink of water doesn't cut it. I boobed her a bit at 4.30 to try to help her settle but I have hardly any milk left anyway!

So those of you who have nightweaned, what do you do if there's waking at this kind of time? Pace for hours?

Anna have you told anyone else about your BFP yet? It's great for you to have such lovely news after such a hard year for you :( Keeping everything crossed all goes well.

I'm going to do pull ups in the day when she's walking but at the mo I want to get some for night as she is too wriggly after the bath! Lol.

Had my midwife appointment today and Eve cried when the midwife took my blood pressure! So cute.

Another question-Does anybody do messy play at home? If so, what kind of materials do you use and where can I get some? Thanks

We have done pull ups at night too on occasion (when he's standing up at the TV with his nose to the Night Garden) and tbh have found them no better or worse with leakages.

Thanks Halfstar havent really told anyone yet. Still doesnt seem real (despite 4 positive tests!) until I go to the GP this afternoon & get referred to Maternity.

Re: night settling, I have bad news. Last night he woke at 4pm. Myself and DH took turns spending the next hour and a half stroking his hair in the dark. We have a chair pulled up alongside the cot just for nights like that. So it seems to me that whether you feed them or not, it makes no difference at this age! When they're awake, theyre awake. He then slept from 5.30 to 8.30 so it was worth persevering.

ladydolly does HE want one? DH wanted DS to have a sibling as we're older parents and he was concerned about DS eventually having to deal with our decrepitude all by himself. Also he has a lot of siblings so thinks its good for kids to have someone to fight with, lol.

So even though we are both HIGHLY ambivalent about all the horrors of 2 under 2........his attitude was that we had to try regardless for DS.

Oh and HELL TO THE NO to messy play!

You would literally have to pay me to do that. Its bad enough after he's had bolognese for dinner!

Who's done sleep training? I just can't cosleep with dd anymore.

Ark You poor thing. When you start to think of sleep training you've got to desperate times (I KNOW from experience). We're doing no cry sleep solution, well kind of, just as we started to do it she slept better so we haven't really needed to but it's a gentle solution and they have a section for co-sleepers. I did have 'Baby sleeping trust techniques' but I didn't really rate the co-sleeping technique to be honest, would never have worked with babydolly who would give any street fighter a run for their money when she's not getting her own way.

Also no messy play here, in the summer maybe. My sis is a primary school teacher so she does loads. Her kids love a plastic box with oats in with diggers or dinosaurs. I'm afraid babydolly will have to stick with what she gets at the CM for now (which apparently is mostly the cm trying to stop her eating paint/playdoh/glitter etc)

Here ark
But we aren't finished with the sleep work as have been interrupted by some health issues (haven't gone into it much on the thread as don't want to post too much personal stuff!).

Dd2 is already a lot better than she used to be and has slept a straight 12 hour night now on about 6 occasions (doesn't sound like that many but it's encouraging given her history!). We have yet to do the really hard bit but have a good routine going now I think.
What's baby ark up to when she wakes?

Re messy play.
Our whole house is pretty much an arena of non-intentional messy play I just can't clean up after them fast enough ...

No messy pay here I pay nursery enough money for that and despite being the same with ds1 he has developed a passion for craft so we now get the mess which ds2 tries to eat!!

Fair enough re messy play! We've tried a few things, bowls of pasta, rice, sprinkles etc. I was thinking of getting a builders tray to do sensory stuff she could play in but not sure what! I think there's edible paint you can make as well but I'm clueless! Will look online. I don't love these things but as its January I want more indoor activities! We were going to a sensory group but it was getting a bit samey. Oh we also have a treasure basket with feathers and pine cones etc in. I totally recommend for 5 minutes peace!

jw few days ago I read about different uses of cornstarch and one of them was cooking up hand paint of cornstarch, water and food colouring. I'm not too sure where I saw it, either on flipboard or somebody shared on FB, I think. I think it was proportions 1cup starch to 3 of water.
We haven't done any at home, but in playgroups DD was very excited about bowl of flour, she was covered in it! There were also bowls of jelly with some toys inside for kids to yank them out and blue spaghetti bowl.
Last summer we put her in the garden in bumbo chair and gave her bowl of food and spoon bcs she was in th stage of wanting to use it. 15 minutes later she had full head of salmon risotto, some big blob on the forehead, but very content. We did consider to get the hose out for both baby and the chair though.

Well the last 3 nights she's slept from 8/9/10 till 7/8am with only one wake up maybe half an hour after we've gone to bed but I just need some time to myself back im going to move her cot into the spare room with me tonight and put it next to my bed then once she's done a couple of nights like that I'll move back across the hall to actually sleep in the same bed as dp.

Keep falling off the thread.
Teeth and a cold here= less sleep but still not awful.

MrsA we have teeth and cold too 2weeks back at nursery and snot nose is back!!

Sleep is hit and miss again back to olbas oil everything before bed and vickjs on his feet seems to help a bit annoyingly really as had made some good progress with sleep

Keep getting so many enquiries for night nanny work there isn't many in east Midlands and Warwickshire so I get a fair few enquiries but can't take on anything til ds2 sleeps properly I haven't done anything night nanny or babysitting wise since Oct 2014 n had planned to be doing some very little bits from march/April 15 but looks likely to be April/may 16.

Work night out on Friday, drank more than I intended to but wasn't too drunk. Home at midnight and crawled into spare bed. Turns out DP was up til 3 with dd who'd been up every 45 mins since she went down. Calprofen finally got her off. Dp then away for rest of weekend and last night she woke only at 11.30 then down til 6.30 (lucky me!). Tonight I finally managed to put her down awake and she was asleep 5 minutes later. Dp has been able to do this for a while but with me it takes a couple of goes. So, where's my parenting medal?

Weekend also involved a zoo trip, I though she might be too young but she seemed to enjoy it.

That's funny ladydolly, we also took DD to the zoo on Saturday. Looks like on the coldest day of the year the crazy parents had decided to drag their babies to the Zoo. DD liked zebras for some reason and hornbills which probably reminded in the night garden birds. The rest of the animals she watched wide-eyed but didn't show any emotions, not even when lioness hissed at us to warn off her young cubs.
Bedtime this weekend has been bliss (touch wood!), seems that tiredness of the week has cought up on her, she's been taking long naps and down for night at 7pm like in baby days - bottle and then she turned the back and off she was. it takes some effort to believe that used to be the usual bed time few months ago.

We did the zoo before Christmas. Bloody freezing but at least no crowds! He was a bit indifferent to almost everything ("look at the tiger!.......No, not the sky, the TIGER! Over here, look! look!......look???......oh forget it.....~sigh~")

But the meerkats went down a storm!

Best of luck with moving into a new room Ark! I agree, its definately time to get your space back!

Feeling yuck I have ds2 cold not fair on a weekend and my day off no real resting and up with ds2 now who is resisting going back to sleep dh was up twice in night with him

We have one molar just cutting and another about to cut with ds1 I never knew when a tooth was coming only once it had appeared

DD is poorly. I think she has a virus with a cold, coughing until she is sick, temperature and too tired to do anything even sit up sometimes. She will wake up and play like normal for about half a hour then cry to be picked up and fall back to sleep on me for a couple of hours, which is ok if you don't want to do anything except sit and cuddle her. It's a bit like having a newborn again but heavier so carrying her all the time is making my arms ache. Clearly she is too ill for nursery tomorrow when I am supposed to work, but my manager was surprisingly ok when I phoned to say I can't come (DH has already had a few days off work with poorly DC). I hope she doesn't pass it on to the rest of us. DD1 started coughing last night too.

Can I ask the nurses for some advice ... Dd2 got a burn on her hand yesterday on the palm - just came up and touched the range while I was cooking at it before I got to her. Feel awful about but she seemed ok after a few minutes, I kept her hand in a cold wet flannel for about 5 mins. Normally I put aloe Vera from our plant on burns but have a feeling it's poisonous and didn't want dd to eat it off her hand or anything!
Anyway there's a welt/callous thing this morning, what's the best thing to put on it? I've gone with sudocreme for now or is there something better? I don't think it's serious but it is in a tricky area.

half I don't know much about treating burns. I think that in the hospital we have special creams for burns that would be prescribed. Could you go to a pharmacy and ask what they recommend? How big is the burn? Is it a blister? According to NHS website, a burn on the hand that blisters should be seen by a dr, especially in a child under 5. Hope she is ok (and you too, it must have been a horrible accident).

I would make appointment with practice nurse at your surgery half doesn't need a doctor but prob best get it seen especially if it becomes infected later and then you will be asked why you didn't seek medical attention