October 2005 - and then they were 2!

[stinkymalinki]

My darling boy's birthday today

We gave him a Fisher Price Little People garage as his main present, which he loves, as well as loads of Bob the Builder trucks and Thomas the tank engine bits.

He's currently having a nap, then we're having a little birthday tea later.

A good day SM x

Glad his hearing is fine YF, one less thing to worry about! The signing book I have says that they reckon that it actually helps with the speech rather than hindering it. The example they give is that the first words that non signing children say are often "bye bye" and this is because it is accompanied by a sign ie a wave. Johnny has pretty much stopped signing now because he can say the words and doesn't need the sign, so I can say that in his case, any worries about the signing affecting his speech would have been unfounded. He still does it when he is breastfeeding though!! Very handy to still be able to communicate with mummy when you have your mouth full. The Welsh school sounds great too. There are a great many benefits to being billingual.

Johnny slept through last night. Hooray. He was wearing two pyjama tops and a thick pair of joggers and he had three plates of dinner before bed so by elimination, if he were to have woken last night, we could have said, well he's not waking because of cold or hunger!! DH is not amused at having to get up. All he has to do is go through and say "johnny go back to sleep" and that does the trick, but I am hearing all sorts of complaints about being woken in the night. Ahem, try two years of it pal.

Anyone else suffering with sleep issues at the mo? Since he was poorly a few weeks ago, Joey has faught us all the way WRT going down for a nap, and again at bed time. I initially thought fine, maybe he's outgrown his nap, but it just makes him worse going to bed at night, and he constantly wakes up every 45 minutes (with full-on crying) till about midnight. If i enforce a nap (no mean feat, i had to let him kick and scream in his pushchair for a good 30 mins yesterday before i could intervene, then he slept for a good 1.5 hours, so he clearly still needs to sleep), although he's still initially resistant to bed time, once he's there he sleeps through without disturbance all night.

Its beginning to get me down, as i don't like battling him, but it really seems that i have to carry on trying with an afternoon nap, as a lack of one has such an impact on his evening sleeping.

No nap today - couldn't run the risk of Joey's screeching protests waking DH who's on nights - so as a consequence, Joey went to bed at 7 and has been awake twice already.

MB - you have just described my cycle exactly!!! I was still feeding ds 3 times a day, first thing in the morning, fed him to sleep at lunch time and then last thing before bed, big long feeds too. I only cut down once I was actually pg which ds seems more than happy with. Not sure when your periods first returned, but mine returned when ds was about 9 months so i estimate it took about a year to get back to a (normalish) cycle with a long enough LP.

YF - ds is still hardly saying anything either. No single words, no mummy or daddy even though we think he is getting close. Yet he will point to something he's found and say "There it is" really clearly, and he will launch into a huge long chat with pointing and gestures and everything yet no one can understand a word he says.!!!!

Stinky, yes, Johnny is getting a bit more vocal about going to bed. He gets a breastfeed and then gets put to bed. He has done since he was tiny. He has always accepted that once he's in bed then that's it, but recently (say the last week or so) he has been howling when I put him in bed. Sobbing "milk, milk, milk". I normally send dh in after 10 mins or so who just tells him to go to sleep and that seems to do the trick. But dh was out last night, and me going in just makes matters worse as I am the one with the milk! So, I went back in, lay him down, dried his tears, stroked his face and sung him a song. He quietened down and then I did a gradual retreat out of the room. Then he slept all night, something he hasn't been doing lately.

DLAMIS - my periods came back last January when Johnny was around 14 months, however I had been on the mini pill and they started when I came off it, so I have no way of knowing when they would have returned of their own accord. I have taken the bull by the horns regarding cutting down feeding as it was just getting ridiculous. I couldn't do anything for Johnny hanging on my legs asking for milk. So, now I have decided that I am willing to cut down to morning, mid morning (if he asks), before and after nap and then bedtime. If he asks any other time, I tell him to wait and do the sign for extra emphasis! He seems ok with this and he comes up and says "mulk, wait" whilst doing the "wait" sign. I do feel sorry for him because he obviously loves bf, but it was getting beyond a joke really. I was going along the never offer, never refuse lines, but he would have fed 100 times a day if we carried on with that. So, anyway, I don't know if that will be enough to lengthen my LP or if I am going to have to stop completely in order to conceive.

Another thing that we have at the moment is a reluctance to walk. Anyone else? I carry him in the backpack if we are going any great distance, but it's the wanting to be carried eg from shop to the car that's the problem. It's not far enough to put him in the back pack, so I end up carrying him and now I have to go to the chiropractor as I have hurt my back doing this. I might have to get the hip seat out again I think, we stopped using it ages ago, either that or tell him that no, mummy is not going to carry him.
Poor boy, his life seems to be full of "no, no, no" just now. I had to confiscate his trolley with the bricks this morning as he was crashing it into the patio window. He was told that if he did it again, the trolley was going in the cupboard and he seemed all surprised when I stuck to my word!! Hopefully it will sink in soon that you don't mess with mummy because she means it!!

The end

What a long post

Well, i ended up in Joey's room cuddling him at 11pm last night, his 3rd episode of waking, and something i said i'd never do as i didn't want him waking just for a cuddle IYSWIM. Howver, it did the trick, as he then slept through (even if he did kill off my last remaining bit of spine!). He had a small nap today, so fingers crossed we have a better night!

Joey's also being very reluctant to walk again at the mo, and keeps coming up to DH or I to pick him up. Unfortunately he's point blank refused the pushchair for a few months now, so we're just getting stern with him, as i know he can walk

Same here with the waking stinky. I just don't know what's going on with Johnny. The last couple of days, he's woken around 5am and that's been him awake for the morning. We lie in bed and feed for a bit then he scampers round the room playing with his toys and teddies whilst I sort of doze until maybe 6.30am.

We have been doing some little time out stuff, a bit like the naughty step I suppose, but he just gets sent wherever is appropriate at the time rather than to a specific place. It is only for major offences most of which are dangerous, so we don't do it every day. Anyway, when I give him the warning to stop what ever he's doing, he then says "hall" and then "cry". He also says "cry" sometimes before I put him in bed. It seems that he knows when he is about to cry. It must be horrible for him - I am guessing that he knows he is going to cry, but can't stop himself yet. I'm hoping it's that rather than "hee hee, if I cry then daft old mummy will give me some cuddles"

Some excitement on the ttc front. I took the plunge and have cut Johnny's breastfeeds down to set times rather than on demand. Instead of coming up to me and saying "mulk peese" he comes up and says "mulk, wait, bedtime" It's very cute indeed. We;ve been doing this less than a week and my chart is completely different! I appear to have ovulated on day 12 instead of day 16 which is good news on the luteal phase front. I am not going to get too excited though, but I am very happy that things have changed so much without having to stop feeding altogether.

Johnny has a green snottery nose and a rattly cough just now. He is struggling for breath sometimes and it sounds a little croupy. He's had croup two or three times now, I believe some are more prone than others to it. Hopefully this won't develop into full blown croup because it is quite distressing.

Hope everyone is doing well.

ah MB fingers crossed with the ttc sounds promising. Another negative result for me this month (only 2nd month though) and we have decided that we are only going to keep ttc until April. If no luck at that point Paul is going to go for the snip

Hope poorly toddlers are feeling better soon.

dlamis How is the pg going hunni? x

Good luck with the TTC! Can i ask why the snip if not PG by April Yokefleet?

Joey's got a chest infection. Poor thing was up all the last few nights coughing, so i took him to the GP this morning and he's been put on antibiotics (his first-ever lot! Not bad for 2 years!). He certainly picks his timing well - DH is currently in Dublin on a lads holiday, the first few days he's had away since before Joey was born! Here's hoping for a better night tonight - i discovered a wonderous thing called 'Calpol Night' at the pharmacists earlier

Ooh feels like i haven't been on for ages! Got distracted by some rather large debate on mumsnet so popping in now to say hello!

Good luck to all TTC - we have changed our minds again and are waiting until Evelyn is at least three.

We have taken our house off the market for a while, putting in a new kitchen in Jan hopefully and then back on the market in March when it picks up again (fingers crossed)

Evelyn gets told off a little bit now, she is going through a stage of throwing things, so we tell her off and make her sit on the floor by the front door, as soon as she point there, she starts crying, but she has to sit there, then come and explain why we sent her there and say if she is sorry. Last night she threw something and it hit me on the head, and I dont think she realised what she did becasue she kept saying "I dont know mummy.... wail, wail"

She is doing well, got terrible nappy rash though which I didnt think she would get when potty training!

SM we just decided that we don't want to have our lives on hold forever and the what if's and waiting for AF are already driving me nuts and this is only after two months. I really wish now that we had ttc sooner, it really got me thinking when I went to see the School that Thomas is going to go to. That I don't think that I could cope mentally with possibly ttc for years. I hope that makes sense, I know what I mean but reading it back doesn't sound right

Elf Thomas just after his birthday had a phase of throwing things in a rage, you could see the anger in his face, luckily for us this only lasted just over a week.

I understand where you're coming from Yokefleet - i've always been undecided as to whther i even want a second child (DH is even less keen on the idea than me, but is happy for me to make the final decision!), but i really wanted Joey to have a sibling. However, in 'the plan', number 2 should have been here by now (or at least on the way) and the older Joey gets, the less inclined i am to go through all the baby phase again. We'll see - TTC isn't an option for us at the mo given the state of my health and the uncertainty of potential spine operations etc, and i keep changing my mind anyway. If it's meant to happen, then it will! Hey, its how Joey came to be - he was a happy accident!

I swing between my hope for a second child, and my idea of NOT having another.

But I grew up in a large family, as did DH, so it feels slightly wrong to only have one.

I know what you mean Elf - both DH and i are one of 2, and i had (and still have!) a really close relationship with my sister (18 months between us), which i would be really keen for Joey to have with a sibling. However, on the flip side, DH isn't at all close with his sister (3 years between them), and they never really got on when growing up so you can never tell.

Both Paul and I have a sibling too and I am very very close to my sister (15months gap) whereas Paul doesn't speak to his sibling (16months gap) more then 3 times a year. I always imagined having 2 children and really hope that we do fall pg before April but I am also happy to have a cut off point now too. First time round we were so lucky and conceived first month but at that point I weighed a stone less then I do now and my periods were much more regular, I have just lost 11 lb to get down the weight this far but still have a stone to go and I hope that that will regulate my periods a bit better. Fingers crossed x

There are five of us and although we fought like cat and dog when we were kids, we mostly get on great now and I couldn't imagine not having siblings tbh. I have been very sure, long before Johnny was even thought of that I would like more than one child (this was after I got over the "I'm NEVER getting married and having children" phase). If time and money were no object, I would like three or four but if I had to predict, I would guess that two will be our lot.... unless we have twins of course.

Johnny's chest is still not good. I took him to the doc just to get him checked out and she was a bit rubbish. I wanted to ask her if she was actually old enough to be a doctor!!! Then she was a bit vague about what to do and how long to leave it and told me his chest was clear. So what's that funny rattly noise when he breathes then???? Chocolate teapot, I tell you.

I kept going back with Evelyn and her chest, and in the end a new doctor asked me if I were worried about cystic fibrosis

Anybody having bother with naptimes? I find it hard to believe that Johnny has outgrown his naps because on the days that he doesn't nap, he is just a tired, grumpy disaster. I am trying the trick of "you don't have to sleep, just lie in bed with a book" but that's not fooling him either. He is currently upstairs wailing for milk. I have people coming for dinner and was banking on getting a couple of hours cooking time while he was asleep. He must have sussed that out.

Mawbroon - we had a real hassle with naps a few weeks ago. Joey was basically the same, refusing to go down, but being really tired and grumpy all the time. I asked in the sleep section on MN and the general consensus was to persevere as yes he was too young to give up his nap yet, and lo and behold, he's currently upstairs asleep as i type It was grim though - on the worst day, it took him over an hour of crying, kicking, screaming etc in the pushchair then he eventually dozed off, but only slept for 40 minutes, and i did seriously wonder if it was worth all the hassle. By the next day, he went down for an hour with only a small fuss, and a few days later we were back to our 2 hours normality HTH x

Thanks stinky. yes, he's asleep now. It took the two of us lying together feeding in bed to get him to doze off. I have been avoiding this because the last few times I have tried this, he has woken and become hysterical when I try to get up and leave the bed but usually he has dozed enough for it to be the end of his nap. Today however, I was very tired and I passed out for an hour too and have been able to creep away and leave him sleeping! Ha, maybe that's what I need to do - nap with him for an hour every day. right, must get cooking

mb Thomas has suddenly dropped from 2hrs to 15mins in an afternoon this week, I am hoping it is just because he has a cold and cough and coughs more when laid down.
I took him to a baby sign class yesterday so I have been signing "where is rabbit" all day!! I wish I had done it sooner as I found it really interesting but unfortuantley the class is only running during the week for 3 more weeks then its only on Saturdays which I couldn't do anyway!

Hope all toddlers are well and not too terrible!

That sounds great about the signing YF. I bet if you started signing with him, it would only be a matter of days before he was able to do useful communication with you. I never went to any classes, I just bought a signing vocab book from Sing and Sign. IIRC you can sign up with them online and pay a fee to access video clips of the signs online but I never bothered with that as I had already used the book.

Johnny was living up to the terrible twos this morning, but it was because he woke at 5am and he was exhausted. I got him off to sleep for his nap no problem after lying down and feeding him for 20 mins or so. I think beforehand I was trying to curtail his pre-nap breastfeed and seeing the wee lamb gets told no umpteen times a day, the few feeds that he does get have become much more important to him. It really must be crap being two!!

I was just coming on and ask if anyone else was having trouble with naps, as ds is being a terror for not going down easily anymore and also starting to wake up at 5.30am. I don't do 5.30am and there you all are having trouble! Glad to see it seems normal and that it seems to be (dlamis crosses her fingers) a passing phase. I'm not ready for him to give up his nap yet, never mind him being ready!!!!!

Apart from that he is fine and free of a snotty nose for the first time since september.

We are putting up the Christmas tree tomorrow, can't wait to see what he thinks of it this year.

5am or 5.30am here too DLAMIS. I take him into bed with me to feed at 5.30am and sometimes he snuggles in and goes back to sleep, but more often, he shouts "mummy, up, mummy, up" that's me told eh?

We have an allergy appointment at the hospital tomorrow. I think it is just a routine thing because we have moved house into a new area, but I'm not sure. I am hoping that we just go in for a quick chat and I am hoping that they don't want to take some blood and do their own tests. Johnny was very distressed by that the last time, but it was almost a year ago and there was mention of testing him every year, so who knows. We will find out tomorrow.

Good luck tomorrow mb. Hope it's just a routine checkup for you.

I have had to turn down 2 lots of birthday cake on ds's behalf this week already and there's more to come yet. Nearly broke my heart yesterday when he saw the cake and was pointing excitedly at it, although with hindsight he was probably more interested in the no 2 shaped candle on the top lol Fortunately this cake went into the party bag rather than being dished up there and then so I didn't have to go through the 'distract' process while all the other kids tucked in Tbh I think it bothers me more than him though.