August 2021 Babies - From Santa to Solids, Hohoho!

[PurplePansy05]

Here we go again!

I'd do another delightful intro, alas I've lost count which thread this is now and we all know our LO's names anyway 😁

So instead I will just say, Merry First Christmas together to you and your LOs! 🎄❤🎁

May the sleep regression pass as soon as they see Santa later this week...

...May they love weaning and may our kitchens survive...

...May 2022 be full of blessings for them and for us ❤❤❤

Oldcomers and newcomers welcome, as always! 🥰

Good to hear about all the pronunciations! And really interesting @Ready2020 that it would be different for a boy or a girl! @PurplePansy05 we don't really have any nicknames for him based on his name (some people tried Roro at the start which I quickly shut down because I really don't like it!). I call him Rowany-Roo quite (to rhyme with slow) often, but my most common nickname for him is Snotbag 😂 which started when he had a cold! He responds with big smiles to that now which I find very funny

Hahaha, I love it @biscuitcat! I usually call him something food related that I like, I don't know where that came from, possibly because I'd eat him if I could, like I said 😁

@Inmypjsagain Same here re CM! Exactly that.

About that mum's comment, I'd think that was either a bitchy or a very clumsy one. If the latter then maybe she meant it as a compliment that you look so good that she didn't think you've recently had a baby? If the former then there's a whole range of potential meanings here. Is she first language English speaker?

Interesting discussion re bilingualism. I'm raising a bilingual child as I was brought up abroad and am multilingual myself. I speak to him in one of my core languages and DH in English, also mixing in some Welsh which he'll learn more in school. I am totally, totally pro early exposure having had this experience myself. I actually don't believe there is such a thing as people not being able to pick up a language, it's all about tailoring the teaching method and for young babies and children exposure is everything. It makes it so much easier for them to learn more languages later in life, it's really one of the best gifts to them if you can do it, IMO.

@Fran919 Interesting what you say about seeing through their BS, any tips at all as to what you'd avoid/pay particular attention to? DS is in what I felt the best nursery around us and my two other mum friends agree, so I won't be changing. But I would be interested to hear a professional view for sure if you don't mind sharing your thoughts.

@RandomCatGenerator I bought Olaplex which I found better than Philip Kingsley, but I would say if you buy PK from a reputable source (like for example M&S) then it should be good, unfortunately there used to be lots of fakes on Amazon/eBay back in the day. Charles Worthington used to be good too. xx

Oh and @Inmypjsagain we have to have him strapped in the Baby Bjorn now if we use it, but tbh he's getting a bit tall and heavy for it now. He would, in my opinion, either bounce himself and sit up in it or fall out of it, he's like a worm now! xx

@Inmypjsagain I’d take it as a clumsy, possibly even unintended compliment - that you look young / like you haven’t had a baby. At least she came to have a chat - I’m dreading being Billy no mates at baby classes.

Yes, we are definitely looking at the Lycee and at others like La Chouette. They are pricey, it’s true - so we’ll need to see when we get to it. Need to see what he’s like too!

Sounds like you, me and @WolfMother326 are the W London massive!

@PurplePansy05 I took it as bitchy, though said with a smile. Didnt take it as a compliment. But he was asleep snuggled up so it’s not like she could see a familiarity or not, she couldn’t see my interact with him either so it’s not like she could see me with him? As far as I know native language speaker, didn’t detect any accent.
Leo is lucky to have different languages spoken at him, great for skill.

@Fran919 I’m interested in what the BS is too!

@PurplePansy05 I agree anyone can learn a language to a greater or lesser extent. But I think some people are naturally better at it. Alas, I am not one of those people!

@RandomCatGenerator would never even occur to me to take is a compliment! It did sound like she was speaking to me just to see if I was a nanny or not, just found it really bizarre. Felt quite insulted. Imo I very much look like I’ve had a baby!!

La Choutte in Ealing? A friend sent her kids there a few years ago and recommends it. Agree need to see what they’re like but I like the idea of it!

You’re probably right; I’m trying to find a positive. Sorry - not actually helpful! No doubt that it’s a very very weird thing to say to someone.

Ha no thank you, I appreciate the positive! Maybe she was sleep deprived… anyway will be interesting if we see her again next week!

Actually @Inmypjsagain was she a mum or a nanny herself? Was she perhaps looking for a fellow nanny friend and it came out wrong?

@RandomCatGenerator Some baby groups can feel awkward if you're on your own. I've actually changed mine last month and I really like my new group, much more relaxed and friendly. We go for walks/coffees/cakes together. It's just so down to earth. I can see now that the group I attended before consisted of women I wouldn't be friends with regardless of having a baby. One other mum changed to the same group as me and the first thing she did, she came up to me and said I'm so glad you're here, that other group was awful, wasn't it 😂 It's made me feel at home haha! I also do buggyfit now with my NCT girlfriends and if any of you have these classes in your area, 100% recommend them! Great for mums and fun for babies to watch or nap outside 😊 xx

Ahhh please tell me you can't get chicken pox twice 😫😫😫 in under a year!

We are also raising our kids to be bilingual as ds is and with all his family still in Denmark I would like the kids to speak the language when we are there but so far ds doesn't say much

@Inmypjsagain sorry you had that comment made to you!

@PurplePansy05 good shout on an outdoor fitness class and hopefully meet like minded people.

So, only talking from my experience but generally visits are performed at set times so if you have a walk around and the children are sat nicely doing a very fun activity, it’s likely to have been planned that way, of course it needs to be planned within the EYFS though but its generally organised chaos as you can imagine.

Again from experience, the food choices / examples you see are likely to be the best of but when it comes to it LOs may be served something you weren’t expecting, for example salmon en croute was advertised
along with other nice meals however they weee served maybe once in a 3 month term. It’s not a big deal imo.

I would always asked what’s the maximum number of key children per staff member, for example I had over 30 but the ratio to be 1:8 so on one day I’d have more than 8 and wouldn’t be able to spend quality time with them and it can feel like a conveyor belt / tick box exercise. Also with many illnesses etc, a lot of swapping and covering Is done in other rooms and unfortunately under staffing and going over ratio does occur but generally with the older children and not the young ones.

Don’t get me wrong though you will know and feel when it’s right and when key workers show genuine kindness etc, I still often think of a couple of mine and have stayed in contact with one family.

Also from my own experience of crèche if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have chosen one that wouldn't let me look around "due to covid"
Staff numbers are key one and also if possible seeing how your kid gets on with the staff.
For dd I have gone for a different from from ds,". It has less outdoor space but it's like an old church hall and they have built rooms in it but it's only half height walls so everyone can see on everyone else's room. Food is made on site. And despite covid restrictions they are ensuring we get to come in and settle in with dd
Ds was like a different child when he moved to a new room but when he knew those 2 staff members were off and therefore merged back with the first room he would sob and have to be peeled off me. Seeing how he is never like that at all now in preschool makes me question what went on in first room.(and he came home 3 times with bite marks that no one saw happen or even realised had happened)
I was worried about changing his routine but I'm glad he's not there now.

Oh wow @Fran919, thanks. Reading this made me feel so much better about the fact we didn't choose a different nursery we went to see, I could tick things off your list right noe that didn't sit well with me. But the bottom line was, I didn't like the people. I so agree with you that you have to gel with them, ultimately they're caregivers for the most precious little people in our lives. Sometimes it's hard to explain why we like/dislike certain people, but in this case I think it's to do with our maternal instinct. xx

@PurplePansy05 she breast fed during the class so was a mum. I won’t dwell on it, I just thought it was a really weird thing to say someone. I do wonder what a mum looks like?! That’s good you found another class and buggy fit is good. There’s a class really near me that I walked by on a few occasions in a loop to get an idea Of the exercises they do and it looked to me like this group only stretched mmm so I avoided!

@Smurf123 I have no idea how many times you can catch it but 🤞🏼 you can’t get it again!

@Fran919 oh that’s really interesting. It’s weird how nurseries all have a different feel, guess staff and size make a difference!

@Inmypjsagain If you're looking for a solid workout, it's not buggyfit. But if you're looking to move a bit, get some fresh air and make friends, it's great. I admittedly have coffee and cake with the girls afterwards so it doesn't do anything for my weight loss, but it does a lot of good for my MH. Weight loss is what I deal with separately or so I tell myself xx

@PurplePansy05 ha good advice, there’s actually another one 10 minute walk away so I might scope that out! I do wonder about all these new mum friends, when we’re back at work I wonder how there’ll be time to see anyone. And ugh weight loss, I might just give up soon, I don’t understand how I can be exercising daily, restricting calories and just not losing weight. Think my metabolism has just given up.

Also just going back a bit to hair loss talk, I pretty much exclusively use PK on my hair (I have olaplex, bumble and bumble and pureology in my stash too but always go back to PK) and I think it’s good for conditioning, but not necessarily for hair growth or loss. There is a stimulating scalp toner which I used but I don’t think did much, as I said I tried alpecin which I think, if it does anything at all, takes time. Have faith the shedding will stop though!

Well, I wonder how I'll have time for my old friends, new friends, non-mum friends, mum-friends, future-friends-when-baby-starts-nursery, then school...that's too exhausting to think about!

My primary concern is having the time for DS when I'm back in work. Then probably the cats and my dog. Then my two closest friends. DH somewhere in between, just about 😂 The rest will just have to fit in - occasionally.

I think many of these new 'friendships' will be temporary. But it's still nice to be able to spend time with them now, for the babies to watch each other and to share experiences with people going through the same thing now.

And on that note, I have to say, you guys have been the best bunch of all in the last 15 months - such a great sounding board, and such a fountain of knowledge and ideas, and you've never judged me harshly even when I talked shit sometimes and was about to lose it at times. Thank you for this xx

@Fran919 I was slightly exaggerating 🤣 it’s a 30 minute class and £18 per week but you have to do a 10 week block at £180. They casually threw into the terms and conditions that they’ll store your payment details and just do it as a rolling payment for the next block when this one ends. I had to phone to say I wasn’t sure what was happening with work etc so couldn’t commit to more than 10 weeks 🙈

To be fair though it was really good 😂 he went underwater for the first time and I would never have been brave enough to do it myself!

@Inmypjsagain definitely a very weird thing to say!!

I can’t imagine fitting in a proper job ever again! on top of keeping him alive, walking the dogs, eating, drinking, showering and doing the orders I have at the minute 😥🤣 I’m realllly hoping I can just miss out the proper job part and stick to the Etsy shop but we need to redo the mortgage for the full amount we actually needed when we applied first time once I’m ‘back to work’ and getting payslips again. I don’t think we’d get it all on his salary alone and my self employed stuff won’t count when it’s so new 🙄 I feel like I’m kind of being forced to go back to tick a box when all I’ve done through my whole mat leave is gear everything up to avoid going back!

We’ve settled the finance on our PCP car and sold it to we buy any car which has made us 10 grand! That will go straight into the house. The issue now is that new cars are so hard to get and cars of a few years old are almost the price of new cars as no one can get new cars! We have that money to put into the house now at least though so that has taken a small chunk off the mortgage but I’m now carless and practically homeless while our house gets the work done and I search for a car on a lease deal.. questioning every day how my life reached this point! 😂😂

Not caught up properly yet but just hopping on and @sarah13xx I'm no expert but are you sure putting that £10k into your house will make much difference to your monthly repayments? We kept £10k back off our last house sale to do up this house as we realised it wouldn't have made much difference for the monthly repayments anyway.

DS has just taken 8oz so now I'm hoping he'll go down easily in his crib like he used to. I'm sure I'll be seeing him again shortly 🙄

DD just slept 10.30 to 4am! Not sure how that happened. She's just had a mega feed and is back down. I'm now wide awake of course after 5 hours sleep! Maybe it's the solids or OH sleeping in the room with her or just a good sleep phase. Let's hope it lasts though I'm sure we'll be back to 2 hour wake ups eventually when she starts crawling or something. I'm loathe to change anything about her sleep now such as moving her to her room or going away for a night or so, in case it bursts this sleep bubble.

Morning all, a slightly more settled night although he's still pretty miserable bless him. DS2 got a positive PCR confirmation last night so we are all officially in quarantine except for DH.

He is still absolutely soaking through nappies overnight which is frustrating. Even with the mega expensive ones a size up.

Bertie, is the nappies issue because he's poorly? Bless him, glad it was a bit more settled last night, hopefully he'll be on the mend gradually. If it's Omicron, the news in the UK is that it can affect more children and more stay in hospitals (but that's under 1 yo), BUT largely as a precaution as it may start off bad but tends to become much lighter for them quickly. So that's positive. Not sure what they say in Germany? Obviously hopefully he won't require any extra medical help regardless ❤ lots of love xx