Sept 08: the thread for when they may start crawling, and there will definitely be some separation anxiety bawling ....

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

Welcome ladies

Well, there's no crawling going on in our house, but there's defo some separation anxiety bawling going on .... tears, screaming, the works - oh joy!

it's not so much the stairs as rooms - no doors shut and most rooms are full of cables, things with nails sticking out, tools, metal spikes, cans of poison... I figure if I gate off both ends of the dining room it can be a giant and reasonably safe playpen - if I shut the hall door SIL2ds keeps getting squashed behind it. Have removed A from the router times already...

Not worried re trip factor as used to stepping over bundles of cables etc!

My DS fell down the stairs at 11 months, all the way from the top to the bottom. The bruise on his head was caused by the stairgate. If it hadn't have been there he would have come out of it totally unscathed.

NC your house sounds scary!

T seems to have got in the habit of getting up at 6:15ish for a massive feed, then staying up for 30 minutes before needing a nap because he actually got up before he was ready.
I'm going to try putting tinfoil over his window to black out the dawn, and hopefully he'll stay down a bit longer.

Hopefully you can get black out blinds in Ikea really cheaply.

meglet - I find a toy at changing time works. Better still a 'forbidden' toy (ie remote or mobile phone) works even better

We keep getting nappy leakage as trying to put a nappy on properly is pretty much impossible. Although the forbidden toy is always a winner Ninja

We've got the KiddyGuard gates. They are almost like a blind and cost a stupid amount of money, however ours are 2nd hand!

M has worked out how to use his hands to push himself backwards when he is on his tummy. That and a few other signs make me think he'll be on the move soon. Saying that he is very proficient at rolling and can roly poly the length of the room at quite a speed!

hopefully I'm from the crazy gf camp and think you can never have a room too dark . Both the dc's have black out blinds and curtains. I'm sure it helps with their sleep. I have black out curtains too so they didn't get woken up early even when they were still in their moses baskets in my room.

Does anyone else have a baby that turns into a slippery eel when its changing time?! DD is terrrible and its like a wrestling match, I can just about get one sleepy suit popper done up then she flips over, tries to crawl off and I flip her back. Repeat process for every popper, then realise I've done them up wrong and have to do it all over again. Aaargghhh! Her big brother was never like it.

Meglet Effy is just the same and the only thing I've found that works is if DS sings his 'Effy, Effy it's a lovely day' song at her. The forbidden toy works for about 10 seconds and then she's off.

ILTMIMI I think ours are Kiddyguard gates too.

Thanks Sunshine - I might pop to our (new!) local Ikea on the weekend if the tinfoil does the trick.

T, needless to say, is not a slippery eel when being changed. He mostly just lies there, he's too lazy to even try to grab his bits, which most boy babies seem to do

DS used to be fine as long as I sang to him. Effy just wants to go and explore the latest dangerous thing she's found (she was looking at the socket today).

Hopefully, Diego is in the same camp as T: will roll if gravity helps, but crawling is for losers as far as he's concerned. In face, if a toy rolls out of reach while he's lying on his back, he rather screams to have it handed back than try to reach it. He's very good at sitting though.

Will they every crawl, or just walk up one day and start pacing the room?

meglet - A has recently turned into a high-speed doner kebab as soon as the new nappy comes near - but he'll lie for 15 min airing himself first! He always goes the same way so I'm starting to get good at nippa-ing him underneath, and then a wrap next time he comes round! Then clothes later...
Think I might have to invest in more 1-piece velcro-stick nappies; can't see nursery being happy with this, even though they assure me they've had cloth-nappied babies before, just none atm.

Argos have stairgates on sale - some are under £20 which is a lot better than I thought.

NC my childminder seems to cope admirably with my reusables - I use itti bittis, and I just get them completely ready for her (liners and everything in), so they just need to be popped on. Although the fact that T lies still while he is tended to probably helps!

Pacita glad there are other lazy babies! Apparently DP didn't really do very much at all (minimal crawling, no walking) until he was about 20 months and then just started running around, so I expect they'll be fine!

T is at the childminder's again, I'm theoretically trying to write coherent stuff to sell, but have in fact spent the last 40 minutes constructing the perfect bread recipe for my blog...

hopefully I am resting in bed off work this week. Decided I could use the time to start writing my next book, but have instead spend the morning on a hilarious MN thread trying to sniff out the online identity of Tim Dowling.

Friend's DD didn't do anything apart from sit until she was 2.5. There was nothing wrong with her, she just wasn't interested. Once she did get round to walking she picked it up really quickly.

ninja and sunshine I love the forbidden toy idea! Normal toys don't work anymore.

hopefully - yes, that sounds fine. I'm using Bumbles which are T-shaped and then have a three-ended elasticated hook to hold them in place, and then a wrap. So you're holding the nappy together with one hand, the hook with the other and the escape artist with a knee and elbow - great fun. I wonder if the strap on the nursery changing table would stop the revolving...

Compared to SIL2ds (11mo), A is remarkably placid. I suspect as soon as they can talk A will be telling 2ds to fetch him whatever he wants and 2ds will bound around getting it so A can stay on his backside!

DS only seems to like playing with forbidden toys. I couldn't make any calls from my mobile the other day as he'd completely drenched the speaker with drool. He also likes all remote controls, the TV, the DVD player, the lap top (he gets very excited when he sees it open), the oven, all light switches, in fact anything electrical.

We're not at stairgate stage yet. But DS is a complete wriggler in my arms, it takes a huge amount of effort to keep him from launching out of my grip.

And no massive improvement on the sleep issue. Still waking at least twice a night. Im feeding at 11:30 again. And managing to hold out till 5:30 before the next feed. Anyone else still feeding at night?

DG - I'm still doing one or two feeds (big improvement for the 5 to 8 a few weeks ago)

Yes remotes and the computer keyboard all favourites too.

Evening all. We have stair gates at top and bottom - usually only shut when other people's children come round to stop them exploring upstairs! Otherwise open. Top one necessary coz dd is now in a big girls bed.

No change with ds; still sitting, eating and sleeping well, and not rolling, crawling or making any attempt to move under his own steam. In other words, a truely delightful baby!

Dd is consuming all my time and energies at the moment. Turns out she's an expert at being 2 sigh hopefully I bought a piece of blackout material and some sticky velcro from Dunelm and stuck it into the window recess for total blackout. Cheap and effective!

NC I think its a good idea to have one child-safe area in the home, you can house proof your own child, but I've found I've needed to child-proof for the benefit of other children, otherwise I spend play dates on tenterhooks moving children away from things and apologising to their parents!
We also went for a gate across our kitchen; its an open plan kitchen diner so we got the babydan playpen with wall mountings. It was curved into the kitchen so dd could play 'in there' with me, but couldn't actually get at the cooker. Saved me putting annoy catches on any of the cupboard doors.

Digitalgirl I give Effy a dream feed at about 10:30 and that, with the banana at 18:30 and feed at 19:30, seem to help her to sleep right through.

Digitalgirl I have done no night feeds for a week now, and only the occasional resettling. I am with Sunshinemummy here, I think that a big dinner really helps.

I give Diego some fruit for tea at about 5 or 5:30 and a bowl of Holle porridge made with 200ml of formula and some stewed fruit at 19:30-20:00. He loves it. He screams with his hands extended from his high chair until I bring it to him. Can't open his mouth big enough and fast enough, and then is happy to wash his hands and face, sing a lullaby and go to bed. Life has definitely improved since.

I apologise to all North London meet up possible attendees for being a crap organiser after coming up with the suggestion. No one would believe I'm a producer, as by the look of it lately, I can't seem to be able to do a piss up in a brewery. Sooo, let's try again with some dates:

Who can do Thursday the 28th of May? It's still La Porchetta in Stroud green rd. 5-10 mins walk away from Finsbury Park tube station. I'd be happy to come to station and help with toddlers/bags/etc.

Come on, ladies, let's do it!

ds has grown a....TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTH!!!
Suddenly seems all grown up [wistful emoticon]

After moaning yesterday about nightfeeds I practically lept out of bed to feed DS at 3:30am with massively painful boobs. Was working away all day yesterday and the bedtime feed at 7:30 wasn't enough to slow down the over-production.

I know the big dinner thing helps, it's just DS's appetite varies from one day to the next. And he doesn't have a failsafe food that I know he will definitely eat. We've completely stopped with porridge and cereal as he never eats more than three spoonfuls before throwing the rest around the room. In fact our BLW has gone right out the window, I am HAND-FEEDING him in order to get food in his mouth. He's so distracted that he just plays, throws and squishes all food that is put in front of him. He won't sit in his highchair for long, so we're now mixing eating and playing, sneaking food into his mouth as he bashes on his toys or plays with a door handle. And then when he's definitely done with eating he purses his lips and refuses all food. Can't believe I'm breaking all my weaning rules, it's ridiculous.