December 2008 Coven - white light and basket cases

[EffiePerine]

Seeing as LadyT broke the thread...

Anyone know good place to buy post preg bikini with not too skimpy bottoms? up coming holiday looming....

Hope sleep was had by all and babies recover.

Well done to the runners signing up. I used to run in a past life

Dd did ok without dummy, settled well at bedtime and after feeds at 10 and 12. Woke at 1 but settled without milk, woke at 3, fed, wanted to play but settled eventually around 4. Woke at 4.30, did not want to go back to sleep just wanted to play, fed in bed, got her to sleep, back in cot, woke up, caved and gave dummy at 5.30. Woke at 6.30 but we all dozed together in bed and she slept at the breast. I got up 7.45 and she stayed asleep for another half hour Sounds quite bad but actually a bit better than she has been so shall continue.

Ds had a night terror each sleep cycle. Nicely timed between dd's wakings. Poor boy, he is happy this morning but will be shattered later He had a big one before we went to bed then just little ones that were soothed just by someone going in the room until the early hours of the morning when he had another big one, eventually we woke him as it wasn't passing and we hoped to break the cycle of him going back into them but though he went back to bed after a snuggle he had another an hour later and again I had to wake him (this time by sprinkling water on his face as he was really bad). Thakfully he then slept until 7.45.

Am ever so slightly tired this morning

Morning all - well very pleased to report the worst seems to be over (in terms of illness anyway) - woke at 2 and 4 and then up at 7, so pretty much back on track. Phew! PMK she sleeps in a grobag (well cheapo version thereof) as she's so wriggly we gave up on swaddling a while back - she managed to get one leg out of a miracle blanket!!

bikinis - I got this one for pregnancy aquarobics and then only went once but it's got plenty of boob space and the shorts are pretty all encompassing - it's in th sale but might be worth trying your local shop to see if they have it still?

sybil love, hope you got back to sleep and didn't have to start the day too early. Maybe it was all the cakes!

veggie very glad to hear you had a good dinner - all the mre impressed that you're off to do a run today, you barmpot the words "fun" and "run" are never heard together coming out of my mouth, dh and I tried one of those sofa to 5k plans and I whinged the whole time and complained that it felt like I was going to die. would much rather get on a bike, which he alas is much less keen on. In fact we nearly broke up on a cycling holiday in Suffolk a few years back - I'm a "here's a hill, push all the way to the top then have a rest" kind of person whereas he's a "change down gears and take it easy" sort. This did not make for marital concord and yes I know Suffolk is pretty flat, but it does have lots of gradients just short of the 10m necessary to make a contour line on the map - I'm sure SL is laughing over her cornflakes at us weedy types but it was about as much as we could manage!

indith crikey sounds like a bit of a shocker, poor ds with the night terrors they sound awful [hugs for ds] Re the dummy, it's not caving in if it helps her get back to sleep.

Right - DD currently napping, did the grizzling for about 10 mins then finds thumb and goes off thing, managed to not have to feed her to sleep Keep telling myself grizzling is very different to crying it out There is sunshine, we're going to try mowing the lawn (rawk and roll!) and then get out for a beer garden lunch. There's a pub not far from us that had always been v grotty looking but has apparently been taken over recently by real ale aficionados so has to be worth a go. SL, if you're reading this, you'll get a text any minute asking if you and DH fancy coming along too

Morning,

I am offically dead!! We walked 5.6 miles yesterday. It was fine until we got to the hill and I had to push the boys up it and then I thought I might die!!! But it was good fun and good exercise.

Veggie If I don't get accepted to do the midwifery course I'll still do the history one.

Mum brought her old cross trainer round last night, so I will be aiming for 10 minutes a day on that on top of doing my exercise dvd. I'm going to be doing a lot of walking when DH is at work again.

Hope everyone is well and having a good weekend.

Hi all, well done on the walking front, Kayz, am v impressed at your discipline .
Indith, poor you and poor DS - what a night! I hope your day isn't too hectic and you can all chill out in the park or in front of the T depending on weather...
Bit of a crazy night here too - T now deciding to have his morning feed at 5am (in addition to other wake-ups when dummy would do) then take for ever to go back down. THen not want to feed at all in the morning, thus buggering up his usual napping and feeding routine. Though we did have 3 pooey nappies in one hour this morning. Can't believe how long this tummy bug is staying around....
In the books it says "if they wake up at 5am, try and settle them with a cuddle or some cool, boiled water" . He's also started waking loads from 7pm to 10pm, where he used to sleep soundly. He'll be cuddle back to sleep but it is weird - think may be his teeth, or just v light sleeping. But it is funny - they do say that they change loads at this age and all the things you used to take for granted go out of the window...
Sis and her DH coming for lunch today . I'm so desperate to give her loads of pregnancy books, talk about baby stuff etc but know I must hold back until things are a bit more certain - or at least past the 12 week mark..
How's the packing going today, effie?

JJ wowo Houdini or what! B hasn't managed to wrangle out of the miracle blanket, but he is too long for it now - i keep moving it down lower but now it only just covers his baby boobs! I'm going to get an extra large muslin and swaddle him in that at night for the warmer weather, plus if need be I have learnt how to pin his flappy arms down without needing the miracle blanket style. Thanks for the swim suit link bottoms look good coverage - i never had a shorts style, but now i'm thinking good idea! - my problem is I have nothing up top! Well, i'm at maximum only a size bigger since pre preg, however one size up on v small is still v small!
Kayz impressive walk! Though my 4 miles was good, but 5.6 with 2 boys! Brilliant!

Hi,

from what I've read on here kayz, I think you would make a brilliant midwife... Good luck with the course.

JJ glad your sleep is improving. Hello, everyone else and thanks for being welcoming !

Yes, pre-baby friends do seem to disappear a bit, DH and I have accepted we just need to make some more. Probably others with children. Some friends we had known for a long time dont socialise with us any more as they "dont approve" of our decision to be parents...So we have been a bit lonely the past 2 years.

There is an article in The Times this week here about how having children doesnt make you happy. DH and I were talking about how we disagreed with this, as yes, you cant immediately gratify all your own needs all the time - but is that what you need to be happy ? Isnt the challenge and the graft some of what makes it good ? And isnt it a bit hard to explain to someone who has never done it what it is like to hold your own child ? I might complain about them sometimes (see yesterday ) but I wouldnt go back to my previous life....

Enjoy the sunshine...

hello hello hello i'm back from italy. kept up a bit while away - poor verso - hope she feels she can post as and when she needs to - sorry to hear her anonymity has been compromised. i have to say, it never occurred to me to worry about RL people looking at this thread and it suddenly brought it very much home for me.

not (justanumber) - welcome. so lovely to hear from people who have been silent so far. we are all with you in terms of the trials, tribulations and joys of this parenting malarkey (sp?)

italy was lovely - were away with 2 other couples who have kids aged 5,4 and 3, so we saw a whole different side of parenting. madam behaved herself so well - she loves a bustling, busy house - and the plane journeys were pretty much fine (20 mins grizzling solved by boob, basically). although how one flies on one's own is beyond me. italy is truly a wonderful place to take a baby - she was practically wrestled off me by the chef in one restaurant and showed the kitchen - they are all so friendly and wonderfully accepting of babies' grizzlings.

she has, however, stopped sleeping quite as well as normal. she was sleeping in our friend's travel cot (graco one after much umming and ahhing - we went with the free loaned one). we would normally put her down and the first thing we would then hear from her would be for a feed in teh middle of the ngiht. in italy, though, in a different cot and a different bedroom, she would wake 2-3 times in the first hour and a half, scream blue murder and i would have to give her some extra boob to get her to go to sleep. and i think this means i have now done the dreaded "feeding to sleep" many a time. a question for your gurus: is this so bad? should i be nipping this in the bud and am i creating the proverbial RFMB (rod for my back). also, from what i've been reading, it sounds like some babies who have been sleeping really well, at 3-4 months change their sleeping habits and start waking more - this is certainly our experience.

i'm sure there was loads more i wanted to say but can't remember any of it. glad to be back and part of the coven/basket thing.

I wouldn't worry too much WG, I don't think rods are really all that possible to create at this age, I don't think feeding to sleep is such a bad thing anyway.

dd has gone down like an angel snuggling a teddy after some teething powders. Has been suck hand, breast, scream, fuss suck. Grr

Which teething powders do you use, Indith? I've been giving T half an A&P powder morning and night for ages and can't work out if it makes a difference or not. As this teething lark seems to be very protracted I'm not comfortable giving him calpol every day, so would love to find something non-medicinal that works!
Oh, and WG, we're going through the same thing with the waking 3 times in 2 hours after he goes down for bed at 7pm, with him I think it's his teeth an if i was still BFing I'd def just go and give him a little suck but it's such a pain to make up the bottles he just gets a cuddle and the dummy! But we do do the food thing in the middle of the night as he's quite poss on a growth spurt so want him to get what he needs. Maybe your DD has a combo of growth spurt and teething pain? Or maybe it's just the 4 month light sleeping thing everyone seems to be talking about.
Glad Italy was good though .

wg glad you had a good holiday! And DS is doing the same sleeping thing too. I think its definately his teeth, his little cheeks are bright red at the moment and he is drooling for England. He also wakes crying out a lot like he is in pain, poor little man. We've been using the Nelson teething powder. Not sure it works but it does seem to calm him down a bit. Well that and bf back to sleep

My Nan is doing okay, and thanks everyone for your kind words. My Grandad has been in to see her a few times thanks to my Aunt and Uncle. But he also has Emphasyma(sp?) and basically my Nan is his main carer and a very spritely 78 years young (I hope I've inherited her genes). But now she has a colostomy bag for at least 6 months and I think its this that is bothering her the most at the moment. But the other option was that she would have died. I'm hoping to get to see her in the next day or two. DH said he will wait in car with DS and if he gets hungry he'll text me to come out. So I will also be going to visit my Grandad with some 'easy meals' he can microwave. He's not very good at cooking even when he was younger!

Oh and hello notjustanumber (waving emotion)

Evening all, hope everyone has had a good weekend.

I've had a nice weekend despite seeming to come down with some sort of flu thing yesterday, due to a combination of getting DH to look after DS in the morning, being fluky about how much he slept last night, and going to bed early seem to have headed it off for now by getting loads of sleep (sorry to all lacking in this dept). Had a nice bike ride with DS in the trailer yesterday before getting ill, and a nice sit in the pub with jj and then a barbie at a friends today. So very chilled.

daisy nice to see you back, sorry to hear about your Nan, hope she is feeling more herself soon.

wg I am always feeding DS to sleep. He will settle sometimes without food, but I often feed him anyway. I am telling myself unless you do it EVERY time it's ok. Glad you had a good time in Italy

kayz the midwifery course sounds like a great idea....good luck it...when would it start and when would you have to apply?

jj I had a good laugh about you arguing with your DH on cycling holidays, me and DH always argue for one reason or another. Usually cos he beats me to the top of a hill or something and then I irrationally accuse him of being over competetive or something (though he has a habit of saying "Oh I'm so unfit at the moment" and then zooming off, and he can't understand why this is irritating)

tilly good luck with the running and let us know where to sponsor you! I am trying to do running to lose weight as well, though not signed up for any runs. Sadly it is not working for me. in fact nothing seems to be working at the moment. May have a moan on the fatty thread.

njan we should meet up at some point if you fancy it? DO you come into Cambridge often, as me and jj both live in central Cambridge. Your miserable friends not wanting to know you now you have kids! I have been surprised actually by how much I have seen friends who haven't got kids, who have wanted to come round and see DS anyway. But it is obviously harder to go out and see people in the evenings.

hello!!!!!
I've been at my parents' house since Wednesday and it's just taken me an hour to read all the pages I missed! Thanks for missing me Arti - hope the boob is better.
I was so very sad to hear about Verso leaving the thread and the reason why. I do hope she's still reading even if she's not posting. And I'm not on FB but I hope that she's getting her fix of lovely dec o8 mums via that! I agree with PD about staying here though - especially as we've now welcomed NJAN too

I had such a lovely time at my parents'. DH was away for a few days so I decided to visit them. They are so very relaxed and relaxing to be around, and are great fun and fab at entertaining Lucy. P slept better than she normally does at home . She's in a fairly consistant 3 hourly pattern in the day now and has even given me one or 2 four-hour stints at night so I'm feeling very proud of her! I had been thinking that my parents never pass comment on my/our parenting so I asked them whether it was a conscious decision to not interfere and they just said they think we are doing fine and have 2 happy children so they didn't see any need to change anything. I love them [soppy daughter emoticon]. The down side was that there was NO CHOCOLATE in the house!!! Am feeling the need to rectify that

Well sorry to be so brief on my return but tomorrow is Back To School and I've not made the packed lunch yet...!

sleep well Babies of the Basket xxx

ooh just read that back and really hope it didn't offend/upset those with less than helpful parents/ in-laws. Sorry. Was not meaning to be boastful.

just a passing message, trace really glad you had such a fab time and hooray for getting into a slightly longer routine for you

spot re teething we give dd chamomilla (on veggie's recommendation) not the 300 strenght as we couldn't find that but Nelsons do a stuff called Teetha which has the 6 strength, it comes in little sachets and dd loves it to the extent that when I get one and do that flicky thing to get it all to the bottom she lies back and opens up really wide with a big grin! like that only without teeth No idea if it's making much difference, but she seems pretty mellow with regard to teeth at least, just dribbles like a fountain the whole time!

Hi Everyone!! Glad I finally found you guys!

Just got back from Dublin yesterday. Sadly it rained most of the time we were there. DS was an angel though and did really well on the plane!

Been trying to catch up... my my you ladies have been busy! Sorry if I leave people out.

Poor V... someone should give the snooper a firm kick in the behind! I hate that she feels she can't participate anymore!

Not Welcome!!

Sybil I know this sounds crazy... but have you tried drinking a Guinness to help your milk supply? My MV told me to try it to help get my milk going... Seemed to work when I tried it. She also said you could take Fennel Seed to help your milk supply, but not sure about the specifics on that.

WG Welcome back! Glad to hear that Rosie did well on the trip!

MOM Glad to hear that the Playtex bottles worked for ya!! We are also going to stock up on liners when we go to the US in May!

Kayz Congrats on your DH's new job and the Midwifery stuff!

For everyone buying selling homes... hope everything works out okay with that. We've been trying to figure out where we are going to move in August. ANyone know anything about Camberwell and Peckham?? We've been looking at both places but not sure if they are safest parts of town.

Daisy Sorry to hear about your Nan. Hope she recovers quickly.

Sorry to hear of everyone who's been feeling poorly. I hope you all being to feel better soon!

I know I've missed loads of you... hope everyone is getting some rest.

Ooh, Jump, where do you get that from?
Hey Kimberley, glad you and DS had a nice trip, about the weather, hope you managed to hole up in some nice pubs anyway...

Oh very sleepy. We had a brilliant day. How lovely was the weather! The fun run was great and though it was the shortest race I have ever run it was definitely the most fun. From start to finish Ds1 loved it. He ran at the start then spent some time in the chariot and on our shoulders then the last 400meters was around the track at pride park stadium Derby's home ground. He ran this bit and he was so cute there were a lot of people cheering and he just loved it. I will never forget the huge grin on his face as he crossed the finish line. They gave him a shirt and we all got our medals. It was just great the atmosphere was a little more relaxed than a normal race and there were loads of kids so it was all good fun. Ds2 loved it too and kind of grined inanely for the whole run, all snug in his little chariot sling.

NJAN that is such a shame about your friends. It is strange that western societies seem to have such a negative view of having children and of children in general. Teenagers are so demonized in the media and children are seen as an annoyance if they make any noise above a whisper yet, adults will quite happily have load mobile phone conversations on trains and puff yell and shout and act like idiots when they roll out of the pub on a Friday night. It seems so strange that people seem so against the perpetuation of the species, and they forget that they need the tax income that our babies will eventually contribute to pay for their old age care!

Well we said goodbye to DH again for another week. He is in Swansea this week, such a globetrotter my husband. He gets back friday evening. So we are going to have a quiet week here. Ds1 goes back to nursery on Tuesday which is sad but will be nice to spend sometime with ds2.

Hello WG so glad you had a good time. We love Italy, I'm sure I was Italian in a past life. We have had a couple of cycling holidays there and got married in Certaldo. We have only taken ds1 there once and of course he was mauled consantly. Will hopefully take ds2 there before we for back home.

Trace I think that lovely what your parents said. What a supportive way of saying it too. They are obviously very proud of you. I hope that I can be like that with my boys if they have kids. My mum doesn't tend to make obvious remarks to me showing her dissapeoval of my mothering style but she gossips to my siblings. They get quite annoyed by this and usually end up telling me. I have to say it doesn't bother me that much just kind of dissappoints me that she does it in that way I guess.

Oh I think I hear a stirimh bert

Veggie: my mum does the muttering to the other sibling thing, not sure she realises my sister and I just ring each other up and exchange notes! Speaking of which I had a lovely chat with my sis last night, we haven;t seen each other in TOO LONG thanks to kids (and neither of us driving) but she is planning a trip to Essex once we've moved . My eldest niece is now 5'10 and a sulky teenager wearing several tonnes of eyeliner... I'm sure she was a blonde cherub the last time I looked.

NJAM: we've lost touch with a few friends since having children but have made some new ones too (and not just other couples with children). One particular friend hasn't spoken to me since DS1 was born, she is not keen on babies. The fact that she doesn't want children doesn't bother me, but my having kids obv bothers her

Guinness for milk supply? . I have a weak spot for Mackie's milk stout which I'm sure used to be marketed as a health drink. Speaking of BEER, DH reports that the new house has a decent looking pub down the road that has Adnams on tap.

Spot: I thinkk I've seen the Nelsons powders in Born. May pick some up myself. DS2 is also doing the waking in the early evening thing, he used to have his best stretch then but no longer

Packing: up to box 25, bedroom today...

veggie what's a stirimh bert?

trace glad you had a relaxing time at your parents, they sound lovely.

wg sounds like you had a lovely holiday, I've always wanted to go to Italy!

Ds2 teething here as well, we had to give him some Calpol last night as he sounded in real pain

I'm writing a parenting essay atm & read a book yesterday which was really interesting. Its about how a baby's brain develops. Most interesting thing for me is that adults read intentions into a baby crying, thinking they're doing it to manipulate us. But a baby's brain isn't developed enough for that kind of manipulation so if they're crying & want comforting, then we should comfort them otherwise we can actually inhibit their brain from developing properly. I guess this a roundabout way of saying I don't think you can make a rod for your own back at this point! So don't worry if you still need to cuddle or feed to sleep, there's plenty of time for them to learn

Morning.

Veggie Glad you enjoyed your run.

Trace I'm glad you had a good time at your parents.

WG and Kimberly Glad you had good holidays!!

We did loads of gardening yesterday and it was lovely. The sun is shining again today so I think we'll be in the garden all day again. Got most of the veg patch planted and some more seeds.

Hope everyone is well and you have a good day today.

Hi all. Another busy weekend for us with Lily's Christening yesterday. It all went well, lovely service, lovely lunch in our local pub afterwards. The only downer was that DH's mum didn't bother to turn up. I wasn't really surprised as she didn't come to DS's either. Her excuse to us was that she couldn't face seeing DH's Dad again (they divorced over 30 years ago) but she told his siblings a number of other things including that she was too broke to drive here and that she was working. However I saw a load of photos of her on Facebook at the Chelsea match . DH's brother, who is a Godfather, also didn't turn up. We got a text from him just before the service saying that he was beaten up by bouncers the night before so his face was a mess and he couldn't make it. Pathetic really but it just makes me sad for DH and the kids. Anyway, I'm still ill so am going back to the Dr's this morning to try and get something to make me feel better. Hope everyone is well.

Tilly it's a small Australian pixie, no I meant to write stirring baby but in my rush to get upstairs wrote that made me giggle when I reread. Is that book the 'why love matter?' I read that before ds1 was born and so glad I did. The title makes it sound a bit airy fairy but actually it's quite scientific backed up with some good research.

Also as far as rods go I did lots of things that people would say was pandering to ds1 and would create rods etc (feeding to sleep, picking him up as soon as he cried feeding him whenever unsettled at night) and do you know the only thing that has been a rod has been his eating which is based on the way he was weaned, which was a) too early and b) the wrong way both of which were recommended to me by HVs books mother and everyone who 'know what's best'. So basically I think rods are created when you go against your instincts and do something your not comfortable with by all means get yourself informed and get advice but always do what feels right. Oh and WG I found the no cry sleep solution was helpful for stopping the feeding to sleep at around 7 months when I was ready to change the way he settled to sleep.

veggie, agree re rods & instincts, you always put things so much better than I do! I don't think its the same book, my one is by Margot Sunderland, has previously been published as Science of Parenting. Its very well written & has given me some useful insights into ds1's behaviour as well

Oh well if you need another reference the why Love matters is good easy to read too. Can't remember who wrote it though I think it came out in 2005. Unbelievable ds2 is growing out of his 3-6 month baby grows but his trousers are too big around the waist what goes on with sizing???