Sept 08: They're under starters orders .... and they're off .... well, some of them!

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

I thought I'd use this title as not all of our delicious babies are on the move yet, including mine

poor effy sunshine, but glad she is on the mend
I will know how you feel about the dla forms we wll have them coming our way soon

Get Well soon for Effy sunshine .

starlight moan away .

DD pulled herself up to standing this evening while I was reading a bedtime story (Meg + Mog), even DS was impressed. But she really is in the wars these days, shes always bumping her head on something and she bashed her eye on the corner of DS's toy box and made it bleed , her eye was fine though, it didn't go red or anything. I'll be releived when she's a 'proper' toddler and a bit more robust and balanced.

Its all gone troll-tastic out today. I think that might be a sign i should be off to bed .

oops, should read 'out there today '

Just ordered this Skip Hop

DS's nose has not stopped streaming, gunging, blocking for the past couple of weeks. Have liberally sprinkled Olbas oil all over him and tipped his cot up with some books under the head end. If only he could blow his nose on command we'd have none of this nonsense.

Our friends' DD's surgery went well, so that's their immediate worry out of the way. But they're expecting more problems to crop up as she gets older. Poor little thing. Really puts my problems with broken sleep and lack of changing bag into perspective.

starlight - sending you strength for filling in the DLA forms. They do say that it can be a low point, but it's important to do it to get you the help you need. We don't mind you moaninng here. This thread is the nicest, safest place on MN!

sunshine - ! So glad Effy is OK. You totally did the right thing.

Confession time: DD does not have a bed time, and simply will not go to bed in the evening. We attempt a sort of evening routine with dinner - bath - story - bottle - bed. But she seems to find this ridiculous and plays and giggles instead of getting sleepy. Then she screams if we put her down in her cot. She doesn't even seem to be tired and it often takes all evening to get her to go to sleep. We then often give in and get her up, or try to get her to go to sleep by going for a walk in the buggy, which she loves and thinks is hilarious. How do we fix this? We wanted her in bed by 7:30 tonight. She has only just gone to bed (10:30). DH says it's time we got our evenings back. But neither of us can do the 'leave her to cry' thing. Any suggestions?

ponymum same here with the disintegrating bedtimes...tonight was the earliest DS went down for ages, 8:45pm I was downstairs just in time for the Ashes to Ashes final. We've only ever put him to bed when he starts yawning and rubbing his eyes - pointless otherwise. Lately it's just got later and later. Today he only had 3 x 20 minute naps, so I think that's why he's gone down a bit earlier.

Where does she nap in the day? If it's in a darkened room, maybe leave it bright so she doesn't drop off for too long?

Bedtime routine seems to be slowly crumbling here as well. There was a time when M would be asleep at 7 and we wouldn't hear a peep from him until dreamfeed time. Not now. He can be a 'challenge' to get to sleep then often wakes up 45 mins after and need help to re-settle. He then often wakes up between 9-10 for a few wails, but pretty reliably goes back to sleep.

It's no real biggy. But when you get used to not hearing a peep after 7 it feels like a right chore.

I now don't let him sleep after 4, or half past four at a push. This has helped a bit. He still naps well in the so I really can't complain.

Digi - I'm glad the op went well.

With T our tactic is to basically put him down 3 hours after his last nap, which sometimes ends at 4, sometimes at 6. It means we're not stopping him napping in the afternoon if he wants to, so he's not overtired, but we have some idea of how our evening routine will go. When he was younger, we did the same thing, but counted 2 hours instead.
However, why would anyone listen to me - my son is spending from 6-7:30am most mornings in the pram at the moment, as he can't seem to sleep beyond 5:30 in his cot. Have tried blackout blinds, feeding him at 3am if he stirs so he's not hungry at 5, he just seems to be unable to self settle beyond that time, regardless of when he went to bed. So I just stick him in the pram and get on with stuff, joggling the pram occasionally if he stirs, and he sleeps till 7:30-8am every morning. I'm hoping that (as has happened before), his body clock will readjust to sleeping later, and eventually he won't need to go into the pram to do so.

Taking the decision that we didn't mind having T with us in the evenings, as well as me being an early bird who doesn't mind getting up in the mornings helps too

You're right Hopefully, acceptance is a big thing. Accepting a situation rather than trying to fight it is so much easier for everyone.

We also have early waking at stupid o'clock here. It's a pain in the arse.

Thanks all for your thoughts. She's so much better now but for your info the leaflet from the hospital says you should call an ambulance if they are showing the following symptoms:

• difficulty breathing, including rapid or labored breathing
• retractions: when the skin between the ribs pulls in with each breath
• stridor: high-pitched or squeaking noise when inhaling
• a pale or bluish color around the mouth
• drooling or difficulty swallowing
• a fatigued appearance
• signs of dehydration
• a very sick appearance

Effy had 5 of those.

As for bedtime routine we pretty much stick to ours. She has a banana at 18:30, then a bath at 19:00. Once out of the bath she has milk (up to 8oz) and I put her down whether she's asleep or not. Sometimes she wakes a half hour later and I give her the rest of the milk. Mostly she just sleeps until we do the dream feed at about 22:30.

Hello ladies,

this will come and bite me in the arse, but Diego has morphed into the perfect sleeping baby. He has a bedtime routine of bath at 7, food at 7:30 (spelt porridge and stewed fruit), bed at eight. Today he woke up at 7, but he's been known to make it through to 8:30...

I have to say that when his sleeping was getting very bad, we did do a bit of self-settling training. It was untraumatic, and he now naps and sleeps well. Having said that, I take no credit for it because I think that children have their personalities.

Hope all the children discover the joys of sleep soon!

ILTMIMI I often wish I'd been less stressed and more accepting in the early days. Even though I know full well that I couldn't have been any way other than the way I was (a stress machine), I still wish I'd been able to relax just a little more, and I'm sure the sleep deprivation wouldn't have been so bad.

I had my first proper 'I want another baby now' moment the other day. It passed quickly, I'm pleased to report! Feeling more inclined to now that I've discovered that it's fairly unusual to have a baby that feeds one hour in two for the first 6 weeks without respite. Apparently some 2 week olds (gasp!) sleep for one 3 hour chunk a night!

I have a friend who's baby wakes at 5am every morning (she's about 15months old) and after desparing for a bit she decided to look at is as a good thing. She works full time so uses that couple of hours as a good chance to spend some quality time with her daughter before she goes to work. Sometimes she doesn't get home till after she's in bed so now that she has accepted waking at 5am she enjoys that time she has.

ds2 has started snorting like a pig as soon as the Peppa Pig theme tune comes on when ds1 is watching it! Its very funny but I did wonder about how that makes me look- sure a 9 month old shouldn't be recognising and responding to tv theme tunes!

Debi C turns to the TV for 2 reasons - either Night Garden is on or the Coronation St theme tune comes on. The other day, the theme tune was played on Radio 2 as they had an actor from it on a show and to my shame she immediately turned to the TV!
Having said that, if i sing the 'hello' song from baby sensory class that also stops her dead.

She can now clap her hands and said "dada" this morning!!

Think I've mentioned this before, but my nephew still wakes at 5.30am at 6yrs. It's no bother now as he knows the rest of the house sleeps till 6.30 and he can't come out unless an emergency. When he was small, my sister adjusted her day and ended up going to bed early to cope but always said how much she got done in the early hours when most people still asleep.

We also have 7pm to 6.45am sleeping here..
{imo shuffles off not daring to mention more about her incredible sleeping baby for fear of being lynched}

T squeaks with delight when the disney logo and noise comes up at the beginning of the baby einstein DVD

phew glad mine isn't the only telly addict then. Now you mention it imo I do remember ds1 doing the same with the Corrie music and the This Morning tune.

Well done C for saying dada, ds2 makes dada type noises, squawks like a seagull and snorts like a pig. Nothing close to real words though.

Rock an roll Baby Starlight!!!

Wohoo BS!

M has been making moves to crawl, but then he's been doing that for weeks. Luckily no crawling yet.

Well done BS and hope Sunshine I hope Effy is well on the mend!

Erin's babbling mainly consists of 'goy goy' over and over again. It's rather cute and saying it back to her makes her giggle

T has very much discovered his voice, but the babbling is limited. Mostly he just does an endless "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" in a screechy voice, while looking phenomenally proud of himself.

thought I would be good today and make homemade chicken nuggets for ds2 to eat when we have convenience food. Well it sooo wasn't worth the effort.
Went to 2 supermarkets to get cornmeal and failed both times (I'm not even convinced it exists) so used polenta as that was a suggested replacement in the recipe. Then spent ages making the nuggets- mainly coz I kept having to do more crumbled polenta. Then when I fried them up all the polenta came off so it was basically just fried chicken bits. He still ate them tho.

Spent all aft snapping at ds1 too and when I tried to do some work when they were both sleeping my work laptop kept mis-behaving. And the kitchen is full of clean/dirty/wet/dry washing and the house is a tip.
Only been back at work 1 week and everything's going tits up! And dh is away all nx week, arghhhh!

you know polenta comes powdered as well? And that it's cornmeal?