Fab Feb 2009 - hey ho, hey ho, its off to babyproof we go...

[dinkystinky]

off we go again

too old!!! I was 40 when I has DS (and 38 with DD)

If I had started this earlier, I would have had more.....but how do you spread the attention they need between more than 2? I struggle with my two!

Money.....you survive.....people do!

I'd go for it!

LBB - very sensible adivce from Bumps....someone told me to be brave! I spent 2 days indoors then went for it!

bumps 36 isn't too old!
As for money etc, you'd find a way because you'd have to. We survive on 1 salary and we would if we had another baby, just a few sacrifices.

I think he's ready because he's been telling me for ages when he pees and now he's telling me before. It's just the poo that's worrying me. I can handle pee on my floor but poo is another matter! lol

I've decided not to use pull ups though, we'll go straight to pants and just use nappies at night.

I have a little bag that goes out with me.....travel potty and bags, clean knickers x 2, clean skirt. It goes everywhere!

Oh am glad its not just me getting broody again. I started a thread the other day about how soon after a c sec is is safe to get pregnant again? Lol not that i am considering it till Milo is one but i am definately considering it next year. I am worried a bit about my age (and health) so think that sooner rather than later would be good for Milo his sibling and me!

We are moving house soon ( just waiting for the developers to give us a completion date but the roof is on now) Hoping to exchange contracts this week or early next and thinking that now the roof is on that we are probably looking at early December - god i hope so. Milo is still in with us as there is basically nowhere for him to go in our 3 bed but he is the worlds lightest sleeper so i cant wait for him to have his own room (although truth be told i will miss him a bit ). Our extension was turned down based on the old guy who lives next door objecting. Our architect said that our extension was his bread and butter work and that he was really surprised that it was turned down so he has sent it on to appeal not that i makes much difference to us as we are definately moving now anyway but extensions and planning permission are real pain in the arses! I was more stressed than i have ever been, still alls well that ends well. I cant wait for the bathroom rows to stop in the morning

Dinky so glad you got a semi decent nights sleep last night - i did too and it makes all the difference because yesterday with Milo waking up 4 times the night before i was a bit grumpy lol - well done on pushing your deal at work through as well

OMG potty training again - that was soooo long ago, i cant wait

I have been broody almost since the moment DS2 was born. I'm putting it down to a hormonal love thing and I'm just going to try and get over it - as I really do have to go back to work for a bit. Turning up at work pg in January would not be clever for us financially and I like my job and it would be difficult for me to get back to the position I'm in if I took a longer career break. There would be no point in me working if we had another baby as c/m too expensive.

Anyway, DH is much much too old now, still bfing and no AF in sight.

But never say never...

i think i might just keep A in nappies til he's 12 as i'm clearly incapable of potty training my children. dd is still wetting herself and i've just finised mopping the floor as we realised ds1 was wandering around soaked in pee and there were pee footprints all over the house, not to mention he still refused to poo in the loo [sobs]

funnily enough this time round i'm really not broody which is a relief tbh... i'm sorry A's babyhood is going so quick and wish i could have enjoyed it more but there's no way i want to ever be pregnant again and 3 is definitely the upper limit of how many kids i can cope with without losing/breaking them or having a nervous breakdown myself!

I am also still bf and no AF yet.....

didn't stop ds1 from turning up in this house

Bumps those are an awful lot of reasons not to do it, but they can all be overcome one way or another - maybe no. 3 is just meant to happen .....

Dinky well done on sealing the deal!! You've given me inspiration that you can still do the job with lack of sleep and other things on your mind!

LBB wow - toilet training!!! You'll have to let me know how you get on... I don't think O is ready yet because she just doesn't give us any indication of what's in her nappy, even when asked, and is quite happy to walk around in a wet/soiled nappy all day - bleeeuuuuurgh!

All this talk of more babies . Definitely no more for me, not after the last few months . However.... I am also sorry that Sam is growing up so fast, but I really don't think I could do it again. Plus I have all the same reasons as Bumps!

O's temperature was nothing so she's at the c/minder today. The c/minder's baby is due in June, but she because she runs the house as a nursery and there are other members of staff, there will be cover. Thing is, it was her that I really liked, but we'll see how things go. By the time we paid for childcare and my travel to work, I only contribute £500 a month to the mortgage, so if we could find a way to close that gap, I might rethink the work thing.

Right, time for a quick cuppa before I go to get Sam the Man. Tarrah!

Jacob is doing my brain in!!!! I want to scream. He has been so horrible to Luke today, been hitting him and pushing him most of the day. I even got to the point where I smacked Jacob for hitting Luke. It still didn't stop him. Ignoring J and hugging Luke doesn't work, sitting ds1 out of the room in the naughty spot doesn't work, shouting doesn't work. Feel a bit at my wits end about it actually, just don't know what to do anymore
Ds1 will have a shock when Luke starts to push back.

On the bright side, we did manage to get a potty. The same one as LMN also a travel potty too. Ds1 picked out the chair potty himself out of the selection of potties in m/c. We got them all on the floor and he sat on all of them and then yelled "wee-wee chair" and he picked it up! So we got that. Am just hopping he doesn't start to think he can wee whilst sitting on any chair?
He also picked out some Thomas pants and carried them home from Tesco.
I got him a book too for us to read plus a reward chart and stickers. And not forgetting the chocolate buttons!

A friend of mine earlier told me I should put him in proper pants for an hour a day, then back in a nappy just increasing the pant time gradually. I thought that might be a bit confusing? I was just going to go cold turkey......or will that be too stressful? Is it better to do it gradually?

When I got home, my neighbour got me talking downstairs about weaning (her ds was also born this feb) and asking if he should be on more than one meal a day yet and asking what I do with Luke, so once we got chatting, we didn't stop and I was over an hour late for putting the lamb joint in the oven, so the boys are currently eating dry pasta with peppers and sweetcorn

I can't wait to get the wine flowing.

Sorry for rant and me me me, but you all know by now that I am just very selfish and am my own favourite subject

We're attempting potty training at the moment - D seems to prefer an adapted toilet to the potty (we have both). It's going slowly, partly because I think we're not being that consistent - dp tends to want to put on pull ups and not to have to worry about taking him to the bathroom, I think we can't fall back on nappies for ever and pull ups seem like a bit of a rip off.

I would like a 3rd baby but may have to settle for 2 for all the reasons others have said plus my age - much older than 36.

elkie The plan here is as of saturday, ds1 only goes in a nappy when he goes to bed.
I did put him in the pants about an hour ago and he didn't like them, but I'm hoping that's because he's tired.

Pull ups are a bit of a rip off I agree. I found "potty training pull-ups with pictures that fade when they're wet (WTF???) and easy-up pants which are a lot cheaper but the same thing without the fading pictures. We've used about 2 in over a week!

DD came home from nursery with knickers on and a full sticker chart . They obviously listened to my ranting last week then!

I do like having the 3 kids, but it is a perma guilt trip as I always feel I am letting at least one of them down.

I try to do reading with DD1 after school, but the baby is crying and DD2 is shouting I WANNA DO DAT and chucking trains at DS's head ... so it is bloody mental a lot of the time.

I haven't got the time or energy to potty train DD2 even though she is rapidly approaching 3. We have the potty though, hey! DD1 (5) uses it in the night/early mornings as she's too scared to leave the bedroom in the dark.

I don't think age is necessarily an issue in that while some people's fertility does decline with age, other's doesn't seem to be affected even in their 40s, and anyone on this thread was still fertile last year at least, but I think 3 kids is pretty much impossible unless at least 1 of them has started school.

Evening all. Had to go to a meeting this afternoon about a possible last minute secondment to a client - which turned out to be a fullon interview with 4 different key people at the client instead of a low key chat about what the role might entail! Not that I was warned about this in advance so wasnt prepared at all for being asked for a CV and why I wanted the job (I dont really!)- not sure the answers coming from my frazzled sleep deprived brain were particularly impressive. Pretty sure wont get the secondment - which is probably a good thing for my bank balance as its right in the middle of shopping central in Knightsbridge

LBB - sorry J is being rather aggressive, might be a testosterone surge. Just keep setting clear boundaries (as I know you do) and he'll be back to normal soon. And re the potty training - we started off trying to encourage DS1 to use the loo/potty when he wanted a wee or poo (with star chart) but keeping him in nappies to get him used to the idea of it - did it for a couple of months as knew Danny was on his way and didnt want new brother to throw back potty training - and then just before DS1 turned 3 we did potty training cold turkey by getting rid of nappies except for sleeps and using pants (used potty training pants to start off with - fabric ones - as better at containing poos and small wees but quickly moved to normal pants). And as long as we avoided cardboard boxes (where DS1 displayed disturbing tramplike tendencies to pee himsel) it was surprisingly ok - probably because there was such a long slow build up to it. Just take it at your pace and dont get frustrated/react if J has accidents/doesnt get it - if its not working go back to nappies and try reintroducing potty training in another couple of months.

Bumps - like Pluto I've been broody since Danny was born and DH and I have always talked about having 3 kids. I've just got more broody as Danny has got bigger and less baby like. But practicalities also need to be considered - so any plans for no 3 are on hold until we've sorted our house out. The way I see it we'll probably end up with 3 years between DS1 and DS2 and probably the same again between Danny and his younger sibling, assuming all goes to plan. In your heart of hearts you really know if you want to have a third child or if its the possibility of one day having a third child that you want to keep hold of.

STW - phew that you dont have to hunt out another childminder! Most childminders I know of get back to work pretty quickly after having babies so it may be that she will be back at work sooner than you think.

LBB my kids love pasta and veg. Nowt wrong wi that.

We didn't consider practicalities at all but as I am now the old woman who lived in a shoe, listen to Dinky not me.

bumps! you look ten years younger than that. Oh, and MIL just passed on message that you said hi! Hope we can organise a coffee some time?

Morning.
Thanks dinky

Luke hasn't been eating his proper breakfast again these past few days so today I am going to give him weetabix when he gets up and the milk later. I remember having to swap them like this with ds1 at this age too.

i still haven't been brave enough to give A oatabix.... the mess is ungodly. he had porridge yesterday and wasn't keen on it but still managed to embed it in every nook and cranny of himself and the highchair... luckily dp was on baby duty at the time

coco, your life sounds a bit like mine atm... we're not good ads for having 3 are we? totally agree that if you don't have at least one of the three out of the house for a few hours 5 days a week you'll lose your mind, in fact dd at school and ds1 at playschool would have been far better than just dd at playschool and then the bloody summer holidays, but nevermind, we're almost past the hard patch now and dd will be going 5 hours a day again next week so i'll finally (touch wood) have my mornings with A.

Pink, you and Coco and Swampster and Rosie etc. are great ads for mums of 3 (and MoS as mums of more than 3) - you're still alive and standing, and making us all laugh on occasion, despite all that life, and BLWing babies, throw at you

Danny awake again for 2 hours last night - is getting very wearing. May need to resort to sleep training the little darling rather sooner than I was hoping to.... sigh. At least work now v quiet (think they're holding off on giving me any work till they hear about the secondment thingy at the end of this week) so am not terrified of messing up all day...

your secondment meeting sounded like a bloody nightmare Dinky. I imagine it went better than you think, despite the lack of sleep/preparation. You seem to me like the kind of gal who carry off that dreadful combination of circumstances!

pink do you find A is a fairly cheerful baby? R is pretty jolly most of the time and I think it's because I have to let him get on with it a lot of the time - I don't worry about his optimum development (!) and so on much (while still dispensing plenty of cuddles etc.)

A is rather spoilt tbh, and very much a mummy's boy (which isn't all it's cracked up to be when he's crawling after me grappling my legs and hysterically crying!)

to be fair though he doesn't whinge needlessly like the other two used to, he generally cries for cuddles or entertainment and at 7 months i still consider those valid reasons for a bit of a shout

and he's easily pleased with empty yogurt pots and bits of paper so easy to entertain for the most part, all my three have been high maintainance but he's definitely the easiest of the three by a long shot

Luke is the biggest whinge bag I have ever met! I always thought ds1 was a 'terrible' baby until Luke came along. He whinges all the time. He'll be sitting on the floor playing with something and the next thing, he's laying on his belly crying, so you sit him back up and he cries, you hug him and he cries, you give him different toys and he cries, you feed him and he's happy for a while but not long until the whinging starts again.
I'm starting to think maybe it's something to do with our flat. He is mostly perfect when we are out and about, but the minute we get in the door, whinge whing whinge!

Ds1 has been a whinge bag these past few days too, am starting to think maybe I should leave the potty training for a bit.....