April 2009 - Episode 10 - Christmas time!! we can all drink wine, while children gurgle nursery rhymes, with logs in their nappies, and pee by the tree fun will be had by baby and me!!

[SantasNutts]

here we go then Merry Christmas One and all!! xxxxx

I guess I need to feel reassured that I'm doing right in saying I need to wait. I feel like it makes me a less maternal some how...and it makes me feel sad in some ways to not want another. I always thought I'd want to have lots. But I really don't. So I'm fighting with who I thought I'd be and who I have become...

not want another (right away)

Look, Bebe, I am very maternal by anyone's standards, and I have a larger than average family. Our gaps were 10 7 months years, 22 months (lost that one), 3 years 3 months, 8 years. Gaps indicate nothing about how maternal you are. They are just gaps.

Plus I would say that anyone who has a large family needs a willing husband close at hand, lots of extended family round the corner or a lot of hired help, as there is a mountain, an absolute mountain of laundry, cooking, housework, homework supervision, counselling, mending, and driving around of small people. Just ask on the larger families thread.

I do three washes a day, and if I went to the supermarket once a week it would be a two trolley job (if we were all home at the same time). I get one hour a day to myself between 9-10pm and even that is spent multitasking, paying bills, mending, writing letters to schools, etc etc.

I'm not complaining, but I am saying that having lots of kids is a really major undertaking and needs support from all sorts of people. It can be done, but you need to come to it in your own way in your own time, and not model it on other families or even the way you were before. That's the only way it can really feel enjoyable rather than a slog, IMO.

I started life wanting something along the lines of the von Trapps, all lined up neatly in order of size, and we haven't got exactly that, but the alternative is just as good. (I do make them sing in harmony on long car journeys though!)

Bebe It would appear I am the opposite of Boff as I still don't get why people coo over babies - show me a puppy and I'm melty inside But, being pregnant is the most dangerous thing a woman can voluntarily do to herself, it takes about 4 years to recover from it - which I believe is recognised by some as the optimal time between births. If you don't know if you want to be pregnant again - don't be pregnant. Tell dh that putting pressure on you to become pregnant has the opposite effect to the one he wants and that, yes, you do intend to have another but not right now, you don't know when that will be and he'll be the first to know when the time is right.
Alternatively, make him have a full body wax, walk up and down on electrical plugs for 12 hours and pop an inflatable ball up his bottom then blow it up and make him poo it out. Keep asking him if he'd like to do it again and see how he bloody feels about it!

ZW I believe there is no such thing as TMI on this thread - unless you decide to give us a full account of having sex with somebody like John Major, and then only cos he was beiger than magnolia.

EvilIsAGiftIKeepTellingYouTiggaxx

Bebe, Gabrielle Palmer (The Politics of Breastfeeding author) reckons that the "natural" spacing of babies in pre-industrial societies is 4 / 5 years - bfing acting as a natural contraceptive up to that point. This would mean that if you were a nomad you would only have a new one to carry when the previous one could walk. Even if you are not a pre-industrial nomad that seems to me to be a huge advantage, especially if you have a 21st century style of nomadic life, as your husband is suggesting.

This makes sense to me (not that I intend to bf V till she is 4 (not that there is anything wrong with doing so), but that a few years recovery would be very nice). However I am 38.

Boff, glad the feeding is sorted out and congratulations on the weight loss. I have 2 weeks to find something to wear for work and am girding my loins for serious shopping next week.

Bicnod - sympathies - but sounds like it is all getting better.

I was thinking the other day that I wondered if anyone on here was considering another. Comes from me having a bit of a down time at the moment realising (of course I knew before)that there will never be any more

as for the maternal thing when I had my first apparently my best mates mum said to her' I'm surprised I didnt think she was very maternal' and here I am with 4. Like Tigga I've never cooed over other peoples babies either yet my dh things I'm very maternal so I guess what I'm saying is there is no set things for being maternal.

Boff- good news about the bottles. I have hundreds of bottles and cups here but will he use any of them?

Zulu- I dont envy you, I hope youre not getting pains to match. I haven't had an af yet

Bebe, the number of babies or small/big gaps don't make you maternal, being maternal does.

In my group of friends most people have left a 2.5-3 year gap - the 18 month gap common to our generation is much rarer. Of those I do know with two close together, it is often by accident rather than design and a couple of people have said to me they wouldn't do it again (one who is on no.3 of a planned 4 has been true to her word and left 2 years before getting pg with no. 3) Personally I'm very glad to have left a 3.5 year gap between my boys, and that wasn't really anything to do with having a break for me in between, since I breastfed DS1 until Edmund was born and he was also still in nappies (sigh) until after E's birth too.

Thing is, my experience of having a toddler was that he took all my time, energy and talents. Of course, I could have got away with giving him less than I did; I would have had to if I'd got pregnant or there'd been some other pressing need when he was still v. young, but I would have been so so sad to have compromised so severely. As it is, it's heartbreaking missing out on things with DS1 because of being too pregnantly-ill and then BFing and babying all the time. It's a huge comfort to know that DS1 has done a lot of formative learning (to speak etc.) and is now happily settled at nursery.

Oh gosh this is a ramble and E has woken up.

I will come back to this later as I have more rambling to inflict on you

ah he's gone back to sleep on my hand

so i have to confess i want to slap your dh. he's being very very unfair putting you under pressure (especially in comparing you to his mother - he needs to get a grip)

i think having a flat in london wd be essential. wd you be able to get a decent sized one that was well connected so you cd easily take the kids out and cd build up a network of mum friends? (maternity leave second time around is much more isolating because you've got a mad toddler as well as your relatively self contained baby)

but i do wonder why isn't he getting a flat right now? surely you and moo merit a family life with him in your own right and it should not be conditional on having another child.

I guess the other thing I keep thinking about is how my life is on hold until I can get my kid(s) off to school...I cannot go back to university if I have a lo to take care of, and if I would have themclosertogether then as dh points out I may get back before I'm 40.
I'm a 'kept woman' so maternity leave from work is non existent.

Finding a place closer to London is not conditional on having another kid from his stand point- it is on mine. Because I know for an absolute certainty that I'll need more support if I'm pregnant/have a second lo and to be honest he doesn't want to miss out on anything either.

Oh sorry Bebe, I thought you were back off to work. In that case, SAHM-dom is due to get a lot more fun for you as Moo grows up. Coming to this thread late, I realise I don't know key things about people, like what studies do you want to get back to?

Boff et al can probably comment further, but I don't think getting kids off to school is the only point at which you can get your life back (and I have heard said that kids at school takes up more time than having them at home - dear God don't let that be true!). Loads of other models you could consider - use OU modules and work at night? Go back to uni next year and then have another when you graduate? Part time study, part time SAHM? I did some very small OU courses when DS1 was younger and still had a daytime nap.

If I were in your situation, I'd want to make the move closer to London now, and detach it from the next baby question. But I am completely anal about planning ahead and preparing for things...

I was thinking exactly what MrsG has said. Go back to uni asap, get your degree and then have number 2. Obviously depends on what degree you plan to do and how many hours per week it is wrt childcare and so on. I would vaguely think that it would be easier to study with a single pre-schooler at nursery/ cm than with 2 at school. And you wouldn't want to risk having another (and then perhaps another) and then realising you can't quite squeeze in going back to uni and having to put that off again and again until they've moved out!

As someone who didnt- go to uni now. It becomes a lot harder to after more kids

Ladies, come and share my John Barrowman sad school girl crush and vote for him:

Vote for John

IWouldTwiceJustToMakeSureTiggaxx

Have just worked out what Orbit's current noises remind me of, and it's the Mogwai singing in the Gremlins film. It's very lovely. Especially as he likes to sing to Mummy most of all

I would prefer to go to Uni again sooner rather than later, but as previously discussed our finances are in shambles and it is necessary to get them in order before I feel we can afford the £4k or so it will take to go. Which means in short- not this year, most likely next... If I had a baby as dh desires the baby would be weaned just before the school year would start again... He does have persuasive techniques...and their getting more so as I get closer to ovulating...

WFH how cute

It occurs to me Bebe I've been quite negative about small age gaps. While the thought of it would fill me with horror, I know it's the right thing to do for other people - you just didn't initially sound that convinced. Of course having a second baby would not be cost-free in itself, but you know that.

Bronze, sympathies for the over not having any more. It would appear I'm in the same boat as DH is still adamant that's it for us.

WFH that is very cute about Orbit's singing to mummy (but must confess I know nothing of Gremlins as I'm culturally backward)

Hey folks.....just had SIL stay and am v turned up on 01/01/10 at 1am (should that be 02/01/10 then??) and when i spoke to her in the morning, she told me that her DD had had D & V the day before and was really unwell, then went to view a property that she might move into....NEXT YEAR!!!! She said she would be back by 6pm...came home at 10.30 leaving her 2 DCs with myself and DP...now DD is unwell, we have all caught a cold that they had at hers over xmas and I have DDs 1st settling day at nursery on tuesday...i'm meant to be going back to work next week, but if DD isnt better by then, i dont know if they will let her start....buggery bugger..........

Dont know if i mentioned the fact that whilst we stayed at hers over xmas, I cooked the xmas dinner and washed up the next day and tidied the best i could before going back to bed with DD, when i came back down she told me how she "had to wash up and clean because it was so untidy"......

I am seriously pissed off at the moment....i managed not to smoke whilst she was here, but i've just smoked 2 in the past hour since she's gone........bugger.....

sorry, i know ive just come on here and ranted again...happy new year folks!

Kingbeat SIL sounds like a pain in the arse to be nice about it as I can Hopefully the sickness you have all passes quickly.

oooh king i would have said some few choice words.

Ohhh Tiggs you are SOOOOOOO not alone when it comes to JB i LURVE him and have done since live and kicking days (does that show my age?)

I shall go and vote and vote and vote

oooh bugger just realised he is against Neil patrick harris now i am seriously torn as i have loved him since doogie howser days. what to do???????????????

I dont really know what to add about the second baby all i think if you are at all unsure then that is your answer...

So many life changing events so close together makes it hard to really know... perspective is so skewed.
If I had as much trouble with the next as I had with Moo -I'd be a complete wreck. Though I do feel like I'd be better prepared for next time.

I'm really working hard at getting life sorted for me and Moo. I've got her nursery all cleaned up and it's now a 'safe room' with no cords or 'grown up' things in it to get her in trouble. And my new rule is going to be for every 15min exercise/housework I get 15min of online chat time. For every page I write I get another half hour of chat. Plus I'm only allowed a soft drink if I go out for a walk during the day. On a related note I'm hoping to be 20lbs lighter by May for my youngest sister's wedding.
s there a way to have a bank account that one's partner need not know about? That way I could save money without him knowing which I could use for special treats (or Uni).

Bebe, you can open a bank account in your own name whenever you want. You need 2 forms of ID, at least one with your address on I think it is.

Kingbeat, how awful of your SIL. Do you have to see her much?

Kingbeat, your SIL, for example, is a twat.

ThisShallBeTheYearOfThePlainSpokenTiggaxx

Morning.
2010 off to a bad start here. A is really unwell, has a streaming snotty cold, evil cough and temperature. He can't sleep lying down as he can't breathe. After two awful nights, I have unearthed the babybjorn and have 9.5kg of sleeping child weighing on my knackered shoulders.

The boiler's wail was its swansong. Or else we have no oil left, but as the gauge is knackered, I can't tell. Either way, we have no heating.
DH and I are exhausted and griping at each other.
I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday, haven't slept properly since Nov 2008, and am starting to feel queasy.

Sorry to moan.