Sept 08: last year they were cute little bundles that smelt of milk and vanilla, but now they've been replaced with a babyzilla!

[ILikeToMoveItMoveIt]

A new thread for us as the last one was running low.

mamamuffin - you need to get yourself treated with flucanazole both the loading and the daily dose - google the Breast feeding network leaflet about it. It's not licensed for bf but is fine.

Alternatively go on a detox type diet (no sugar, yeast,....) google anti-candida diets. Good for the figure too!!

I had thrush for 4 months with dd1 and still have the scars to show for it so I'd recommend getting it treated.

Ponymum - check if you can fix the wheels on the Phil and Ted. My friend has one that can't and it's useless in the snow/bumpy ground. Other than that she loves it.

I agree with pony about the sibling thing. I didn't want ds1 to be an only child as we didn't think it'd be good for him. He loves to talk and as pony says, talks a lot of rubbish! Although ds2 does frustrate and annoy him sometimes they are starting to play together and spend quality time interacting with each other.

Also ds1 had become more independent because of ds2. When ds2 was a baby ds1 had to get used to entertaining himself and now that ds2 is into everything if ds1 wants to play with things like his playmobil he plays on his own in his room.
And learning to compromise and share is good for him too.

(don't want to make people wth only 1 feel bad, having a 2nd child was the right decision for us, it might not be for everyone)

I am also amazed at feeding 3 people for £200 a month, planning meals does save money but that's still very impressive. I go through phases of planing meals but after being away over Christmas haven't got into being organised at all.

Have to go back to work tomorrow, feel like I've been off for ages.

Hopefully - I'm really sorry to hear about your MC darling, I hope that you and your DP are getting through it ok. Much love. xx

I am having a very easy morning being alone in a hotel room!! Just having a cuppa before getting into the shower and strolling down for breakfast
DP has also rung to tell me C was up at 6am (oh dear...)

Hopefully I didn't go into too much detail about menu planning as i feared terrible geekness but like you, i plan menus on the left and do a shopping list on the right. Once I know what we are eating I can do the shopping list. I spend way more than £200 a month though (more like £100 a week!), so am impressed!!! I do try to bake muffins, rice puddings, crumbles etc and DP generally cooks from scratch every night or we defrost a bit of bulk cooking in the freezer.

I share all your comments about siblings. Whilst i love going out just the 3 of us, I would like C to grow up with someone a similar generation. Her cousin is 18m older, which helps and she does have DstepS, but she's 20 this year.
I think we might just see what happens later on the the year...

we had dc1 abd 2 close together, although if I had my way dc2 would of been around a year earlier, so they could play together and be close. That worked for 2 years then dc2 was diagnosed with autism and they grew apart after that. DD learnt to keep her distance so she didn;t get hurt. HaVE wanted dc3 for about 6 years but had resigned myself to not having any more due to ds's autism.
was over the moon when caught with robyn, a complete surprise but at the right time as we were finally getting to grips with ds's autism. I do feel like robyn could do with a sibling close in age but for 2 years now dp has handled ds's discip[line and i think i should get involvd again.
Also our house is not big enough for us never mind another baby.

Hopefully sorry to hear about the mc.

I really wish I was organised enough to plan meals. I usually just ask dp what he wants and he says 'what is there?' Usually nothing as i havent got anything defrosted to cook with. I do a lot of impulse buying for the night but still have a freezer full where i've bought cheapp cuts of meat nfor a day i don't know what to cook.
It doesn;t help that my family are so faddy and dp would rather have a burger every night and won't touvh stew or anything else cheap and filling.

Hopefully - I would love to laugh and take the piss out of your meal planning spreadsheet, but I'm actually quite jealous I'm also v jealous of only spending £200 a month on food.

Go on, give us some of your best cheap (but hearty) meal ideas. You know you want to.

Actually you should start your own thread on here about your meal planning and eco-living. You could have your own quiche/cult thread on MN that has snazzy titles.

I dip in and out of the 10/10 veggers thread and find that really helpful to keep up fruit and veg eating momentum. And inspired by that dh and I done a whole week of not eating processed foods (there were a few cheats like butter and stuff). That was v interesting, but also v time consuming. I would quite like to do it again though actually. I'm waffling now aren't I???!!! I'll get my coat ..................

Just to change the subject, does anyone rent? A Mumsnetter has started a petition (details here) to make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against children. Apparently at the moment you are allowed to evict someone if they get pregnant/have a baby! Spread the word as under human rights conventions this is illegal in most countries, as is advertising a rental property as 'No children'.

I have to say £200 doesn't seem too ltlle for food - but then we're veggie so I do think it's cheaper.

I like the idea of menu planning, but it never seems to happen that way. I keep menaing to online shop which would make it easier, but even that takes more forward planning than I have.

I have to say 2 children seems like a familyto me. With one you can retain some of your own life whereas with 2 .... That's not meant to sound negative, I just think with more children you immerse yourself more in family life and that's a good thing.

I hope with a 5.5 yr age gap I'll see the benefits of them playing together.

cheers ninja, I shall phone the doctor first thing and get the prescription. Scars . I have been keeping up with cream and baby e s mouth drops but its not working. To be honest my love of sweet stuff has probably made it worse. I did not know I could have medication orally for it. I am on a bit of a health kick anyway at the moment so fingers crossed.
Having two children is fantastic imo. They entertain, love and adore each other and its lovely to see. It also frees me up a great deal, guilt free. Sure they have there moments and will probably fight a bit when they get bigger but that life. Bring on the babies, I have lots of love and thats the most important thing in the whole world
Erm yes £200 a month. Can we see you meal menu planner please?????

ninja I have a 5.3 year age gap, and so far its been great. They ADORE each other and can get quite physical which surprised me as there is such a gap. DS1 will happily play with ds2 for hours and is really good with sharing too.

£200 a month???????????????

I spent £150 last week sob!

Help me hopefully!!!!!

I have just planned the next 5 meals and gone to tesco to get what I need. Need to get the freezer emptied before we move so was good to plan. Esp as like Debs there's a few tubs of things like stewing meat that need thought about and remembered early enough in the day to get defrosted.

I spend probably about £60- £70 a week I think. Half of that is on cereal!

Oh ffs! Ds still refusing to sleep! Aaaaaaargh. Day 4 of fucked up bedtime routine. Beginning to think this is a new phase...possibly brought on by disassembling his cot and opening up the bed to a double in his room. Why did I think that was a good idea? Groooooooaaaaaaan.

So pissed off. Ds cried from 10:30 till 11:45 last night fighting sleep. And has now woken up for the day. Don't understand it at all. Should I have just let him stay up playing till he naturally fell asleep in order to avoid the crying? Or would that make things worse for tonight?

Can't deal with midnight bedtimes. We need those precious two hours in the evening to get shit done like our tax returns (jan 31st looms).

and breath. It's just a phase. It's just a phase...

poor you DG M was up at that time too but I have to say she's a dream going to bed. I think the tireder they get the worse it is. We still have to fight to get DD1 to sleep before 11pm.

mama I had thrush when she was getting her first teeth and you know how your nipples get less tough well it must have felt wierd to you and her biting left open wounds, it was soooo painful. I had it for about 4 months.

Lollipop thanks for popping back on to sympathise, that's so lovely! And thanks to everyone else again, I can't tell you how much more bearable it's made the whole thing having you lovely lot . Probably that says something about the number of RL life friends I have .

Getting down to sub-£200pcm has been a bit of an epic voyage (we used to spend c.£75 a week on two of us!), and it was mainly very very dull, but if you really want my top tips, here they are:

• Bake everything that you can from scratch. I bake our bread, biscuits, cakes, english muffins, bagels (fiddly but v tasty), pitta bread, pizza dough, everything. I have a few cheap biscuit recipes (a lemon fork biscuit from a poster on here, and hot ginger biscuits, are the most usual ones), and every now and again I make something more interesting (made marmalade cake last week. yum). I pretty much only bake once or twice a week (takes most of an evening after T's in bed, or the best part of a day while I'm at home with him), and if the bread/biscuits etc run out, that's it until I bake again. I freeze some, usually, so we don't often run out.
• I make pasta. Geek that I am. There's two different types, really yummy egg pasta, and super cheap pasta. I usually make egg, but sometimes make less exciting super cheap pasta.
• I do a 'dry goods' shop once a month, buying flour, lentils, porridge oats, sugar, etc. This costs in the region of £25, then the rest of the month I only buy meat, fruit, veg and last minute ingredients that I forgot. I get a small veg box from Riverford every week or two (but only if I can menu plan for everything in it), but I don't find their fruit that great.
• I foraged relentlessly for herbs and fruit (apples, plums and blackberries in the 'wild', and pears from my mum's garden) last summer, dried the herbs and preserved the fruit (mostly made jam and chutney, some fruits in spiced vinegar or syrup, some dried), so we don't often have to buy things like that. More now, but we had some seriously cheap months where I was able to put the money by for future months.
• I grew salad leaves (mostly rocket) last summer - saves a fortune and is insanely easy - pots of compost, seeds, forget for 2 weeks, pick salad. We had a big salad at least a couple of times a week for about £1 for the whole summer
• I picked TONS of elderflowers last year and made massive batches of elderflower cordial, so we don't have to buy squash
• We only eat meat a couple of times a week. We have a couple of real cheapie meals (jacket potatoes with tuna/onion mix, pasta with tomato and basil sauce) a week too. The rest are somewhere inbetween!
• One pack of diced beef (400g) makes a mahoosive stew, bulked out with loads of veg and dumplings (Atora suet, flour and herbs). That will last us for two main meals for the three of us, two or three lunches for T and two or more lunches for DP to take to work, so at least 6 adult portions and 4 child portions (about 2/3 our portion, as T eats so much, but luckily he's not so impressed with beef!)
• I'm trying to get to grips with lentils/pearl barley etc, but I don't cook with them that much. Sometimes chuck them in stew or soup to bulk it out, but it's a bit of a learning curve, as some things aren't that impressive with added lentils.
• We don't eat that much fresh fruit - for instance, a bag of apples, a bag of satsumas and a bunch of bananas will last us a week. You can get most nutrients from veg, and DP and T have learned to like it or lump it!
• We eat very little cereal - it costs a fortune! Buy a box every couple of weeks for a treat. Lots of porridge though, or bagels, toast or fruit scones for breakfast
• Menu planning, obviously

There's probably lots more, but that's what springs to mind immediately. Hoping to save more money this year by growing more food, but we'll see [no green fingers emoticon]. It does take a reasonable amount of time and effort initially, but now I can bash out, for instance, a cake, 2 loaves of bread, a dozen bagels and a beef stew in about 3 hours. I bragged about it here.

Oh, and I just checked. our food budget is £167.89 (how's that for precision), but we usually go a shade over. Probably more like £185-190 at the moment, as I'm not being too precious due to earning a big freelance fee last month.

God, just reading that back, I sound like such a geek. Should start my own food budgeting thread though!

Ponymum we rent (most of budgeting was to get debt free, and now it's to start saving a house deposit), will definitely spread the word about it to other baby-owning friends!

You should defo start a thread Hopefully, I would be up for the challenge. I find threads like that keep me on track.

And it's not just about a challenge, I really need to start finding ways to save money when I go shopping. I hardly buy any ready made stuff, but like my school report said 'I could do better'!!!!

Our biggest problem is dh's need for meat. He doesn't feel like he's had a proper meal unless he's had meat. Which drives me bonkers as I'm not really that fussed about it.

digi - do you think the new bed is the problem? If so, why not put him back in a cot - or is it not that easy?
I also find ds is really hard to settle if he's over tired - he turns into a wailing hyperactive banshee.
What sort of routine (and I use that word loosely) do you want for your ds?

When something with ds is going a bit pear shaped, before I do anything I look at what's been going on in our lives. Are we busier than usual? Have we not gone out much? Has he had a regular bedtime and naptime? Has he had 3 square meals a day rather than grazing?

If I ask myself those questions I can often get to the bottom of what is going on. I then make a plan of action and stick to it.

For ds, being consistant seems to be the answer. Mealtimes, naptimes, bathtime and sleeptime are pretty much the same everyday. It works for us and whilst we can tweak it here and there to our advantage, we realise that if we want a happy ds and family life then for a while we have to adapt to ds's routine - it won't be like this forever.

Hopefully - I've already spent more than you spend in a month at the supermarket! I would LOVE to be able to do all that cooking but I just do not have it in me, I couldn't find the enthusiasm to do it even if it did save me £150!

ILTMIMI DP was aghast when I started cutting down on meat, but I basically told him he could either start walking to work or eat less meat (he works 5 miles away...) For us is was necessary to spend less, rather than just a want, which in a way makes it easier to do.

I think you have to at least slightly enjoy the baking in order to keep it up, otherwise it's just a huge great chore permanently hanging over your head. Am hoping that T will get into bread baking at some point and save me the bother, as it's my least favourite baking activity!

I have just read my last post and have realised that I may well have given advice that wasn't asked for. So apologies digi as it could come across patronising

I can just about get away with sneaking in two vegetarian meals a week, but even then they have to be hearty so dh doesn't notice.

I should probably bulk things out a lot more with veg and pulses.

Do you have a pizza base recipe? I find mind often tastes too yeasty.

I think making bagels is VERY dedicated. I feel happy with myself if I manage to bake a batch of muffins!!

iltmimi don't worry, you didn't sound patronising!

Yes, there have been changes this week. After 6 weeks off I went back to work. And my mum came to stay for a few days to look after him.

We dismantled the cot because he was no longer sleeping in it. He was co-sleeping with us or with my mum. Up until Sunday the spare bed in his room was a single, and my mum would squeeze on it with DS whenever she came to stay. I decided that as he wasn't sleeping in the cot at all we might as well dismantle, open up the bed to a double so my mum would be more comfortable with him.

And he spent three nights in it with her, but not going to sleep till really late (despite us starting bedtime at the same time). She also disrupted his routine, by doing things like giving him an early bath before he had his dinner - but that was just once. DH normally does his bath and bedtime, but last night he had a late night meeting and had been looking after him all day, so I did bedtime (which I have done occasionally and he's usually responded well).

As we are now co-sleeping there is nowhere left to go when he gets upset at night. Despite showing all signs of tiredness he refused to take any of the bedtime cues and wanted me to read him stories again and again till he got bored. Then he wanted to play. Then when he got bored of playing he wanted to go downstairs, when I wouldn't go down with him he started to cry. DH & I took it in turns to hold him/clamp him to our bed/sit in front of the bedroom door so he couldn't escape us. He finally exhausted himself (and us) at midnight.

I have got my fingers crossed that tonight is better. It really can't be any worse.

Sorry for ranting. I've been on the phone with my mum who was supposed to come and relieve us again tonight but has been called onto another night shift.

I am trying not to over think this as it is potentially a blip in an otherwise happy co-sleeping bedtime routine. But potentially it's the beginning of a new phase of late bedtimes...which is surely not a good thing right? Or is it me being a selfish cow wanting my evenings to myself??

This is entirely normal right? I don't have to go see the HV about this do I?

Do you hear that?

Silence.

DS is asleep! He cried for 30mins on DH but he's asleep now!

just a phase just a phase just a phase

Obviously this will all go to pot tomorrow after driving to my mums so we can finish painting her house this weekend.

Digi It probably is a phase but phases can last a long long while, then they are habit. Sorry. When he finally falls asleep does he stay asleep? and when does he get up in the morning?
You could find that you have shifted his sleep patttern, we did with Robyn last year and it took a lot of patience to move it back to a reasonable 7.30-8.00 bedtime, from a midnight bedtime. This has now moved again to 8.30-9.00 bedtime.
I try not to worry too much as DD1 was often up till 9ish before ds was born and when we introduced her to a bed and a proper bedtime she was great. We have never had any bother with her since and even as a sulky teenager she goes to bed when told.
If the late nights are getting too much then you obvs need to adjust it but try and do it with as much patience as you can muster. I know it is hard but the more stressed you are he will pick up on it. Find a routine which works and stick to it religiously.
You probably know most of this so I hope I'm not being too patronising. And remember you will get through this 'phase'

Hopefully You are superorganised, i wish I was halfway as organised but I have just decided to make spag bol tomorrow and I have no mince
I love baking and making stews and soups so I just need to get my head around finding time to do these things