May 2009 - A new start. Mine's a large gin please.

[runningmonkey]

Here you go ladies.

G just walked with his push along thing!

Oooooh Llare, he'll be thundering up and down with it in no time..........

Wow, second consecutive day of posting...

All, thanks so much for your kind words re F. Logically, I know it's not the end of the world but I was upset about it and everyone's sympathy made me feel much better.

Llare, great news about your job - what kind of thing will you be doing? And also fab news about G (kind of) walking. F has been dragging himself along and floor swimming for ages but yesterday suddenly realised how to crawl and now he's off!

Tumm, so, are you going to go to the second interview? Why don't you particularly want the job?

Reggiee, enjoy London, and I hope B's birthday is fantabulous. I'd love a child-free weekend. We're off to see the Black Eyed Peas in Manchester in the middle of May and are staying in a hotel for the night - I can't wait!

Spangle, can't believe how organised you must be to have time to check and post on here before your early start for work. I would still have one shoe on and be trying to get dog hair off my trousers while eating dry cereal due to there being no milk...

Hope you enjoy your spa day, headless, sounds lovely.

Grumpy, hello! How are you finding work? Enthralling, absorbing and stimulating in equal measure judging by your earlier post?!

Hello too to everyone else I've missed

Hello Reebee. Sounds like you're having a bit of tough time. I hope things get a bit easier soon.

Headless Unless you sling one of the twins, the Philnteds is no good for you. You can't get 2 newborns in them. OMG a triple might just be in order. Enjoy your spa day.

Su Sylvester Is just amazing. I love her.

Lovely day here too. Two loads of washing dried on the line today. Dd2 is now just starting to be a little demanding...(I know I know I've been REALLY lucky up to now) But I can't put her down anywhere and have all these things I have to do. I ended up slinging and hip carrying her most of today, and my god my back is telling me about it. My neck is stiff too from god knows what.

Oh crap just realised the debate is on. I'm posting this even though I'm not finished. See yous later

Quick hello from me, nice to see everyone

Am exhausted from two days back at work but v pleased to report that A has turned a corner and is loving the childminders in fact she was really grumpy when I took her home at the end of the day yesterday! Hurrah!

I'll be back after the weekend to catch up properly hope everyone has a good few days x

running- so glad to hear that A is more settled with the CM . That must be a load off your mind.

reebee- sorry to hear about F's eczema, but you may find it gets better as he gets older- my DD and DS1 had it mildly, just needing emolient when it got worse, and now there is no sign at all. The only washing powder I found that didn't trigger it was Fairy non-bio and fabric softeners were terrible for it, although maybe you know all this.

spangle- hope you enjoyed your relaxing train journey- I always get a "take a break" or similar trashy mag to read when i travel with work .

reggieee- happy birthday to B tomorrow and have a lovely time in London and good luck to DH in the marathon.

headless- hope you have a lovely sleep relaxing time at the spa. As for buggies, a friend of mine who had twins went for a tandem buggy (travel system too) rather than side-by-side, as definitely easier for getting into shops . Although you can get some narrow side-by-side ones now. I would think a triple buggy should be avoided as they are soooo long and will no doubt attract the attention of little old ladies who stop you to have a look at your offspring, so you would never get anywhere . Phil and Teds might be an option if you are prepared to sling one of the twins for the first few months (if you ever manage to get out of the house in the first place ).

Just wondered if anyone else was BF and just down to morning and evening feeds? I have been doing this for the last week or so, and it's nice not to get engorged at work but i now feel like DS isn't totally satisfied after his feed and fusses on and off quite a lot. Can't decide whether to carry on or call it a day .

Hi pula yeah I'm wondering about bfing at the mo - S is down to morning/evening feeds (and 2am and 4am feeds ). I expressed for her but she won't have a bottle at nursery.

She loves Nursery though.

She's poorly atm, she's vomiting everything up - DH was ill last night and we think a bug is going around. At least I'm not at work tomorrow so can be good mummy.....

Pula I feed morning and night only on the days that I am in work. I wasn't at work today and I noticed that DS wasn't that bothered about having a feed during the day. I've also noticed that he seems to be withdrawing from it. I wonder if he'll self-wean soon.

Great news about the childminder running. I'm shattered after working too. It gets better, thankfully.

ReeBee I'm glad you feel better today. Thanks for asking about my new job. I work in HR so it will be more of the same but in a different area of the business.

Headless I have NO idea what you sort of buggy you'll need. What a decision. I wonder if the childminders on here might have some good ideas?

pula dd2 also only feeds morning and night on the 2 days I work. She sometimes wakes early to compensate, but feeds 3 or 4 times in a day when I'm not working. It's funny though, because if you'd asked me 6 weeks ago, I'd have told you she was self weaning (early I hasten to add) and was hardly interested in boob at all.

Hireebee and reggie Nice to see you both again.

reebee Also sorry to hear about F's eczema. It's sad when it's so bad that not much helps. You're doing your best from what I've heard though, so don't feel guilty. In my experience with eczema is that it takes an awful awful lot of trial and error before you find a cream/soap/detergent/sun screen etc... that suits your lo. And sadly during this process the eczema can get worse before it gets better.

reggie Happy b'day to B tomorrow How time flies! Enjoy your weekend in London and good luck to your DH for the marathon.

running Glad to hear that A's more settled at the CM now. Must be such a relief.

headless Hope you'll have a lovely time at the spa and centerparcs. I always thought that if I were to have twins I'd get this one or this one I like the idea of having a double travel system or buggy that takes 2 carry cots. Or like someone else suggested: sling one, push one. If you're brave you could even sling 2, like here (scroll to bottom of the page]]

Spangle Hope your trainjourney was relaxing. I love going on lonely train journeys myself. Just me and a book, no DH's or dcs making me feel guilty or demanding all sorts of things. It's a little bit of heaven

jenn C's like that still too. Lots of slinging her (on my back) while doing housework here too.

grumpy You sound like you're enjoying your job, sneaking onto MN and all that.

bf With ds and dd1 I did just morning and evening until they stopped themselves. In the end the morning one drops too and I think that with dd1 I did about 6m of just evening. I think the evening one was more about comfort and getting a bit drowsy and ready for sleep than actual food IYKWIM. C's still doing about 4 feeds in the daytime with me. I think the midmorning one is more a drink, because she's still not keen on squash or water, but at least she'll now have a Doidy cup at meal times.

We had a lovely day here today. First we went swimming and met another May 09 baby, though as far as I'm aware not an MN baby The mum asked me whether C was walking yet, upon which I of course answered: are you joking, she's not even crawling! BUT, and I'm so excited that I'm bursting to tell the news! C started crawling this evening! She proved me wrong! Yes, after dinner I put her on the floor as usual and she went for it. She slowly but surely made her way halfway across the living room on her hands and knees instead of her normal lean forward, sit back, roll, sit etc... method! I'm pretty sure I must have the last new crawler of the whole May 09 group

Oh grumpy I forgot to send some get well magic over to your house to S and all the others who have been struck by the vommit bug.

reebee, regg, my fellow Nawtherners, good to see you! Reggieeeee, we will meet up sometime soon. you coming to York soon? would love to meet in townwith or without LOs.

reebee, on eczema, i avoided peanuts, exclusively BF and yet dd1&2 both got/have bad eczema. dd1's was so bad as an infant, she had to be wet-wrapped in the hottest of summers (2006). she was miserable . it may be a coincidence, but I decided to eat peanut products in my last pregnancy and Harper has beautiful skin.

in my opinion, i think it has little to do with what i ate - dd1&2 happen to have sensitive skin and have sadly inherited the eczema genes (from both dh and I).

don't feel badly about it, you've done nothing wrong.

Well done C!

pula, I desperately wanted to carry on BF H at least for the evening feeds but her biting became a problem and she kept playing around so I got annoyed after a week of her 'acting up' and she's been quite happy with a cup of milk/formula mix. i was a bit though.

Belgina, hurrah on C crawling! that's very exciting .

grumpy, hope S is better.

spangle, how was your train journey? I loooovvveed mine. took the 6.30am train from York to kingsx and went through the beautiful countryside which was so beautiful in the bright morning sun. had my ipod, breakfast sandwich, cuppa coffee, book = bliss. it was as good as a spa day for me ! must do it again sometime.

work training day was fine. saw my lovely HR mgr who said she was so glad to see me back and was worried I wasn't going to return(remember the palaver with my Lmgr and her insensitive email?). i am much happier with my decreased workload anyway.

it was nice to be in an office for the day and i now miss it. it's nice to be around colleagues to chat, bounce ideas off one another, socialise, etc. i just don't see that is possible for me at the moment.

morning. just about to get the girls up.

just this: yesterday before I left the house at 6am, H had given a little cry andMIL picked her up STraight Away! I just made a comment that, if left alone, she'll go back to sleep, etc. do your parents/inlaws go to them at the first instance?

on the other hand - grrrr! when I got home, the house was tidy, and this after watching 3 children. Not fair. Why can't I do the same? though there was two of them, I guess.

glad to come home to a tidy house anyway!
Have a good day, all.

Morning all

So poorly baby here - mind she's not really been ill (bar straight after birth) thus far so I know I'm lucky AND she planned it for my day off so I'm here to look after her.

momi Your day to Lunnun sounded lovely - I do like being back in the office, I like the gossip and laughs. It's been a bit of a mare the last week though as we have guys all over the world who were supposed to be travelling home/to their next job and they were stuck (in some pretty awful places too), hence me invoicing in lieu of travel planning. A bit dull for me.

Oh I see stirring, back soon

Grumpy Hope S gets better soon.

Momi Train journey sounds lovely.

York If you do another North meetup in York Cherry and I would like to try and get there. She mentioned it recently.

I've just dropped the older 2 dc at nursery, and won't see them now until Sunday night. I'm on a training weekend with other BfN and ABMs in Shropshire. Of course I'm wasting time on MN, wathcing bluetits build a nest, and trying to decide what knitting to do next when I'm stagnating on what I'm already knitting. I should be cleaning up breakfast, wrapping a little present each for the dc, packing, cooking dinner and other useful things.

Catch you later.

Ooh Jenn and Momi (and Reggiee and grumpy)- I would love another York meetup. My day off is moving to Friday in May - is that any good for you? Otherwise I'm sure I could take a day off.

Momi - my mum picks S up at every opportunity, even if he's happily playing on the floor . But at 6am I would definitely not be happy and would say something about leaving her 5 or 10 minutes to see if she falls back asleep as you don't want to encourage early mornings as she will get tired later on in the day (in our household, anything before 7am is treated as an early morning). One thing with S is that he does a hard "come and get me" cry whenever he wakes up - I am of those of you who hear their LOs chatting or coming round (although DD and DS1 did do this too to be fair) and am wondering whether S will ever wake up and not cry straightaway. I know they are all different. I have seen him do it too, he will be sleeping peacefully, then suddenly wake up, sit up and cry, and not because he's been disturbed either.

would love another meet up and great to meet new faces Jenn and Cherry and Regg. pula, Friday is fine, as is any other day. I'll have all three but that's fine. Might have to wait till June since we're away in mid-may. Or maybe the last friday in May?

had a terrible, tantrummy morning. had to leave playgroup as dd1 (4) was hitting dd2 because dd2 didn't want to make a papier mache elephant with her. I hugged the crying dd2 straight away and declared that dd1 had 'decided' it was time for us to leave. Imagine the tantrum that followed... it was 10 times worse! then H started crying so all three were howling. i actually started laughing (in a mad, hysterical way) as what else was there to do?

i need to do something about the hitting and bullying. dd1 doesn't do it at nursery school, just at home with her little sisters. is this a phase?

ah, this is turning into memememe .

AND
Harper is dropping her morning nap . i thought she'd fall asleep on the way back from play group but not so. I hope it means her nap now is at least 2 hours [hopeful emoticon].

what would a hopeful emoticon look like?

Jennster, hope you have a nice weekend away on your own; relax a bit even if it is a bit of a 'working' weekend

2 hours, my foot . she's awake and making 'i'm properly awake' noise, soooo .... an hour and 10 minutes. that's a pathetic length for The One Nap Of the Day.

momi So sorry to hear you've had a bad day. You've probably already tried this, but does a reward chart/time out work at all? Time out meaning, properly ignoring her for a couple of minutes while you're having fun with dd2. Do you think that dd1 is doing it for attention? If so maybe introducing some special mummy and dd1 time might work.
C's dropped her morning nap a good week ago now. She now does 1 1.5-2h nap in the afternoon. Maybe after a few days of 1 nap, she'll settle into a longer nap? [hopefully encouraging emoticon]

DH picks up C as soon as she murmurs, but to be fair, she never ever in her life has murmured and then gone back to sleep. Murmurs usually develop into cries. But I usually do wait a minute just in case a miracle might happen.

of all your York meet up plans.

grumpy Hope S gets better soon.

jenn Enjoy your training weekend. Hope it's going to be fun too.

Well I thought C would embrace her new crawling ability with a vengance, but she hasn't. She's actually barely used it and is keeping it for emergency transport only. For speed she's using a sort of lean on arms lift bum and park in on the other side of arms technique. Not really rolling, not bum shuffling and not crawling either.

Bedtime for the oldest 2 now.

belgina yay for C crawling! H was like that when he first started. It seemed to take him a while to twig that he could actually use it as a means of transport rather than just a means to get something a little out of reach IYSWIM. He is the same now with cruising - he sometimes shuffles along to reach something but hasn't twigged that he can use his feet to get somewhere. Very impressed with llare's G's trolley pushing.

H is another baby that rarely whimpers and goes back to sleep - it virtually always ends in crying. Like belgina I contine to live in hope!

grumpy hope S is better soon.

jennster have a fab weekend!

momino sorry you had a rubbish day . It must be hard to discipline one without affecting the other two. You need another trip to London

Well, I am shattered. A combination of bad sleep, early mornings, new job and possibly pregnancy symptoms too although it's hard to tell. It doesn't help that H has been waking in the evenings and refusing to go back in his cot so we end up bringing him into the living room with us, where he falls asleep on me. So I feel I've hardly had any down time at all this week (moan, moan). We did have a nice day today though - Wacky Warehouse with NCT mums & babies in the morning then my Dad's for lunch & afternoon. Tomorrow my Mum's coming over while her DH is at a football match. They've just got back from nearly 4 months in Portugal and my Mum hasn't seen H since Christmas so I'm looking forward to her seeing how he's changed.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

momino- sorry you had a bad day. Not got any wonderful words of wisdom but lots of empathy. I haven't found a strategy that works re. the fighting/hitting - I make sure they know why it's wrong, how they have hurt the other sibling and if it's particularly bad they go on the naughty step, or if we're out, they get taken to the corner/time out.

spangle sorry to hear you are really really tired. I hope Hs sleep improves soon. Would DH consider going to H when he wakes in the evening, and try settling him/walking him round? I know in those early weeks of pg I used to retire to my bed at 7 or 8pm.

belgina- congrats to C for crawling. They all get there in the end . S is like llare's G- pushing his walker along, and is now very pleased with himself as he can stand alone for a few seconds, although not at the taking steps stage yet.

Oh dear I seem to have killed the thread . Hope you have all been enjoying the sunshine (and maybe a touch of rain today).