November 09 - solids and crawling underway but sleepless nights still here to stay!!

[scarlotti]

New and shiny thread

scarlotti absolutely. I guess for us, we knew we would not get money back, and told the judge that we fully expected not to see the cash (he asked us if we were prepared for that). The winning is important though for several reasons. 1. it is a deterrent if he thinks people will go down this route, he is perhaps less likely to do it again to other more vulnerable people 2. I can name and shame him as we have officially been proved right in court. I am loath to name and shame him beforehand because of risk of defamation etc, but once it is legal, the local paper will likely be interested . IF we got any of the money up front (possible I guess, as if he pays within 28 days, he has the judgment removed from the court records) we will be going on a very nice holiday . Then pay his mother back. i doubt if we will make any more changes to the loft as it will cost more than we will be awarded (we did not claim the full amount as it would have cost us a lot more money, over the £5k small claims threshold) but we have some refreshment decorating to do (cracks in plaster etc) and some other decorating to do to finish the flat.

scarlotti what is it with these babies and their lack of sleep routine? they are supposed to follow an order don't they know!

SirB Sorry 'bout that. Of course after accusing suggesting pregnancy I remembered your awful period pains a few days before and felt really mean . Dr Laugs says you are not pregnant - relax!

Pavlov DD declared it morning at 5.50 today too - yuk.
I still don't know what to get DH. He has asked for a CD (Gorillaz' new one as they are headlining Glasto) and I want him to have a new dressing gown as his takes about 4 days to dry and then smells of damp. Urgh. Maybe that will do?

Wook Yes, coffee van has been another idea, again hampered by not being able to drive! I am indeed an Aries (could you tell??). I think I'm fairly typical, although I am actually pretty shy in real life, but that's to do with my Pisces rising...
or something. Looking forward to some good things coming our way! Where do you read horoscopes?

SirB again I am also missing the oldies from our antenatal thread. Would it be totally stalkerish to go and round them up from other threads and beg them to come back?... Yes, I think it would!

Fruit Thanks. I may go to Ikea tomorrow if I get organised so let me know if you need any info.

Oops Scarlotti Does that mean you got a better night's sleep? Hope so!

Morning all!

Fruit can sometimes give nappy rash I've been told because of the acid in the fruit. Toby gets a sore bottom now and then and I find sudocrem a godsend (or 'special botty cream' as the other DSs call it).

I want to go on a very long train journey by myself... So I can read my book for hours in peace . I'm reading David Mitchell's latest and it is really good but not good for bite-sized chunks as my reading habits are these days.

Anyone got anything fun planned today? We have the PILs coming for lunch. I can't be bothered to clean the house. Sigh.

Hello everyone

Had a lovely time at the wedding, despite the rain and was fun to be a couple again for the evening! Back now and no fun planned for today, just slobbing around as so exhausted from staying up late and drinking too much

Do you see we are on the most active threads right now?

Do you see our erstwhile chums on other htreads then Laugs? I thought they'd just disappeared from MN...

I've seen a few of them. Probably shouldn't name and shame! I guess maybe they feel like they haven't kept up, although if they read the thread they'd see we're still talking about the same old rubbish.

We are going to a festival on the Quayside today. Should be fun, especially if it stays sunny.

hope your friends were amazed at how glamorous and un-mumsy you were missI*. Or even better, didn't even notice.

ooh bbl I'd love a day off to read, followed by a night off to drink wine and a morning off to recover

I'm excited (as some of you may have seen on Facebook) that I'm going to go to Asda after I've fed Toby BY MYSELF! How sad is that? DH can't relate to this as he goes to work every day and is by himself on the train, etc, and he also kind of assumes I will watch everyone when we're in the house together and goes off to his study to do blokey things on the computer. I'm not bitter, no not a bit

MissI sounds great it is nice to have time off now and then. It kind of makes you appreciate your little lot a lot more I think.

laugs yes, you should round them up, not stalkerish, maybe they don't realise they are missed. We do yabber a lot, but they can just come and chip back in!

MissI sounds like you had fun! I was meant to go to a concert last night, but had to be there for 7:30pm, and would have to leave at 7pm to get there, and given DS was not going to bed til 8:30pm, would be too long for DH to look after him first time without me. As it happens, DS went to sleep at 7:30pm so would have been fine oh well, next time.

BBL I often want a long drive. Even with just bear cub would be fine. A good audio book, and a long motorway drive, and a sleeping baby, and a strong coffee from costa. I did that sometimes with DD, but our car is on its way out and won't cope with a long drive atm. It just needs to hold out for 3 weeks, then we will be getting another one.

Just back from meeting up with some friends at a park with the dc's, lovely. Hadn't seen them in a while so lovely to catch up.
Might wander down to the park now and check out the Lions bank holiday carnival

Not sure what to do about the sleep and feeding thing. I don't mind if he gives up the dream feed (although would have preferred the middle night one!) and the middle night one is lying down and pretty much in my sleep.
BUT he doesn't feed when he wakes then, so I'm befuddled about what to do.
He now has a bf at 1am, 6pm and that's about it!! There is plenty of milk in his breakfast but surely he should have more??
Sigh. Any thought gratefully recieved.

weaning/FP I've only tried I. with fistfuls of steak and chicken so far. The chicken wasn't that popular, but she bit off a bit of steak and sucked it until it was white! Ive never seen meat look like that before! She also nicked a strawberry out of my hand, with no apparent consequences other than redness round her mouth

pop congrats on the job. What a relief to have things sorted.

pav we have just been to see hv about a sore bum which started last week when the frequent offerings of tiny poos started and has progressed to a weeping and raw area just around her anus. I was worried it was a food reaction but she was pretty insistent that it was thrush/fungal and prescribed clotrimazole.

Sorry, thought I could catch up but dd1 has other ideas and just been sicked on by dd2. seeya later

hobnob oh were you? We have that cream for under his chin, cleared up almost instantly. If I has red raw patches and able to use it, then it should be fine or bear cubs. I might try it as it does look fungal. Doc said with his chin he thought it was fungal as it as a very definite edge to it, unlike a normal rash. Same with his bottom. Sounds the same as I. I hope it feels better for her soon. And thank you

I have a quiet hour whilst C is sleeping and DH has popped to a friends house with DS1. Hope you're all having a nice BH weekend.

scarlotti Does Ioan bf more often when you're home on your non working days? I've just read about milk intake for a 6 month old. If you are feeding him a couple of times a day, and offering him milk in his breakfast and he's eating some milky desserts too, then he should be getting more that enough nutrients. BF's are all over the place here since C has been on 3 meals a day. My boobs are suffering and I'm engorged most evenings. He slept soundly last night, with a brief wake up at 12 and 4. I woke up for the 4 feed before he did as my boob was so painful and I was leaking milk.

C is congested - again. I have spent a fortune on saline drops since he was born. But they do work for him.

Hob C has enjoyed sucking on some of our roast beef dinners. I will offer him cuts of meat when we're eating it. I'm not bothering with preparing meat dishes when I spoon feed him. Fish is on the menu tonight, nice and easy.

BBL Hope you enjoyed your time off from the kids.

Pav Best of luck with getting your money back. Such a unfair system. You've done brilliantly to keep on with the case.

Laugs I really want the ikea highchair. I hope to buy it next week. Let me know how you get on.

Whoppers I will be going down the cosmetic sugery path for my lack of clevage! Not a Jordan look for me, just a little bit extra to fill a bra would be nice and have back what I've lost. I was all set for this year, but I'm hesitant as I can't get the idea of wanting a 3rd baby out of my mind. I may be holding off going under the knife (for a little while).

We're off to France in a couple of weeks time. Anyone off on hols soon?

Fruit he probably just about gets the pint he's meant to. He doesn't take milk from me on my days off either really so now I do snacks in between meals and at least one of those is a yoghurt. My boobs have now completely settled and are rarely engorged anymore - funnily enough it makes me as I'll never have that feeling again. I suspect that's more why I'm slightly concerned about the amount he's bf. I hadn't planned to cut down so much at 6 months but it's been taken out of my hands.

laugs My DH would love a new dressing gown! I bought him one for his wedding present. He loves it, but has lived in it (has a tendency to where it like a smoking jacket over his clothes in the winter ) and needs/wants a new one. I also prefer his to mine

DH got me a dressing gown for our 2nd wedding anniversary - cotton - and it's lovely He got himself one too .. he hates to be left out if someone has something

Hope you're all okay. Had a lovely two hours out before disaster struck and had to come back... But was lovely all the same.

What was the disaster? Hope all is ok?

sirB glad you had fun and I hope everything's ok now.

scarlotti It sounds like Ioan is doing fine. Presumably as he has cut out the feeds himself he doesn't need them? I know how you feel about cutting down on feeds - it feels like getting near the end. Despite a terrible start, I am really enjoying feeding now and will be sad to stop. Just to let you know that I fed DD just a bedtime feed from about 10 months to 19 months, so don't worry about your supply diminishing (if you don't want it to). It was a nice way of bonding once I'd returned to work.
We are at the other end of the spectrum at the moment though - James is still having 10-12 feeds a day! , including not going to bed until 9 or 10 and then at least 3 feeds through the night. Zzzzzz

When (if ever) do/ did people move from feeding on demand to attempting more space between feeds? I didn't have to do that with DD as she just went on to 4- and then 6-hourly feeds herself.

BBL Hope you had fun at Asda! I can picture you with one of those old-fashioned trolleys that you can stand on the end and sail yourself down the aisles, hair blowing in the baking-bread-scented breeze, big smile on your face! Sometimes I find a reason to go to the local shops when DH gets in, just to get away on my own. I practically run down the street

Fruit I am going to go to Ikea today. I am a bit excited about my free coffee!

Haha! Loving the image of BBL streaming down the Asda aisles, Laugs.

I'm hoping R will just cut down on feeds naturally, like your DD. She is slowly getting to expect her breakfast in the morning and gobbles down dinner in the afternoon so I'm going to just keep trying to take my cues from her. I guess that's what's happened with you Ioan scarlotti. Glad to hear you still did just a bedtime feed though as I hope I can carry on with that too. She has begun to absolutely refuse the bottle whether formula or EBM which is annoying as at the start of last week she was loving it when DH put her to bed. Still trying to get him to do bedtimes often so she doesn't become reliant on the boob for sleep.

Hope your night out wasn't too ruined SirB. Who was looking after Bryn? DP? Naughty of him to call you back unless he had to!

It's our cotton anniversary this summer too and I was thinking of getting some lovely luxury bed linen. Any recommendations?

Right. we're off swimming. Though by the looks of it, we may as well just step outside the door and go from there. Rain, rain, rain...

Hi all,

feeling very tired this morning. Went to see Sex and the city last night which was fab! However, when I got home millie was awake and had been crying for an hour. She only settled when dh took her into our room but wouldn't take a bottle and when I got home she bfed but was then wide awake.

I really feel like i've made a rod for my own back. She won't take a bottle and wakes up in the evening which makes it difficult if I want a night out. She ends up in our bed everynight and even if i put her in her cot after feeding she wakes up about half an hour later crying. Last night dh stayed up with her till midnight but then she woke at 1.30am and I put her in bed with us but everytime she woke up she cried until I put a boob in her mouth. I really don't know how to get her to stop waking and sleep in her own bed all night. I feel it's a vicious circle as I know I shouldn't feed her in my bed but i'm just so tired!

It doesn't help that ds slept through the night at 6 weeks old, i keep thinking where am i going wrong with Millie? Dh is getting fed up with Millie being in our bed and I really want to sort this out before we go to Singapore, any advice ladies?

Sorry this is a bit me me me but I'm so tired and can't remember what I've just read of your posts! Hope you are all ok!

Oh I know that need-to-get-out feeling! But it usually involves me taking dd2 with me in this house.

We've just had a lovely cuppa in a new cafe in our village. I found out it is run by a couple of midwives, one of whom was the breastfeeding counsellor at the hospital when I had dd1. They'd dreamed of doing something different for years and when the lease came up at this place they jumped at the chance. With all the funding cuts at the hospital and ward closures, being a midwife meant not doing the job you wanted to do as well as you wanted to do it. Sad, really. But it looks like they are pretty fine bakers too - it'll be a nice consolation when I stop bf to be able to sample their cakes!

DD2 has caught dd1's hideous chesty cough and streaming cold. Somehow this means that she needs to bite me when feeding . I really struggle with this aspect of parenthood: trying not to treat dd1 like a diseased contaminant in the house in order to try in vain to prevent dd2 from catching things. Unfortunately, when dd1 is at her snottiest, she also seems to be at her most besotted for dd2. Losing battle. Challenging week ahead. Sigh.

helips is she always so wakeful at nights or do you thing she is unsettled with a bug or teeth?

When we moved dd2 into her cot in her room it took a few nights of persevering to get her to go down in it. She was up,down,up,down for a while. But all of a sudden she just went down and slept through the evening one night, and has mostly done it since. Now her routine is to go to be at about 7 or so and she wakes again at 4 or so, when she comes into bed with us. She feeds and then wakes at about 6, feeds and then fidgets and whines until we get fed up and get up. Sacrificing those few nights to help her get settled was worth it but I know how daunting that can be when you're tired. I know that I should be staying awake for the 4ish feed so I can put her back to bed but it's far too convenient not to. But I hear what you're saying about wanting the bed back too. My pelvis is so much better when I haven't been perching on the edge of the bed for hours!

Laugs at the image! I wish!

Today is the first day of the half term (yesterday didn't really count) and the DSs have fallen out, three times so far over various things. Sigh. The weather is rubbish too! I'm not sure whether I am looking forward to the long summer hols or not now.

Sorry there are so many wakeful babies around. Toby goes through phases. Last night he woke twice. It is hard isn't it when you've had earlier children who slept through so easily and early to have a wakeful one. Ah well. I guess this just proves that all children are different and some really are born good sleepers!