40+ Yummy Mummies :-)

[mrsboogie]

mornin' ladies

and the conversation continues...

Good morning all.

mrsB I've heard babies can start teething really early, so it is possible.

Had a really bizarre dream last night where the main building of the hospital I had just given birth at blew up and my brother was sent to investigate. This is particularly weird as my brother a.) lives in California and b.) is in marketing, not law enforcement.

At least I'm sleeping!!!

ah tee I remember the most weird, bizarre dreams that Freud would have had a field day with when I was pregnant. I think it's something to do with the hormones (when in doubt, blame the hormones!).

I suppose in theory it's never too early to teeth although my MW said anywhere from 4 months onwards is normal. And I must say that my older 3 were between 4-6 months getting their first bottom pegs. It's weird mrsb how they're both doing the same things with their mouths isn't it? I'll ask MW if she turns up today (she's due but roads are bad). I'll report back if I find anything out.

Roads are very bad here today. The snow is still here (we have a totally white garden) but the slushy stuff on the side roads has now frozen over and there's more snow on it's way tonight. I think the south is being treated to black ice.

I think we'll be having central heating on all day today. I can't believe how bloody cold it is. I put scratch mitts on K last night just to keep her hands warm (mindful that 'the egg' tells me what is normal and apparently freezing cold bedroom is ideal )

hi ladies thought Id introduce myself Im 42 and am 12 weeks pregnant with my 8th child. Tee suggested I drop into the group hope noone minds my tagging along. My children are dd20 dd18with gd1 dd17 ds16 ds10 dd5 dd2 and bump due 16th june. So not the eldest but probably the most haggered Im kept young by upsy daisy and barnaby bear and am currently being made a lovely cup of tea in a fifi flower cup. I used to teach secondary children but am more than happy changing dirty nappies washing cooking and constantly cleaning for the next few years.

it is indeed odd jw I think D just figured out how to get his hands to his mouth so that's why he is chewing them but the dribbling and bubbles appeared out of nowhere the other day

welcome dreamydowler wow! I am in awe - 8 kids . I think you are our first grandma - how fab! You won't be coming on here looking for advice much then

Lots of us have big age gaps like yours - my son is 21 and the latest )also a boy) is 12 weeks tomorrow (so a bit of a gap there).

Oh and a few of us are cradle snatchers - my OH is 28 -(and not the father of my older son obviously

You are most welcome to join us - we have a fondness for cake (although my cake consumption has slipped of late but don't tell the others) oh and the occasional bit of gossip off the Daily Mail website although we re not actual Daily Mail readers I hasten to add...

So pull up a chair and have a nice slice of lemon drizzle to go with your tea in a fifi flower cup

Sounds like they're doing the same things mrsb so maybe it's something to do with developmental milestones are they're not that far apart (development) age wise. She's started cooing last night so we had a nice little conversation with her coos and ah's

Welcome dreamydowler. I'm another with a large age gap; DD23/DS19/DS17/DD6 months (3 months corrected) and a DSS age 8 who lives with us full time. Not a granny and my kids inform me I'll have to wait a veeeeeeeery long time until I am one

All of what mrsb said re cake and DM website for me too - it's a pre-requisite almost

Very sad news of the twin who didn't make it My thoughts with the parents.

Meant to add, Debenhams, Laura Ashley and Harvey Nics all have sales on for today (and perhaps more days but I'm not sure).

Welcome dreamydowler and I bow down in awe of 8 children - one grandchild and still younger than me - nice work mrsB said it all really - pull up a chair, help yourself to cake and have a gossip/moan/weep/shriek (whichever you fancy at the time) with us. Lovely to have you on board You are the only person with a Fifi Flower cup - watch it like a hawk - some of here may nick it

I'm 43 and have a DD1 2yrs and DD2 6mths plus a younger man (36)- so I'm a late starter! I'm the one who gets no sleep and looks constantly frazzled - due to DD2 seemingly able to survive on about an hour a day!!

jw well, I've been ranting on about teeth since about one month and still no sign! Sometimes Verity's knuckles are all swollen and her neck has nappy rash! We get through a bib an hour!

tee some of the dreams you get when you're preggie are way tooooo weird!!

Iris is shouting and verity is wailing - best go! Cake-free house........GGgrrrrrrr

it is very sad about the twin - sounds like she never had much of a chance if she was relying on the stronger one's lungs.

measles outbreak in Cheshire - not the types to trust the old MMR eh? silly, silly people.

oh to be able to eat cake again without either feeling sick or getting heartburn. Yes Im on my second time around hence the age gap 1st 4 I had in as many years with my ex husband and we still remain good friends My 10 year old son doesnt get to see his muppet of a father but has called my current partner of 7 years daddy for as long as he can remember. My eldest is at uni and my second eldest and granddaughter have a place of their own although I see them everyday and mind my granddaughter whilst my daughter finishes her a levels. She is going to uni in september so will be back to having three under three to mind scary prospect as I was a damn site younger first time round. My third daughter is also going to uni in september followed in two years by my eldest son so it wont always be a full house I hope.

we are in cheshire and I was really worried about my granddaughter but she went yesterday for her injection. Im not far from cheshire oaks and chester about 2 and 7 miles respectively if anyone wants to meet up for shopping coffee and muffins sometime.

I'm worried that it'll be rubella next - I'm one of those people who, despite having had the rubella jab at school and after each birth, have never become immune. I think it's 5-10% of the population. So another side-effect of not immunising babies on the advice of that scientifically dubious research could be infecting pregnant mothers with a very dangerous disease! I know a couple of people who went for the 3 separate jabs instead of the MMR but these parents who didn't want the MMR and therefore who did absolutely nothing amaze me!

OOoo dreamydowler Chester Oaks....Mmmm, Shopping!!!! I like Chester - nice part of the world. Gosh - they're all off to uni - how fab - that must be lovely, seeing them all pootle off.......and thinking - great, a spare room

Depserately sad for poor little Hope and her parents

We have a TB problem here - lots of people come over and have never had the jab and as it's not mandatory in the UK then they never get offered it. There was an outbreak at the school I'm refusing to let Iris go anywhere near (the one I'd happily bulldoze!) Apparently the outbreaks of TB have shot up alarmingly.

I think when you've had a prem baby especially you realise how fragile everything is. While you don't wrap them up in kid gloves you do recognise that we have become quite complacent as a nation and have no idea what it was like to live with childhood diseases that ran riot through communities....and where the infant mortality rate was high. My dad had diptheria as a kid in 1929 - he was the only survivor on his street and his brother John got TB and suffered with its effects until he died in his 60s. It wasn't just the poverty that killed

On a lighter note - I've got off my bum and found a nursery for Iris - it's a bit $££££$$$ and a bit posh - but it has places for a morning a week and it's GORGEOUS!!
It also has a good record for getting the LOs into two of the best primaries in Bucks - so me thinks it could be worth shelving out the £££ now rather than later!

sorry if its a stupid question but how do you know you're not immune to rubella ermintrude?

I would have gone ahead with the MMR even if there was evidence of a problem - as I believe the risks from measles would outweigh any miniscule risk of autism. I always bang on about how we had measles as young children (my sister was a baby and caught it from us and ended up in hospital with pneumonia)We were all extremely ill -bedridden in darkened rooms for weeks and weeks.

I agree jj we don't know we are born in this country with so many terrible diseases eradicated. My dad actually came into contact with small pox when he worked in a London hospital in the sixties. He had to have vaccinations and was very ill - to this day he doesn't know if he had the disease or of the jabs made him so ill.

mrsb this outbreak in the north west where I am is just the start. It's all the idiots who believe everything the DM throws at them and abstain from the jabs. Now there'll be a huge rush to get them all innoculated although I'm in no doubt a few will stick to their ignorance guns and not take it up...more fool them and I pity their children in advance.

JJ when you thinking of starting Iris at nursery? All mine went and loved it (from a very early age I hasten to add as I worked up until the third one). I think it really sets them up well for school and gives them great social skills. Not sure if K will go when she's a bit older. Depends on how heavy the work load is I guess.

mrsb when are you going back?

back to work? mid feb

will have to start thinking about contacting the nursery soon - hoping they will have a place - we are on a waiting list but there's no guarantee.

I know it will be good for him although I do worry that there might kids there whose idiot parents haven't had them vaccinated.

Apparently its down to 75% in some areas - nowhere near enough to provide herd immunity - leaving little 'uns like ours at risk .

jw I'm thinking after Xmas - just one morning a week to start with. She loves playgroups but isn't that confident although I can see her getting better. It's also walking distance which is nice.

I reckon a more controlled environment (with nursery staff rather than mums drinking cups of tea!) would give her more confidence. I could afford 2 mornings - MAX! But once she gets to three you get a bit of help - not loads but some. Glad you said yours liked nursery - I've been wrestling with doing it but feel happier now I've got one in mind.

No snow here - in fact it's sunny but WHAH, it's cold. I've gone blue

JW if only the non-immunization just affected the children the parents have decided not to immunize, then it would be there decison and that would be fine. When the immunization rates are high then the herd immunity protects babies who are too young to be immunized because the virus can't "find" enough hosts and so doesn't spread through the community but when the rates drop then babies are at a much higher risk of contracting the virus because there is more of it about. At the moment we seem OK here but I will be avoiding the school, tescos etc as soon as there is a wiff of an outbreak down here.

Anyway on a lighter note, young O has just been weighed and it 8lb 10oz what a guzzler. He has nearly grown out of soem of his new born clothes, I'm going to have to send DH up the loft again.

Hi dreamydowler welcome sorry to hear about the ms I had the same problem myself with cake making me feel sick. But it is all OK now and I am making up for last time . I'm 42 and a late stater DS1 is 5yrs and DS2 is 8 weeks.

In some parts here it's less than that mrsB In some of our poorer suburbs and the town centre there are great swathes of people for whom the NHS, and all its offerings, never seems able to reach out to. These are the same people who never put their kids in car seats or let them wear seat belts (huge problem for the police here) and they're the ones whose kid's teeth are all falling out and rotten

Then you've got the hippy brigade - usually posher than a posh thing in posh land who won't have anything chemical entering 'little Araminta or Ptolemy's' body......

I understand fully it's people's right to chose but then again they've got to understand that in return it's people's right to get upset about it.

JJ Thank you, I now have the name for my baby Ptolemy....of course, to be even more different, I will make sure everyone pronounces the 'p'. So it will Puh-tall-o-me.

DH will love it!!

To get back to the serious conversation, the whole people not getting the MMR thing scares the hell out of me. I want to shout at them, 'read all the research, you morons!!'

mrsb, first time i discovered i wasn't immune was a few weeks after my very first antenatal booking appt when they check your bloods for immunity as a matter of course - i was shocked, as had had the jab at school and assumed it had done the trick. so i had it again a few months after giving birth. same thing happened all over again with dc2, i had it post-natally and yet a few wks ago discovered it still hadn't 'taken'. apparently around 10% of people won't become immune to rubella each time they get it so i'm now 10% of 10% of 10& if you can work that out. bloomin' unlucky, i call it.

for those of you thinking about nurseries, dd was in one from 4 months and ds from 6 months but only 3 days a week - i did a f-t job in 4 office days plus other time over evenings and wkends, and dh worked a lot of saturdays so took a day a week off. worked brilliantly and they both loved nursery and are very sociable and confident and good at making friends, which i'm sure was partly because of that. now i'm self-employed i won't need it for dc3 but would still like him/her to have a day a week somewhere just so that i can get on with things. we shall see.

ah of course ermintrude silly me!

we will hopefully be doing something along those lines to - working a five day week over four days etc, plus OH's mum will have him one day a week.

I am surprised that the chavvy sorts don't bother with jabs jj I thought it was only the middle class neurotics who avoided it (for different reason obviously). Twats all of 'em I say . Measles is especially bad in a young baby.

mrsb it's different reasons that the under/middle classes don't take it up. The underclass because they can't be arsed...they haven't read any research or think there's a link between the triple and autism. Just plain bone idolness and and huge dollop of 'it won't happen to me'.

Middle classes have read every bit of research that's ever been published and scare themselves shitless.

Both as bad as each other imho

It's a little premature for us on the nursery debate but I was thinking when Katherine gets to Iris' age then I'll be looking in to it for a couple of days a week. As ermintrude said it's not really necessary when you work from home.

There's an awful lot of shops having sales at the mo. I think if you've got nerves of steel, you could hold out until week before xmas and get lots of bargains!

Good Morning all!

Off to hit the sales today!

And apparently, the are here!

Ooh, festive smilies. I don't know if I should just yet, it would feel like putting the decorations up too early!

Tee, glad you're in the mood for fighting through the shops - but are you sure you won't be spotted shopping whilst on the sick by your employer's spies?! I too have to go to town - cooking Christmas dinner for 11 and haven't got any cloths long enough to go on our cunning 2-tables-shoved-together dining solution.

But isn't it mad that we're talking about getting bargains before Christmas? I'm getting offer emails from M&S, John Lewis, Amazon, Thorntons, everyone, with generous discounts all over the place. Do you think that January sales will just be giveaways?!

ermintrude I think the January sales have come early don't you? It's soooo bad though as I've finished all my shopping but keep adding little bits, tempted by the offers Mind you, the children have done very well this christmas which I guess is what it's all about.

I'm not venturing out anywhere today. The snow has now frozen and it's just an ice rink outside. DSS fell on the way to school and DS#2 fell twice before he got to the garden gate I must say though, it does rather put me in the festive mood when I look out of the office window and see the garden looking all white

I like to leave the tree until the week before xmas but under pressure this year from DSS to get it up as early as possible. (I think his mother and those on her council estate put theirs up in June). May think about mid week next week. Crap. That means unearthing all manner of things in the loft to find decorations......might cheat and just buy some new ones!

K awake all the time now and seemingly following in Verity's footsteps for world record of hours awake in one go No idea what is going on with her at the mo as along with the fists, spit bubbles, biting the teat etc she's now found a new trick of sucking on anything (i.e. tshirt, arm, neck) as though ravenously hungry and then refusing the bottle! Just wants to suck it seems (but will NOT have a dummy, I've tried).

Sighs. Any ideas ladies?