Pickle

I fed my son (then 9 months) when I was pregnant with my daughter. No problems for us, although son did self-wean a couple of months later which I think was due to the milk changing etc.

We've never had any problems with our cat and the kids. When they were babies he used to ignore them, now that they walk/talk/chase him he simply leaves home at 7am and returns at 7pm :) We didn't use cat nets etc., when they were tiny I wasn't leaving them alone with the cat anyway, and it quickly became obvious that we weren't going to have a problem with him. My parents had a Siamese cat when I was born (she was 7), prime for cat jealousy issues, but once again no problems. She was my best friend from a young age, and slept at the bottom of my bed until the end of her long life when she was 20!

... following on from my post last week regarding excellent service from the recycling men... This morning my day was made by said recycling man knocking on the door, giving me a hug, and thanking me - I sent an email praising him to the recycling email on the Southwark website, it was passed to his boss, and he apparently got a bit pat on the back. Big time feel good factor :)

If the weather is fine we'll come up to the sandpit, my kids love it (although I feel like a bad Mummy as having repeatedly promised to buy buckets and spades I still haven't done it!). We may head home for lunch, but will play it by ear depending on tiredness/grumpiness of children.

I asked them too, and they told me it was Spooks!

I'd be very interested in being part of a support group. I enjoyed the babymoon part of things as mentioned above, but did come up against issues like tongue tie, breastfeeding problems etc. along the way so hopefully I'd be able to provide a bit of support to someone needing it. With regards to the comment about there being a dearth of volunteers for NCT tea groups round here... I'm a volunteer and have only been contacted TWICE in the whole time I've been volunteering (2 years). I haven't had a single email from them for the best part of a year, so from my point of view it's not a lack of people to host thats the problem, it's an organisational problem at the NCT end of things. Very frustrating as I really enjoyed doing it. P x

I saw him this morning outside Nero's, he had a cup of coffee, I asked him if he'd had something to eat today and he said he was fine. I got the feeling that he didn't really want bothered, so left him to it. He seemed OK, happy enough with his coffee and cigarette watching the traffic go by.

I'm so excited for you Fuschia, congratulations (officially, now that it's properly "out") ;-) I'm sure the twins will be fine - by the time #4 arrives they will have calmed down and will be great little helpers.

I used a mixture of washable and disposable - tended to use the washable ones when I was at home and disposables when out and about. I too was a fan of the Lansinoh brand, but towards the end of my breastfeeding "career" discovered that Boots own brand slim breast pads are exactly the same for a fraction of the cost.

I found my experience quite the opposite to most of my friends (and most who have posted on here). With both babies I found the first 6 months, dare I say, quite easy. There were the odd days where I contemplated listing them on Ebay, but generally it wasn't too bad. But both times I found from 6 months to about a year old a real challenge. So just as all my friends were emerging from their newborn haze and enjoying themselves I was going the other way. Thankfully now at 2 and 3 I'm back to the "quite easy" stage (most of the time, I still have Ebay days!) ;-)

Another vote for Lorenzo - he took great natural shots of my two children in the park last November, absolutely gorgeous photos and a nice guy to deal with. In my opinion his prices are very reasonable, especially compared to "studio" type pictures we had done the year before. We will definitely be using him again this year.

Yes, we go (have been going pretty much every Monday for the last 3 years!) - it's on this morning, and there's a carpark right outside. See you there! :)

Hi Dorothy, Just click on your username in any thread that you have posted on (it will appear in blue font), that will take you to a list of your posts.

Congratulations Newcomer :))

I also bought a few packs of cheap Primark pants which were excellent. Get a dark colour! Also invaluable were a pair of Primark slippers, I did lots of walking round the labour ward while waiting for my induction to work, and spent a couple of days in hospital post-birth, so they were useful and it didn't matter what state they got in. I haven't read through the thread properly, but I also took a couple of towels (dark colour, once again) - use a hospital towel for your first bath/shower if they have one for you, but so much nicer to have some decent ones for any subsequent showers if you end up staying in for a while. As I was being induced I went armed with Monopoly, crossword books, books etc. and they all came in very handy for the long wait I had before my son decided it was time to make an appearance! We also had CD's which we played throughout my labour (nothing like singing to Take That while pushing a baby out - even the midwives were singing along!).

I'm another one who is going to go against the grain of this thread - I was self-employed when I got pregnant with #1 and stopped working just before I was 6 months pregnant. Those weeks of "freedom" were some of the best I've ever had, I really enjoyed having so much time to myself, got myself really organised, and relished in the opportunity to do plenty of stuff for myself before my life changed. It really does depend on your personality I think. I've always enjoyed having time by myself and always find things to keep myself occupied, but can understand how some people would go mad with boredom in the same situation. Good luck, whatever you decide to do. P x

I took mine all the way from London to NZ as handluggage - it was in a big white plastic dress carrier which folded up on itself to form a bag. On the flights (Singapore Airlines) they were really accommodating and hung it in the crew uniform area so that it hung down straight. I've never had so many people talk to me in an airport before, was definitely a talking point while in transit in Singapore. And we got lots of champagne from the air stewards too :))

My son continued to have a 10pm feed until weaning was established, but daughter (who admittedly was more of a Gina Ford "lite" baby) only had that feed until she was about 11 weeks old. It meant she didn't always sleep right through till morning, but 8 out of 10 nights she did. At the time I was really tired in the evenings coping with a baby and a toddler so decided it was better for me to be able to go to bed early and get a decent few hours sleep, and if she did wake in the night it was always a very quick process to feed her and resettle her to sleep again.

In the weeks before our tie was fixed I was feeding mainly via bottle, and expressing "full time". What I found worked well for us was to give him a bottle feed (but not quite enough to fill him up) and then give him time on the breast - that way he wasn't starving hungry, was generally quite relaxed and sleepy. He could barely get any milk by suckling from me before his operation, but I kept offering the breast so that he didn't lose the ability to breast feed and it worked well. Good luck x

Is there a website where you can work out how far away from each school you live? Thanks.

I used to be a regular at that group, Alice was an absolute life saver for me in the late stages of pregnancy with #2 when I was unwell and struggling to cope with my then bottom-shuffling 16 month old (who, due to his lack of real movement, was still fine to take along to the baby group despite his age). We continued going for a few months after I had my daughter, until my son started walking and became a bit of a hazard around the little babies. Highly recommended. I keep meaning to pop my head in one week to say hello - anyone want to swap their tiny baby for my 2 & 3 year old for a Friday morning? ;-)

I'm so pleased that you found out the cause, brilliant news. When my son had his fixed (over 3 years ago now) there wasn't a tongue tie clinic, so we went into a room by ourselves. I not only watched, I helped hold him down!! He was older than the average baby getting a tongue tie fixed so was causing them all sorts of problems and not cooperating at all. However despite that I didn't find it upsetting at all as I knew it was a solution to all the problems we had. A word of warning - it's not always an immediate fix. It took us a good few weeks of perserverance to get BFing established succesfully after his op. We happily mixed fed him, nothing wrong with a bit of formula if it helps keep you both sane :) Good luck with the op x

Sorry to interrupt the shoe/handbag loving ;-), but my day has been made today simply because the driver of the recycling truck this morning went out of his way to help me with my mountain of cardboard boxes. He explained he was unable to fit it in his truck (start of the run for the day, fair enough), but then contacted the recycling centre for me, arranged a pick up later in the day, and drove past later in the day to check that it had been taken. Thanks recycling man!

Me too Belle. Mr Pickle was in fits of laughter thinking I was genuinely upset he had resigned, but actually it was the (surpringly cute) kids that did it!

Hope the appointment went well, let us know how you go. P x