Pickle

I'm watching it slightly delayed (have Sky +'d it). Am getting annoyed with the husband of the woman who's son is there, and annoyed with her for her continual apologising to the midwives! But oh how it takes me back!

I had 99.9% convinced Mr Pickle to let me get a Bee when they first came out, then found out I was pregnant again. The glee on his face when he then declared it a complete waste since we'd be needing a double buggy was sickening! I love them, would definitely buy one instead of a MacLaren if I had my time over again.

Agree on requesting assistance - I flew to NZ by myself with my then 10 month old, and was met in NZ by a lovely lady who helped get my luggage, pushed it on a trolley for me, took me through an "express" line at customs and generally made life a LOT easier! I hadn't thought about it before flying, but got chatting to the cabin crew while sitting in their area attempting to give my little boy some food (it was night, so all the lights were off in the cabin and I didn't want to disturb people... these days I don't care!) and they radioed ahead for me :)

Hi Newcomer, I'll try to answer your queries as best I can... the first thing I would say is that flying with a newborn baby is the EASIEST time you'll have when it comes to travelling with children, so try not to worry too much. Some other facts that might help: - We have a Bugaboo Cameleon - can I bring it to the gate with me? As the baby will still be so small,it would be in the bassinet, not the buggy part (so, before you suggest it, bringing a 'foldy stroller' instead is not really an option). ... and such a lovely Cameleon it is too ;-) We never took it on any of our trips to NZ, for a couple of reasons - it doesn't fold in one piece, so is a bit of hassle to fold down at the gate, and there's a lot more risk of damage. You can get travel bags for them, but once again this is quite a hassle, especially if you're travelling alone. For our first trip to NZ we got a McLaren Techno XT, which lies completely flat and is fine for a tiny baby. We still use this now for our flights and it's survived unscathed every time. You should be able to take your pram/buggy to the gate, and I have seen people travelling with Bugaboos, so it is possible. It's a good idea to take a sling as well if you can. A good fall back option if for some reason your buggy isn't available, and can be useful on board if your baby won't settle as you can strap them onto you and walk around. Take a rucksack style bag on board with you, much easier to cope with when you're in the airport etc. while trying to push a buggy. Pack twice as many nappies as you think you'll need ;-) - If possible, I plan on breastfeeding after the birth. Ideal. Makes travelling so much easier. I found the trips where I was breastfeeding a lot easier than ones where I was having to worry about bottles. - I will probably try to book my flight with BA. Anyone any experience re how good/otherwise BA are for people travelling with small babies? I'd be in economy. We do our long haul flights to NZ with Singapore Airlines, who are excellent with kids and provide brilliant bassinets for babies. No experience of BA long haul, but I'm sure they're fine. Best thing you can do is request a bassinet as it means you'll get bulkhead seats and a lot more space, and even if you don't use the bassinet it's handy for putting baby related stuff in! - Finally, I have no idea what jabs, etc. babies usually have at 6 weeks old. I don't yet know if I'd be back in the UK in time for any subsequent sets of jabs at, say, 6 or 12 months - does the 'first lot' of jabs help to protect the baby at all? You would probably be able to get your immunisations done in the country you're going to... worth looking into? Baby passports are pretty quick, the only holdup would be getting your baby registered and obtaining the birth certificate etc... with our first it took 6 weeks before we got an appointment at Brixton Town Hall, 2nd was 5 weeks old. But once we had that, we used the Post Office check and send service and had passports within a week. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions... kids currently attempting to kill each other so better go and pay them some attention! P x

I hope so Trinity! My younger sister has never had them - she was exposed as a baby when I had them, again when our brother got them, and my Mum says that the whole of her reception class came down with them and she still didn't, so she would appear to be one of the lucky ones. I was still breastfeeding my daughter at the time, so it may be that she was protected through that - but at the time she wouldn't leave her brother alone (poor wee man, just to add to his misery) and one night even crawled over him in the bathroom so had skin to skin contact with the spots.

My son had the pox in summer (in the heat, not a good combination!), and we found the calamine with aqueous cream a lot more effective than just basic calamine. Piriton was also brilliant, and cold baths... although your little one may not struggle as much given that the weather is cold. We had two really tough nights with it at the height of the spotty stage, but after that it wasn't too bad. My daughter, despite out best efforts, didn't get them - I was gutted as I would much rather have got them both out the way at once! Good luck. P x

I used to buy/sell quite a lot on Ebay, and have always had good experiences, although I know it's full of dodgy stuff these days. I've had a look and there are loads of those buggies on there aren't there?! My advice would be to check the seller's feedback carefully, look at what else they've been selling. Chances are they are all genuine and they've somehow got hold of them at low prices. Just be careful that they are actually located in the UK, otherwise you'll get stung for customs charges. I think Paypal offers some extent of protection these days, so you can be relatively confident that you won't lose money if the worst happens.

Ooooh Molly I feel your pain! I'm another Bosch fan, I've been really pleased with our current one and as part of our kitchen refurb we're going for another Bosch (integrated, which is the only reason why we're not sticking with the one we have). We had a really old Bosch in the first house we bought in ED, it was still going strong when we sold the house and must have been getting on for about 12 or 13 years old at that point. I've also heard good things about Miele, and we always buy our appliances from John Lewis like others have already mentioned. Sorry, no experience with British Gas other than the absolute drama involved when we switched supplier away from them! P x

Ha ha, way to go Iain. I've sold my beloved Bugaboo now, otherwise I'd be joining you for some ankle ramming and parading around with "look at me, look at meeeeee" tattooed on my forehead. You are officially a Yummy Mummy ;-) Enjoy your first outing on wheels!

I think a lot of people use the books for their 1st child, and a more relaxed approach for subsequent children... certainly true in our household, as my youngest child has been eating basically the same meals as the rest of the family since she was weaned - much easier admittedly!

Hi Amy, Cloth nappies have been discussed a lot on the forum, the most recent discussion is here. There's a link to another post in that thread, but I think there's been a clearout on the forum of old messages so it doesn't work anymore which is a shame as it had lots of good info in it. It's well worth contacting Molly (The Nappy Lady), she's the lady to speak to with regards to nappies! I'm sure there are laundry services provided, but I've never felt I needed to use them - I had both a baby and a toddler in cloth for over a year and never found it too difficult to get them washed and dried myself. Good luck.

Your milk will come back... in the meantime try to eat or drink what you can (fluids especially important for your milk production). I hope you feel better soon x

I always found the easiest time to express was first thing in the morning (or, when I was expressing full time for C before his tongue was fixed, the middle of the night!) - she'll have more milk at that time and it will be easier to pump. The most easiest way to do it is to express while you're feeding the baby on the other side, but it takes a bit of practise to get the juggling right (if she uses the electric attachment it will be easier)! Expressing in the evening is hard work, best to avoid it if possible as (in my experience) all that happens is you get stressed, making it even more difficult to get let down of milk. P x

The Annabel Karmel books are good - I bought the "New Baby and Toddler Mealplanner" when my son was small and still use it now (he's 3).

Hi James, I've noticed a few footpaths in the area have been repaved recently (Crystal Palace Rd, Dunstans Rd and Court Lane, to name a few), and it's fantastic. I was wondering whether there's somewhere I can look to find out what other roads in the area are due to have the same done? Many thanks

... I got the hoover out the other morning to clean up after some work being done on the house, only to have my 3 year old say "that's nice of Julia (cleaner) to share her toys with you isn't it Mummy" :-$

Excellent advice snowboarder :) The best money I spend every week is the money I pay a cleaner. When my daughter was born I used to buy meals from the lovely Mike (Bonyard), which I could simply pop in the oven to warm up and serve with a few microwaved veges. No sense beating yourself up about housework and domestic stuff, the most important things at the moment are yourself and your baby!

My son was fed using a bottle (expressed milk mainly, but sometimes formula if I couldn't express enough) from his 2nd week due to his tongue tie. I continued offering the breast even though he couldn't latch properly to get milk, then once his tongue tie was fixed managed to re-establish breastfeeding at around 8 weeks old. He never seemed to have an issue with nipple confusion, and happily switched from one to another for the rest of the time I BF him. I'm quite a sceptic when it comes to waiting 6 weeks before introducing a bottle. We did this with our daughter and she absolutely refused - maybe she would have refused even if we'd tried earlier, but I'm convinced it was because we left it too late!

Yet another reply to reassure you that it's normal. If you google "cluster feeding" you'll find out more, my son did this a lot (and I can sympathise, I remember the days where all I did was feed, get completely exhausted, finally get him to sleep, only to have him wake again an hour later). Get yourself some chocolate, plenty of fluids, and some good tv and ride it out - in a couple of days you may find your milk "comes in" all over again as she's increased your supply. You may well be rewarded for all your hard work by a good weight gain this week! P x

My experience 2nd time round was completely different - a complete breeze, helped by the fact that she wasn't tongue tied, but also that I had a year of breastfeeding experience under my belt, so it came very naturally. I didn't get sore nipples at all. I also had the contractions that Ryedalema describes with my 2nd child (never with my 1st), they are quite sore (I had totally forgotten about them though, so not so sore that it haunts me!).

Is Prendergast school a state school? I attend a variety of rehearsals there in the evenings and the facilities they have are amazing... I always assumed it was a fee paying school!

I've got a breastpump that I'll bring with me on Tuesday, I advertised in on here but the sale fell through, so you guys are welcome to have it. I agree that it's a good idea to try introducing a bottle earlier rather than later - C had a bottle of expressed milk from very young due to his tongue tie and took to it no problem. We didn't try a bottle with M until she was about 6/7 weeks and she absolutely refused to take one until she was 13 months! For C I got into the habit of expressing every morning, and then Mr Pickle used that milk for the feed around 10.30pm - was an absolute godsend as meant I could (in theory) go to bed early in the evening and sleep through till his next feed at around 3am. Hope it goes well with Jill today x

Hi Iain & Anna, I had a lot of trouble in the early weeks, and rang all of the places mentioned above to absolutely no avail, which was the most frustrating and upsetting thing ever! I ended up using a private lactation consultant called Jill Dye. Jill can be contacted on 07816 136 477. It's been three years since I used her (thankfully I didn't need her when my 2nd child was born), but back then she came out to my house the day after I'd contacted her. She's lovely. I was on the verge of giving up when I rang her (C was about 8 weeks old by this stage), but after spending a couple of hours with her she gave me my confidence back, showed me some brilliant techniques, and from that day on it got better. With help it will get better x

No problem, I'll PM you now :)

We have one similar to Molly's that I'd be happy to lend out for the evening. We're in Upland Road, will be close to home for most of the day tomorrow for you to collect. P x