Pickle

I started out with name tags and quickly realised life is too short. Black laundry marker pen, job done. Or if in a real hurry, normal old biro on the label, surprising how many washes it will survive!

I quickly found I needed one top per day, so depending on how often you do the washing I'd say at least 3 sweatshirts and polo shirts. I've managed, just, with two pairs of trousers for my son.

My daughter is 4 and goes to morning nursery at school. The two activities that we enjoy in the afternoon are Diddi Dance (Tues 2pm) and gymnastics (in Beckenham, 2pm on Mondays). Other than that we have struggled to find age appropriate activities.

You wouldn't have to pay a childminder maternity would you Strawbs? A nanny, yes, but I think childminders are self employed so will be covered for maternity that way?

Hmmm, this thread has gone very quiet... come on ladies, how are you all doing? I hope motivation is high and pounds are dropping off? I weighed in again this morning, another pound off, so will be upping my points yet again this week. Seems impossible to still be losing weight on the quantity I'm eating (around 45 points a day last week, plus all of my 49 weekly points!).

And personally I would skip the baby rice stage completely, it tastes foul and provides nothing. It's like wallpaper paste! With my puree fed babies I started with banana, butternut squash etc.

Wait as long as you can, a 3 month old doesn't need anything other than milk, and as the others have said life is much easier before weaning! My baby is almost 6 months and still just breastfed, although we now include her at mealtimes by sitting her in a highchair and popping little bits from our plates in front of her. She is only just starting to show interest now and will sometimes pick food up and lick it, but hasn't actually eaten yet. I waited until around 6 months with my older two children too. You don't really need any special kit, although if planning to spoon feed a couple of shallow plastic weaning spoons are useful.

I'm not sure about the right side refusal, but I don't think you should worry too much about quantities of milk if he's having 3 or 4 feeds a day. M was a bottle refuser and went down to 2 feeds in 24 hours by 1... and chances are he's taking quite a lot at each feed (he certainly doesn't look like he's fading away!). The 30oz includes other sources, so if you're worried try adding extra milk to solid meals, cheese sauce, milk based soups, breakfast cereals etc? I used to make a cream of chicken soup which had loads of milk in it. I think at this point your supply should be ok, but if you have time/energy try expressing, especially rom the right side. Px

Are you volunteering to verify address details of everyone who posts?

My two older children are very close (both in age and as friends) but do bicker quite a lot these days. We did laugh this morning when the first words we heard from our 4 year old were "C just put bogies on my foot", not a good start to a Sunday morning. I try not to get involved too much when it's just standard sibling bickering and they usually sort it out between them without resorting to violence! That said, my younger brother (4 years my junior) and I used to fight so much that we were put in different secondary schools!

I found that feeds other than morning and bedtime very naturally phased out towards a year old with my children, so it might be that you don't really have to do much and nature/balance between solids and milk helps you out. Make sure he has a hearty breakfast, and at the normal mid morning milk time try offering finger foods instead. Also, I'm not sure it's worth worrying about formula - by the time you get him successfully on bottles you will be approaching a year old, personally I would go straight to cows milk at that point. My middle child refused bottles completely until around 14/15 months, but was only feeding twice a day so it didn't bother me too much. When we started offering cows milk she was much more receptive, I honestly think she didn't like formula. As feeds dropped gradually for us I didn't have any problems with engorgement or hormones, it all felt very natural. Good luck x

Reneet, realistically I don't think you can rely on other parents as a long term solution (unless you're paying them), especially if there are after school activities involved. An au pair? Quite a few of my son's school friends have au pairs who do their school drop off and pick up. Alternatively a childminder, although don't think they would take your daughter to other activities as generally they have more than one child to care for. Good luck.

The Forest Hill Road newsagent/post office do them. I recently had photos taken there for my 5yo and baby, both accepted no problem by the passport office.

Yes, still Jan and Amanda, Jan tends to make noise about giving it up most weeks but I think she's the type of person who will keep it up until she's in a nursing home! I'll be back with child #3 once she is big enough and I'm sure Jan will still be there.

I've been taking my daughter to Beckenham Spa for the last year, as Nunheadmum says the classes are on Mon (2 - 2:45pm) and my daughter loves them. The coach is very "old school" and demands a high level of behaviour from the children, which some of the parents don't like, but it has been great for my daughter and I really like her approach. We will miss it when she starts reception in Sept.

sb, thanks, and yes I will stay on WW, although not counting points forever - for me I know whether I'm eating the right things or not, and you're at that stage and have lost the weight it's not necessary to count points anymore. I think that's where a lot of people go wrong - it shouldn't feel like a diet that you stay on or go off, if that makes sense? Through all my years of maintaining I found that every 6 months or so a couple of weeks counting points was a good way to keep me on track, but certainly didn't do it every week. I think the week Pebbles has had is a good reminder that you need to be using your points in a healthy way as much as possible. As tacky as it sounds, it's a lifestyle change, and that's where WW has definite advantages over diets like Lighter Life and the meal replacement type plans, as they dont really teach you anything about healthy eating. In the past I've done filling and healthy (years ago when it had a different name), and as a leader we were encouraged to try it. It works, and forces healthier choices, but you need to be careful of portion sizes - as at the end of the day no matter how healthy a food is, too much of it will make you gain weight.

So, second week of maintenance (although I'm still just sticking to my 40 points a day, but eating every single one of my weeklies), and I lost 2lbs! So I'm now 2.5 under goal, which is a nice place to be, but am going to increase my food this week as I don't really want to go lighter than I am now. Just goes to show that you really can eat all those precious points and still lose weight! On a positive, today I weigh the same as I did the day I got married - not bad 6.5 years and three children later :-)

Thanks for posting this, will watch progress with interest - a big job ahead that's for sure! It's become known as the "spooky house" by my family, so please be sure to maintain some of the spookiness :-)

First two babies weren't keen at all, they liked their arms out, and slept fine without being swaddled. Baby Pickle was swaddled, using one of the blankets with "wings" and Velcro which made it easy, but with one hand up by her mouth (she didn't suck her thumb at that point but always seemed to like having the hand up... at 5 months she is now a thumb sucker). We swaddled her for around 3 months until she was big enough for a Grobag. I only swaddled her at nighttime, not for daytime naps.

Great tips sb, and welcome :) I've always had my weigh in day on a Wed or Thurs, to give me time to undo any damage from the weekend! I also love that fruit is free these days (although over the years and various incarnations of WW it has been before - No Count gave that flexibility when I was a leader). Good luck for all those weighing in today/tomorrow x

Hi Jayne, I found with my 1st child (mixed fed due to tongue tie) that it didn't make a difference to his sleep whether he was given formula or EBM at 10:30pm, and certainly with my other two exclusively BF children they have slept well without formula. Having lived through tongue tie I would question whether it's worth you having the snip done? If he's having to work hard to take his feeds it might really help with the associated problems. We got our sons fixed when he was a couple of months old, and it then took another couple of months for him to relearn his latch, but once that was sorted he was a breeze to feed. P x

Don't feel like an idiot - well done you for standing up to her! Have stored away "uncivilised savage" to use myself at some point, love it!

Next and John Lewis for us, particularly Next as like others I find they wash really well (and on a superficial note I like the patterns!). Being #3 my baby never wears anything other than a babygro!

I agree to some extent with Cashewnut. I moved to the area in my 20's and even though I loved it in terms of affordability (at the time!) and local bars/restaurants I did feel a bit like I'd moved to a "grown up" area before I was fully ready to be a grown up! I had previously lived in Clapham South, and then near Canary Wharf (which was fab, easy transport links and full of young singles). The difference between those areas and ED is that despite living in an apartment in Canary Wharf on a floor with 4 other front doors, I didn't know my neighbours. Within a week of moving here we had been to a pub quiz with our neighbours. Depends what you're looking for! Then I drank the East Dulwich water and before I knew it I was married and joined the ranks of the grown ups complete with Bugaboo. Stick to bottled water as long as you can ;-) Good luck.

BB, brilliant result! Well done for having the willpower to stay on track for the remainder of the week. Your goal weight is completely up to you, especially if you are signed up to WW online rather than attending meetings. The main difference is that an online member, despite reaching goal weight, does not become a "gold" member due to your losses not being verified. In meetings, once you become a gold member you no longer have to pay to attend, so a lot of people set their target to the top of their healthy weight range. Although as a leader I found this approach sometimes led people to struggle to lose more as not having to pay made them slack off. I've had a good week so far food-wise, but exercise has been sorely lacking which is unlike me. Lots of rehearsals in the evenings at the moment so I'm tired, but a run planned with Pebbles tomorrow so no excuses!