Pickle

A girl? My son was (and still would be if I let him) happy to be dressed, whereas daughter from a very early age was very much of the "I WILL DO IT!" mindset. Nightmare if we had somewhere to go and needed to be out of the house on time! I ended up going with it. She chose the clothes (from a small selection I offered) and she put them on. In the beginning it meant having to allow lots of time, but by 2 she was very confident and able to dress herself well.

Just wanted to add, there is a large element of her simply being a "sleeper" when it comes to nights. Since she was born she has never woken more than twice between 10pm and 7am, so we had a good starting point! She is a good advertisement for 3rd babies :)

Yes, really well. I followed a routine with my first 2, with #3 it's very much a case of her having to fit into our day, but I approach night with my routine head on :) In bed for 7pm, we get her up for a feed around our bedtime (anywhere from 10pm to 11pm). I breastfeed her, so bring her downstairs and do half a feed, then hubby changes her nappy while I get ready for bed and I finish her feed in bed then pop her in her Moses basket. Most nights she then goes through till around 5 - 5:30am, has a quick 5 or 10 min feed, then straight back to sleep until usually after the big kids are up. A couple of times a week she goes right through till morning without a feed. Good luck x

Baby Pickle is 15 weeks (I think, 3rd baby syndrome means I'm not so good at keeping track!) She gets up around 7 -7:30ish and falls asleep in the buggy when I do the school run around 9am. She sleeps for around 45 mins to an hour at that time depending on what we do. I pick my middle daughter up from school just before 12 and once again she falls asleep in the buggy. I transfer her to her bedroom and she will sleep for anywhere from 1 to 2 hours... ideally 2! Then generally sometime between 4 and 5pm she will have a nap, but never later than 5pm as I put her to bed for 7pm so that I can go out to my rehearsals in the evening.

Brilliant Grotty, welcome to the exercise club :) You sound so positive, compare it to your posts a couple of months ago, I'm so pleased you found the extra motivation you needed to keep going. What's your total weight loss now? I'm at that point now where people are commenting on my weight loss which really helps with the motivation. My favourite pre-pregnancy jeans fit now, 6 weeks ago I doubted whether I'd ever wear them again.

Yes the Wed morning WW class for me too, at least that way you know you are being weighed on relisble scales and at the same time each week. Pebbles and I braved the rain and jogged our way round the park this morning, I feel totally energised, it was brilliant :)

Don't be disheartened Nunheadmum, sometimes it's just one of those things. It's almost better to look at weight loss over a monthly time frame rather than getting too bogged down in weekly results, some days there's water retention etc etc which can mess up your weight. An average of 2lbs a week is the most you should aim for, so 5lbs in 3 weeks is brilliant. If the same thing happens next week if I were you I'd consider eating a little more. May seem counterintuitive, but of you're exercising loads and not eating enough sometimes the weight doesn't shift. As a long time WW (initially lost my main chunk of weight to get to goal in 2002 and went on to be a leader) I have always found that once at goal with maintenance sussed (involving continuing counting points and upping your allowance to find the point at which your weight stays the same) it's not difficult at all. In fact a lot of the time I found I was inadvertently losing weight, despite being at a point in my life where every weekend involved a wedding/30th/general drunken debauchery. I'm always happy to look over food diaries and offer advice, I'm not a leader anymore but still pretty up to speed with how it works and may be able to help people who get stuck. I'm staying well on track this weekend - a visit from the inlaws means I went out for a long walk in the rain this afternoon, and I'm joining Pebbles for a jog tomorrow morning :)

Robert. Peston and. His straaaaaange. Wayofputtingasentencetogether.

A coffee drinking, exercising writer - sounds like a perfect combination :) Good luck x

The Suzuki method generally involves the parent learning along with the child in the early stages. My 5 year old has recorder lessons which I sit in on (quite tricky with a baby and a nearly 4 year old too), that way I can help keep him focussed and also guide his practise more.

What things do you love doing? Is there a possibility of turning them into a career? My Dad spent 25 years as a firefighter, took a risk and turned his love of cars into an award winning tourism business in NZ. He gets more enjoyment from going to work than anyone I know (and will never retire!). Good luck. I did similar a number of years ago, although these days am at home with my kids.

Success for me... Reached my 10% weight loss target and lost another 2lbs. Hooray :)

Amazing. Makes me wish I'd taken more photos/video of mine.

There's a free post natal class every Sat at 9:30am on Peckham Rye (there's a thread on it, Project London Health). Very gentle, a good starting point. Powerpramming, really good fun and run by Liz who is very experienced in post natal fitness. Not sure how much it costs these days, but around. ?5 - ?6 per class I think. There are sessions at Dulwich and Peckham Rye parks. I've seen lots of ads on here for pilates/yoga too. If I were you I'd ditch yhe gym membership for now, expensive if you're not using it and then having to pay for other exercise activities as well.

Brilliant. Absolutely no need to be eating WW meals though, and really no need to use their recipes either (although I do, as the recipe books are fab as simply nice food cooked in healthy ways). The beauty of WW is that you can eat "normal" food with a few simple changes in terms of not using fat/oil etc. I slow cooked a chicken today, so had a nice simple meal of chicken, new potatoes and veg which was low points and very tasty.

I looked into similar a few years ago, and like you was pretty shocked by the prices (?400+ was the quote I got for our 5 bed house, needless to say I didn't go ahead!). I think the problem is that agencies charge a hefty fee, especially if you don't already use them to provide you with a weekly cleaner. Much cheaper to hire someone directly, but then you run the risk of them being rubbish! Sorry, no solution, but I will watch with interest. We have a cleaner but I would like a "deep clean" done to tackle all the little things that get missed and start to add up. If there were 12 more hours in a day I'd do it myself, but I never seem to get time.

Grotty, hope you had a successful weigh in this morning. Uptime, how are you doing? Good weekend for me, had my usual takeaway/chocolate/wine on Saturday but all pointed. Managed a jog on Sat morning, but no exercise yesterday. However I headed straight to Dulwich Park after school drop off this morning and jogged a few laps with the baby so feeling virtuous! Here's to a good week.

The Voice. Will.I.am's weird eyes (and his stupid name, for goodness sake, look what my phone has done to the capitalisation) The Irish bloke's seemingly permanent sneer. Who is he anyway? Jessie j and her chair dancing ... and the fact that for the first time ever I think Tom Jones is quite good looking. He's an old man, what's wrong with me?

I've used the Runners Shop in Beckenham a number of times. Friendly, knowledgeable staff with a good selection. I'm not sure if they offer video gait analysis or not, I've always taken my old shoes in with me and as Taper mentions they have watched me run. http://www.runnersshop.co.uk/index.php/contacts/

Is the advice not simply because of the nationwide problem of people not cooking healthy meals and lacking basic nutritional knowledge? If your little one is eating well I'm a firm believer that a vitamin supplement isn't necessary. If they get what they need from food you are literally flushing money down the toilet :) I had HVs tell me (with both #1 and #2) that I should give my babies supplements "because you are breastfeeding and it doesn't have the same vitamins as formula". Grrr.

Wow good luck Nununoolio! Mad, but what a fantastic achievement... Make sure you report back!

They sound like sensible feeds to be doing as BF, particularly the first one of the day. I wonder if it's worth a more gradual approach to dropping the third feed? A few days of part bottle, part breast? Or bottle, but express a bit? Hopefully once the mastitis has cleared you'll be fine and your supply will adjust.

At 2 both of my kids were going to bed at 7pm (and they still do now, at 4 and 5). My son continued to have a lunchtime nap until he was 4, daughter dropped hers at around 2.5. Personally I would stay firm, get some good blackout blinds and maybe cut down the nap a little. Plenty of fresh air in the afternoon and a strong wind down routine before bed. Good luck

... Not too bad where I get it done, but I'm guessing the airfare may result in false economies :)

The current spate of ridiculous "what celebrity do you look like" things on Facebook - which one of my school friends (primary school, a long time ago) has been proudly publishing the results of as it's comparing her to Angelina Jolie. Unfortunately I would liken her photo more to Worzel Gummage.