simonethebeaver

'Staycation' for a UK holiday really boils my piss. A 'staycation', vile word that it is, is staying in your own home for a holiday. Going on holiday in the UK is just another holiday, like many people do every year.

I don't have any advice on induction but I did want to comfort you a bit on the size. In-uterine weight estimates are notoriously unreliable and most 'big' babies are in any case born without incident. I did a LOT of research on this when I was told (at 40+10!) that my baby would be 'at least' 10lbs, based on her abdominal measurement. In the end, she was just over 9lbs but the midwives thought she was at least a pound lighter before they weighed her, judging on her appearance. She definitely wasn't hard to push out either, or no harder than other babies from what I've heard. Although risks of some complications are slightly raised with larger babies, try not to let this stress you out.

My husband moved to the area with his kids when they were year 5 and year 1. He asked around local schools. There were loads of year 5 vacancies but not many year 1. However, once he'd picked a school (one of the hardest to get into in Reception we now know) for the year 5 vacancy, the year 1 child then jumped the waiting list on the sibling rule and got straight in. The population round here is very mobile so spaces in the higher years are fairly common.

We're thinking of buying on the road coming off Underhill Road towards Lordship Lane. Rightmove tells me that they are roughly equidistant between Horniman and Goodrich. I can't work out crow flies distances but both look like they are a bit further out than the current catchment distances. Does anyone else live near here? Is this a primary school disaster zone?

Ignore the HV about percentiles. Talk to a lactation consultant immediately.

There is a voluntary organisation promoted by Southwark Council (I see in my bible, 'Your Disabled Child'!) called the Otter Canoe Club, which provides sporting opportunities for children with disabilities. It's based in Sydenham. You might want to give them a call-David Slack or Celia Broughton, 0208 778 4235. I'm sure they'd welcome you and also have ideas.

Thanks, alice.

I know someone who isn't a single mother but whose partner is a stay at home dad. She has told me that losing her child benefit might mean having to sell her house. Might she be the sort of person you're looking for?

Our two bed garden flat is on the market at the moment for slightly more than we want for it, but only slightly. We've had no offers though. We've priced it based on four valuations and the sale prices of similar properties and it is on for more than 350k. However it's more than 1000 sq ft, direct access to large private south facing garden, less than 10 minutes from station and in the catchment of an excellent primary. So I think it's worth it. As someone also looking, prices for houses are rocketing. Nunhead in particular seems to be shooting up. The ELL has caused house prices near Honor Oak and Forest Hill to go up substantially in the last two years.

Sorry, Otta. I didn't mean to repeat you. For some reason my brain only absorbed your second and third point on first reading. Chloe, you might want to talk to the Special Educational Needs team at Southwark about this rather than approaching individual schools. They might have ideas. But just wanted to add, there aren't many kids in wheelchairs around that don't have fairly complex needs and to me, your thinking sounds a bit outdated! I don't mean to criticise what sounds like a very well meaning idea but I think you need to do some research.

My stepdaughter has visual and cognitive impairment and uses a wheelchair and she is in mainstream school. Her best friend at school is blind. Most specialist schools nowadays cater for children who have autism and similar disabilities that make mainstream learning too difficult. We've been told that the only school locally that could cater for my stepdaughter should her cognitive skills worsen would be a hospital school.

We are with FHR. My stepdaughter has special needs and we have always got an on the day appointment through the duty doctor system. I've been impressed too by the lengths they have gone to in order to see her quickly, on one occasion pulling a doctor off her break purely for the appointment.

Sorry, wasn't clear. We don't have birth to potty nappies, but a kit with different sized nappies to take us from tiny to bigger. We used size 1 from about two weeks and still going strong at 8 months. We've got some additional size 2 nappies given to us by friends so I'll be interested to see how it will be mixing our very familiar Lollipops with some different ones.

I had exactly your dilemma! In the end my husband lost patience with my dithering and said that we should just pick a birth to potty kit and get on with it. So we did, Lollipop, and they've been fine. We've also picked up other wraps along the way second hand. I think the choice is very bewildering but most nappies will be fine on most babies!

You may already have left but I realised I could more helpfully last night have shared my experience! I met Ann Dobson at the TT clinic at King's, and found her far more helpful and sympathetic than Katie Fisher by the way. My daughter's posterior TT was spotted by my HV. She tried to refer me, we waited a week, and then she found out she couldn't refer. I then raced to a BF cafe that day, Wednesday, and the clinic appointment was the following Tuesday. However, the referral criteria include you trying a feeding plan first, which was considered for me to have been that week I waited fruitlessly, but you may find you're asked to see someone twice before being referred on the NHS. Good luck. I found the whole thing extremely stressful so you have my every sympathy.

Ann Dobson is lovely. You'd be in good hands.

The opponents of the nursery posting on SE23.com are giving an appalling impression of themselves. They sound rude, hysterical and very much anti-children.

I am astonished and depressed at the action of the Residents' Association. We were due to be parents at the nursery and also are about to move to the area. Now we have lost our lovely nursery, which was the only reason I was feeling remotely prepared to go to work, and are worried about moving to a place so negative about children. When we visited the nursery it was summer and most of the toddlers were in the garden. The noise level was no more than any house with small children. The posters on SE23 complaining about the nursery before it even opened sound to be thoroughly unpleasant individuals. We feel awful for the Piplings owners and have our fingers crossed we'll be able to use their ED branch, if the same calm and caring ethos is on offer.

Sorry, we're missing our second session. Illness keeps striking on Sunday nights. I'm really missing my singing fix! See you all next week I hope.

It's very unlikely you'll get into a school that's 1-2km from any good school round here. I would take a look if you haven't already at the Lewisham booklet on primary school applications. That will show you how far the furthest successful application was last year. Brockley will probably have greater distances as it has the worst reputation (currently) but others will have far smaller catchments.

Jack's coffee is very good. Forest Hill has two places, The Teapot and St David's, that do Monmouth coffee, as does the brilliant French Cafe. I'm no coffee snob (happily drink instant) but whatever is in Monmouth coffee is gorgeous.

Oh, Bee, sorry. I didn't think you were advising feeding from one breast. Someone else mentioned that they'd had the same advice with a similar bad outcome and I was hijacking your thread slightly to agree. Apologies, really. I'm glad some of the advice on here is helping though.

Bee, I'm glad you've got an appointment at the breastfeeding clinic and I hope things do improve. Just wanted to say that I also had a home birth, also had midwives observe latch and feeding, and also had no pain on feeding, but my baby had a posterior tongue tie that was only picked up at five weeks. We had also had the advice about feeding repeatedly from one breast and for us, it was disastrous. I turned out to have low supply, partly from the tongue tie and partly from having breasts that don't really work. So feeding over and over from one breast was a really bad idea. I know you're only feeding from one, but I thought others reading this might want to know. We had very poor weight gain and it started to improve when I gave both breasts at each feed and stopped what now feels like torturing my poor underfed baby!

That does sound tough. I thought it would be nice for you to get some sympathy even if I can't offer great advice! Have you had anyone check her latch? It might be that she's struggling to get enough milk. I know you've done it before but every baby is different. Has she been checked for tongue tie? That can really effect the efficiency of feeding and also lead to wind if she's taking in air as well as milk. Why not give the King's breastfeeding specialists a call? I know they're very busy but try to see everyone they can. 020 3299 3833. If you have trouble getting through or want to see someone in your own home, there are some brilliant lactation consultants around who will come and sit with you and watch you feed to give you an idea of what might be going on. I had Verona Hall, who was very good, and also saw Anna Cannon at the breastfeeding cafe at the Rosendale Children's Centre on a Wednesday morning. Jill Dye was very supportive at the tongue tie clinic we attended too. You could try one of the breastfeeding cafes too - the one on Thursday afternoons in Peckham library is meant to be very good. I hope you find some support and help soon.

Oh, congratulations! You'll be wonderful. And am lost in envy as it's my dream too!