Saila

my parents just bought a flat in elephant and castle they tried to enter the property on tuesday, but the locks had changed and there are squatters in there... they've moved in, furniture and everything obviously my parents are devastated and the police wont do anything is there any advice out there as to what to do? anyone had any experience of this?

Growlybear Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think you should trust your instincts. If, as > you say, you could manage without your income, why > not stay at home with your son? If you can afford > to be home, I don't think there is anything you > can do that will be better for him. Slightly off topic but reading this made me lurch. We have huge job cuts coming and a possible double dip and more jobs lost In the private sector. I personally think right now may not be the time to lose that 'extra' income as u may find it's the *only* income. Not only the economy but anything can happen and make u wish u hadn't given up your career I can't better the advice on here re childcare. But huge goodluck and children are pretty resilient/adaptable and I'm sure it'll all work out whatever path you choose.

Yes, we have always used black outs. In fact I never open them. All he does in his room is sleep. Light still gets in but it's much easier for him to get to sleep this way

Yes, we have always used black outs. In fact I never open them. All he does in his room is sleep. Light still gets in but it's much easier

I agree with Atticus here. He was just pointing out that the Actress was advertising football but then had the sound down.. but it seems that because the post was 'negative' about the Actress the post was locked and he was told to add to a very old thread about the actress but there are many threads about Franklins, The Victoria Inn seems a little inconsistent

We started sleep training from about 4 wks. We never had to do controlled crying cos he never got into bad habits. It may be that you're fine and could catch things early enough. Good luck Xxxx

on maternity leave i visited all the local state schools. Heber stood out as being really good. The only issue i had was the pitiful sports area/play ground but actually compared to the other (state) schools this was normal. You have to go private to get decent sports facilities... :( conclusion: heber's a sound school that i'd personally be happy to send my kids to

2 mums out of our nct class hired maternity nurses which seemed to work really well for them they literally solved the problem within a week - it was amazing considering that these woman were struggling to leave the house. i remember visiting one mum on day 4, and she swung the door opening, and shouted with joy 'LOOK!! - I'm wearing make-up!' the routines they used were the 7-7pm routine which is the same routine as the gina ford routine, but i think it really helped having someone explain sleep associations and help support them through sleep training i.e. letting a baby settle themselves. however, if you're confident you can do it on your own those webistes, or just reading the gina ford book, - they just repeat themsevles and the core concepts are pretty straight forward to carry out with minimal cost: 1) encourage full feeds and steer clear from grazing which means they can sleep for longer periods 2) always start the day at 7am so then the night feeds fall naturally to one feed at 3am instead of 2 feeds - 2am and 5am - nightmare 3) allow the baby to settle himself. let him settle for 5 mins then if not asleep go in and reswaddle etc. keep repeating using patting etc but dont' pick them up and turn lights on as this just makes things worse. let them settle 4) babies will get over tired if they're awake more than two hours. try and avoid this as over tired is really tough to solve. (we used a dummy in this situation - so if going on a day trip and they can't get to sleep - dummies were a god-send but can cause dependence) 5) rocking a baby to sleep or feeding a baby to sleep could mean you'll be doing that a year down the line... back at work at 1am in teh morning... very tough. 6) make sure they get enough calories in the day for their age and don't over sleep during the day. NEVER keep a baby awake during the day thinking they'll sleep through the night.... see 4) hope this helps or saves money! cos this is pretty much what they'll tell you xxxx

alieh Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That sounds really encouraging, Vickster. I'm > going to choose to believe it and live in happy > hope! I also hope that the second time around I > won't be so weedy and affected by people being > cruel to me on the wards, and will stand up for > myself better. Though sleep deprivation, drugs, > and feeling generally fragile can always reduce me > to tears pretty easily. Next time will be so much easier. You'll be totally ready. No shock or fear. You'll be fine and even if they're mean to u You'll be able to shake it off just cos you know it'll end soon enough and you'll rise above it. You'll be fine X

Single vaccines are less cost effective to pharmaceutical companies b/c they have a high production value, but low return.... now i am nitpicking.. and i can't believe i'm doing this (on my day off) this has just annoyed me, i'm not sure why. I think it's because everyone loves to bash pharmaceutical companies. It's sociably unacceptable not to. they really were not at fault here and it's not whether a vaccine is more or less cost effective. It's whether a vaccine is more or less profitable that impacts the choices around manuacturing a product. If the margins are negative, they wont do it. They're not a charity. However if the margins are positive, chances are they will go out and sell it. i've done a little research (sorry) sanofi (rubella & measles) and merck (mumps) make the single vaccines, glaxo, merck and sanofi make the mmr vaccine. the government would have drawn up a contract most likely with *one* of those companies to supply the mmr. They will fight for that contract but they dont' try and 'push' the single one over the mmr one. They'll see what the government wants and apply for that contract... urgh.. sorry about this One of Europe's most successful pharma companies Roche, invested in R&D and discovered a breast cancer drug called Herceptin. They charge a huge amount for that drug to make a return on teh $2bn it cost to discover it. In just 9 years time it will go generic and we will have a cheap and highly effective drug that can actually cure HER2 +ve breast cancer. How can we knock this system? It's working.. drugs are being discovered and people are being cured. The public would never of course be happy or grateful that these companies had in fact investing, year over year, in the research and development to discover a safe and effective treatment for loads of diseases incl cancer/diabetes etc etc. Yes their motive is to generate a return but at least they're generating a return from trying to make people better. Tobacco companies make profits by directly killing people. None of their profits go into research or helping their victims, and they really are victims in my view, most likely a portion of their profits goes to pay off litigation costs. Why is it that pharma companies are such an easy target over say tobacco companies? rant rant.. separate thread.. sorry sorry ps i don't work for a pharmaceuticals company and never have

Senor Chevalier Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pretty sure Taper meant not cost effective to > those procuring it. Clearly Pharma Cos will sell > wherever there is a market. Let's not nitpick - > the bigger point is the the lack of proper > clinical comparison and the misleading missives > that blur this fact. Saffron is spot on on this. i'm just not sure this is nitpicking - sweeping statements and aportioning blame to a whole industry that i'm not sure had anything to do with this fiasco is misleading too There's one villain in all this and that's andrew wakefield imo (and possibly the Daily Mail et al)

'Single vaccines are not cost effective to pharmaceutical companies' How are single vaccines not cost effective to pharma companies? Don't they sell them to customers such as the nhs? A sale's a sale? Do u mean single vaccines wouldn't be cost effective to *government or the nhs* as they'd have 3x appointments and therefore higher administrative costs etc? If it's the same company making the single and mmr vaccines and they charge more for mmr than single, then I could understand if u were being suspect about their intentions. Are they made by the same company do u know? Otherwise I don't understand how its not 'cost effective'

OK - i've just called my sister to ask her to expand a bit on which ward and why she thought it was better than kings She was on the Alec Bourne ward She felt that the midwives genuinely cared. They were articulate and intelligent and the continuity of care was 'second to none' Some of the little touches she liked e.g. the alcoholic loo seat wipes (There was no soap in my communal toilet for 3 days when i stayed at Kings and when i explained this to a midwife her response was ?Well it?s not my job to do that?) However, she said the hospital itself was old and crumbly and the food was terrible She thinks that St Mary's has a higher C-section rate which initially she disliked, assuming woman were being forced into intervention etc. But after talking to other mums and going back she believes actually it's because that's what the woman were choosing and the hospital were just responding to their requests more readily than at other hospitals... All very anecdotal this but i'm sure everyone realises this is just one account of someone who spent every day with me at Kings and then had a baby at St Mary's shortly afterwards She went onto say that if people want to find out about hospitals there?s a website called www.patientopinion.org.uk which may be useful if youre considering a different hospital

My bad - SW u'd answered that already When was the study done? Can we see the results? I wanna know I'm making right decision

sillywoman Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hmmmm Interesting, though when the healthcare > Commission asked "Overall, thinking about the > postnatal care you received in hospital after the > birth of your baby, were you treated with respect > and dignity?" 86.6% of St Mary's Mums said 'Yes, > Always' or 'Yes, sometimes' compared with 96.4% of > Kings Mums & 91.5% of Tommies Mums - maybe better > off south of the river after all? This is really strange. My sister *just* had her baby at st mary's (she picked it cos she knew they had the 'best after care and facilities') she works at the royal free and was given this tip by other staff at the roayl free. My mum visited me daily at kings last xmas and was 'depressed' by my care. The first thing both of them said after my siste's time at mary's was to 'get a place at marys next time' they were both highly impressed w marys.

fearnpw1 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ladywotlunches - I agree wholehearted Me too!

>As Copleston Rd is in SE15, shouldn't this be in the Lounge? If you look at streetmap, the yellow house's garden is in se22 ;)

i second mellor's post we keep our clamped high chair in the back of the car for visits to friends/parents/holidays etc but only cos we bought a normal high chair beforehand. The great thing about the clamp on highchairs is they take up far less room in our pokey london kitchens

I tried 'leg-over-move' this morning and it was stress-free. thank you, thank you i've already passed this tip on to a mate at work who's having similar issues

apparently St Mary's is the best hospital for after care in post natal wards somehow you can get into hospitals that's not in your catchment... don't ask me how but apparenlty you can i know cos my sister did exactly this, just to have her baby at St mary's.. and get access their great after care

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/sep/30/british-brothers-terror-attack-europe they keep harping on about this - perhaps i should turn the radio off more

could they have been doing a dry-run terrorist training exercise? just an idea - they keep saying they're expecting some incident soon

Removing CB from higher rate tax payers seems inevitable in today's climate However, this silly loop hole smacks of a rushed through policy They have 3 years to reformat the online form to include a check box asking if the spouse earns more than the threshold edit to say: 'joint income is more than threshold' It will get ironed out before they introduce this particular cut It's just an error This is all about distracting the middle classes ahead of the REAL cuts on the 20th

the leg-over idea definitely sounds less harsh... The feet on upper arm idea felt like something out of one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest i've been dreading nappy time :( - but now can't wait to try this as it'll make life so much easier if this gets sorted edit to say: what really bugs me is, once the nappy's on everything's suddenly all fine again. No tears, just business as usual. We are left emotionally-scarred and they look absolutely fine!

>I don't think you can buy a private room at Kings? in which case - ear plugs, blind fold and a fan