Ruth_Baldock

We definitely all need headspace sometimes; Saffron I am right there with you re: Mother's day yearnings. I am ailing from a particuarly tricky/nasty tooth extraction last week, and have retreated back to bed. Eldest got up in the night, found the pressies he and Mr B had bought, and came upstairs at 1am half covered in Milk Tray declaring "Mama chocolate!". Pub later, for a medicinal G&T I reckon.

Jenny, so sorry to hear this! Exactly the same thing happened to me in December whilst out with The Babies :( bastards! Xx

Sillywoman, you can have mine for keeps if you like!

HH, it's something Mummies and Daddies do when they love each other very much, and what they do when their Firstborn is behaving well at night, thus the existence of second born. Hence no sex again. Ever. Not chancing another baby, tyvm.

We do egg fried rice a lot, takes no time at all and is a sure fire hit with both infants. Also toast pizza, sometimes on Pitta if I'm feeling Posh.

Have fun everyone! Have a G&T for me, will you? *hic*

BST; I LOVE Motherventing, loved that response too. I can tell you what I was doing 4-6weeks post partum, and it didn't involve gettin' jiggy wit' it/conjugal relations/The Sexy Time. It did involve weeping and feeling yeuuch. Well done, GF. Or as Mumsnet call her, She Who Must Not Be Named

A friend has that Hemnes Daybed and it's luuuverly. We may get one, too. High praise, indeed.

Childcare swap? So, work from home 2-3x a week and arrange with a friend to pick up DD from school until 5pm, and you could return the favour the days you aren't working? I'd love to work from home, I am meant to be going back to lecturing in Sept (babies willl be 14mo and 2y9mo)but finding the right childcare for us is a nightmare. I may end up doing the accounts/book-keeping/job bookings for our family business from home...

Gina, that is exactly what we do! The only brands we buy are for washing/nappy based things, everything else is the cheapy cheap stuff. Makes no difference to us, it all tastes the same really!

Our weekends are all over the place! We always say lets plan X,Y,Z but barely ever get round to half of it. My memory was excellent pre-babies, and I was v organised. Big sigh.

In a word; no. I am a bit scatty/flakey. Except when it comes to routines/ baby -toddler activites, thats what keeps me sane. I never write anything down, and if someone emails me, I always always forget to reply, but will convince myself that I have. D'oi!

Hi Nabz, *disclaimer, this is just my opinion/experience and I don't for one second claim it to be gospel. I agree with Pickle entirely. When my first baby was born, I was really apprehensive about breastfeeding in public, and spent the first 6 weeks of his life indoors, basically. It was very frustrating and lonely. When hewas abour 12 weeks old, I snapped, got sick of hiding my breastfeeding away, and fed him in public; and it was fine. Easy peasy, no one noticed, or cared :) Your confidence will soon build and you'll get the hang of it, and also a feed will start to take less time so when you do feed whilst out, it won't take ages and ages (my furst took about 10 minutes by a month, my second is more of a piggy and it took her five minutes of noising snuffling, slupring and grunting) Personally, if you find breastfeeding easy and a positive experience, then I'd carry on as you are. It's much easier to pop Baby on a boob rather than formula feeding in my experience- my first was mix fed from around 11 weeks. Formula didn't fill him up more/for longer than a breastfeed did, really. Re: expressing- I had an avent manual, it worked perfectly well but took blooming ages. I invested in a medela swing and it was one of the best baby-related purchases I've ever bought!

Mr B does it on a Saturday AM; Morrisons. Used to be Sainsburys but Morrisons is better value IMO. We spend about ?60 a week, on four of us; two babies-7mo and 2y3mo We tend to bulk buy bread, meat, chicken and freeze it. Milk seems to dissapear in a nanosecond. If it's a "difficult" month, sometimes we will make our own bread. Am v lazy though. We always buy bananas, apples, blueberries, strawberries, avocados, rice cakes, hummus and cheese. All BLW essentials. Stopped buying biscuits and Mr B makes them for us now! We do a lot of slowcooking so buy bits for that, typically. Once a month we buy loads of rice, pasta, cous cous etc. Tinned tomatoes and the like. Also nappies, which are costing us a Small fortune. TBH, I'd like to start buying fresh produce from greengrocers/farmers markets but like I said, am v lazy!

My friend's daughter had the grommets/adenoids op yesterday, and my friend has blogged about it, including the practical side of things; i.e. the procedure for hospital admission, what happens on the day of the op etc. thought it might be useful to some parents here! Friend's blog is great in any case, grommets aside; well worth a Glue ear/adenoids op

Happy Friday, Forum! Baby Lex (7mo) often comes out in a red rash when outside in the sunlight. The rash isn't raised and dissapears w/in 1-3 hours and doesn't bother Lex in the slightest. It it normally concentrated around her eyes, forehead and rOund the sides of her head around her ears. It happened when she was tIny and it was still warm/hot. I'd take her to the GP with this vague description but fear there isn't much they could do without seeing it. What gives, Forum?

Gina, I know how you feel. Honestly. We've talked about this before, and I've had some awful experiences at groups, and I'm not even that much of a 'Young' Mum anymore (26, woe...). We're always around, Seb is younger than L and considerably less verbal, but he's a happy and friendly little chap. And Lex is just lovely too. I know it's quite far from you, but the All Saints playgroup at All Saints Church on Blenheim (Sp?) Road in SE15 is a lovely and accepting group; you get all sorts and it's one of my favourites, without a doubt. xxxx

I did from 34wks. Perfectley safe but I'm afraid didn't help. Lex was 2wks overdue and an elective eventually! I had 2-3 cups of the vile stuff a day. Bleeeurgh. Good luck!

Good enough for me! *wrestles children into coats*

Given today is Ash Wednesday, do you reckon the playgroup will be running???

Chantelle; good to know. And here's me thinking that having major abdominal surgery (twice, in 18mo) was painful and extremeley difficult. Other advice for myself: Don't worry about solids. Under 1 is just for fun. And no, your son will never be the type of child to chow down enthusiastically on anything you give him, what you have there is a picky eater. But it's fine. Around the time your second baby is born, you'll make a good friend who has a baby who is exactly the same, anyway, so you don't have the only meal refuser in the village. Make triple sure everything on your baby's birth cert is absolutely correct, because it's a nightmare to get anything changed. Don't get a Phil&Ted's explorer. Get a side-by-side. Don't sign up to a forum using your full name and a pathetic underscore as your username. Your Mumsnet login or twitter handle would work just fine too and you won't look like a huge tool.

Another vote for the hamax smiley! Our son has been riding in his since he was 10m, he's now 26mo and still loves it :)

I have a seven month old who feeds at the same times. I know how knackering it is, trust me, but the night feeds are just as needed/important as day feeds, if not more so, I believe nightfeeds have A higher fat contents than those during the day. Sorry, didn't mean to sound patronising- I do know how you feel. My baby is huuuuge and nurses ever 2.5-3hrs in the day too, so she gets 8-12 bf / 24hrs. I'd like some sleep, really.

Otta; snigger. Ask the forum before buying a pram. Seriously. East Dulwich/Snowboarder knows best.

I agree with Sillywoman. Bad scene, Daily Fail. Saffron; even when they're not ill, we sometimes get our two to have a late pm catnap if it all getting Too Much. You did the right thing. *nods*