etta166

Mothercare are enormous! Primark 2-3 fit my girl at 18m, and John Lewis do 18-24m pants. Not much use anymore, but woollies did 12-18m pants, and you might be able to find some second hand. If all else fails, you can get pants from elimination communication websites but they are a bit pricey.

A lot of benefits are assessed on household income, not the income of the person claiming. It is bizarre to have a different threshold for joint income and individual income, but it's fairly consistent with the approach to things like working tax credit and child tax credit to consider the income of the household for child benefit too.

Although you can convert a loft under permitted development rights, it is subject to a number of restrictions and will not cover all types of loft conversion. Looking on the Southwark Plannin website is useful, especially for terraces where lots of the houses may have similar conversions already. Local loft companies are another source of useful, if biased, information. From memory, we could do a dormer loft conversion under permitted development but not a mansard - something to do with raising brick walls...

Also not widely publicised is that it's not your gross income that counts, but your net adjusted income. It's a bit more complicated than this, but net adjusted income is basically the income that you pay tax on. Various things get deducted from your total income like gift aid donations, childcare vouchers, persion payments and other salary sacrifice amounts. So you can actually earn quite a lot more than 50K and keep all your child benefit, especially if you donate a lot to charity or make huge pension contributions. It's probably best to consult an accountant if your situation is not really clear-cut, like one person earing loads more than 60K.

My sister did have 2 extra milk teeth, but they came in behind her two front incisors and not at the back as extra molars. Unless it appears to be impacting on the existing teeth (i.e. causing cramping or crossing of the teeth) then my parents were just advised to ignore it. In the end, my sister had the extra teeth pulled out to preserve her adult teeth. Extra (supernumary) teeth tend to run in the family, so it's pretty unlikely unless there's a family history.

Night-time weaning sounds like your only option. How willing/able is your partner to take over all night-time duties until you have broken the cycle of night waking = milk? I found it impossible to settle my breast-feeding toddler at night because of the association in her mind that mummy = milk, so we only managed to sort out sleeping issues by removing me from the situation entirely for a couple of months. Good luck!

I took a real shine to one made by Yepp, but in the end it wasn't suitable for my bike. Like SebsC said, it really alters the way you cycle, and more so if you are on the short side. They work best on Dutch bikes, rather than the standard UK type hybrid or mountain bike. They are completely impossible on a small road bike! I do prefer the idea of a front seat, but a back seat was more practical in the end.

http://www.dinopit.com/dinosaurs/share-your-dinosaur-cake-idea/ I am hoping to make the first cake shown on this website for my son and daughter's party next month. It has loads of great ideas.

I haven't used the all-in-one bumgenius, but I have used the pocket nappies (bumgenius v3) on my two children from birth. They were great, and are durable as they are still going strong and about to be put into use for a 3rd time. The pocket nappies have a built in fleece liner that goes over the microfibre inserts, but other than that they look quite similar to the freetime nappies. I'd highly recommend the pocket nappies, and they were good for little (6lb) breast-fed babies.

Fourways pharmacy in Herne Hill does babies from birth upwards.

Charity shop is a good idea, or a selection of poundland toys. 3 year olds are usually pretty excited and amused by new toys, even if adults think that they are a bit cheap/rubbish. It's the novely! Also, a pad of paper and some pens and stickers should give you 15-20 minutes of fun.

finger nails I do when my children are distracted, something like watching tv or listening to a story. As for getting them to sit in the bath, we have quite a lot of toys and have also been though "traning" phases where if they stood up and wouldn't sit down when told, then they came straight out of the bath (which they both see as a very bad thing).

Once I was back at work, I found that my supply was very variable from week to week. I never really worked out why, but it did go up and down, not just down. In the US/Canada a doctor might prescribe Motilium (domperidone) to boost milk supply. It's not actullay for that, it's and anti-sickness drug, but it does work. http://www.bedfordhospital.nhs.uk/upload_folder/patient%20information/domperidone%20to%20increase%20breast%20milk%20production.pdf

The primary schools admission booklet gives this information in a table, not on a map. You can also contact individual school offices for the information about previous years.

I stopped needing the baby set (the bar and crotch strap) at around 14 months, as the guidance is that you stop using it once your child can climb in and out of the chair on their own. I never used the harness with my first child, but I still sometimes have to strap my almost 2 year old second child in as she just fidgets more than my son did.

As for the rain noise, you can get awnings from Velux that they say will reduce rain noise. http://www.velux.co.uk/Private/Products/VELUX_Blinds/Product_Guide/Awning I have no experience of them, but I remeber reading about them when we did a loft conversion.

When they are teething, toddler teeth can be particularly difficult to brush. I've been through good phases and phases of pinning down both my children. Brushing songs work well for us, I started with songs about brushing teeth but now as long as I sing something they are both pretty compliant. I guess this is a hangover from pinning them down, but they still (at 3.2 and 1.5) both brush their teeth lying down on the floor... Electric toothbroshes gave us about 2-3 months of good brushing before the novelty wore off. Different kinds/flavours/colours of toothpaste help keep things varied and a bit more interesting. One thing that worked well at about 14m was letting our children brush our teeth while simultaneously brushing theirs. Good luck and remember that it's only a phase :)

Thanks all. Looks like it will be a third tripp trapp, then. I wonder if anyone is selling one at the moment?

http://www.ellisdavid.com/personal-insurance/index.html As far as I know, anyone can use them. I'm not sure about car insurance, but they do our contents and buildings insurance. I used to manage the freehold of the flats I lived in, so I started using them for that and then just kept on when we moved out to a house.

Elm Lodge if you live more to the North Dulwich side of East Dulwich? They are always great at fitting in urgent appointments and call-backs. Also, if you need to then go to A&E with mastitis because as you know and as Fuchia said, it's not to be ignored and needs urgent treatment. Good luck!

I'm expecting my third child at the moment, and we are trying to decide if we will use a third Tripp Trapp chair or not. If your children have grown out of theirs, what age were they when they stopped using it? My 3 year old still loves his, and isn't keen to use a grown-up chair at all, but will that suddenly change??

I'm very lazy and I used a broker called Ellis David. They cost ?20 for the service charge on the renewal, and do all the searching and comparing for you. You just have to tell them the basics of what you are insuring (i.e. rebuild cost, property age/type etc., contents value, specific contents to insure) and they do all the work.

Christiania bikes have a range of child-carrying bikes. Another option is a back seat for the 3 year old and a trailer bike for the 5.5 year old. http://www.boxcycles.com/ My 3 year old goes under his own steam and follows me on my bike (I go on the road, he stays on the sidewalk). We don't have any hills to climb, though.

Cheeky C's works well for me. I have to pick up my son from nursery just before noon, so I can't get Forrest Hill and back in time. I'm free on 8th Feb as well.

All children/toddlers go through phases of eating loads and then seeming not to eat at all. From your post, it looks like you already know that the best thing you can do it go with the flow and ignore it. My son used to go on hunger strikes at this age too, usually over a power struggle with me and as a way to try to gain control. He never went more than 48 hours without eating, and the phase just passed. As long as your daughter isn't underweight or ill, just keep reassuring yourself that it's a phase and she's not going to starve herself. Good luck and don't balme yourself for it!