Bumpkin

Saffron, what are the benefits of the delayed schedule in your opinion? Just curious, but little B has already all the injections as advised when advised and no adverse reactions.

littlemoo, again thanks for sharing and so sorry to hear of your loss. I fortunately had a positive outcome and little B and myself are fine and healthy. However I had very late onset pre-eclampsia which didn't manifest the day before so I thought all would be well with the home birth with local well regarded community midwives. The fact that my blood pressure had suddenly sky rocketed to very dangerous levels was only picked up as my partner begged the midwife to come out and give me some pain relief and had to be quite forceful. She wanted to have her tea and wait another couple of hours as I was only 4cm dilated at her previous visit (they don't stay with you the whole time you are in labour until you're established). She reluctantly came, didn't give pain relief and took blood pressure as an afterthougth. As it was extremely high she told my partner to drive me to the hospital and park nearby, she wouldn't come in the car with us or drive us in her car. We couldn't find a parking space outside so had to walk quite some distance which pushed my blood pressure even higher. As soon as I got into hospital, the fantastic emergency team took over and I was so relieved to be in professional hands. The aneathetist came to visit me the next day to check I was ok and said I was very high risk of having had a stroke or major organ failure... I really don't want to just scare people, but I strongly feel I was very naive about the risks espcially being an older mother (post 30) and feel very lucky everything turned out ok. I personally would never recommend any one to have their first birth at home, but everyone has their own view coloured by their own experiences.

Don't worry Lochie, I know there's no one answer to this. Just thought it was an interesting view as I was very uninformed when I chose a home birth and really had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Obviously it's great for some people, but I was quite shocked and surprised when my midwife told me very near the end that around 50% of home births end up in hospital anyway (or something like that, can't remember now, sure someone will correct me!). I hadn't even properly packed my hospital bag as I was sure it would be ok..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/barbara-ellen-birth-marilyn-monroe Did anyone read this at the weekend? I definitely fell into the 'heartbreakingly naive women' category (not a hot shot though in anything!). I had last minute very bad complications and the late journey to Kings having started with a home birth didn't help at all (probably made things a lot worse). My baby needed to be rushed to ICU straight after being born too and if he'd been born at home, I'm not convinced his problem would have been picked up so am extremely relieved we ended up in hospital for the birth. Definitely worth considering if you're thinking of a home birth. Also the comment that this pulls midwives away from hospitals is one to bear in mind.

We're applying this year and live in catchment for G Green and probably St John's. Given previous poor performance of G Green, I've fairly exhaustively looked round all the local schools including all the ones on your list apart from Goodrich and spoken to quite a few parents. We did consider moving if we were not happy, but I have to say I agree that Goose Green does look to be the most progressive in terms of reading schemes / maths schemes, feedback to parents and the Headmistress seemed to have a much stronger vision of how she's going to improve the school than the other heads (exept Fairlawn). I've looked round a couple of times and the kids in all the classes seem to be focussed on lessons and joining in well (not the case at all the schools). It's music and art facilities were definitely at the top end of the schools listed and the fact they had a number of male teachers is great. Honestly, Fairlawn would be my top choice, but it's almost impossible to get into and I prefer living in East Dulwich to that part of Honour Oak. Based on what I've seen and heard, I'd put G Green above all the others. Fingers crossed!

New mother, re your point on your bottle fed babies having fewer bugs than contempories, one of our NCT mums bottle fed from around 2 weeks whilst the rest of us breast fed for much longer varying times. The bottle fed baby definitely had less bugs! My son who was breast fed for ages caught chicken pox a while back and the day before the spots broke out when he would have been most infectious we played with bottle fed friend and they shared a water cup, but the other boy never caught it. So much for the breast feeding is healthier stats!

at our first nursery, it was a different thing each week, headlice, norovirus, chicken pox, scarlet fever (we didn't get that one thank god, changed nursery the week after!). Took ages to get rid of the lice!

I started weaning around 5 1/2 months and it went ok if slowly until 7 months when I introduced meat as well. At that point, baby B just refused to eat, was complete nightmare until had holiday in Italy with baby boltholes and all the kids had their meal at the same time. For the first couple of days, my son still refused to eat, but by the end of the week he was stuffing his face and we never looked back. Who knows, could have been we were more relaxed on hols or that he was just having a phase but I think him realising that everyone else ate food just like him helped him get on with it a bit more. Doesn't really help much I guess if you don't have an imminent communal holiday booked! Good luck, I remember how awful it was, but the time does seem to have gone v quickly in retrospect.

I think one of the main reasons the blue bins are filling up is that the council haven't actually been collecting them! We had our new bins beginning of October and both fortnightly collections post then were missed. I rang 3 times and eventually someone came out and emptied just ours which I was quite cross about as I told them specifically that none of the bins on our street had been emptied in over a month and were all full. I've yet to see them come out on the specified date..

I've used the 345 to get back from the museum and usually a good option with tired children as less hassle than tubes and trains, but be warned, it took my sister 2 hrs on the bus getting back to Peckham on the day she took little B out!

That's great news, where abouts will the veg garden be? (am intrigued as not loads of green space..).

I think most kids develop various tics at times which pass relatively quickly esp if you try not to comment on it. My 3 yr old had 3 going on at one point(a very irritating fake cough, a pronounced blink and a strange gutteral noise!), usually when tired. It lasted maybe a month or so but has gone now. May be worth getting checked out, depends if you think it's actually a problem.

I'd be up for this too please!

After some early morning playful shouting or something, my dad told me that if you opened your mouth too wide whilst shouting it would split open at the edges... Denies all knowledge now but it had me fooled / confused for several years.

I sympathise, although there are probably loads of people that would love a 6am wake up rather than the 5.30am that we had at 15 months for a long time.. It does get better eventually I promise! I think once they start walking and running more they get more tired, but also naturally they start sleeping in a bit more and it can be encouraged. Mine was hideously early and often awake a couple of times in the night at that age, but since he turned 3 (yes I know it feels a long way off) he's a 7am mostly. I'd try not to rush in at 6am either, try to encourage playing on his own a bit and he could possibly drop off again. I always rushed straight in, but friends who didn't ended up with children that would amuse themselves until a more sociable hour.

My son had his done a few weeks ago and like Holly bush, I was surprised by the complete lack of fuss. Think important thing is you make it really clear that you don't think it will hurt and you don't think it's a big deal. If you apologise and bribe too much in advance, it will prob scare her more. Not to make light of her fears, but with my son, I mentioned it in passing the night before and said it would stop him getting nasty illnesses in the future and how lucky we were that we had good drs these days. Didn't really talk about it much in the morning, just said we were going and he didn't even squeak when needle went in. Just lucky I guess.

Slightly further trek,but found good, decently priced selection at Decathalon Canada Wharf, only couple of minutes walk from tube.

Hello, also only have the one and plan to stay that way and always happy to meet up with new mums. I'm only around Fridays currently, but please include me on any distribution list.

Seconding the clock thing for the early mornings. It must be v confusing for little ones if they wake up and it's sunny and they don't know whether they are meant to get up or not. Our son cottoned on v quickly to the bunny asleep / bunny awake concept and must be happier to be greated with smiles at the correct time rather than constant moaning from me pre 6am! Other tip is to ensure it's out of reach as they can work the controls very quickly!

My mum pushed me into doing 'extras' pretty every night of the week when I was younger - piano, clarinet, brownies, gym, ballet, band etc. Quite frankly I'd have been far happier milling around with my friends and rather resent all the time spent doing organised things rather than nuturing precious friendships. Each to their own, I'm sure others deprived of these things wish their parents had invested more time in them, you'll never get it right!

me too

Can anyone confirm if there's an open day next Monday (6th)? Thanks

We have had a regular family of blackbirds in our garden for the last 3 years, always pecking for worms in the grass. Also have a family of great tits which have fledgelings at the moment and saw a couple of goldfinches earlier this week. Not a lot else though but i thought blackbirds were one of the more commom birds in East Dulwich...

Brilliant, this made me laugh so much. I'd read it before baby B came along, but found it so much funnier 3 years in!

Sorry to hear this Susyp, maybe he was so cross partly due to being embarassed about the snoring.. Mr B is alway paranoid about snoring although thankfully he only does when he's very drunk! I think once you have kids, separate beds are more common than you'd think from vague discussions with friends although maybe not everynight as a permanent basis. I'm lucky in that Mr B always volunteers for the spare bed (I can't sleep in our spare room, it's too noisy!). I think trying to get him to go to the drs is a good idea, but hard to get men to agree to this, definitely approach it when not tired and annoyed! I had a patch of sleeping really badly recently and finally got some zopiclone from the drs, only needed a couple to get my sleeping back on track, but they gave me 6 blissful hours of deep sleep and I woke really refreshed, funny side effect was that apparently I snored really loudly on them which sent Mr B scuttling to the spare bedroom again! Good luck.