AnyaJoeli

Renata Hamvas Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi Nigello > Since last week Southwark council parking > enforcement officers are issuing ?80 Penalty > Charge Notices to parked up car, bus, taxi and HGV > drivers, who refuse to switch off their engines > when asked. > I'm not sure, however whether other boroughs are > doing the same (I'm assuming by east central > London you were elsewhere) > Renata Sue Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Renata, when you say "refuse to switch off their > engines when asked", do you mean asked by any > member of the public, or asked by a Southwark > official of some kind? I'd be interested in this - since hearing a programme on radio 4 about the difference it makes in air quality in an area where there was a dedicated (and official) small team of volunteers approaching drivers in their cars asking them to switch off their engines I've been even more aware of just how much people sit with the engine running in the roads around where I live (I'm in Peckham rather than east Dulwich)...but whenever I've approached drivers - in a friendly manner and usually with both my small children in tow - I've been verbally abused and quite frankly the toxic feeling it leaves is even more toxic than the car fumes. I'm sick of being shouted at in front of my children it's just so depressing. But I do find it so depressing that it would be SO EASY to make a notable difference in air pollution just by solving this one pointless and annoyingly selfish issue. I understand that it's human nature to get defensive and pissed off if you feel someone is attacking what you're doing, but it's just spreading the awareness that actually it's creating an actual pollution problem and there is simply no need to have the engine running when you're scrolling on your phone, listening to music, eating a sandwich... So I was wondering - is there anything we can get from the council, flyers, anything, that we could hand wordlessly to drivers in this situation or to "back up" the verbal approach. Totally friendly and just trying to enforce cleaner air for everyone INCLUDING THE DRIVER OF THE CAR/VAN/ETC. It makes me depressed on a daily basis, this problem. I have to walk back and forth along Queens Road Peckham with my kids on the school run every day which is bad enough for their lungs, so when people sit churning out needless pollution from the side roads which would otherwise hopefully be slightly less toxic it makes me feel really helpless...

I am a postnatal Pilates specialist, I teach a general class on a Monday evening in Peckham at 8pm, there is a space if you'd like to join, I always tailor exercises to suit and it's diastasis recti-friendly (and most of the class are mums). Or, I am running a two-week workshop on pelvic floor and core restore, Thursday 12th and 19th July at 8pm if you'd like to come along to that. Email me for more details if you're interested, Anya x [email protected]

Hi there I'm writing a book about modern motherhood which will come out next Autumn. It's an emotional and mental wellbeing book, I'm writing it with a psychologist, offering a toolkit of therapies and strategies for dealing with various potholes we come across in the motherhood journey - looking at anxiety, anger, other emotional issues which we might not struggle with until we become mothers. How we judge ourselves harshly and berate our achievements from birth onwards, and how this affects our mental health and resilience. How your birth experience can frame the early months and even years. How hormones/sleep deprivation affect your behaviour and relationships. How we set ourselves very high standards and are so quick to call ourselves a "failure"or a "bad parent" "I never thought I'd be the kind of mother who?". The work/mothering balance?ahh that's a biggie. The book will tackle big subjects with humour and empathy. I'd love to chat to as wide a range of mums as possible - i.e. not just those in the early days throes of newborn sleep deprivation or the toddler tunnel, but also mums of teenagers and beyond. Would also love to chat to some dads too! I would also be very interested to talk to any adoptive parents, or people who have struggled to conceive. My time (as all of our time) is limited for meeting effectively around childcare etc but I'd love to chat face to face if at all possible, and if not I have a questionnaire that I can send out, and we can have follow up chats on email/skype/phone. if you're interested in learning more, please PM me or email me, or message here of course! [email protected]

Hiya I teach Pilates in Peckham on Monday and Tuesday nights, email me if you'd like more details [email protected] or have a look at my website http://anyajoeli.wixsite.com/bodybalancepilates/about xx

Hiya My book Pregnancy the Naked Truth is a good read. I teach Pregnancy Pilates in SE15 and if you sign up for a course you receive a free copy of the book. Let me know if you'd like details. Or check out the book on amazon Pregnancy: The naked Truth by Anya Hayes if you'd like to see more about it. My good friend Zoe is a hypnobirthing teacher in Nunhead and Peckham, and her website is a great place to find inspiration for a positive birth www.hypnobirthingplace.com, she also does taster sessions at Bellenden Therapy Rooms. Congratulations on your pregnancy! xx

Hi there I'm writing a book about modern motherhood which will come out next Autumn. It's an emotional and mental wellbeing book, I'm writing it with a psychologist, offering a toolkit of therapies and strategies for dealing with various potholes we come across in the motherhood journey - looking at anxiety, anger, other emotional issues which we might not struggle with until we become mothers. How we judge ourselves harshly and berate our achievements from birth onwards, and how this affects our mental health and resilience. How your birth experience can frame the early months and even years. How hormones/sleep deprivation affect your behaviour and relationships. How we set ourselves very high standards and are so quick to call ourselves a "failure"or a "bad parent" "I never thought I'd be the kind of mother who?". The work/mothering balance?ahh that's a biggie. The book will tackle big subjects with humour and empathy. I'd love to chat to as wide a range of mums as possible - i.e. not just those in the early days throes of newborn sleep deprivation or the toddler tunnel, but also mums of teenagers and beyond. Would also love to chat to some dads too! I would also be very interested to talk to any adoptive parents, or people who have struggled to conceive. My time (as all of our time) is limited for meeting effectively around childcare etc but I'd love to chat face to face if at all possible, and if not I have a questionnaire that I can send out, and we can have follow up chats on email/skype/phone. if you're interested in learning more, please PM me or email me, or message here of course! [email protected]

Just throwing my two-penneth in, I did NCT first time round and found it brilliant for info and preparation of getting head around having a baby, although I didn't end up with "lifelong friends" and don't see any of my group at all now (nearly 5 years on) it's great for meeting people to share poo discussions with in the first few months. Second time round I met a great group of mums from the edf Winter Babies group and we're still going strong on whatsapp a year later. My lovely friend Zoe is a hypnobirthing teacher, she trained after she'd had a difficult first birth ending in emcs and for her second she had a hypno home birth so she's absolutely proof of the pudding. She also helped me with some techniques to manage my anxiety in my second pregnancy and was brilliant with her calm positive manner I still use her affirmations day to day, I would totally recommend her for hypnobirthing she's based in SE15 and her website is http://www.hypnobirthingandbeyond.com x

We stayed here http://www.lanzaroteretreats.com, actually i was pregnant and it was before we had kids, but everyone else there had kids and wondered why on earth we were coming to such a family friendly place before we needed to! It was great, I definitely will go back with my children when we can. There's a donkey and chickens, cats, and lots of play areas for kids, and it's generally a really lovely place to stay. The nearest beach was a bit rocky and too windy for us, although that might be time of year as it was March, so we drove to other beaches. That may or may not make it less child-friendly, not sure.

I put the school closest to us as 2nd choice as it wasn't my favourite, and we didn't get our first choice but did get the closest school to us.

I'm so grateful I've just found this thread as this is exactly the situation I find myself in, that there just don't seem to be part time roles available and I'm over-qualified for ones that I have been applying for, but don't want to/can't commit to a full time job while my second baby is only 9 months old and eldest has only just started school. This thread has inspired me that there are options out there and given me a bit more enthusiasm just when I was flagging so thank you!

sophiar I've got exactly the same problem with mine, it's a really annoying noise but I cannot for the life of me work out why it's making it! I will take mine to Tommy's for them to have a look at. Thanks edf!

I teach preg Pilates in SE15 on Tuesday evenings at 7.30pm Anya

Hi jenni We've got a group of December 2014-feb 2015 mummies who met through this forum and now spend quite a lot of time together...we have created a whatsapp group and often chat on whatsapp and meet up every week. You're more than welcome to join the whatsapp group? If you'd like to, pm me your number and I'll add you. Anya x

Hiya I'm a Pilates teacher based in peckham, I've just had my 2nd baby so my classes aren't running just now but will be from April. Pm me if you need details and that might be useful to you if you haven't found anyone by then. Congratulations! Anya x

Kes I can totally relate...my mother in law and one of her good friends are old-school nct teachers from 20 years ago and I had a fair few comments from her after my first birth experience where she said things like the fact that I had an epidural caused me to have a section...er, no I had induced labour and warriored on through it for 2 days before pleading for an epidural, and the section was a crash section not a failure to progress lack of belief in mother nature section. My son wouldn't be alive had the section not happened, and I had obviously had placenta issues which meant that although overdue he hadn't been growing for a few weeks and induction definitely saved his life. So while I wholeheartedly believe in natural birth and how empowering and amazing natural birth and homebirth is having seen so many positive experiences, I have also experienced the nct/natural is the only way "bullying" side where if you don't do it naturally you're just not trying hard enough or being bullied by risk-averse consultants (I was told that this time round). A couple of years ago I suffered a haemorrhage a few weeks after a miscarriage where I obviously had retained "products", unhappily while we were on holiday in Sri lanka. I had to go to a public hospital there and the experience was so traumatic and terrifying (hygiene, crowding, available technology) that I vowed never to take our nhs and hospitals for granted ever again. The whole time I was in the hospital in Sri lanka I was promising myself never to complain about Kings ever ever. An extreme example definitely, but a bit of perspective. We are very lucky to have such a great teaching hospital next door. That aside, even without comparing to a run down hospital in Sri Lanka where street dogs wander the outside corridors, my experience at Kings this time was nothing but positive and although a part of me will always grieve the natural birth I had striven for first time round, I feel so much more human and positive and relaxed with a week old baby now, I don't think I felt this normal until my firstborn was about 18 months old. I was a shadow of my former self for well over a year, physically and emotionally depleted. I can definitely say that in the same way that a complication-free vbac would have been an emancipation from that past experience, my elective was empowering and healing. Sorry this is quite rambling. Newborn brain...

Yep totally agree re attachment parenting/sleep "problems" Saffron and that's a whole other debate to start on here and a pretty emotive one (I had a non sleeper but I'm not a gina mum instinctively, but I don't think its necessarily related...who knows what my second will be like, I know a set of twins who have completely different sleep characters - same parents same routine). Re nct...I felt personally I was given lots of info and lots of tools to deal with various eventualities and felt I had pretty much heard of a lot of things that could go awry in labour by the end of the course, and had read loads about birth without fear, hypnobirthing etc etc myself and felt confident and good until preeclampsia reared its ugly head in my first birth story, but I don't feel cheated by nct. The thing with birth is that you can be really lucky or really unlucky and the trouble is with a traumatic birth that nothing, nothing will prepare you for it and no amount of hearing potential horror stories will do anything but raise your stress levels about it. No course could adequately prepare you for the pain, lack of control and the lack of sleep and the potential post traumatic stress of a very difficult birth experience. But even a great birth experience can be shocking and take its toll on body and spirit. I think the key is that birth and parenting is all a bit of a shock especially first time round and I don't think the nct can ever promise that it will send you away fully prepared for any eventuality but that's probably only realistic and why talking and listening to others is always going to be handy postnatal to work through anything that arises. We're very used to controlling things in our lives and birth is something that isn't very easy to plan and order.

Totally agree northdulmum...I feel exactly the same. I also want to put a huge vote of confidence in the lanes midwife team...if I had been with them first time round it may well have been a very different experience just in terms of the support and shock etc. Had my health not dictated, the lanes may well have taken me to a successful vbac. I went through my first birth notes with Jill demilew a supervising midwife and she was wonderlful and supportive too, made me aware and understand certain aspects...and feel justifiably angry about others...

Hi there I had my elcs on Monday, all went well and the team at Kings were great, it's really busy at the moment so the amount of electives was over their normal amount which meant we were supposed to be seen by the elective team and the consultant jemma johns was going to be delivering my baby, but scheduling and general business of the labour ward got in the way so we were shifted to being the last one of the day and dealt with by the emergency team. They were great I absolutely can't fault them, but re the question above I dont as far as I know think you can "book" or guarantee the consultant who will deliver. Slightly tired and baby brained at the moment but any specific questions give me a shout. The whole experience was a million times better than with my first. And that's even factoring in the fact that I reacted badly to the spinal and was very sick after the operation. And I hate being sick...!

Congratulations Rachel hope it all went brilliantly! Did Vanessa catch the baby? Ahh little Zachary how lovely. Can't wait to meet him. Hope you're feeling good. My little Freddie was born yesterday at 3pm all well and he's feeding so much better than his brother did at this stage. Even got about 4 hours proper sleep last night on the postnatal ward. Looking forward to hearing all the birth news and meeting the babies and seeing mummies again soon Xx

I'm having an elcs tomorrow after a hideous first induced labour experience which ended in a crash section. Kings agreed to the elcs with no probs, they were very supportive of either option vbac or elcs and I didn't experience any pushing (excuse the pun) in either direction. As it happens Ive had health issues which forced the decision against attempting a vbac. Leonie penna has been my consultant as well and she's lovely, very understanding and supportive and calm. Obviously I'm yet to have my actual birth experience second time round but I'm keeping fingers and toes crossed that it's wholeheartedly more positive than my my son's... Ana I would say that a complication-free natural birth is always preferable for you and baby and in terms of recovery much easier. But this is easier said than done I know! But you would struggle to have an nhs hospital agree to an elcs without strong medical reason. Try to relax if you can, I think the anticipation of labour can often be more stressful than labour itself! Good luck with it all.

Hi all Sophie yes got your message on whatsapp thank you, did you receive the various others? There are a few of us on the list now and I'm looking forward to seeing pics of babes and arranging the next meet up, strange to think I'll be venturing out with a newborn when we next meet!! Mantlebees there are quite a few of us on this thread but we've met up in smaller more random gatherings nothing regular as yet but once the babies are here that might change as we all get into the swing of things. Hope everyone with new babies are well and recovering nicely from birth and getting loads of sleep! I'm still slightly in denial about it all and I only have two nights left with my toddler being the only one to potentially disrupt sleep (alongside late pregnancy joys...). Take care all x x

Mine was exactly the same he's now 3 and a half and at just 3 he totally wasn't ready and willing for poos out of the nappy, I think it's quite common, it's such a change for them and must be quite intimidating learning to poo without the safety and security of a nappy. It took my son a long long time, I didn't want to force the issue and possibly cause problems so was very patient with him and he always demanded pull ups once he could recognise he needed a poo and used to get quite distressed about it, and we did have quite a few accidents along the way. The thing that ultimately worked (alongside unending patience) was pure bribery. When he did finally do a poo on the potty (and to coax him to do it) I bought him a toy (an octonauts gup), and did this for the first 4 poos ... Which was admittedly expensive and possibly sounds ridiculous but all other forms of reward and bribery (chocolate buttons, stickers etc) just didn't work with him where poo was concerned. After he'd done 4 poos successfully and happily, and collected himself a gup, plane and and trains I explained and reiterated that the presents were not going to continue and he was brilliant etc etc and it did just click and now he's totally got the poo thing and I never thought he would. Possibly not the greatest plan but it worked for us. I have heard of this poo thing with lots of other toddlers though so it's not unusual and it will resolve itself just have patience. Good luck!

Oh wow congratulations Jemma!! That's fantastic news. I know exactly what you mean about it being taken out of your hands, I feel that way today a bit and am going to spend the next few days relaxing into the idea...has to be better than my crash emcs last time anyway! Congrats and hope the hospital stay is calm and restful! Xx

Jemma how did it go with the ecv? Fingers crossed all went well and not too uncomfy? I've spent the morning at kings, oh the irony went in to see the consultant about pushing back my c-section date to see if I can encourage natural labour and it turns out I'm showing signs of preeclampsia and consultant nearly wanted to keep me in to have baby today! Argh. So it looks like baby will be coming on Monday by c-section. Excited and nervous at the same time. Whatsapp group is growing nicely and I can't wait to see some pics and have the first new year get togethers. I'll be at yoga on Saturday if anyone as is. Happy new year all! Xx

Seriously I never thought we would get there and the fact that we eventually have really shows me that the mantra of all this shall pass is very useful, everything is a phase however hard or frustrating! It sounds like if you carry on now it'll no doubt be full of those moments where you're tearing your hair out and you totally run out of pants that haven't been weed on but you might look back in a few weeks and feel like it wasn't that bad. And actually even with our relative palaver with it all it didn't take more than 3 months to feel like now I can pretty safely rely on Maurice knowing that he needs a wee/poo and being able to facilitate that out and about without mishap. Good luck! It'll be fine. If he does start to be a bit more stubborn and tricky just pm me x