AnyaJoeli

I echo etta, it's never as bad as you think, and even if it is bad there is a definite end in sight! I've done a few flights with mine, the least painful was actually the longest and the one I was worrying most about, flying to Sri Lanka when he was 19 months, an 11 hour flight there and 12 back. The flight over was overnight and he slept pretty much all the flight, and he's not a great sleeper so this was amazing, He was in my arms and woke occasionally for milk so I think in this respect it worked in my favour that he likes to sleep in my arms and wasn't more of a cot-only baby. The airline provided as much milk as we needed, and offered to warm it up although my son has always been a bit weird and liked milk straight from the fridge even when he was really little. Flight back he was awake for 3 hours, slept for 4 hours, awake for 4 hours which worked pretty well. we were offered the basinet and although he was a little bit big to actually go in it for any length of time, it was great for having another surface to use to put things or him if you needed to find things around the seat etc. So if they offer you the basinet seat, take it! I found nappy changing a bit stressful as Maurice seems to be a bit claustrophobic in tiny rooms and so he didn't like the airplane toilet at all, but using toys and the mirror etc to make it fun was useful. Being with your partner means you can share the duties and that makes such a difference, means one of you can go to the loo/have a cup of tea/watch some telly in peaceful shifts if you want to which makes it much more relaxing for everyone, plus you have two pairs of hands or loving faces for entertainment when you need it. I have done two 7-hour trips with my son on my own, when he was 12 months and last year at 2 years old, and that is a bit tougher, especially if they don't sleep as mine managed not to for an entire 7 hour flight, having woken up as the plane took off! It involves a lot of walking up and down the plane patiently if yours is anything like mine and not a "sitter", and creating games out of what you can find on your journey. Making friends with friendly air stewards and stewardesses, on my last lone flight one of the stewards was so taken with maurice he wanted to take him into business class with him for a bit to give me a break! In general most passengers are pretty friendly when it comes to a cute toddler and that can be reassuring too so try not to worry if they do kick up a fuss at any point, take a deep breath in those moments and realise that this too shall pass (mine started shouting WHERE IS DADDY I WANT DADDY!!!" inconsolably for the first hour of the flight to Canada last year so I had to grit my teeth a bit there.) Anything that can be used to distract in those moments is good: change of scenery with a walk, a new or favourite app: Maurice likes cbeebies app, dipdap, baby touch, thomas activities, a few episodes of Raa Raa downloaded from iplayer etc etc. My son was a little bit small last year for watching the cartoons offered on the inflight entertainment, although I think it did help with temporary distraction, so I relied heavily on apps and on bbc iplayer or downloading other favourite cartoons onto my phone from iTunes before the trip. I didn't have an iPad and think they are probably an absolute godsend on flights, although my own personal bugbear as a passenger is if the child isn't using earphones and games/apps can be a bit annoying. As everyone else has advised, have an armoury of snacks, treats, sticker books, drawing pads, new (or not played with for a bit) toys as well as beloved ones. I found that Maurice's soft tigger toy also doubled up as a good pillow for him. Basically don't stress too much about the flight. It certainly isn't like flying used to be without a toddler (sit back and enjoy), but it's not necessarily a nightmare! x

Another vote for Saturday mornings from me, i have a husband who plays cricket which involves being out all day at weekends and that leaves me in charge of the toddler, so I won't be able to make Saturday afternoons but a morning session around 9.30 or 10 would be perfect x

Oh and the friend I borrowed it initially from said that her husband used to use it in their room to drown out the sound of their baby crying..so it can work for adults too?.!

We've got this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006Z9V1LM/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=479289247&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0027Y6XH6&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0NFEC3VM41SAG1WV0MTX It really worked for us?I had a baby who wouldn't nap for longer than 20 minutes during the day and woke constantly at night and by the time he was about 14 months it was really testing my sanity and my health?a friend suggested borrowing her noise machine because we had really noisy neighbours and I was worried that might be part of the problem. I borrowed it from her, and that day he slept for 2 hours straight. I thought it was a miracle. My son is now nearly 3 and he still wants the "machine" on at nap and bedtimes, so i may have created a little person who now can't sleep without white noise, hmm, but I have to say that it really did work for us. We did have various apps etc on phones and they worked to marginal degrees. This noise machine makes the sound of being inside an aeroplane and it is quite pricey but I've used it every day for 2 years and we take it away with us too when we stay elsewhere so it's more than paid for itself in use. x

Hi there I'm a local Pilates teacher (based in Peckham and can come to you) and have specialised training and lots of experience with teaching adolescents. If you're looking to go down the private session route feel free to get in touch [email protected] x

Mine is the same and he's nearly 3, it's definitely much worse if I've woken him, but even if he wakes on his own he seems to need at least half an hour of quiet time to recalibrate, won't allow me to open the curtains or take him out of bed, or talk... and there's no way I can ever whip him straight out of the house without him having a huge paddy. Having said that, if he wakes and there are visitors in the house who weren't there when he went to sleep, such as his cousins and auntie he's usually much happier to spring into action immediately, so the grump is obviously personal to me, ha ha. But for the past few months I have definitely avoided making fixed plans for the afternoon as I just know that I won't get him out of the house on time as he can sometimes have a meltdown that lasts over half an hour. I'm not too worried about it but I'll be quite glad when he's no longer napping during the day (although i'll miss his nap!) as it means we'll have a bit more free time to do stuff.

Thank you! Really useful thanks so much x

We've got the groclock and it worked like a dream for about a month and definitely helped to make the 5am starts a thing of the past (touch wood)?now we've optimistically got it set for the sun to come up at 7am and honestly he never sleeps until then, but we still use it as part of his bedtime routine and it can also be a nightlight which is handy. But it really helped him start to sleep beyond 5am so he now wakes around 6am which is at least slightly more respectable. And it definitely beguiles them at least temporarily and they seem to respect the groclock's authority over their sleep-deprived parents pleas, it's a great idea and seems to really connect with toddlers although the story that comes with it is rubbish. This is a really good blogpost about the groclock, rings true for me? http://www.dadhacks.co.uk/2014/05/gro-clock/

Hello We're taking our son to New York this August for a few days. He'll be 3. I've only ever been to New York before as a free and excited no-ties adult focusing on drinking and shopping and late-night adventures, so I'm clueless about what we might do with a toddler and how to make the best of the city for all of us. Any advice, hints and recommendations? x

I never saw the drowsy but awake thing in my own baby but I have seen it happen in others and watched with awe like seeing a fairy tale come true. I had a baby who only had two settings: awake (happy or not) or asleep. The "drowsy but awake" thing only occurred if he was being held/fed, the minute he left my chest he sprang completely awake and became very distressed. I muddled through for a bit trying to leave him distressed to see if he could "self-soothe", worrying about rods for my back and all that, and then I read a really useful article on the blog askmoxie.com, google it it's about "tension increasers and tension decreasers"?. kind of obviously about how all babies are different as this thread shows, so you shouldn't be expected to apply the same techniques with each one with the same results, but it seems we are. It's so hard when you have a situation like this where people say that you "should" be able to put your baby down easily with no fuss and have a quiet cup of tea while they gurgle themselves to sleep: there are those babies who are happy to chatter or cry themselves to sleep or almost need to have a bit of a cry to release tension in order to get to sleep, and follow through the drowsy stage to the sleep stage without getting worked up, and there are those who if left to their own devices work themselves up into oblivion and increase their tension with crying, and get all distraught and less able to get back into a sleeping mode. My baby was definitely a tension increaser, and he also just simply didn't do the drowsy but awake setting however much I really wanted him to as I had seen and heard about it happening with others..and it got to the stage where I became afraid to wake him up at drowsy stage by trying to put him down (starting the cycle of crying again), so I let him sleep on me or with me, and i guess perpetuated a cycle. He always needed the comfort of me to help him go to sleep. Once I had stopped beating myself up about it, I actually really loved slinging him for early baby naps and enjoying blissful cuddles that I know he won't exactly want to dole out when he's 14. Now, he's nearly 3 and when my husband does bedtime he is more than happy to go to bed on his own and chatter and sing himself to sleep on his own, but when I'm putting him to bed he still wants me to be with him until he is asleep and gets a bit fretful if I try and leave him. So, perhaps I have created a rod for my own back, but it's a very cuddly and lovely rod which I'm not going to allow myself to regret, as it won't last forever and I'll be ultimately glad I had it?even though there are times when I am feeling impatient and grumpy and wish he was a bit more independent when I'm there at bedtime. Didn't mean this reply to be quite so long! But I agonised about this mythical "drowsy but awake" stage for so long that this thread really rang a bell for me! x

Hi there I teach Pilates at 8pm on Mondays or 8.15pm on Tuesdays, if you're still looking. In SE15, Peckham. Tuesdays is a mums tums class and seems to work well with bedtimes for all my clients. Anya x

I think this might just be because autumn pregnancies will still be in first trimester at the moment so people might not feel comfy chatting long term yet...?

Another vote for Andrea Grace's gentle sleep solutions here, it literally saved my life and my sanity. I had a non-sleeper, he never slept for longer than 3 hours until he was about 13 months (either in our bed or in his cot, we tried it all?) so it wasn't really a regression more like a prolonged period of insomnia that we struggled with, I read all the sleep books in increasing desperation and gentle sleep solutions was the only one that seemed to offer something that i could realistically apply to him. And it took a month or so, and then some, of consistently applying the techniques, and now he's a "normal" toddler who wakes occasionally but can reasonably be expected to sleep through most nights until about 6am, which I will happily accept compared to over a year of no decent chunks of sleep at all. we do still have a double futon on his floor which is a kind of comfy story corner by day and parent sanctuary by night if we do need to go and settle him in a night waking we can snuggle up in a duvet. Possibly not encouraging him that effectively to self settle, but it beats lying on the floor with your head against the cot? x

Hello I have a Maclaren stroller which has seen better days, and the rear wheels are now making a rather scary squeaking and wobbling noise and threatening to fall off, which is making me regret never having given it a service over the past 18 months. I think it needs a full service and the rear wheels need replacing. Has anyone ever had their stroller serviced? Is there such a thing? Or do they just conk out and you get a new one? My 2-and-a-half year old probably won't be in it for a great deal longer although he definitely still needs it right now... so buying a new one seems a little extravagant. If you have had a stroller service or know where I might be able to get mine done, or...any info etc would be really useful. It's not covered under warranty as I never got round to registering it, and Mothercare say they send it off to Maclaren and it takes over a month for repairs. Any advice would be very welcome! Thanks! Anya x

Hi there Yes it's totally worth it, whenever you had your children. If there is still a gap years later then it's very much worth trying to repair it, as it can cause problems further down the line as your spinal and pelvic stability will be compromised. The woman in my class with a gap 6 years postnatal was facing surgery if she wasn't able to strengthen her abdominals because she was experiencing so much back pain and there was risk of hernia. That's not necessarily going to happen to everyone, but it is always worth regaining the core strength that might have been lost on the motherhood journey! My classes are in Peckham, Friary road, at my home studio. Info here: http://anyajoeli.wix.com/bodybalancepilates Let me know if you have any questions! Anya

Hiya I run a mums and babies class in SE15, on Monday at 11am. I'm based in Friary road so it's a 15-20 minute walk from Bellenden area but just in case you fancy the stroll! It's 11am-12.15 (we always need the extra 15 minutes in case babies are being feisty, but you don't need to stay for that long if you don't want!), and it's ?8 drop in. The class is currently quite full there are 2 spaces left. Let me know if you need any more info or are interested in coming along. [email protected] http://anyajoeli.wix.com/bodybalancepilates x

Hi there I wish I'd seen this thread earlier. One thing that I find alarming is that we aren't checked by midwives or dr at your 6-week check as a matter of course postnatally for diastasis recti. I teach postnatal Pilates and always check mums before we begin a course and I'd say at least 99% of people haven't even heard of the rec check or why we do it, or have any idea that the abdominals separate during pregnancy and don't necessarily ping back together without careful training. The main issue is then not strengthening them in their separate position as they're less likely to bind back completely. And there are a few things you should avoid doing in order to make sure that you get them to knit back. You can get them to knit back and strengthen, you just have to be very careful about the type of strengthening work that you do. My mummies tummies class on a Tuesday night is suitable, and also my Wednesday 7.30pm class seems to have become more of a diastasis-affected zone (!) and so everything we do is particularly strengthening for repairing the abdominal gap. It can be repaired never fear don't despair. A 1 and a half finger gap is pretty normal post birth and shouldn't cause much issue as long as you're aware of it, and if you've had a big baby it's likely to be bigger. I've had a client with a 3-finger gap 6 years postnatal as she had no idea that she had had a gap after her second baby and it was causing all sorts of issues for her spinal stability, and we were able to close it to 1 1/2 over a 2 month period with careful work and awareness of what she was doing outside class too. So it's definitely not a non-reversible thing. I'm always annoyed by how little we are told about it during pregnancy and after though, as the gap can cause problems if you're not aware of it and start doing loads of abdominal work trying to fix the postbaby belly but not realising the abs are compromised. If anyone wants to come along for a free diastasis repair workshop to check out Pilates and I can check your gap and show you how to check yourself properly, let me know and I can sort something out... x

Yes that implies I'm a bit stupid. No I did know, it's only that others in my mums circle have expressed that it's a bit much so I thought I would see what the average accepted going rate is...which is helpful and not, in some ways, as it just makes me question why she charges so much, which I knew before and hadn't questioned so much. That's all. I don't earn a huge deal so I'm penny pinching I guess, and being self employed myself I am maybe questioning more than I might if I had the benefits of being an employee and not having irregular income as a factor to consider .

Thanks that's really helpful....I feel like I need to ask her exactly why she's so much more expensive than every other childminder I've heard of! Ergh

I don't have much advice just solidarity as I have a bad sleeper and early riser and it's a pure torture at times. But he's now nearly 2 and finally seems to be getting better, we started doing some training with him at 15 months using a book called gentle sleep solutions by Andrea grace and it basically saved my life. I haven't looked at it for a while because he's so much better now in every way, but his better is horrific to someone whose baby sleeps until 7am (or I occasionally get people telling me gleefully that theirs sleep until 7.30/8/9...can't even imagine, as 5.26am is about the latest he can manage, 6am would be a glorious lie in. Anyway so we tacked a load of night waking issues with the book and I should probably go back and reread the bits about early waking, but I'm a bit too tired. But it's a really good, really practical yet sympathetic book, and I've read them all. So might be worth a look? I feel your pain and hope it gets better soon!

I'm totally an idiot, she doesn't charge for her sick days I misread her t&c. So I'm just a numptie and it seems slightly more reasonable apart from the holidays and bank holidays. But I'm less irked now. Thanks for listening and for your advice!

I think the sick pay is the one thing that really irks on me actually. If I'm sick, I would potentially lose income and that's sort of part and parcel of being freelance sadly...and trouble is therefore if she's sick, I would have to probably cancel classes at the last minute and double whammy lose money and pay for it! That's what kind of makes me feel like this is all a bit steep. Now I'm just outright moaning. But on the flip side, she's great and Maurice seems to have really taken to her already. I just don't know what to do...! Ergh

Well, (and congrats by the way, if you need some pilates come to me ;-) ) from my own personal experience...I've been waiting for a vacancy with this particular childminder for over a year now...which is another reason that I feel like I'm being silly nitpicking about her terms and conditions. If you go to the southwark council childcare page there's a downloadable list of all the childminders in the area, 48 pages' worth! It's quite a daunting task so I think that personal recommendation goes a long way in terms of knowing where to start. If I had a fixed job to have gone back to I would have, in hindsight, looked around and put Maurice's name down when he was really little...but you just never feel like it's particularly pressing when they're so small, it seems ludicrous to think about it so far in advance! Also I'm freelance so while I was building up my business again post-baby I couldn't afford to outlay regular money without regular work lined up so it's sort of a catch 22 for me, and I've had a lovely childminder on a very ad hoc basis for a year now but it means as we have no contract etc she's let me down a few times and I've had to cancel classes...not that this is relevant to your query sorry! From my experience, start putting out feelers as soon as you can. Ed forum is a great place to start, and the southwark council website. Also go to Facebook the se15 tea groups or nct group pages are often useful, that's how I found my current childminder serendipitously free when I suddenly got a huge amount of work and needed childcare urgently. Anyway...that's my experience quite waffly sorry! Anya x

Thanks everyone it's really helpful hearing all this, I feel a bit at sea not really knowing what the norm is and whether it's negotiable. My gut says it's too expensive for me, particularly as my income is similarly dependent on how much I work, and I can't exactly charge my clients holiday pay!

Hello I have been offered a spot with a lovely childminder in peckham, but she seems awfully expensive to me. i just wanted to get some ideas for benchmarking to help me make my decision (which I'm agonising about...). It works out as ?64 per day, which includes meals and snacks. I'd have to pay holiday (inc bank holidays) and sick pay too, full price. I appreciate that childminders are freelance but I'm also freelance, a Pilates instructor, and I don't get holiday and sick pay so I guess I'm struggling with having to potentially outlay a tonne of money because of these policies. And a couple of quick questions about my friends' childminders make me feel like I'd be paying significantly more than average for Peckham/nunhead area. The day I am looking for is Monday so across the year I'll be paying quite a bit for bank holidays that I don't use her services. I might just not be au fait with how it works, and my current childcare arrangement is pretty ad hoc and flexible so I may just be balking at having to enter the real world...would love to hear other arrangements and whether this sounds reasonable and right. Thanks!! Anya x