oimissus

oh, how I wish I'd known about Minnis Bay before heading out on a 2 hour slog to Botany Bay. Was a 4 hour round trip worth it for a half hour paddle in the sea??? The jury's out . . . Is Minnis sandy? Would that be the closest sandy beach?

have you looked at the Odeon in Surrey Quays, I have a feeling they might do something.

Ruskin paddling pool is open, it's a wee bit slippy, there were a few kids skidding about so if you've got sandals that can be worn in the water that would be good. Having said that Miss Oi seemed fine in it yesterday, could barely drag her away!

you don't say how you're feeding him, but I would recommend if you're breastfeeding to have a go expressing and a bottle - if you know your husband can do night feeds that will help no end. We didn't persevere with the bottle which I totally regretted - didn't have the same sleep issues but I felt that I could barely leave my child just in case she was hungry as no-one else could feed her, which I found exhausting in itself. I really hope one or some of these suggestions help! Good luck x

Hilly Fields is a good one on a hot day as it's very breezy up there (Chilly Fields!). Our faves are Ruskin (paddling pool, playground - new cafe between the two, duck pond, bandstand with actual bands playing throughout the summer, lovely park in general - and you can watch the trains whilst swinging) and Brockwell (paddling pond and sandpit, massive new playground for all ages, little train, again a lovely park in itself). Crystal Palace is good too - sandpit and dinosaurs, what's not to like! And the one by the Horniman is good, sandpit and playground. I think we live in a brilliant place for good parks, miles better than Clapham Common which so many people seem to cite as a reason not to move south-east. Mad, they are, mad.

nowhere. But we had been together 10 years and had a toddler and no money! Still haven't been . . . !

I can only assume that they have had experience of children unexpectedly becoming 'ill' when requests like this have been refused by the school, so they are letting you know in advance that they expect a doctor's note.

what are we meant to fill out? I can't see a bit to be completed? Or am I being dim?

I think I agree, I would hope that my daughter would know she COULD come to us with anything if she wanted (and with something like bullying that she should, and that us being concerned shouldn't stop her - that's what we're for after all!), but if she wanted to keep something to herself just because she was a private person, that would be OK too. It's a fine line to draw, especially as they get older. I think trying to be their best friend and knowing everything little thing they're thinking and doing isn't good, and could drive a child away more than draw them in. Be a 'door is always open' type, but don't force them through it.

2 sunny mornings on the trot, yay! Though couldn't take advantage washing-wise as have done as the damned washing, hurumph. Bet it won't last, bloody British weather mutter mutter grumble . . .

Agreed, I am totally fed up of having washing hanging all over the house for days on end. AND my roses keep rotting before they've properly opened. (And it's quite annoying with the toddler, but having spend some of the last couple of weeks up at my mum's, at least there are quite a number of wet weather places to go round here, 'twas a bugger at hers, nowhere to go at all.)

not strictly family, though kind of related - post baby (2 and a half years post baby!) I really want to start going to the gym, I'm in awful shape. Not an outdoor runner at all, so cross trainer etc for me. My nearest gym is the Peckham Pulse, which I'm not keen on going to in the evening. Does anyone have any recommendations? And what's a reasonable price these days? For example, JAGS's fee of ?40 a month sounds alright, compared to what I recall paying at Virgin Active way back in the day. As far as I can tell there's no chains round here, but I'm not sure what's out there. I know I'm easily put off doing any exercise so I don't mind paying a bit extra to get decent changing rooms, for example. Thanks Family Roomers

katgod - ah right, yes, sorry, I see what you're saying - I wouldn't class that as 'good' either, myself!

agree with Pickle, but maybe shift the time back? We had the same problem with Miss Oi, either chatting for ages, or crying, so we changed it to 2 o'clock and 9 times out of 10 she's out within 5 minutes. Makes your mornings longer which I like, but does mean you can't do much with the afternoon. I always wake her at 3.30 and she goes to bed (though not always to sleep!) at 8 no problems.

Nunhead is probably Becky and she is excellent, she's praised on a number of threads. At our class there were 2 couples from Crofton Park, 2 from Peckham Rye and 2 from Peckham/Camberwell and we've kept in touch. I was also just on statutary maternity pay so we pushed ourselves to pay for these, mainly because of making friends, and over 8 weeks we did get to know each other well and as I said, have mainly kept in touch, despite not living all that close to each other. I did the NHS classes too (after the NCT ones), it was a huge group so, for me, not conducive to meeting people (and as they were at Kings people had come from all over, so they didn't have the 'local' feel of the smaller NCT class) and if I hadn't done the NCT classes I'm not sure I would have fully understood what was going on! My husband liked to NHS ones though. I would also say that I didn't find it easy to get to know people at playgroups and classes at all, a situation some other mums I know would agree with - often people came with friends and didn't chat to those on their own; in the early days these really weren't much fun for me at all and I only kept going because Miss Oi liked them. So my NCT friends were, and still are, invaluable.

eco79 - did you attend NCT classes?

katgod - my definition of a good school is not one where 50% of pupils don't get 5 good GCSEs. It just isn't, and it's rendering the word outstanding meaningless. It is of course hugely improved, but that is not the same thing at all. As with all Ofsted reports, you do have to look well beyond the headlines as they do seem to alter the English language to suit themselves!

I really enjoyed last night - a good juxtaposition to the extremes of Portland Road. Interesting to see a road where the social make-up has altered so little - I wonder how rare or common this is in London? What I found most interesting was the fact that where there was bomb damage it had just been left as a wilderness - no 1940s house or nasty block of flats - I wonder who owns that piece of land. Looking forward to next week - sad that it's the last!

Mine were definitely worth it, and 2 and a half years on still in contact with 4 out of the 6 couples that did it with us. And our teacher (Becky in Nunhead) was very good indeed, covered everything and made it clear that NCT didn't stand for Natural Birth Trust. So on that basis would thoroughly recommend.

Peckham Pulse is lovely but I understand it gets rammed at the weekends. If you look on their website there's a timetable showing the session times. You can go in person to book a place, or turn up and hope for the best (I think if you're a Fusion member you can book over the phone). Their reception is always really busy so I can imagine no-one's answering the phone.

I think you have to keep reassessing all the time - Miss Oi has good language skills and I think sometimes I make the mistake of upping her understanding skills because of it - then realizing I'm not being fair with my expectations of her behaviour, which is becoming increasingly more wilful, shall we say . . . ! I know it's all testing the boundaries etc - but I wish she'd test someone else's sometimes! (btw, has anyone else lost their edit function, to use itals or bold or whatever?)

we are struggling with this as for me the biggest stumbling block to moving out further into SE London (which is all we could really afford, and as we know it, it would make sense) is that it puts even more of London between us and family, who are all to the north and north-west of London - it already takes me an hour and a half to get to my mum's in north-west burbs, and that's from Peckham's very good station, and the drive to Birmingham is an epic slog through to the M40. Does anyone else have this problem, and how have you overcome it? We can't possibly afford to move in that direction so I feel we maybe stuck where we are - which isn't so bad - husband can walk or cycle to work and I can get up to sister in Hertfordshire very easily on the train - but the shadow of the Peckham Academy is looming over us . . .

Kim does Tippee Toes music Mondays and Tuesdays as well, which I would really recommend - details on edtots. All Saints playgroup on Weds is nice. And there's jellybabies swimming on Tuesday afternoons at the Peckham Pulse hydrotherapy pool.

I once stayed with a friend and her husband who had recently bought a house on a new development - house lovely, development huge and soulless. We were sat outside on a gorgeous summer evening drinking wine and chatting - and there was not a sound from any other garden, though all the houses were occupied, some by families. No children, no adults, no dogs - nothing. It was very very odd.

hmm, well, I'm beginning to think that perhaps nursery are jumping the gun - although she's perfectly happy to wear pants, and asks to do so, and her bladder control seems good, she is getting very upset when invited to sit on the potty with her leggings and pants down (pretty resistant to sitting on the potty at all), so I'm going to have to put her into a nappy just to go to the loo. To be honest, I was wanting this to be child-led and at home at any rate she is showing no interest in the potty at all - but her key worker is painting a very different picture, so I feel this is nursery-led. I'm happy for her to be in nappies till she's 3 if that's how long it takes for her to really want to do it.