ludoscotts

also bear in mind that some fabrics will dye but some threats dont so you may be left with a grey sling but green stitching but that might look very funky!

hi clare, it all sounds normal like everyone has said, Re the bottle I would give it a go before 6 weeks. We gave E one at about 3 days old as I was so sore I physically couldnt do it and was so upset about it all hubby and mum insisted as E was starving but I was so worked up my milk wouldnt come etc. After a night off for me and some formula for her we got back to it the next day and all was fine, At 3 weeks old we had 2 nights out we had to go to so I expressed milk and my mum gave bottles. From then on Hubby would give her a bottle every couple of days and there was never any problems. Dont know how she would have taken a bottle from me at that stage as we never tried but she would happily take a bottle from anyone else and It meant I got a nice relax in the bath etc while she was being fed. So def worth trying from 3 weeks onwards as E had bottles expressed and formula by 3 weeks and feeding was all fine.

if you didnt want to get a black cab but still want to do taxi without car seat you can take a baby in a taxi legally without a carseat. We dont have a car so never had a car seat so we used to put baby in sling strapped to me then when putting your seat belt on fasten it then lift it over baby and back down between baby and your chest. Everyone is safely strapped in and no problems with what to do with seat at the airport or entrusting it in a cab office while you are away. I just used to keep a hand on the back of her head incase of sudden braking. obviously not ideal but great solution when you dont have a seat and when I looked into it its perfectly safe as you are strapped in and baby strapped to you.

It is a huge shame and dissapointment for you seeing as you were at the dmc but other surgeries dont have this service and it was all fine. Im at the surgery, lordship lane and with that doctors you go to see the same midwife throughout your pregnancy so feel comfortable and happy with your midwife but she isnt there when you go into labour. She only does your check-ups! SO I was left with the situation of you get whoever is on duty when you arrive at kings.But you are right when you are in the throws of labour it could be the easter bunny at that end and you wont care as long as they know what they are doing and all the midwives that I saw at kings were lovely. (very different to the nurses/staff that you will see when you go for your scans so dont worry if they seem rushed and a bit brusque when you go to this dept)ALso if you want to put your mind at rest very early on go for a tour round the dept, Think it is mon eve's but you can go and take a look at the labour ward, meet some of the midwives etc. Found it helped me feel a lot better about it all and dont think you have to wait until a certain point in your pregnancy to do this.

> Can you get thiomersal-free vaccinations yet? Yes you can request Celvapan which is thiomersal and adjuvant-free, if your GP practice doesn't have it in stock they can refer you to a nearby practice. hi was just wondering about the above comments what is the benefit of it being thiomersal and adjuvant-free?what are these drugs? also is anyone else registered at the surgery(near costcutters/library)? we havent been called for one yet and wondered if I should contact them.

hi thanks for all your advice, Think im going to give the nappy lady's mats a try and ive changed nappy brand and we had the first dry night last night for ages so fingers crossed it will be better from now on.

hi ko how was it on mon? was the class any good? I found I was left a bit bemused after the first session but then the following week when I walked in and saw the familar faces it was nice and a few of us went on for a cup of coffee (at the plough!)after the 2nd session and I felt a lot happier so stick with it at least for another week if it wasnt up to much.

would you need a car? always like the look of this type of place but worry about how remote they are as my hubby and I dont drive and go everywhere by public transport. would hate to book somewhere like this and be stuck in all the time if its too far to walk to nearest town/village to get busses etc

thats great ko, like I said sessions are a bit rubbish(a few were helpful but some not well organised when we did it but that was 2 years ago so may have improved!) but stick with it as you should see the same faces for a few weeks in a row and start to make friends.

hi could anyone give me some advice please? our 2 yr old has started potty training during the day and is doing really well but still very wet nappies by morning. The last 3 mornings however her nappies have leaked and her bed and herself is soaked. She isnt drinking any more than normal throughout the night. I bought the next size up of nappies but they looked too big for her when I tried it on so stuck with the 4+ size. They are however normal daytime ones. is there a point where you need to star using specific nighttime nappies?do these hold more? its never been a problem before. also because of this I really need to buy something to protect the mattress(as she is in a single bed now) what is the best thing to buy? ive seen rubber sheets that go between the sheet and mattress and fitted sheets that have built in protection sections or pads that you put on to of the sheet that tuck in? totally at a loss as to what would be best and dont want to waste money buying 2 or 3 types if they prove to be useless.

another thing that was great for me was townley road new parents group. Go to the townley road clinic and on their notice board(walk in clinic turn right past reception desk, walk forward to the back right hand corner and notice board on wall next to door) on there you will see the timetable for the parents classes. Its a free class for babies 0-6 months, runs for 6/7 weeks on a mon afternoon 2-4. They do an hour on a different topic i.e weaning,sleeping,teething etc then you get an hour just to sit and chat. the classes themselves I found to be a bit rubbish but that where I met most of my mummy friends and got loads of advice from them and nice to see babies at different stages. I went to coffee mornings etc to try and meet people but I found because of the drop in nature of these sessions you didnt really get to know people and each week were looking for familliar faces or starting from scratch introducing yourself etc. Because these classes run weekly for 7 weeks by the end of it you really feel like you have made friends and we all kept going meeting up each week, sometimes only 3 of us meet us and at other times there are 7 of us which is lovely. on the timetable it will give you the dates, you dont need to sign up you just turn up and join in on the first session when it comes round again.

hi it only operates in term time(like a school) but as well as the school nurseries we have our daughter on the waiting list at dulwich village pre school which was lovely. its opposite the riding school on the south circular (down past the harvester)further away from you but was soooo nice and felt just like a school did. Some of the nurseries we visited had a different feel to them but we thought this was the closest to a school nursery. well worth taking a look. Its in the old alleyn club house so surrounded by fields and the children can come out to play on the terrace whenever they like(it has gates!) which is lovely so fresh air and has a nice garden too for them to play in.

hi I can highly rec the alykanas beach resort hotel. in alykanas zante(or zakynthos) greece. We went there when I was pregnant and plan to go back this year with our 2 yrs old. The resort is very quiet with a selection of bars and restaurants. Most restaurants have childrens play areas. We didnt have a bad meal the whole time we were there. There is a fab bar called catacombes about a 5 min walk away. the hotel is lovely big playground, swimming pool and toddler pool. jacuzzi, lovely restaurant/bar. It has tables out on the sea front so can eat watching out to sea. The best thing is the beach. Its right on the beach and the sea is very shallow walk for 5 mins and only up to your knees so great for toddlers and its warm. Like getting into a bath rather than the sea. It was lovely. The resort is quiet but that suited us but walk along the beach and you get to alykes which is a much busier resort so best of both worlds. there is a little land train that goes up to the hills that the toddler would like. also you can get a horse and cart up to the lemon tree restaurant just outside the resort which is a lovely eve out. You can get boat trip across to kefalonia or go to the waterpark or a trip to the shipwreck. Lots to do and we loved it.

still running at the min

hubby just rang to say he got to work fine on bus, 176 and 185 running fine, only thing is its running really slow(25mins from harvester to dulwich station)once he got past dog kennel hill seemed to run as normal. the p13 might be having problems as he said he saw one crash into a bus shelter as he was going through dulwich. tried to pull in at bus stop and it didnt stop!

just seen a 176 coming down the hill from forest hill first ive noticed all night but looks like they are up and running again

hi smiler thats exactly what our little one did with asking for the bed- we tried to ignore it at first but wish we had just moved her sooner-think life would have been much easier if we had just put her into the bed as son as she showed interest instead of wasting time with her waking in the night and transfering backwards and forwards. The fact that she is showing interest herslef may be a good time to do it, and after about a week she was settled in the bed as I said above trying a couple of techniques and stairgates etc and she has been a much better sleeper since she is in bed.

hi every child is different so why not give it a go if you already have a single bed and if it dosent work then buy a cot bed. our little one was trying to escape her cot at about 20 months and we were very worried about her hurting herself then on her own she started saying that she wanted to sleep in the bed(already had a full size single bed in her room)and would cry if we put her in the cot. we had a couple of nights where she was coming out of bed and through to us. so on my cousins advice we put a stair gate on her bedroom door and now if she wakes she just shouts for us as she knows she cant get out of the room. Putting her to bed we had a couple of rough nights with her getting out of bed as it was a novelty but we just did the ignoring technique and if she got out of bed made no eye contact and picked her up put her back in to bed, didnt speak to her and left the room. We had to do this 7 times the first eve then only once for the next few nights as we had stopped it being a game. She now doesnt get up at all and is a really sound sleeper. every child is different and we have been lucky that she has settled so easily but think she is less frustrated as she can get out of bed if she wants and is not shouting to be let out. We got her one of those sleep clocks that you set to change pic once its ok for them to get up so some mornings she gets out of bed a little earlier than we would like and plays in her room. when the clock changes she shouts us to come and get her out with a shout of "mummy upsy daisy's here" think if she had been in her cot still we would be getting up half an hour earlier everyday. good luck with the change over-whatever you decide it will be the right choice for you.

if not buy a plain one and buy some itng plastic figures(toy) and sit them on top, worked for us when we couldnt find one.

Why are you getting on your high horse about them mentioning it on here? It is a few mums putting their heads together to make the most of their time on mat leave, giving us mums a date to look forward to and have some fun. This was their launch night and with the goody bags etc they didnt make any money and I cant think of a better place to let the mums of Dulwich know about it than on the Family section of the forum. it was a great night out, well planed and good on them for thinking up the idea, yes mums can plan these things themselves but without naughty mummy organising this I know my mummy friends and I would never had got round to sorting out something before christmas. well done naughty mummy and ignore negative comments like this.

hi get the 185 to victoria then either walk-10 mins max or get the 16 which goes past or im sure there will be many more that goes that way but only know the 16 for sure. she will love it, we took ours a few weeks ago and she had a wonderful time but wrap-up as it was very cold.

I was told to use a moxy stick if that happened. its like a big fat inscense stick that you light and hold against you little toe! was told it works wonders, didnt have to use it myself but worth a try, you can buy it from health food shops

we are trying the same method as pickle suggested we had got our 2 yr old to only have her dummy in bed. was working really well until a few weeks ago when she got a very nasty cold where she didnt move off my knee for 3 days, wouldnt eat and only wanted teddy and dummy! didnt see the point in fighting with the fact that we had gone back a step as we were going away for christmas and knew with missed naps etc all routine would be out of the window. We plan on starting again this week with the only dummy in bed thing again then try to deal with getting rid of it at night. I had a dummy when I was little and my mum got rid of it by saying that I had to give it to the baby when my sister was born and apparently I was very happy to give it up when she was born-plan on thinking about baby no 2 next year so maybe will try that when the time comes.

hi I watched it today and amanda did really well, was impressed the way she seemed to calm down and became less in your face and took it seriously. Have to say though bonce I read your post before watching so took note and her nails were still red when she was in the labour and throughout it. Im guessing the bit when you see her come out of the room and look teary was from another day and another labour as they are blue at that point but then when she is in what looks like a staff room and actually talking about that birth in detail she looks knackered and I think they were back to red. I bet they didnt have a good enough shot of her coming out of the room so used one from a different day. was a very interesting prog though, made me very emotional and lots of memories flooding back, When my daughter was born they took her away from me and over to a table before I held her. I didnt realise that there was anything wrong as they were talking to her just as the midwives were talking to the baby at the end, My hubby had seen her though and knew that she wasnt breathing, He has tried to tell me since what she was like in those first few moments but only after seeing this prog have a truly realised how scared he must have been seeing our little girl looking so lifeless and pale for the first few moments. We were very lucky and she is a happy enthusiastic 2 year old now but makes you appreciate what the midwives have to face each day.

hi I went in today( was about to trudge down to dulwich in the snow with toddler in buggy when I was relieved to see it had opened!) its the same as any sains local. Nothing startling about it but then why should there be. They seemed to have a couple of problems that the workmen were still trying to fix but had lots of staff around to assist. Its just going to be a great stopping off point for anyone without a car and who cant carry much meaning going down into dulwich or up to forest hill is a very slow and horrible journey or a trip on the bus. I will still use costcutters and val's for some items and I will still use the deli, fishmongers and butchers in dulwich ( I do like to use local independent shops) but the relief of not having to carry squash, nappies, formula and tins etc up the hill will be fantastic. I know someone is about to jump on my back and start having a go to say you can get those from vals, costcutters etc but they are way more expensive, for example robinsons squash in costcutters was ?1.29 a litre the other day and you can get 2 litres for ?1.98 in sains, little things like this really do add up when you are on a very tight budget and I can never get the formula or nappies size that I need in the other shops I always have the hike up or down the hill in one direction or the other to find all of the things I need. I know people can be against chains as they kill of the locals but hopefully enough people will be like me and still support the locals but im so pleased its here.