ludoscotts

hi thanks for all the advice, we have blinds to keep it dark and she has a guard so no worries about falling out think its just the novelty that she can get up whenever she stirs, will get a clock to try but last night she did actually sleep as normal and woke at her normal time all happy so fingers crossed she has herself sorted. lets see what tonight brings! thanks

hi our toddler has started showing an interest in sleeping in the single bed in her room instead of her cot. Its a bit hit and miss at the moment some nights she will sleep in cot some she cries to be in the bed, the only thing with the bed is she is getting up earlier. As soon as its getting light she is up and wants to be up playing but if I lie on the bed with her she goes straight back to sleep until her usual waking time. I dont want to fall into this trap but really want her to sleep till her usual time as I work evenings when she goes to bed so getting up an hour and a half early is going to leave me knackered. Any ideas?

sounds crazy but if you have anything silver that has tarnished you can take it off with a soft rubber!

hi I used the onelife and loved them-didnt take long to dry never leaked, washed well, the only thing was that I didnt use them until she was about 5 months old as I found there was so much bulk between her legs it restricted her movement until she was 5 months(although she was starting to wean by then so also good that she was moving on past the bright yellow nappies by then too!)

yes you can use them with a normal ironing board but its best if you can use filtered water or you can buy water for them- they clog up very quickly with limescale if you dont.

hi clare we have a sensor pad one remind me to show you when you come for your fitting and you can have a look and see what you think. It is all personal as to if you have one or not but we wouldnt be without ours. so nice to be able to know they are ok without having to get up and look in. Ours went off by accident prob about 4 times in the 18 months we udes it for but all of those times except one it was whan she was in the travel cot and she had more room to roll around and it couldnt pick her up where she was lying and the one time in the main cot she had decided to lie on her pillow!

I totally agree with fushia, at every stage hubby and me have said this is such a lovely age. its great when they are tiny and you can sit and watch/cuddle them all ther time but then they start moving and its lovely as they start showing some independance they they start interacting with you and thats lovely too our 20months said totally unprompted the other dau love you daddy love you mummy and my heart just melted. she is at the min changing her dollys nappy because she had done poo poo acording to her! sooooooo cute every age for me so far has been the best at the time.

hi yes mine goes off her food and can really only get her to eat fruit, fromage frais and scrambled eggs. all my mummy friends have said the same about theirs too.

actually if anyone wants to borrow mine for a week or so Ive promised it to my friend who is fast approaching that stage but will be a couple of weeks till she needs it so if anyone wants to borrow mine let me know

hi I can highly reccommend getting the annabel karmel total meal planner book.(either to buy or borrow from the library for a few days and photocopy the planner pages.) but I was at a total loss too, getting Ella to try things didnt bother me but I could get no advice when she did start eating'meals' as to wether she should still be having milk and how often etc. hv was no help with that and I was told that I waould work it out. After getting this book it really helped it gives you meal charts for every stage so it will say am-milk midmorning-snack fruit lunch milk and .... midafternoon snack and juice etc... I found it really helpfull and although I didnt stick to her meal combinations It led me to know how often I should be giving juice and milk and I had a very happy baby. also a lot of the recipies I found were really good to make up in bigger quantaties for you. Alot of the purees were really nice and she gives tips on making them up into soup for yourself so you dont feel you are totally cooking for little one then having to start over for yourself all the time. there is a really good spinich, leek and potato one that Ella loved and was great with fish for us!!!yumm def worth getting a copy form library and just copying out the planner pages and it has a planner for each stage up to 1 year.

Hi I got scammed on my doorstep, a woman came to the door saying she lived further down the street and that she had an electric or gas metre(cant remember which now) that you have to top up and that it had run out but she had no money until her husband came home from work and that she had 2 children in the house. she wanted to borrow some money and said her husband would call in on the way home and pay it back, she didnt have a coat or bag just the key thing for the metre and her house keys so it did seem like she had just come a few doors down to see if anyone could help, I gave her ?5 and never saw it again- suppose thats the age we livi in where you dont know your neighbours! so dont know if they are telling the truth. one to watch out for though.

hi its dr dohas surgery on a tues and another one on a wed so think you should go along on a wed, also worth looking on the info board by the room where they weigh the babies on there will be a timetable for the parenting classes. the classes themselves were not great but I met a lot of lovely mums there and after the 7 weeks of classes finished we continued to see each othe rtwice a week and made some lovely friends. they are for babies 0-6 months and its free. if you have missed the start of this course of classes ask about the next set they are worth having a look along to.

hi I can reccomment the alykanas beach hotel in zante(zakynthos)greece. we havent been with our little one but went there when I was pregnant and we are going to go back with her next year, they ran a kids club and the kids all seemed to have a great time with the staff, the beach is fantastic(and hotel right on beach front so no having to trudge down to beach with all your stuff. we used the loungers by the pool but when we wanted to go in sea walked 2 mins and were in! and its the most fantastic beach for kids as you have to walk for ages before it gets deaper then knee high so really safe for kids to play as waters edge, and its really warmwater! its a quiet little resort with lovely restaurants but if you want something livelier you can walk along beach or road to get to alykes which has more bars watersports etc so best of both worlds. restaurants are lovely and reasonable, you can ged a horse drawn carriage to take you up to the lemon tree restaurant which is lovely and the restaurant brings to back down in their taxi, and the catacombs bar is great ith views out to sea and mountains and plays great rock music. all in all a great place and think kids would love it. there certainly seemed to be loads going on pool tournaments etc, little ones disco etc. Balconies seemed to be baby friendly, aircon ans sat tv in rooms. worth a look at their website,

hi im a costume maker and would love to be kept in touch about this, been back working since my little one was 3 months old! crazy busy but lovel combining the 2 as couldnt imagine anyone else looking after her in the day and cant imagine not doing this as a living as I love making things, look forward to hearing more leanne

hi try your baby on the type you decide on and see how he/she doee but be prepared that you might have to change brands. I started my baby on sma gold( no research went into it, I found all of a sudden one day I couldnt feed her due to another issue and thats all my husband could get late at night!) we gave her that for a few weeks and she would happily drink it but she got cronic wind and was in pain most nights went through a horrible time, never occurred to us it was the milk. We couldnt get our normal milk one day throughout the whole of dulwich so had to buy cow and gate. Within a couple of days wind problems had gone. Again didnt associate it with the milk(shows how much lack of sleep affects you when you dont notice the glaringly obvious!) but the next tub of formular she needed I got the sma again and within one night the wind was back. im not saying dont use sma as Ive got friends who use it and are fine with it but just keep an eye out as some really dont work with some babies( and one friend of mine had the same with sma and cow and gate so she uses aptimil) it might be worth buying a few of the pre-mixed cartons in each type and see which one works best for you. good luck,

hi I found the staff there extremely unhelpful and rude. I go to an exercise class with my baby on a thurs morning and 2 weeks ago we decided to go there for a drink when class finished. there were 3 mums and babies and we were turned away as they have a 2 pram rule. I understand if they were short of space but there wasnt another person in there and the room at the back was huge. we offered to put the prams down but were told ahain that there was no room for us. If it was a weekend and it was busy I could understand but there was no customers they obviously are doing so well that they dont need customers.

hi I had my baby at kings 7 weeks ago and it was great. very clean and the midwives were excellent. you can go on a tour mondays at 7 I think thurs at 4(double check these times!) it was really reassuring to have a look around so you know what to expect when you get there. I went in twice with pains in the week before I actually gave birth and both times the staff were lovely, there was music playing in the room, the lights were dimmed down, no noise from other rooms once you were in yours. very chilled out and relaxing. the midwives were fantastic with us even though i was only 2cm dilated! on the actual day i gave birth there was just one midwife with me throughout and she was brilliant. I was only there for an hour before ella was born so all very quick and was complications so was so pleased to know that the theatre was just down the corridor if it was needed. would have been beside myself if it had all happened and we had been at home! after the birth the midwife gave us some lovely family time alone to bond the 3 of us. let me get myself sorted and bathed in my own time. unhurried and not fussing around. the only negative was that I had to wait 3 hours to be stitched but it was late at night on a sun and we had to wait for the doctor to come but was fine just bonded with my daughter. we stayed overnight due to the complications ward was fine. again staff were all great. gave you space if thats what you wanted but were more than happy to sit with you and talk through worries if you were concerned. didnt get much sleep but that was due to other babies being noisy- cant be helped. all in all a fantastic experience and will def go to kings for my next one! good luck with yours