Smiler

Prob hard to pursue money from anyone, would look into getting it fixed.

Snake oil.

We cut it out at the same time as the new baby arrived, it was just getting too much of a battle! Eldest was fine and just got used to it, just had to get out of the mindset of waiting for them to nap to get stuff done and just started to ignore them and get stuff done instead!

aaah, what a nice thread. Words of wisdom. vesti, it's v nice to hear about all of the good things ahead. I sometimes feel exactly like Lochie, just want to press pause, but (more of the time) I can't wait until the little one is close to the age of my eldest when (we hope) life may become more civilised. Sleep is the big thing: it's hard to enjoy the moment when you just want to be unconscious! My solution is not to have another, it's to get everyone else to have babies and then cuddle them and give'em back! Or hang out at places with lots of newborns and harrassed new mums who are desperate for a break (more cuddling opportunities) .

Talking of re-heated hamsters, my friend's mum (otherwise seemingly conventional) was a believer in pet freedom, and would allow their hamsters to roam around the house for much of the time. They always went missing, and she would say that if they were a proper hamster they would survive and return, only the weaklings wouldn't make it. It provided endless fraught afternoons of hamster-searching, listening for scratches, looking for clues, with some grizzly finds and miraculous returns of scrawny, black feral hamsters. My poor friend was always fretting about her hamsters in school, and now has no pets.

This is all great! Drunken / outsized ballerinas, bad hair, revived hamsters, decapitated bunny toys (brilliant, d'you have a photo?), lies . Some of the stories suggest some parents may have been on-the-edge or overloaded at the time, others just pure eccentricity / wanton disregard for health and safety! Feel sorry for Pugwash's little girl with the short back and sides(sorry Pugwash)! And the bearded pirates - am all for gender-neutrality but perhaps beards are taking this a bit far! Perhaps the red garage floor was some kind of mid-life-crisis? Molly - sounds like your childhood was quite a hayride! And Pickle, that photo is brilliant.

Hear hear new mother. Sleep deprivation is horrible :'(

Millymoo, the church thing is quite inspired!

Love the dressing-up stories. Your mums were so original! My parents' things were mainly to do with the house. They both worked full-time and were always tired and short of time and money, the house needed lots doing and neither had DIY skills. So they cut corners. Some examples: - Concertina plastic doors for the bathroom and loo (with no locks). - After too many spillages, they replaced the old carpet downstairs with office carpet tiles. - Tarmac over the whole garden (front and back) to avoid gardening. - Replacing six dining chairs with six bright blue office swivel chairs on wheels. My dad still maintains this was a good idea: practical and good value-for-money. He would swivel round and round during family meals. This was mortifying when friends came round for tea. They let my brother and I have free reign in "decorating" our rooms, writing on the walls etc. But the deal was that we had no budget so I lived with fluffy blue and white clouds until I left home at 18. My brother, Mr Smiler and I often take the piss, but never to the parents' face 'cos they'd be upset. They have now, finally, got rid of some of this stuff, but the irony is, that when they visit our house they are critical of the decor! :))

Yes, my mum says the same thing, 'twas normal to have a bigger career break, but she had kids in her early 20s, and when she re-trained higher education was free. And of course pay wasn't equal and there were no maternity rights, so they didn't have many other options! Now, many of us have kids later, women taking time out have to face stiff competition for jobs, less flexibility and higher costs in career-changing and of course ageism and sexism. Good times! I really hate working with tiny kids - no local family as back-up. Last night the baby was up all night as she's ill and spent most of it weeping about how the hell I'll cope in a new job with two kids when simple stuff like frequent sickness, train breakdowns, sleep-deprivation etc happen. Would really rather not work, but have decided that the short-term pain approach is best for us. I get annoyed when women say blithely "oh it just wasn't worth-while financially to stay at work, my earnings didn't cover the childcare", as it just seems short-sighted. Have got no problem with people taking time out, but to make out that it's the obvious option and a financially sound one is disingenuous. Oh dear, looks like you'll be stuck lodging with family then Lochie :'( Or move to a cheaper area near ED? Or come up with a great idea and become an entrepreneur or novelist (in your spare time) while caring for the children, as is always espoused by those godawful women's mags?

Know it's not really helpful for those in ED, but we didn't realise before leaving how much cheaper (and more available) childcare is outside London. Childcare at a good local nursery near us (Epsom) for two kids (one under two, one over two), three days a week, costs just over ?1000 per month, there're lots of childminders who have just a couple of part-time mindees, don't charge for the hours kids are at preschool or a retainer fee etc. Obviously transport costs go up though, so it's swings and roundabouts.

It is indeed really expensive, but when you do the maths, don't just take into account your earnings (should be the whole household income) and don't just take into account the short term. Economically, it is much better for women to continue working, even at a loss for a few years, than to take a longer career break, after which it can be hard to find work for reasonable pay and at a similar level than before. After a break it can also be harder to find part-time work. And of course no pension contributions, risks of relying on one salary etc etc.

Malwinka, it doesn't always go quick with induction, didn't for me, bah!

I was induced with a syntocin drip at 37 weeks after waters went but nothing else had happened for 3 days. It was an attempted VBAC, but ended up with a second unplanned C-section. Not a bad experience overall, but it did hurt, they keep turning up the level of the drip. In the end, when had to have the section and they turned the drip off and my contractions subsided it was bliss, and even better when they did the spinal! It was quite closely "managed", with constant midwife presence doctors doing rounds etc. We found this reassurring, but some people wouldn't like it am sure. Try not to feel guilty - I did, loads at the time and still sometimes now, though see I should let it go. my daughter was 5lbs 10oz, but she was and is totally fine. I broke with good breastfeeding practice and shovelled formula down her in a syringe (but also had her on the boob 24/7) for the first few days, I was worried about her losing weight.It worked for us. Hope it goes well for you.

Figleaves.com

We got the lascal (?) maxi instead, it's fab.

favourites were Cocoa loco brownies by post, yum. Voucher for "Cook" (frozen, home-cooked meals, although only works for those with freezer space!) sophie le giraffe toy. Jelly cat stripy monkey toy. (those too cos the babies loved them). Crinkly fabric books. Crystal thing that you hang in the window and when it's sunny moves round and sends rainbows round the room. Massage voucher for very local place. Cake. Least favourites: complete tales of beatrix potter. Bootees. Swaddling blanket. Giant fluffy pink horse for age 3+. giant loud plastic toy teddy that never shut up. Pink clothes. Soft toys. Anything with bunny rabbits or slogans. Or pink. Any "mums" toiletry type stuff (sat in cupboard for ages until guiltily chucked out).

House inside my mummy is good. I like "siblings without rivalry", as the introduction is just the beginning......

The funding kicks in the start of the term after the child turns 3 - so some kids get it almost as soon as they're free, while others need to wait up to 6 months (eg baby born just after Easter would not get funding til September). It's term-time only.

My 3.5yo has been in two day nurseries (incl Bright Horizons) and school nursery. For us, school seems to be way better for the pre-school stage, apart from the hours, which IMO are not workable except for stay-at-home parents or those with nannies or childminders willing to do pick-ups/drop-offs. I think the main thing is that there're lots of other kids their age and activities geared towards pre-schoolers. In the day nurseries, we found that the carers were so busy dealing with the basics with the younger kids, there was little attention for the older ones. This may be different in nurseries with different rooms for different ages, but Bright Horizons, for example, is just 2 - school, all in one room. The school nurseries have more structure - not learning to read or anything pushy - just scheduled stuff like cooking, art, gardening or whatever, which has been better for our daughter than total "free play".

Supergolden, your other half (if you have one of course) should also make adjustments in their working life, even if they are the main breadwinner at the moment. For example, they could go in early and leave early on the days you work. They should also take an equal role in finding childcare. Many part-time jobs go to internal candidates, so you may need to thinking about working more days than you'd ideally like to initially, and hoping to reduce hours later. Stuff like clothes, interview practice, office politics etc will all be fine, try not to worry about that side of things. You only need one decent interview outfit, and lots of cheap but smart workwear around at the mo (I know, about to return to work and have had to buy loads of new and inexpensive stuff as my old stuff too small, boo hoo!) Perhaps you could use two childminders, or a combination of CM, nursery or nannyshare.

There's an interesting section on only children in Po Bronson's "Nurtureshock"

Hiya, am not over 40, but for a fair while we weren't sure if we could have a second child (fertility issues) so can relate to the feeling of being in limbo and trying not to become preoccupied with trying for a second child to the detriment of living as a family of three. Think though, that sometimes, the approach of "wait and see" can actually be quite stressful. With fertility there're so many tricky decisions, e.g. how hard to "try", whether/when to seek medical tests for one or both partners, try treatments / interventions, whether/when to try again after miscarriage(s). I felt under a fair bit of pressure from family and friends to "just relax" and "wait and see", but decided that it was better - for me - to really go for it and then deal with it later if we got to the end of the line in terms of what one or both of us could cope with. So we sought early medical advice, went private to speed things up, had tests, had treatment, tried again and again etc. This brought its own stresses, but I wanted to feel that I'd done everything possible to try, even if it didn't work out. I do know a few people who have taken the "wait and see" approach and regretted it, e.g. because one of them turned out to have poor fertility, so the limbo time was kind of wasted. With respect to men, think my fertility specialist reckoned that sperm weren't as good after 40!

We have a 2 year 5 month gap, thought would need a double, but buggy board was fine from the start, elder one hasn't been in pushchair once since! Sling useful for lots of stuff, e.g. Keeping little one contained while doing preschooler activities.

Am now one year in with no. 2, and in same sleep-deprived, zombie state as I was in march 2010 when this thread was younger. No more for us!