Smiler

OMG, 21 births! That's like a whole street worth of kids. Have to be impressed at the sheer stamina. helena handbasket Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > A friend of mine is the second youngest of 23, yep > you read it right ....... 23 children her parents > had! Two sets of twins in there, so 21 births.

Hiya, we had the "breezy" sun canopy, which was a pain to put on, and didn't provide any more shade than the normal cover, but I quite liked it on the (few) hot days, and it tended to stay on for a while and was also fine on dull days. Also quite liked the parasol, despite all the faff, in fact I quite enjoyed stopping to adjust it often as could smile and gawp at my (then quite new) baby! Was obsessed with making sure she was in the shade at all times and the angle of the sun. Those were the days, she would lie there in her pram in a happy way rather than screaming in disgust whenever restrained! My husband hated all of the accessories, and the cost did add up. The sun canopy is definitely not essential, but some kind of device to provide shade will probably save stress. What I really wanted was a drinks holder, but refused to pay ?15 for the Bugaboo one! Suspect that some of the "universal" accessories, e.g. parasols, might fit fine, and are substantially cheaper than the Bugaboo ones.

Aaaah, keeping us in suspense, not fair! Ours is in a few weeks' time, and all being well I will be blabbing to all and sundry!

That must be really hard Ruth. We should add "availability of partner" (for conception, birth, and all that follows) to the list of factors! Chantelle - totally know what you mean. One can be great.

Three would be our ideal (Mr Smiler is a happy middle child and I would have liked more siblings). But have had some problems trying to have our second child and will be very happy if all continues to go well with my current pregnancy and we are able to have our second. An even bigger factor for me, though, than money/space/fertility issues is the sleep deprivation. I have never, at any point, felt OK or even halfway OK since the birth of our daughter two years ago. Am like a zombie/blob-like marshmallow in brain and body, and sleep is still a problem. Assuming a similar experience with any future kids, two more kids with two years of bad sleeping each could potentially tot up to six years of sleep deprivation. Not to mention over-lapping night wake-ups between them. Don't think we could take it! Fingers crossed for a dream-sleeper this time, then we may reconsider... Being pregnant with a toddler is also even harder than I thought, especially changing filthy nappies and dealing with vomiting bugs etc. when have nausea - bleugh!

Yes, I had heard tales and assumed that it would be hard to breastfeed after a C-section, but the midwife explained that establishing feeding varies after every kind of birth.

We use Bright Horizons at Sainsbury's, which we think is good. Fairly small. It has just received an "outstanding" Ofsted report. Long waiting list. For under-twos there are limited options in East Dulwich: there is more choice if you are willing to travel further each day. In addition to the things others have mentioned, I would ask about their approach with respect to illness, e.g. whether or not they will give Calpol in certain situations, how many "sick days" do children in the nursery have each year. When the child is ill you obviously can't send them to nursery and have to take time off work, whereas I think nannies and childminders are likely to be more flexible. In total, our daughter, who in general is well and healthy, has had about four to five weeks off sick from nursery in the last year with viruses, tonsillitus etc., which has been hard to cover. Not sure if they pick up more bugs at nursery than anywhere else, but sometimes it feels like we are constantly having to take time off! When visiting I would also try to get a sense of how the smaller children in the nursery seem to be doing. Having had oour daughter in nursery part-time since she was one and not having used other types of childcare, I feel that for smaller kids, e.g. under-twos, nursery is not ideal as it is not very nurturing. She has been fine, no major problems, and well settled after the initial month or two, but it has all seemed a bit fend-for-yourself/survival-of-fittest.

Thanks for the advice re. Clexane ladies, I have been trying to get info about this from various doctors to no avail! Am relieved that a small gap is OK, as am daunted by the prospect of VBAC and the option of an epidural is reassurring! Had also not thought about the community midwives and weekends - this must have been what happened to me, I wrongly presumed that there would be 7-day a week cover.

Know this thread is about public transport, but just wanted to say that driving there is a nightmare! We went on Friday and it took about an hour and a half of slow traffic. Urgh. For parking near Gatwick though we have always found APH near East Grinstead to be good.

Ouch, poor you. I found tea bags run under the cold tap and held to the nipples really good, though the tea stains fabric, so don't wear any nice PJs! As others have said, changing positions, nipple shields and expressing also good. Hope you heal up soon.

Hiya, I had an emergency C-section in 2008. The procedure itself was fine, felt well cared for and that everything was under control, but had a bad experience on the postnatal ward, in particular at night when partners are not allowed to stay and there were hardly any staff around and some of the few that were there were horrible. Couldn't feel my legs or get up to reach the baby (had my C-section at night), was woozy and scared that I would fall asleep and drop her, but they wouldn't help, and she literally screamed for the whole night long. Left hospital less than 48 hours after the birth, probably too soon but there was just no way was staying any longer. It took a few days for my milk to come in and my little one was constantly screaming day and night for those few days, it was hard. No help whatsoever in hospital - I asked for help and was told that none was available as they were too busy. The Kings community midwives are meant to come and visit as soon as you get home (unless you are with a different practice), but we had to chase them up as they are v.busy. Do chase them, as they were really helpful re. breastfeeding once they did come. Sorry if this sounds negative and hope that you have a much better experience. I am on Clexane for another reason, and understand from the leaflet in the pack and pregnancy websites that it can sometimes mean it is not possible to have a C-section spinal / epidural for the birth because of the risk of a spinal bleed. Not sure about what it means for breastfeeding - it might be worth speaking to your GP, who can contact the specialist if needed, for advice in advance of the birth. Best wishes.

Hands-on (but of course only if asked!), practical help is what is needed - we received this from a community midwife and think we would have given up on the b-feeding without this help as we were struggling. Any publicity info should provide information about what actual practical help is available locally and how to get it (from midwives, health visitors, cafes, hotlines, anyone!) Am sure the services are all helpful, but personally I think nothing beats one-to-one, at-home help.

Re. your Mum I agree with Fuschia on the approach. Re. other people, try to ignore them and don't feel that you have to justify your decisions in any way (about the birth or anything that follows). What people say - and how they say it - with respect to others' fertility / childbirth / parenting never ceases to amaze me!

I think that Sure Start was originally intended to target families and children in need of additional support from local children's services, e.g. with speech development, SEN, health, domestic violence etc. The idea being that it would be easier for people to access services. There have been various evaluations of the scheme, available from the DCSF website: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/research/evaluations/nationalevaluation/NESS/nesspublications/. One that I read a while ago said that in some areas, too many Sure Start services were "walk-in", with the people who turned up not those in need of help, and recommended that more resource went into outreach work.

Oh dear, sounds really tricky. The manager could make adjustments, e.g. alter how the rotas are planned to give your daughter more notice of her shifts or more regular shifts. The NHS should have good policies on this, backed up by employment law (flexible working and sex discrimination) - HR might be able to help if the manager is difficult.

Hiya, more so than the social side, we found the practical information about giving birth and opportunities to discuss things over a period of time with the same teacher and group really useful. When it came to the birth, we were much better informed than we otherwise would have been, which I really believe affected how things went in a positive way. As a result of the classes, we had knowledge and confidence to handle some unexpected and scary things (e.g. thick meconium in my waters when they broke at home); to challenge the consultant's advice to take synotocin to "speed things along" and insist on a scan of the baby's position, at which point they (belatedly) discovered the baby was breech; and also knew what to expect in an emergency C-section (we had done a role-play in the class), which made the whole thing less scary. Also, the options for NHS ante-natal classes in East Dulwich don't seem to be great. I was offered a one-off ante-natal workshop of 4 hours, which when heavily pregnant didn't appeal, and wouldn't have provided opportunities to get to know people. There were some other options, e.g. evenings for a few weeks, but they said that there was high demand, so they were mainly doing one-off workshops. Maybe this has now changed: hope so.

It was so emotional and couldn't even imagine the parents' prolongued stress, not knowing what would happen but having to keep going - and look after the other children - every day. My Mum is a retired paediatric physiotherapist and worked on a neonatal unit for some of her time, and did the lung-clearing treatments on the tiny / struggling babies etc. Thought I had some understanding of the ups-and-downs and uncertainties of it, but the programme really brought it home. I hope that they provide a future update on little William.

OMG how upsetting was today's episode? :(

Should I feel guilty for not feeling guilty?!

Don't beat yourself up, whatever you decide re. the feeding. Agree with others that if you go the bottle feeding route, encourage the baby to take it cold / lukewarm; also encourage Mr Baldock to become the expert at bottle preparation! Also try to eat well (or, if not possible, at least eat) yourself when you can! Best wishes.

Too knackered to read the article properly - much less any philisophical books - but am glad to see any discussion of feminist issues with respect to motherhood. Think it is missing at the moment. When I was on maternity leave and swamped by baby-texts I went to the library -on the recommendation of a feminist, older friend - and borrowed a couple of classic feminist texts from the 60s and 70s, to dip into, which made a good contrast!

Yes, there is no substitute for an actual baby! Dolls do not scream in frustration, bob about etc. The latching on thing took a while for us to latch onto! Our daughter looked like gizmo from "Gremlins" when she was born, with the big eyes and cheeks, but soon turned into a gremlin when we had probs with feeding, with reptilian-style screaming / shaking / skin-tones. Terrifying! Was it the video with the skiing scandinavians?! I found cold tea-bags good for soreness. The expensive creams are, however, v.good for general beauty needs, e.g. cracked feet, rough elbows etc! Maybe we should start a tips thread if there isn't one already.

The moths have eaten my horrible old maternity wear, so will have to get nice new stuff this time around - shame!

Ha ha ha>:D

I am going to give it a miss this time, only done b-feeding the once, and like you had problems at first but picked it up. The course was helpful, but very long (it ran over the allotted time) and there were no proper breaks, so not ideal for heavily pregnant ladies, though they may have corrected this. Couldn't face it again! The key thing for us was getting practical help from the Kings community midwife in the early days. No-one got in touch at first, so we had to chase them up when our daughter was screaming for 8 hours straight and getting skinny, but when the midwife finally did come she was brilliant, gave us hands-on help and great practical tips, and we were soon well away. If we had any problems with feeding again, I would try to get someone round at an earlier stage.