Gubodge

I'm afraid I'd be no help, My kids have always eaten healthily with very little sweet stuff. But its a birthday! You've got to have sugar at a birthday, even if its dark brown.

My elder daughter's birthday is 2nd Setpember, so she is the eldest in her class and the majority of her friends started school an academic year ahead of her. She hasn't felt the slightest bit left out, and has made loads of new mates in her class. I actually consider it to have been an advantage. Now she has started reception, she doesn't find playtimes nearly as intimidating as some of her classmates as she knows and plays with lots of the 'big kids'. My second child is going to be in the opposite position, born at the end of July with most of her friends going to be in the academic year below her. At least she'll have the advantage of a sister in the year above, but I'd still far rather I had the opportunity to keep her at home a bit longer.

One of my reasons for going with the tripp trapp was that I'd seen second hand ones go on e-bay for almost as much as we paid new, so even if it wasn't as great as we'd heard we wouldn't be wasting money. In fact they are as good as we'd heard and we now have two, both still in constant use five years on.

I think you'd be right. Based on my highly unscientific research, entirely based on personal observations made when cycling to and from work, the traffic at school drop-off/pick-up time seems down by about a third in the holidays. And I'll allow you your after school activity drive. Although I expect you to be first in the queue for the bus should they ever extend the 363 route over to Honor Oak ;-)

Jam, as a late applicant, your daughter would have been one of those children to have benefited from the Goodrich bulge class. If it hadn't been for that you would almost certainly have ended up with a place in the north of the borough, or perhaps no place at all.

Nurseries attached to schools cannot usually cater for the numbers who will start reception and many of the children at the nursery will go onto different schools, so there are always be plenty of children starting in reception who have come from private nurseries/child minders/home. But I'm all for pre-school nursery if you can get a place, it's a nice gentle way of getting them used to the school environment that otherwise can come as a bit of a shock come reception. My eldest went to Goodrich Nursery in the morning and was then picked up by her private nursery to spend the rest of the day there. Many others spend the rest of the day with childminders, so it would be worthwhile checking if your childminder would be prepared to do nursery pick-up/drop-offs.

Agathoise, You should have seen Goodrich Road this morning, a complete log jam of cars with drivers (some parents, some not) abusing each other through their windows. Perhaps you were one of them. My advice would be to find a different route or to try cycling or public transport at that time in the morning. I certainly wouldn't choose to drive in London at 9 o'clock and I'd rather no-one else did when I'm trying to get my children safely across to the school gates in the morning. But I'm not sure what the school is supposed to do about it. It's not as if they are unaware, and it certainly causes them concern. After all, it is their pupils who are put most at risk by dangerous parking and driving. The issue is regularly raised in newsletters but obviously the kind of person who risks another childs safety for their own childrens' convenience doesn't take much notice of polite appeals to common sense.

For Goodrich it may be worth noting that the distance is taken from their main gate on Dunstans Road rather than the Goodrich or Upland gates. But basically, you stand your best chance of not ending up with a school the other side of the borough by applying to your closest community school (presuming you're not a regular churchgoer). But until the results come out there's no way of knowing what the 'catchment area' will be next year.

I think Kings is great. There can be problems with waiting times for clinic appointments, but that is just a symptom of their being a centre of excellence for ante-natal care and people being referred to from all over the south of england, and further afield. We are also extremely lucky in this area to have so many community based midwife teams who can give you the private birth experience for free no matter where you choose to give birth. The presence of these teams also means Kings attracts an awful lot of applications for every midwife vacancy, so you'll looked after by the best. Yes, some people have had bad experiences there, but you'd find the same for any hospital and the benefit at Kings is you couldn't be in a better place if anything were to go wrong.

Yes, I'd read 'getting into trouble' as the main character having a problem that needs overcoming, rather than them beign a trouble-maker. Badly phrased perhaps, but not any cause for concern.

Goodrich has a bulge class this year, but this should be a one off. Heber did not take any additional reception pupils this year; next year, who knows.

Recomend it to everyone. The 5 yr old thought the clowns were hysterical and has a new ambition to be a trapeeze artist. The three year old was in awe of the tightrope walkers, and spent the act muttering 'I couldn't do that' under her breath.

Perhaps you should find out what brand of phonics the school she is likely to go to uses. I think Jolly Phonics is the most common, but there are other versions and it may set her back a bit at school, or at least confuse her if she has started learning using a different approach.

It may have been one of your boys that my 4 year old came to a bit of a stalemate with. Both children had obviously had it drummed into them that when you get to a narrow point you wait for the other person to go through. They could have been there for hours.

When I saw the thread header my immediate reaction was guilt that it was one of my neighbours posting about the awful woman they hear bellowing at her children. So don't worry, you're certainly not the only one. And I don't even have the 3am exhastion as an excuse anymore.

Four hours?! Ahahahahahaha! Fools.

Pickle Wrote: have my hopes pinned on the fact > that the gorgeous man who flies around the big top > holding onto bits of fabric doing amazing things > with those fantastic arm muscles will be there > again.... ;-) ) > Mmm, Angel....

We went a couple of years ago with a just three year old and just 1 year old. The three year old was completely entranced and still talks about Daddy nearly catching the spaghetti that the clown was throwing. Even the little one was pretty into it. We're going again this year and they can't wait. Your's will love it, just be prepared for plenty of tightrope walking on the back of the sofa afterwards

The 5 - 7 days per feed is to allow your body to get used to the reduction in feeds and so hopefully avoid mastitis. In my (limited) personal experience I'd say that either he'll immediately and happily guzzle formula, leaving you weeping that he misses your breasts so little, or that he'll resolutely refuse to accept any milk other than yours, at source, leaving you weeping as you head off to work to express in the ladies, convinced that he'll starve. If it is the latter then try not to worry about it. If he's hungry enough and you're not around he'll take the formula, and if he doesn't he can make up for it in the morning and evenings and you could mix expressed breatmilk or formula into his solids to ensure he's getting adequate supplies. With my breastfeeding councellor head on I'd say, start as early as possible but initially just go for replacing an entire feed with formula. If he's resistant to the taste I wouldn't say dropping 5 minutes worth of feeding would leave him hungry enough to encourage him. And if he still turns it down it may be down to the bottle. A sippy cup might be more successful.

I'm after a class for my 5 year old. She's seen the tumble tots ad on Milkshake and is very keen. Unfortunately the closest venue for the 5-7 age range is Bickley. Does anyone know of any not too serious gym classes aroudn here for that age? She'd want to be stretched, but I'd rather not go down the anorexic/bruised/practice til you weep competetive classes. Not yet anyway.

As someone whose daughter is starting in Goodrich reception on Monday, I am not too concerned about the extra class being taken on. After all, from a four year old's perspective there's not much difference between 90 and 120, and each of those 30 additional pupils will bring funding. I would not be happy to think that this was going to be repeated in subsequent years, though. As far as I see it, Goodrich and the other two schools have done their bit and it is now for other schools to take the extra burden next year and beyond. But it may be that this will not be such an issue for a couple of years at least. I personally know of at least two families who are considering moving out of London or going private because of the situation this year. If that is replicated across the borough then Southwark's forcasts for pupils moving to the suburbs could be accurate after all.

Steph, I'd say leave it a while and try again later. You can always put him in pull ups and encourage him still to go to the loo for wee's but not worry about the poohs till later. It goes against everything the potty training manuals say, but it worked out fine for us. Making an issue out of poohing can cause real problems in the long run. The constipation caused by holding it in can mean that they start to associate poohing with pain, and that can lead to a vicious circle of toilet trouble and severe contipation that can continue until they are school age. I saw friends go through this, so when we had similar trouble to you I just tried not to let it get to me, and put her back in the pull ups. Sometimes it seemed like she was going to be in them forever but she's now just turned three and has been poohing happily in the loo for a couple of months now. He's still young, he'll get there.

We have a king size bed; badly timed to coincide with finally having it to ourselves for all but the most exceptional night. But come seven o'clock, with the four year old and the three year old and their two dolls and two bears all pile in it is still a bit of a squeeze. I think we need an emperor.

It is recognised that babies do often sleep better on their fronts (Which is why this was the recomended way of putting them to bed for years), but you should be aware that this is thought to be one of the contributing factors to why there is a lower risk of SIDs amongst babies put to sleep on their backs. The very fact that the baby sleeps more deeply on his/her front means they are less likely to wake if there is an irregularity in their breathing. The 'back to sleep' campaign was one of the most successful public health initiatives ever to take place in the uk, and has shown similar beneficial results in the other countries that have adopted it. I'm not sure I'd take the risk for the sake of a few more hours uninterrupted sleep. As for the feeding though, don't worry, as long as he's making up for it during the day and there are plenty of wet nappies, then he'll be doing fine.

I think the general rule of thumb is that if his nappy is dry at night for a week then it's worth going without. Dryness at night tends to be triggered by the production of a hormone which means less urine is produced when sleeping. This hormone can kick in at anytime, so some kids will be ready at 2, some not till 7. Right from the start my eldest would take herself off to the loo in the middle of the night without us even being aware of it. It did mean we started needing nightlights or to leave the landing light on, so if he doesn't already have a light on at bedtime you may want to do the same. We know our younger (just three and still in pull-ups at night) is unlikely to go to the loo without waking us up to accompany her, so we've put a potty beside her bed to try and get her in the habit of going in that if she wakes. It's been used once, but I think that was first thing in the morning.