anna_r

Hey ros (oops, I meant lochie!) I am so with you. Need to lose tummy. Let's do a class somewhere together. Ive been thinking about British military exercise...??

Well we made it to toddler world today and it was fab. My two year old loved it and shes now fast asleep having exhausted herself climbing and jumping etc. we'll definitely be going again. Lovely to meet crystal7 and mellors there too.

I'm thinking about trying it out tomorrow snowboarder...will have to see how night goes and how adventurous I'm feeling in the morning though! I think I will recognise you if you are there so will say hi x

Do you think it would be possible to do toddler world at crystal palace with a four month old as well as toddler? Does toddler need lots of watching or are there people there to help out? Thanks!

Mine used to do that snowboarder until she learnt that meant no more game. She still does to some extent though if she's in a particularly short attention mood when she will request one game ('numbers mummy!') then 10 seconds later say 'no, cows!' I've also had to accept that sometimes she deletes apps accidentally by getting into wiggle mode but luckily have generally been backed up.

My daughter (nearly 2) loves playing with apps on my phone. These are her favourites: Wheels on the bus Itsy bitsy spider Old macdonald Soundtouch Toddler flashcards Toddler counting Hatch Letters A to Z Talking Tom Talking hedgehog Talking Santa Talking John

Yes that's what we do too. In practice we've ended up taking quite a bit of extra holiday, and have always paid it 100% in full...as mellors says it's not their choosing. My nanny asked for an extra week off when we were around but had family to stay and for that we agreed that she would work those days off in extra time/babysitting.

Congratulations Fuschia! Well done you! X

Good luck Fuschia! Thinking of you x

snowboarder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh the thought of being in a cinema with my > toddler!! Horrendous same here...my toddler's attention span is approxinately two minutes and as for sitting still in a seat without a 5 point harness?? Sounds almost like being back on an aeroplane for what was honestly one of the worst nights of my life. Snuggly little three month old though...ahh bliss :)

Emailed! This will be fun! Can't make Fridays at ritzy as have toddler in tow but Thursdays perfect.

Wholeheartedly agree with everything you've written...having had very similar experience. A couple of things to add: claire recommends you try a special diet when trying to get rid of thrush, which includes cutting out sugar, bread And lots more. I think it's pretty much impossible to cut these things out entirely when you are an exhausted breastfeeding mum. However I did cut out the most sugary things in my diet namely regular coca cola and dextrose energy tablets and I think it might have made a little bit of difference. I also started drinking yakult which I am now addicted to! Another type of bacterial infection I had in addition to staph aureus was group 3 staph. The cocktail of antibiotics I was first put on I was told was tough on your stomach/digestive system. As it turns out I was fine but my lovely calm daughter turned overnight into a screaming nightmare. I told the dr and as soon as we switched to a different antibiotic she got better. GPs often do not know that you need these high dosages of fluconazole for getting rid of ductile thrush. In my case I had to tell my dr how much to prescribe me. It is different to that for other types of thrush.

And congratulations Moos on your new little one. Hope the tongue tie issue resolves itself very easily after clinic x

Goodness me Countjc I can only imagine what that must have been like. Well done you for persevering for so long and totally agree about formula sometimes being the best thing to help maintain your sanity. We did a bottle of formula a night while I was expressing full time as its very difficult to exclusively pump enough when you havent got any stores built up in freezer. Fingers crossed about you continuing to heal and being able to breastfeed in future, if you want to. I know so well that feeling that you are just not healing and it is awful to keep looking down and seeing such damage. x

My second daughter had posterior tongue tie, undiagnosed until she was over 4 weeks old, despite me being in complete agony at every feed, nipples completely torn to pieces. She was putting on weight really well and the latch looked good so everyone kept telling me it was fine and to try different positions etc. This is even though I had successfully fed my first daughter and knew this felt different. Eventually after phoning my midwives in tears and pressing for them to make me an appt with Claire Kedves she diagnosed it. I burst into tears with relief after finding out. Then I had a panicky few days waiting to see whether I could be fitted into the next Tuesday tongue tie clinic (I truly dont think I could have continued for another week). By this time I was doing a lot of expressing to give boobs break. Tongue tie clinic went smoothly (although its definitely not a terribly fun experience) however by that time I had developed two different bacterial infections in the wounds as well as thrush so had to treat those with a variety of antibiotics and fluconozole etc. At the clinic they ask you to feed every three hours for five days to encourage baby to learn to use their tongue and I found that REALLY hard, having been expressing a lot and giving boobs a break. Was in tears with every feed and breasts didn't seem to be getting better at all. After five days were up I switched back to expressing for a week while my boobs healed. Also used those novogel pads Claire recommends. Eventually started to see improvement. Anyway, the good news is that we are still breastfeeding at 3 months with no pain at all now. In fact my daughter had now decided she loves the boobs so much she is refusing bottle (despite having had it a lot in the first two months). I came so close to stopping (I was even prescribed the pills that make your milk dry up since the GP was nervous I would develop an even worse infection if I stopped by pumping down). I'm so happy I did push through but really had to fight for the support. I made appointments with my GP almost every other day and they were actually very supportive(although I had to tell them how much fluconozole to prescribe - you need a STAT loading dose on the first day). The difficult thing is that when you get nipple damage you are almost certain to get infections, and working out whether it is bacterial or thrush is really difficult, results from swabs take ages and often give false negatives and the treatments are opposite to each other. Anyway, bit a ramble. Have been meaning to post about this myself for a while. I found the old tongue tie thread on here really helpful for advice at the time. Its called something like 'Baby fighting to latch on'.

Oh I love the weekend song! And the autumn song on currently and also all the number raps with Sid and Andy. I find Balamory incredibly annoying (I think its mostly Miss Hooley - can't stand her clothes or her hairstyle!) although I like the song about which house they're going to, especially when the policeman sings it and does his camp dance. Not a fan of Dirtgirl either, or the Numberjacks. Do you think they deliberately pick kids with the least personality to 'report' on the number problems happening out there? The worst though for me has to be Tommy Zoom - early mornings, boy and dog, half acted half cartoon. God I hate it. Favourites are 'Nina and the neurons' and Get Squiggling. Hmmmm starting to worry about my deep knowledge of cbeebies programming....

The NUK snot sucker ('nasal aspirator') works really well on my daughter...if I can get her to stay still long enough. You might be able to get at Sainsburys, otherwise the pharmacy on Forest Hill Road definitely sells them (I've bought two there) and will be open tomorrow.

OK so time for the news!! Baby Ava finally arrived safely yesterday at 11am, 16 days late weighing 3.8kg. She is absolutely perfect and looks to me like a baby at term should do. When the waters broke there was no meconium and the placenta was not starting to disintegrate at all. She was also still covered in vernix. Although I had to be induced it was so much better than my first birth and I am actually really happy with how it all went. I don't want to do a huge birth story but in brief the pessaries did nothing for me, breaking waters started things off but needed synto drip (and epidural which weirdly worked well on one side of my body only!). However managed to avoid instrumental delivery which I was so happy about. Baby was in a funny position which may have explained some of the delay (back to back and born looking sideways). It was a far cry from my planned home birth but I am so happy with how it went, I feel loads better now than I did after Baby 1 and think I am recovering faster. I wanted to add that the Kings staff were all amazing. Brierley were with me for part of it and were also great but had to go due to being on call and other births etc. However every King's midwife who looked after me was fantastic, particularly the last two during the actual delivery. So supportive and encouraging. The anaesthetist and doctors were also great. We are really so lucky to have such a great hospital on our doorstep. It made a big difference that the labour ward was not too busy (although post/ante natal wards packed) so we could stay in the room for several hours after the birth before being moved to ward. Last time I was cleaned up en route to the ward having given birth about 20 minutes earlier as they needed rooms so desperately. Thank you for all your messages of support! x

Well I waited to 42 weeks and after four sweeps, three reflexology, acupuncture, vindaloo curries, fresh pineapple (including the centre bit), very long walks, sex, clary sage baths (but not castor oil...couldn't face it) nothing happened so am currently sitting in Kings being induced. So far the hospital experience has been much more pleasant than last time - they don't seem too busy so I am just hoping it stays that way and that I can get a room with a pool and also use some of the hypnobirthing techniques we've been practicing. My lovely Brierley midwife came with me to start the induction and should be able to come back if/when things start happening as they are also not too busy at the moment (although I understand that it is not always the case that are able to attend such hospital births given their focus on home births). For anyone who is interested and facing the same decision, we had a postdates scan and meeting with the consultant yesterday and although everything was fine it was quite clear to us that the risks associated with going over 42 weeks (based on recent Kings statistics) did not justify pushing to go longer. Previously they were happy to let you go over 42 weeks with regular postdates scans however they don't now offer this as a matter of course, as the scans, while being a good point in time indicator that everything was fine, did not have predictive value. The most common characteristic linking births with negative outcomes was going over 42 weeks - and no other indicators (e.g. placental blood flow during post dates scan, size of baby) were as consistently reliable predictors. Of course everyone must make their own decision based on risk and their personal circumstances, but although I was really really hoping for a quick, natural home birth this felt like (and still feels like, at this stage at least) the right decision. Fingers crossed things start kicking off soon and our little bundle decides to make an appearance!! x

'iTot cards' are flashcards with animals, food etc and will often keep my 18 month old distracted for an extra 20 minutes when necessary

We have that Baby Einstein and I agree the singing is dreadful and the words just do not fit! Although now having watching it approximately a million times I just find myself singing along in an equally annoying voice without realising it. Which is not good! I will have to dig out some Pooh CDs - sounds great. Ruth_Baldock Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My baby watches a baby Einstein DVD about world > animals, set to a background of classical music. > About halfway through, a bloke starts singing > about turtles, proper x- factor style and the > whole thing is just so out of place and ott that I > always end up sniggering like a school boy.

Nope...still waiting! Two sweeps and acupuncture don't seem to have done much yet. Seeing Dr at kings on wed to discuss and currently booked in for induction thur (42 weeks) although may change depending on what happens wed. Still hopeful I won't need it anyway!! Can't seem to see that link as requires a login?

Thanks for your advice everyone. Baby not here yet but have a full day lined up of reflexology, acupuncture and long walks, then sweeps start tomorrow so fingers crossed. x

Will discuss dates for induction with midwives on Thursday together with monitoring and maybe go for induction at 42. First daughter was born at 42+2 in the end. Busymum - yes that does sound very similar. I do feel I just 'carry longer' than the average. I tried acupuncture with my last birth (3 lots) and didn't feel it did much and I didn't exactly enjoy it. That's why I've gone for something different this time round (reflexology) which at least is relaxing! May be worth doing some acupuncture too though. In the end last time round I did go into labour naturally the night before due to be induced - although it was unidentified (until later) hind water leak with meconium - hence why descended into induction drip anyway. That's another reason for leaving until 42 weeks too I suppose. I was totally mentally prepared to have to transfer to hospital from home for a number of reasons, but for some reason don't think I had really contemplated the prospect of not even getting to start labouring at home for number 2. Oh well - baby will come when they are ready I suppose!

Ok have a few new things to try from this thread - cleaning floor and evening primrose oil capsules! Plus good to hear success stories of sweeps... x