Yak

A builder friend swears by huggies to clean up mess after doing building work. Make of that what you will...

Definitely. My son's keyworker at nursery is male. They have an absolutely wonderful relationship and he is a brilliant role model for him.

Flora Poste from Cold Comfort Farm. And Nancy, Peggy, Titty and Dot from the Swallows and Amazons series (I never rated boring old Susan!).

I think it goes in fits and starts. Admittedly mine went to nursery from 10months old, so at the start he was just blissfully ignorant that my leaving meant I was gone for the day. Now it's much more of an issue so we try and involve him in it, like make sure he's peeking out of a bedroom window to waive goodbye down the street, helping to get my shoes for me, etc, etc, so involving him in the process. And talking about what we'll do at the end of the day together... And definitely they behave differently depending on who they are with. Massive screaming fit when I tried to do drop off one morning!

Glad it's just not me Mrs Glennie! Nursery staff are starting to get used to my alarmingly red and sweaty face. My top tip is to leave bottle of water and warm layer in the pram at nursery, so you don't seize and dehydrate too much once you've done pickup.

Pickle, I fear the dark nights closing in too! I'm training for a 1/2 M and during the week I do medium speed run (prob about 10 mins mile pace) and/or hill session and/or sprints - let me know if you fancy meeting up one night. I normally run on a Mon (to nursery for pickup) and Wed/Thur nights.

Cashewnut, I would say over the 4 month period of constant illness I think I took about 8 days off in total, but at least half of those were for time that I was sick myself as a result of looking after a poorly baby. And I worked from home a few times too. We have endless ear infections which generally mean one horrible day, couple of hideous nights, then 5 days of antibios (for which, if he's perky enough, he is packed back off to nursery, and now I'm getting better at spotting the ear infection signs he doesn't go downhill too far). Ditto approach to colds and coughs as oimissus - I tend to pack him off like the heartless working mother that I am! Saffron, I stopped bf just before nursery so can't help with that I'm afraid. On immunity, is it one of those possible benefits that those of us who use nurseries tell ourselves to validate the choices we have already made? I suspect it might be! Interesting though that recovery is linked to parental time off.

I would definitely go to see the GP (as a couple) to get things checked out. It doesn't mean that you are committed to medical intervention if that's not what you want. We took 3 years to concieve and our GP was very understanding of where we wanted to draw the line in terms of intervention. You might find that a diagnosis of definitively never being able to concieve is pretty rare, so you still might end up dealing with unknowns and probabilities. But there is a lot that can be done with diet, vitamins, etc - the first step is seeing if there is a cause in the first place. Good luck with it all. x x

Hi Audrey, In my totally unqualified opinion that does sound like it could be overtiredness. My son would do 7 - 7 no probs, plus at least 3 hours of napping every day. But at nursery he only does an hour a day (after lunch, whereas at the weekends he will do a morning and pm nap). In our case he's just so happy and busy there he really doesn't want to miss out on anything and so is the last to fall asleep. It caused me no end of stress in the early days and his keyworker and I had endless discussions and strategies about what we were going to do (including trying for mid morning longer nap, shush patting him after an hours nap, separate rooms, putting him in a cot rather than a mat on the floor, muslin cloths from home for comfort etc) but in the end we both just came to the conclusion that we would just have to let him be. One tip - a super early bedtime sometimes helps reset our little one. We also brought bedtime forward to about 6.30. He comes home at 5.30 and on occasions I've put him to bed by 6....sounds mad but the first time we did this we had to go and wake him up at 7.30 the next morning! Hope things get better for you soon.

We had about 4 months of this - it definitely calmed down after that but I remember it being a stressful time because of not wanting to take time off work when newly returned yet poorly sick child meant I had to. Luckily I had a relatively understanding boss and also caught every illness off my son so it was mostly sick leave for me rather than for him. I would definitely warn work though - I chatted things through with my boss after the first bout and we agreed a package of non-urgent work that I would keep at home and try and get done if I had to take time off. Good luck - it does get better!

We have one,just used the once for a street party. Yours to borrow in exchange for a bottle of wine! PM me your details and we can sort something out.

Signed. I don't know if it made the slight bit of difference but I had it down on my birth plan that I didn't want to be discharged without a TT check. The difficulty is, as the petition notes, that not all MWs are expert at spotting the issue.

Lots of good advice in this thread. I never measured more than 34 cm but went on to have a health baby bang on 50th centile for weight. But the tape measure is there as a rough and ready guide, and my take is we are very lucky to have Kings on our doorstep to get anything checked out. Enjoy the growth scans, but take all the predictions with a grain of salt. At the end of the day it's people trying to draw lines on computers magnified considerably. I was having scans every other week and apparently the baby's legs managed to "shrink" between wk 34 and 36. Also quite alarmingly I had one set of measurements that gave the brain bigger than the head (the mind literally boggles!).

I had a sicky and windy baby - cutting out dairy for me certainly reduced the wind a lot (I don't know if it was reflux/ colic, never got it properly diagnosed). And I think the sick did reduce too. But like your little one, the sick didn't really bother the yaklet at all - it just meant I constantly went around looking like a pigeon had just pooed on me. A m/w said that quite often if babies don't know when to stop feeding when they are full they have no option but to spit it up - there's no other way for it to come out. Don't know if there is any basis for that. It did get better between 8 and 12 weeks, and I gradually introduced diary after that. I was cautious with introducing diary products when weaning but now he is totally happy with dairy products. BUT giving up diary is seriously hard workand you have to make sure you get enough calcium and protein. If it were just milky spit up without the painful wind, I wouldn't have done it. I also ended up buying more muslin cloths than I ever thought I would need and distributed them round the house strategically. Oh and scarves / wraps to make you feel less bedraggled... Good luck!

There is also the pop up Stonehenge bouncy castle in Burgess Park on Saturday, or at Crystal Palace on the 9th August. Looks ace! http://sacrilege2012.co.uk/

Someone told me once that the first flat surface in a home is where paper tends to accumulate - so we have an A4 folder on that surface for all filing stuff and like Fuschia we just empty it every so often and file it all away. That's the theory, at least....

I have little advice to offer as your little one sounds like mine. Playpen was a dismal failure as and before too long too strong to be contained by it. I take him with me in the shower in the morning which he loves, or at least in the bathroom (with bins high up out of reach, loo seat down etc - though that just encourages him to climb on it....agh). Cooking wise, a combination of highchair and a cupboard full of plastic things for him to tip out onto the floor. And just not cooking while he is awake. Generally I spend a lot of my time saying no or trying to distract with other things with mixed success. You might just find you have to pick your battles about what you can live with or adapt to and what poses too much of a safety risk. I think we are seeing some improvement - the plug socket phase is mercifully on its way out at 15 months.

It is hideous. I have SAD and have never known a summer quite like it.:-(

I use the Softy liners from the Nappy Lady - I think they are slightly bigger than the ultras, no? They also seem to scrunch up less and are lovely and soft. I need to order some more anyway so let me know if you want to try some out!

We do this for Mr Y. I can't remember how we picked them but we use Computershare Vouchers - they send you a pack of info and talk you through it on the phone. It's pretty straightforward and easy to use.

Hi Crystal7 Your boy sounds similar to mine - v quick to establish onto foods, ate with gusto and cut right back on milk. At 8.5 months (when I went back to work) he was literally having about 20 sec feed in the morning, 5 mins at night and then a bottle of EBM mid afternoon - around 4/5oz I think. I worried a bit about it but reckoned he was getting what he needed to get and if he needed more he would take more. I did bump up the yog and cheese sauces though. Like you I found the food under 1 is just for fun thing a bit baffling because for the yaklet eating is a Very Important Business (as anyone who has seen him eat will testify!!). We also had the biting thing. I'm sure there will be lots of good suggestions on how to deal with it and I think if you catch it early it is probably easier to deal with. Sadly for us the biting just got worse and peaked at around 10 months when we called it a day. I think because he was used to the faster feed from a bottle he was just getting too frustrated with a slower let down. Sounds like you won't have that problem though!

Hi minitoots, do you want to borrow our guide book for some ideas? I think if you avoid Kotor, Sveti Stefan & the area to the south of it (sorry I can't remember what it's called!) you should be able to avoid the worst.

You could try using the band stand in Myatts Fields Park if you still want outdoor but covered over - there was a great children's party going on last Sat...

I used the miracle blanket from day 2 (bought off the forum, where else!) for all naps and night sleeps til about 5 months. I used a normal swaddling cloth on occasion but never got the hang of it. Apparently it is a bit like rolling a fajita but I am rubbish at them too! I think one or both arms were left out from about 3 months when the yaklet found his thumb. But definitely fully trussed before then.

Next are good quality but not great for very long babies. I found Asda are surprisingly good size and quality wise (but patterns mostly crap..sorry, I digress!). John Lewis are ok but a bit thin I found. Good luck!