Fuschia

I pay ?20 doe 2h creche for my twins so the higher cost would make it prohibitive for two...

So.. I'm not peddling any answers.. just some different thoughts that are r\ther unfashionable

The first article is about.. can we expect a small baby to selfsoothe? Kind of an antidote to all the books wher eit is the absolute holy grail of parenting...strikes a real chord with me as I am definitely in the cosleeping camp... The second article is a study into what factors at 3m predict a baby who will be a "good self-soother" at 12m... which are: * the amount of time you take the baby from the cot (obvious really) * the extent to which the baby exhibits "quiet sleep" * waiting longer to respond to cries ...these factors m ay not suit your parenting style though.. which brings you back in a circle, as you say... I think anecdotal evidence does show that not rushinf to pick the baby up, sleeping with it another oom etc etc do have an effect on self-soothing, but perhaps many of us would rather be super responsive and risk having to soothe at night... and in any case while most babies at a year do show an increase in their longest period of continuous sleep, for many this is not the case (or the opposite applies)

Just some interesting stuff I've come across... I'm on a twins forum where everyone seems to be having trouble atm and those two articles caught my eye.. one about whether it's realistic to expect a baby to selfsoothe.. the other is a longtitudinal study into factors affecting precisely that, a baby's ability to self soothe at 12m... which includes some interesting statistics about patterns of change in sleep/wakings )and many babies don't conform to "the norm" anyway! I just thought it was interesting reading.

"Individual differences in the development of sleep-wake states and self-soothing As indicated by the relatively large standard deviations in the sleep-wake and self-soothing variables (Table 2), individual differences clearly exist in their development. To further inspect these individual differences, the sleep-wake and self-soothing variables were examined using within-subjects regression. The resulting mean intercepts, standardized slopes, and percentage of infants with increasing and decreasing slopes are presented in Table 3. These results show, for example, that the longest sleep period increases over the first year for most children (as illustrated by a positive slope), but for some children it remains relatively constant or even decreases. The greatest amount of variability occurred for the percent of self-soothed awakenings (SS%), with 56.6% of the sample increasing and 43.4% decreasing across time. Thus, despite the significant linear increase found for SS% in the GLM analysis presented above, a substantial number of individual infants did not follow this pattern. "

helena handbasket Wrote: > > FYI, that article said more body contact meant > less colic (wrong!) and formula fed babies sleep > longer (wrong!) Actually, I'm afraid that's true, as far as I can tell. Just read a very interesting study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201415/ and the key features affecting self-soothing (if you want to develop self-soothing, of course) are: the amount of time you take the baby from the cot (obvious really) the extent to which the baby exhibits "quiet sleep" waiting longer to respond to cries "The development of sleep-wake patterns and self soothing Sleep-wake state development. Descriptive data on the nighttime sleep-wake variables are presented in Table 2. Results of the repeated measures GLM procedure revealed that the longest sleep period (LSP) increased significantly from 1 to 3 months, then leveled off for the remainder of the first year of life, ...Conversely, the number of nighttime awakenings per night dropped sharply from 1 to 3 months, then remained relatively stable from 3 to 12 months, ... The percent of time that infants spent out of the crib similarly decreased sharply from 1 to 3 months, then remained relatively constant from 3 to 12 months, ... The nightly proportion of time that infants were awake in their cribs, however, did not change significantly across the first year. The percent of time infants spent in active sleep decreased, F..., while quiet sleep percent increased, ... from 1 to 12 months. Finally, total sleep time during the night increased linearly, F... It should be noted that all of these variables refer to nighttime sleep only. Although total 24-hour sleep decreases across the first year of life, sleep becomes consolidated such that nighttime sleep actually increases. As sleep periods consolidate, the percent of time out of the crib is reduced while the percent of time awake in the crib remains relatively constant. All of these results replicate previous findings on sleep-wake state development for healthy, solitary-sleeping infants. ... Development of self-soothing. The percentage of self-soothed awakenings increased in a linear fashion from 1 to 12 months of age. At 1 month, infants put themselves back to sleep following 27.6% of their awakenings. In contrast, by 12 months of age, infants self-soothed for 46.4% of their awakenings ... A converse relationship exists for non-self-soothing awakenings which decreased proportionately with age. Remarkably, by one year of age, more than half of the infant awakenings still were non-self-soothing, requiring parental intervention."

snowboarder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm in a big old STRESS about sleep again now. > > > And this article - baby is (finally) upstairs > alone on his tummy with a teddy in the cot. So > not only do we have bad sleep (some say my fault > for being softie/cuddling/singing/rocking) but am > damaging him in different ways and bad things > could happen. There's just too much to read and > too many conflicting philosophies. I don't read that article as a criticism at all... just the opposite... it says that the be all and end all of "bbaies settling themselves" may be unrealistic and small babies need parenting to sleep.. as you have done... nothing wrong with moving to self soothing techniques as they get bigger, but don't blame yourself for having a small baby that doesn't just drop off by itself.. it's normal!! > > I can't deal with any of this until after > christmas as too much going on but I'm in SERIOUS > get sleep sorted in the new year....sob....watch > this space.

http://www.drjen4kids.com/soap%20box/sleep%20stuff.htm

? http://www.saturdaydropoff.com/ or trampolining at d. college? http://www.dulwich.org.uk/Intranet_SportsClub_Document_1.aspx?id=8:926&id=8:765&id=8:746&id=8:1789

RLT strengthens the muscles in the uterus/contractions. So soften the cervix you need either sperm (oor-er) or evening primrose oil First babies are typically 8 days late I believe.

lorraineliyanage Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Fuschia, there's the Mag Baby Club and Plough baby > Club on Fridays a stone's throw away from Push, > might not be such a good idea to do another Baby > Club on Fridays? There's nothing on in the morning though, and nothing suitable for toddlers.

I would vote for a Friday! There's not much on in ED on a Friday am as far as I can see

ryedalema Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is anyone with a huge bump going? I'll only get > dead jealous of all your Cosmo (etc) drinking if i > don't have a 'lime and soda' partner. I'd love to > join you but might join you for a January one > otherwise - then I can have a drink or two and let > my hair down more. No bump ... but I'm not a great drinker and might even be driving, so don't worry.... come along!!

Belle, ho does he settle to sleep the first time he goes off?

Yep

Can someone do a head count and book a table? x

"Wonder Week 46: The World of Sequences Babies are natural mess makers. During the last leap in your baby's mental development, this talent probably seemed at its peak. You may have marveled at your baby's knack for destruction as he disassembled, tossed around, and squished everything in his path. If you are alert for newly developing skills in your baby, at around 46 weeks you may suddenly notice him doing things that are quite the opposite. He will begin, for the first time, to try to put things together. Your baby is now ready to discover the world of sequences. From this age on, he can begin to realize that to reach many of his goals, he has to do things in a certain order to be successful."

Although leaving a baby is hard... it's nothing like the guilt of having to leave an older child that's asking you not to, if they're unwell... or realising that they miss out on playdates and after school trips to the park... not being able to make it into school for absolutely every event or help out on daytrips etc... there are so many part time/flexible working/SAHMs in ED, a school child really notices if their mum isn't there at the schoolgates!

SB: hard decisions. Two points, from opposing directions 1. I have always found the thought of leaving my babies worse than the reality. esp with baby no 1 (I went back when he was 10m) the weeks before were full of dread.. but it was Ok in the end, with trusted childcare the fear is worse than the reality. 2. It sounds like the practicalities of pt work for you, along with the possibility of redundancy, might have rather made your mind up I doubt anyone ever looks back and wishes they'd worked MORE when their children were small, TBH! But possibly the opposite.

It's part of brain development.. http://www.livingcontrolsystems.com/wonder_weeks/content_ww.html#ch08

I work part time and for me it is the best option... I see plenty of my children while still enjoying my work and knowing I won't be falling behind in terms of knowledge. But it involves a huge amount of juggling

I think if you can afford it and you're tempted to stay home, then give it serious consideration. It's so lovely for a child to get to be with her/his own mum rather than in childcare! I know it's not an easy role at all, Stay At Home Mum, though.

Can we have names/nos then? Fuschia Nappy Lady ? ?

Jane powertwin is pretty horrid to push. I have on, also a side by side, nipper..very light not too bad re boot space

Atticus Wrote:> Do other schools have better facilities or is a > move to the country the only option...? or go > private! I think most Victorian London schools have just a playground (no grass) while newer builds will have some green outside space.