KateW

EXACTLY RhubarbGarden! Well said. GF recommends 'top-up' feeds before naps and split feeds.

My daughter dropped her morning nap properly at about 14 and a half months; the month or so before then she would sometimes have a morning nap or sometimes not. On the days that she didn't she seemed to cope ok getting through til lunch. Anyways, over Christmas hols we decided to ditch the morning nap and just keep her going til lunch and she now naps 1-3pm. HOWEVER, from about 9/10 months, I was only letting her have 15-20 mins morning nap which meant she had a full 2 hours after lunch and this kept her going nicely til bedtiem at 7pm. If I'd let her have an hour in the morning there's no way she would have had longer than 45 mins or so after lunch and would have been overtired at bedtime. Like Knomester, we had a transition period of about 1-2 weeks til she 'got it'. I also fiddled around giving her lunch at different times and putting her down earlier/later, but she's never been that good at showing tired signs so TBH, I got tired of trying to work out each day what to do, so she now just gets lunch at 12pm, then in cot for 12.45pm ish, asleep by 1pm and I wake her at 3pm (sometimes leave her if I think she needs more sleep). Some days if we're out for lunch she'll have a later nap, but she copes just fine. And before anyone bites my head off, YES it's Gina Ford and YES it works for us and YES, if you'd rather do something else then go for it! Just thought I'd add this to your pot of suggestions hellosailor. Good luck, it's a tricky time for a few weeks but fab when they just go to one nap x

Our daughter is 16 months and nursery rhyme CD's have been a huge hit since we went on hols last summer when she was 9 months old. I think putting up with songs that she loves is a small price to pay for having a happy girl in the car!

Or provoking yet another Gina Ford vs no routine debate! ;-)

Please can people advise me on a decent travel booster seat (for the table - not sure what their offical title is!). DD is 16 months and currently uses our Baby Bjorn highchair but we'd like to get something smaller and lighter for using at friend's houses, out and about etc. Thanks!

Just to warn you (though it might have been a fluke) the only time I mixed milk I'd pumped from 2 different days, my LO threw up the entire bottle! (She NEVER puked up her milk and was never a sicky baby so mixing my milk was the only thing I could of that caused her to do it). Never mixed again.

From what I've read, the minimum daily intake should be 12oz, max 20oz, and this can include milk on cereal, cheese, yogurt etc. Afternoon bottle was always the smallest amount DD had so I just gradually reduced it over a few days then stopped it altogether by about 11 months I think. She now has 6-7oz at bedtime (in a bottle) and 3-5oz for breakfast, with lots on her weetabix plus cheese and yogurt at mealtimes. She has had a cold recently and her blocked nose has meant she has hardly drunk any milk for breakfast and this morning (with no blocked nose) only drank 3oz so I think she's gradually wanting less in the morning. On the flip side, she's eating like a horse and has weetabix, toast and cheerios for breakfast so I think she's just naturally switching more to solids than milk. When she was ill a few weeks ago I just upped her milk intake as she wasn't eating much. Like JessB, I don't really worry that much about her milk intake now as she's get lots of calcium in other forms.

Hahaha Sanne Panne, I'm still trying to get to grips with that one!

This too will pass...

DD is 15 months and we're still using a bottle for morning and night time. Have tried a cup (which she drinks water from perfectly well) but she's just not interested.

Are you breast or formula feeding currently? We switched from formula to cow's milk at about 11 and a half months by swapping an ounce every few days so, 6oz formula + 1oz cow's milk, 5oz formula + 2oz cow's milk until she was on 1oz formula + 6oz cow's milk the just cow's milk. Worked a treat and she never noticed a thing.

Another vote for the Baby Bjorn highchair; it's awesome!

Alternatively, if you don't want to leave your house (!), go to paspic.com - you take the pic (they give you guidance on this, dead easy), upload it to their website, they make it passport ready and then post it back to you. We got ours back the next day. Fab service.

The 'Out and About' double nipper buggy is amazing and v light (latest model is the V2). It's made by the same people as the P&T. We have the single nipper but my neighbour with twins has the double and loves it.

My friend woke up the other night at 2am to find her 3 year old daughter standing by the side of her bed; when my friend asked her what she was doing, she said "Mummy, I've run out of sleep". Soooo funny.

This is hilarious! If and when DD starts doing this (14 months old, think it'll be a while) I'll make sure I make a record of the things she says so I can have a good chuckle later!

Wow, great website, thanks for the tip BellendenBear!

I agree with sillywoman, you've still got plenty of time to help her self-settle. I had awful trouble getting DD to self-settle for naps until she was about 4 months, most of the time I rocked her and she slept on me or she slept out and about in the pram. I did follow a loose routine from a few days old so I knew roughly when she should be napping, I just had to help her fall asleep those first few months. I now realise (DD is 14 months old) that the problems in the early months were due to overtiredness; BIG learning curve. I just wasn't putting her down early enough and she would get overtired REALLY quickly and I'd have to help her to sleep. Funny though, she was a dream in the evening and went to sleep at 7.15/7.30pm from about 4 weeks old. I drove myself crazy by stressing over her naps and thought I was creating all kinds of unbreakable props but I remember reading that as long as their little body clocks get used to napping at regular intervals during the day, assisting them to sleep in the initial couple of months isn't a problem. For me, having a routine was a real comfort, particularly as DD showed no obvious signs of overtiredness (still doesn't, but thankfully she naps and sleeps really well). The timings helped me to know when I should be putting her down and she did get it in the end. With the next one, I'm still going to implement a routine very early on, but I'm going to enjoy every single snuggly cuddle and not worry that I'm creating bad habits! Like Pickle and Crystal7 said, whatever you decide to do needs to fit in with your lifestyle. Try not to worry too much, you sound very aware of the need for her to self-settle so you'll help her do this in time. One of my NCT friends wasn't worried about her son needing to self-settle and now, at 14 months, she still rocks him to sleep for his naps and at bedtime and it's killing her back (and her sanity); she's only now realising that something needs to change...! So take heart, you're doing a great job!

I saw a chiropractor weekly from about 30 weeks with my first pregnancy, as I too had lower back pain, and it was wonderful. Chiro in pregnancy is thought to reduce labour time as they do 'work' on keeping the pelvis as open as possible; don't know if that's true for everyone but my labour was only 7 hours! I'll definitely have it again with my next pregnancy, back pain or no back pain, as the the weekly massage was a real treat and gave me a boost. Good luck, back pain is rubbish.

At 9 months I cut my daughter's morning nap (MN) down to just 15 mins because if she had any longer it was starting to affect her lunchtime nap (LTN) and she wouldn't sleep the full 2 hours. Now at one year's old, she naps 9.45-10am and 12.45-2.45/3pm. She wakes up anytime between 6-7am but I'm always consistent about when her naps are. I think the point of shortening the MN until they are only having a cat nap is so it prepares them for when the drop this nap altogether.

Hang in there SB, it DOES pass! DD went through a phase of doing this at about 10 and a half months (she's just turned one now). We have a video monitor so I could se exactly what the little monkey was up to. It went from a quick kiss and cuddle, plop in her cot, quick rummage then asleep in 5-10 mins for naps and bedtime, to P-A-R-T-Y in the cot! At first I went in every time she sat up and laid her back down but I soon realised this over-stimulated her and whilst we never skipped a nap, it could take 45-50 mins for her to drop off to sleep. Anyways, one lunctime I just decided to leave her and see what happens and lo and behold, she moved around for about 10 mins then just laid down and went to sleep! She nows sleeps either on her front, side or back but is much more competent at getting into and out of positions to find a comfy place. Took about a week for it to settle down properly but since she's gotten the hang of it she's slept better than ever (she's always been a pretty good sleeper anyway). And like hellosailor, she's worse when overtired.

No tips, just wanted to let you know I feel your pain SB. After previously loving pasta, my one year old now screams when she sees it and will ONLY eat toast and babybel for tea. I swear she's going to look like a piece of toast soon. Some nights I could cry, other nights I'm more philosophical about it and think it too will pass. She's a little monkey, she really is!

My daughter was the same at this age and I bought a snoozzz sleep wrap (from babyreflux.co.uk) which did the trick. We only used it for about a month as she soon got much better at getting herself in the position she wanted to (I only put her in it at night, not for naps).

Our daughter has had several bouts of red raw nappy rash since she was around 6 months old; metanium didn't work but -timodine works wonders and clears it up v quickly (that and lots of nappy-free time on an old towel). We use zinc and castor oil cream as a barrier cream at night and before lunch time nap.

Not really child related (apart from the fact that it baffled me and my sister at the time - this was 30 odd years ago) but my Dad painted our garage floor red. No explanation that I can recall. It wore off, unsurprisingly, within a year or so and he never bothered repainting it. Wierd. PS. LOVING this thread!