alieh

I had the joy of encountering this particular 63 driver on Saturday - I'm sure it must be him. We asked to get on the back and he snarled "No!" (bus was also empty, we were getting on at the second stop on the route). So we got on the front anyway and my husband was trying to touch in his Oyster card, which didn't seem to be working, and the driver shouted "I've told you 20 times that the card reader isn't working. If you weren't so worried about your pushchair maybe you would have heard me." Umm, okay. He then proceeded to scream out the window at a driver in a car beside us "You f&*(ing idiot...", etc., etc. Pleasant journey! I've met him before and had the same problem about getting on through the back doors and his explanation for not letting me was "what if there was a fire?" When I asked what about if there was a fire with a wheelchair on the bus, he just replied with his standard snarl. I do think that the underlying problem is that many people want to judge parents that have big "4X4" prams. The reality is that Maclarens/other umbrella-style pushchairs are the only buggies that will fit through the aisle on the new bus design and that fold easily. Personally, I don't like taking my Maclaren for a full day out - it tips over when you hang anything on the handles, is a pain to push, isn't as comfy for baby napping on the go, etc. People with buggies other than Maclarens, or with two in a buggy (like a Phil and Teds), newborns, etc. should still be able to get on the bus when the space isn't being used by a wheelchair or other buggies. I don't see what the problem is with opening the back doors on an empty bus and/or keeping the design of the old buses which were no problem for all buggies to get through.

There are lots of people on the Baby Whisperer Forums site that have experience with trying to make a loose routine work around an older sibling, so might be a good resource when the time comes. Also just noticed your point about freelance work - can you give yourself a reasonable amount of time before you have to do this? I would have found it very stressful trying to fit in work of any kind in the first few months and that was with only one child! And/or be very realistic about what you can achieve (i.e. a few hours on Sat/Sun mornings, for example, if you have a partner who can watch the kids).

The one that I liked best is the Baby Whisperer. The books were annoying in tone, and she definitely makes it sound like, done properly, all babies will fit in with exact timings (obviously not!), but I found the principles worked well. Not rocket science, but just the idea that that you work towards a routine where baby eats, then is awake for a bit (when teeny, probably just enough time to change nappy), then has a sleep, then eats, etc. She has guidelines about what different timings might look like for different age babies - so feeds are approx every 2 hours, then eventually every 3, then 4, etc. I only followed this very loosely, and ignored her ideas about naps having to be in the cot (used sling and buggy loads), but found it worked well for us. Especially the eating upon waking, as we had got into a cycle where he was BFing a bit, then dozing for for 10 or 20 mins, then BFing for a bit, then dozing, etc. This is great when they're brand new, but eventually he got really overtired because he wasn't getting either a proper sleep or a proper feed and by the end of the day he would be screamy and beside himself with exhaustion. So switching up the order helped stabilise things for us. I also found the Baby Whisperer Forums much more helpful than the books. Lots of mums on there willing to help when things have gone haywire!

Sorry gwod, I am left-handed but my son had a strong left preference too! Wonder if it is something about hearing the heartbeat whilst feeding?

I have used sitters.co.uk for day childcare when our childminder has had to be off at short notice. It has worked well for us, though my husband works from home so it is a bit easier to have a "stranger" looking after my son as they aren't completely on their own.

Lots of good products here. We have the Baa Baa blind with suction cups behind our blackout blind, and it works well (plus can be taken on holiday). For the bird noises (and other general household noises), we have this cheap air purifier thing that hums away so provides some level of white noise kind of like this one: http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/household-products/jml-fresh-air-globe/1054767/. Or you could try a fan. Snowboarder, we put a sippy cup of water in our son's cot a few months ago and I am always surprised to find that he has drank loads of it some nights. I too didn't think he would manage to find it himself, but he does. Could be worth a try. Also, emc, am sure you don't want to invest in another sleep clock, but the new Gro-Clock has a way of locking the buttons so that they can't play around with it. Or the cheaper option is to just put some fairy lights on a timer. Hope it gets better! We had months of 4:45 am, so I sympathise.

Oooh, good question. I'd like to know too!

snowboarder, we had the same with the 4-5 am wakings around the time he was transitioning to one nap. I think those early starts can be a sign that you need to get a tough with the AM nap! We had trouble pushing him to 11 or 11:30 at first, so I did a short nap in the buggy and woke him (easier than buggy than cot). Say 9:30-10:00, and I would plan to be at the park or a group so that I could wake him up and get him straight into doing something fun. Then he would normally be ready to go down again around 1:00, and I could let him sleep until 2:30 or 3:00. We did this for a while, then started waking him after only 20 mins in the AM, then started having a few days where we could push him to 11:00 or 11:30, then alternated 2 nap and 1 nap days for a while, now he is fully on 1 nap. Though we find we can still do days out and he will either have a couple of short sleeps in the buggy, or a shorter sleep at lunch in the buggy. As long as I compensate for bad naps with a super early bedtime, he seems fine with it. We had the same with cow's milk at first. It took a couple of months for him to start liking it. Eventually I found that if I warmed it (same as above) and also if I put it in a soft spout sippy cup, he would drink it more readily.

Many thanks everyone. I've gone for Beegu and Naughty Bus for the 5-year old, and Monkey, Monkey, Monkey and Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late for the 3-year old. Will enjoy your other suggestions for my son's book collection too!

Thanks! The 5-year old is quite a girly girl, but I think I'll get her Naughty Bus and Traction Man anyway and hope she can find her inner tomboy. I am just checking with the girls' Dad to see if they already have the Mog books.

Can anyone recommend books for a 5 year old and 3 year old (gifts for friends)? Preferably something slightly obscure to reduce the likelihood that they'll already have them. But not so obscure that I can't find them on Amazon. Not asking much am I!?

We had a playlist playing when our son was born, and at the exact moment he came out the song playing was "What a Good Boy" by the Barenaked Ladies (Canadian....people here probably won't know it). A beautiful song and the lyrics are quite apt, though also bittersweet: When I was born they looked at me and said What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy And when you were born they looked at you and said What a good girl, what a smart girl, what a pretty girl We've got these chains that hang around our necks People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath Afraid of change, afraid of staying the same When temptation calls we just look away Here's the song on You Tube in case anyone is really bored and fancies a listen!

Hmmm....we got rid of ours around 6 months. If it were me, I would be inclined to teach him how to replace it himself at this stage. It is quite old for him to have to learn a whole new way to fall asleep, and may be easier to now wait until he can understand giving it to the fairies?? Have you seen these, which might make it easier for him to learn to replace himself? http://www.sleepytot.com/ Or you could tie 4 dummies to the corners of a muslin cloth? Litter the crib with millions of dummies? Rather then replacing it when you go into him, you could just guide his hand to the dummy and get him to put it back in himself. Might make for a few sleepless nights while he sorts it out, but could pay off once he gets the hang of it and hopefully he'll stop calling for you so much?

Actually, now that you say it, linzkg, I think that the Breech Birth book did talk about whether the baby was expected to be over 4 kgs as a factor in whether to consider a natural breech birth. Of course how they decide in advance whether baby is expected to be over 4 kgs is another story, as your experience shows! Thanks for sharing your story. What a miracle that your son survived, and I hope that both you and he are managing okay.

I found that the feeding back to sleep in the middle of the night stopped working at some point...maybe around 8 months for us (signs were him staying wide awake for ages after feed, refusing feed, biting my nip, etc.), so I had much more incentive to try other methods of resettling (i.e. walking, rocking, etc.) once the feeding stopped working. I kept worrying about feeding him every time he woke at night, but with the next baby I won't worry about it at all, I will just keep doing it until it stops working and then make a new plan at that point.

The interesting thing is that the risks to baby are higher for a normal vaginal birth than a c-section - in other words, if baby's safety was the only concern, c-sections would be "safest" for baby in every instance. But risks to mother are much greater with a section, and of course they're not going to do sections for every birth. But I just thought it was interesting that people kept telling me that the risks of a vaginal breech birth were higher than a section, when stastistically that is true for every birth. I just hope I don't have to worry about this when the next bubs comes along!

BTW, I would be very happy to discuss in person if it would help. I found this time incredibly stressful and it ruined the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy.

If you are thinking about this, I would be very happy to lend you the book and also share the birth plan that we very carefully drafted which covered all kinds of things like whether we wanted continuous monitoring of baby's heartbeat while labouring, etc. Honestly, I wasted so much time on the internet reading both inspiring and scary stories that I got in such a muddle. This book was a welcome relief because it summarised all of the facts - it is written by a doctor who had to decide about her own breech birth. Yes, it was my first baby. The key factors in a successful natural breech birth seemed to be: -Butt first presentation (forget the technical terms, but where they're in folded pike position) -Labour starts spontaneously (they won't induce if baby is breech) -Labour progresses well -VERY KEY - midwives and/or doctors with experience in breech delivery Even though I ended up with a section, I am so glad that I did all of this planning for a natural birth and that I went overdue hoping to go into labour. It meant that when I did have my section, I felt like I had done everything I could to avoid it (if I had had the section at week 38 or 39 like doctors would have liked, I would have always wondered whether he might have turned if I had waited longer). This is just my own personal reflection based on how I felt, not a comment on what would be right for every woman. I also did all of the other things to get baby to turn (acupuncture, moxibustion herb thing, yoga, swimming, propping bum up for hours on end, etc.) and even had two attempts at ECV at Kings. This bubs was not budging! A stubborn 17 month old he is now too!

Yes, after all my research the conclusion seemed to be that if baby was bum first, labour started spontaneously, and progressed well, there was no reason the birth couldn't be natural. The best book I read was Breech Birth by Benna Waites which summarised all of the research out there (good and bad) in a very matter of fact way.

I was - in theory - up for it. I did loads of research, spoke with senior OB at Kings (Dr. Penna), had very supportive midwives (The Lanes) who drafted in midwifery colleagues with natural breech experience to be on call for me. I agreed with Dr. Penna that I would go 10 days overdue, but that if labour hadn't started spontaneously by then we would do a section. Anticlimatic end to the story....went 10 days overdue and had a section.

Oh yes, this was a very very bad age for sleep for us. Not sure if it coincides with starting solids, and they get tummy ache as their digestive system learns to cope? Or maybe just that they're becoming more aware and therefore more difficult to settle when they do wake. Also teeth often start to make an appearance at this stage, which can really mess with sleep. Agree that all of the "rods" fall away at some point. All you can do is survive somehow in the meantime!

Yes, we had no problem when checking in at Gatwick. Both carseat and buggy were free. Checked carseat with the luggage and took buggy to the plane door and checked there. Useful to know that it really varies whether you get your buggy back at the gate or on the luggage carousel on arrival, so it is good to have a sling on board in case you have a long walk through the airport. We did have a bit of a problem on the return journey from Milan and had to fight in order to get them to allow both for free. But we eventually got there in the end.

We also didn't have a problem with our 3 cats and our baby. I never felt like I had to be super vigilant - they were keen to sleep in the pram/basket but only when the baby wasn't in it. Mostly I think cats tend to keep a wide berth of small screaming creatures! Things are a bit different now that our son is a toddler, as he tends to chase them and poke them in the eyes when he can get his hands on them. One of the cats did scratch him on the face recently when he did this, so I do need to keep a closer eye and make sure that he is learning how to be gentle with them. One tip someone gave us was to bring something home from the hospital with the smell of the new baby before you bring him/her home (if babe is born in hospital rather than home, that is). We did this - left a blanket around for cats to smell before baby came home (c-section, so we were in hospital a few days). Not sure if it helped, but can't hurt!

I have a baby gym mat with play arch thing, and I would be happy to offer some fruit. Bananas, satsumas, grapes....that kind of thing? I should also have some spare throws and cushions. If there is a load going on the 21st I could get stuff ready by then, if anyone could swing by and collect at some point. I am just off Underhill Road.

Great news about 7:00 am! Honestly the insomnia will pass, but it might take a number of weeks. It is just that your body isn't used to getting long stretches of sleep anymore and so you're jittery. I still rarely sleep right through without waking at all, but generally am able to go back to sleep pretty quickly now.