hellosailor

As I understand it, there's no option to put him in full time, it's either 5 mornings mon - fri or 5 afternoons mon-fri. Whether you get mornings or afternoons will depend what has been allocated by the time they get to you on the list, mornings will be more popular. They have 30 places in the nursery for morning sessions and 30 places for the afternoon so the total number of children in GG nursery is 60, though one half will never meet the other half if that makes sense. It is obviously term time only. Putting in an application (or more accurately, putting your child down on the waiting list) is free, you just have to fill in the form with a couple of forms of ID and a photocopy of your son's birth certificate and give it in at reception. It is done by waiting list, first come first served, unlike applications for the primary school which are done by SEN, distance, siblings etc. Having a place at the nursery has no bearing on getting a place at the primary as the criteria are different, distance etc. Not sure where they calculate distance from, but this will only be relevant when it comes to primary, not nursery.

I just went to check and the one we have is 0-6 months and I remember being an incredibly tight squeeze to squish her into it even when my daughter was that age so no good for a 9 month old boy I fear, I know they sell them in Jojo Maman Bebe if you can get there in time?

Pebbles you're a wonder, I hope you and your husband (he sounds ace!) have a lovely week away, what a great chance to really relax and spend proper time together, you really deserve it. Try not to talk about your kids all the time or sit scrolling through pics of them on your phone, hoho! We always end up doing that when we get time 'off'.

Otta you're spot on, I think working in a Lush shop must be akin to being trapped in a wardrobe with 100 glade plug ins, makes me gag every time I walk past one..

I believe conjunctivitis means they can't go to nursery as it's incredibly infectious, hope it doesn't develop, grotty. If it is conjunctivitis and you end up getting drops from the doc, my advice would be to ask for the ointment instead of the drops, the ointment has twice as much of the active ingredient as the drops and is twice as effective in my experience! Plus easier to put enough of the ointment on effectively with a wriggly child than getting the drop to plop into the eye rather than rolling out etc. For some reason they always seem to offer he drops as a first line not the ointment, so I have learnt to ask for ointment!

Hi Pebbles, thanks for writing about this on your blog and sharing it with us, it's very brave to be so honest. All I can say is that I'm full of admiration for you coping with family life and everything that the day to day throws at you on so little sleep and for still managing to do your crafts, you're pretty super human xx

spot on

Just looked on the website, I'm particularly taken with the idea of real reindeers! It looks like a lot of fun but really that is prohibitively expensive and I can't believe that the photo with Father Christmas isn't included in the price, can't help thinking it would be more apt if you got to meet Scrooge inside.

the maxi cosi priory (called priorfix if you get the isofix version) scores highest in the which? ratings as the next stage up car seat with a traditional 5 point harness. The german 'kiddy' range of carseats which have a safety bar instead of traditional harness also score very highly, in fact they come out on top, but we bought one and had horrendous problems, our toddler literally fell out of it several times while we were on the motorway - we had fitted it correctly - and after some rather dubious and lengthy interaction with kiddy it emerged that this is a fairly common problem, that and older children being able to push the bar out. if you google it you find lots of reviews from parents who have turned round to find their baby in the foot well or standing up on the seat. Kiddy told me that they are working to rectify the safety issue by designing a special insert to try to keep children in the seat in these instances. I spoke to John Lewis about this (we obviously had to return their seat) they were shocked that Kiddy were trying to supply an insert to make their seats safe secretly through their customer services in Germany, and only when parents contacted them highlighting the safety issue, and yet as one of the leading suppliers of the seats they had been told nothing about the safety issues and the insert, and it was not available in stores) When I sent Kiddy a final email imploring them to make the safety risk with their seats public before a child is seriously injured or worse, their correspondence with me abruptly stopped, as I knew it would, because they simply cant afford to acknowledge such an email. I found 2 other parent reviews on line where they said that Kiddy were willing to correspond with them and acknowledge the safety issues they were finding with their seats right up until they urged them to make it public and then Kiddy stopped replying....I have a couple of friends with kiddy seats who love them and have not experienced any problems, but personally I would not want to take the gamble and my advice would be to steer well clear

Hoho! I hope my daughter will be asleep by trick or treat time, she is teething and has been bawling all day poor thing! (Also I think we might be peaking too early to introduce concept of Halloween this year, suspect she might be scared shi*less by the masks etc unless perhaps everyone out there is dressed as Makka Pakka!) I might pop round with my face painted if you have maltesers tho! I bet Halloween isn't done by halves chez Sillywoman! xx

A lot of vulnerable people can feel quite intimidated on Halloween I think..my mum is a pensioner in poor health, on several occasions over the last few years 'trick or treaters' have egged her windows for not opening the door which she has found distressing. (In fact a couple of years ago on Halloween, she was egged just walking down her road in East Dulwich! She isn't very lucky with eggs it seems...) On the occasions her windows were egged it was by groups of children with scream masks etc who she reckoned were 12+ or early teens going by their size, unchaperoned. I can't remember the last time a kid in a costume with their mum accompanying them rang my door for trick or treat asking for sweets to be honest, in my experience of recent years it is often groups of 'kids' too old to be doing it, and they are asking for money not sweets. Not saying 'give us yer money' but when you give them sweets saying 'have you got a pound' that type of thing. I don't put a pumpkin out now for that reason, but when my daughter gets old enough I imagine she will want to do trick or treating and I will probably do what my mum did with us when we were little, which was pre-arrange with a handful of local friends and neighbours that we were going to be coming, and just visit those few houses where we knew we would be welcome. (I didn't work out until I was older that she was ringing ahead!) We didn't ever trick or treat strangers houses, and I guess I probably wouldn't feel comfortable doing that with my daughter when we get to that age, but I guess if there's a pumpkin outside then maybe I would..will see when it comes to it! The thing is, with strangers, you may know that you're with a sweet 7 year old dressed as a pumpkin hoping for some chocolate buttons, but they don't, and that's the issue. Knocking on doors without a pumpkin is a definite no no I think.

The problem with slumber bear is that whatever noise you set it to, say, heartbeat, it it set to cut out automatically after 5 minutes unless is senses movement, so we found that every time our daughter drifted off as a newborn, the abrupt cutting out of slumber bear woke her with a startle every time....kind of exactly the opposite of what we were hoping to achieve! ha! We do however still use another white noise machine, the Homedics Lullaby Sound Spa, which a few family roomers recommended on here, which has different settings you can choose from like waves, rain ,heartbeat, and she found that soothing when she was tiny and it's still useful now that she's a toddler as the white noise covers the noise of builders drilling, the neighbours dog barking for hours etc when she is asleep. It's obviously not the same as a cuddly toy that you put in the cot, so if you specifically wanted one of them then my friend's baby loves Ewan the sheep which I believe keeps making the white noise for significantly longer then the 5 minutes that Slumber bear is set to..

folksy is a british version of etsy xx

so far I have to say that it feels like ours was a waste of money, tho as we got one of the more expensive ones that you can take the parent handle off when they can ride it alone, maybe it will come into its own in a while. Our daughter is 20 months and I think we bought it soon after she started to walk at 11 months, and the thing is, she just doesn't want to be pushed in anything, and this applies to the smart trike just as much as her buggy! She will go in it for a few minutes for the novelty factor but quickly wants to get out, so to be honest we'e stopped bothering taking it out as she wants to be running, not sitting. But as I say, maybe this will change when she can ride it properly using the pedals and we've just peaked too soon with buying it early! p.s also find it's incredibly annoying to steer, like a wonky shopping trolley, even tho we have the 1-2-3 one which is supposed to be the easy to steer one.

Nicola is fab and has helped several people I know make great changes to sleep probs!

j Blue leather waistcoat for a newborn > girl anyone?! > > That is special..

There is a good soft play at Beckenham Spa, about 10-15 mins drive from Forest Hill, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be that great for a 7 month old, do you mean proper soft play or more like a playgroup with mats and bean bags etc?

I'd go with 'they're in the wash' if you've swapped the lot, I reckon you can get away with admitting swapping one item 'I had to take it back as the hem unravelled, it didn't fit, etc' but I guess admitting you swapped everything is admitting you don't like their taste! It's a minefield with this stuff isn't it?!

Thanks everyone, ,very much appreciated! Lister not really an option I suspect as last time I went there they said you couldn't make an apt and the wait was 5 hours ,which I just don't think I can do with a teethy toddler and throbbing kidneys.. Seldoc always an option tho I hate to take up one of their slots with something I should be able to sort out during the day with my own surgery, but will prob end up going tonight if I can't get a cancellation at dmc.. I do normally have a set of emergency antibiotics on stand by, just as people have suggested, but as I've been lucky for the 18 months and haven't had an infection, they are out of date I think, so I think best to get fresh ones in case the old ones have lost potency. I am loathe to move from dmc as I was very grateful to have the midwifery care of the Lanes when I had my daughter and would like to be with The Lanes again if I'm lucky enough to have a second baby, but obviously it is far from ideal not even being able to get through to your surgery on the phone, let alone get to see a doctor...anyway sorry to bore on, nothing that hasn't been covered a gazillion times on here before obviously.. Thanks Fuchsia for those details, will use them! xx

I have a recurring kidney infection which over the years I have been told by the docs it's important to hit with antibiotics on the very first day it emerges as it spread so quickly I have ended up in A&E several times, but obviously this is the second day in a row I can't even get through to the recorded message stage of dmc, am in considerably more pain today than yesterday so while I wait for the infection to reeeeally take hold while failing to have access to a doctor or antibiotics, I was thinking wave some nettles over the afflicted area? power of prayer? apply a poultice? consult a witch doctor? pray some more? anything else I could actually do?

thanks birnhelene! Will give it a whirl on a Tuesday!

Thanks everyone! we already have stuff we do on Weds and Fri mornings at the moment, so if anyone knows if it is on on tuesdays then please do add that to the thread!

Since reading the last thread on this on here, we have been brushing our toddler's teeth with her sitting on our lap facing away from us and she will now let us brush them for a minute or 2 even, as opposed to the previous 5 seconds before grabbing the brush, have you tried that position?

I keep meaning to try these mornings at the crooked well with my 19 month old daughter, they sound ace, can anyone tell me more about them? Is it tuesday, wednesday and thursdays every week? Or have I got the days wrong? Are there any toys? you can buy coffee and croissants etc? Do they keep the doors shut??! I find that this is deciding whether we go to a lot of venues at the moment! Otherwise just an exercise in chasing my daughter out of the door 71 times before going home...!

Dr. Bidmead at Kings is indeed great. And no, you're not alone, there are lots of us out there!