hellosailor

Pickle I think you're right, I think it is prob best to stick to the same time rather than tweak according to what time they wake up - tomorrow I shall be putting her down at the same time regardless of what has gone before in the day. Hope it makes a difference! Yak, that's a tricky thing! I've already thought about this! Because she only sleeps for half an hour for her morning nap, and that nap is pretty early (often starts as early as 8:30 as she has often been awake since 6:15), it pretty much means she has to go down for lunchtime nap at 12:00. Unless I start doing lunch ridiculously early at 11:00, there is not much time to digest so she does tend to have lunch at 11:40ish and then go straight down. Having said that, going down so soon after eating has never kept her awake before, and in fact today, the briefest lunchtime nap yet, she went down for the nap over an hour after she finished lunch so I don't think that's the solution, good thinking though!

I have heard good things about LIDL own brand 'Toujours Nappies' - but have never tried them, must do so! They regularly beat Pampers and Huggies in reviews apparently and are obviously cheap in comparison. Think they are ?5.19 for 50 nappies from the googling I've just done Look here and here

Can I just ask a logistics question which may be relevant while I've thought of it? In the morning sometimes minisailor wakes up at 6:00 / 6:15 am and sometimes not till 7:00am. Regardless, we never actually go up and get her until 7:00, but the days nap timings tend to be tweaked according to what time she actually woke up. i.e I have always made it that there is 3 hours between waking up from her morning nap and going down for her lunch time nap, so sometimes this means her lunch nap is at 12:00, sometimes 12:30 etc, according to what time the morning nap is, which is in turn dependent on what time she actually woke up for the day. I have tried putting her down at the same time for morning nap regardless but it's not a good idea - if she's been kicking about in her cot since 6:15 she definitely needs to be put down for her morning nap earlier than if she has actually slept till 7. Therefore, is it best, do you think, to stick to the exact same time every day for her afternoon nap even if this means that sometimes she will have been awake for less time in between naps than she is used to? i.e today, very unusually, I put her down for lunch nap at 1:00 because she had woken at 7:00am (unusual) and had napped for a whole hour in the morning (also unusual and meant she was up late from her morning nap at 10:00 so I waited the usual 3 hours to put her down for lunch, knocking lunchtime back nap to 1:00 for fear she wouldn't be tired enough if I did it at the usual time.) Would it have been better to still do the nap at 12:00ish even though she would only have been awake for 2 hours before it rather than the 3 she is used to? phew, long winded, tired, unsuccinct question...sorry

Thanks you lovely lot, all useful advice. Unfortunately she generally only naps for 30 mins in the morning (very rarely she goes to 40 mins or an hour) so I can't cut it down any more without dropping it altogether! I will definitely try to put her down earlier for her lunchtime nap tomorrow to see if it makes any difference though.. Inkmaiden I'm hoping you're right and that it is related to the crawling development. She definitely springs up and starts climbing around her cot when she comes into a light sleep phase, rather than rolls over and continues to snooze as she once would have done. Having said that she's been crawling about a month and the cutting down the nap has only started in last few days so I fear may not be the culprit...we'll see!

Ole, I am shuddering somewhat at the thought that it might not go back! Interesting what you say about putting her down earlier, it has occured to me that even though she is being put down at the same time as normal, she is obviously increasingly active during the morning, now crawling etc, so is perhaps getting more tired more quickly, so is maybe now overtired at her usual nap time...will try putting her down earlier tomorrow!

SB I don't drive! hoho! But I'm going for a buggy walk in a second! Have to get out! Inkmaiden thank you I might experiment with that if it doesn't change soon, she still has a morning nap but she definitely still needs it, so if I was to see what happens if we didn't have it (*pales*) then it would definitely be a case of me trying to lengthen her lunchtime nap by dropping the morning nap rather than something that she is ready to drop organically. So I will prob wait a bit to see if this sorts itself out before trying that measure. It doesn't seem to be a case of waking up because she is not sufficiently tired to go for longer, more that she is all of a sudden too wired to get through that first sleep cycle - though I'm not doing anything differently to cause this, i.e not suddenly putting her down later than she is used to. they are such complicated little creatures!

Hi SB, Yes, I do leave her crawling around her cot for at least ten mins to see if she'll re-settle (unless she starts crying) but at the moment there's no hope she will! We are very consistent with naps but in the last few days I have experimented with times a little to see if, like you say, it could be that she now needs to be awake for longer before going down at lunch time, but after experimenting I don't think it is that unfortunately as that would be a pleasingly easy solution! She was very tired and seemed desperate to be put down for the nap today...but still....ping! at 30 mins...awake but in no way refreshed of course. She is now so exhausted and grizzly she doesn't even want me to put her down for a second, just starts crying as soon as I let go of her, exactly the same yesterday...it's going to be another looooong afternoon....:-S

I hope to come next week! Sounds great!

Minisailor (almost 9 months) has started waking up at 30-40 mins - basically after 1 sleep cycle of her lunch nap - and instead of just stirring and going back to sleep for another hour as she normally does (we have a video monitor so I know she has always stirred at this point!), she now sits bolt upright and tries to scale the cot divider in her cot like it's Becher's Brook. I go upstairs to re-settle her to find her on her knees, wide awake, holding on to the cot bars. Nothing will get her to resettle - she is WIDE AWAKE, grrrr. The rest of the day is now spent with her grizzling and crying loads because she is knackered, to the point that I don't want to take her out anywhere in the afternoon because she is so fractious that it just becomes an exercise in damage limitation, and yet staying indoors all afternoon with a strung out baby is equally difficult! This is seriously getting me down - we all know that the afternoon nap (which even before this has only ever been about 1hr 20mins for the last few months, not ever the holy grail of 2 - 2.5 hours I hear people talk about!) is the only chance you get to sit down and shovel a pitta bread into your mouth, send an email, wash up etc, and I'm finding the day is very different when it basically isn't happening! Is this a phase? She has nothing obvious bothering her or waking her, it's more as if she's too wired to resettle when she comes into light sleep after 30mins so I guess could be developmental stuff...

Um no, I don't really think you 'need to be prepared for your children to be hurt (i.e knocked down)' by a drunk person when you go to a pub, anymore than you would anticipate being knocked down yourself by someone who was so drunk they couldn't control their own limbs. People don't take children to pubs in the evening, it's at lunch time / afternoon you might go for food as a family, and I think if someone was so drunk they were actually knocking people over in the Actress / Bishop etc by that hour, it would be pretty unusual...;-)

Mini Sailor did exactly the same thing, in the first week after she learnt to do that she sometimes skipped a whole nap altogether, just to practice her moves, until I gave up and brought her back down! It passed quickly and now she only does it if she is overtired and wired when I put her down, or not tired enough, to burn energy for 5 mins before passing out..can only imagine the fun and games when she starts pulling herself up to stand in her cot...::o

I always look through the window before I even think about going in a cafe to see if there is going to be somewhere to put my buggy without it being in the way, this is obviously partly because I don't want to be in the way or put the cafe owner / other customers out, but also because from a personal point of view, there is of course nothing relaxing about having a coffee if you feel like you're in the way or people are tutting at having to squeeze past you! If I thought there was even a slight chance I would be in the way due to lack of space, I would not go in somewhere, simple as that. We really don't all have the hide of a rhinoceros and teflon coating so that tsssks and grumpy stares bounce off us un-noticed, in all honesty I'm pretty much already cringing / preparing to apologise for my presence before I even set foot in a shop / pub/ cafe with my buggy (I know not everyone feels like this but I have always felt very self conscious about pushing a buggy.) One of the reasons that groups of mums do meet in pubs like The Bishop, The Actress etc during the afternoon (no, not getting drunk...!) is for the very reason that they have a lot more space for buggies and you don't have to feel like you're putting anybody out by taking up room in there with your buggy. I went for a coffee in the Actress with some other mums and babies in the mid afternoon a few days ago and the three of us were literally the only people in there. The staff are always almost comically welcoming because they barely have customers at that time so all 3 bar staff rush over to give themselves something to do! When I do go to cafes, 99% of the time, whatever the weather, I sit outside to avoid the feeling that my buggy is in the way inside. It's a tricky one, I'm a mum and yet even I find it frustrating when I feel penned in by buggies somewhere, but I guess there's no easy solution. Mum's need to go to places too and babies have to go in buggies!

Hi, I also started a thread on this 2 or 3 weeks ago, pretty much in the day my baby turned 8 months she started refusing to be fed by spoon, and was fussing through meals only wanting to squish finger foods in her hands, thrown them on floor etc. As you say, was more than a bit nonplussed when she had been hoovering back everything you put in front of her until then. Like others have said, I tried to remain calm at meal times rather than show my frustration (the first few days she was definitely picking up on my anxiety and I felt like it was becoming a stand off - the last thing I wanted) and after about 10 days she started eating much more like she had been before. I was very keen for her to take the spoon again rather than deciding just to stick to finger foods, as I was finding it hard to get much into her other than toast and didn't want her to eat purely bread! Also her sleep was being affected by the drastic drop in food intake as she physically could only get a fraction into herself of what she was used to. Also freezer is full of stuff I've made for her so I was keen for her to want to eat it again! So I kept offering the spoon, even if she only took a mouthful before she got hacked off and then stopped offering, and eventually she just started taking it cheerfully again. It worked best when I acted very nonchalant about whether she took it, barely making eye contact, humming to myself etc!

Agreed

KidKruger Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think Marie81 was asking obvious questions and > her tone was not rude. > Marie81 wrote: > It is totally irresponsible for both parents to be drinking alcohol whilst caring for their children, I am shocked that any parents on here would take their children to a pub and both consume alcohol the same for drinking at home, one parent should always be sober in case anything happened to one of the children and they needed to be rushed to hospital! If you?re must insist on drinking regardless for the care of your children well then I?m afraid you may have a problem such as addiction! I think we must be looking at different posts KidKruger? The Marie81 I'm talking about wasn't asking any 'questions', she was telling us the score in no uncertain terms. And to suggest that having a glass of wine with dinner makes you 'totally irresponsible' and an 'addict' is pretty rude, actually. Like StrafrerJack says, by that logic does the the fact that some of us don't drive mean we are irresponsible? If my child was to have an accident I would have to rely on the (gasp!) London Ambulance Service to transport us to hospital? >

Quite. If you sling a few shi*e catapults out there and suggest that even having a glass of wine with your dinner if you're a parent means you are an irresponsible parent and have some sort of addiction (and yes - that is what she says, If in doubt, re-read her posts) then expect people to respond if it's on a public forum. If you don't want people to respond, try saying it into your bedroom mirror while holding your hairbrush instead.

I was actually thinking that tonight, me and my partner might actually put out daughter down in her maxi cosi instead of her cot, thus hopefully reducing the potential for her having a household accident while in her sleep into the bargain, and head straight down to Kings car park to eat our dinner and have a glass of wine in the car. That should shave a good 3 or 4 minutes off our response time in the event of an emergency, as well as being a fun night out for all the family.

That's simply not good enough parenting Molly, you may sleep in your clothes but if you've had a glass of wine with dinner you'd be about as useful in the face of an emergency as Withnail and I on buttered ice-skates.

I think Marie81's claim that people don't want her to have an opinion on prams in pubs is rather disingenuous to say the least?! Also peculiar to say that I've taken the thread off topic, when it was her that started lecturing those of us with children on whether we should or shouldn't be having a glass of wine with a meal in the privacy of our own home. Nothing to do with prams in pubs. Off topic, no? I in no way think that she shouldn't have an opinion on that matter, nor have I said so! I did however feel compelled to respond to her suggestion that any amount of drinking while in the care of a child - and she has clarified that she does indeed include in that having one glass of wine with dinner in your own home while your child is asleep upstairs - is indicative that you have an addiction problem and are also that you are an irresponsible parent. She does seem to make an exception for parents without a driving license, which confuses her principle somewhat, but there you go. Marie81, when you put statements like the ones you have out into the ether on this forum, or any other public domain, you will find that people do come back at you, it's the nature of the beast. And for what it's worth, you may not feel that calling people addicts for enjoying the odd glass of wine in their own home or saying they are irresponsible parents if they do so is 'criticising their parenting skills' but many would beg to differ. The phrase 'are you one of those parents then?!' was surely not designed to win friends? And I do not need to be told to 'calm down' because I don't agree with you or because I have asked you to clarify what you're saying. I'm perfectly calm thanks, your posts have given me a bit of light relief and something to have a giggle about if anything!

ClareC Wrote: - > Thankfully we are a two car family..... That must > be major brownie points on the A&E run scale of > competent parenting Do you know ClareC, I'm embarrassed to admit that earlier this year when our car was in the garage for a couple of days, I didn't even think to hire another car for the duration in case of a sudden A&E run. In fact, it only occurs to me as I type that because only my partner drives and I don't, it is not really responsible for him to ever go out for the evening leaving me in sole charge of our sleeping baby, lest I'm forced to rush to Kings in a ride-on, Flintstones style.

zeban Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Oh dear HH, being b**chy AGAIN!!! Zeban, with respect, anyone who can remember the posting history between you and HH would say that for her to leave it at having a wry smile over my joke on this thread would be you getting off pretty darn lightly. It's a miracle that she hasn't responded more vigorously to what many would describe as your repeated bullying of her. Any yes ,I'd also like to know, why is it interesting that 'the Mums' have started a thread on this in the family room!? > > Zeban wrote: Interesting how the Mums have started up a thread > on this in the family room!

alieh Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Perhaps not a bottle of gin EVERY night though. Lightweight.

I don't actually drive. I'm surprised they let me breed. *quaffs*

ooooooh snowboarder! It's obviously a den of iniquity at yours! I imagine your children are locked in a coal hole? x

Marie81 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > What if one of your children had an accident at > home, you wouldn't be able to drive them to A&E > > Um, I wouldn't be able to drive to A&E if my baby had an accident because I don't drive, not because I had had a glass of wine with my dinner. Marie81 Wrote: No I don't have children, I only drink on special occasions and my partner doesn't drink at all. Forgive me for saying this but it does often seem to be people who don't drink that don't understand that having a glass of wine does not immdediately render you drunk as a skunk and high as a kite.