Sanne Panne

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > There was a kid at my school called James Bond. I had one in my class called Rembrandt van Rijn. Now "Van Rijn" is quite common in Holland (where I grew up) but "Rembrandt" certainly isn't. He never had any problems with it though.

She's quite anti-daddy sometimes when I'm around but it's usually ok when I'm not there. She's good on the language front so a satisfying explanation of why I'm away may help. Am thinking of telling her I'm going to Holland to get her room ready for when we go there to see my parents / her grandparents the week after. She can picture something concrete when I explain that whereas Paris (or generally "away") is too vague a concept. She can also somewhat handle the concept of how many days something takes ("three big sleeps") but less information may be better. I really don't know!

Am going to Paris for a long weekend (Thu afternoon - Sun afternoon) soon, leaving 8 month old and 2y8m old at home with their dad. He's perfectly capable of looking after the girls and the household etc - I just worry a bit about our eldest as she's a mummy's girl and will probably get upset over my absence. How can I keep her happy? My husband will obviously go out to the park and playground to keep them busy, but am thinking a daily "wake up present" and/or "bedtime present" from me with a little note could be nice. My mum did that when she was away for a week when I was 5 and I loved it. What other things can I do? I can call once a day, or maybe I shouldn't, depending on whether she asks for me a lot or not. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!!

Coffee, toddler dvds, lots of time outdoors (distraction, energy burning), playing your own guilty pleasures music ('80s etc) during bath time and wine once the smallest is asleep. The toughest time was 4-7pm. No colic, just hectic with the toddler (either not having napped or having woken up super cranky from nap) and my patience well gone. My life became easier again once the youngest could sit up and started sleeping through the night consistently. I'm definitely not having any more kids! Life is too good now!

For babies who like dummies, syringe a bit into the cheek and immediately put the dummy in. Then repeat. In 2-3 attempts you'll have the 2.5 mils in. Or get some baby paracetamol suppositories from Holland...

Where in Telegraph Hill park is the playground? Never been in the actual park - can you park the car at the church / community centre at the top of the hill (just before the roundabout) and walk down? I just know there's an entrance to the park there but have no idea where things are located and if you can walk down the hill with a buggy.

My first one was head down early on and my second one was transverse (on and off) from 20-something weeks until around 30 weeks and then definitively head down after about 32 weeks. I also think it's too early to worry although the sooner the baby turns the better as it does get a bit uncomfortable for you when they're transverse later on.

If you have Bupa you can get a great private referral at King's. Happy to pm you details

Oh great when I saw the title of this thread I thought I'd send the link to my husband... but after having read it I may look for something more cheerful somewhere else ;) 3-4 more years of Mirena left, then I'm done taking hormones...

No booze, no sugar, no coffee for a while. Depressing (and headache provoking) at first, then surprisingly uplifting. If you were already good on this front, please ignore this post! :)

Yes the "ok, fine, I'll leave your room then and go downstairs" thing (if a couple of genuine hugs don't work) is a pretty successful approach here too (it stops the tantrum most of the time) but that's pre-full-tantrum and to be honest we don't get any REAL full-on tantrums. A bit of screaming/kicking once or twice a week but always distractable so I guess that's not a hardcore tantrum. We don't have any parenting methods that we pride ourselves on so it's just luck that our eldest, in spite of her "strong personality" (pppffffff, is it 7:30pm yet?), isn't a big tantrum thrower. Bottom line - there may be some room for negotiation even when the meltdown is happening so it's always worth trying various methods.

Congratulations!!! I also enjoyed "pregnancy week by week" because of all the beautiful pictures of the developing foetus (I do have the right book in mind right??). Beware of overly obsessive forums like fertilityfriend etc because you'll think something is wrong with your pregnancy (for no reason!) every time you do or don't feel a particular twinge at a particular time. Stay on the laid back side is my advice. If you find the idea of midwife-only care scary (which might be the case if you're from SA where c-sections are standard or from the US/Canada where pregnancy is sometimes over-medicalised) you can always get some (private?) ob-gyn consultations here if that puts you at ease. Said another non-Brit :) (although one from a country with even more radically non-medical attitudes to pregnancy/childbirth so take my comments with a grain of salt if you don't want to go down this path).

(we went to the same clinic as anna_r but there's also one at Victoria station, they advocate giving two jabs though, roughly same cost)

I was heavily pregnant with #2 when we decided to vaccinate our then 21 month old - knowing that it's a routine vaccination in the US, Canada etc (and mostly a cost decision of the NHS not to do it here) I thought it would be nice (indeed, not essential, but I think there's nothing wrong with "nice" if the jab is just as good as catching the disease) to save my toddler the discomfort of getting chickenpox and us the worry of possibly having to deal with an unwell toddler right before or after the birth of a new baby which is an intense enough event as it is. Our eldest has been directly exposed to chicken pox at least three times since her jab and hasn't caught it.

Maybe start the day with a straw cup of thin porridge (my 2.5 year old drinks one in 1 minute) and then see how the breakfasts go?

Brockwell Park playground is nice, so is the paddling pool I heard, both are fenced

Don't invest in the extenders, you should get them for free if you call the number I was given in my thread (click on link in my message further up).

Another vote for the buggy snuggle. Expensive but very soft and they do fit the P&T fine. Edited to say that they seem to be clearing some items that are discontinued if you're looking to spend less: http://www.buggysnuggle.com/product_select.asp?prtID=1618&usrID=49A830EA-6CEA-4D2F-853E-6C33C0E2E198

Side note - if you do fly (I did at 32 weeks but only to Amsterdam, it was fine), I believe Egg is one of the insurances that will cover you the furthest into your pregnancy. At least it was last year.

I love the idea of having a local teenager help you out with nursery pick up and the first after-work/after-nursery hour. It might reduce the stress a bit and you may be able to steal 15 minutes to yourself to unwind at home before you jump into the duties and toddler activities again. Maybe only two or three times a week to keep the cost down... might keep you sane. If you don't/can't do this you could even consider building in a ritual, e.g. a long shower right after your husband comes home so you can disconnect from your busy day before dinner and toddler bedtime. Good luck with it all, I found it tough too to be pregnant with my second and I wasn't working nearly as much.

I recently started a thread about a very similar topic, you may get some ideas from the replies I got there and I obviously hope you get some more answers here as well. Good luck.

Half Moon Montessori at the junction of Half Moon Lane and Village Way. They're not too bad with waiting lists and it's a lovely nursery.

What an awful experience! After baby 1 I had one fitted at Forest Hill group practice and now after baby 2 at Herne Hill group practice. Let it at least serve as a help to others so they can avoid the Camberwell centre... Sorry you had to go through this :(

Being from the "continent" myself I agree that we don't need to push early reading/writing if the child doesn't show a natural interest before age 6 (although I think it's a crime to postpone it if a child does show an interest in letters (or anything else for that matter) earlier on) and I can't comment on the Steiner "cult" discussion because I don't know enough about it but do I think Steiner education doesn't offer enough useful links back into day to day society. Three good friends of mine went to a Steiner school and although they ended up doing well as adults (not more or less than other friends), till this day they all still struggle when they need to fill in a form. They've been educated to be such free spirits that small and big things that they have to conform to in life (university exams, council tax, the tube map) take them disproportionate amounts of time to process (or as the wife of one of them half jokingly says: "yeah you can milk a cow but you still couldn't read the clock when you were 18"). You can say this shows that society is too restrictive and that it's really society's fault but given the fact that it functions as it does I think it's important for a school to give children enough tools to deal with the tough world out there. I think that's what would worry me more than the cult discussion. I have an issue with any kind of cult including the standard religions but I think parents have a large influence on how much a child will take this with a grain of salt. Again, I don't know enough about that part to be able to really judge. My Steiner friends are all pretty healthy atheists although one does genuinely believe that there is a (real, living) man who has a little bottle with a magical solution in it that can clean polluted lakes and seas by just adding one drop of his magical potion. He's 39 ;) Ok sorry this magical potion example doesn't represent Steiner as a whole, I know I know...

There are also sometimes WFH opportunities on womenlikeus.org.uk