Sanne Panne

Could he be teething? This may sound very wrong but could you give him some baby Nurofen when he first wakes and see if he does a longer stretch after that?

Baby 1: 15 days early Baby 2: 4 days late Went into labour naturally with both so I guess they just had different cooking times!

Sounds lovely but doesn't work with nap time here either. I'm Dutch, husband is Italian and we're raising our kids English-Dutch for now (long story...) but I like the idea of Italian exposure (I'm fairly fluent so could get away with acting as the Italian parent). Will keep an eye on this thread in case something is organised at a different time of day in the future.

Will PM you the details, it's actually Wimbledon

There's a synagogue with a good Thursday morning playgroup in the Putney area, you could get there on the 37 but I guess it's almost as far as going north of the river. They also do a nursery from age 2.5. If it's not too far give me a shout and I can give you the details.

Lots of nurseries won't take you for one day a week (Nelly's almost certainly won't). That's all I know from calling around when I also wanted one day... I don't have any specific recommendations as we ended up going with a childminder. Good luck, I'm sure you'll find something good!

buggie Wrote: > > The otto acostic test (if I recall the naem > correctly) which is now offered at approx 8wks > gives far more accurate results, and, if > recognising a problem with hearing allows > multidisiplinary intervention/review to ensure > disruption to the babies development/speech and > language is minimised. Hmmm interesting, will do some more research

duchessofdulwich Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > is it worth while booking up an 8 month baby > check? generally my baby is very content and > happy. i find it strange you have to book this > yourself ifind the system very "wishy washy" > sometimes. if i hadnt have looked on here iwould > have never have known!? I know - it's in your red book but if you don't attend your HV clinic (I never went - I would see the GP for rashes, coughs etc and didn't have issues that health visitors usually address such as colic, poor weight gain etc) and you don't check your red book except to book/record vaccinations you're likely to forget about the 8 month check. I did go but if you're confident your child's development and weight are on track and the hips are ok you could theoretically skip it. Just good to go to know you've covered the milestone appointments (says a mum who's about to swap her child's hearing test for a fasttrack child passport appointment...)

If the test doesn't detect any very subtle issues that an alert mum couldn't detect over the space of 9 weeks (along the lines of a slightly reduced recognition of very low tones that can only be fixed if diagnosed before 3 months of age) I'm not going to go!

You are obviously right EDmummy, I'm just reluctant to spend a whole morning going to Peckham and back, sitting in a waiting room with a toddler and a newborn etc etc. Very lazy because it's really not SUCH a big deal to go :-$

HeidiHi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Oh and my baby was not tested for his hearing > either, and I had a hospital birth. Ah I thought it was part of the routine check during the first 24-48 hours (like the BCG jab in some hospitals). Sorry for the ignorance

I have a newborn hearing screening booked for next week (had a homebirth so it wasn't done as part of our postnatal discharge). My baby will be 9 weeks old then. From everything I can observe her hearing is perfect: she turns her face in the direction of the source of any interesting sound (especially voices), wakes up from 'sharp' noises, is calmed down by lullabies and white noise and so on. Does the test still make sense? I know you should ideally follow all NHS guidelines but if normal reaction to sound is ok it may be overdoing it a bit. Does anyone know more about this test so I can make a more educated decision? I know it's a measurement rather than a reaction based test but don't know much more about it.

I second the recommendation for Giles Davies. For reflexology I recommend Katie Sedgwick on Landcroft Road. Don't have her number handy but think you can find it if you search for her here or Google her. PM me if no luck.

I still nearly cry every time I look at my toddler girl's haircut. Don't want to be publicly negative about anyone (this was an at-home hairdresser who did do a great job on my hair) but please be very clear about what kind of cut you want for your child rather than let them experiment a bit :(

I wash mine with a short programme (not for delicates, just a short one that spins normally) at 30 degrees using a single Fairy non-bio tablet and it comes out feeling, smelling and looking fine. Just make sure you dry it flat, e.g. on its own on a laundry drying rack so it can dry quickly.

The Phil and Teds screw-on travel highchair is pretty good and very compact.

edanna Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I put my baby in the bottom seat at about 3 > months. She is quite big for her age. She's fine > in there, sometimes slumping a bit to the side but > not forwards. I tried her on top and toddler in > the bottom but it tipped up too easily. She hated > the cocoon and was too long for it. Give it ago - > you can always switch back. Yeah was thinking of trying that in a couple of weeks or so and use car seat padding to give her more support. Just worried her head will be shaken too much on rougher surfaces (not planning on offroading heheh but some pavements are pretty uneven too) so will have to observe that very closely...

Moos Wrote: > We had to take our son's dummy away at about six > months as he couldn't fall asleep without it, but > it used to drop out and wake him up as he dropped > off (aargh), and he was too little to replace it. > Bu that seems to be far from the norm. We needed to replace it every single hour (or more often) at night when our eldest was a few months old too and put up with it until she could do it by herself. Never again... will either not give a dummy to our new baby (so far she doesn't seem interested) or wean her off it if we get this nighttime problem again.

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Bishberro Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Good question, SP. I was thinking the same thing. > I've got the P and T Sport and my huge,long 7 week > old is already looking squashed in the cocoon and > I can't imagine he's going to last another 3 > months in it. Also when you do switch, does the > baby go on the top or the bottom? In theory, the oldest/heaviest child always goes on top (pushchair could tip backwards otherwise). In reality, the older child seems to prefer the bottom seat because it's "cool" and he/she can get in and out more easily. As for the squashed feeling, I can hardly fit my (flat) hand between my baby's (not excessively chunky) legs and the bottom of the toddler seat in toddler-newborn mode, which I find a bit scary.

Our 6 week old doesn't like the cocoon and our toddler is a bit too big to comfortably nap in the seat that goes on top in toddler-newborn mode. I can't wait to set the P&T (Vibe) up in toddler-toddler mode but know this is still a few months away. Our baby is big and growing fast, she'll be among the early switchers - but when can you reasonably switch? I know that I'll know when the time is right when it comes but I'd like to have a bit of an idea. Of course P&T tells you 6 months or so but that's not when most parents will really switch. Looking for some real life examples :)

Thanks all. I wouldn't mind a situation in which I speak Dutch and our daughters answer back in English... I just want them to understand it and hopefully give them the advantage of having an easier time learning other (more useful) languages when they are older. It's just hard to think long term when the short term benefits of improving her English are so great. Think I'm going to try to say everything either just in Dutch or first in Dutch and then in English as much as I can for a while and then slowly move to Dutch only when I'm alone with them.

Agree about putting baby to bed while still awake being the best (but also most difficult) thing. I can't let a small baby cry so I'll just keep trying and hoping to get it right at some point (baby being tired but not overtired, baby being "ready" to fall asleep alone without crying - with our current baby that was at 5-6 weeks old). Right now I will let her make a few little complaining noises but I'll pick her up if she sounds remotely upset. I still put her in her cot after feeding/rocking her to sleep most of the time (or let her nap on my lap/shoulder) but am hoping to slowly transition as we also have a toddler running around. Our toddler was a horrendous sleeper as a baby, only improved at 6 months - this one is much easier or maybe we can "read" babies a bit better now.

During this type of weather our 6 week old wears a long sleeved vest (nothing over the legs) and a 2.5 tog grobag. Our toddler was also a summer baby and when it was winter she slept in a sleeveless vest with a plain cotton footed sleepsuit on top but it was easy to keep the flat we were living in warm. The following winter when it was colder in our home she was over a year old and we were comfortable letting her wear a fleece sleepsuit from the baby sleep company. When winter comes for our 6 week old we'll probably just put her in a higher tog sleeping bag (and let her wear a cotton sleepsuit under it rather than just a vest). We'll reuse our toddler's fleece suits once she's a bit bigger.

How consistent are you with the "minority" language and how well do your children speak/understand it? We are bilingual Dutch/English and I've noticed that I've been speaking more and more English to our children lately (I'm the one who's supposed to speak Dutch). The reason I'm doing this may seem a bit contradictory: our eldest (who just turned two) is really good with language but she only speaks English and I want to help her improve her communication skills for her day to day life further, which means I speak more English to her now. Not exactly good long term thinking. She does understand quite a bit of Dutch but as I speak it less she forgets it. How do you resist the temptation to speak the language your child prefers rather than your own language?