Sanne Panne

Agree with the other posters, having a dummy gives you and your baby months of an easier life whereas taking it away is probably just 2-3 days of drama. I hate dummies too but only really from about 12 months when they start babbling. Our first child was seriously addicted (we went cold turkey at 18 months) and our second child is not interested at all so far (at 6 weeks). Really happy about that but if she does seem to need to suck more at some point (or if she's generally cranky and I notice a dummy calms her down) I'll probably give in again. Just tell yourself you'll wean at 6/12/18/24 months or whenever you want to get rid of them (and re-evaluate when the time comes). I fully understand your feelings, I still hate the things, to me they're a hybrid between a plug and a mute button, but it's probably worth giving yourself and your child a break.

I've heard toddlers outgrow most iCandy buggies quite quickly (seat frame being too small). Maybe this one is different but it may be worth looking into.

Fuschia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Encourage as much nappy off time as you can manage > after shower/bath/playing in garden? She starts to cry and asks for a nappy the second she gets out of the water (this is since her potty training went wrong - she never had this before the training nor on days 1 and 2 of her training) but I'm going to try to distract her next time. As soon as she feels a pee/poo coming up she gets very upset, holds her crotch and keeps repeating "don't worry about the poo" (even while she has the nappy on). Maybe I'm being overly soft and should stop analysing her too much although her emotions around the topic do seem pretty strong.

I agree pickle, my M did well for two days and then freaked out because of the poo - if your M is ok with poo I'm sure you're on the right track and won't need to look back! Yippee! I'll wait a bit and introduce books and maybe dvds (and possibly put a flannel in her nappies so she feels wet and enjoys the nappies less) and hope I can convince her.

She got so upset being without a nappy... so worried and anxious, so terrified, she just pressed her hand or her dress onto her crotch and hardly stopped crying. She seems to feel guilty and afraid of peeing and pooing. I felt so bad for her (and..umm... gave her a nappy, not in the last place because my mum is over from Holland this week and I don't want her to be around a traumatised toddler that one week she's here). I'm tempted to wait another few days (weeks?) and work on the fears first. Or should I just break through it? I don't want to cause any serious anxiety issues. Not sure what causes more anxiety: waiting or just going for it. I'm torn :(

Good luck, I'm sure things are happening by now!

Well we're without nappies again... she wanted to play with the new nappy during a nappy change so I told her she could but it meant I couldn't put it back on so she'd have to pee on the potty first... and so she did. Great. Big cheers. Right after which she kept repeating "nappy on please" for about half an hour... and she kept holding her crotch through her dress... and then did a pee on the floor and said "I don't want it anymore". Hmmmmm.... I told her nappies are only for in bed now and she's now watching some telly with her hand on her crotch. We'll see what happens!

Good idea damzel, she does know what it looks like from nappy accidents and from her baby sister but maybe it's better to be even more explicit about it. I've also started telling her that poo is just the food you ate that your tummy is ready with (pasta/broccoli/bread goes in the mouth, gets mixed in the tummy, comes out of the bum as poo). Used the same analogy with drinks and pee, maybe it'll help her get to terms with it. Am just a bit worried that I may strengthen her anxiety by just starting again rather than waiting for her to ask to restart (am not too keen on the latter, she was doing so well, but if I have to wait I obviously will...).

Fuschia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Can you sneak it up on her by getting the paddling > pool out or giving her a bath or shower then just > let her run around after with no nappy on? rather > than removing the nappy out of the blue and having > a standoff? Great idea, it will have to be the paddling pool as bathtime is just before bedtime and she does need a nappy then. Brilliant, hoping for a couple of hours of sunshine tomorrow! A bath in the middle of the day may not be appreciated much but I can try to convince her to have a bath with our newborn...

Thanks ladies. What would you suggest I do if she gets very upset about not having a nappy on? I know she can do it and am keen on continuing the training and breaking through the fear in a positive way but I don't want to traumatise her... I guess distraction is key. (Just to clarify: I expect tantrum-style upsetness next time I don't put a nappy on her)

Sorry, I know there's been a lot of discussion about potty training lately... We started potty training our two year old a week after her birthday. She did very well for 2.5 days: just a couple of pee accidents each day and lots of spontaneous, successful potty visits right from the start. She was quite enthusiastic about it too. The early evening of day 3 she went and accidentally did a poo on the potty (so far she'd done them in her overnight nappy first thing after waking up, like she almost always does). The poo freaked her out so much that she refused to use the potty after. I may have given in too quickly by offering her a nappy for the rest of the afternoon but in any case she doesn't want to go without a nappy anymore whenever I ask her now. This is over a week ago and she's back in nappies. What do we do? Shall I just tell her we're out of nappies tomorrow morning (or today when it's time for a nappy change) and see what happens (she isn't stupid though and would wonder why she does get a nappy in bed)? Introduce some cute knickers and tell her she can't wear them with a nappy? We did the initial training bare bottomed (no nappy or trousers, just little dresses) with little rewards for each pee. Thanks for any advice... I ordered some board books about poo and read the "what is poo" thread but am still wondering whether or not to (temporarily? or long term?) upset my daughter by restarting potty training. It would be a shame to postpone it for months because she was doing so well.

We also did the 11am thing with lunch after the nap and gradually moved it to 1pm. We stayed indoors in the mornings most days to avoid accidental buggy naps until nap time had consistently reached 12pm so we could safely be out from 9am-11am.

And yes the click-on seat has a pretty low frame/bar. Not sure what to do about that, really annoying for naps.

Have a Vibe and my cocoon doesn't lie flat either but I think the baby's head (not the feet) should be closest to you. This way the head is higher than the feet (assuming our buggies are nearly identical). Correct me if I'm wrong, other P&T owners.

Sorry missed your message about the sweeps. My midwives also normally start offering them at 41w but when I asked them to do one they were happy to go for it - maybe because my first birth was so easy (and fairly early) but you can always ask if you can come in (or they can come over) to have an earlier one done...

Have the midwives offered you a sweep yet? I got one on my due date and one 4 days after - the morning after the second sweep I had my (second) baby at home. Not sure if the sweep set it off but I think it helped.

Thanks for the feedback, looks like we can go ahead and put her in a grobag once it gets colder!

Our baby currently sleeps in footed sleepsuits but once it starts getting colder we'll want her to sleep in a grobag. She's a side and tummy sleeper though and I wonder if it's easy to change position in sleeping bags, even for smaller babies? I know the advice is for babies to sleep on the back but our daughter is close to rolling over by herself and will make every effort to get off her back. We never used grobags for our first daughter so it's new territory for us... Thanks!

I have suppositories from Holland (exact ingredients are printed on each suppository: "paracetamol 120mg" or "paracetamol 240mg" so no worries about it being foreign/dodgy), it's the only way they administer paracetamol to babies and toddlers there. There are no other ingredients, it's just vaseline and paracetamol. If you can't get a hold of suppositories through your GP easily (or manage the back of the cheek or the milk/water/juice trick) by tomorrow feel free to pm me and you can pick a few up from my place.

Our eldest just hit the terrible twos and our youngest has only been around for three weeks so we're still getting used to life with two. Most of the time I love love love our toddler, she's actually pretty well behaved, very happy and quite laid back but it happens about twice a day that I really feel like telling her to shut the F up because she's challenging us to the max and/or whining for ten minutes straight (I do get angry but manage to express it more decently). I feel bad for feeling this "resentment" and at the same time I feel bad because it's "obviously" my fault that she's a terrible two (because I spoiled her when she was younger - oh and at the same time I'm not interesting/entertaining/stimulating enough, therefore boring her and feeding the bad behaviour LOL it's ALL my fault). So yes, I feel like many of you do... Rationally I know it's not all that bad but it's hard to remember that while at the max of your frustration!

Something worth checking is whether your baby is tongue tied. Can he stick his tongue out well (if so, good news)? Does the tongue have a slight heart shape (you can google some images)? In the latter case he may be tongue tied, something that can be fixed quite easily. Sounds more like the engorgement is/was the cause though and that you may both need to re-learn the latching process... hope you get some help soon. Sillywoman, do you have a soft copy of all the contact numbers for breastfeeding that you give out at your classes?

Thanks for the info Saffron! May get silicon for my 2 year old's scar and hydrocolloid dressings for when my newborn gets her jab. I still feel a bit ambivalent about BCG and am not sure when to give it... anyway, that's another discussion. Darlin', no idea why they don't offer it after 2 years old, doesn't make sense to me at all. Must be a NICE guideline but I can't really think of any health based reasons why such a guideline would make sense. Must be a financial decision based on herd immunity estimates (now I'm really rambling - off to do some research).

Fuschia Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sanne Panne Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > > > > Second baby: 1 hour from established labour to > > birth > > Congratulations! x Thanks! Tried to pm you about something else but inbox full...

Agree with the no fabric option (the one I have is also plastic). Tried the P&T Me Too at a friend's and it's GREAT, especially for guest toddlers.

Our newborn loves to sleep on my or my husband's lap (usually on the feeding pillow after a nice big feed) which we both enjoy a lot but which isn't always practical given the fact that we have a 2 year old running around and my husband's paternity leave will be over tomorrow. The baby often wakes up after we transfer her to her moses basket in spite of the fact that we put it on a slight incline, made it nice and soft and warm inside etc. I'm now thinking about getting a swing for naptime (she's ok at night) but before I buy yet another product that we need to retire to the loft within a week I'd like to hear your experiences of using a swing. Thanks in advance!