kerry.finlay

thanks for sharing - interesting read. i'm just beginning the EHCP journey and I had no idea until recently that TAs assigned to deliver 1:1 support have little/no SEN training :-/

If you mean the red gingham summer dresses - yes they're fine. And no restrictions on when they can wear them. My daughter will be wearing hers in Sept when she goes back, weather permitting :-)

A few of us have set up a hyper-local Dulwich single mums support group on Facebook. It's a 'secret' group so it's totally secure and invisible from any of your connections (i.e. your face won't be used to promote it around FB as a member!) So you can seek support/friendship/get things off your chest with peace of mind. And we're all pretty much around the corner from each other so the hope is we can meet up. PM me your email address if you'd like to be added.

Hi Trying to think of a high-end (but not stuffy) venue for a 40th birthday saturday brunch, with a 5 year old and almost 2 year old. Haha! The Lido is ace but we go too much so not special enough on this occasion. I am thinking Duck and Waffle?? Anyone done it with kids? Do they even have high chairs?! Any other suggestions welcome please :-)

Travelling solo with the two kids to States next week. Eeeeek. We have the bulkheads so have some room, phew. 9.30hr to fill. Some/most sleeping hopefully. We're pretty used to travelling on train around the UK on long trips but slightly different! Any tips for little entertaining games/toys/treats would be warmly welcomed. And any general long-haul with kids tips too. thank you!

sorry to resurface a pretty old thread but just wondering if any of you who have tried this, colour your hair regularly. google is scaring me! and would anyone with pretty long hair dare to share a before / after pic?! thx

We chose nanny sharing for our daughter when she was 11 months for the social side and felt happier leaving her with a nanny. The best part of our share is that we joined a family who we really connected with, who had had their nanny sole charge for 3/4 years already, which we felt really helped (rather than recruiting from scratch). I felt more able to trust her with our daughter because we were walking into an established set up. Good luck!

Thanks for that - I'll have a look!

Hi Looking for some advice from any parents who've used wireless baby monitor devices/apps. We have a regular baby monitor but we're staying at a country hotel for a couple of nights soon and we know from past experience the range doesn't quite reach (thick walls etc) if we want to go downstairs for dinner in the evening, so always go for a babysitter. Was wondering if these wifi options work ok where ordinary monitors fall out of range? Any advice warmly welcomed! thanks

Thanks for the advice. I'll pass it on!!

Hello After some advice for a friend. Does anyone have any advice/tips on tranistioning a 2.5 yr old who has had a sole-charge nanny since the age of 1 yr to a nursery? We have a toddler the same age who recently started nursery, but we've done a nanny share from the age of one so she'd been used to being dropped off elsewhere and left with other people. So different scenario really. Any wisdom greatly appreciated, as always! Thanks

http://www.airportsdirectservices.co.uk/ If you are doing long trips or airports, these guys are unbeatable. We've used them a lot now and the car seats are immaculate, as are the cars. Punctual and polite. V reasonable rates. Highly recommended.

We are experiencing exactly this at the moment. Our 2 year old started mid January 2 days a week. We've been in full-time nanny share since she was 1 where she is always with other kids on playdates etc. She's found drop-offs very traumatic and like you, we are told she is quite teary at points through the day, although she is asking for cuddles. She is often also teary on collection. Our nursery has been incredibly undertanding and helpful. They have a cuddly toy who 'lives' at the nursery and he was given to our daughter to take home and look after, and we were tasked with photographing his adventure - they put these pics up on the noticeboard, sp she can see them when she is there. They also created a scrapbook with loads of photos of her playing at nursery which we keep at home. The trick of these being is that you are reminded to talk about and encouraged to make nursery part of the conversation at home - to merge the two as much as possible. It's really helping. We talk about nursery every day, we look at the pitures. She now doesn't freak out when we tell her she is going today and doesn't get upset on the way there (progress!) and now calms quicker when we get there. Give it a go :-) Hope it improves soon.

We went a few years back to Aquadulci - http://www.aquadulci.com/ We swore we'd go back when we had kids. Pool and gardens great and it is 2 min walk from the pool to the most magnificent, best family beach we have ever visited - and that is many! It is on Chia bay - long, wide beach and the water is shallow till far out. Beach club where you can rent beds/brollies. Only drawback is that it will be SUPER busy in August.

There are actually two dogs guilty of this - one at the bottom of Calton, one near the end of Gilkes (we're on Calton). However one barks more loudly and more often than the other. Mutiple times in the evening and often, like you said, in the small hours. As far as we can see it is a case of the owners not letting the dog back in after letting it out to do its thing. I know dogs bark, but this is a case of bad owners in my view. I know exactly which house the main offender lives at if you'd like to know - send me a PM. Said dog has woken our baby daughter up most nights, for months. Worse in the summer as her windows need to be open and the garden backs onto ours, so the dog is pretty much underneath her. Grrr. And for the misery here who thinks it's as simple as some ear plugs - want to come and try sleeping in her room one evening?

Hi For me the NCT charge was too much for us at the time and I felt that I could learn all I needed to know from books, online, friends and the NHS classes. For the social side, you are on it already - I found all my mummy friends through the baby group on the forum. I thought the NHS class we did was great and everything we needed to know. And I've met some really lovely friends for support on this forum. So for me I didn't need NCT classes. Good luck!

baby jogger - best purchase ever!!!

Hi My 16 month old daughter has, over the last week, suddenly developed an extreme fear of bits of fluff, or stray hairs on the floor (I have long dark hair). She has never been an overly-sensitive one, nothing much phases her. So this has got me totally baffled. It started where she would see something on the floor, point to it shouting then come and take my finger and walk me to wherever it was and put my finger on it. Now this has escalated to full on screaming, hysterics and red-faced tears. The last two nights' bath has been a wash out. Each time I put her in she'd spot a tiny black fleck below the bubbles and go ballistic actually hooking her foot over hte bath top and trying to climb out herself! Anyone else experienced this? I'm hoping it'll go as quickly as it came. But not sure how best to handle it in the mean-time? At the moment I just calmly remove the offending particle and tell her there's nothing to worry about and it's all gone. Help!

sorry - just seen this post! http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,842730 doh :-/ must stop doing 60 hour weeks at work

Hi all Does anyone know of a comprehensive/current list of all the local daily activities/classes/groups for toddlers in the area? Surely one must exist?! thanks!

I should have posted this earlier but for some reason it didn't cross my mind until now. I was mugged a couple of weeks ago walking home at 5pm on a Thursday from Herne Hill to collect my little girl. I walked past the culprits at a newsagents on Half Moon Lane (I was talking on the phone at the time) and I realised they had clocked me. I stopped a few shops up to check if they were behind me. They were still outside the shop so continued assuming I was being paranoid. I turned into Elmwood Road and was suddenly jumped from behind. They pushed me over a garden wall and grabbed my phone. Not my bag though. Bashed and bruised and somewhat frightened of walking in the dark now, but it could have been a lot worse. The police were great - showed up v quickly and took me out. They think they have images of them from newsagents and are trying to get identification. Was a group of three lads, I guess at 15, in school uniform. Opportunists in my opinion. Just be careful walking along on your phone.

It has vanished. Was there at the weekend. Stolen?!

You could always book the smaller and when you get there give it a go. If you can't get everything in, hope that you can upgrade to bigger?

Thanks Otta Knowing some sun creams are a mare to rub in, can you recommend one? thanks

Off to Italy and head is swimming with what we need to take with us. It'll be a chilled out pool/beach affair. Going to buy bulk of wipes, nappies and formula over there (have checked I can get aptamil, hurrah). And hoping to borrow a Maclaren, or buy a second hand Baby Jogger city mini before (need one anyway). But what else?! What did you wish you'd taken, wish you'd left behind, and thanked the heavens you had with you? thanks all