new mother

Otta, I think most of us would agree with you! It is just semantics. I love my ch to the ends of the earth and make endless sacrifices for them. Do I enjoy all that?? No! I hate it. I want all my money for myself and none for toys, school fees, children's clothes etc. I want my time for myself and the theatre, ballet and reading. I want total flexibility about leaving th house for the newspaper without a child care plan in place. Would any of us swap for a second? Never!

We thought about it and decided against, to the horror of most of our friends. We didn't regret it for a minute and I would not have missed a minute of any of the early days of my babies' lives. However, the number of threads on here about babies not sleeping at eg 6 months horrifies me. What is that maternity nurses do such that they hand over a night sleeping baby to their clients after a few weeks and always before three months? Some of it is owing to formula but they have similar results when feeding babies expressed milk. What do they know that most mothers don't?!

Surely could still be hunger, even after a bm feed? It just isn't satisfying the baby perhaps? Separately these stories shock me. How on earth do you cope/function/live with the sleep deprivation? My ch were formula fed from the start and slept at eight weeks roughly from 11 to 7am. That eight week period exhausted me beyond belief. I could not speak properly or collect my thoughts when I had to get up at eg 4am (which is a hideous hour which should never be experienced). I really do not know how women- for it is mostly mothers not fathers - cope.

Good idea. I always always have an argument with my husband there. I've seen other couples arguing too.any ideas why?!

I wonder why fertility would go up? That doesn't make sense. A late splurge of egg releases does make sense, hence some of the non identical twins you see everywhere, but that "reminder" generally happens earlier eg 35 ish before fertility starts to decline significantly. As regards not trying, for women with infrequent ovulation, I can see that less stress could help the cycle to sort itself out. For others, I really don't understand it and, yet, suffcient numbers do seem to report "relax and it will happen" as doing the trick. Otherwise, my observation is that my friends and I who had hildren around 35/37 had no problems. Some then had problems later but some didn't. The ones who didn't were significantly fatter than the others and drank more! I am serious. It seems crazy but there it is. I think that the old fashioned view of hips and boobs might be accurate and maybe the drinking results in more "attempts"! Does any else agree with the above random observations?! I would love to know what SW thinks for starters!

Trinity, how interesting re GMD. I wonder how that links up with learning. There must be a study on it. Monkey, I justcalled and asked for it to be sent.

Very interesting post, CT, thanks

Tyor, good grief no! JAGS would have a fit at the idea that any other school naturally progressed to it. The hope of course would be that DUCKS prep was good enough for any subsequent school. however, a lot of children went to Rosemead last year and the year before as opposed to Japs or their pre prep japps. I agree Alleyns is tempting, especially if you have a b and g.

Gosh. I assumed it was over a toy. It was totally apropos nothing?! Out of the blue he started biting your son? Hmmm. I met a little girl the other day who bites herself. Her mother laughed it off when we saw her doing it but I was quite shocked. It seems to me to be an indication of extreme unhappiness or, maybe, that is applying adult thoughts to the situation.

Might any other nursery options come through in between?

The absolutely key thing with whomever you choose is that you follow up refs carefully. I go to meet the referee in her house and have a cup of tea. If she didn't want to do that, I would wonder why and ask the prospective nanny. The reason this is essential is so that you can get more of a feel for the people who think the nanny is great (presumably) and you can check how similar you feel to her in her own environment. Having said this, I have heard of friends employing people solely after video interviews - bonkers in my view but there it is....

Horrible. Poor you and poor crying dog. Hate to think of him/her, not to mention a 7m pg woman climbing in a window. It makes my blood boil. Sorry again xx

Small item of the uniform? Scarf maybe for the winter months?

Ridgley, you make my point for me, really, if you think about it. During much tougher circumstances, people behaved. Why can't they now, apparently? Max Hastings' article, as pasted above by someone, has it 100pc, in my view. When do we have the guts to go something about this as a country? How long must the hardworking majority pay throughthe nose for these scum to sit at home (or worse)? How many of us sacrifice a great deal for private education to avoid our children suffering the "crowd control" that is the learning experience of modern state schools?

Ridgley, I have no idea how to respond to you. We subsidise many of these individuals via their welfare handouts, in answer to a subsequent query.

Ridgley, what a shocking post. First, many children did not see their fathers or male relatives during the war for months at a time.secondly, their mothers were working and exhausted mentally and physically. How dare you say that families nowadays have anything like the stress those people were under. Largely ungrammatical posts on here do, however, reinforce my fear that there are people who have not been educated in the discipline of very basic English and that lack of learning and application does restrict their job choices, it is true. Tell me this- why should a hardworking bus driver who has a family and pays tax, support these (by definition under employed) thugs?

Atticus, very funny and well observed - rather Edith Wharton if I may say so. The minor error of the shirt has been corrected by H already. I basically see H as a gentleman.

I have always been more pro a ring than abs owig to it encouraging better water positioning. However, a recent article terrified me about rings as the child's feet got stuck in it, upside down. Shudder. Since then I have been pro float suits! They keep the upper body out for safety but should not hinder a good horizontalish swimming style. Ps where do you/ others recommend in Cyprus? We would love to go and would like a family fun sort of place ideally, not too quiet but not nightclubby!

Great! So pleased to hear of good customer service, especially as these scooters are a significant "investment"!

I have never heard about all day free places. How does it work? Most people would bite the Council's hand off for one!

Huguenot, you are intelligent, logical, persuasive and express yourself beautifully. Obviously, on this forum, these comments are negative and meant as insults. Ridgeley, errr what can I say? Perhaps the kindest thing would be, "I find it difficult to follow your argument". Loz, hilarious, rofl.

There is currently a big difference between certain elements of each party on whether it would be better to target inflation and take the medicine, plunging the country into recession OR whether to keep interest rates low and qe high in the hope that this maintains employment levels. Economics v social considerations I suppose but the divide is not necessarily Tory/ labour.

Having lived nearby, I can assure you it was a disastrous, hated and feared event for residents till relatively recently. Thank goodness it is now slightly more law abiding. Clearly in a time of cutbacks elsewhere, it should be self financing, including covering police costs. It is not an essential. Bythe way, when you say it is " more commercial and mc", are you being positive or negative?

Dullified, hilarious. I feel for you, especially as you don't feel green is quite you. My tyrants continue to instruct along similar lines....but generally demanding physical like "be a horse" etc.

Completely agree. Do you have any photos of eg his first outing on it to show timings?