candj

The Herne Tavern (the function room outside in the garden is nice for children), The Mag (upstairs), St Thomas More Hall (a bit big, but they can run around). Also second the Marsden Road Wildlife Centre as being a lovely venue.

If it's offered I would do it even though you are probably right about her hearing being perfect. Both mine had their hearing checked in the hospital where they were born which entailed us trekking back and waiting, but it was easy enough and I was glad to know that their hearing was fine - the fact that neither child hears me now is a whole different matter!

We got our kids (ages 3 and 5) the Skullcandy ones from HMV. I think they are for adults, but work perfectly well for even our 3 year old (very padded and adjustable). We went to the HMV in Hong Kong but hopefully they carry the same stock in their stores in London. Good luck. Edited to add link - ours are the lowrider ones and they do sell them here in the UK.

We've been to Ickworth Hotel in Suffolk several times and enjoyed it. It's a beautiful location and they have an indoor pool, kids club/nursery, older kids games room, pony riding and a spa for the grown ups. You can either stay in the hotel itself or one of their self-catering apartments. The hotel group have several locations around the UK. Have fun!

They are fine, but I would replace the teats regardless of silicone or latex. Hope that helps.

tis a bit odd....

I can't help with knowledge about the school, but we have friends who do the opposite direction living in Battersea and driving their children to school here in Dulwich. Depending on traffic, timing, roadworks, weather, it takes roughly 35 minutes by car so would suspect a bus would be that much longer. It's how you feel about having your son being on a bus for that time and would he be by himself or with a parent/carer, how much earlier would he have to get up in the mornings for school, etc. For our friends, I can't help but think the daily school run keeps them (the driver) in the car for 2 hours and that seems like a lot of time, in my opinion. Sorry not to be more helpful.

PRD- have you tried Simply Childcare in Camberwell? It's a bit more work than a nanny agency as you'd interview everyone yourself, but we've had great luck in finding nannies in the past. Aside from that, I'd also second the recommendation for Abbeville Nannies who we've used to find a temporary nanny. The ladies who run the agency were great, in our experience. Very best of luck.

Hi mockney airlines will provide hot water for formula and you can add some bottled water to cool if need be. Also as pickle says you can get ready made formula at the boots in the departures lounge. Hope this helps and good luck! Edited to add that airport security have never made an exception for bringing in more than the 100mls rule for us so probably better to get it after security.

Our December born daughter wore a nappy, long sleeved sleep suit, swaddling blanket and then was pinned down by a double folded cellular blanket tucked under the sides and end of the mattress. Our heat never dipped below 18 degrees during the winter months. When she wasn't swaddled anymore we used a 2.5 tog grow bag without the cellular blanket. We found the cellular blankets useful as they are quite airy and you can fold them according to the thickness/warmth that you want. I'm sure you know this, but make sure your baby is feet first in their cot with the blanket tucked into the end so that can't wriggle below it. Hope this helps.

Tried desperately hard with Mandarin for my two, but I naturally don't speak it to anyone who isn't Chinese. Things we've done or do that help with the language included moving to China for 18 months (bit drastic but worked the best), taking weekly language lessons, bilingual children's cartoons and seeing my family as much as possible.

Is that a typo Helena ????

Smack Talk is pretty funny although not suitable at restaurants as it can be loud. We also have Cupcakes (make your own fairy cakes), Doodle Buddy and also Ben 10 Mouth Off.

I'm currently on the third book of the Millennium Trilogy (Stieg Larsson) and am really enjoying them. My intent was to read them on an impending 12 hour flight, but ended up finishing them before even leaving.

Would think that you wouldn't want to rush learning to drive. Perhaps if you can get a friend to let you drive with them in their car so that you can familiarise yourself with it (obviously start in a car park or not very crowded places). I too was pregnant with my second when I got my licence in the UK but had been driving (albeit on the other side of the road) since I was 16. I used an excellent driving instructor from the AA (he is the instructor for other instructors at the AA) - very calm and patient and it took me a month of lessons and I passed the exam on the first try. I can try to look up his details, but remembered his name was Roger. Best of luck to you.

I stopped first child at 8 months and second child at 6 months. I too thought that as soon as they were able to crawl and put things into their mouth that sterilising a bottle was pointless!

I would never leave anything in my front garden if I didn't want to part with it. Thanks for the heads up though.

We used to have to water the trees on our street during the hosepipe ban so probably the same again now that the weather is warm. Agree with Nero, I used to use the baby's bath water.

I order clothing tags and labels from Easy2name. The custom clothing tags take a few weeks longer to arrive, but they have a big selection.

Awwwwww, that's a lovely way to put it Ratty!

It's not so much paedephiles lurking about, but traffic in general and my main concern is that these children are crossing the South Circular coming from W Dulwich. I get what the parents are trying to do but personally feel 5 and 8 are a bit young judging by the fact that my own 5 year old can hardly ride a bike.

Of course there is, but my 3 year old plays with the camera as well. Photos are a bit more naive, but she knows how to use it. It's a pretty basic camera basically 4 buttons - on/off, camera, movie and games and children can be pretty savvy and figure it out.

HI Sazzle, Our 5 year old has the Vtech digital camera and absolutely loves it. The outside is rubberised so that it is somewhat protected from bumps and drops. It has big buttons with pictures on it so it is obvious what they do (photos, movies and the camera also has games). It comes with a cable so that the photos are downloadable to your computer, but we have yet to do this. Edited to add - Narnia, although my daughter is young, the photos she takes are interesting and very funny (daddy sleeping with mouth open at 6am type photos). I think it's great that children are allowed certain types of technology to explore their creative sides and it allows us to see what fascinates them. Hope this helps. Sorry edited again because I addressed post to wrong OP! Sorry!

This morning my husband found what turned out to be a swift in our back garden. Not knowing what it was and seeing the difficulty it had in flying we took it to the Wildlife Lodge in Beckenham and hoped for the best for the little beastie. We received a phone call from the Vet explaining what it was and how to release it back from an upstairs window. It was fantastic and my children were able to see this after school. Now this evening, yet another swift flew into our garden bamboo at only head height and was unable to fly away. Again, husband brought it upstairs and the children cheered in glee seeing it fly away. Has anyone else had this happen? I can't help but wonder how many of them are getting trapped somewhere near to ground level and unable to help themselves before a cat or fox does.

Sorry I don't have experience with HFM, but chicken pox is an all over body infection and in my experience comes on rather quickly looking like red welts then blisters covering the entire body (head to toe). I don't think CP would be limited to just the hands/soles. Here is a further explanation to tell the difference btwn HFM and CP. Hope that helps and that your little boy recovers soonest.