mima08

Love it! Oh the joys to come....

Thanks Zoe, that looks very interesting - will definitely give them a call. Am still making the rounds researching local sports clubs who would be willing to let the kid train for a few sessions, but not too much luck so far. I would love to give him the opportunity to mix with other kids, rather than adults (=me) taking him, so any other suggestions would be great mx

Hiya, the nct has courses on a regular basis as does the red cross - both not very expensive ... if you google, baby first aid, it should come up

Hiya, my brother lives in Germany and one of his sons is struggling with English. He is wondering if there are opportunity to take part in sport activities for his 14 year old if they came to visit. His son, Ruben is fab at sports, swimming, running, cycling and football. Ideally, the sport would be a good environment to help him with his English. I don't have any contact with any sport clubs (my LO is too small....) - Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Hiya - just moved LO to cot during nights (12 weeks) and magically he has started sleeping for 5 - 6 hours! So maybe we kept him awake too...Had started by introducing day-time naps in cot and by now, he really loves his cot and feels very safe & comfy there. I use one of the monitors with a motion sensor - his room is next door, so I hear him cry anyway but I feel more csomfortable knowing that there would be an alarm if movement (incl. breathing) stopped for 20sec. It works too when we pick him up and forget to turn monitor off... Cot bumper debate is still to be addressed: at the moment he is still being lightly swaddled and does not wriggle around too much ...

I do totally agree that children should not have to travel hours on buses to go to school - having done so myself, I know how difficult it is to make good friends, have meaningful after school activities and simply how tiring it is! Plus, it is important to keep some sense of community in teenagers as well - especially in a place like London. I have a little time (my LO is only 8weeks) but want to give support where possible. Not being from the UK, I am not quite sure what the school provisions are, particularly locally - can you please point me in the direction of some information? Also, are there campaigns that I can lend support to? Thanks

I had the Theraline pillow - a very long sausage like bean bag, nice and light for repositioning at night but firm enough to give support & can also be moulded. Not really used it for breastfeeding though....

Thanks again for the advice! I am using both Infacol and colief - they seem useful but not enough to really help. I have changing my diet and also tried all sorts of bottles (incl. Dr. Browns) to help eliminating wind etc - not with very much success, I have to say... Thanks very much for the link to the article RB- it really helps looking at the grizzly time from a different perspective, and helps particularly someone like me who always wants to "fix" everything to feel less useless...AND of course the prospect of it stopping (fingers crossed) at three months is something to look forward to. Finally, I did go to see an osteopath today and she reckons that his head suggests a fair bit of tension (actually she will write to my GP to get her to send him for a scan as she is concerned that the bones at the back of the head may have fused a bit early). Anyway, she did do some tension release work and lo and behold - he was great tonight! No real grizzling, some good feeds, we shall see what the night brings (could also be that he was just so tired after having been awake for 4.5hrs that he fell asleep, but at least he is not upset, yay!). I will update if future sessions have the same effect.

Thank you all for the replies. I had feared the answer might be colic - that mysterious and dreaded word... It is very trying and quite upsetting as he gets so very upset, with tears running down his face. Really breaks my heart. I'm already using infacol (he can be quite windy) and even colief and both seem to be helpful for all other times of the day - just not 5-7pm! (BTW, he seem not to have adjusted to BST - he now starts at 6pm, today on the dot!) RB - what is the witching hour? Am I being daft or is it simply the time of the evening when children grizzle? Ravi (&others) thanks for the suggestion re cranial osteopathy: i will look into it further - I had thought it would not apply as I had a c-section, albeit after 30hrs of labour.... will give that clinic a call tomorrow!

Hi - my LO is almost 8 weeksl and over the last two weeks he has taken to howl & scream every day for 2-3hrs, starting at 5pm (sometimes it starts earlier, and yesterday he got fooled by the summertime change, but generally you can set your watch by it!) He seems totally inconsolable, nothing we do seems to make any difference. Tried food, nappy change, rocking, jigling, carrying, dark room, light room, white noise, winding, swaddling - the only times he stops crying is when his eyes fall shut from exhaustion - but never more than 5 min... Till about 7 or 8 when it all reverts to normal. It is really exchausting - any suggestions on what to do/similar experiences?

Hellosailor, I could have written your post myself just a 3 weeks ago...At 5 weeks I felt exactly the same. The shhhhhh patting & swaddeling made a huge difference - even though LO did not appear to like the swaddling initially, he now loves it. In terms of a routine - i had the same feeling of inadequacy and stupidly read all the same books without being able to see a) how to implement a routine and b) whether it is even right for me. Now I am trying to implement a roughly similar time for bath/wash each day (but even that varies, depending how the day goes/he sleeps/what we are doing) and do my best to ignore other "advice". I found it helpful to be told to try anything I like the sound of for 3 days and if it works, great, if not move on - that was probably the soundest advice of all! The one thing that did really help me though is to look out for the time by which he's been awake each time roughly 1 hr to look very carefully for tiredness signs and at the first sign calming him down & getting ready to put him down - it helps avoiding the overstimulation (sometimes...)

Ask - and get the TfL "Baby on Board" badge - it did actually help in quite a few situations when people were obviously undecided on the "pregnant vs chubby" question ;-)

thank you - this is great... I always felt guilty for ending up having the "easy option" - did not feel easy at the time!

IMO it's better to find a way to soothe a distressed crying baby than to leave her/him cry. I offer my LO a dummy when he gets very upset - sometimes he wants it, sometimes he doesn't. He still goes on the breast ok as well....(although I do top up with bottles too). There are also theories that the sucking reflex is very important to be "lived through" as a child as it could reduce likelihood of additions (e.g. smoking) later in life. Of course, the sucking reflex can be satisfied by any means - fingers/thumbs, dummy, breast, bottle, piece of cloth etc - guess those theories really compare to the very old fashioned view of not sucking anything....

hi- i got bad pains in the last few weeks of my pregnancy and saw a chiro - east dulwich chiro on crystal palace road. was very good, 3 sessions and all pain gone and none recurred (aparently they don't always disappear with giving birth...) can hugely recommend that chiro, hope you get some help x

thanks for the tip- had not even occured to me to check! i've also found someone to help twice a week, so am very excited of the prospect of some sleep! thanks all for supportive msgs...x

congratulations on your new baby ! you are doing a great job! i can so sympathetise, as i sit here bottle feeding! like you, i had a fair few problems right from the birth and my ideal of exclusively breastfeeding did not work. i can fully relate to all you're saying but actually, reading your story makes me realize that you ARE doing a fab job and being really smart to put emotional health first - that will have the biggest influence on your baby 's wellbeing of all! sorry, have to try & get some sleep, hope you get some too :-)

thank you fuschia! people are so nice to offer help and yes, i have been out and meeting other mums but to be honest, what i need is extra sleep . i feel like a wuss being so dependent on my sleep for sanity - especially as my baby is not particularly difficult ! but i think i need the prospect of getting some sleep on regular basis, almost like having something to look forward to, which is why imposing on friends is difficult (cannot really demand that they turn up twice weekly ...:-)) so thank you again and i'd love to hear of any get togethers, while i try to fnd some help in the meantime too.

Dear all, thank you for your very quick and reassuring replies. I guess my energy levels are just depleted and these are giving me hope :-) I looked at the night nanny thread but i guess financially i can't make that work , however getting someone for a few days a week is an option - looking into that as well as the doula suggestion. my dp does take him in the evenings, so i get some sleep before night feeds but as he works long hours, he is starting to struggle with lack of sleep too and i am not sure how long he can cope with the pressure.....anyway, thanks again for your messages !

Hello, i found this thread while nursing my 4 week old and looking desperately for some help. i thought i was prepared for what it's really like but find myself out of my depth. Although i am lucky to have a wonderful helpful partner , i find myself not coping with the sleep deprivation and am in floods of tears on regular basis. i don't have family in this country and my friends don't have children , so i can't impose on them . i saw someone mentioning a "night-nanny"? not heard this before - can someone pls explain? i have also considered to get a part time nanny/help to allow me to catch up on sleep a few times during the week - does anyone have any suggestions ? sorry for gatecrashing- any help would really be appreciated ...