mummynegin

Can anyone tell me what the going rate is for a childminder (for term time before and after school care) in East Dulwich? What's included (e.g. snacks, petrol for school run etc)? Also should an unregistered "childminder" expect the same rate as an ofsted registered childminder?

Hi all, I had my third baby (girl) on 18 December. I've also got a 2 year old girl and almost 4 year old boy. I've requested to join the Facebook group. Look forward to meeting some of you. Negin

Hi Maeve, in relation to your question as to whether you'd stand less of a chance of getting into your 2nd and 3rd choice schools, I think the answer is no. My understanding from reading the Southwark admissions brochure is that the schools are not told which order you have listed them. Each school provides a list of the children it can take according to the admission criteria. If only one of your 6 choices can offer you a place, then obviously you get that place. If more than one can offer you a place, then you'll get offered the school that was your highest choice. So you should put your first choice school first and if you don't get into it, you will not have less of a chance of getting into choices 2 and 3. I am sure people will correct me if I'm wrong...

Saffron, you can get Aveeno on prescription. Our GP was very reluctant to give it at first and only did so after we'd tried all the other (cheaper) creams, but once we got it on prescription, we haven't had any problems getting repeats. When my son's skin was at its worse we were getting through 2 x 300ml bottles every 3 weeks...

Hi Sally 81, it's totally natural to be worried about putting your son into nursery full time. My son started nursery at 5.5 months going 3 days a week with 2 days being looked after by my mum. I was really anxious about it too, but it worked out really well and he loved nursery. I'm going back to work full time after my second maternity leave in a few weeks and both my son (now 2.5) and one year old daughter will be going to nursery full time. It would actually be significantly cheaper for us to have a full time nanny, as the nursery we use is in the City and is much more expensive than nurseries in the area, but as my son loved it so much there, we'd rather have both our children go there than use other childcare options. They learn so much at nursery and have a lot of fun. For us it's been a really positive experience. The only negative thing I would say about nursery is that the children pick up a lot of viruses there. For my son's first six months at nursery, he picked up a new virus every week (and passed it onto us). Luckily at his nursery they rarely send them home if they're ill, so I didn't have to miss any work because of it. After the initial 6 months, he didn't get ill too often though and on the plus side hopefully it will mean that he won't get ill so much when he starts school. The other thing to mention is that not all nurseries are the same. We transferred my son to a local nursery when I started my second maternity leave and we didn't like the nursery, so we transferred him back to the nursery in the City. Until you've given it a go though, you're not going to know for sure if the nursery will be right for your family.

My son (2.5) only goes to nursery one day a week and really loves it. He's been going to the same nursery since he was 6 months though and he went 3 days a week until he was about 21 months old. Obviously as he was already used to the nursery when he went down to one day a week, that has helped. I can imagine it will be a lot harder for a child who's new to nursery to settle.

Just to back up some comments already made, try to get a referral to a dermatologist to make sure you get effective creams. Also consider food allergies. My son is allergic to eggs. Once we found out when he was about 7 months old and I stopped eating eggs (I was breastfeeding him), the eczema cleared up within a week. He's 2.5 now and still gets small patches of eczema, but it's very well under control and we rarely use the steroid creams now. Try as much as possible to avoid using products with sodium lauryl sulphate and sodium laureth sulphate. Other than washing his hands with soap, the only products we use on our son is to wash his hair max twice a week with dermalogica sensitive face and eye wash (very expensive, but actually we don't use a huge amount of it, so a large bottle lasts for months) and Aveeno cream and Aveeno oil. I found that bathing my son made the ezcema worse, even if we used prescribed bath oils. When he was a baby, I would take him in the shower with me once a week. Now he has 2 showers a week and only has a bath occasionally, as he enjoys playing in the bath. We used ecover delicate liquid to wash my son's clothes until he was about 2 years old. I've switched back to fairy liquitabs now, as the ecover delicate doesn't get stains out, but the fairy does irritate his skin more. I've found Aveeno cream to be the best moisturiser for my son. It won't clear up the eczema, but it will help keep it away once the steroid creams have cleared up the eczema. The dermatologist gave us a much more effective steroid cream that clears up the eczema after one or 2 applications, whereas we were using the 1% hydrocortisone cream that the GP gave us for a week at a time before having a week's break and each time it would improve the eczema, but not clear it up. The dermatologist's view was that it's better to use a stronger steroid for a few days to get rid of the eczema patch within a few days than to use weaker ones for weeks...

Thanks, that's very helpful and gives us a few more choices.

Thanks everyone for your advice. I've ordered a Maclaren Quest.

We live in Southwark, but only one street away from Lewisham. Our closest primary school is Horniman School, which is in Lewisham. We're about the same distance away from both Goodrich (Southwark) and Fairlawn (Lewisham). Are we restricted to the Southwark schools only or can we apply for Lewisham schools as well? We're actually a year away from having to apply, but it would be good to know now so we have a better idea of what our options are.

Thanks for the recommendations. I've just been to the pram shop in Peckham to try the pushchairs out. Unfortunately, they didn't have the Maclaren Quest, but I tried out the Maclaren Triumph and Silvercross Pop. I found them both pretty easy to push and lightweight. The man in the shop said he'd recommend the Quest over the Triumph, though I'm not clear on what the difference is other than the Quest having an adjustable footrest. I'll probably go for the Maclaren Quest, even though I didn't get to try it out as that seems to be the most popular recommendation (looking at KateW's thread also).

Can anyone recommend a pushchair for my 1 year old that's lightweight and is compact when folded up? I don't want to spend too much money (around ?100 max) as I already have an iCandy peach blossom for my 2.5 year old and 1 year old and will use that most of the time. I mainly need a second pushchair, so that my husband can take the kids to nursery one day week (the older one will walk) and leave the pushchair there. They have very little space for pushchairs and most other parents leave Maclarens there. A Maclaren seems like an obvious choice for me, but I'm not sure which one. Should I even bother considering other brands? Other than using the pushchair one day a week for nursery, we may use it when going on holiday.

We've been with our 2.5 year old and baby and we all really enjoyed it. We went mid week, outside the school holidays. Peppa Pig World was packed in the morning and the queues were really long (over an hour wait), but the rest of the park was really empty, I guess because the older kids were at school. The crowds died down in the afternoon though and my son got to go on all the rides in Peppa Pig World in the afternoon without much queueing. There's a great soft play area in Peppa Pig World that you could go to during the busy morning period, as it's really not worth queueing an hour for the rides.

I don't have any experience of this, but in the same situation as you I would have taken her to the doctor too. I'm very surprised that the doctor didn't even want to see her standing or walking. I would ask for a second opinion from another doctor. In a completely different context, I had an experience with 2 different GPs at the same surgery dismissing my son's severe eczema at age 3 months as "something they see all the time and that he'll grow out it". I was lucky enough that my son's physio saw it differently and referred my son to a paediatrician, who they referred him to an allergy specialist and dermatologist at Kings. It turned out my son was allergic to eggs and fish, which are a massive part of my diet as I don't eat meat, the relevance being that he was exclusively breastfed. I stopped eating eggs and within a week his eczema was almost gone. Also the dermatologist was very critical of the handling of the situation by the GPs and said that the creams they had prescribed were useless for the severity of the eczema. My son's 2.5 now and he's still allergic to eggs. I was lucky that we got to the bottom of the problem before he started eating solids as the consequences could have been severe if I'd given him egg to eat. He's only "eaten" or rather his tongue has come into contact with egg twice accidentally and both times the reaction has been pretty bad given that he hadn't even ingested the egg (i.e. red swollen tongue and red itchy face within a minute or so). I've gone on a bit, but the point is that I don't think you're being over-anxious. Hopefully the doctor you saw is right, but what if she's not? Unless you find lots of others who've had the same issue and agree with the doctor, you should see another GP and asked to be referred to a physio. I'll PM you about this, but it may be worth phoning Sunshine House in Peckham and trying to speak to a physio. I'd have thought they'd be able to tell you on the phone if it's something common and whether it needs further investigation/treatment.

A friend of mine had her first and (so far) only baby at age 43. She'd only met the father (now her husband) 6 weeks before she got pregnant. Because of her age she just assumed she's never have children. They were both really thrilled as he's older than her, so he'd assumed he'd never have a family either. She didn't have any problems with the pregnancy or birth and their son is healthy.