Kes

I second get out with the kids loads of great stuff in that site. I wrote about taking babies to festivals a couple of years ago here:http://www.festivalkidz.com/advice/taking-babies-to-festivals/ Well be going with an 11 month 5yr 8 ur combo this yr I recommend the tent type travel cot for baby gives you somewhere to contain them too if mobile. Going to switch from airbeds to self inflating mats for the other two this year as the 5 year old always rolls off the air bed we had an inflatable toddler bed when she was younger with a built in cover but she just managed to flip the whole thing as she rolled out Also second warm baby grow and winter weight baby sleeping bag with shoulders also take a stretchy cardigan you can add as another layer over the sleeping bag. Have fun!

Middle daughter is 5 next month, I usually do DIY parties at home but I now have a baby to deal with as well so I really need someone else to do the entertainment, even better the food and venue as well! Something like the Pizza Express parties would be great except she doesn't like pizza! A entertainer at our house could work if they don't need tons of space but I don't think the budget will run to venue hire and entertainer. Hit me with your ideas and wisdom!

Midivydale, The new habs school has always intended to become a feeder but they weren't one when you were there last year, so you're not wrong! They were going through the process of setting up feeder status a couple of months ago but not quite sure if it's been finalised yet. The oldest kids there are currently in year 3 so it will be a few years before that matters and given that the "catchment" for the primary is probably even less than for the secondary most of those kids would probably have got into the secondary anyway.

HI Convex, I have a troll crib, don't think that's quite the same thing tho as the side just goes straight down. It was very handy but there was always a bit of a gap between the bed and the crib so I tended to keep the side up when the baby was in there. (I had the same issue with a previous bedside cot) It was pretty easy to slide it up and down and slide the baby over/back, certainly easier than reaching over into a moses basket post c section. I have number 3 due in May too and will use it again, I think there are a few other options now, I saw one in mothercare the other day that was intended to go on the side of the bed.

Took me two hours to get from Nunhead to St Pancras this morning. Everything was delayed and by the time the 8.39 and 9.01 did turn up they were too full to get on. Managed to wedge myself on the delayed 9.14 only to have it terminate at Blackfriars.

I'd just echo everything Midivydale has said, the Maudsley were great and I didn't even have to wait long, it's very easy to get to from ED.

Are there any clothes recycling bins left anywhere? The one on Peckham Rye seems to have gone so I was going to go to Sainsbury's!

Haberdahser's secondary doesn't have exams or banding anymore it's just done on distance, although some kids get in on music place which does require an assessment of some kind. They also give priority to kids from their primary schools. Telegraph hill in between Brockley and Nunhead seems very nice and close to Habs and it's new primary school. If you've not done so already take a look at the various facebook groups for the various areas as the EDF will of course have lots of people who prefer ED.

Hello, sorry for pulling up an old thread, I was hoping someone on here may have been with the Sunflower midwives and could answer a couple of questions for me? This system is new to me and I'm a bit anxious about how it all works especially after the baby is born. Thanks

Sorry another builder thread, but I'm asking here as I'm particularly hoping for suggestions for builders who can cope with us still living there with young children while work is going on. It's a fairly basic kitchen extension - any recommendations please? please no suggestions from people who only ever post to recommend a particular builder.....

ooh does it sell wool for knitting?

Does anyone know what the furthest distance was for the new Charter school?

Can anyone recommend a person/agency who could do a good clean up post loft conversion? Family with newly crawling baby are about to come and stay in our house of dust and chaos!

Hope this is ok to share on here. I have a little sideline reviewing festivals for Festival kidz.com and wanted to share that we have loads of competitions for free family festival tickets and gear running this year. (I'm not making money out of this btw, we all write for the site for free in our spare time) Currently we have one for Deerstock: http://www.festivalkidz.com/blog/win-family-ticket-deerstock/ and a Medieval festival which sounds great fun, http://www.festivalkidz.com/blog/win-family-ticket-englands-medieval-festival/ K

I feel for you with the cold! I have a 4 season bag from decathlon and it's great. The kids just have generic kids bags but they don't feel the cold. We always put a picnic blanket under the air bed and a fleece blanket on top of it, plus extra blankets for on top of the bags but really I didn't need that with the 4 season bag. You are not alone in this one, I think one of the other festival Kidz people is putting together a post on keeping warm! K

lovely blog scareyt. Agree with everything above. Decathlon is great for camping stuff, we just got a self inflating cool box from there, not tried it out yet but handy that it folds flat for storage. I've written a couple of posts for Festivalkidz.com about camping kit and taking kids to festivals, I know you're not doing a festival this year but it might be relevant. http://www.festivalkidz.com/ - look at the recent posts section there are a few there that might help.

With reference to TE44's comment above, last year there was a "drift" where the main strain of flu going around turned out to be slightly different to what was predicted by the WHO etc. this is actually pretty rare and I'd say understandable given that the predication has to be made well in advance of flu season to allow time for enough vaccines to be made. Last years jab still protected against some of the other strains that were going around, but over all it wasn't as effective as normal. Personally it doesn't put me off getting the jab, I'm asthmatic and I've had it for years, most of the time the prediction is pretty good but even when it's not spot on, I'd rather have protection against some strains than against none.

I remember having proper flu as couple of times as a child, it was horrible and left me with chest infections that lingered for months. My youngest had the vaccination last year (a nose spray rather than a jab)glad to hear my eldest will be able to have it this year too.

Pm'd you, my girls are/were very happy there

Unfortunately the new Charter school probably won't help girls in Nunhead at all, especially if they stick with straight line from the gate admissions and Harris make their nodal point nearer to ED. There is going to be a whole bunch of girls too far from Habs, Charter, Sydenham and excluded from Harris by distance and/or banding too. I don't even know what other options there are once all those are ruled out? Especially if you don't want a religious school. We have a good few years to go yet but it's worrying, I don't want my daughters to have long treks to the school no one else wanted, with all their friends living miles away.

I did a lot of research on this when my kids got it last year and wrote a blog post about the pox and issues around shingles and vaccination: http://www.southwarkbelle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/some-poxy-questions-why-doesnt-uk.html Ultimately I wish I had vaccinated although both of mine got through it without too many problems it wasn't nice and my nephew recently ended up in hospital with a secondary infection after chicken pox. Also bear in mind that it can incubate for 3 weeks and last more than a week so you could get really unlucky if the baby arrived a bit early and your other child was ill (this exact scenario happened to a friend a couple of weeks ago!)

Thanks for reporting back Renata. I don't understand why they are measuring the distance from Shelby/Colyton road rather than the school entrance? Like Nunheadmum says this would rule out a lot of Nunhead including the area around the station and most of Ivydale road. I also note that this will be banded so even those living within the 1km zone might stand little chance of getting in if there are a lot of kids in the same band. We're just inside it but with only 1/3 of places and banding we may well not get in so where does that leave us?

We had a tail-gator, it's a great idea but get it fitted by a professional! Ours twisted around and my daughter fell off twice despite a lot of effort to fit it well ourselves.

OP it's totally understandable that you would have worries about this there is so much information and misinformation floating about. But please do vaccinate your kids. There was one small study suggesting the link. There have been many many huge studies which have proven it wrong. In addition it has come out that the man behind that one study used horribly unethical methods and subjected children to invasive procedures for no good reason. He also pocketed tens of thousands of pounds by manipulating research to aid a legal case against a vaccine company and was planning to release his own single vaccine alternative (for yet more profit) once he had scared everyone off the rival MMR. The MMR scare wasn't about the safety of children it was about making money for a single, very unpleasent individual. Sadly the media gave the impression that there was a lot of uncertainty when there wasn't and a lot more people jumped on the bandwagon of selling alternative vaccine schedules, single vaccines, alternative treatments etc. making themselves a tidy profit and perpetuating parents' fears. On a personal note, I had measles. It was utterly horrible. Thankfully I suffered no long term harm from it but I had to lie in a darkened room with sunglasses on as my eyes could'nt bear any light and went on to develop a chest infection that required antibiotics which made me sick. Even if there was no potential for long term harm from measles I would still vaccinate my kids to spare them from that. By all means do your own research but be careful about where you get your information and if those giving it actually know what they are talking about or may have some other motives. edited to add - in case that wasn't long enough already here's a longer ramble on the subject on my blog: http://southwarkbelle.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/im-writing-this-in-response-to-blog.html

I do try to be polite to them but recently I had one guy (same person!) who came to my door twice on the same day. The first time I had just got the toddler down for a nap, the second time I was trying to cook the kids dinner and I'm afriad I was a little less polite! I had a man selling cleaning cloths etc. a couple of nights ago though who was quite rude, I told him politly that we didn't buy or give money at the door but he kept on with his speil, so I repeated myself and he crossly told me that I should "have a sticker on my door then". Do these stickers actually stop people? And shouldn't it be my choice if I want one anyway? He seemed to think that by not having one I was compelled to buy/give to everyone who turns up. Oh and then there was the girl from some strange church asking for money for "really good things y'know like not research or anythin" I'm a scienctist, in medical research