scareyt

Ha we just came back from Wo Wo too! It is brilliant for kids around 6+ and we had a fab time but I found the toilets and showers quite grotty and it was a bit hard to keep track of adventurous little ones. My sister raves about this place: http://www.chestnutmeadow.co.uk/ - they have a cafe on site and will bring takeaway food to your tent. She said its quite a small site so its easy to keep little kids within sight most of the time.

That sounds great, thanks for replying! Shall we try a Friday afternoon meet up in Peckham Rye cafe?

Hi did you try these courses in the end? I am thinking the same thing - so fed up of bring ignored by 3 year old and hate shouting at him but sometimes I don't know what else to do to get him to get dressed / get in the bath / put down tos / leave the house / etc etc. Help!

My son was born at 35 + 3 and it was in SCBU at Kings for two weeks but with no major health problems, just low blood sugar. It was horrible at the time but he's 3 and totally fine now. He smiled later than the books said but did everything else and was always smaller than his peers but not noticeably so any more. The worst part for me was establishing milk supply as I was desperate to breastfeed - I actually wrote up some advice for mums in the same position afterwards as it was so tough. Happy to share that with anyone if it might be useful. From memory the best support you can give is to bring loads of nice food for your friend every time you visit and visit frequently but not stay very long because its wonderful to see loved ones but she will be so drained and exhausted by the emotional roller coaster of it all. But like others have said please don't worry, the staff are amazing and they will be in very good hands.

Hi all, I remember seeing something here ages ago about meet ups for only children but can't find it now. My little boy is 3 1/4 and is an only child and everyone we know seems to have siblings so I would love to find him some new playmates who are also only children. I'm also starting to really struggle with imaginative play and role play type games for times when its just the two of us during the day and wonder if anyone has any suggestions for how to make all those games less tedious for the adult and more satisfactory for the child. Would love to hear from anyone else in a similar situation!

We like the one at Brixton Rec. During school hours it's nice and quiet and you can go in it with your kids so don't have to worry about them. Big enough to keep bigger kids happy too. There is a ramp for buggies to get to the main 1st floor entrance to the building (which looks a bit weird from the street, like a tunnel to nowhere.) We go there lots.

Loz wrote More anti-nudity, disguised as anti-sexism? Odd how you can instantly deduce a motive other than the one given, which then means you can cheerfully dismiss the whole campaign. There is something not quite right with the logic behind your reaction. It seems to go something like "I hate prudes, and I've decided you people are definitely prudes, therefore your campaigns are a pile of crap." The chain of thought is not a million miles from the "if you hate page 3 you must be a fat jealous miserable feminazi" trolling comments that appear over and over again on all the feminist campaign sites. Laura Bates wrote a great piece in the Independent about the #fbrape campaign which talks about the "prude" tag that often gets thrown at feminists. http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-day-the-everyday-sexism-project-won--and-facebook-changed-its-image-8636661.html?origin=internalSearch

Even if this particular campaign died out, which I don't think it will, the people who are currently involved in it (speaking for myself at least and some friends I have talked to about it) will be ready to fight other battles for equality, and braver and braver about voicing objections to things like the obscene front covers of the Sport being on display in supermarkets. So many people have assumed for years we just have to put up with this stuff because nobody else cares and now we know different. So if it achieves nothing else it has already made a lot of women feel confident about tackling sexism on many fronts. Did anyone see the #fbrape campaign on twitter? It scored a huge win over the way Facebook moderates hate speach aimed at women, in the space of a week. And a "Lose the lads mags" campaign against the supermarkets was launched by a group of lawyers the other day. There is definitely a growing movement of people unwilling to ignore this crap any more. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10086454/How-three-women-took-on-sexist-Facebook-and-won.html http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/bloggers/1767101-Guest-blog-Lose-the-lads-mags-or-risk-legal-action?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=lads%2Bmags

Hi I started a blog a while ago: http://toddlertrips.wordpress.com/ but have neglected it recently. In fact this thread is reminding me to add some new stuff to it!

*Tate* (Modern)

The 7th floor restaurant of the Rate does a nice champagne afternoon tea and so does the British Museum cafe on the balcony of the old reading room. Both just as nice and much cheaper than the fancy hotels.

There's a good statement from UNICEF too that questions the way the results of the study are presented. I coslept with my tiny preemie as soon as we got home from hospital and would not have had it any other way. But of course was worried about it the whole time because of all the conflicting advice. :-( http://www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/News-and-Research/News/UNICEF-UK-Baby-Friendly-Initiative-statement-on-new-bed-sharing-research/

We're going here in August - my sister has been before with her kids and said it was brilliant. They organise loads of activities you can book if you want and it's walking distance to the bluebell railway. Quite expensive for camping though. There are lots of nice campsites in the new forest too. http://wowo.co.uk/

Loz, the vague response so far from Murdoch doesn't define the motivations of the campaigners or the aims of the campaign. A perfect world would not have the Sun in it at all. That's not going to happen but it doesn't mean we are wrong to fight for a world that is slightly less crap. DaveR, thank you for clarifying. I disagree with your third point and think that getting rid of page 3 is critical in de-sexualising the world our children inhabit.

Have you also seen the petition and campaign about page 3? (I started a thread about it over in the Drawing Room) It's got over 100,000 signatures and there is going to be a demonstration tomorrow outside News International to celebrate. Nomorepage3.org http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3

I think the worst thing about page 3 is the sense of entitlement it creates among many men to look at and comment on women's boobs whenever they want to. As if all women's bodies are public property the moment they step outside. Its really intimidating and unpleasant. And is actually a similar mindset to places where women wear burkas - leave your house with any flesh showing at all and you are fair game. The Star and Sport are also vile but with much smaller circulations they don't have the same scale of influence over our culture. (They are also less hypocritical about what you get when you buy them.) There is another petition about the way these newspapers are displayed in shops. You could always sign both petitions - it only takes a minute or two! :-) http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/edward-timpson-mp-make-it-illegal-to-display-porn-around-children?utm_source=supporter_message&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_message_notice http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=V2radkYuN3k&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DV2radkYuN3k Really recommend watching the video - I went from thinking you have to be a bit of a nutter to care about this issue, to being really grossed out that its everywhere and we don't even notice it.

This is a great campaign and the video is really powerful and is really worth watching. It's stuff we see all the time in shops but don't usually notice how gross it all is.

DaveR, I'm really interested in why you find references to protecting children from page 3 irritating. I'm not trying to pick a fight but really want to understand exactly what you find offputting about it, since if the campaign is alienating potential supporters we need to know why. Was it the language I used about the Lego promotion? (Maybe "sinister" was a bit OTT) Or is it that you feel children seeing it is not the main problem? Or that there is an element of busybodyness about focusing on that aspect of it? I think a lot of campaigners have started focusing on their feelings about page 3 as parents since often when we just say from the heart "I'm a woman and I hate page 3" the response from page 3 supporters is loads of personal abuse about how you're just ugly, jealous, etc. And the response tends to be less obnoxious if you approach it as a parent. I'm not saying that's what I was expecting on here as I have a much higher opinion of EDFers than that. Just that that's where the temptation comes from to focus on it from a children's point of view. Loz, I can't speak for everyone who has signed the petition, but for me at least it's not about nudity. It's about us as a country tolerating this blatant presentation of women as sexual objects, in the context of our biggest newspaper which gives people the permission to look at these sexual images, and to discuss them, in public. In campaigning terms, there are indeed lots of horrible things written about women in the media. The thing about page 3 is that it's a clear target and, I believe at least, a figurehead, flag-bearer and usherer-in of a lot of the other rubbish that gets written about and shouted at women. The fact that it exists at all suggests that "nobody else minds" young women being seen and treated as sexual objects, which is a very nasty and frightening thing for a teenage girl to discover about the country she is growing up in.

Wow I'm really pleased this post has sparked so much thoughtful debate. I can see where a few comments are coming from re bringing children into it, but its true that children absorb everything they see and that they look for meaning everywhere. My little boy has just turned three and I often read a newspaper in front of him while we eat breakfast. When he's finished eating he climbs into my lap and interrogates me in detail about all the photos on a few pages, we talk about them for a bit, or if they're grim I quickly change the subject, and then I give up trying to read and we go do something else. All kids are curious and the messages absorbed as children about our place in the world run very deep. It's also true that page 3 is a problem for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with children and that many kids are happily oblivious to it until they hit puberty.

It's true there is a lot of unpleasant rubbish written in the Sun. But Page 3 is basically a very powerful brand in its own right - soft porn that is positioned as something that its ok to look at in public and in front of children.

It's how they pitch themselves. The recent promotions they did with Lego were a really quite sinister example of introducing sexualised images to kids - with the Lego insert in one issue appearing between pages with stills from all the films featured in the "We saw your boobs" Oscars song. Nice. Lego have since announced they are ending their partnership with the Sun.

Congratulations that's really cool. I've just added a chicken curry to my next Ocado order. :-)

Hi all, there is a serious campaign underway to convince the Sun to drop the topless pictures on page 3. A petition on Change.org has just reached 100,000 signatures and over 100 MPs as well as several charities have added their support. The campaign website is here: http://nomorepage3.org/ And you can sign the petition here: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3 Please add your name to it if you agree that these photos don't belong in a family newspaper. Every signature counts!

You could also try the ABM - they have groups in Beckenham and Deptford. Don't know anything else about the groups but their telephone support was great.

Try sitaram yoga. They do classes at the lido in Herne Hill that are very good.