cornelia

If you're on a smaller budget then I highly recommend the Babyjogger City Mini - very stable, easy to push and steer, lightweight and easy to fold (great for emergencies when you can't wait for the next bus!) We brought our newborn back from the hospital in ours and never looked back - 20 months later still going strong though also used slings and Mei-Tai for the first 6 months especially as that's easiest of all...

Is it just the two of us then Jess? Will hover by the bar. Anyone else I missed out who can join is also very welcome of course!

Hi Jess, I should still be up for this - hope to see you there! Jude - are you also able to join? Cx.

Why not? See you tonight at 8. Will hover at the bar if I don't spot you on arrival...

I'm still keen (the 20th, I think it was)... but also free for the EDT on 29th. Looking forward to meeting at least a few of you, if it works out.

When I was in the very early stages, I looked into NCT; the closest one at that time was in Herne Hill, so perhaps there wasn't one for ED at this time of year? Also - hoping to come along on the 20th and the 29th and look forward to meeting some of you!

So, to be clear, are the Harris primary and the bilingual school in competition for the hospital site?

Could try Foyles - they often have discounts.

Hello again and welcome to the new folks! As to this Thursday at the Plough - who is in? I can probably be there, though more like 8pm or so. Also - we seem to have quite a geographical spread - meet-ups have been suggested from Plough in the South to Crooked Well in the North... perhaps somewhere nearer the middle would be a handy compromise (for next time, unless location is already a factor for anyone?) - say EDT or thereabouts? Looking forward to meeting up.

Thanks again - and bluesuperted, I like the way you think! When someone gave my boy a book of construction vehicles for his first birthday, I was somewhat bemused, but it immediately became his favourite and he knew the names of all of them within about two weeks. Big shock for my husband too, who hates cars, refuses to drive (despite having a licence) and was not expecting this. Good suggestion too mrs f; I think he still has no idea what I'm on about when I talk about the baby, but I'm not too worried about that at this stage. April might as well be next century, as far as he's concerned!

Ah, Ellie78, hugs to you... don't despair, it will get better. My son's sleep was woeful for the first 10 months - though I decided not to prioritise it because my priority was trying to get him to put on some weight, and so when he woke up in the night I was happy to have an excuse to feed him. The thing that worked for me was to remember is that a baby will go through stages where different things concern him. And he's still learning about the world. He doesn't know what century he's living in and whether it's safe to be sleeping all by himself. Sometimes other things will distract him, and so there won't be a problem - at other times he'll need reassurance and just to know that if he needs you, you are there. We were lucky in that sleep associations didn't seem to be a feature - sometimes he slept in the sling, sometimes in the pram, at night I generally fed him to sleep, hardly ever did he 'just fall asleep by himself in the cot'. He just grew into sleeping through gradually. One thing we found really useful (think we started at 7 months) was a bedtime routine. Timings varied, but the pattern was always the same. Dinner, bath, story, feed, bedtime (still the same now, though without the feed) - I think the technical term is 'positive routines with faded bedtime'. According to some research I read when I was sleep deprived (Google knows where) it is as effective in studies as cry-it-out etc. So there you are - science! :) Obviously all babies are different... hang in there, you will find something that works!

Thanks Charly - 1 Dec isn't going to work either, but depending on the date, Jan or Feb could work!

Might well be interested in an active birth class - can't make it on 16 Dec but please keep me in the loop for other possible sessions. Thanks!

Thanks so much for all recommendations! Teddy is on order for Christmas, while I ponder doll options, and a toy pram will follow when the new baby arrives...

Thanks Fuchsia - and Medusa! - I think I saw that one on the web! Any recommendations for a good toy pram also much appreciated. Otherwise we will take pot luck, obviously.

Thanks for the comments - really helpful! I feel a bit clueless about dolls generally so perhaps the toy buggy / teddy route will be simpler. Just wanted to check in case there were some amazing dolls out there these days, but I guess if that were really the case, my search of the web might have been a bit more fruitful...

Apologies if this has been done elsewhere... couldn't find anything on point with a quick search, so - Has anyone on here given their son a doll (asked for or not) and do you have any recommendations for a good one? I've done a web search but you just get a whole bunch of stuff about gendered toys and whether it's 'okay' for boys to play with dolls! Anyway, I'm thinking about this because I thought it might be interesting for him to have a doll to play with when his little brother / sister arrives next year, so he can 'join in' somehow - he will be 2 so not really old enough to help with the actual baby! He's a fairly typical 18 month old boy at the moment, obsessed with trains and trucks and diggers and so forth, but he does like to hug his soft toys and they all, even his toy train, get offered sips of water and that sort of thing so I can sort of imagine he might like looking after a toy baby, but would be interested to hear thoughts...

This is a tricky one for me - I had to mixed feed as I was given terrible advice starting out and really struggled to get support. To me it seemed like health professionals just didn't care. Like someone said above, they have more serious worries and largely take the standard view that this is simply a lifestyle choice. I appreciate budgets are tight, but I do wish someone had warned me that it's not a priority and you can't necessarily rely on midwives' advice, because all you hear before you have a baby is that there's so much pressure to breastfeed. Well I haven't personally met anyone yet who wasn't (like me) advised just to switch to or add bottles as soon as a problem arose or was discovered. At my GP in Lewisham there were even leaflets from formula companies in the waiting room. If I'd known what it would really be like I'd have rather spent money on a professional lactation consultant at the start than on a year's worth of formula from an ethically dubious multinational but on the bright side, at least I'll know for next time.

When I had my baby less than two years ago, none of the midwives we saw in the first ten days after the birth knew anything about breastfeeding, and apart from advising me to top up with formula they didn't offer any help at all - in fact, I asked about expressing milk instead and they referred me to the yellow NHS leaflet for instructions on how to do it. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't get anything to come out - sounded so easy in the leaflet. So by all means take formula along - especially if not keen to breastfeed - and don't assume anyone will be able to help if you do have problems. (I heard some real gems... One senior paediatric nurse even told me I need to drink milk to be able to make milk!)

Ah, congrats all... so glad I'm not the only one - was starting to worry there! And sounds like we're all in similar boats. I did look into the NCT refresher course but was so sick when the deadline for paying came that I just didn't follow up my booking, and haven't got round to it since. Still can't believe how much worse I felt this time compared to last time. Hope you're all feeling well by now? C.

I'm due with my second baby in mid-April. One week before my son's second birthday. Should be interesting!

Not sure what to suggest except keep up the good work and just wait it out. Weird toddler phobias do seem to come and go. My 16 month old has been terrified of such things as baby dolls with plasticky arms/legs/heads, and most recently wind-up or battery-powered toys that move or make a sound. At first he would run away from such toys crying, but over time it seems to improve. He's already completely fine with the dolls again, and doesn't cry or run from moving toys, though he still won't (usually) touch them... Who knows what it's all about, eh?

Love Duplo, hate anything with batteries... but it's early days yet.

Totally agree that this is much harder if you're sharing a room. We moved the baby out at six months when he got too big for his bedside cot. Could you move the cot (even temporarily) and then once he's used to the new location, try again to night-wean, then move him back in once sleeping through? Not based on my experience, just an idea...

If you are wanting to night wean, have you tried something in between just leaving him and giving a feed? We night-weaned at 10 months - same reason as you - and the first night it took a long time to settle him. I didn't want to pick him up because then he would expect a feed, so I sat next to the cot and patted and reassured him. For three hours. But the next night it was one hour, and since then he's been sleeping through (ish - 7.30 to 5.30, on average). They're all different, but sometimes it just takes a couple of days for the pattern to change. And I do think some can be fairly resistant to change! You will get there in the end...