Bluecat5

We’ve really liked Lyndhurst, it’s great. It would be worth checking if you live within the last distance offered to these schools in previous years. Plus, living a short walking distance to your child’s primary school is a huge plus. There are a lot of school runs to cover over the years. It’s also helpful if some of your neighbours kids go to the same school in case you need to share pick ups and for easy play dates etc.

My daughter was 21 months when my son was born and almost every day would try to push or poke her brother. She didn't seem to dislike him exactly, but she knew that would get my instant attention. She was also not at all interested in helping. She was able to talk - I remember her saying things like 'mummy, I bang baby....' I dealt with it by never leaving them alone (as far as possible), giving her lots of praise for positive interactions and only giving the baby lots of attention when she wasn't around (in the morning before she woke up, during her nap time etc.) She stopped when my son was around 18 months old and could poke her back! Now they are 3 and 5 - they play together for hours and love being around each other - that started when my son was two and half and could talk well enough to for them to get stuck into role play games together. I'm sure things will get better but hope you find the patience to deal with it in the meantime - I empathise

I don't know if I have anything hugely useful to add to the above, very thorough, analysis except my personal experience. I also live on Shenley Road and own a car. October 2011-February 2012 I was out and about daily in the car during the day time (couldn't walk anywhere much due to large pregnant bump and toddler in tow). Before the Lucas Gardens CPZ introduction, I was able to park outside our house or within 5m, of it 90% of the time. Since 16th January, i have very, very rarely been able to do this - perhaps 5% of the time. If I leave my parking space in the morning, someone is regularly hovering in the road waiting to take my space. I absolutely don't agree that occupancy is the same now as before the CPZ - I don't know how anyone could come to that conclusion. As for useful suggestions to a way forward, reducing the hours of operation of the Lucas Gardens CPZ would surely help the surrounding roads. I also agree that the side of Vestry Road by the park could be removed from the CPZ. If this doesn't fit into 'best practice', maybe best practice needs to become more creative, especially as less and less of Southwark is CPZ free. Having said that, I am not necessarily opposed to an extension of the CPZ into Shenley and neighbouring roads. I know parking in London in a street of Victorian houses is always likely to be difficult but I would really like to be able to safely unload two small children from my car some where close to my house, not two streets away.

I was very engorged with my daughter when my milk came in and got mastitis, so when my son was born 6 weeks ago I really wanted to try and avoid it. I was again very engorged and took the decision to express with an electric pump before two or three feeds when the engorgement was at its worst. (i hadn't expressed at all with my daughter for fear of stimulating yet more milk, as others have spoken about) I only expressed 1-2 oz each time but it was enough for my son to latch on well and get rid of all the lumps. I also showered amd massaged before feeding which seemed to help. So far, I have avoided any mastitis, so for me, using the pump worked out well. However, I would say that my son is much larger than the my daughter was the same age so perhaps he is drinking more and that made the difference? The huge and painful engorgement lasted about a week for me - hope it goes away soon for you.