Smiler

I recently fell out with a friend thinking of getting married in cyprus who said that otta, mainly because I said something along those lines, plus the one upthread about it just passing the costs onto everyone else! Oops. Didn't go down well at all! I just really don't like "if you're a true friend you'll spend ?X and take a week off work to celebrate with us", urgh! The wedding industry is rip-off UK tastic, especially in London. The horniman, for example, was several ?000 to hire before any catering, booze or entertainment. We looked in three different areas of England and found almost no venues other than community centres (Mr Smiler was against that) that didn't insist on using specific caterers and paying ridiculous corkage. Grr.

Am not in ED but at this stage liked playgroups run by childrens centres or churches, lots of nice women sho would cuddle babies and watch manic toddlers! Wherever we were I made a beeline for anyone with similar-aged children and brazenly asked if they wanted to meet up, sometimes playing at each other's houses. Something where I am now that was great was a leisure centre that does toddler mornings in its sports hall, bouncy castle, ride-ons, slides, hoops and things, just one big room with just one entrance and exit, and nice staff. safe for toddlers, could easily feed the baby while eldest ran around. And there was even a cheap cafe for lunch after. Bloody marvellous. Playgrounds at that stage were hellish!

Wagamama!

Therapist types and friends/family peddling their wares isn't great. The thread was not entitled "recommendations for treatment for anxiety!

I had this after both births when bf (have dodgy joints anyway!), vitamin D and pilates helped a bit, swimming, and I almost never weear heels anymore (boo hoo)! Certain foods can flare up my joints too, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes and citrus, odd!

Fee increases, above inflation. Uniform. Expensive birthday parties! Activities. Also, if you plan on using childminders it can be harder to find someone to do pickups/drop-offs.

V good offer, but ne-warned, it's the Daily Mail!

Ther are some great tales in the childcare section of mumsnet discussions!

Any downsides are surely outweighed by the big cost savings, especially on booze! Agree that heating is good, even in summer!

Agree with fuschia, or you could ring Kings direct (MAU) and explain your concerns, and/or challenge the midwife you are registered with / complain.

On a practical note, if you move them and for some reason need to leave your job, then you could have a problem getting back into local state primary schools.

Also don't get stressed if you can't express much, it won't necessarily mean you'll have problems on return, volume will be less given your littlest one's age.

So sorry to hear this pickle. I had a few days away from feeding littlest smiler at a similar age and didn't even express or try to maintain feeding (was fed up!), went back to it and it was fine, as was she, and carried on feeding her for another year after! She fed more for a while on return. Milk supply is still not completely gone now after stopping four months ago. So with a bit of expressing you should be fine. boobs are amazing! Hope your trip goes smoothly as possible in the circumstances xx

One person doing all of it (nanny housekeeper) could work out expensive on top of nursery fees. How old is your eldest? If near preschool or school age, it might be worth planning even further ahead: if, for example, a nanny would be needed then you could consider it now. If the main problem is having to leave work at 5pm, could your partner amend his hours so that you could work late one or two nights a week? Or switch to a nursery that closes later, or a nanny for a short time a couple of evenings a week, which might suit local sixth-formers, students or an older person. In addition you could get a cleaner / ironing service, although still takes your time if you want to be there to let them in and out. And both the cleaner and nanny would be an insurance risk, eg if they left the door unlocked or something, so you'd need to check that.

Another vote for learning to drive. Am in suburbia elsewhere and it's hard to do much without driving. Had a few months not driving after a C-section and got fed up using infrequent, pricey buses competing with the buggy with many elderly passengers with shopping wheely things. I still miss london buses! Also agree re checking out schools, there can be shortages of spaces, tiny catchments and so on. local parks. Where we are there is lots of outdoor space, but it's all "wild", and no facilities, so not as good for children as London parks, and in the week at least we probably spent more time out and about when we lived in London! When looking at trains, check out the actual times, for early and late trains too. We thought there were three an hour where we are, but they are not evenly spaced, so in fact it's more like one every 30 mins, which can be a pain when leaving work in a rush.

It can also be "ordinary" depression. I have struggled the most more than two years after both children, long-term sleep deprivation, handling the toddler stage, work/childcare, strains on relationships etc.

Congratulations!

If a popular school the property price will be higher, so might not be worth paying unless you plan to send children to the school in future!

Also, these proposals will mean less state support for many working parents too, think the main exceptions are single working parents, couples both workng on basic rate tax with more than one small child, those whose employers not offering the current scheme and self-employed people. The proposal is for under fives ( vouchers can be used for care for older children).

Can't find the ONS figures, but think that a sizeable minority of mothers don't work at all, and another number work very few hours. It is a myth that all SAHMs make a choice based on their partner's high income while others "haven't the luxury". Many of the SAHMs I know had jobs before having children that didn't pay enough to cover childcare costs, especially for two children. One can argue that they should still return to work "at a loss" in the short to medium term in order to stay in the labour market and earn more long-term, but that is a different argument to branding SAH as a luxury choice. Returning to work is especially difficult at the moment: job losses and public sector cuts in recent years have disproportionately affected women in terms of job and career progression availability. childcare is often not of high quality. Prospects don't seem great in many occupations. My biggest personal beefs (probably wrong) with SAHPs, at least the traditional arrangement of one person doing everything at home and the other giving it their all at work, is that it works against more flexible work for all parents, especially women, and it is almost always the women at home and men working, leaving fewer women in working life. Most of my peers at work have no children (men and women) or a SAH wife (men with children) and they all work long hours, don't take time off if children are ill and so on. I struggle to compete.

Other forums? Sacrilege!

All in a big bed!

Oh dear re the bit for discussion at the end, although a small part of me wouldn't mind working hard (for a little while at least, obviously in a comfy office not a kitchen) to be visited by a kindly fairy godmother rewarding me with a glam frock and handsome prince! If she could turn up at about 10.30 tomorrow morning that'd be nice!

My 5yo and I recently saw cinderella at the rose theatre kingston, where they had modernised it a bit: Cinders was much less subservient, argued with her father and stepmother and was going to leave, became friends with the prince early on, no marriage at the end (just a kiss and dance) etc.

"> Plus, I don't think it's necessary or even useful > to stereotype girls who do like pink, dressing as > fairies etc, as conforming to what some adults > possibly perceive as a media-driven frenzy of > thinly-velied antifeminism. Being feminine --in > whatever form be it pink or otherwise-- does not > necessarily relate to being subservient........" Dressing in pink does/should not equate to being "feminine"!