chantelle

in a nutshell, it's insurers, doctors and pharmaceutical companies who are terrified of being held to account for creating and fostering an enormously overinflated and costly healthcare system.

one more q - are there ticket barriers at ED if i wanted to go onto the platform to give my friend a hand with the buggy to get back to London?

thanks, that is a very big help.

Hi, I only travel through Peckham Rye where there are plenty of stairs but was wondering on behalf of a friend coming to visit with a buggy - are there stairs to get in and/or out of ED station?

i agree that grabbing food and getting it into the mouth can be quite a challenge for a baby at 6 or even 7 months (depending on their motor skills, obviously). I did mostly purees to start but would give my son a piece of bread, or cracker, or sliced veg/fruit so he'd have something to hold and practice with. (cheerios are good for mastering the pincer grip.) It wasn't until he was more like 9 or 10 months that he really could handle food well to get it in his mouth in an efficient manner. Now he's a year and he still gets most of his meals spoon fed, but always has finger foods too (and can now do quite well with the odd sandwich). I know it's one of these philosophical things for people though, so everyone has to figure out what they think works best.

we did the standard six months thing (in a rocking cradle snug against the bed in our room, then moved to cot in own room). By six months, our son was waking up if we rustled the duvet, and we all slept better once he was in his own room. that said, it was still another couple of months before he slept through the night, and I didn't enjoy getting up to go into his room, but we got a comfy chaise longue for overnight feeding purposes.

aptamil has done very well to present itself as somehow superior to other formulas, and to get midwives, NCT trainers, etc. to recommend it as such. However, there is absolutely nothing to indicate it is the closest thing to breastmilk - that is pure marketing. i have three ready-made cartons of formula in front of me - aptamil, cow&gate and SMA - and the ingredients are virtually identical. you can taste it yourself too - formula doesn't really taste like breastmilk, it has more of a vegetable fat type flavour. re: going back to work. I replaced day feeds with two bottles around 10 months, went back to work at 11 months and continued to do the morning and evening feeds myself. This has worked out very well, but my son had often had one bottle of formula a day from when he was quite small, so I didn't have to worry about him getting used to bottles or the taste. he'll take milk in any form or format!

my little guy went to just one nap at 10 months, so you've done well, i'd say! he's one year now and sleeps 11-1, or longer.

i have one question - after you've held them over the toilet, isn't it a bit difficult to wipe their bum from there? or do you then move over to a changing mat in a public loo or whatever?

i would go private and not worry about whether i fit in as a private school mum. and if your child becomes a snob, there will be plenty of opportunities for life to cut her down to size.

i would personally like a full-time servant. or two. :)

my son (not even 12 months) is not just walking, he's running! thinking maybe it's time for real shoes, he's in the soft ones too.

what area exactly is "the gardens"?

we looked at a house to rent there recently and I thought it was actually quite expensive -but then it was a 4-bed house and we are just a small family. think it was 438/week or something. thought the area seemed nice enough and the family living there said they liked it a lot.

ok, i don't mean to sound crazy. i do worry about this stuff though - i mean, he's still not come up on the waiting lists i put him down for 9 months ago on nurseries in SE11. Now we're moving to SE15 and the fun is starting all over again. he does like lolling around in the soot in our open fireplace ...

Hi, I went to the place in Farringdon after a forceps delivery and to see if they could sort out my son's reflux. For various reasons, we only made it to the first consultation, but they seemed very professional and you only pay what you can afford. (they rely on donations, otherwise it's free.)

Hi, this thread is making me wonder when I need to start thinking about getting a place for my son, who is only one year old?! There was a story recently that 2008 was a baby boom year, and that reception spaces will be even harder to find from 2012. So what does a parent do to get a place, and how far in advance are these waiting lists? and what if there are no places - what happens?

have you seen his wife lately?

there is a lot of natural variation, and some babies develop at different rates than others. Also, measurements in utero are imprecise - any honest sonographer will admit it just depends on where they put the dots. My son measured big in some bits (head, abdomen), small in others (femur, some other thing i've forgotten), and he was absolutely fine. He is actually quite small - was 30% centile for weight in the womb, 50% at birth, and then varied from 9% to 20% for ages. (stopped having him weighed - now he looks chubby enough). My point, like that of others, is that everything is probably absolutely fine!

i don't want to hear this! we are moving to ED from Oval, where the planes are so bloody noisy and constant and i wake every morning at 4:30, even with ear plugs. have also noticed the very late night ones lately, after 11pm. sounds like i am just moving a little further east along the same flight path(s). had hoped maybe we'd get lucky and get off the paths. :(

MadWorld - hopefully Boris will tackle the city-wide problem with litter. there seems to be a cultural problem (and i don't mean from immigrants) about throwing away rubbish in the street. Rach - thanks for sharing your experience. I work near Blackfriars too so my commute would actually be a lot shorter from Peckham Rye than the Oval, where i have to switch Tubes twice. Now we're just in indecision mode, so may wait until autumn to move into what will hopefully be the perfect place, minutes from the station!

this has been really helpful, btw, for real

thanks snoozequeen. I don't expect anywhere to be drug free, but when you see evidence of it without looking too hard, it makes you wonder about how many addicts might be about to get more gear, and how that can mean more muggings and burglaries in an area. i've lived in some rough places where i would run down the street going home after dark, but am about to have my first baby so safety seem more important to me now.

cheers.

snorky - i know, it was a bit nuts. Maybe we were just looking more closely around, as outsiders? i have seen drug smoking on the street before though elsewhere in SE/SW