reren

Anyone have any advice about whether its better to take your own carseat on the plane or rent one w a rental car? Im worried about getting to rental pick up and discovering theres no seat available? But can you just put a car seat through the hold? And if so - is a maxi cosi for infants just as safe strapped in (usually we have it set into the holder thing that is attached to seat)?

I was told that if you travel with a bugaboo the warranty doeant cover damage unless in a buggaboo bag? Would your travel insurance cover damage though do you think?

Bodsier - i worked as an au pair and am currently looking for one to employ - because you have all your food nd board covered you dont need money really except for going out - but having said that i think most agencies recommend closer to 80 and people with lots of childcare experience get closer to 100 or a bit more. Quite a lot of families will pay a bonus for staying for a period of time and some pay for language classes. I think some au pairs do top up their pay by doing extra babysitting for other friends of the family - but its up to the family to approve this.

If you are breastfeeding I would second the thought about on demand feeding - was the best thing i did - at that early stage it often involves periods of cluster feeding and is tiring cause you feel like you are feeding all the time- but in my case it really helped with sleep. More importantly i think it helped me avoid a lot of the problems others i know had who were on a routine of feeding 3-4 hours. A lot of people i know had to give up breastfeeding and struggled w mastitis and other things - it mqy have been a coincidence but they were all trying to follow q strict routine of feeding. I think on demand really helps you tune into your babies rythms and makes sure your milk supply (which is still establishing itself at your stage)gets to right levels. Before long the baby usually falls into his own pattern anyway and ends up feeding at regular intervals. Anyway - it is all down to each mum's personal preference - but if you are bfing and hadnt considered on demand feeding you might be interested in trying it! If its not for you - then fair enough!

Just a word of warning - the private pool has very little room for changing you/ your baby / other people in the class. They only allow you to come in 10 mins before and i found it made the whole experience a bit of a stressful rush. Pool itself is very warm but my baby broke out in bad eczema just after the 2nd class and we had tO stop going. They claim to check chlorine levels but i thought it was very chloriney water and dr said had definitely triggered my baby's eczema - but he could just be v sensitive?

What is the money like? How much did you get for a day? How many days a month would you expect?

Just wanted to thank everyone for all their tips - for the first time this evening my son finally started eating and with great gusto! Not sure how much went down but he sucked on a huge range of things and at bathtime bits of pepper, cucumber, hummous, bread, apple and sweet potato were to be found under his chubby little chin! Once you start to feel a bit more confident and the baby starts obviously enjoying it blw is so much fun (if messy) isnt it! Am enjoying so much more than pureeing and spoon feeding! Really fun to see them enjoying it so much and for my son at least he seems to love the independence of it! Thank you for your tips! Really helped!

I would love it if there were something like this? A gap in the market perhaps!

Thank you this is really helpful! Any tips for summer eating? I tend to eat a lot of salad type of food in summer which usually means lettuce/ uncooked veg with cheese or chicken or something as protein...i think a lot of cheeses are probably too salty? I guess bits of cooked chicken will be ok? And maybe i just have to get used to cooking up a bit of veg for him? And am i right in thinking tomato can often cause an alergic reaction? Im assuming you just try and see? Do you not have to worry about salt in things like hummous? Not quite sure how worried to be about salt? Hmm making me think my diet is rather unhealthy! Ahh for the ease of breastfeeding!

My baby is almost 6 months old and has been exclusively breastfed. For the last month ive been starting to try food but so far he is completely uninterested! I was quite drawn to babyled weaning but slightly freaked out by fear of choking - but my bigger issue is that im really confused about what i can give him? The book i read suggested you can give anything after 6 months, but then a friend who did baby led weaning seemed shocked by the idea of giving raw apple slices and seemed to think fruit needed to be stewed. But this goes against what id understood - and at this time of year its tempting to just grate up fresh fruit or blend it? Why cant you do fresh fruit- is it harder to digest? The annabel carmel puree world doesnt massively appeal but that seems to be full of rules about peeling and stewing things! He is very happy holding bits of food and sucking on them - but wont actually swallow anything but i'm sure that will come. So my question is - for those who tried babyled weaning what kind of food did you try? Could i try things like cous cous and roast veg? Do i need to peel skin off roast veg? Or do i just give him a bit of whatever im eating? Like cooked cold chicken? Meat seems daunting - the book i read definitely says yes to meat - but im quite nervous of choking...should i just give up and enter the world of purees? Oh and what about yoghurt? Is cows milk in yoghurt really ok as early as 6 months? I plan to keep breastfeeding until he's at least one.

Anyone know about goodrich catchment - has it fallen out of favour and therefore have a wider catchment than previously? Seems the change yearly which schools are most popular - which kind of suggests there isnt that much difference between them?

How far in advance do you recommend booking a place? Is it like the nursuries that fill up so quickly round here?

Im interested in trying to find a new zealand or australian live-in nanny/ au pair and im wondering how to go about it? Does anyone have experience of good websites/agencies to use - i understand there is a standard qualification that antipodians do to become nannies? The role we are offering would suit someone who wants weekends free to travel. Any advice would be gratefully received from those who have experience with searching for nannies from nz or oz - thanks! Rebecca

I wonder if someone with more experience of these things might give a sense of how a campaign like this might work? What parents can do? Surely there must be hundreds of parents even of tiny babies who would like to see a fantastic secondary school on the doorstep? Is it a question of petitioning harris? Is that why a facebook page would be a good idea?

A good friend who's baby suffered badly from colic changed her diet (she was breastfeeding) significantly cutting out all sorts of things pulses, wheat, dairy etc-it wasnt easy for her and you'd want to take some advise from a nutritionist maybe to make sure you are getting the right nutrition - but my friend reckoned it fixed the colic almost overnight?

We are starting to think about how to manage childcare when i go back to work. I will be working 4 days a week and my husband works freelance/irregular hours largely from home - what we'd ideally like is to be able to drop our son off for a morning or afternoon as and when we need to and then perhaps have an au pair to watch him while my husband works. Does anyone do something similar? Are there childminders who are flexible or do you always have to sign up for a set number of days/ hours? He will be one when we start needing childcare and ideally i would prefer he wasnt with a childminder all day and that we can take advantage of time when his dad is home and able to take care of him?

Think everyone has pretty much said what i'd have said but i though i'd add my recent experience in case its helpful (tho as everyne has said every baby is different). Personally i was amazed by how prevalent the idea that you have to get babies into a routine from day one is. Everyone i knew at the same stage was obsessed w four hourly feeds and 7pm bedtimes - but it didnt feel right for my baby so i just went w the flow. I found until about 3 months he had no real routine and just slept whenever he was tired and often cluster fed in the evenings. Personally i enjoyed this lack of routine as he just fit around whatever i was doing. He was often very awake in the evenings and just went to bed when we did. I found the cluster feeding knackering but it soon had a brilliant pay off and he started sleeping through the night (for my baby a full tummy is what he needs to sleep for a decent amount of time). From 3 months he started falling asleepmearlier and as we got to 4 months he started falling adleep by 7 all by himself and sleeping through to 8ish the next morning (w a dream feed). Now at 5 months his night time sleep is a bit off as i think he's waking from hunger and so im preparing to tackle solids - but he has fallen into a pretty regular routine during the day. In fact i was amused to find when talking to a 'fording' mum that he seems to have settled into gina ford's routine without my having ever picked up her book. Personally i think you should follow a routine if that is your natural inclination - if you are the sort of person to whom routine doesnt come naturally - then trying to force yourself into it can end up being really stressful. i have loved the flexibility of feeding on demand and not trying to set a routine - it makes everything so much more relaxing for me. I suspect whether your baby sleeps at night is much more about the individual baby and whether they are a good sleeper than anything you do or dont do!

Thank you so much for posting this! I have sent to all the women i know who have given birth recently and read it 5 times - each time getting something more from it and each time welling up. Really wonderful

Personally i love a well placed f**k! Tee hee!

Am i alone in daydreaming every so often about moving out of london? I love east dulwich at the moment but i have an idea that maybe i'd like to escape the rat race one day - wondering what places others have imagined moving to? I'd like brighton but the dream involves seriously reducing the mortgage (even mortgage free?) which i doubt we'd do with brighton house prices. Ive wondered about folkestone - super cheap and now on a fast train to kings x - but have no idea what it would be like to live there? Schools etc? Where is there out there with the feel of east dulwich (lively high street, good social mix etc), not too far from london, affordable housing and great schools - ah the holy grail!

When i had my baby i felt really unwell at first and completely wiped out. It turned out my iron levels were v low. Just thought id mention in case you are having same thing - have you had iron checked? That is not to suggest that sleep loss isnt horrendous on its own but low iron makes it even worse! Another thought: is there any chamce your partner can take the baby downstairs/ into another room for a couple of hours in the morning after a six o'clock/ seven o'clockish feed? Mine did this and it was so helpful - i found it easy to fall back asleep at that time of morning and slept much more deeply when i knew the baby was awake downstairs w his dad. I found i was sleeping v lightly at first during the night - i think maybe getting used to listening out for baby in my sleep? For me it was much more about the quality of sleep than quantity...and even 2 hours quality sleep made all the difference!

Thank you so much to everyone for your advice - i am pleased to report that it seems to be improving a bit - whether its the cream or change of washing powder im not sure but will try some of the suggested products! So appreciate your help!

I posted a couple of days ago and had some really helpful responses - i wonder if anyone has any more brilliant advice. I went to doc and got a prescription for hydromol cream for baby's eczema which appeared just over a week ago now. It started w patches of red and became little raised spots all over tummy w pqtches of v dry skin on arms and legs by the time we saw dr and had eczema diagnosed. Since then ive been covering in cream but it seems to be getting worse over last 3 days since applying cream...it has now spread to all round his kneck and legs now have red patches...i think his tummy where the cream has been slathered most liberally might be less red but still v bumpy. I'm wondering if clothes might be the culprit and got some surcare today and been washing all his clothes and rinsing thru afterwards this evening...So my question is - does this sound typical? Is the cream making it worse or just ineffective? I dont know whether to persevere w cream (maybe it takes a few days to work) while putting him in clean clothes or should i rush to dr's tomorrow and get different cream and/ or referral to dermatologist?? So hate seeing him looking uncomfortable and he's started rubbing his chest poor little mite!

Thank you all with posts so far and the link to the other threads. I have private health insurance thru work for the baby - would those who've been through it recommend going immediately to a dermatologist? It looks uncomfortable but he doesnt seem too disturbed by it yet - or should i try the cream from the gp first before rushing to dermatologist? Dont want to over react but also dont want him to suffer if we can help him - and dont want to try hundreds of different creams for weeks only to find nothing works and it gets worse...

I am no expert on this but are you feeding on demand? It may be a coincidence but ive noticed that babies allowed to feed on demand often cluster feed - getting a lot in the evening and then sleep better at night?