MSE Newborn to 1 year (& beyond!) baby club 3

fran-o

Baby's newborn clothes went into the loft yesterday, he's in 0-3 now but growing so much he might go up a size again soon, he's quite a long baby as his dad is super tall we expect him to grow tall! We got lots of second hand too which is great. We passed on some to friends in our antenatal group as we had more than we needed eg three pram suits. With baby gifts too our pile of 3-6 month clothes looks enormous. Some new items we'll exchange at the shops for larger sizes... Need to find a spare half hour sometime to look through it all!

amus

If I got clothes I didn't like, if they were from one of the big stores (Next, M&S etc) I would take them back and swap them for something else or a different size. I got lots of lovely little outfits in 0-3 but for the first few months I just have them in babygros so would have been a waste.

Saffagal

Evening ladies

Wow, lots of ups and downs it seems over the past little bit - hope that everyone is ok.

A and I are home (hope that you appreciated the lovely sunny weather over the weekend ) and settling back into our regular routine. I go back to work in 2 months time Tomorrow, I have been off work for a year! Yikes! But I don't want to go back, and still don't have an answer to my request to go part time! I have been ringing every day this work, and emailing (so as to have a "paper trail") and perhaps will have an answer tomorrow... not holding my breath.
OH and I were talking though that perhaps I can resign after working my 3 months (part of my contract) and then do the odd locum/ weekend odd jobs if we needed extra money. OH brought it up so am going to try and crunch some more numbers tomorrow - I would really prefer to be a sahm.

Not sure what is up with A at the moment; she's 10 and a half months but last night woke every hour and a half until 1 when I gave her a half dose of calpol and she then slept until half 7 this morning... this evening she's already woken twice since going down at half 7. Any ideas? I thought it might be teeth moving about?

anyway, off to bed. This weekend is the anniversary of my sister's death and with the stress from work I'm feeling very emotional tonight; don't think the broken sleep the past few nights has helped either

take care ladies
Saf x

*Nutella*

Saf, sending you a big hug - hope you're OK, that this weekend goes as well as can be expected given the circumstances, and that you get an answer from your employers soon. Thanks for bringing back some nice weather - LO and I spent two hours in the park yesterday (my day off), we had 17 degrees and sunshine!

*Nutella*

For anyone with a child aged 4 or 5 - Lego are looking for 200 people to trial some new toys (through Netmums, so you'll need to sign up if you haven't already). Details here.

delain

We were enjoying the sunshine too or we were before it all went wrong today :rotfl: a lot of time has been spent at the park. Sunday is meant to be nice here too.

Been massively busy here thanks MV

theres been loads of expensive things recently (like almost £500 on school trips!) So im looking forward to cheaper times, and I'm not gonna lie, the 3 days of (relative) peace and quiet when the trips roll around.

Squeak will be going to school in september and I'm on tenterhooks waiting for the LA to email me which school she was allocated, it's complicated but we're out of catchment which is the main reason we might not get in.

*Nutella*

Delain, keeping everything crossed for you - I'm dreading the schools palaver and am already worrying about it even though LO isn't even 2 yet!

WalkingOnADream

Lo has been keeping me very busy so don't get on here often! I've got a few questions that I hope you can help me with. I'm getting really stressed about my return to work when lo will be 9 months, currently 4.5 months.

Silly question but what are 9 month old babies like? At the minute we still lack routine as although lo is formula fed I feed on demand as he is a snacker and feeds anywhere between every 1-3 hours taking between 2-5oz at a time, he will not take anymore than 5oz. Nap times are also all over the place due to his refusal to sleep and need to feed fairly often. Naps are only around 30mins and it requires great effort to get him to sleep. Do you think these issues will be resolved by the time he's 9 months? I'm just worried that he is going to be hard to manage if he isn't in more of a routine.

Also has anyone been a shift worker? My hours and days vary week to week and I am unable to return to work on set days. This is making childcare very difficult! I'm looking to drop down to 4 days a week but can't afford to pay for 5 days care, ideally I would like 4 days care but not on set days and I haven't found anyone who can cater to this, I understand why they can't but it's still not fair! If you work/worked shifts how did you manage with childcare? We don't have any relatives to help as they all work full time.

Finally, I've read all about the 4 month sleep regression/wonder weeks etc but when will it end? We've been going through it since week 14 and lo shows no signs of coming out the other side yet and he's 20 weeks. If anything he's getting worse, he cries a lot anyway but the newest issue is only being able to be in other houses for 30-60 minutes before he become hysterical, screaming nonstop, especially when someone speaks or laughs or makes any noise in general. This means we have to leave and he doesn't calm down until we get back home. He's been checked by the dr (for other reasons) and isn't ill so is this just a phase?

Sorry if this is lengthy, it just seems that we overcome one hurdle only to be faced by another! I just wish I had a happy baby, for his sake and mine, instead he just seems to cry a lot, even more so around other people which gives the impression he's a grumpy baby (I do get lots of smiles and laughs when it's just us two, but I get lots of cries too).

continualdiamond

Walking - Have you looked into LO going to a childminder? I only ask as a few I approached were great in the sense that they wouldn't charge me for not sending my LO in the school holidays as I work in a school so want that school holiday time with her.

Can't help re what 9mth old babies are like as my LO is only 5mths old.

Wanted to share this link with you all if that is okay:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/megan-morton/mommy-somebody-needs-you_b_4900686.html

It bought tears to my eyes as I never looked at being a mum from this way at all. Today it's made me treasure every moment, even the messy ones.

*Nutella*

WalkingOnADream wrote: »

Silly question but what are 9 month old babies like? At the minute we still lack routine as although lo is formula fed I feed on demand as he is a snacker and feeds anywhere between every 1-3 hours taking between 2-5oz at a time, he will not take anymore than 5oz. Nap times are also all over the place due to his refusal to sleep and need to feed fairly often. Naps are only around 30mins and it requires great effort to get him to sleep. Do you think these issues will be resolved by the time he's 9 months? I'm just worried that he is going to be hard to manage if he isn't in more of a routine.

Also has anyone been a shift worker? My hours and days vary week to week and I am unable to return to work on set days. This is making childcare very difficult! I'm looking to drop down to 4 days a week but can't afford to pay for 5 days care, ideally I would like 4 days care but not on set days and I haven't found anyone who can cater to this, I understand why they can't but it's still not fair! If you work/worked shifts how did you manage with childcare? We don't have any relatives to help as they all work full time.

For us, feeding and daytime sleeping was a lot more predictable by 9 months. I returned to work when LO was 8.5 months, and at that point weaning was well established and her milk intake was predictable, as were her naps. But - and please don't feel disheartened by this as all babies are different - for us, nights got messier around that age, as she was discovering new skills and was starting to crawl and wanted to practice in the middle of the night I wouldn't worry about him being hard to manage though - childcare providers are used to dealing with all sorts of routines, or lack of them, and it'll be fine.

I don't work shifts, but my OH does (including nights, early mornings and late evenings - and it varies from week to week), so I'm in charge of nursery pick-ups and drop-offs and all other childcare-related activities. I can totally see why it would be difficult to find childcare to cater for shiftwork - my best suggestion would be a large nursery. A large one is more likely to offer flexibility, as they have more adults per room and so are better able to increase or decrease the number of children on any given day whilst sticking to the right adult-child ratio. My LO goes three days a week (Mon, Wed, Fri), but we're able to swap days as long as they get a week's notice. For some reason I regularly seem to end up with non-moveable meetings on Tuesdays, so I often swap one day for Tuesday. Would something like that be worth considering when you approach childcare providers - i.e. whether your LO could have four 'official' days, but then you could swap one of them for another when you needed to?