haha am I psychic or what?? congratulations to all of you! what a lovely name!

Congrats, Archel & Matt!!!

Hurrah!

Congratulations! What a sweetie!

Oh congratulations to all of you! And happy birthday Alice—welcome to the world!

Congratulations Archel family! Such a lovely little one!

Congrats, Archel and Matt!!

As for co-sleeping: I planned to do it with Rufus, but it turned out we kept him awake and vice versa and it just made sense to put him in his crib. Cyrus is more cuddly or has elbows that are not as sharp and sleeping with him works better. We switch beds. Sometimes Cyrus ends up in bed with me; sometimes one of us ends up getting in bed with Rufus. Whatever works to keep the kids from screaming at night. We only have sex in the daytime when the kids are both at daycare.

I think you can make all kinds of rules but many of them go out the window once you deal with the kid(s) you have.

Lego Ist My Ego

but I like books too!

The heater’s broke. BAH! I don’t care about me being cold—I can always play Wii till but I hate O being cold. :-(

Wow, congratulations R & M and hello to little baby Alice. That was a bit sudden!

Ava counted to ten today!

wtf! how old is she? she’s still about 2, right?

That is awesome!

Ava’s 22 months—she’s been “counting” 1, 2, 2, [babble] for a while, but she did the lot today. Knowing Ava, she won’t do it again (and certainly not on demand) for a few weeks and then she won’t stop doing it.

Thank the Count and Sesame Street.

Michael,who cares if she stops doing it, SHE DID IT! You must be megaproud! I know I would be.

Ophelia has discovered tantrums. She doesn’t want to have her *siesta* so screams and cries for about oh a good ten minutes. I don’t know, am I coldhearted for letting her cry it out and fall asleep? I do pick her up once or twice and/or come into her room to let her know that everything’s okay but on the whole I side with Thom: She must sleep, it’s good for her.

The best part will be when she counts saying “One!—Mwha-ha-ha-ha—Two! Mwha ha ha ha” with the Count.

Sesame Street is brilliant. I don’t have kids (nor do I want them), and I sometimes find myself glued to the tv watching Sesame Street.

I’m a very proud Auntie, and my little niece Alice does several cute kid tricks. She’s almost two. When someone says “sing opera!” she raises her chubby little arms and sings “Ahhh!”, in a high voice for about three seconds.

Congratulations Archel and Matt! Christmas will be much easier NOT being pregnant—yes? Your Boxing Day present is here!

The best part will be when she counts saying “One!—Mwha-ha-ha-ha—Two! Mwha ha ha ha” with the Count

That’s how she asks for the DVD! “DDD, pease!” “Which one, sweetheart?” “Ah-ah-ah!”

Oh good god, counting with the Count is just...classic. I am such a proud auntie. The kids are 6, 4, and just about two. Gus, Sophie, and Alice.

Or, as we like to call her, Allie-boo-boo. Or sometimes just “The Pooh!”.

The ridiculousness with kiddlywinks makes me so happy.

I gave Gus, for his birthday, in october, the first two volumes of the Lemony Snicket series. He said “Chapter books! Look Mom! Chapter books!”

I love them so much...I can’t even imagine how much you love one of your own. From your loins, and such.

I am the “book” auntie, and that makes me happy.

Hardcovers. Keepsakes. Books. To treasure. Forever.

Ok. Sorry i killed the thread. Tell me, mamas and papas, which books your children are loving right now? So i can be the best “book auntie” ever.

Also, go back to discussing the teething/pooping/co-sleeping stuff. Because i like to read about it here, in the sandbox.

Congratulations to Archel & Matt!

My sons are currently rather obsessed with the Captain Underpants books. I’m not sure Anne likes the toilet humour (she had to have a word with David about making farts gags in front of teachers) but at least it has captured their imaginations. They have both started trying to write their own comic books and their reading has really improved.

We are also reading the Secrets of Droon fantasy series which Mark in particular seems to like and they still occasionally go back to the Mr Men series.

awww...congrats, archel!!

this scares me a little though. as long as archel had her baby still inside i could pretend labor was a long way off. now its me or meg next. yikes.

oh and i made it across the ocean. aisle seat was a ridiculously bad idea though.

Yay congrats Archel! Sunny, when is yours due again?

This is my last week at work... hoorah!

bump so ARCHEL can find easily!

Tallulah at 7 weeks:

Ava at 7 weeks:

WHO WINS?

Both of them could break hearts for England with those huge eyes M. Wow.

And yeah, hi! Alice is asleep on my lap as I type, can’t believe she’s 8 days old already. Once we got home from the hospital on Monday (though it felt like we were stuck in there much longer) i kept walking into the bedroom, seeing her in her cot and being like ‘shit! who left a baby in here?’ I can’t believe she’s ours forever. Majorly in love :)

The only hard part about this first week has been not being able to breastfeed because of Alice’s cleft palate. It’s just not the same plugging myself into an electric pump 6 times a day, and since I’m not producing much milk yet we have to feed her mostly formula anyway. But she seems to be thriving so it’s just my own disappointment that’s the problem i guess. Photos following...

And GOOD LUCK sunny and Meg, you’ve a treat in store. And I don’t mean that in a sarcastic way about labour. Mine was quite quick and that’s the absolute best I can say of it, but omg so worth it. (Which isn’t to say I’m emerged from the ‘I’m NEVER doing that again’ phase...)

Is this how you post images here?

Ready for her close-up:

src=“http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/330134652_7cfcbe905f.jpg?v=0”

Trying out a black power salute?

Alice joins the library:

That is hilarious!

Archel, she looks great! What a little reader...

Best of luck with the pumping. I pumped for the 3 weeks the Alex was in the hospital when he was born; it’s a lot of work. Come to think of it, Alex also did the Black Power salute a lot when he was a baby...

what a dear! and yes good luck, don’t hesitate to call your local la leche league for help! the website is good too!

Pumping is as hard (if not harder) than breastfeeding. Tried it a couple of times but—bah—it was too hard so I switched to breastfeeding again. But keep trying! Every drop of breast milk helps her. :-) She seems so dreamy and cuddly. :-) Yay another ILXOR baby.

Very important question: are you feeling okay over there? I know how hard it can be those first weeks. If you need any support or whatever, email me stevienixed @ gmail dot com :-)

Gimme/email us your flickr account, I wanna keep seeing her! :-)

Thanks Nath :)

The crap thing about pumping is that I’m seeing the amount coming out and it looks so feeble, which makes me anxious, which makes the milk less likely to come... so it’s a vicious circle. But I’m getting there. And most of the time I’m on a total high despite it all :)

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20144310@N00/sets/72157594427098596/

Am I remembering right that the local La Leche League people here had some suggestions for increasing milk production? A beer or something before starting? Or was that for relaxation purposes...? It sesms like there is some kind of tea available in health food stores that is supposed to increase milk production as well. I’ll ask my friend—who was a LLL leader—when she gets here to make cookies.

Also, I had a problem where I was so engorged at first that it seemed like the milk didn’t want to come out. What helped was applying hot rags to my breasts with disposable diapers over them (to keep them warm) before pumping. Taking a hot shower or bath would likely do the same. (I don’t know if that helps at all, but I suppose it can’t hurt...)

Also, I think it’s great that you’re persisting in your breastfeeding efforts, Archel!

Okay, this is per my friend, C., an ex-LLL leader:

The type of tea that is supposed to increase milk production is fenugreek. LLL doesn’t recommend beer anymore due to the alcohol and also it isn’t a substantiated thing that it increases milk production. Frequency of nursing should increase milk production.

I hope that helps some... if I think of anything else (or she mentions anything else) I’ll post.

Ah heck, Archel, I’m MEGAproud you persist in giving breastmilk! Yes, you heard it, not only did I think you look so gorgeous with your belly—which I will now miss—I’m proud you are going through with it. I pumped as well and good golly those few times I didn’t get any decent amount of milk out either. (This is someone who woke up in her hospital bed with a milk-soaked sheet.) The quantity doesn’t matter, the fact you are giving your baby milk is what matters! And like Sara says, frequency will turn your breasts into gigantic milk factories. ;-) Don’t give up! :-) I know how hard it is, you’re tired and a little bit down (cause of not enough milk blabla) but in a few weeks you and your breasts will get the hang of it. :-)

Just heard an awful awful story... Woman being beaten, babies not really being treated well... It makes me so sad. :-(

THANK YOU Sara! I will try fenugreek tea (my midwife recommended fennel) and warm baths definitely seem to get things moving so will continue with applying heat generally.

I miss my belly too Nath! Although I still have the sad deflated football version of it... I can’t believe Alice came out of there to be honest.

Thanks for all your support—it will make getting up at 4am to feed/express that bit more endurable...

What a sweetpea! I’ve come over all clucky just now.

There needs to be a pass-around-the-babies FAP. A FAB.

Beth, what a fun idea...

Archel—hope some of those ideas help! I totally remember getting up in the middle of the night to pump; my husband used to try to get up, too, so he could wash up the equipment afterward. One time I tried to get up quietly so he would get a bit of extra sleep and he got irritated with me. I was like, “one of us should be sleeping here!!!!” I think he got my point... otherwise, that whole first year is kind of a haze...

i love these parenting threads. that pic with the library card is so cute!

Sorry, had to post this.

Cutest swaddler ever:

Oh, bless.

Did the cookie dash across SE London tonight with our homemade gifts for the neighbourhood mums, and received a few visits ourselves. What a lovely start to the holiday—especially the big, unprompted kiss from little Campbell when I dropped off their present.

Tallulah has finally dozed off, Ava has been down since her bath at 8pm.

A merry Christmas to you all!

My chidlren enjoying the Christmassyness of it all...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Parents!!!

Ava with her primary gift:

Ava rolling around in gift-saturated heaven:

Ava showing Tallulah there’s no hard feelings despite the clashing outfit faux-pas:

Archel—I hope you are are having the BEST Christmas/Holiday ever. because everyone should be cuddling Alice and giving you presents...and a libation.

Michael, what the hell are you doing having hijacked both my kid and partner’s names for your own!

Hey Michael, how’s the camera? I’m growing FED UP with mine. :-( It doesn’t react as quick as it should and when it’s on camera mode it does preview first. BUMMAH. We bought a few presents for Ophelia. She LOVED the fischer-price house I had grown obsessed with. It was so darn cute seeing her ring the bell, open the postbox and also shyly smile at my FIL for assembling it. Nearly made me cry. She’s turning into a real girl. :-)

However she’s grown fed up with the formula milk so I think we’ll need to introduce a *proper* breakfast and give the milk as a *side dish*.

Andrew—I had no idea there was a Tallulah in your life too! I obviously haven’t been checking your Flickr photostream enough (I’ll make you a “friend” and you can see a few more of the kids’ pics). Maybe I’ve been subconsciously stalking you the whole time. (“Tallulah” was Pam’s idea, I was lobbying for “Iris”, but I’ve come round to it; Ava calls her “Yuyu”, so Lulu it is).

I spent most of yesterday firmly in the “basic zone” on the 300D but I’ll start experimenting with it a bit more today having had a peek at the manual. The top two above were taken with the 300D, the bottom one with the Ixus i. It’s pretty great—God bless Pam, eBay and PayPal accounts linked to credit cards...

With the Fischer Price house.

I’m very keen to get myself a SLR camera—once I have saved up enough money—cause the one we have now is sooooo fucking slow to react! If I want to take a pic NOW, that doesn’t mean five minutes later cause then O is somewhere ELSE. Grrr.

RInging the doorbell!

s4mmy, about to kick my butt this morning:

S4mmy don’t want no FAB.

I want a FAB! I almost passed out with joy seeing my nieces and nephew on Christmas eve.

I want a FAB/FAP—a cuddle and a pint.

Hi aimurchie :)

Ah, nothing says Christmas like pacing the room with a crying baby at 3am... and yet mere hours later she looks so angelic:

Oh and I love Ophelia’s skirt nathalie.

I CANNOT BELIEVE that Ophelia is that big. I just can’t. I’m sure I would be equally stunned by Louis (hint, hint). I just want to smooch her! Ava and Lulu are just gorgeous, and I would really really love to have a good cuddle with Alice.

You know, ILxors make some pretty good looking kids!

Oh and I hadn’t even seen the new picture! Oh isn’t she precious? Matt looks so, so proud.

Archel, how I miss those 3 AM trying to calm her down nights. NOT. :-) Seriously it was actually awesome: Being awake when everyone else was asleep and, aside from the cries, it was so quiet. :-) I have to say, you and daddy look positively AMAZING. I remember looking like complete SHIT. :-)

The skirt is from Mexx. Personally I love it, but I prefer Gap. Sadly (or luckily financially speaking) we don’t have it here. My parents do send me stuff from Japan. I have warned’em once that I’m in Japan—in february eep!—I’ll be going there on a shopping spree. :-)

Yeah, O is big, I know! Noone fucking told me that she’d be no longer a baby by the end of the year. BOOOHOOO. :-( But it’s so much fun having her crawl around so much. :-) We’re now decided to NAME EVERYTHING. She’s been pointing at things like mad so I figure I better teach her what the things are. :-)

Things kids say:

On the way to the football yesterday we passed a horrible building that I happen to work in:

Mark (7): It’s kind of dull looking isn’t it Dad?

Me: Yes.

Mark: What does dull mean?

Me: Well you just used it correctly so you should know.

Mark: Dark?

Me: Yes, like the opposite of bright and colourful.

Mark: Okay... what does “YOU ARE GAY!” mean?

Tell him it’s a country in South America.

Matt looks like Good King Wenceslaus.

Alice looks cuddled.

Nathalie, those pictures of Ophelia are great, but I keep going back and looking at your excellent shoes. Square toed loafers? Give me your shoes.

Those are my husband’s shoes. :-)

Give me your husband’s shoes. And your baby. I’ll give the baby back.

if pics of my kid keep luna coming back to ilx, I’m happy to oblige! ;)

here he is at 12.5 mos next to his 28 mo cousin.

after shots.

I think the cuteness of this pic may force my family to move closer.

If I stare into his eyes for several seconds I become mesmerized!

Aww, two shots in one day! That’s so unfair, poor wee man.

He’s so big! And gorgeous! I want to smooch his cheeks and grab his little chubby arms and legs. Oh teens, I am in love with your babydoll.

Aw he is sooo gorgeous teeny. Alice had so much blood pricked out of her heels in the days after she was born that getting her vaccinations probably won’t faze her at all—unlike me, I’m going to hate it :(

She’s been pretty grouchy the last couple of days, I think it’s because we’re still struggling to second guess her feeding patterns/needs. Can’t just shove her onto a boob when she looks hungry, unfortunately. I am growing to hate her bottles and the eternal round of washing, sterilising, measuring, warming... not to mention the dreaded breast pump. But she’s putting on weight like a trooper which is the main thing.

Ah Archel, that’s a bummer. I remember worrying about her eating patterns as well. The moment I took her doctor’s advice—just feed her when she wants even if it’s every hour and a half (which was the case for some time)—everything seemed to go better. And the breast pump is a bitch (sorry). Hopefully it’ll get easier after a while. Does she have reflux? Ophelia did for a while. Not a big problem but still present. I remember feeding her too much and she burped it all back up. :-(

Yep, Alice is currently ejecting most of her last feed through both mouth and nose—with her cleft palate there’s no real barrier between the two :(

But weirdly she seems to be able to stay fast asleep even while snuffling and spitting up, so she must be reasonably happy (if messy).

I read that feeding your baby (with a cleft) upright makes it easier for them to swallow the milk. Probably stupid of me to say this, the nurses probably already advised you to do this....

I love the pic of her and the teddy. MUST POST THIS HERE! :-)

cute babies everywhere!!

i am SO sick of being pregnant. over it over it over it!

here’s something weird though: i’ve had morning sickness throughout this entire pregnancy but while I was in Australia I didnt get, or feel, sick at all. now, i’ve been back in the US for 24 hours and I’ve already puked 3 times. what the hell?? does baby want to be born downunder?

Must be something about yr stomach contents swirling the opposite direction down there.

Just a couple of questions to the parents—how feasible is it to wait until you can ‘afford’ to have a child?

Just how financially secure should potential parents be?

This is Mr Pumpkins main reason for not having a baby, he says he doesn’t want to just ‘manage’. I think he’s being unreasonable.

If you wait until you can ‘afford’ a child you could never get to the point of actually arriving there... If he’s going to insist on being financially secure, then you both need to sit down and talk about what ‘financially secure’ actually means to you both, come up with a sum of money you want saved or a budget that would work for you, and then decide whether you can afford the time to wait until you get there. You do need to think about whether you’d give up work or go back to work and need childcare, and what the financial implications of that would be...

Whatever you do, don’t go thinking that you’ll get pregnant straight away. Yes, it might happen, but I think the current stat. is that one in six couples experience problems trying to conceive that means it takes over a year. The longer you leave it, the more risks you take with dwindling fertility.

However, I’m not a parent (yet, hahaha....)

Is that “yet, hahaha...” you telling us something, Miss V?

We figure the amount we would save on not getting to go out ever again should be enough to keep a baby in baby things forever, but this doesn’t mean I’m going to try this hypothesis out.

Yeah, a lot of people go back to work only to find out that the chidcare costs negate the wages.

I would probably go back to work part time, but to a better paid job.

He’s terrified of losing the flat, but at the moment we’re left with a full wage to live on after all the bills are paid.

If you think you could go to a better paid job once you’ve had several months off work, why not try to go to a better paid job now and start saving some of the extra money? Also, you will have to go back to your old job when you go back (at least for a while) or else you’ll arse up your maternity pay entitlement.

Yeah, a girl in here came back after mat leave despite claiming that her pregnancy and subsequent leave was the ideal opportunity to find something else. I think your employer is entitled to claim back the ‘back to work bonus’.

from what i know and hear you can never afford your kids.

Yeah, you have to return to work, else your employers are giving you six months paid leave / job search time. Who the fuck would pay that to someone and not expect them to come back afterwards?

(though it is a good time to go looking elsewhere, and you hand your notice in as soon as possible after you return—well, that’s what colleagues of mine have done in the past)

My poor friend has been sucked straight back ino this place and once again she’s apathetic like the rest of us.

Ah for the olden days. Bet our grandparents didn’t worry about finances and careers before hopping into bed.

Well, if you can manage not to give into the temptation to clothe your kid in designer stuff and don’t shower it with ridiculous toys and don’t fill your house with pointless gadgets and use real nappies rather than disposables etc etc, then it can’t be THAT expensive, surely? I’m pretty sure I grew up without about 90% of the shit that parents give their kids these days, and I turned out OK.

Being able to afford kids, for us, meant not being mired in too much debt (although ironically we carried our heaviest debt load around the time Sarah was born) and having steady jobs that we were pretty sure wouldn’t disappear out from under us. Otherwise, a lot of discretionary income just gets diverted from one purpose to another, as in [money for eating out too much] becomes [diapers].

xpost, no, because in our grandparents’ day, a lot of kids were an asset, not a liability. (My dad is one of twelve.)

don’t fill your house with pointless gadgets

Example, some family friends just spent nearly £200 on a baby monitor/alarm thingie. £200!!!! God knows how my mum coped with having to just keep an eye on me.

x-post If you’re just getting standard maternity pay, then you don’t have to go back to work at all, you can just let them know you’re not coming back. Can’t remember when it changed, but it has. You’ll get 9 months stat. maternity pay as well, with the option of an additional 3 months.

It’s if they give you above and beyond the statutory that they have the right to claim it back, but not all employers will.

Nothing to tell at the minute Ailsa, though Chris and I definitely would like to have kids, I don’t think that would come as a big surprise to people though!

Well, if you can manage not to give into the temptation to clothe your kid in designer stuff and don’t shower it with ridiculous toys and don’t fill your house with pointless gadgets and use real nappies rather than disposables etc etc, then it can’t be THAT expensive, surely?

I reckon Ava & Tallulah cost us about £230/month in food, clothing and other essentials and, yes, nearly a quarter of that is disposable nappies. That’s excluding all the extra washing machine/tumble dryer/central heating/car usage that the kids make necessary (couldn’t have T in a room below 18C for the first few weeks, etc) or the hefty occasional outlays (buggy, car seats, cot, changing table).

We get £127/month in Child Benefit and £96/month in Child Tax Credit (they’re calendar month equivalents, not what we get every four weeks) so, in theory, it’s nearly covered. (The CTC will drop to about half that when T is one and, obviously, the costs will mount then; also, before T arrived and the benefits increased, the disparity between CB+CTC and monthly outlay on A was greater).

We slide ever further into debt, though, but that’s mainly pre-parenthood profligacy, spells of unemployment and going horribly overbudget on the house refurb. We spent daft amounts on each other this Xmas too, despite saying we wouldn’t... :)

No one can ever afford kids, certainly not underpaid lower-middle-class thirtysomething goofballs like us, but, as Vicky said, you can’t wait for the promotion/partnership/Lotto win.

Right, Vicky, I thought it was a coded announcement of something more concrete than plans...

We probably spend about £200 in the pub in an average month, so losing that in itself should be enough to cope with the expensive early years. Not that we have any intentions right now of having kids, but if we did I can’t see myself having any truck with nonsense like changing tables and disposable nappies and £200 baby monitors and stuff (having had it hammered into me by my mum that these things aren’t necessary since they didn’t have them in her day, yadda yadda yadda). I think we’d manage just fine—most people that I know do.

we do fine without lots of stuff. we use the top of a dresser as a changing table, and we get most of our toys/books/clothes from the thift stores, but you will have a fight on your hands if you try to take my disposable diapers away from me. anyone who doesn’t use them is some sort of smelly smelly saint.

Yeah, changing table for the last couple of months has actually been the floor or the bed (while we “work on” the nursery); it seemed essential at the time, giving us lots of storage too (it was only £30 or something in Ikea). I think we’ll be eBaying it soon and just plonking something across the cot in future.

Our baby monitor was a gift (and definitely not a £200 model); it went barmy at the beginning of the year (picking up everything but the transmitter) and we don’t really need it. We don’t live in such a big house that we can’t hear the kids fretting/crying from practically everywhere save the shed or the garden.

We seem to run the washing machine semi-continuously already—God knows what it would be like if T was soiling half a dozen cloth diapers a day as well. Good luck doing without the Pampers*!

(*—or eco-friendly equivalent)

then there are the people who don’t believe in ANY kind of diaper and who think your kid should be potty-trained by two months or something. which sounds great, i guess. “elimination communication” i believe it’s called.

Good luck doing without the Pampers*!

I shall probably never have to face this dilemma, hence why I get to be all uppity about it. How bad can it be, seriously, though? (I used to wipe other people’s bums for a living, surely it’s easier if it’s your own cherished child? If I was really hardcore about it, I’d be all “washing machines? my mum managed without a washing machine” but I’m not a complete moron.

i mean, it does make sense. in a lot of countries people don’t have diapers/can’t afford them, and kids learn a lot earlier cuz they have to. it’s all a diaper lobby conspiracy, i suppose. ah, what are you gonna do? it won’t be much longer before cyrus is trained and then we will be done with it all anyway.

“I used to wipe other people’s bums for a living, surely it’s easier if it’s your own cherished child?”

we aren’t talking about the wiping of the bums! you still have to wipe bums with or without disposable diapers. it’s the fact that babies poop A LOT. you would be washing diapers ALL DAY if you used cloth diapers. that’s the thing.

How bad can it be, seriously, though?

The parents of one of my friends had twins and refused to use disposable diapers. To this day (20 years later!) I can still remember the horrible smell of that house.

I did both, cloth and disposable. Cloth first, with a 3 month gift of diaper service. Then, struggling to maintain that with no washer and having to haul tons of soggy stinky cloth to the laundromat (along with baby), every day. And you either have to wash them in a hot automatic washer, or boil them for hours in many changes of water (which, believe it or not, costs $$ in many places), otherwise diaper rash galore. Believe me childless persons, it can be really really bad. Unfortunately, we didn’t live in a community that would tolerate naked babies running around shitting freely outdoors in the summer, no matter how adorable. I would have jumped on that bandwagon in a heartbeat.

And no, you can never afford kids. But that is part of what makes them so precious. They are worth pretty much every sacrifice and hardship, in the long run.

DOes cost of laundrette/electricity needed to clean cloth nappies outweight cost of disposables?

In some places, yes. Water costs $ too. Fewer disposables are used vs. cloth (even with wool diaper covers), which is a large part of the equation. Factor in the cost of labor for the person sanitizing (dirty cloth diapers take at least 2 times the amount of work to scrape and rinse (one toilet flush minimum, generally two) after changing than the time it takes to process a dirty disposable) and any “economy” goes out the window.

too many variables—are you using a service and what kind of mileage do those delivery vans get? what kind of washer do you have? do you dry in a machine or by line? how far are the disposables traveling and how are they made etc etc.

although I’m talking in a cst-to-the-earth kind of way I guess. One of my books (Baby Bargains) said that service is the most expensive, then disposables, then doing your own cloth diapers.

I just wondered. What about environmental factors? As I say, I have no vested interest in any of this, but am curious as to the convenience factor/spend-spend-spend attitude of many parents when so many of our parents (presumably) had to do without so many of these luxuries.

also keep in mind that both types have improved dramatically in the last 20 years. Here’s a good primer on cloth: http://moxie.blogs.com/askmoxie/2006/03/qa_cloth_diaper.html

I have only done disposable, although I am thinking of starting to do a half-and-half thing, now that I only have one poop a day to deal with and I generally know when it happens.

Yeah, I don’t even want to start on the environmental costs of either. There are plenty of studies out there, most outdated and neglectful of some aspect (depending on who funded the study). People are an expensive burden on the planet, no matter their size.

My grandmother (circa 1930) claimed to have potty-trained her kids from birth. Basically, she just knew when to hold them over the toilet.

Hand-wash your nappies in a stream! Everyone’s a winner!

(seriously, I have no real bother one way or the other. It always seemed to me that real nappies would be better all round than disposables, but now I’m not so sure. I’m directing my rage solely at people with £200 baby monitors now)

One of my earliest memories of my mother is seeing her kneeling beside the bath with her sleeves pushed up as far as they’d go, wringing out my sister’s nappies before she could put them in the machine. And oh boy, that smell.

We have an enormous box of washable nappies which we were fully intending to use on Alice, but she is WAY too small for them at the moment (only just out of premature baby size disposables in fact). But when she gets big enough I will let you know how we manage! I must say it’s not a tempting prospect at the moment—more because of the extra time involved, which feels like a very scarce commodity right now, than because of smelliness/grossness. But I’m willing to try it.

And I’m definitely with you about needless gadgets ailsa. I think I spent a total of £9 of my own money on preparing for Alice (on clothes at an NCT nearly new sale) and everything else was donated/Freecycled/bought by parents. She’s obviously going to cost a lot more now she’s actually here but at least babies don’t know/care if their gear is second-hand or improvised.

It probably helps that we have no space for anything anyway. But thank god someone else fulfilled Alice’s pressing need for a giant corduroy bunny:

Archel, that’s totally precious :) Alice is such a doll! Do you find yourself just watching her sleep?

It’s my opinion that the most important thing you can give your children, the thing they will truly remember, is your time, and I personally think that the small conveniences of modern living that truly give us more time to spend where we choose are well worth it.

It’s my opinion that the most important thing you can give your children, the thing they will truly remember, is your time

Very true. I was going to say, with all this “can we afford it?” talk—the hurtin’ isn’t just on your wallet (and you can control that to a certain extent by being thrifty), it’s on your free time, which (with two or more kids especially) may well dwindle away to nothing.

example-now typing one-fingered with fussy T in crook of arm...gotta go

Twohundred pounds on monitor: that’ll probably be the one that prevents crib death, right? Not very useful as it tends to be *faulty* (will send of an alarm signal when baby’s just asleep). Even though I was so scared of crib death, I decided not to buy it. Not only because of cost price—we could afford it—but it didn’t seem trustworthy.

Toys? We have a lot but Ophelia prefers taking out all the paper out of closets. The first half year you don’t need much at all.

We didn’t think about the cost of having a baby. Mostly because it wasn’t a problem. (Being the worrier that I am, it does However I didn’t realize how much money can/is spent on a baby! WTF man. I did switch from yr fancy ass (hah!) Pampers to a cheaper (and imo better) alternative. Saves us a ton of money. Same goes with those towelettes: 1 euro instead of 3 euros. Hey and I knit her sweaters. ;-) Just kidding. But if I wanted I could save a lot of money on clothing by knitting all her sweaters (instead of buying’em). Still, no designer clobber for Ophelia. It’s ridiculous even if you have the money.

We get £127/month in Child Benefit

WTF! We get about 55 pounds. Oh wait is that for two kids? I put all the money on her savings account.

Archel, that’s one of my favourite baby pics EVER.

(Being the worrier that I am,

Oops, this is what happens when you turn around and look at Ophelia crawling around: you forget to type the rest of the sentence.

the most important thing you can give your children, the thing they will truly remember, is your time, and I personally think that the small conveniences of modern living that truly give us more time to spend where we choose are well worth it.

the most OTM post on any parenting thread evah.

The most important thing is not to be an absentee father....like mine was and still is. That’s why I’ll never get married or have kids.

My brother Charlie (25 years my junior — go Dad!)

One month:

Three months (on Boxing Day):

babies are expensive? it the teenage years that scare me!

by then i’ll have trained her to work for me. hey, she can already crawl behind the counter. wink wink

We avoided one of the biggest teenage expenses when Sarah showed no interest in driving. Auto insurance rates for teens be buggin’!

Well, if it’s in yr genes: GREAT cause neither me nor the husband drives a car. :-D

Your mileage may vary (HAW!) re: Belgian insurance rates.

I had to work to get enough money to get my own car and insurance. You lot are really nice parents, or your kids are all spoilt.

I’d like to think it’s the former. My parents paid mine, and my wife’s parents did for her as well even though they were pretty poor. I wonder what percentage of parents do that for the kids, and what percentage put that on the kids to take care of?

I was covered until my first ticket. Then the parents told me I was on my own, insurance-wise. Pretty fair in hindsight.

Can one of you lot adopt me please?

I added my daughter and my step-daughter to my insurance until they were 23 (cheaper than getting them their own policies). I also gave them AAA (and am continuing this) to prevent me having to deliver them gas/unlock their cars/tow them/worry so much. Neither my son nor step-son drove before that age (my son just got his license, a few weeks ago). I didn’t think about PPlains parents’ very sensible limit—thankfully, neither daughter had a ticket!

Can I ask what may be a daft question? In both my childcare books (Dorling Kindersley and Miriam Stoppard) there are handy charts as to how many sheets and cot blankets one should use on a crib/cot depending on the room temperature. But neither of them is very clear on whether your baby should be put to bed in a sleepsuit, vest and nappy, or just a nappy. What do/did your newborns find most comfortable?

(My baby overheating or getting a chill during the night is just one of the things I’m looking forward to worrying about!)

I think it just depends from baby to baby. Mine hated being swaddled, even in the hospital. I should have used a sleepsuit right away. Now I just put her in PJs and a sleepsuit. She also hase a onesie (?) on as well. Sometimes I just leave her in the onesie and her long sleeve shirt (and of course her sleepsuit).

Ah shit, sleepsuit is something different. Replace sleepsuit with sleepbag. Worked wonders for me!

So it’s onesie+sleepsuit+sleepbag. Room temp about 21 to 18 degrees celcius.

your kids are all spoilt.

There are few things that cause a knee-jerk reaction but the line ‘you’re kid is spoilt’ is one of them. I know you don’t mean it the wrong way—or at least I hope not—but argh how I hate that line. :-)

From a just-had-twins perspective:

1. No freaking WAY we would use cloth diapers. My mother-in-law disabused us of any thoughts of cloth diapers, and I’m glad she did.

2. With twins there is no chance for anyone to be an absentee parent, which is good, except when you want to take a break.

3. Last night, we switched from those fluffy terry-cloth-like baby suits to thin cotton ones, and wrapped them up in fleece swaddlers. They slept for 8 HOURS! I don’t know if it was that, or the fact that we tanked them up with milk and formula before bed, or if it was just random, but it was awesome. Maybe they had been getting too hot in the night. If you use swaddlers, and the houe is relatively warm, I don’t think you need blankets at all, at least at first.

Nathalie, you can take it any which way you want—if the cap fits and all that. My parents were, and have continued to be, very loving, caring, generous and supportive. But I didn’t get stuff like driving lessons, car insurance, a car, etc etc—I didn’t expect it and didn’t want it. I was old enough to work and earn my own money, why the hell should my parents still have to give me stuff (I mean, I wouldn’t have complained if they had decided they really wanted to, but I don’t believe it to be as necessary as the need to feed and clothe me when I wasn’t able to do so myself)? YMMV, obviously, and I didn’t mean it as an insult so much as a casually tossed-away observation about what does and doesn’t count as a necessary expense of parenting.

Meg—while we were still in the hospital one of the nursery nurses insisted that Alice needed to be in three layers (ie vest, sleepsuit, swaddle blanket) plus a blanket on top, so for the first few days this is what she slept in. And a hat too! But having got home she seemed perfectly warm (feel the back of the neck or the chest, not the hands or feet) in just a cotton sleepsuit with one or two blankets over her (and disliked being swaddled) so that’s what we go with mostly now.

Yeah, cos Tallulah was so small and fragile, we were also advised to go with three layers, a hat and a blanket for the first few weeks. She still sleeps with a blanket. Ava has rarely slept in more than a sleepsuit or a onesie/T/pants/socks—and she’s never had a blanket.

My Ava’s been keeping a “diary” of late. Pictures accompanied by surreal stories. This is her explaining one of them to Tallulah.

Stop it with the Ava and Tallulah confusions! I read that before the picture loaded and thought, wow, Ava’s one clever kid, keeping a diary and writing stories before she’s two. Then I realised it was a different Ava.

I had not seen this thread before now, so...

CONGRATULATIONS ARCHEL FAMILY!

I did wonder about you at one point during the hoilday, you know.

Thank you!

I managed to sleep from 3am until 9am today thanks to Matt doing early morning feeds, hurrah! Alice and I may even venture out later on to celebrate my relative lack of tiredness.

Andrew’s Ava is a beauty. (His Tallulah is too but that’s Overstepping The Mark and beyond the scope of this thread.)

Apologies for the confusion; I could call my kids by their middle names, if you like—Galvin and Greer. But that makes them sound like sheet music publishers from the turn of the 20th century.

Do you want to see something sad? Do you promise not to forward to Social Services? Ava, the morning after clocking herself on the edge of a chair (check out the shiner on her left eye):

She looks like she’s gone 12 rounds with Cuddles the Monkey.

Aww, ain’t nothin’ cuter than a kid with a black eye.

Stop it with the Ava and Tallulah confusions!

Mine were first!

One time my younger son had TWO black eyes when we went for a well-baby check-up. The pediatrician didn’t even blink. He had rambunctious kids of his own—he knew how it is. I remember that one of the black eyes was from him lurching from my arms as I held him in my parked car and whacking his face on the side mirror! The other one was from falling onto a toy.

This same kid later broke his nose with his own knee when he lost his balance while squatting down to tie his shoe.

Aww (wee) Ava...

This same kid later broke his nose with his own knee when he lost his balance while squatting down to tie his shoe.

Oh, bless!

Ava’s eye really coming on a treat now—will post some more pix to Flickr when I get the chance. She’ll love me for this when she’s 13.

Ophelia’s been pointing the remote control at the telly the last couple of days. It’s so darn cute but also somewhat scary in a way.

I’ve opened up this here ILX Sandwich Box specifically to find out how Archel was getting on—great to hear that everything is going well and very many congratulations on Alice! Do get in touch if I can help in any way—dunno if they recommend going for a pint in any of your baby books, but um, it certainly worked for me.

Louis does that with the remote too and we don’t watch a lot of tv! just imitation I guess, he sweeps with the broom too.

I just recovered from a 24-hour stomach flu that had me puking every hour or two. I don’t know what I would have done if my husband couldn’t have stayed home with me, it was miserable. I lost six pounds and I was already underweight. I think my milk production went down, we tried giving Louis cow’s milk and he was totally not having it! Everyone is fine now though.

Oh! Poor Teeny!

Shiner, day three:

Shiner, day four:

ava looks like shes in bikini kill

Oh I gotta tell you all this! It’s the funniest thing. I’ve been telling it to everyone IRL (heh). Every night I’ll read a little to O and then she’ll stand up and page through the book (I’m holding). She loves to point to pics and text and then I’ll tell her what it is. After about ten min I’ll put the book away and say:“Now it’s time to sleep, don’t you think?” OPHELIA TURNS AROUND, FLOPS ON HER BELL! And she puts her thumb in her mouth and turns her head away from me. Yep, she puts herself in the sleeping position IMMEDIATELY.

Teeny, man, that’s so crap. Hope you recover quickly. :-( I’ve been having mad crazy migraine attacks and they SUXOR. :-(

OPHELIA TURNS AROUND, FLOPS ON HER BELL! And she puts her thumb in her mouth and turns her head away from me. Yep, she puts herself in the sleeping position IMMEDIATELY.

That’s wonderful. I get Ava to sleep that easily maybe one night in six or seven.

(So, are we staying in the sandbox? I think we should. It feels a bit like lingering in the pub when everyone else has gone to the gig that was the original reason for meeting up.)