Oliver Cromwell

I did Elf on the Shelf with my Tutor Group last Christmas, I work in an Autistic School and they absolutely loved it. One of their favourite ones is in the picture 😊

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How do you explain the rules of not touching the elf? I have 7 kids and 2 of them are on the spectrum we showed them the movie and read the book. The other kids know not to touch it but it’s not grasping for the boys! Any suggestions? The other kids get frustrated if they touch the elf because they, they would lose their magic!! 🪄

luckily I haven't had many issues with pupils touching the Elf... my students are ages 11-16 and many have had Elf on the Shelf before growing up at home. When I first started it with them it was during COVID so we would say Oliver is in isolation and to keep 2 meters away etc. Sometimes we would trap him away from prying arms by locking him up in hazard tape or in plastic boxes, or even hide him up on the ceiling so they can't grab him. It's all a bit of trial and error really. The only thing I can suggest is to remain calm and to remind them each morning that we can't touch the Elf before going to find him. If need be, and they do touch the Elf.. you could always say the next morning that Santa has had to send him back to the North Pole for some medicine as his powers disappeared over night (maybe leave some glitter footprints or something) and a letter from Santa saying what's happened?

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Pregnancy test

Can someone confirm they can see the line too?🥹
We have been trying for baby number 2🥹

Cradle cap

Looking for recommendations. He’s 6 months and I have just left it but it’s not getting better. I’ve seen coconut oil is best, can I just use any sort for him please?

(UK based products and hopefully something I can get from Superdrug as I’m doing an order 😂)

11 month old only lasting half the night in his cot

Every night my 11 month old goes to bed in his cot fine. He does a fairly good 4-5 hour stretch and then wakes. Sometimes I’m lucky and he settles himself, sometimes I just need to lay him down or rub his back to settle him. But other times it’s a case of holding him until he falls into a deep sleep and transferring him.

Some nights I get lucky and he stays asleep for a few more hours but more often than not he wakes again 30-60 minutes later and we start the process again.

Then when we get to around 3/4am I’m so exhausted I take him into either my bed or my step sons bed to go sleep and the second he lays down he falls asleep! Even if I’ve not laid next to him yet. I then sleep next to him and get up at 05:30 and he continues to sleep all the way through until 7/8am

I used to think he wanted me, but the fact he can fall straight asleep without me even laying down next to him tells me differently. The only difference is the duvet/fleece blanket I put over him

How can I stop this need to go into a different bed part way through the night?

Does anyone else feel this kind of guilt?

I’m going back to work in a couple of weeks—just two days a week—and my 8½-month-old has started her settling-in sessions at nursery. Yesterday was her second one, and it honestly broke my heart.

She’s breastfed but will take expressed milk from a bottle (as long as it’s not from me). When I picked her up, she was absolutely screaming—she’d clearly been crying for a while. Her hair was damp with tears, her eyes were red, and she was so upset. She’d refused her bottle, even though the staff member trying to feed her was a breastfeeding mam herself, and she’d just woken up from a nap too.

She’ll only be going once a week, as my mother-in-law will have her on the other day I’m working. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being cruel… I just don’t know if she’s going to settle. Once she gets really worked up, she’ll only calm down with someone she knows, and it took me a good 10 minutes to soothe her after I picked her up.

My mother-in-law has offered to have her both days, and I’ve said I’ll consider it if she doesn’t settle at nursery after a month—especially since my little one absolutely loves being with her.

But I keep questioning myself… am I making the right decision sending her to nursery at all? 🤍

WORK

Hey all! my husband has recently started a new job which is night shifts 9pm-7am. He works 4 on and 4 off but has said he has to stick to same sleep pattern. Not waking until 3-4pm everyday? How are we coping with this and looking after baba by ourselves completely?

Parking drama, I want to know what people think!

My mum parks across my driveway sometimes (maybe up to twice a week) as there’s limited on street parking nearby.
Someone has been pushing her wing mirrors in, obviously in protest. Her car is older, and the wing mirror has been broken twice by doing this.

See my doodle. The guy doing this lives at the house at the top of the road’s turning circle. He walks the path of the purple line across the turning circle to do it to the car.

The road is not a busy road at all, it’s a short culdesac/dead end road. The pavement by my driveway is blocked by a bush and a lamppost (drawn in my pic lol), and any pedestrians would need to go on the road anyway to get past, even if her car wasn’t there. There are no obstructions on the pavement on the other side of the road.

Do you think what he is doing is fair??