u/pineapplesaltwaffles

My little boy has always been a HUGE eater. I kept reading that this was normal for around 9 months as they get used to eating solids and are growing so fast at that point. He was definitely a mega chubby baby at that age, but now he's stretched out and has gone back to looking long and lean, albeit in the 97% percentile for weight. He's not shown any signs of slowing down on the food yet...

I often find he eats all his meal and still seems hungry. We've dropped his afternoon bottle recently so even with an extra big snack he's still more hungry by dinner.

I have some options for extra quick things to fill him up but today I got through everything and drew a blank by the end of the day! For context, this was what he ate today:

- 4 homemade strawberry oat bars (about a man's finger length each)

- a handful of blueberries

- an oatcake with cream cheese

- a small slice of buttered seeded sourdough toast and most of a boiled egg

- one of those 70ml IKEA pots full of cottage cheese, chia seeds and whole milk

- several pieces of broccoli

- more toast

- a handful of cherry tomatoes

- some chunks of roast chicken

- Seafood poke bowl: 5 king prawns, couple of pieces of tuna steak, cucumber strips, 2 asparagus spears, mango, avocado, sticky rice and sesame seeds

- a defrosted sweet potato cake made with cheese, tuna and breadcrumbs

- a whole plum and 5 cherries

- a few bites more toast

- 200ml whole milk

I'm not even kidding, he genuinely ate all of this. What I need are more ideas for snacks to fill him up between/at the end of meals that I can grab quickly - I feel like he needs more carbs with healthy fats but having trouble thinking of anything that's not toast, breadsticks or oat cakes.

Our LO turned one a couple of months ago and is about to start nursery next month.

He's doing one full day (8-6) per week and two half days (1-6pm).

We've just got an invoice through for the first month totalling £584, which we were pretty shocked by.

According to my maths, 30 funded hours for 38 weeks averages out at just under 22 hours funded per week throughout the year. LO will only be doing 20 hours, so I thought we'd only have to pay for consumables, which are extremely reasonable.

They've just replied apologising for not telling us sooner but apparently they only apply the funding to 9am-3pm. Any hours outside that are "additional" and charged at full rate. We signed up over a year ago and this is the first we're hearing of this.

The half day hours are set - either 8-1 or 1-6. Just doing 9-3 isn't an option, and wouldn't work for us anyway as my partner works 9-5 and I work evenings.

Is this legal? Are they allowed to pick and choose which hours are funded and which not? The way they've done it we can only use 10 of our funded hours per week, and have to pay for the other 10 - this seems incredibly unfair!

This is the information they sent us:

Two days 1-6 (3 additional hours £9.50 x 3 = £28.50 per day)

One day 8-6 (£9.50 x 4 = £38)

38 weeks of the year we get funding

£57 x £38 =  £95 x 38 / 12 = £300.83

14 weeks of the year we do not get funding for 

£51 (half day cost) x 2 = £102 + £91 (full day) = £193 x 14 / 12 = £225.16

Lunches, consumables & extra curricular 

£4.50 (half day) x 2 = £9 + £9.50 (full day) = £18.50 x 38 / 12 = £58.58

Edit - I can see I'm getting a lot of downvotes, I'm not quite sure why? We were told the day rate and the cost of consumables, and I assumed it was that straightforward - why wouldn't you when the rest is all hidden and you've never dealt with a nursery before? We genuinely tried to fully research the funded hours but I never saw anything suggesting that some hours in the day would qualify but not others. They've only told us this after we questioned the invoice, 2 weeks before our LO is due to start.

Many thanks to everyone who has been very helpful in their replies.

My 12-month-old is a big boy and has been having two bottles of milk (up to 500ml total) per day. One is right after his nap mid afternoon and the other before bed. He also eats a LOT of food - 3 meals and 2 snacks.

I know NHS advice is that they don't need to drink milk or they're having plenty of dairy to eat, which he is. My concern is less about that than the number of calories that need replacing if we drop the bottles, as well as the fact that he doesn't drink anywhere near that amount of water so I'm concerned about how to keep him hydrated.

The afternoon bottle is less of an issue - it's more work but we'll just have to make his snack into more of a mini meal. So that's the one we've been experimenting with to try and persuade him to drink milk out of a cup.

We've slowly been replacing the formula in his bottles with whole milk and he's been fine with that, but won't take any combination in a cup. We've tried both his straw cup and an open cup, but he's having none of it.

I know it's not the end of the world but it would be great if he could have a cup of milk before bed. Dinner is 6pm and bed is 8pm so the bottle functions as a snack currently, making sure he's hydrated and not hungry throughout the night (he usually sleeps through till 6/7am).

Any tips for encouraging him to drink milk from a cup? Otherwise does anyone do another snack right before bedtime to replace the bottle?

Moved into a 1930's terrace in the UK last year - it's going to be a long term project as it was decorated on the cheap a long time ago and rented out since so pretty much everything needs replacing! Plus EVERYTHING is grey 😐🌧️

My style tends towards maximalism - lots of bright colours, texture, patterns etc. I've colour drenched the two front rooms in yellow and coral and invested in some big kilim-style rugs to hide the awful laminate floor until we can afford to redo it.

Moving on to the stairs and bedrooms though, I'm a bit stuck. I know it's old fashioned but I love the feel of fitted carpets. I think it just feels cosier and I prefer the feel of it under bare feet. Unfortunately I can't find anything that doesn't look like it belongs in a hotel, an office or my Nana's house. Even as a self-confessed maximalist, I just can't understand who is buying leopard print carpet 😬

My plan for the stairs and upstairs landing is to fit a dado rail with a colour underneath (thinking maybe a duck egg blue) and white above (at least for now). I just can't figure out what to do with the carpet. Most of the options out there are grey/beige - should I just resign myself to one of those? I wish somewhere did a carpet with a cool 60's print or something, but anything within a reasonable budget just seems hideous.

Any ideas on how to make fitted carpet look modern and I don't know... Not boring??

Ciao tutti!

We're travelling around Sicily for a few days in September - 3 adults and a 1-year-old. We're attending an event in the middle of the countryside further east so we're going to stay in Palermo for a couple of days beforehand, but then we have one day/night before flying home.

I had found a lovely agriturismo for that night but unfortunately realised that it's a 2.5 hour drive from Palermo airport and our flight home leaves quite early!

So we're looking for an area within max 1hr drive or the airport to head to on our last day. It would be nice to be in a more rural/historical setting rather than a town/city - we were thinking maybe Segesta for the hot springs and temple? Is that a decent option, or is there somewhere else you'd recommend?

Listed a car recently on Auto Trader - it's probably slightly higher than an average price as I'm not in a rush and expecting to get haggled down.

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Almost immediately got an email through expressing interest, then within a few messages they suggested switching to WhatsApp. They seemed very keen and wanted to come see the car asap.

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After messing me around on timings, they then asked me to pay for a report on a website they suggested, offering to cover the cost. I googled the website, and several things came up suggesting it was a scam. They immediately suggested another - this one isn't flagged as a scam but it's only a week old.

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There's a gap in the service history, so they claimed the report would show that, even though the website itself didn't list that as included in the report. I suggested they pay for the report themselves, or ideally use the AA or Auto Trader's own report service.

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They told me the owner has to pay for "privacy reasons". sent a screenshot from the website's chat function supposedly telling them that the owner has to request it. The "chat" made exactly the same grammatical mistake in their reply as my "buyer" did asking the question.

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Something about it just felt very off so I've blocked them. Anyone else experience similar?

My 10-month-old had his first day at the childminder yesterday - he settled in so well and still seemed very happy when I picked him up. He really seems to love her and she was great at sending lots of photos during the day and telling us what he ate and exactly how much milk he drank.

She gave him macaroni cheese, banana, orange, avocado, a petit filous and a slice of brioche. At home his diet has lots of different veg in it and especially lots of green, but it's only max 9 hours a week he's with her so I'm not too worried about that.

What bothers me a bit is the sugar in the petit filous and the brioche - we've never even let him taste anything with added sugar in it before and he only decided he liked fruit 3 weeks ago! I checked NHS guidelines and even a 1-year-old should only be having a max of 10g sugar per day - a petit filous is over half of that and he's not one yet.

He's only with her for one day a week until September, when he's going to move to a proper nursery. Am I being overly concerned about this? I don't want to make her life more difficult by making dietary demands but I don't want him to get into the habit of having sugar this young... Do you think it's ok for me to ask her not to give him anything with sugar in it?