coqueline's Profile

To take the family on a 2-3 years sailing trip has been our dreams of late. We have a daughter that is currently 2, and we'd like to take her sailing around the world and homeschool her before she hits puberty. My husband is now busy taking sailing lessons and taking exam for the licences. Whether or not we're going to sell everything is a different matter. We at least need to keep the apartment and rent it out, or how else we'd be able to pay for the trip?

How do those people pay for their chosen lifestyle?

I'm with Labchick. Unfortunately in our house, we do consider children sleeping in parent's bed 'a bad habit', and thus, chose not to start it at any point. Growing up with a sister 13 years younger than myself who flat out refused to sleep in her own room until she was 13(!), I always reminded myself of that after having my own kid.

Baby is almost 2 now and have never slept a single night in our bed ever since she was born (in the same room, yes, not the same bed, not even on holidays). She's a cheerful confident and independent little girl who's a very sound sleeper since a very young age also. We moved her to a big girl bed from the crib just last week, and she still stays in her bed until the mornings, even though she knows she could get out of bed by herself now. She's a strong willed girl who's not afraid of confrontation, but bedtime is one battle we never had.

The thing is, it is sometimes the parents who are reluctant and anxious about 'releasing' their children into their own beds, and the kids sense this (which in turn become their anxiety too).

"The Twelve Days of Christmas", with its total of 364 presents, and the Geneva Sound System as the 365th to make it a present a day in a year! (Well, an extra one for a Leap Year...).

Thanks for all the votes and comments! It's so great to make the cut, even though we only had a week to dress this nursery up, since we just moved in to the house on the first weekend of October.

dcmom: The print was from http://www.stevenharrington.com/. He does fabulous prints, and I love that particular one because it suits the colour scheme of the nursery.

Molly: Unfortunately the crib was from a small local baby shop here in Amsterdam. We took it (along with dresser and wardrobe) because they are the most minimalistic set we could find.

We're not planning on having more babies, so yes, I meant when Peanut is too old for it, I wouldn't feel too bad about just leaving it outside by the bin (would be happier if to give it away to someone who needs it, though). I wouldn't bother with reselling it.

What is it with people and Bugaboo bashing? I wonder if they're just as as rude to everybody else carrying/wearing/possessing anything they consider a waste of money.

Anyway, Peanut is already too old for baby gear. She needs a big girl bed soon, and my dream buy would be the Bump Beds (http://www.bumpstuff.com/index.html). They are so lovely. The bed itself is not ridiculously expensive (starts from £275), but it's shipped from the UK, which would add a considerable shipping (and tax?) charge on top. I love the Swedish Day Bed most. I could flip the low side against the wall in place of a toddler's railing while she's still rolling around the bed.

Ah, let her eat a bit of dirt, it's good for the immune system...

We just fill the lower shelves with paperbacks. I'm ok with her pulling the books down, it's not dangerous, and she gets bored of it after 5 days of doing it. I have to admit I am guilty of underproofing for fear of the ugliness of baby-proofing thingies. I use several rubberbands to hold my kitchen cabinet handles together so she can't open them. That's the extent of my babyproofing. I'm not a big fan of small breakable item of decoration, so we never have them in the first place to worry about.

Thank you for all the vote and comments. Woohoo, we're in!

We got the furniture from a local baby shop here in Amsterdam. I doubt they do shipping to the US. They are actually whitewashed wood, and not creamy. The night table used to store our PC, but we found that the diaper bin fit perfectly in it, we keep it in the nursery (the nursery used to be our working area). The big shelves are from IKEA.