Went with my daughter's class to the garden centre today which was really good; Christmas decorations are definitely great for sensory stimulation. For some reason the garden centre had a huge toy monkey playing a guitar, swaying from side to side along to Hawaiian music. Not very seasonal but the children loved it - so much for the decorations! Each of them bought their own bauble to take home and I was quite impressed that our daughter's lasted for a whole half hour before she toppled over and smashed it!

At the moment we are having real problems getting her to settle when she goes to bed. She is fine until you leave the room and then she shouts and sometimes cries for up to half an hour before going to sleep. It is a real shame as you have a really good day with her and then it seems to always end in a stress. We have tried lots of different things such as PECS. (fine until we leave the room) and staying with her until she goes to sleep (which she doesn't). We just leave her now but it is sad to hear her crying. I suppose it is the ADHD, but she just not seem to get tired at all. On Sunday we were driving home from my mother-in-law's. Our son fell asleep in the car within five minutes and our daughter was wide awake still two hours later at nine o'clock. Not bad going for a three year old who was awake at 5:30!

It may seem obvious, but one thing which we have found works really well with both of ours is keeping calm especially when telling them off. I know it is really hard and I have often stood there shouting at them to stop shouting at me but it really has a big effect on our children's behaviour. The louder we get, the louder they get, the more we shout, the more they shout and so on! Another thing which we have noticed is that playing different types of music has a significant effect on their behaviour. Music with a defined beat does seem to wind them up more, whilst classical or jazz music calms them down. What they eat or drink has an even greater impact. Our son has a reaction to aspartame and if he has squash or crisps with it in he completely loses control. We have recently stopped our daughter drinking squash and, because she does not like water so much, she is drinking less which means that her eating has got a lot better. The only down side is that she is a bit more constipated, so I am not quite sure which is worse, not eating or being bunged up!