Trapped toddler parents:"Where else can you post tuff tray pictures and moan about your husband?"

[PinkDaydreams]

Following on from the previous thread. Thanks @footprintsintheslow for the thread title inspiration 😁

Hi. Sorry, haven’t kept up with the thread the last couple of days. I’m going to try and read through the now. But I will def miss some things.

@Motherofmonsters @MonkeyPuddle lovely to hear that you had good experiences- getting back out into the world with other people! 😅 haven’t heard anything about groups opening back up in Scotland (where I am). I have really missed them. They kept us in a routine as we had a group everyday.

@OhToBeASeahorse sending love. Hope you can get the support that you need. There will be people who can relate on this board. I wasn’t diagnosed with PND, but my baby blues lasted nearly a year, and then anxiety even longer, so I suspect I may have had it tbh.
My DD has also never napped in her cot. Usually get buggy. Which means I always have to take her for a walk 🙈

We have been doing the usual parks and garden play. This thread inspired me to book a trip to the farm next week @Chocolatetrifle
The weather not to be great next week tho...

DD woke every hour and was up for the day at 5am gah. I knew I should of had my lie in day today and not yesterday. Me and DH get a morning each weekend to lie in bed.

We've got my in-laws coming over for BBQ later, I'm hoping they'll amuse the children for the afternoon.

We went to a local farm gardens yesterday with my sister and her two
Kids. They went absolutely wild, we were the group that was getting looks. No idea what had got into them.

@Motherofmonsters oh definitely sneak away for a nap! I knew there was some else who went to the farm, but couldn’t find the post. My DD will prob be the same. She has never been to the farm before. Too much excitement for them to handle! Lol

[quote BeHereNowx32]@Motherofmonsters oh definitely sneak away for a nap! I knew there was some else who went to the farm, but couldn’t find the post. My DD will prob be the same. She has never been to the farm before. Too much excitement for them to handle! Lol[/quote]
I bet she'll love it. We usually end up going every couple of weeks as we have a locals pass and it's a handy place for them to burn energy

Farm trips sound fun!

I need a moan, DH and I are butting heads at the minute regarding screen time. DH is very quick to put the TV/iPad on for son and now he's started putting you tube on his phone and showing videos to Ds. It's really annoying me as we have done no screens after 5pm for a while but DH now uses his phone and thinks this doesn't count?! Tried talking to him about it last night but he said I was moaning and stropped off. DS knows if he mithers his dad for long enough then he will give him a screen of some sort whereas I won't (I'm mean mummy!). Sorry to moan, just needed to get that out!

Morning all.
Farm visit for us was a bit hit and miss. DS saw the playground as we went in so there’s was a lot of ‘but I don’t want to see the pigs I want to go on the play ground’
DP has a tendency to shut down, he can get a bit socially anxious when out and about and the pandemic has exacerbated that a bit, but it means that if that happens in left to do all the thinking/child organising. And I know he can’t help it when it happens but I’m a bit resentful, which i feel bad about.

But DS spent a good hour on the playground (which I could have done free at the bloody park!) and careered around on hay bales.
My house is now covered in a fine layer of bits of hay, his knows how farmers cope.

We’ve just done night two of sleep training. DD will now fall asleep in our arms, be transferred and will 50% of the time stay asleep. So we’re making progress. She still won’t sleep longer than 45 mins and wakes up all ‘wtf where’s mums boob gone’ but slowly does it. I’m still in the optimistic stages I feel.

@Motherofmonsters bbq sounds good! I hate having people over to the house but I think I need to do it more.

@PinkDaydreams phone absolutely counts as screen time. Is DH usually this obtuse? My DP turns to tv much too soon for my liking, rather than getting a toy out and playing for 5 mins and then backing away when he’s playing. He’s getting better at not as I purposely let him see and deal with the effects of too much telly on DS, his behaviour tanks, stops listening, gets whiney. He is less inclined just to shove the telly on now. I think because DP loves flopping on the sofa and watching telly at the end of there day it was just automatic for him, he’s had to learn how to play, and play nicely, rather than the over excited running, jumping crazy games he plays. Sittings and playing cars is boring, but needs must if you want DS to play nicely and behave. After 5pm we don’t have screens on at all, it’s tea, bath, in bed for stories at 6:30. Or if he needs to burn off some more energy it’s tea, 20 mins in the garden hike I wash up, shorter bath and then bed.

I’m off to my mums this afternoon as is usual on a Sunday for us. She’s promised to take both the kids off my hands and I can have a nap in her bed! DP is staying home to nap here 😂

@MonkeyPuddle no toddler steps outside here without overalls. I have enough hand me downs in all sizes to cover mine and any friends. I'm very much farm clothes town clothes

So...today I made DS2 a cute bento style lunchbox complete with star shaped cucumber (he is going through a bit of a fussy stage), I meant to send the pic to my friend but I accidentally sent it to my work whatsapp cringe

We are off to DMs garden to have our picnic and play on her climbing frame...I took both DC to a big park yesterday and it was so hard with them both going in different directions! Need an easy day today where they can't go too far

Our love of bouncy balls here has got us into trouble. One has gone over the neighbour's fence and their dog has swallowed it. It's a big dog and was a small ball, hope that makes a difference. Now I'm worried the dog will die or we will get a big vet bill or both. Don't fancy a leal dispute with my neighbour over this and I was a litigation lawyer for years but don't fancy our chances. Hope the dog survives, and I've taken away all our bouncy balls.
Now I feel awkward playing in the back garden. Anyway moving on...

dS2 has cut another tooth so has not been sleeping well. dS1 has been in a terrible mood all morning. No idea why.

@Motherofmonsters, hope you enjoy your BBQ today.

@MonkeyPuddle, it sounds like you are making good progress with the sleep training. Keep positive and one night at a time.

@BeHereNowx32, hope you enjoy your trip to the farm this week.

@PinkDaydreams, we don't let the boys watch anything on the phones. If I see any programmes start to hype DS1 up then we don't watch them anymore. I try to find calm programmes, DS1 likes a cooking programme on cbeebies called My World Kitchen. Am not perfect though and they do watch it with breakfast and when I make lunch. Try to keep it to short bursts here and there.

@Camomila, ooops!it could have been worse!

Know what you mean about about DC's off in different directions, mine are the same!

@PinkDaydreams I’ll keep quiet about how much screen time we use... 🥴 but it’s definitely not ok for your DH to go against boundaries etc that you have agreed on. Hope he listens to you with the time you prefer x

@PinkDaydreams the other day my DH asked me 'what did we used to row about before kids?!' It's such a trying time for relationships but for what it's worth you are obviously right on this one!!!

We had a morning out to an attraction about 40 mins away. Baby is out of sorts, I tested her soy intolerance and she is definitely allergic, nappies have been awful and she woke up every hour last night.

I found the whole thing so tough. DS fell over 5 times, his face is so bruised it's so stressful. DD did 2 poos in the 3.5 hours we were there. I just dont feel I've any time to breathe at all between changing, feeding, soothing... no one every just seems to be able to 'be'. I'm off dairy, egg and soya and there were no labels on the food so I couldn't even get lunch.

After waking up every hour last night...

I just feel joyless. I feel like every day is swimming through custard and I feel totally out of control with it.

Also i forgot to say thank you to you all for your supportive messages. I feel actually a lot better for thinking I'm probably not ok now.

@OhToBeASeahorse, I find outings stressful too. It's hard work getting everyone ready, keeping everyone happy, there's nearly always tears. We had tears at a park 5 minutes down the road this morning. We went to a zoo last year when lockdown was relaxed, DS1 cried for ages as soon as we got there. Think he was overwhelmed. I think it's normal. Instagram photo opportunities don't always happen in real life and reality can be so far removed from what we see from others snap shots etc. What I'm trying to say is chaos is totally normal but it is so stressful x

@Chocolatetrifle that's really helpful thank you - because it does often feel that it's just us! Other people seem to just find it easier, even though I spend so long thinking 'right we need x,y and z'.

Our win today has been that DD slept in the car for nearly an hour and a half (with 1 dummy replug) and only woke up cos the engine stopped - that's the longest she has done in it so far.

Thank you all so much for your help and advice regarding screen time. I've tried explaining that we need son to calm down before bed, he's noticed himself that he calms down with no screens, but like pp said I think dh thinks that because he enjoys relaxing in front of the TV after work then it'll be the same for Ds......quite the opposite though! I'm going to try taking a different route by starting up going to the playground again after tea and hopefully DH will get the message. We did this last year when the weather was nice and it worked a treat burning off energy before bed.

BBQ went well, nice to get back to more normal activities.

I have developed a cold over the day and I'm not loving it. Does anyone have any top tips to stop my nose from being so sore from wiping it? DD is also waking every 5minutes to add to the fun. Why can't I have a whole nice day?

@Motherofmonsters vaseline! Obviously not too much as it'll make your nose really greasy but I've found vaseline helps. Also wearing a face masks causes a sore nose for me so again I've found vaseline good for it.

Ah good idea thanks @pinkdaydreams, I'll pick some up.

Well DD didn't sleep properly until 2 and then DS woke up 3-5.30, and then DD woke up. DS is not doing to be in any mood for Preschool when I wake him in a minute and I'm in no mood for the day. Sorry to be moaning about sleep yet again.

@Motherofmonsters when you aren’t getting any sleep, it’s all you can think about! Especially hard when you’re not feeling well. Take care.

We were supposed to go to a local play cafe, but they aren’t opening today. Which is a shame.

Lack of sleep here today as well. DS was awake and cluster feeding from 1-5am and kept waking up DD with his fussy wailing. So that's going to be fun.

But! We have family coming down from Scotland today who we haven't seen for a long, long time so that will be very lovely. (And extra hands to help look after DD in the garden )

@Motherofmonsters, definitely vaseline or a bit of sudacrem.

Perfectly fine to moan about lack of sleep on here. We've not had a great night either. DS1 was up at 5.30 and DS1 up 3 times. Ugh. Today is about trying to keep DS1 calm. I think with all the lovely weather we have been outside so much but not been having as much quiet time and I think he needs more quiet time. Inspired by the tele talk I've not had it on with breakfast and we have been trying to sort out old books instead.

DD has clicked that she is being sleep trained and is using all her energy in staying awake at all costs.
7pm -2am last night she would drop off in my arms and scream bloody murder if I put her down. My eyeballs ache. DP took her at 2am. It’s not milk she’s waking for as I’ve not fed her since 11pm!

We’re off to rhythm time this morning and then we’re going to dunelm to buy black out curtains.

@Chocolatetrifle I reorganised our books, found we were only reading the same 3 ones over and again, also played library’s with DS (not that he’s been in a year!) with some stamps and cards and popped out a selection of books to choose from, he loved it. Got this idea from here!

@Motherofmonsters if the skins sore a little bit of bum cream to heal it with a smear of Vaseline on top.

Right must face the day.

Sorry everyone's had a rubbish night as well. I'm hiding from DD in the kitchen, I just can't find any motivation, it's all gone.

Playing Library's sounds like a lovely game. We have an obscene amount of books, they've all been handed down or bought for us. MIL buys them a set or two of books each at Christmas.

Pressed on and got out the house as I know it always makes me feel better! Went to our local library for the first time, I'd never been before as DD was too little when covid kicked off. It was lovely and quiet and picked up some good books. Made the rookie error of not feeding DS while I was there though as he was fast asleep in the sling. He then woke up and screamed all the walk home...I'll know for next time!

They haven't started any of the library kids activities up around me yet but hoping that won't be too long.