What's your Opinion? Am I trying too hard?

[IamBlossom]

Had my second row with DH in 4 days over this now so wanted to scope the MN view. Situation in brief is:
my DS is 19 months old, and I think now is the time to teach what is expected levels of good behaviour, including eating sitting at a chair/in his high chair not running around the room. But he refuses point blank at the moment to sit in his high chair to eat, or even eat anything at all that I offer him, even though I know full well he eats EVERYTHING put in front of him at nursery where he goes 4 days a week.

DH says my expectations of how DS should be behaving are too high, I have an "idealised" view in my head of how a child should behave, probably from all the "Hippy hairy books" I read about child development (how annoying is that?) and that I need to relax and not get so wound up. Then in the next breath he tells me Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and he should be eating something before going to nursery!!

I am pregnant and probably more highly strung than normal, but I am finding that we argue about this kind of issue (how to discipline our son, is he too young for discipline, his more "in your face" approach versus my beleif in consistent repetitive but firm actions)more and more - I find it a very emotive subject, and take criticism very badly I admit..

Any ideas/shared experiences welcome. Maybe it's just a thing we need to work out together and maybe I just need to chill...........

Did anyone suggest strapping kicking or screaming - I don't think so. A lot of posters just said only give food in the highchair and he'll get the idea.

When I did this (and not a tear was shed) I had to make sure that I personally ate every crisp and drank every cup of tea at the table. Fortunately we had a lovely new table so I didn't mind so much.

god yes, Iamblossom, keep on with your husband - if he continues to expect a toddler to immediately cease touching something, or doing something, just because he says so you will end up with an oppositional, defiant child and will have a 24 hour conflict zone in your home!

If he is touching something he shouldn't have, you HAVE to remove it, along with a firm 'No'. It's so unfair to the child to leave it there - they are only going with their very powerful natural urge to explore - again, it's hard wired in them, how else would we learn enough to be intelligent adults if as toddlers our eyes, hands, and mouth didn't try to explore everything that came in our way??

But you know all this anyway, it's just educating the DH, isn't it! Good luck!

My two at 5 and 6 still find it very hard to sit still at mealtimes. They think it's really boring, and my son in particular is a complete fidget. I do think that you need to pick your fights. I can remember getting incredibly stressed about feeding them when they were littler, and yes they both behaved much better at nursery, or with other people there (don't all children!). But at the end of the day does it actually matter that much? I expect my children to sit fairly still to eat their own food, but I certainly don't expect them to wait until all the grown ups have finished when I have guests or we visit family. We tell them to get down and go away and play quietly and then come back for pudding, and it's much more relaxing and enjoyable for everyone. My dh and I had different views around discipline, which caused trouble for a while (I do recognise the "don't get so wound up" line) and I really think that the most important thing as far as de-stressing is to figure out what really matters to you both, work out some strategies, stick to them, and apart from in those areas stop worrying about how your ds "should" behave, and concentrate on enjoying him! I bet when you get to the same point with your new baby your standards won't be half as high (at least that's my experience!)