Managing the mayhem in March - who wants motivation to babystep through the month with us?

[carrotsandcelery]

Starting from March 1st lets babystep our way through the month, throwing in the odd mission.

Sign up here if you want to join in.

We have pointy sticks -> to get you off the sofa and chocolate and stickers as rewards.

Let's end our CHAOS and enjoy our sparkly homes.

5-10 mins can make an ENORMOUS difference to how you feel about your progress. Well done everyone.

I have cleaned the mirrors in our bathroom and showeroom. That led to cleaning the bathroom windows and then to cleaning the master bedroom window. From there I cleaned a glass shelf in the bathroom and a glass shelf on our sideboard (that I unearthed yesterday). That led to dusting the stuff on the sideboard...

I have also tried to talk my ddad through buying something on amazon but ended up having to take his card details and doing it for him from here. He is a really intelligent man but online stuff seems to totally baffle him.

Impressive carrots. I have never cleaned my windows But we're getting them all replaced in a couple of weeks so I guess from then on I'll have to! Tips and techniques will be required please!

Add to my ta das - made bread. That's my exercise for the day done too

Chaotic to clean windows I use some white vinegar in hot water and a cloth and wash them all over with the cloth well wrung out.

I dry them with a balled up bit of newspaper and they come out all sparkly and lovely.

I do the same for mirrors and the 2 glass shelves in the house.

Wear rubber gloves if you take care of your hands though as it is tough on them and they can get inky from the paper.

I am impressed by the homemade bread. Lovely! (and as you say, hard work!)

Washing is folded and put away (mostly), new load is now hanging on the airer. Dw is reloaded. Soup has been poked and proded and the veg is indeed soft so fx.

I am off on the school run now. I should be back around 6ish. Have a lovely afternoon everyone.

chaotic - I wipe mine with a damp cloth (to remove cat & toddler snot), then use vinegar spray & kitchen roll to shine. Will have to try out carrots newspaper trick though!

I have 15min until the DC are home - I am off to declutter the junk dining room

Is it wine o'clock yet?

My 3.3yo is refusing his tea. Again. This is the 4th night in a row

I'm so over being a SAHM.

It's battle of the wills. Must. Not. Give. In.

Could he be teething? Scout is having similar problems and found a spoon of Calpol slightly before meal time helped her ds.

Try really hard not to battle it out. Put it down. Leave them with it for 20 mins. Offer nothing as an alternative. Take it away.

I know it sounds horribly harsh but as long as an alternative is always available and they feel your are wound up by the whole business they won't eat (or they will eat to please you even though they are not hungry).

I hope that isn't patronising. It is not supposed to be

No it isn't patronising, thanks :)

It's been a tough few hours. He isn't teething as he now has 20 teeth. He is just being stubborn. Plain and simple. The question is, why? His tea was the only thing offered. I gave them tea early, wondering if he was getting past hunger iyswim? But no. He has asked numerous times for a banana, a yogurt and weetabix. The answer is no. But of the three nights, only one of them I gave him weetabix (the second night) so it still doesn't appear to be sinking in. He even said to me 'no mam, I don't want tea, I want to wake up hungry' in a sarcky teenager stylee

It would be easy for me to say, from here, to just leave him to it.

It wouldn't be so easy to do though.

My health visitor would have told me to leave him to it too though and she was very kind and gentle and lovely.

I feel for you. I know that is no use but I have been there too.

Thanks for supporting me :) Honestly, it means a lot.

I have left him to it. He has had a small glass of milk (that's the onther thing - he tries to survive on fruit and milk to fill him up) and that's it. Bedtime in 10 minutes. So for three nights in four he will have gone to bed with no food inside him. That makes me feel like an incredibly bad parent, although I know it needs to be done :(

My ds used to do this, especially the milk thing. The health visitor made me reduce the milk enormously and only give what I did give after meals. Would that help?

You are not a bad parent for teaching him to eat the meals that are served.

I have a relative who wasn't and until recently he lived on crisps and chocolate. I kid you not!

chaotic is he eating a good lunch? Is he waking in the night hungry?

DD1 (3.4) is often a PITA at meal tea time. I do as carrots says & just ignore it. The food is on the table, if she doesn't eat it, then she doesn't have anything! I have changed what I offer lately & have had a bit more success when offering snacky looking food, like savoury muffins, potato cakes or sticks & dips.

I've been really strict today in particular with milk. He has only had (other than the milk in his morning weetabix) two cups of milk and the rest of the time he's said he wanted milk, I've said it's water or nothing.

Sorry, should be ding this on the 'chat' thread shouldn't I Can someone link me to it pretty please?

Sorry, I hadn't realised I hadn't linked to the chat thread although I don't think anyone minds too much where conversations take place.

I think most dcs go a bit funny with food at this age and agree with bessie that healthy snack finger foods often go down well.

I was also advised to keep the portions tiny so they didn't overwhelm. They can always have seconds but if it looks too much they might be put off before they even begin.

You could also give him a bit of a surprise and serve weetabix, banana and yogurt for his tea tomorrow and see if he still rejects it

I like your thinking!

'picky' foods seem to work at lunchtime, but at teatime he often won't even look at the plate to see what's on it. He just point blank refuses it. Won't even sit at the table.

My laptop is running really slowly atm so would have taken me ages to find the link (you did link it btw) so thanks for that.

Is he too tired by tea time to eat then maybe?

The nursery dd went to used to feed them at 4pm and I was until I realised she fell asleep in her meal if it was too late.

You could try an earlier mealtime or spreading things across the day at 2 hourly intervals.

I was also told to view a day's food intake, not a meal's.

This is a really, really common problem so keep an eye but try not to get too anxious about it.

Yes, three nights in a row I've Calpoled about 10-15 minutes before dinner and three nights in a row I've managed to get food into TS. I've been afraid that his lack of eating and only able to eat a limited range of food would cause pickiness. I also hate the thought of drugging him every evening but it's been doing wonders. Tonight he ate all of his sausage and peas (no mash -- after the great mash incident of 2011 he avoids it at most costs). You could see him so happy eating his dinner tonight.

Oh, and even with 2.4 year old Toddler I put it down and take it away. I rarely offer anything else (would normally be cereal and/or yogurt) -- only if his food intake all day has been a bit abismal. Toddler still sleeps through the night, even if he has little/nothing for dinner.

Dh is doing his ironing. I am so relieved as he has loads clogging up the pulley in the utility room and it is making it harder to dry multiple loads of washing.

It wasn't annoying enough for me to do it for him and clear the problem of course

Well I had wondered about him being 'past it' so offered them tea at 4.10pm tonight instead of 5pm, but we all know how that ended...

He has all his teeth Scout so can't be that. I'm pleased you've made progress with your lo though, glad he's eating more. Today's entire food intake consists of 1.5 weetabix with semi skimmed milk, a yogurt, two bananas, two breadsticks, two slices of toast (homemade bread) and a babybell Notice how everything is almost the same colour

That said, it is not a bad list Chaotic. You do have a fruit in there, three proteins and plenty carbs. There will be plenty of calories in that lot too. He is a long way off starving but I can see you would want to get more fruit and veg in there.

Could you replace a milk with a fruit smoothie (milk and fruit blended together)?

Would he be interested in some apple slices, carrot batons, celery sticks, etc?

Would he eat a few blueberries in his weetabix?

Otherwise I wouldn't be worried at all.

He was asking for grapes tonight but I said no. I can't decide whether that was the right, or the wrong thing to do, but it's just so infuriating throwing out meal after meal, I'll be honest I was cross so I said no.

He has always been a fruit bat to be honest, getting fruit into him has never been an issue. He isn't so keen on veg though. He has to have veg 'in' things like casseroles (or at least he used to not on the side iykwim and he doesn't like carrots apparently