How do you deal with SO MANY QUESTIONS that they make your ears bleed?

[bintofbohemia]

Before I had children I thought I'd never be the sort of parent to fob a child off, I imagined myself answering everything and havign lovely intelligent chats along the way.

Then I had DS1 who has just turned four and oh my good god. He asks the same question 19,487679 times, even if you give a sensible answer, then he'll ask it again. Some of his questions are absolutely insane, some totally nonsensical and yet he expects a coherent answer immediately which he then wants to find fault with and argue about. Yesterday, whilst trying to get a wasp to get off DS2's face (no mean feat, am shit scared of wasps) DS1 carried on the whole time:

"Mummy, does FL begin with FLY? Does it mummy? Mummy?"

It takes every fibre of my being not to yell at him "Will you just bloody shut up for three seconds please!"

What do I do? Obviously he's bright and trying to learn but he is literally shredding my brain and I lovel nothing more than 7pm when it all goes quiet.

Help!

Grockle - so how DO you make butter?

I agree with Pixie, and the "why do you think?" gently put, it encourages them to confirm the answer they've been hearing and often puts an end to that particular stream of "whys". Doesn't always stop a new stream starting though [smile}

I too used the 'made in a factory' line to answer a good % of questions, such as:

DD 'How do you make a car?'
Me 'In a factory'
DD 'Oh ok'.

DD: 'How are chairs made?'
Me 'In a factory'
DD 'Oh ok'.

Until one day.....
DD 'how do you make a factory?'
Me 'Out of bricks and metal'
DD 'how do you make the bricks and metal'
Me 'In a factory'
DD 'But the factory hasn't been built yet!'
Me

Grockle, I am in awe of your home made butter.

We get a lot of 'How do you make X?" questions too.
DD2 likes to retread the same ground many times and her perennial favourite is: 'How do you make bread?' I think she subscribes to the whole 'knowledge is power' theory. It makes her feel clever to ask the question and even more clever to interrupt my oft trotted out recital: "Well, you take some flour..."

She has been read aloud to and shown pictures from, the Good Housekeeping 'Bread' cookery book, watched bread-making videos on YouTube, watched me make bread, made bread with her own fair, 4 year old hands, weighed out the ingredients for, then peered inside, Grandma's Panasonic bread-making gizmo, watched the man in Sainsbury's slice bread with the giant slicer, eaten all manner of different breads and had their baking methods explained to her by well-meaning relatives and, participated in a traditional Norwegian bread-making demonstration at a folk museum in Norway. Hell, I believe that once, we may even have walked past a branch of Greggs

Yet, still she asks: "Mummy, how do you make bread?"

I worry about how well I'll be able to cater for "Mummy, how do you make sub-atomic particles?" I'm not sure I can budget for a trip to Geneva.

Lovely thread.
I have 5y old keep asking me why and why? all the time.
Help me? tell me she will stop oneday?

I have a good one to end an interminable circle of why?s...

"Because sometimes it's nice to X"

All right, I got it from the Simpsons, but there's no prizes for originality in the parenting game

typical example at teatime upon having tea off a teletubbie (sp) plate:

DS1: Ooooh we haven't seen teletubbies for ages-why not?
Me: It's not on anymore is it darling
DS1: Why isn't it on anymore?
Me: It's gone to make way for other programmes
DS1: but where's it gone mummy?
Me: I don't know darling (I now recognise this as my major mistake-I should have made something up!)
DS1: Has it gone to D-'s (insert friend from nursery name" house?
Me: I don't know darling
Ds1: Has it gone to J---'s house
Me: I don't know darling
...on and on and on for 10 friends then...
DS1: What is the name of the purple one
Me: Tinky winky
Ds1: Green one?
Me: Dipsy
DS1: inky pinky & lipsy...no thats not right what is it again mummy?
Me: Tinky winky & dipsy
DS1: linky sinky & puppy...no thats not right what is it again

fifteen bloody times i told him

Just to put this in context DS2 was sat there singing "wind the bobbin up" the whole time and DS3's bouncy chair was emanating some weird chamber type music.....I honestly felt like I had stepped into one flew over the cuckoos nest

Thank God DH is now home to take over the questions

only just started to read the thread but already lol at PommePoire's tiny breadhead

In the last hour DS, 5, has bowled me the following:

Mummy will I live all my life
Can you dye meringues
Can you dye water
What is dye
How do cows make milk
Was I an egg
When I say 'top drawer', do I mean the drawer at the top, or the drawer where we keep the top

and those are just the ones I can bear to remember

We've been struggling this evening with the concept that our very ill cat will probably have to be put down .

So we explain that the vet has been trying to make her better.

Ds1 (3.8): I've got a plan. We could phone the vet and tell him to give her special cat medicine.
Me: He's trying that darling but it's not working.
Ds1: He could try a different one, or 3 together.
Me: He's trying everything he can but she might not get better and won't be able to come home again.
Ds1: That's OK. She can just stay at the vets and keep being poorly. The vet would have someone to talk to.

Erm....

Oh no, undercova, I am dreading that.

Butter - stick cream in a jar, put lid on and SHAKE til your arm drop off. Basically. Proper instructions here. Was very exciting!

Also:

DS: Why is Lego?
Me: Why is Lego what?
DS: Why is it? Why is it Lego?
Me:

and
Why are people? Why am I here?

My DD is like this, started only a couple of months ago age 2.9.
We get the constant 'why'. I find the longer and more complex the answer, the less likely it is to be followed with another 'why'. But I also do the turning the question round and asking what she thinks. Especially if I've already answered once/twice/three times in a row.

None of her friends seem to have picked it up yet, she isn't at nursery/pre-school so don't know where she got it from... Can they just invent it all by themselves?

Walkersmum re 'Who made God' question. I still remember being told by my mum to go and phone our parish priest and ask him.

She said 'Call Father Michael, tell him that its GinGirl and that Mummy is trying to get the four little ones through the bath and into bed but you want to know the answer to 'who made God''
I did it, which was quite brave of me age 8 I thought.

He said 'Even before there was darkness, there was God. No one made him, he is infinte and always, like love.'

DD is only just 3 so her questions are fairly fundamental, though no less annoying charming. My tolerance level is at it's ultimate low though when I am driving.

Mummy why have we stopped?
Why are the lights red?
Why can't we go faster?
Why did we bonk the car?

It's at that point I plead with her to be quiet and because I need to concentrate.

Why do you need to concentrate?
Can I talk yet?

Ooh, just remembered another variant which we have with DD (2.2 today): "what's [insert any word] mean?" Obviously it's often easy to explain certain words, but in the last few days we have had

What's jealous mean?
What's excuse mean?
What's prove mean?

Less straightforward to explain in any kind of way which a 2 year old might understand...

I'm sure that posters who have said that it's their way of starting a conversation are absolutely right - especially since I'm ppretty sure she doesn't really care what "jealous" etc means. I will definitely try oto turn some of this (and "dat called?") into wider conversations!

GinGirl I love that your under-pressure mum still really wanted to offer you a solution, that you were brave enough to call and that Father Michael gave you a memorable answer. Nice memory.

My DD has only just turned 2 and already I have constant questions of, Who's that? Whats that noise? Whats that in my mouth? - (Whilst eating dinner) Whos that Man? Whats he doing? Whats that?

Most of the time she knows the answer but will ask it anyway

DD is 3.5 and we get a lot of 'why?', just on it's own.
It irritated me a bit until I realised that what it really meant was something along the lines of 'I'm really interested in what you're saying please tell me more'; she just couldn't quite verbalise that.
So now I just carry on talking about the subject, whatever it is, without worrying too much whether it answers the 'why', and she seems happy with that.
PommePoire - love your God story.

sorry GInGirl

Oh that's sweet gingirl. :)

Yes, we're going through this too.

"What is that man's name? Why don't you know? Should we ask him? Where does he work? Why don't you know? Should we ask him? Why not? Why is it not polite? Why is he busy? Why is that lady wearing that hat? Why is it part of her re-wij-in? (religion) Why do people think diffrunt stuff about God? Why does God want her to wear a hat? Does God want me to wear a hat? Does God wear a hat? Does God wear pants? Does God wear underwear because he goes in the potty like a big boy?" And on and on and on and onnnnnn......

I look after children for work and I really hate the why phase! We have the rule that you can only ask why if you're using the word in a sentence. It does help thankfully!!

thanks for this thread that I have put in watch. Made me lol just when I needed it . dd 5 is all of the above from the moment she wakes til the moment she is asleep again arrrrggggghhhhhh

"What does such mean?"

How do you answer that one eh?

My 6yo DD1 woke up the other night soley to ask how baby food gets so mashed up. Makes me wonder what she was dreaming about. This was followed the next night with "mummy, how many "
I'm sort of glad she didn't finish that question!

Brain rapidly turning to mush and i've got 2 more Dcs to get through!