On becoming Mary Poppins... Toddler and newborn support thread #2

[ThePinkNinja]

A place to continue the complaining conversation about the hair pulling days and sleepless nights fun and frolics of life with a toddler and newborn

I'm having a bit of a shouty day. ds1 keeps mournfully saying 'I want my daddy'

I want a good night's sleep and a holiday. I want never gets, right?

Oh dear crazy.

I'm poorly, but thankfully, following on from last week when dh arrived home to find me crying, dh is on holiday today so he's been taking dd to her activities which they've both enjoyed. No swimming for me this afternoon, hooray!! I've still managed to burst into tears when ds was crying going down for his nap.

I'd kill for a good night sleep. Ds has taken to being awake between 5:30 and 6:30 am. When he goes to sleep, everyone else gets up.....

sorry to hear you're poorly get better soon. hooray for a bit of a day off, sort of....amazing how things change eh! dealing with it all when you're under the weather yourself is overwhelming. have a or 2!

I can sympathise with the mornings - ds2 has been waking for the day between 4.30 and 5 this week. I really hope he's not going to be a permanent early bird. 6am is a massive lie-in for him. very tiresome

They're checking my thyroid next week, they reckon it's off kilter. Worst symptom is really bad anxiety. Have some meds for that so fingers crossed things will improve.

Welldone cailin it's so hard to ask for help. I had horrendous anxiety with my 1st child. I didn't no I had pnd because I wasn't depressed I didn't know anxiety was also also apart of it. If I had asked for help I would of had a much better 1st 9months. Here if u need to talk x

I'm not saying you have pnd it's just what I know I had x

Hi DD is 3 and DS is 6 weeks old. Because I thought my lovely DD would walk everywhere I didnt get a twin buggy but got a buggy board.

I thought she find it fun - how wrong I was! She point blank refuses to use it preferring to have a meltdown by a busy road and dropping to floor, demanding to be picked up!

She also loves her brother so much I found baby bouncer underneath the table and DD sitting on chair like an angel laughing when I asked her where her DB is.

And already this morning she has tried to make DS 'pretty' by trying to cover him in Cbeebies stickers - cue DH yelling 'Oh my god she turning him into a scrap book!'

Or finding her with her top rolled up demanding we pass her the 'screaming baby' so she can 'shut him up and feed him' has been the funniest so far!

Oh well off now before she tries dressing him in her Build The Bear dresses!..

Oh lord I'm tired. Ds up every 2 hours past few nights. Please let this wonder week pass quickly! I've decided to try him on formula for the odd times I'm not around/need a break. I'm hoping he will take it, he had a bottle of expressed milk a couple of times and has been fine with it. I just don't have time to express and doing all the feeding on my own is affecting me mentally because I'm so restricted and physically because I'm utterly exhausted and dh can't help at all at night.

Hope everyone else is alright. I've been reading toddler taming and trying to be more positive with dd, her behaviour was much better yesterday.

cailin hope you're ok x

offcolour hope your nights improve. sleep is so important! thanks for the toddler taming reminder - need to dig that out. ds1 is being quite aggressive towards ds2 and quite defiant atm. it's really challenging and upsetting. I'm just hoping it's reasonably normal? he goes up to ds2, pushes him over and is constantly trying to bash him on the head.

I'm trying very hard to be really positive whenever possible but some days that seems quite difficult. atm ds2 takes ages to eat, and I let ds1 get down so he doesn't die of boredom. he'll go off to play and come back sporadically to announce the latest naughty thing he's done. I know it's attention-seeking pure & simple but I'm really not sure what to do - ds2 is blw so I have to supervise him closely and let him finish!

some days it amazes me what a big boy ds1 is suddenly. it's like the last 7m since ds2 was born have been such a foggy haze that I've missed loads, and I have days of clarity where I really 'see' ds1 and I'm shocked, sort of sad, and very proud of how big and grown up he is. my they do grow quickly.

happy monday ladies,
OFF-Hope some better sleep comes your way soon, im totally useless with no sleep everything just goes to pot. Spent the morning while ds is at nursery trying to sort the the wkends house mess. surely it should be the other way round. dd doesnt let me get much done either sooooo fed up of living in a shithole.
CRAZY- Ds has only been aggressive to dd twice i use a zero tolerance approach he gets frog marched to his room hes 2.9 months so i leave him in there wailing for 3 mins, i then frog march him back downstairs and make him apologise to dd. i then ignore him (within in reason ) as much as possible for the nxt hour. its only happend twice and i hope its the tough love approach thats made it that way. He also is very disruptive when dd is being demanding and hes being left to his own devices, he also tells me what hes done to get a reaction. all of this i try to let passover my head, he needs to vent his frustration somewhere.
POTTY TRAINING HA HA Not going great he has good days then bad where i actualy come close to running out of clothes for him. He will not poop outside of his nappy we have tried everything.
Any advice greatly appreaciated. xx

Much better night last night, thanks everyone! Feel human again. I'm sure we'll have more bad nights before this wonder week is done but you need the odd good night to keep you same.

Toddler taming book has been v helpful so far (I haven't finished it yet), mostly in getting me to ignore bad behaviour more when it's just for attention, e.g. She has been taking an hour to eat her tea which has been driving me mental because ds gets really restless so instead of shouting at her I've just told her the tea will be cleared up soon and started tidying up - she then ate up. I'm trying to avoid confrontation as much as possible unless it really matters and give more positive attention. She hasn't been aggressive to ds, but I'd think that your ds is pretty normal crazy. No advice though, sorry!

debbie, we are getting there with potty training. Nursery lent me a b

Oops.... Lent me a book called "potty training for boys" which was really useful (although dd not a boy).... We started out with potty sessions, mostly when ds asleep, so I could really concentrate and that worked. She's now reliable with wees and will go herself. Poos are another story, we've only got her to go in the potty in the last few days, this is by bribing her to sit on the potty with giant chocolate buttons when we suspect a poo is coming and rewarding her with mini magnums for a poo in the potty. Pretty ridiculous rewards but I was sick of cleaning up disgusting poo accidents and it seems to have worked, since Thursday we've had two accidents, both yesterday. There will be lots of more useful advice in the book.

argh I need to start thinking about potty training

Hi all. Had blood tests done today so will hopefully know by the end of the week if anything physical is wrong. Starting anti depressants tonight. Friends have totally rallied round, been amazing. I'm managing ok

OFF- I'm totally cool with bribery whatever it takes x

that's good news cailin. brilliant that you have good friends to help. remember to be kind to yourself. hope the ad's get to work quickly.

feeding ds2 this morning and looked down when he came off to see he was pulling a funny face and had blood all over him (mine). wtf is going on atm? feeding has literally gone tits up.

Glad you're managing cailin. Your friends sound ace .

crazy wtf with the bleeding boob?? Hope you're ok! What's caused it? We haven't tried ds on a bottle yet, just knowing that I've decided to give him one when I need to has relaxed me I think. He's being a pita to feed, he refuses to feed if there's anything else in the room and every time I move a muscle he stops and looks at me, he's so nosey right now!

offcolour I think that's partly my problem too. he pops (literally - boing!!!) on and off, thrashes his head from side to side whilst latched on, all sorts. also I think maybe his bottom two teeth are on their way? I dunno. but I've been having loads of trouble in the last week with sore patches etc. the blood was a shock though, there was a lot and ds2 obviously wasn't enjoying the taste

ds1 failed to nap today - just mucked around in his cot and did a massive poo. amazingly, the world hasn't yet ended bath time is going to be lively though, I reckon...

Today is shit and it isn't even 10:30. Had no sleep, dd pushing buttons and being deliberately difficult over everything. Snapped at dd and shouted, put ds to bed and came downstairs to her announcing she'd pooed herself. Shouted at her about that, was horrible changing her. She ran off and wouldn't get dressed so I've just shoved her in her room (she can open the door) to get dressed and am ignoring her. No doubt she will have wet the bed or something.

Feel like a really shitty mum, have broken all the "ignore most behaviour" rules, shouted and broken the cardinal sin of potty training by getting angry over an accident. It seemed like she'd done it on purpose but I know she probably didn't. She is just very deliberately winding me up, it's so annoying but I shouldn't have fallen for it. Trigger was I was trying to fix her hair, ds was screaming and she kept dropping clips and hiding them, delaying everything on purpose and I was getting really stressed out coz ds was screaming. I should have just given up on the hair, shouldn't I......

How do I get today back in track? Gah....

She's come down and we've both apologised and had a cuddle. Time for [tea].

oh offcolour, big hug. we've all done it. when the baby's crying life just becomes impossible

Evening ladies we are having a really good week so far. It can only mean Nxt wk will be wrist slitting. Seems to be the way things go in our house anyway. Howz the diets going ?? I keep forgetting to ask. I've lost 15lb and still look massive, how did I let it happen to myself il never know x

Debbie my week's not too bad, which is a surprise considering my childminder cancelled today at the last minute and the weather is frankly pants.

I've got about 5 or 6lb left to lose, but have lost all willpower. if the weather would bloody cheer up and I was threatened with baring skin it might get me back on track!

Wow Debbie that's amazing! I'm losing weight much slower, have lost 9 lbs and 28 to go! First goal was to lose a stone though so am 5 lbs off that. The weight is definitely gradually going though. Every weekend I think I'll get my running shoes out, maybe this weekend will be the one! Am going to try ds with a bottle so fingers crossed I can get some more freedom.

Dd was a real monkey yesterday but after the morning's meltdown I got back on the ignoring track and it does work so just got to keep it up! I need to give up on finishing unimportant tasks if all hell is breaking loose too.

Dh will be late tomorrow so I've got to do bath and bed solo. I've taken an executive decision to skip the bath!!

Hope the good weeks continue

I think your both saints to still be BF it makes me feel trapped. I'm about to take my 2 to a soft play centre. Thank god they do good coffee ( shame it's not wine )