Becoming a better parent - Daily Challenge, anyone?

[sootythecat]

I want to change so much about the way I parent but it is too much to do in one day, I do not have the energy or organisation skills! So I've decided for 2 weeks to think of one thing to change each day, and see how things are at the end of the 2 weeks.

Today: Late afternoons are rubbish for me, we go out for a trip somewhere then get home its cold and dark, the kids are whingy, I'm tired and I give up and put the TV on. Today, instead, at 4.30 we are going to bake some rice crispy cakes and then do nursery rhyme action songs, and not put the TV on till 5pm.

Would anyone like to join me? What one change are you going to make today?

Today has been TERRIBLE ds has misbehaved so so badly! Kicking dog, throwing dinner and tea around etc etc spent most of the day tidying up after him instead of doing things with him tomorrow we are going to the park however to get leafs for printing so on and so forth....

Ah bless you. Park sounds a good idea tomorrow - boys are like big dogs, they need plenty of exercising to burn off excess energy and frustrations! If I'm struggling at home with the kids, sometimes I'll just take them out for a walk or to the park to get some fresh air and have fun. It definitely helps my sanity. Hope you have a better day tomorrow.

Ninja yes really hope the park works. We're going to the park today too! I am going to take some little bags for them to collect things in.

Another problem that is contributing is the dark and cold and wet weather. Summer feels so much easier, can just go straight outside without a 15 minute battle of coats and wellies, and then spend all day running around without me feeling cold miserable and grumpy.

Bear the car journey was great mostly because both children unexpectedly slept for a good hour of it! Not sure how to repeat that in the future but it made things so much easier. Although makes me sad that I look forward to nap times so much.

Sooty I can recommend my Boden thermos mug, which I got for Christmas last year and is a godsend in Winter time! Fingerless gloves and hot coffee make playing in the park in cold weather bearable and still fun. Hope you have fun.

I was a bit snappy and impatient with ds1 this morning and didn't let him take his plastic water pistol on the school run - which he pretends is his angry birds star wars blaster. In hindsight we could have taken it and I could have brought it home. The reality is that I was stressed out because I bought a kitchen sink and tap online from a company which has turned out to be fraudulous and have lost £275, as well as worry about whether they have any of my personal information. I've spent the last hour while dd2 naps on the phone to the bank and reporting it to Action Fraud. Not ds1's fault so I shouldn't have let it affect my behaviour with him. Will try to be nicer and less stressed after school. Swimming today though, where I have to hang onto wriggly dd2 for 45 minutes to try to stop her getting into the pool. Deep breaths, deep breaths... And coffee.

Park today was great. New place, there was a rocky section with lots of little paths that they both ran up and down and wore themselves out on! Planning to make it a weekly or fortnightly fixture.

Mummy argh I really hope you get your money back. I know we shouldn't take our 'adult life' stresses out on the kids but its very hard to pretend to be all jolly when you feel anything but! Swimming - I don't suppose there's a half of the pool you could take DD2 for a swim in with you while DS1 is in his lessons? Otherwise could you do the shock treatment - let her fall in, then obviously immediately fish her out, but hope she learns her lesson?! Depends how old she is obviously and the lifeguards might tell you off!!

Tomorrow's challenge is yet another internet one, to not browse the web during dinner time and ignore kids and DH... poor DH, he never says anything but I can tell he hates it.

The little changes are all starting to add up now, particularly the reduced internet usage throughout the day and better routine in the 4 to 5 pm witching hour. Hope everyone else is feeling better too.

Sounds like everyone's making progress. Mummy that sounds stressful; hope you get it sorted. Its definitely harder to be all sweetness and light when you've got things on your mind. I'm always snappier after I've finished paying (or not paying) the bills each week.

Playing more with DD before work on Saturday went well but haven't really been consistant with it since so need to work on that. Have decided my next challenge is to try and sound less permanantly exasperated when talking to the DCs. Feel as though I spend far too much time talking through gritted teeth. Its not that I'm being really cross just slightly irritated but quite a lot of the time. I wouldn't behave like that with an adult so its not really fair on the kids.

I think I need to join this thread. I'm 34wks with DC2 and instead of enjoying the last few weeks with just DS I feel snappy, teary and boring. Will have to think of something positive I can do and keep doing because we seem to be spiralling downwards at the moment.

Had a really sad moment with DS yesterday. We were doing imaginary play and he was the mummy and I was the baby. He told me I had to lie down on the sofa and find somewhere to cry while he "did all the jobs". Then when he was all finished doing his jobs I could stop crying and he would come and give me a cuddle and play with me.

This is how he sees things when I tell him I'm too busy to play with him

Very motivational though. So tonight I'm going to plan how I'm going to fit housework in to the day better, so that I don't always seem to be ignoring him and "doing jobs".

Rich I've found I've really had to change the way I talk to DCs after they started talking to each other and me in the same way, telling me off and each other off using exactly the same words... I'm now trying to ask nicely with a please, rather than just ordering them to 'put your shoes on'. Except when they ignore me and mess about, then they get asked nicely twice and third time is a strict order.

Nom in the last few weeks before DD was born, I went out to quite a few cafes with DS and ate a lot of cake. Even just a cookie in the tesco cafe. I knew I wouldn't be able to manage him and a newborn so it was a real treat for us both for a few weeks.

Sooty They really break your heart sometimes don't they. I find fitting housework in a real tough one.

Nom Don't be too hard on yourself; the last weeks of pregnancy are tough anyway and even more so when you have an older DC to cope with.

So so on the exaperated voice today. I have a sore throat so it was more of an exasperated whisper. Managed to kerb it a bit but more work needed. My trigger points seem to be when we're rushing (which is often, I'm always wildly optimistic abut how much I can get done in a given amount of time) and when I'm trying do focus on something else and the DCs want my attention. I'm definitely becoming more aware of my tone which is a start.

On the positive side I managed not to lose my rag with DD despite extreme whining and I did a fair bit of playing ballet shoe shops and swashbuckle.

Plan for tomorrow is to begin the process of making getting out of the house in the mornings a bit easier.

Fab idea! Any nice tips for activities with a 10month old??? Have one day off mid wk where we go to a music class in morn but would love to hear any ideas for stuff to do at home xxx

Right, the boring housework plan:

• After breakfast: max 30 mins, clean kitchen up, wipe toilet and sink, open curtains and make beds, tidy any zones of destruction from unsupervised morning play.

• After lunch: max 30 mins, clean kitchen up, hoover downstairs, put laundry on.

• After dinner: max 30 mins, clean kitchen up, hang laundry out and put dry stuff away.

In each of those time periods, DH is helping with kids, or they are napping/watching DVD, so not being too ignored, hopefully.

During the day: put toys away as we go, try to put each toy away before getting the next one out.

Once a week, a couple of hours focussing on one 'zone' of the house (FlyLady style). Not sure yet if that will be at the weekend while DH takes the kids, or an evening (too cold and I want to snuggle under duvet and watch masterchef!).

Rich good luck with getting out the house. I am always 10-15 mins late to preschool... something to work on next week!

allchik is your DC crawling? If so a fun game to play is crawl up the stairs with a soft ball, throw the ball down, then come down the stairs backwards to retrieve ball. Repeat over and over again! Lots of great crawling practice and teaches safe way to go down steps backwards.

Can I join? Dd is 2 and ds 12 weeks. Finding it tough spending quality time with toddler and wheb ds is miraculously sleeping in the day I rush around getting jobs done. I want to try and do tge bare minimum - washing, cooking, dishwasher so I xan spend the precious few minutes we have alone nice rather than shouting one minute over again.

Excellent idea. I need this!!

I am stuck indoors with two chicken poxy DC. And not feeling like a good parent just now!!!

Oh dear MrsFlorrick! I hope they aren't feeling too poorly and are not too difficult to manage.

Rich I am totally with you on the frequently sounding exasperated. I have also thought to myself, I'd be more patient and polite to a grown up, so I should be more patient and polite when speaking to ds1. That is what I am trying to work on at the moment. Did pretty well yesterday and we had a relaxed pleasant school run (such a thing exists, who'd a thought it!) this morning. We have a lovely weekend away now with the extended inlaws, which I am so excited about and ds1 will have a great time. Hopefully dd2 too, although she can be shy with lots of people. At least I can't be snappy and shouty in front of the inlaws!! May well help me learn to grit my teeth and summon up some patience from deep within.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Sooty boring housework plan sounds good. I need one of those. Or a maid.

mummy sounds like a nice weekend, hope you have a good time.

MrsNorman resisting the urge to dash round getting stuff done when the baby is asleep is tough. I have had some success with just picking one or two things to do and then playing with DD otherwise I just carry on and on until the baby wakes. So I'll change the cat litter and do the breakfast pots but then everything else will have to wait. Only some success though...one step at a time!

Good day here. Managed a smoother morning by focussing on getting everyone breakfasted, dressed and out the door rather than doing housework. Getting out to the park early helped everyone's mood and I often find how the first couple of hours go often sets the tone for the day so haven't used exaspo-voice nearly so much today. Long day with the kids tomorrow as DH will be a work till late so need to try and stay in the zone. Definitely going to try and get out early again. Have a good weekend everyone.

Weekend was mixed - saturday I was out all day without the DCs, so that was great! Today there seemed to be a mountain of housework, DCs ill and whingy, sleep disturbed, DH doing some really bad and noisy DIY, tried painting and DS cried because he got some on his neck, etc etc. Exaspo-voice in full swing!

Back on plan tomorrow though. In fact, tonight I am making a plan of what I'm doing this week, e.g. library tomorrow morning, garden centre tomorrow afternoon. Combined with housework plan. And 4pm plan. And no internet plan. Tomorrow, I'm going to stick to my plans. Sounds so easy! Ha ha ha... getting the wine out now.

Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend and you've all got some good ideas for making things better tomorrow!

Saturday was good. I was like some kind of Mary Poppins figure baking, park, workshop at the art gallery, even managed to get DD to stop whining and walk home without breaking out exaspo-voice. Dinner time was a bit trickier. By that point I was completely knackered and just wanted the DCs to eat their tea and go to bed. But DD just buggers about insisting she must ride her bike to the table or ice a cake for the cats birthday or some other crazy shit. I did try calmly saying that I was having a 5 minute break from answering questions (what is an explosion? can you tell me about different kinds of explosion? what do foxes eat? are bats real? what do bats eat?) but in the end I told her to just eat her dinner at which point she announced she was full.

Need to make sure dinners don't become a battle ground; a more playful, softer approach definitely works better with DD. If she senses I'm annoyed about something she will immediately dig her heels in. She's very lovely though and I do love her curiosity, I try to keep in mind that before I know it she'll be a teenager and not remotely interested in my opinion on anything. The question stage is a bit exhuasting though!

Anyway, that's enough of me rambling on. Sooty love all the plans; i'm a great lover of plans. Busyish day tomorrow so will just try and get everyone where they need to be without slipping in to E-V.

I agree.
Challenging oneself for such tasks is good.
Need to think of one for myself. :)

Argh what a day! After a mostly lovely but tiring weekend away with family - lovely to see people, dinner party on the Sat night while the dc's actually slept / tiring because the holiday house was huge and full of steps and lethal edges and not at all toddler-proofed, and dd2 wouldn't settle the first night and it took me till midnight to get her asleep - today has been one of those crappy days where everything goes wrong. I decided dd2 and I would go for a nice lunch out and some shopping at a retail outlet about 25 mins drive from my house. Arrived a little later than planned so dd2 was hungry, only to realise after I'd got her into her pushchair that I'd left my wallet at home... Drove home, dd2 now quite cross and crying, for some inexplicable reason decided to give her some chicken roast for lunch (which she didn't like on the two occasions I'd previously given it to her) and surprise surprise she cried and gagged and refused it. Then she wouldn't eat the rest of her food and got cross with her water bottle. At which point I shouted at her "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" Then she cried some more and I burst into tears and had to step into the kitchen for a minute to get a grip. Feeling very rubbish mum and slightly insane. It is now too late for dd2 and I to go shoppng or do the food shop before we have to fetch ds1 from school. Not sure I can face his swimming lesson tonight, which involves a mad rush after school getting both their suppers ready before whisking him out to his lesson, then hanging onto grumpy dd2 (12mo) by the side of the pool for 45 minutes, then home for bath. Feel like I need an injection of patience and sanity today along with a hug. And a vat of wine. Hope everyone else's day is faring better!

mummyxtwo have some and hope today goes better for you. sounds like one problem snowballed into another and it all just went pear-shaped. Hope you can get your shopping done today and nip into a cafe for some cake to make up for yesterday!

Yesterday wasn't great for me either. The highlight was yelling 'Stop! Will you both just Stop for one minute' at both DCs as they were simultaneously whingeing at me for the millionth time.

Today looks like its going the same way. In the last few mins, have had from DS (age 3.5):

• I need to weeeeeee and poooooo
• I can't open the door, oh oh oh oh oh oh
• I neeeed the light on
• Maaaaaaaaaa come and wipe my bottom, Maaaaa, Maaaa, Maaaa! (his abbreviation of mum)
• Oh the toilet roll has all gone, oh no
• Oh my dressing gown has come undone, starts to cry
• I can't get back on my chair
• I need a tuck in
• I need some more milk
• DD (age 2) then chimes in Milk Milk Milk Milk Milk Milk Milk Milk Milk etc followed by 'Postman Pat' times a million as she gets down from the table.

ARGH! Each time I calmly reply, 'I will help if you ask nicely' etc so he then rephrases as 'please can I have some more milk' but it is just so relentless and annoying and I can feel Exaspo-Voice coming out and my hackles rising. And he isn't always like this, some days he is lovely company. Just now he got down and said, unprompted, thankyou for my breakfast, and now I feel like mean mommy for being fed up. Sigh.

Rich dinners are an issue for us too. DCs look at what is on their plate and turn their noses up. I say there is nothing else. They stare some more. I pull out their chairs and get them down. They burst into tears and get back in their chairs and eat. Why couldn't they just eat to start with, why do I have to make them cry first????

Today I am going to go slightly off tangent and improve my parenting by getting the car sorted out for winter. Its a state and not clean or safe. I'm going to go to Tesco and pay a nice man to clean it inside and out while we shop for various bits like de-icer, buy some stickers for a treat, and cake in the cafe. Also going to pump up the tires, check the windscreen wash and oil levels if I can remember how to open the front bonnet. Otherwise will get DH to do it tonight. And am going to put a small bag of toys in and a new nursery rhyme CD, and an emergency breakdown bag with blankets and water and snacks. Zombie apocalypse here we come!

I always feel guilty and it's horrible but the guilt just eats away and actually stops me from doing all the things that I'm not doing/doing properly so it's just a cycle. I don't feel like I'm patient enough and I don't play enough with them. I can't be bothered! Last week me and DS made some dinosaurs and today I tried to play snap with him but he wanted to watch the iPad instead

What an amazing thread, it opened my eyes..... I always feel guilty as do so many things ..... Like wishing my LO childhood away. I love him so much. Thank u for posting it. I will not chit chat on the phone and search net when he is with me, explaining and talking more

How has everyone been getting on?

Hi there! Sorry I haven't posted for a while, dd2 has hand foot and mouth disease - truly the worst childhood illness we have been through yet. She currently has blisters bursting and extremely sore mouth, and has been up crying all night for days and hasn't been eating. I am exhausted! To top that off, ds1's pet rabbit has just died. He was very sad when the other died 6 months ago, so I am waiting to tell him when dd2 is better and I can spend proper time comforting him. The bunnies lived outdoors and he won't notice for a few days as it is cold and he isn't currently going out in the back garden. On the plus side, I have managed to spend some quality time with ds1 despite dd2 being poorly. We made an angry birds star wars model out of a shoe box, black card, glitter glue, cut out stars and planets and cut out characters! He is thrilled with it and that has been the saving grace of the week! I have just about managed not to shout and get wildly stressed apart from at 3am when dd2 still won't sleep Dh is working this weekend so that will be tough. Hoping I can get through with sanity and patience intact! Will make sure there is a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge... How is everyone else doing?

well I've made a tough decision and decided to go back to work 2 days a week from Jan, when DC2 will be old enough to start preschool with her big brother. Hoping that a couple of days 'off' each week will make a massive difference to how I enjoy the time I have with them. Although I know being a working parent will bring new and different challenges! Feel very very fortunate to have been able to walk back into an old job after 3 years career break.

in the meantime I'm trying to let more things go. Yes you can climb on that giant pile of cushions, if you fall off then you'll learn a much better lesson than me just saying no all the time! Still saying no to misbehaviour, but just letting them take many more risks in their playing, make more mess, make more noise! No A&E so far, touch wood for tomorrow!

Struggling with internet use again though, DH is off work ill so the wireless router is on again all day and I'm creeping back onto it all the time....