OMG, is this what life is going to be like?

[Flossam]

My friend has been here with her one year old. Naive I know but I can't believe how manic he is. He isn't ever told 'no', even when he is trying to pull the disc tray off of our xbox. He is allowed to pull out all of our cds and scatter them around the room, DP, tidy obsessive, tidied them back away, and she watched him do it again. This, obviously is only a couple of examples. I don't want to be a overly strict mum, but is this normal, and would not saying 'no' make life a little safer etc? Please tell me me and DS will be ok!!

I agree, sounds like a pretty standard-issue 1 year old, but your friend sounds enormously inconsiderate, sounds like that's more the problem than the child tbh.

awww flosom, i really feel what you must have gone through from reading your post as thats exactly how i would feel, completly stressed out by the whole thing,

its a lesson you can learn from this though, and that is to avoid being in that situation if you can help it in the future

because i know how i am with children in my house i do tend not to invite them if i know i will be stressed out by the whole experience, unfortunatly im not laid back as much as i would like to be, on the other hand our close friends daughter who is 5 is an absolute gem and when they stay over for a weekend we all are relaxed, adults and kids alike

kids would run around and have all the toys yet not touching anything that isnt a toy! leaving us to get merry on lots of bottles of wine!

i think handlemecarefully and mrsflowerpot have hit the nail on the head, you probably wouldnt be so annoyed if you saw that the mother was actually trying to stop her child doing the things he did

That is true. Instead she just follwed him round making sure he wouldn't hurt himself watching him cause chaos and saying 'are you cheeky?'

The baby sounds perfectly normal. Your friend, however...
Telling DD not to touch tissues is not going to work this month or next (and I have no reason to believe that raising my voice or tapping her hand would help). But that doesn't mean I let her take them out of the box and strew them around! I tell her to leave it, take the box away, put it out of her reach, and provide something else to play with. And if I were to somehow fail to notice and catch her after she'd thrown them around, I would at least pick them all up. (At our house, I put them in a nice heap under the box so we can use them later -- at somebody else's I might throw them out.)

Floassam, sorry but bet you you'll see this completely differently in a year. Really, you will, you can't always control a 1yo! You won't be the first person to imagine that you'll be able to though! Sorry, but I think you should have moved some stuff out of the 1yos way and been tolerant.

And in answer to the thread title, yes, it might be what life's going to be like. Your dp needs to realise that and move anything precious before your baby starts walking.

Before I had ds I did try to babyproof before I had visitors with little ones, but it is hard because you don't look at things with the eye that you will later when you have a child. So, no, I don't think the whole babyproofing responsibility should be on your shoulders. Someone who is visiting with a child in a home without a child should realize that it will not be babyproofed and watch their little one accordingly. We have really worked with ds about this as it was a major pet peeve of mine when we were childless and people continually compliment us on how he will look at things but not wreck them. It is an ongoing process though.

WWW, sorry but I don't think it would have made any difference. Am I supposed to empty all my kitchen cupboards too, and move DS away so he can't make him scream this boy is rocking the bouncer chair so hard and making him cry by hitting him in the face? His eye is still red. I can't childproof my whole house to that extent for 4 days, and take DS away?!!

We did move ornaments etc out of the way. Our higher tables were completely cluttered with stuff. We have nowhere to put books, moving them up would make our bookshelf top heavy and therefore unstable. He, well, her really, had no respect for our belongings. Like everyone has said, how DS will be will remain to be seen. But I won't allow him to wreck peoples houses, especially when the home is being used like a hotel, to go off and do as I please, eat their food, make a mess, not help out at all and not contribute financially either.

And I was tolerant. I did not utter a word to my friend the whole time. Just went quiet when foods were poured over my floor etc.

Errr actually I did empty my kitchen cupboards (the ones at ground level) when dd was this age, I took books off the bookshelf and stored them in the loft etc, and they all came down again when dd was about 20 months old and no longer into opening cupboards and pulling stuff off shelves. I also had to hide the loo brush.

Ummmm ...well you'll find out....

Incidentally I didn't visit my SIL's house whilst dd was this age because it was a total fecking pain repeatedly dragging her away from SIL's numerous ornaments etc.

I do see Flossam's pov. I know my house isn't baby proof so I'll have to start again. The kitchen cupboards are OK - locks on 3 of them from DS and only plastics/pans in the others apart from the bin cupboard under the sink which I use for teaching not to go in cupboard. But the living room is not much cop, CD cupboard accessible with c. 200 CDs, DVD player shiny and at baby level etc. But there are a few easy things I can do for when my friend comes on Friday with her 13mo. I can put a basket of toys in front of the CD cupboard for a start. But the main problem will be that there will also be 4 older (3-4yos) children there who will be scattering dangerous toys around so my friend will have to keep an eye on her. Since I have to provide lunch for four adults and six children and we are all getting our hair done it will be the onus on my friend.

Meant to say I will have to start again for DD who will be moving soon.

HMC, I know that I may have to do this for my own child. We will have to leave the books though, we only live in a flat. A severe lack of storage space. I am referring to my friends son. Surely you should be strictor with other peoples stuff than your own?

The truth is that you do all this gradually, it's not something you suddenly have to do overnight (or wasn't in our experience, and ds was a bit of a whirlwind at that age). So bit by bit, your own home becomes adapted and you get into the habit of for example not leaving baby wipes within reach (scattering them around the house in ten seconds flat was ds' particular speciality!). So I wouldn't worry about how it will be because the chances are you will hardly notice it happening (until you find yourselves spending a Saturday night devising a ds-proof cover for the video cabinet like we did and realise just how much your lives have changed).

I still think your friend who behaved badly - you have to watch like a hawk in other people's homes which means it's often not particularly relaxing to go visiting. You can't do much about someone else's ground-level CD collection etc unless they are prepared to move it, but you can take a box of tissues off a child and stop it poking a baby (baby's faces seem endlessly fascinating to children that age).

Agree that your friend did behave badly. And you do have to watch your children at other people's houses. At home you kind of get to know what things attract them. Also another bad sign is if you can neither see or hear the child... Red alert that they are doing something they shouldn't be!

Sorry, I know I seem stroppy. She was only supposed to be here for a night or two, just overstayed her welcome, saying, 'you can't expect me to sleep on the streets can you!', er, no, just get the train home early! She was, just overall, quite a rude house guest, and its a shame but I don't think I will be repeating the experience. We have been friends for 10 years but I just felt she was being disrespectful towards me, really.

I'm reluctantly thinking it's all about the child's personality.... We've always used the word "no" from the minute our ds's could move. With ds1 it was fantastic - he got the hang of "no" and just stopped doing whatever we said, and then wouldn't do it again - model child (in this respect!). Ds2's (11 months) a different kettle of fish. We've used the same approach, but he just grins and tries again....Aaarrggghh! So we're keeping going with "no" but it's much harder work...

I think our friends probably think we're a bit strict - I would NEVER let my child touch things like other people's CDs - or our own - I really believe they have to learn what they can/can't play with - you can't remove absolutely everything and they have to learn respect for yours and other people's things. But ds2 is certainly putting our resolve to the test!!

Well Flossam, how your friend behaved towards you generally is another matter of course. I wouldn't expect you to stand by and watch your baby be hit, of course not! But I do think anyone with children has to tolerate a certain amount of mess while the children are small and certainly while they're under 2. Not necessarily total chaos, nor danger but mess there will be!

Crikey - your friend is being disrespectful especially if she is staying over night.

A lot of people here are talking about kids of different ages. A 2 year old will know about boundaries/belongings but a one year old won't know the difference between CDs and toys. Also saying no to a child who doesn't understand is a waste of time and it devalues the word if you say it often enough.

It may be easier to go to the park or a child friendly cafe with a high chair and she brings along a few toys and snacks.

You have to watch your child like a hawk in someone else's house. I was at a friends house recently and she'd emptied a bookcase and there was just a few toys on a higher shelf. I turned away for a second and dd (2) had reached up for a toy and because the shelves were empty the whole thing fell over. Fortunately she wasn't hit by it. I was a bit annoyed with my friend as the bookcase had fallen onto her sideboard and cracked a CD case (CD was OK) and that was all she mentioned. Never mind my dd could have been hurt! I feel this was her fault having the bookcase there - also she has kids herself so she should no better!

Eulalia,

Precisely!