Oct 08 - It's all about weeeeee!!! Hopefully in potties but who knows!

[50ftQueenie]

Hello! It's me. I thought I'd start a thread which is VERY cheeky for someone who's not been around for AGES!

Yes, i persisted for a while cos I like to have the time to myself and thought she'd still need it if she eventually went to sleep, but TBH we didn't have time to settle her after lunch, get some quality sleep and then I'd have to get her up by 2.55 to go get the boys. She just ended up grumpier for having been woken up.
She seems fine on it, I suspect she's tired by the end of the week which is why she'll go down thur/fri at nursery.
(DH has to abide by the Rule as well you know )

After a long beginning to his life of horrible sleeping habits, Q now loves his sleep.

Does your toddler still nap? If so how long for and at what time?
Yes, he does. He naps for 1.5-2 hours with the cm and 3 hours on weekends (because I like to nap with him ). He would sleep forever, though.

How much sleep at night and from when til when?
He goes to bed at 7pm, is asleep by 7.30/7.45 depending on his interest in the books in his bed. Wakes up at around 7am, but we have to wake him at 6.40 so he gets enough time to play as well as dress and eat breakfast before we leave in the morning.

Do they wake up night?
He does wake a few times, but settles himself back to sleep. He'll always wake at one point and not go back to sleep until I've picked him up and put him in bed with me/us. This can be anytime from 1am-4am. Very rarely, he sleeps all the way through in his own cot. But he settles right back to sleep in our bed, so I only have to wake enough to lift him out of his bed and into ours.

How easily do they go down to sleep?
Very easily. Every weekday is pretty much the same. We get home by 4pm-ish, play, go to the park, for a walk...etc. Dinner at 6.15pm, little more play afterward until bath at 6.40, stories at 6.50 or 7pm with mommy and daddy. Then one more story IN Q's bed with daddy (his choice, but he always chooses daddy because daddy will stay and let Q "stall" going to sleep, whereas I don't mess around ).

He plays a bit by himself in his bed, sings to himself, chats to himself, reads his books that are in there until he drops off to sleep. It never takes long.

We went through a period of time where he was getting out of bed a long while ago now, but we spent about 2 weeks just putting him back in repeatedly and now he doesn't ever get out on his own once we put him in.

Pepper - brilliant advice re: the popsicles! I love that idea! I could make the fruit/veg mix dilute juice into lollies, too! Thanks :)

Does your toddler still nap? If so how long for and at what time?
No - gave them up last September because he didn't want to nap when new baby was still up with me. Sometimes nods off in car on school run (3pm) and is then utterly horrible when woken.

He went from having 1.5-2 hrs a day to nothing Cake, so don't be fooled by that with F.

How much sleep at night and from when til when?
About 7:45-8pm to sleep normally, and up around 7am. Will sometimes sleep a bit later if he's had a busy day and not napped on school run.

Do they wake up night?
Not normally.
But we had 2 months of utter hell at the start of this year when he wouldn't sleep in his bed at all, wailed all night long (disturbing the neighbours) in between naps which were all taken on his hard wooden floor just inside the stairgate that we had to put over his doorway. I never want to relive that period.

How easily do they go down to sleep?
Generally ok - I give him a breastfeed, put him into bed, pop his blanket on, stroke his arm and leave him with his music/light box going and whatever random toy he has decided to take to bed with him that night (trains, a grabber hand, etc).

csws - you've got me all looking into smoothies/sugar now. I'm such a worrier! I cut off all smoothie intake for the rest of the day until I had spoken to a dietician/nutritionist and did some of my own research.

I've found/been told that if it's an innocent smoothie or one made in a blender at home with fresh fruit, then it's no higher sugar content than just giving fruit. So smoothie intake can now resume. Lucky Q!

The tubes I give him are http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/things_we_make/fruit-tubes/straw_rasp/
They have in them:
a slice of apple
half a strawberry
a slice of banana
one raspberry
a dash of red grape juice
I highly recommend them if you don't have them already because they are a nice, quick snack on the go as well. Although Dh complains about the plastic waste. You can also freeze them and they are great frozen :)

They are also often on sale which is the real reason we buy them

Although as a "nice quick snack" Q often has quite a few blueberries or other berries/carrot sticks/kiwi/pear/cucumber/whatever I have on me along with that.

star, i think csws meant that because smoothies are far quicker/easier to consume than the actual fruit so you're more likely to have more in one go, fruit juice even more so. One of the smoothies you're giving Q should be fine as it sounds like toddler's portion of fruit (not my particular toddler tho as he prefers veg to fruit ) but across 2-3 a day, that's still a lot of fruit/sugar, imo. could it be that that's irritating his bowels?

think i;d get him checked out by a doc tho if he's in that much pain when he poos the poor thing

lalala i'm not hearing anything you're saying about nap-dropping toddlers csws

sorry i meant 2-3 smoothies plus the other fruit you're giving him, is a lot

Ok, I'll try to cut back on the fruit... But the nutritionist assured me that the amount he has in a day is definitely good and not harmful. She could be wrong.

He eats a enough veg as well.

When I asked about hard poos...etc. everyone says "more fruit" .

Star... I share your confusion re fruit intake and hard poos, you would expect the opposite effect and i would be reluctant to cut down in your position. It sounds like he's holding them in and that is causing him issues, poor soul. I would take him to the GP (or HV if they are any good) and see what they suggest... Emma had a very short episode of having bleeding when she pooed (she never complained) just after she PT'd and I put it down to holding it in and subsequently having bigger poos. It passed though so I don't have advice :(

Does your toddler still nap? If so how long for and at what time?
Occasionally she will nap at nursery, usually at the end of the week.
Emma also went from having 1.5-2 hrs a day to nothing Cake... and CSWS if she does nap she is hellish for about half an hour to an hour afterwards, which is why I'm glad she does it nursery frankly. She's always been like it at night, although she's sweetness and light in the mornings.

How much sleep at night and from when til when?
About 8pm to sleep normally (its earlier when I do it, but DH faffs about bedtime as much as he faffs over everything else!) and up around 6.30am.
Sometimes if we're lucky its later

Do they wake up night?
Sometimes, randomly and she requires you to go in and give her a cuddle or she screams the place down. It seems to go in phases though. We reward with hot chocolate in the a.m. if she manages to go through without getting DH out of bed . (DH deals with Em and I deal with Orin)

How easily do they go down to sleep?
Mostly fine. wash, teeth, couple of books, lights out. She employs plenty of delay tactics though!

Sleep is a bad subject in this house. If W sleeps during the day it knocks back his bedtime by about an hour - two hours. He goes down at 7pm and might sleep until 6. Often broken but seems to be getting better recently.

W is finally dry during the day. And we had the first dry night nappy last night too. Only taken 6 months[sceptical]

Star it could be just that Q expects it to hurt so delays his poo. This then ends up as viscious circle with his poo getting too hard to pass easily because he has held on to it for a day or so. You may need to get some Lactulose just to break the cycle.
I hate to recommend any medication to help people poo because it leads to a lazy bowel, where the bowel becomes almost dependant upon the medication to work. Not ideal. However it may really help Q. He may only need it for two - three days. HTHs

I just had a thought. Does Q get enough fibre in his diet. I know you are obsessed by sugar etc but it could be at the expense of his fibre intake? You need fiber to literally bind up and drag out the waste. So it could have something to do with it?

I am off to the Isle of Wight festival tomorrow. Very excited although it is supposed to be raining. No so excited about that!

Cake is right re what I meant about the smoothies. But it wasn't a comment related to his poo problem, just a general one.

Ronshar has a good point there re fibre. Does he get enough star?
Anyway, came on to link to this for you. :)

Great squash :)

He does get plenty of fibre. I'm very careful about his daily/weekly nutrition to make sure he's getting enough of everything (since he doesn't eat meat - does eat fish). But I'm obviously going wrong somewhere. Unless it is just that he's holding it in as you suggest, ronshar. He does take ages to finally go and push it out.

Maybe he's getting too much fibre?

When he has to poo - Q dances around a bit, runs quickly back and forth and makes a bit of a whinging noise. We say "do you need to do a poo?" He says "No! Is it going to hurt?" then whimpers a bit.

Often, he resumes playing for a few minutes, then dances around some more... it's just obvious that he needs it. He keeps avoiding it and his belly becomes very hard and a bit bigger. FINALLY (this can be several hours later) he'll give in and go or it becomes involuntary for him to push. He'll sit on the potty with tears streaming down his face saying "does it hurt? does it hurt? it does!" then he'll do it and we'll tell him how he must feel so much better, praise him...etc. Belly reduced greatly in size.

It really does sound like he's just holding it in then and causing himself distress, so what you need to sort is getting him to understand that if he goes more regularly it won't hurt any more (hopefully!). You need to try and make/encourage him to go as soon as you see that he needs to, rather than allowing him to wait hours.

Ooh - one other thing that's just occurred to me - could he be getting too much iron in his diet? That could bung him up uncomfortably. I know that he eats spinach quite happily which is quite high in iron (esp if taken with fruit juice which I assume it is from what you've said so far). You know better than anyone which other foods are high in iron after your pregnancy experience - would you say that this is a possibility?

csws
that's probably it.

I'm hyper aware of making sure he gets plenty of iron. I'm so worried he'll not get enough and I'm still quite anaemic even though I keep up with iron intake... he eats loads of spinach (and I put it in juices that I make) and other iron rich foods combined with vitamin c rich foods to absorb it properly. I think I may need to re examine that and be sure that it's not too much.

myjob good to hear from you. about no naps. You all must be tired by bedtime! I want to see her again sometime. She must be so grown up now :)

Well, he has one tonight. It is so obvious. His belly is hard and full (put on sweatpants/tracksuit bottoms/whatever you call them) to relieve pressure on it as he was tearful about tummy pain.

He is sleeping now and has been for 2 hours. No poo. But he's waking in a drowsy state to sort of moan a bit and curl himself up then falls back off to sleep. He had a 2 hour nap today but just ran nonstop this afternoon from when we took him to the park.

We put him on the potty and toilet several times. I even offered to let him do it standing (sometimes this helps ). He would start to push, then stand up straight and say "no poo poos in there! no poo poos in there!"
We can't force him to do it. I gave him cut up prunes, too. We have a lot of tricks, like getting him to lean forward, do the poo whilst having a hug... etc. But nothing seems to work sometimes.

Sorry. I'm taking up the whole thread with poo talk!

As you were

In times of constipation - which is very very rare, but putting them in a warm bath and getting them to poo in there can help as the warmth eases the whole thing.
very unpleasant to clear up, but quite effective IME.

Took me 3 hours to get home from work today, and my friend in the train behind still isn't back.....

Thank you for the tips! Will definitely try the bubbles. Q has a warm bath every single night (yes his skin is still silky baby soft, no eczema or dryness£ but has only pooed in it once. He picked up the pellet and said "look there's a rock in here!" blick.

Loving the new iPhone app! Myjob it's just meetings sometimes in August and dh is here whole time - I bet we can sort something! X

Pepper for you and your journey.

Using new iPhone app for MN! Nice! Emoticons are SO easy! But no shock face ...

DH had to bring all 3 kids out in the car to rescue me from the next town as we couldn't get all the way to my station. But i got home just after 8.10pm having caught the 5.41 (would have got me home just afetr 6.30 normally)and my friend who was on the 6.12 is STILL stuck outside Woking on a dark train with no power. they're talking about walking them in to the station. How utterly grim.

What's the train prob pepper - just a broken down one?

I've just downloaded the iPhone app after you mentioned it star, but threads I'm on don't appear in threads I'm on, so it's pretty useless to me.

star I thought I'd posted this morning but forgot it was whilst mumsnet was down. I'd said that if anything he could well be having too much fibre rather than not enough, so the same as you thought. The thing is fibre without enough water creates big, bulky poos so it could all be down to how much he's drinking. Or maybe just holding it in after one painful one as suggested. Reckon a trip to the docs might be the best bet.

Um, what else did I say earlier...? Oh *ronshar# hope the isle isn't too messy! My sister's off there too but I don't see that as impressive as someone with children managing it!