April 2011: losing sleep and gaining shoes, toddlers share with us their news

[ecuse]

I have taken the liberty of starting a new thread.

Pile in!

etc

Daisy You have my sympathy too. DD is an early riser and 6:30 is a good morning in our house. Anything before 6am is just too early in my book, although nobody seems to have given her that memo . I've got no useful advice though, sorry. When she's up early, I cling to the fact that an early start is better than being up in the night because at least it means I get a decent stretch of sleep. We've had a couple of bad nights recently and they really knocked me for six. I find them really hard to deal with now I'm used to her sleeping well.

DD swings between preferring 'Mama' or 'Dada' and we've noticed a direct correlation between her favourite and the person who frees her from her prison gets her up in the morning. Today was a 'Dada' day!

If DH is out, we get non stop 'Dadas' whenever she hears a door rattle or close. She's got quite a few little words now but they're all so bizarre - nothing that appears to be useful!

Any type of farm animal gets a pfffrrrrddd (think horse noise) duck, sheep chicken, cow and horse all pfffrrrrddds! We get ows whe he falls over and wows when pointing at things.

And he cannot walk/run anywhere without making some sort of noise! Usually an ah sound that wobbles as he bounces along! :o its cute!

Thanks for all your sympathy and ideas. Might try an extra pyjama top, chilli, that has crossed my mind. Think it's probably just a developmental stage issue......this too shall pass etc.....
Perhaps in an effort to keep me on side, a recent new word is "cuggle", normally uttered whilst standing infront of me with his blanky, holding his arms up.....those moments that make everything worthwhile! [Grin]

Actually we do have a range of animal noises - cow is bboowa [hconfused], ducks go AHH-AHH - I blame the V-tech microphone. We also have lion, snake, dog and monkey - we read Dear Zoo lots can you tell? I'm teaching her that llamas blow raspberries [hhmm] not sure if a giraffe makes much noise though.

I also hear uh-oh a lot, usually with lots of sultanas scattered across the floor.

even

Oh yes. 'daddy?'. All day. Me=daddy's gone to work. To... Where's daddy? Daddy comes home. All smiles until bath time then wants mummy.
I'm feeling a but bleurgh. Headache started yest pm. Hurts when I move. And I feel a bit sick. Hope it's nothing!

Please send some Daddy favouritism my way, please - DP's turn to get up with him this morning only he threw such a prolonged mummy tantrum I had to take over......still, in happier news it was only 530 this morning. Can't believe I view that as an improvement....!

Poor Kitty, fingers crossed it blows over quickly. Hugs. X.

Daisy Early waking might be:

Temperature - either cold or heating coming on
Hunger/thirst
Some kind of external noise - birdsong, bin men, noisy neighbour
Wet nappy/waking needing a wee

fizz I shall PM you re: wool. I've looked in every wool shop (there are 3 here! 3!!!! ) but I can't find the right stuff. Maybe it's just know by different brands? But I wouldn't want to chance it. I'll post on the wooly hugs threads too.

We had daddyitis so bad this morning M cried for nearly an hour when DH went to work and then made himself sick :( so I cuddled him in bed and he's dropped off to sleep so I'm debating whether to wake him or not. It's 9.30 but he was up nearly 2 hours before his usual wakeup time before falling back to sleep just before 8.15...

Blimey frak. Poor thing.

I feel better today but I haven't been up long. Felt awful in the night. Hot and cold. Tummy ache. Nausea. Alex had a bad night too.

Got my six week postnatal check with the hv and six week check at the docs this morning. Then driving to the inlaws for lunch. First car journey on my own with the boys.

Oh dear kitty :( Hope the appointments go well and that S and A behave themselves in the car for you.

Today I need to pack for a long weekend in Paris!! Can't wait to catch up with friends and just be generally Parisian again.

chilli - no-one I know has come up with a satisfactory giraffe noise T thinks all animals are elephants and so they are greeted with the appropriate trumpeting plus an arm raise for the trunk. Except ducks, we have a different sound for those!
T's speech is about the same as DS1's was at this age. Some really clear words and quite a few that need more deciphering. Fizz I grinned like mad at your description of B running along 'Ahhhhing', T does that when he is cross

Daisy - I agree with Frak, I would keep him up as long as you can one night.

Hope you feel better this morning kitty

We had a brilliant time away, so so relaxing and the boys actually slept really well. DH back to work today so I'm having a duvet day with the boys while I work my way through the laundry mountain. Loving not having to be on the school run!

However, our shower has been leaking, for years seemingly, slowly slowly through the tiles and behind the shower controls. The whole wall is wet and black with mould when you look behind the bath panel, and the plumber thinks it might also be on the other wall that backs onto the boys bedrooms. AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH.
Mum and Dad are up tomorrow, and the plumber is coming to re-grout so that it can't get any worse, so while they are here and can boy-wrangle I'm going to phone our insurance company and see if we can make a claim to get it fixed.
AAARRGGHHH.

Aaaaaargh in spades, Ali! Poor you having to deal with that. Focus on the duvet day though :)

Here's something to make you laugh. M can't say 'th' or 'nk'. Consequently thank you sounds remarkably like fuck you. He's just spent 5 mins running round going 'fuck-a-you fuck-a-you'

In this house we tell the time by looking at cocks, apparently........
Might try the drastic reset, thank you, though have horrible feeling he'll just wake up at 5 in a really bad mood!

We have a whole menagerie of animal noises and a rather elaborate impression for a giraffe!

That sounds like a nightmare Ali - I hope the insurance company play ball at least.

Ladies! Hello all.

Once again, it's been ages since I posted, sorry.

Kitty, hope you are feeling better today. It sounds as though you've been having a tough time of it. Remember, it all starts getting easier soon! I love the photos you've put on FB, you have a beautiful family.

Ali, really hope you manage to get that sorted on the insurance, sounds grim. Glad you had a nice holiday too. Enjoy the duvet day!

Chilli, C sounds similar, we have muh muh (which is simply a demand for anything he wants), daddy, uh-oh (coupled with something thrown on the floor) and duck. That's about it but he can sort of copy other words, there are a few others that are not really possible to make out but I know them. All animals roar, without exception. We also have Dear Zoo, C loves it! I did ask his nursery if they thought he was obviously behind (I am obsessed with his development as he was so late with things in the early days) and they didn't seem to think so at all.

Daisy we also had a run of early wakings, it's hellish. We tried not to go in unless he was sounding unhappy, if he was just chatting to the toys we'd leave him to it. He did stop after a while. I also tend to put a blanket over C when we go to bed as I am sure he gets a bit chilly in the early hours, give that a go.

Frak, enjoy Paris!! Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Ilike, thinking of you at this time of year. I hope your remember day for DS1 is special.

Hope bedtime improves, UWB. You can rant away here! C is a total mummy's boy. Daddy is alright, at times, but mummy is best. Sometimes I feel sorry for DH as there are times when only I will do.

SA trip was great but I really missed C. He was a bit out of sorts for a while when I got home and uber clingy.

Oh, and good look for the TTC gang!! Can't wait for the next BIG NEWS.

Sorry for the mega post. x

good luck, not good look. Jeez.

Frak no.problem pm re the wool. I actually have some in my stash so I could post off to you if you want it.for.cups blanket.

I think it's ok actually fizz. I posted in the thread asking if anyone knew whether they were called something different in France and pistey is matching me with a donor. I just hope it will arrive in time. Thank you for the offer to post though :)

Hi Jo!

Kitty I hope you're feeling better, the appointments were productive and your trip out went smoothly.

It seems F can 'do' language (yep, the boy that didn't even roll over till he was 10mo )

Both DM and MIL maintain that DH and I were both speaking in sentences by 18mo. But I guess that much like "sleeping through the night", it probably depends on your definitions. F has a heap of words and is stringing some together. I can't say we've done anything in particular to encourage it, so there's probably a strong genetic element. (Like bed wetting. Which I can guarantee you now will not be a field we'll win!)

He does, however, constantly me and DH by our cm's name. Which is incredibly wearing.

Hi everyone.

frak have a fab time

ali nightmare. We had our loo leaking into the living room for aaaaages. Insurance paid for repair to living room but nothing in bathroom. Same when shower leaked into living room. Yeah great builders.

jo sounds like c is doing really well

Loving all the words. A is coming along brilliantly.

I don't need anti bs. She's happy it's healing. And I've been discharged, whoop.
Lovely drive.

Tomorrow it's ten years since I met dh.

I seem to have caught the tummy bug. Guess that's what I've been building up to.

Oh dear Kitty hope you're ok.

OK, so how do you get toddlers to nap if they won't feed to sleep? She just doesn't seem to want it anymore at nap time. I decided to have my lunch before trying today, but she was still to wriggly. She eventually dropped off in the pram but if it's raining...

At night she has a feed then I send DH in to sing to her.

Hope you're ok kitty - tummy bugs are rotten.

Tricky one chilli... I think people do it differently depending on their feelings on controlled crying. We did do a little bit of it (nothing too hardcore) a few months ago and it made the world of difference to DD's sleep. She now normally self settles without fuss at bedtime and goes off for naps with only a minute or so of grizzling. Of course there are some days when she doesn't go off and as she's usually pretty good, we always cuddle her to sleep on these days because we think it means she needs it.

Obviously this approach isn't for everybody (and I think we were quite lucky because it wasn't too awful - certainly no hours of crying) and might not be for you. If it isn't, have you looked at the No Cry No Sleep Solution? I can't find my copy at the min but am pretty sure there's a section on toddlers in it.

I think I'd be the one who'd end up crying. I have tried just dumping her in the cot and leaving her but she'll just stand and shout, throw teddy around, etc. I'd end up going back in lying her down and probably lose patience with her within 15 minutes and end up shouting at her to 'just go to sleep'. She seems to like being patted but again I've not got the stamina (or rhythm) to do it for long. I suppose I need to psych myself up for a lost afternoon or two and hope she gets it. Or just keep trudging round the Avenues looking at all the houses we can't quite afford...