September 2014 - Toddlers & Tantrums!

[lilone1234]

Babies are now toddlers at 18 months +, growing and learning new things all the time!

Happy New Year 🎉😊

Happy new year everyone

We've all been a bit poorly over Christmas. DD has also be struggling with being over excited, over tired and a lack of routine. I'm actually looking forward to a little to everything getting back to normal on the 3rd. Work will feel like a relaxing break! No way I could be a SAHM which does make me feel rather shit.

Happy new year ladies! New Years always makes me feel a bit deflated even though I didn't participate in it at all, was asleep by 12!

I was awake at 12, and for the first time in a few years I didn't need to set an alarm for 11.45!

DD has discovered the"why?" conversation over the Christmas break. That's fun I'm working on just asking questions back at her, which is relatively effective

Oh, last night was her first night without a pull up in bed. She's been dry for a while now, but I still worry she will have an accident whilst asleep. DD announced she didn't want it, and took it off. Eek! She suddenly seems so much more grown up

Happy new year!

Have to admit I went to bed early, but I did hear the fireworks go off!

Great news Team. DH has a few days off work next week (Wednesday onwards) so we're going to attempt some toilet training (because I think I would struggle to do it on my own with a young baby to look after too). I have no enthusiasm for this. Also not really sure how to do it. Do I just leave her in pull ups and keep taking her to the potty?

Also please don't feel bad about the not being able to be SAHM. I've only been off work a couple of months and I'm already missing adult conversation and finding that both DDs are driving me slightly bonkers. I actually miss work a bit at times!

Happy new year ladies 🎆

Happy New Year all! We were in bed before midnight too! We took DS to a party at a friends house, it was a quiet get together and I was worried he wouldn't behave but he did really well and we stayed until 9.30, thats unheard of for us.

My perfect would be part time. I love being at home with DS and it is certainly easier to keep on top of house stuff but I think it's every bit as hard as working full time just in a different way. I found the end of maternity leave, when people were going back to work quite lonely.

Team - well done to DD on her potty training achievements!

I think we might give it a go in the next couple of weeks when we're back to normality a bit. It's been nice having DH here over xmas but sometimes he's more hindrance than help! I've read potty training girls which has a gradual approach which I find less overwhelming as I just can't be stuck inside for days! So staring with an hour of knickers on per day and build up.

Oh wow well done team i cannot imagine potty training E.

The people below us had a party and woke E up 3 times

Hi everyone, I hope you don't mind if I join back in? I was in the original antenatal chat and postnatal chat but dropped out because I couldn't keep up! I think my username then was CoolCat or something similar!

Anyway, having a very hard time with DD at the moment, a lot of tantrums and refusing to do things. Also now have a 4 month old who is a pretty easy baby thank goodness! Just really struggling to know how to cope with DD. Also a bit worried if her language is developing right - what stage are your kids at with that? I struggle to understand her and she doesn't put many words together other than phrases.

Hi everyone, well it's been another age since I last posted!
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas with your LOs and a happy new year too.
I'm currently 29+6 with LO#2 and feeling rather huge! EDD is 14th March, and I'm hoping to work until 38 weeks but remembering with DD I was very glad to finish at 36 so may so the same. However it's a very different situation as I'm now part-time self employed so wouldn't get any maternity pay as such and have to apply for MA with DWP.

Last time I posted about DD being terrible to get off to sleep and also staying asleep. She was insisting on myself,or DH laying down with her in her cotbed ( v tricky for me with my sciatica and growing bump!) until she fell asleep and then she was coming into our bed between 1am and 4am which was really killing my own sleep.
Well, after much googling for advice we ended up getting the Gro-clock and it has been amazing! Since she's had it (27th Nov) we've had a total of about 5-6 bad nights overall. She loves setting it to sleep mode and understands to stay in her bed until "the sun come up". We've also got a "sleep diary" where we record her sleeps and she gets a star/sticker for every night she completes. She still needs the company of one of us until she falls asleep ( currently DH has taken over as she seems to go off a lot quicker with him than myself, but we do usually do,her bedtime routine together).

No sign of a 27 month check up here at all.......is it worth chasing up?

Happy new year everybody xx I have just reinstalled the app so I try to check here more frequently

It was so so difficult to come back to work this morning , we all enjoyed this break too much, but I am now twice as big as I was!!!! Bring the diet on !!

I have so many things to ask you ladies and so many questions and so much moaning to do for the last few months, I don't know where to start !!

Day, that birth story scared the life out of me! If it was a movie I wouldn't believe it and would criticise it for being unrealistic !! glad you are all OK

Also your ds looks fantastic, the food you are serving him is brilliant and very very healthy and I die to have a toddler that eats everything now !!

My ds started having everything up until he was a year and a couple of months old. He would literally eat anything and everything. Then over the night he became such a massive fuss, I don't honestly know what to do and what happened to him!! Anything he eats needs to be grilled or fried. He doesn't eat vegetables except for cucumber and tomato and carrot. Luckily he loves fruits...
But my main problem is he doesn't eat any diary. No milk no yogurt very little cheese ... I have been to a hv and she said she will refer us to a nutritionist ; that was 6 months ago!! And No referral as yet. I am worried as at this age they need calcium ;So I have spent lots of time over xmas finding out what has calcium ... he doesn't like almost any of it ... any suggestions are very welcome ?

Also again, I feel so good that you ladies still read here and still write , i feel I have some support when it matters
Sorry for a very long post

Zana off to search gro clock

Good to hear from you Nazly have you tried giving your DS a multi vitamin to help with his calcium intake? I know you said he is more of a fussy eater but can you cook with dairy like milk or cheese so it is more hidden in the food? What about porridge? It's not very milky to eat but quite a bit of milk in it.

I must admit that the potty training was very much DD led, and I'm just really lucky. Just before her birthday I noticed that she was going a couple of hours with a totally dry nappy and in the mornings she was waking with a dry nappy and then doing a huge wee in it, so I figured her bladder control must be good enough. She was also asking to sit on the toilet, so I tried her a couple of times, and she did a wee. So one weekend we took up the rug, put a potty downstairs, and let her run around with nothing on her bottom half, trying to catch wee. Took about four days before she was relatively reliable, after two weeks she was dry day and night with only the very occasional accident. Like I say, it is just luck on my part. I'm thinking that this is my pay back for 16 months of absolute sleep hell!

nazly Great to see you back. I can absolutely recommend the Gro Clock. The first two days were a disaster. I think DD got so excited about wanting to see the sun come up she was awake earlier than usual. On the third day, she waited in bed nicely for the sun to come up, and has done pretty much ever since. Occasionally she calls out saying she needs a wee, but otherwise, she's in bed til 6am everyday. Bliss!

I think part time would be my ideal. Unfortunately it would be really difficult financially, and my job is one where it is really easy to have a part time contract, but you just end up doing a full time job for less pay.

Thanks Ladies
Team, I envy you so very much, so much, I can't even imagine. I am terrified of prospect of starting toilet training!

Greensofa the usual multivitamins don't have any calcium in them. I just need to figure out how to mix calcium rich things into his very, very limited food options.
he doesn't want to eat anything that is smooth or runny, no soup, no yogurt, not even ice cream, no mash potato, no melted cheese (if it is obviously melted on something).

Right ladies, how many child care options are out there? I am a bit confused! till now ds has been in a day nursery full time. Apart from the disastrous settling in, which wasn't the nursery fault, we had a really good experience there.

But now we are moving to a new town (once we finish building our house in a few months) and I need to arrange child care again and figure out what we can do. It appears now he is two years old we have more options? There is a pre-school next to his future school which accepts kids from 2, but doesn't offer the full time child care we need. So if going for that we need to have a child minder who accepts to drop him and pick him up.
The other option is to find a nursery/pre-school combined and leave him there full time before the school age.
Both have their own advantages and disadvantages I am sure, but I am really interested to hear your opinion as I am pretty sure I can learn a lot. do all working mums send their kids to nursery or some to child minders? what are your plans going forward?

p.s. Kitkat so envious you can stay at home xx

designed - have you spoken to your HV about your DSs speech? Singing is supposed to help with language. DD sings lots chart music nursery rhymes quite clearly now. However I know of children who have started nursery aged 3 with little language. It soon develops once in group settings.

Polka - I know that feeling when a maternity leave friend you make goes back to work. I feel it less now because I have mostly schoolyard mum friends now, but before school I can identify with that lonely feeling when peergroup mum friends return to work.

Nazly - There's a while section in my local supermarket of Dairy-free food. I know that it's not that your DS had a dairy intolerance, but my lateral thinking is that people who are dairy-free will still need their calcium. So I would have a look if there are any fortified foods you can buy. I'd also second the suggestion of a vitamin supplement.

Team - it's really good with your DDs potty training. I have a friend who's daughter is coming up to 11 now. As a toddler she was potty trained day and night by 18 months! It's phenoninal. I'm not even thinking about it yet with DD.

I realised today that our children will get their free nursery play exactly 1 year from now. This time next year DD will be in uniform, kissing me at the school gate. Oh. My. God.

Oh I'm only off on maternity leave Nazly. Got to go back full-time later on in the year. I'm not really sure about the dairy issue. I agree the best thing might be to hide some dairy in some foods. Like do some baking with recipes that have milk or yogurt in. Or do you think you could get away with making a quiche with some milk / cheese secretly mixed in with the egg mix?

Have been trying to do some toilet training here. Very poor progress so far. Managed one wee in her potty yesterday which I think was more of a fluke than anything. I think the big issue is she has never been bothered by being wet or dirty, even when she was a baby, and would merrily sit in her own faeces for hours if we let her. Ditto on a couple of occasions where she has been wet she hasn't been the least bit bothered. We'll persist for a few days but I think we may end up having to shelve the idea and pick it up again in the Spring. Is there anything more I can do? At the moment we've just been leaving her in pull-ups and taking her to the potty regularly.

Oh and Designed DD's language is also behind her peers. She has only really moved recently to saying 2 / 3 words together (e.g bye bye car). I'm not desperately worried yet but will be if things haven't markedly improved in a few months.

Oh and Nazly I'd probably do putting him into pre-school full-time rather than involve a childminder as nursery plus child-minder just sounds more faffy and you are going to struggle each time childminder is sick or on holiday. I don't think it would then massively matter if he went on to a different school to the feeder school as presumably a lot of the children starting at your chosen school will have all come from various nurseries / child-minders anyway.

Kit Kat - I've read and been told by HV that it's best to try and avoid pull ups as they are so similar to nappies the child doesn't really experience being wet/soiled - apparently is more effective to just have knickers and be prepared for lots of cleaning to begin with! I haven't done it myself yet but that is how I'm going to approach it.

kit i agree straight into pants is the best way! So they can really feel the wet 😂 of course if she doesn't care then I would push it back a few weeks/months.

nazly long time no see am I wrong in thinking that spinach and other dark green veg has calcium in it! Could you blitz then up into sauces. My sister does little ice cubes of green veg pureed and mixes them into every sauce she feeds her boys.

Ds language is behind he can't be bothered to talk 😂 but can say things like "sit down daddy" and "here is the hat" so we are getting there. He is a pickle for climbing I cannot believe the places I find him. He is currently sitting on the table playing with the chairs. He is not napping today either as he is so hard to get to sleep these days :(

Hi Cookie, you are right, but he doesn't eat any sauce either. Needles to say he won't touch dark green veggies. just a couple of years ago if I saw a toddler like mine I would have been so so judgemental about the toddler parents! whoever say you just don't understand it until you experince having a child yourself is absolutely right... I also noticed some of you say your toddlers are interested in what you eat and in your plates? he is not- he looks, but runs away

I can't believe I've been so optimistic as to think I have very many child care options and can choose. I called a few nurseries and messaged a few child minders, they either had absolutely no vacancy and a long waiting list, or they were very expensive (£1,500 per month?) or .... I didn't find any suitable option after looking into everything within 3-4 miles of our new house.

oh and language, ds was a very late developer - as some of you may just remember? - to an extent we were getting worried... he didn't say many words before he was two. So now his pronunciation is not very clear, he sometimes need translation and sometimes even I struggle! But I am sure he will be fine in time. He can make short sentences, he tells me little stories like: Daddy and Mummy and Ds(his name) went to park, then slide, swing, red truck and see saw... he also sometimes opens his favourite books and start telling the story with incomplete sentences... given he just started a few months ago saying words, his progress has not been bad- so I am sure they will all develop, at different pace though , which is just normal?

State nurseries (ie nurseries that are part of a school) will be staffed by qualified teachers and teaching assistants. It's rare for private nurseries to employ teachers because of salary costs.

I've had experience of both. My eldest two went to a private Montessori nursery and DC3 went to the nursery attached to our primary school (as will DC4).

Schol nursery is inflexible with times, you either do 5 morning or 5 afternoons. But loads of the private nurseries and childminders drop off and collect from school nursery. It's no different to after-school care, whereby the child goes to school and is collected by a childcare provider.

School nursery is very "school like" in my experience. It is still based around play, but everything has an educational context. I view school nursery to be more about kearning and nothing to do with childcare.

Because I don't work, my DD doesn't need childcare. But I would feel like I am denying my child an important educational experience if they didn't go to (school) nursery.

I would feel differently about private nursery though. If DD went to a private nursery, I would see that as childcare for MY benefit, so that I knew DD was looked after when I wasn't there. I would not view it as an experience that is important for DD.

So as a SAHM I wouldn't use a private nursery. I think DD would get more from spending her time with me. But because we have access to a school based nursery, I feel she gets a more valuable experience there than she would spending those 3h at home with me.

I guess that may all just be a reflection on the childcare providers around me, rather than a representative sample.