September 2014 - Toddlers & Tantrums!

[lilone1234]

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

Forgot to add - no snow here yet.
We had a little that laid last year - A went out to play at nursery, and he loved it, but it didn't last long. I would love a day of thick snow to make snow men/have snow ball fights. Would be great!

Snow here too ...
sorry I left my post unfinished and posted by mistake ; central London had no snow, I wAs writing for you in the train and when I got home I wanted to save my post by posted instead

Anyway, this second nursery also charges £300 more per month
I just can't see myself putting ds in a disciplined nursery where they have lots of structured activities already ! I want ds to run around and choose what he wants to do , for as long as possible

(Fate is going to correct me now )

Confused and disappointed about the quality of nurseries

Where is Lilly bug?

Are they your only two choices nazly ? I completely agree at this age he should be running around having a great time

We have gates up across the kitchen and the living room. We live in a flat so no stairs to worry about. We are thinking about moving the living room to his bedroom as he keeps coming out and it's really annoying he cab also now climb gates!

We had snow at 5, it was really heavy! No more snow now though! And E did not like it and ran away!

(Fate is going to correct me now )

Hee hee
They run around and choose their play based activities at an educational nursery too

No snow here today. Just rain.

KitKat - I completely understand where you are coming from in terms of knowing when you've done having children.

Well, that's not what I saw Fate, although the manager said the time we were visiting was the structured play time and they had own time too, I should see it
Can you believe the kids had toilet pass ? They had to have one for going to toilet !!!

Cookie I am looking for more but there are not many
The town we live in now is probably 10 times bigger that the one we are going to, and is on commuter belt so most families have two working parents ; lots of option for child care and nursery
Not the same case with the town we will move to
We have to look wider in nearby towns , given we are already in trouble for commute I didnt want to have to drive far for my son nursery

Blimey, that doesn't sound like a pleasant nursery. Are you sure that wasn't Foundation 2 rather than Foundation 1? Although F2 continues to be choice play based by national curriculum standards.

Or maybe it's just a rubbish nursery 😐

Having said that I can't imagine a school nursery having a home-from-home feel about it.

How about a childminder full time? They work from their home so it will surely be more of a homely environment.

Yes, that nursery sound way too strict! At DDs nursery they seem to have a nice balance. The do a structured and educational activity most days, but the children can just go and do free play if they are not interested in it. I like that. They can do little experiments and stuff if they want, but if they are not in the mood they can just run about and play however they like.

Our nursery does feel quite cosy and as close as I can imagine a nursery could get to a home-from-home feel. A toilet pass sounds just ridiculous!

We had a tiny dusting of snow. Such an anticlimax.

Recently someone, I think maybe FATE, mentioned dressing skills. I'd not really thought about it too much until it was mentioned. I was just wondering what everyone else's LOs are doing with dressing and personal care type stuff. DD can be trusted to wash her hands and face, and is getting there with teethbrushing, but I always need to help her finish do it for her. As long as I do any buttons, she can strip off in a flash! She can put on pants and leggings, tries with vests and tops, but needs help. For shoes, with her velcro trainers, if I pull them wide open she can sometimes put them on and do them up, but she usually needs whinges for some help. It takes sooooo much longer when she is dressing herself though. It drives me bonkers, but I guess she will need to learn.

Hope you all have wonderful things planned for the weekend.

Team ds doesn't do any of those things ! I shall start working more on his independence given he will be 3 in August ! I am not really ready for this myself though, he is still very babylike

And yep, our current nursery is just like that
And unless they are doing something musical ds is rarely interested to Join in but he loves his music...
Fate our current nursery is a big house converted to nursery, it is small, furnished perfectly and every single person knows all kids by names and habits ; it has a lovely lovely pre school room too. Ds knows all staff by name too, he has been there for best part of two years now
It really has a home from home feeling and a proper pre school ;

Perhaps we should not move ?!

P.s I contacted every single ofsted registered child minder in our future town and none of them have space in September ; I wish I had started a lot earlier

Our dentist told me last month that I should still be brushing my 7 year olds teeth. I hadn't been doing them for him for a long time, well over a year he's been doing his own teeth. But I have restarted now. It puts it in perspective for a 2 year old though.

DD has a second toothbrush she uses as I brush her teeth. She copies me but doesn't do her teeth properly at all.

Clothing wise she can do slip on shoes, has a go at trousers but is inconsistent and often puts two legs into one leg hole. If I put her head in tops she can do the arms and if I take her arms out of tops she can pull off her head.

Ive noticed recently how much more I trust her walking out now. She can walk ahead and wait for me at various points (like wait at the lamppost, for example). Or if im holding her hand its more her holding my finger rather than me keeping hold of her to keep her safe. She knows not to go on the road and to wait and hold hands when crossing the road. When in the car she can run along the pavement to the car and wait for me at the car without me worrying that she'll run into the road or whatever.

Snow was a letdown here too. A couple of hours of wet snow followed by rain. It's all completely gone already.

Perhaps we should not move ?!

Are you moving a long way away? There are families at our primary/nursery school who have moved out of the area but decided not to move the children already settled at school.

Would it be feasible to add an extra bit of time onto your commute to keep DS where he is?

Sorry you are having such a nightmare with this Nazly. At a push could you stretch to a nanny on a temporary basis until a childminder gets a vacancy? I agree a toilet pass for very young children is ridiculous.

Not much dressing herself going on here either. To be fair I haven't given her a lot of opportunity. Maybe I need to more.

No nap today. I left her in her cot for nearly 2 hours thinking eventually she'd give up and go to sleep, but nope.

She had her first Men B vaccine on Wednesday. She was very good. Didn't even cry! Much better than I thought she would be and has seemed fine afterwards which is fab.

Oh and disappointing snow here too. It did snow today and yesterday but it never settled as the ground was wet, so no snowmen sadly.

Kitkat there is no way we can afford nanny even short term, I don't think wages round here would be any less than £30-£35k and we have to add taxes to that so around £3-£4K I imagine per month ? Or am I wrong ? Never looked into this to be honest

Fate we are moving circa 35min drive away Assuming no traffic , so it is not easy ; nevertheless we have to keep him there for a few months mafywr move because we are moving there around April/May but nobody offer us space before September ...
The additional 35 min drive (in addition to normal London commute) is doable but will be so exhaustive we will have no evening life ... and no energy at home . I also worry our drive time may take much more than that due to traffic we have never Checked it in pick time ...

Agh what was that a few months after our move

Not very nice to see your own post last when you check
I had a difficult exam yesterday and had to study hard, I stayed up to 3-4am for two nights and studied for 3-4 days intensely and finally passed - it turns out ds doesn't understand Mummy has to study , mummy can't play right now !! one of my friends studied for a whole specialist medical course while her child was 6 months! I am amazed how she did that !

How is your toddler fine motor skill now everybody ? For example can they use fork and spoon properly ? Can they use a pen properly? Do they stay in the line when colouring ?

Well done on passing Nazly - sounds like hard work!

Fine motor skills - DD can hold drawing implements correctly and is showing more control when drawing - can draw a few shapes - but she would always choose not to colour inside the lines! Equally with cutlery she is capable of using fork & spoon but frequently chooses not to because it's easier not to. I try and remind her to use her spoon for things that really need it but I'm hesitant to push using a fork because I don't want to any unnecessary meal time battles! Would be interesting to hear how others are doing there too.

Yay - well done Nazly! I can't imagine having to study with DD around.

DD's fine motor skills are coming along. She can hold a pen properly, can draw straight lines and circles and can sort of trace over things that are written for her. Colouring doesn't really stay in the lines, but she's trying and you can see clear colour blocks and what they belong to. She does love pretending to write at the moment and is totally obsessed with letters, so she is starting to recognise some letters. She can use her spoon and fork, although, like Green, she will get someone else to feed her if the chance is there! She's trying to imitate using a knife and fork, but not with much success.

However, oh my goodness, the tantrums. She's very stubborn, so it is a real battle of wills. I know that I need to stay calm and not give in, but it is sooooo difficult sometimes!

Mornings are also going backwards. Things were going so well with the gro clock and she was waiting in bed til 6 like a really good girl. Then one morning she woke and needed a wee, so obviously we went in before six to get her out of bed for a wee. Now she's realised that crying out "I need a wee wee" gets her out of bed whenever she wants.

Oh, Nazly, just had a thought. Have you looked into a nanny share? I don't really know much about them, other than having heard them mentioned when people just have one child that needs looking after, so two families with one child each pair up and share a nanny. I know someone who did it years ago.

DD going through a phase of wanting to do everything herself - climbing into her carseat is the most common. Takes her ages and when I'm in a rush to get the other to school, it's hard to remember to be patient.

Congratulations Nazly.

DD used a spoon and fork well and uses a pen. Doesn't colour between lines, just scribbles. She can draw a face with eyes, nose, mouth. Legs and arms come off the side of the head though, no body.

Our walking the dog today and saw a lady walking 3 greyhounds. "Look, three doggies". It's new that she uses a number in context. No movement with colours thoygh. She knows all the words for colours but doesn't relate the word to the actual colour in context.

Congratulations Nazly

A can use a fork and spoon, but much prefers his hands! Like MyGreenSofa, I leave him to it unless it really does need a spoon. I am happy as long as he is eating . He can also hold a pen correctly, however drawing/colouring are not great at the moment.

He is also very stubborn and wants to do everything himself too. Its hard work sometimes being patient

DS uses a spoon and fork with ease but he isn't a big fan of colouring so no drawing faces etc. He isn't at nursery etc and doesn't let me 'play' with him when it comes to play doh, painting but we were doing crafts at a soft play the other day and he co-operated beautifully with the lady running it!

He is ok with numbers but hasn't got the hang of colours yet.

Thanks ladies :) I don't feel I deserve so many congratulations just for passing an exam

Oh my world ! Most of your toddlers are so ahead with fine motor skills
DS can use fork but sometimes he ends up with not much on it by the time it is in his mouth ! He can't really use spoon well, he still rotates it fully near his mouth so only less than half of it goes in ! I have left it to him to learn and am not doing much About it, should I ?

With pens he is still holding them with fist , so no drawing of shapes and absolutely no drawing of a person ! fate what you described is so familiar, don't all kids starting drawing a person like that ? I loved your description :) My earliest drawing -which I did at the age of 1 year 6 months apparently- and my parents still have it is exactly like that. DS is two years 6 months and he is not even close to do anything like that

Outside fine motor skills he is OK; he knows all and every single letter of alphabet and has known it for quite a while ; he can count to 20 correctly and continue after 20 but it gets patchy after 20; he also knows the colours and when we are out likes to find cards in different colour and tell us which one he likes ; interestingly , given my first language is not English , I have now started learning somethings from him, for example, I don't know many of the colour names (outside the few main colours, I am not very good with the rest) and he has now learnt some colours that I didn't know exactly which one they are , simple ones like violet ; so I am learning- I obviously knew this day will come but I didn't know it will come so soon !

Hi team, thanks, yes you are right that would be good , but I know nobody in the new area we are going to... I'll see what I can do online
At the moment I have widened the area of search and just found another nursery that we could visit ; it is not close , but we have to consider further away nurseries now