September 2014 - Toddlers & Tantrums!

[lilone1234]

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

Kit Kat we are the same it's mostly the financial reasons holding us back we also would need a bigger car I wanted to send them to private school and 2 sets of fees would be a stretch , 3 are just not doable

Also the thought of another pregnancy with two kids under 3 sends shivers down my spine , I really struggled with spd

I'm 38 this year so don't have the time to wait ages I would need to think about getting pregnant before end of this year and having a husband who would be home all the time would be a great help

That said he is home as no job so snotherbaby on the way with no job might make us stressed as we not at the moment

Also everything is geared for family's of 4

5 becomes a hassle

That said I'd love a wee girl

Arrggghh just wish I was a firm no but I have something inside still wanting more kids

Daytona reading your post I think you should have another baby as it sounds like it's what you really want, and that you would regret it if you didn't. But it would probably mean accepting that private schooling would be a no go. That doesn't have to be a disaster as there are some really good state schools around. Obviously also you have to be okay with the fact that you may not get a girl.

We planned DD as an only, and we will be sticking with it. It is something we have discussed, but between finances and career issues, it just seems impossible. I know many people say: just go for it, you'll manage somehow. But I can suffer quite badly with anxiety, and I'd not manage. I'd rather stick to one and enjoy her than have two and spend my entire life so stressed that everyone feels miserable.

We would also need a bigger house, but can't really afford one where we live. Having two would also have a major impact on my career, and although it probably sounds incredibly selfish, I adore my job, I've worked bloody hard to get where I am, and it is not the kind of job where you can take time out. If I did, even just for a couple of years, my career would be totally over. Plus I am the majority earner in our house.

In other news, we are slowly moving towards getting rid of DDs daytime nap. She was becoming a nightmare at bedtime, so we've cut her nap down to 30 minutes, and all is good again. She will be moving up to pre-school in September, and I think by then she will have dropped it totally.

We've booked a holiday in the sun in June, and I can't wait! DD is getting easier and easier now, and I think this will be our first proper relaxing and fun holiday! No need to lug about nappies and bottles and special food - it feels so strange just being able to walk out the house without five tonnes of crap. DD has a little back pack that I always keep stocked with wipes, tissues, spare kickers and leggings, drawing bits, a carton of juice and snacks, so I can just grab that and go!

DD doesn't have too much screentime, but that is mainly because she is full time at nursery! During the week she normally watches something for about half an hour when she wakes up. If she is knackered she will sometimes watch a bit when she gets home, but at the moment she is far more interested in helping Daddy to water the garden. She is also a bookworm and turns the TV off when she wants me to read to her! At the weekend she watches a bit more in the mornings, but by 10am we are usually out and about for the rest of the day. She rarely uses our iPad, unless we are on holiday. When she does it is mainly to Skype with people, or she has a couple of games she is allowed as a treat if she's good.

So pleased things are going well for you green

Awww lovely pics Daytona

TeamEponine we are sticking at just one too, I also suffer from anxiety and while most of the time it is under control I suffered really badly postnatally and also PND. DH and I are both agreed that another child isn't for us.

How are your toddlers behaving? DS is becoming quite defiant, he will not listen and frequently answers back. As an example, he was pushing the cat last week and I told him not to but of course he did it again. I held his arms so he had to pay aytention to me and explained that mummy and daddy didn't push him and he didn't like to be pushed (he had been pushed over in soft play days before) so he wasn't to push the cat. He yelled at me 'don't hold my arms'. I just don't know how best to handle it.

Kit Kay I know now deep down it would be a boy , but still would like a girl ha ha

We having tried potty training yet so still lugging nappies around , for two kids now. Robert and our baby . It's a pain but we leaving robert till he 3 to train unless he requests it before then

Behaviour wise he is naughty at times but has really started to understand his boundaries , he will go to do something say hit and lift his hand and if we say

If you dare hit you will go naughty step he takes a moment to think then will lower hand ,

We have had a lot of success with naughty step - 2 minutes on it

If he sent yo now it's not upsetting for him he mostly just takes himself there and sits

He gets told to sit and think about his behaviour then after 2 minutes we say what he did wrong and he can't do it then ask him to say sorry then he gets a cuddle

It's worked very well for us he is really starting to tow the line a lot more

We make a real effort to praise him lots too when he is being good

Like if he gives him brother a kiss he will get oh Robert what a kind boy you are we are very proud of you , your a great big brother give me a high five

To which he will with a big smile and normal says something like

I make you proud mummy , I reply yes you do robert

He seems to thrive on being told we are proud of him.

DD1 is also going through a 'challenging' period with behaviour. She's not too bad with us and DD2, but she's not good with children her own age. If they try to play with her or hug her / hold hands etc she either hits them or pushes them. She just doesn't like being around children her own age and would rather play on her own. Nursery say the same thing.

I've obviously been telling her off firmly each time and sometimes I remove her for a bit of time out if it's appropriate, but watching closely to see if anyone has any other tips.

Oh and I'm thinking of maybe having a bash at potty training this Easter weekend.

In crap news DH has just been told that his work annual team meeting / away day has been scheduled this year for the day of DD1's 3rd birthday in September and he 'is expected to attend' (he was going to book the day as holiday) so it looks like he is going to miss her birthday this year.

DD is also being rather challenging, although the rage filled violence doesn't happen too often. She is just a total whinger, and it drives both me and DH nuts. She has very good language skills and vocabulary, but she would rather grizzle and moan than just ask for a cuddle.

We don't quite do naughty step, but if she gets too wound up she is put in the chair on her own until she calms down. Usually she can be brought around by the offer of a sticker for good behaviour or the threat of losing a bedtime story (she usually has two, and loves books!) for being naughty. We don't do the two minutes as it can take her longer than that to calm down, so she knows just to call for us once she is calm enough to say sorry, then we have cuddles and start over. It works for us.

But the whinging and whining - ARGH!!!

Kitkat - DD often prefers to play by herself too. I try to encourage her to play with other children when we are at the park, but she's quite happy on her own. I think she's a bit shy. I'm very shy, so I try to encourage her, but just leave her to it if she doesn't seem keen.

Good luck with the potty training! Lots of stickers and have a potty nearby at all times. I also filled DD up with as much diluted juice as I could get in her so that she had to pee loads and get more practice!

Crap that your DH has to work for DDs birthday. We had the same thing last year, with the added complication of MIL visiting us at the same time. We made the best of it, and DD still had a great day, but it wasn't quite the same.

Do people have exciting things planned for the long weekend?

Maybe the playing alone thing is developmental? At toddler groups DD will play alongside other children, but nut really with them. So there might be two of them playing with the dinosaurs and some sharing of play things, but their pretending games are both indivindividual and not joint.

The only time she plays with other toddlers is if I am doing something like building blocks and I involve other children along with dd. She wouldn't involve others herself.

Having said that, she does play with her siblings a lot. I suppose that is her siblings playing with her though, rather than the other way around.

Great football skills developing here. She's master the diving save and slide tackle - my 7 year olds fave moves because they involve diving around in the mud!

Also greatcwater confidence, happy getting her head and face set and going under at swimming.

But she's developing a little bit of a nervous streek. For example last weekend we went on a big dog walk. We passed some "youths" messing around on dirt bike motorbikes, off road. Really frightened dd, far more than we had anticipated.

Robert is the opposite with playing arrived at nursery today to find he had a little girl lying on floor and he is doctor and was using stethoscope on her , nursery said he loves being doctor and is always trying to find another kid to be his patient , also our local park the kids all go there after school so I take him along as he always asked to play with his pals , there not his pals they are 7-10 year old but he asks to join and and bless them they let him. He joins in football and playing tag with them. He prefers to be involved with other kids I tent to find rather than his own. Always requesting to go play with his cousins or various other kids he knows.

Fucks sake.

DD has been possessed by the devil over the past couple of days and I've had enough.

She's just been so bloody cheeky, and she's not normally. Usually putting her o the chair or threatening to take away bedtime stories works well, but she ended up in the chair, and when I threatened no stories, she just laughed and said ok. Spend an hour in the chair in the end. Less than five minutes after saying sorry and promising to be good, she asks for her stories for being good and kicks off when I said no. Ended up putting her in bed early as I was close to losing it.

Not sure I can take a third days of this. I was so looking forward to a four day weekend, but it's fucking awful.

How are you doing Team? Has she been any better today?

If it makes you feel any better after 3 days of spending our Easter break potty training we have achieved.... nothing. Not a single pee or poo or potty yet in 3 days. We said we'd give it a week and if she hadn't started to get it after a week, then we would go back to nappies and try again in a few months. But a week is starting to feel like a really long time! What makes it harder is DH gets so stressed about it constantly panicking she's going to have an accident on the chair etc.

Hello :)

E has been really great behaviour wise recently which is great as he went through a bit of a rough patch. He is all cuddles and cuteness and he is finally calling me mummy 😍

His eating is still hit and miss and I am trying to be a relaxed about it!

And we have finally stopped the bottles and no more milk over night he is now settling himself in bed by himself after doing the rapid return technique!

She's been much better the past couple of days. Thank goodness!

I've been thinking about it lots, and I know I'm incredibly perfectionist and quite high anxious, and I've probably been a big hard on DD on some of the "small stuff". I find it difficult, but I think I need to pick my battles a bit better. Still feeling a bit shit about it all though.

DD has been given her body weight in chocolate, and she is loving it!

kitkat, if there seems to be no progress after three days, it might be better to wait a couple more months. My mum gave me some quite good advice around potty training. Her view is when they are ready, it should be quite quick, and you can live in wee soaked hell trying for ages when they are not ready, but what's the point. If they are not quite ready yet, just wait a little longer. It must be tough with two in nappies, but two in nappies is likely to be better than one in nappies and one weeing on the floor?

Been quiet here for a few days. After nearly a fortnight of trying I've decided to throw the towel in with potty training for now as we're getting nowhere. To be honest I don't think I've got the head space for it right now anyway as the palliative care team think my Dad probably only has a few days left with us, and I'm going to go over every day for the duration, so I just don't think I can practically or emotionally cope with potty training right now anymore.

I don't think you can push a child to potty train if they aren't ready, so I wouldn't worry.

My DD is no where near ready for toilet training yet. I might see how things go on the summer when she can run around naked, but I won't push it.

I'm sorry to hear about your Dad. I hope you are all coping. It must be a stressful time.

Kitkat thinking of you and your family.

Thinking of you kitkat. Potty training can wait, we haven't started yet.

Also not even considering potty training yet so I've two in nappies, robert hides to go for a poo and if you catch him going to hide you can take him to toilet and he will sit and it to poop , he won't tell you he needs though but will tell you if he pooped in his nappy as wants it cleaned. Peeing is hot of miss, asks sometimes to go pee on toilet other times he don't. unless he starts asking to go toilet all the time we waiting till after he is 3 prob sometime between September and Xmas we will try him and see how it goes,

Thoughts to you kit Kat

Think of you KitKat

*thinking.

Sorry

Oh kitkat thinking of you how very difficult it must be, I can't even imagine

We have started potty training last week and gave up in two days; the first day he did 50% of his wee in potty, but the second day in nursery he came back with a bag full of wet clothes
Even though his first day was not too bad I could see that it was more by chance that he did wee in the toilet because I took him every hour
He clearly was not and is not ready at all
To be honest we started not because he was ready but because it would suit us if he learned to do it now as we are changing house soon and he is changing room in nursery going to pre school now and he will also move to a new nursery at some point soon

Lessons learnt: we do the potty training when he is ready and not when it suits us !!!
P.S Kitkat I can't believe you could go with it for so long even one day and 50 percent success was quite difficult for me ! I need him to tell me clearly It is time before I decide to start again !

Hi all. Im off on Brownie Pack Holiday this weekend. Taking 18 other people's children and keaving DH home with our four.

I always enjoy pack holiday, but feeling a little trepidation this time. This will be only my second time away without DD. I'm also feeling it for DH - I know how much I would dread not having his help for the weekend. I'm lucky he never has to work away, yet he's always fine with my going away even when it's just voluntary. He's a good man, my husband.

Anyone got any holiday plans?

This coming few years, aged 2 to aged 4 ish, is the hardest age to entertain toddler on a flight or long drive. Is anyone braving a long haul flight?

Hi FATE, we have two Mon-Fri holidays booked this year, a static caravan and butlins, we used sun voucher codes towards the caravan and tesco clubcard points towards the other. I am ridiculously excited about both! We haven't braved leaving the UK with him yet as he doesn't seem to like the heat so much and I don't fancy being out and about at the crack of dawn!