September 2014 - Toddlers & Tantrums!

[lilone1234]

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

I usually start thinking about a bed somewhere around the 3rd birthday.

I don't know what I'll do this time though. The factor that has previously prompted me to move from cot to bed is growing out of the 18-36 month sleeping bag. So we do the change to a bed at the same time as change to duvet, usually in the months following 3rd birthday.

But DD is tall. She's already got her toes to the edge of her sleeping bag. So I may bite the bullet and by the biggest size sleeping bags, which I've never needed to buy before.

But then if we buy the slumbersac 3-6 year sleeping bags, there will be no prompt whatsoever to move from cot to bed. I've no inclination to do the swap to a bed yet, she's perfectly happy in the cot and sleeps well. So it may be that we keep her in a cot and sleeping bag for longer than we have with previous children, because she eint grow out of the sleeping bag any time soon.

We have a balance bike for DD, and a 3 wheeled scooter. They are mostly used in the house and garden though.

We took the sides of A's cot bed about 8 months ago. Caused a few issues when he was going through the 'no sleep month' in January, but actually think it would have been worse if he was trying to climb over the sides. He seems to be fine it it, and it helps when we visit my parents as he has a blow up thomas bed there, but he is used to being able to get out.

We are thinking about a bike for his 3rd birthday. Undecided between a normal bike or a balance bike so opinions would be greatly received.

First wee in the potty today!!!!!

Hi ladies. I have a mummy friend who's recently adopted a boy born Sept 2014. I was wondering if you have a facebook group I could direct her to? My baby group have been so supportive, I'd like to help her find the same!

It's gone very quiet here!

I don't know of any facebook groups specifically for children of this age but you could direct her to the motherload facebook page.

Ok, thank you :)

It has gone quiet hasnt it!

Mpeppin if I remember correctly we decided against setting up a facebook group as some were concerned with privacy. We are normally much more active on here though than recently, so your friend is welcome to pop on here. I have found it a great place for support when I have needed it, and tried to provide support back where I could.

Hows the potty training going Polka? I keep saying we will start with A, but not quite got around to it yet. He does ask to use the toilet now and again (won't go near the potty!) but I think its more to go upstairs than actually to use the toilet! Although occasionally he does wee. We go away in September and I wont like to do it before then, guess I just have to pluck up the courage!

It's going brilliantly Cumbrian. We have had the potty in the living room for months and he has had no interest. With the warmer weather he has been naked most of the time for weeks and started weeing on the lawn which he found hilarious then out of the blue he announced he wanted to do a wee on the potty and hasn't looked back! He took a few days to master pooing on it but he was just ready and that was that.

That's good. I have heard that it's much easier once they are ready. Well done mini polka!

DD has been naked a lot this week, due to paddling pool use mostly. While I can't seem to encourage her to go on the toilet or potty, what I have noticed is that she wees a lot less frequently than my other children used to. I'm sure she drinks plenty, so I can only assume she has a sizable bladder.

We've had some really sticky nights in the heat. Mummy Guilt kicked in the other night when I went to get whimpering at 11pm ish, to find her (1 tog) sleeping bag and pollow soaking wet - she was so, so hot and sweaty. I felt awful. Cuddled her whilst wrapped in a wet towel for a bit, wet her hair and put her back to sleep in just a nappy in the travel cot in our room (with two fans going)

Oh I see! My october 15 group is set to secret so we don't have to worry about that. It can't be found if you search for it :)
I'll let my friend know where to find you, thanks ladies :)

Oh bless her FATE he is sleeping only in a nappy here because its too hot but is still waking.

mpeppin send her over!

Aw bless. Nappy and vest here, but he keeps pulling his duvet over himself! Went in the other night and he was a ball of sweat! Luckily though it doesn't seem to be preventing him sleeping at the moment!

Tell your friend about our thread mpeppin, she's welcome to join in.

I'm much the same as your son CumbrianExile - I hate to be uncovered at night. I have to have something over me, even if just a sheet. I feel too exposed when not covered at all like the bogey man is going to get me

Your friend is welcome to join us here Mpeppin.

Well done on the potty training Polka.

We've also had hot, sweaty DDs recently. Has actually been a relief to have a big storm yesterday and it now feels much fresher.

Recently came back from a week in Dorset. I have to say holidays with a toddler and a baby are not relaxing! It's made me a bit anxious about our trip to Lanzarote in February.

In other news, some of you may remember that I'd been worried for a while about DD1's speech delay. Also she's had a few ear infections in her life, so it was suggested to me that the two may be related and I should get her hearing checked. Anyway, many weeks of waiting for an appointment later, DD1 had her hearing test on Monday and they've confirmed she has some hearing loss in her left ear, which may well be the cause of her speech issues, and I've done a bit of research since and she does show a lot of the signs of children that have mild / moderate hearing loss (not able to use her / his or your / mine type words, preferring to play alone, not always responding when called, speech delay etc). The ENT consultant said sometimes the issues improve on their own so has said he wants to wait 4 months to see if things improve on their own, but if not, then we may be looking at grommets / hearing aids.

[Flowers} KitKat, fingers crossed that DD1 hearing improves over the next few months.

Fingers crossed for the check in 4 months kitkat

My nephew had a number of ENT issues as a youngster. He went through gromits and in the end hearing aids. He has prepared for long term hearing aid use but as it turned out, quite unexpectedly after 18 months of use, his hearing was back to normal.

Hopefully your DD will get the help she needs KitKat.

Holidays stopped being relaxing for us years and years ago. Indeed they are chufging hard work and I often need a two week rest when we come home!

That said, I think this is because we tend to do UK holidays so involves a lot of keeping the kids entertained. We are thinking of an overseas holiday next year, where holidays clubs help keep the kids entertained. Will have to be term time though, for cost reasons, and I'm not a fan of taking the children out of school for holidays. It's not something we've ever done before.

This is a strange one

So we have been using a toilet with robert for months, still in nappies but asking him when we use it if he wants to and often he would

He has been dry at nights for a number of months now and we take him to toilet when he wakes and he does a big pee

I'd say 95% of time he says - I've got a poo
Poo coming and we take him toilet and he poos

He doesn't tell us about pees still doing it in nappy for day time

We have been on two -2 week holidays recent in our caravan both holidays he has done all pee and poo in toilet

So this holiday when we got home we removed nappies put in pants and within a couple of hours he had 3 pee accidents and a poo and was screaming blue murder if we said do you want to go toilet

So we put him back in his nappies and he is back to doing nearly all poo in toilets but using nappies to pee mostly

Is he just not ready do you think..?

Should we just go the way we are and try him again maybe towards Xmas time

Hi all!

Been a while since I posted. Work has been crazy busy, and then we headed off on our holiday. Ten days in the sun! In many ways it was bliss, but it is certainly not like our old child free holidays. FATE, I really don't know how you manage with four. I barely cope with one! We managed to totally avoid all the heatwave here, and instead we were in an air conditioned apartment somewhere equally hot!

Polka - well done on the potty training!

Daytona - if he can go for two weeks without a nappy and no accidents, then I'd think that you shouldn't give up. There must be something different between holidays and home that puts him off at home. Is your caravan outside your house? Would he go in the toilet there when you are not on holiday?

KitKat- hope things work out for your daughter. I had gromits as a child and seemed to grow out of it.

Does anyone have any advice on dealing with a whinger? Generally DD is pretty good, but she is one hell of a whinger and it really drives me nuts at times. She's very verbal and can talk about quite complex and abstract things, but sometimes she just whinges rather than just saying what she wants and it is so frustrating. I just have no patience with whinging, but then she's also incredibly stubborn, so we end up at stalemate!

Thank you for the support re: DD's hearing. Am crossing my fingers it improves on it's own. xx

Daytona personally I'd say it's a blip, and if he can go a whole two weeks doing all pees / poos in the toilet then he's definitely ready, so I'd stick with it. Maybe he's just a bit thrown by the change in environment since you've come back from holiday?

Team we're having a lot of whinging here too right now. No real advice but plenty of sympathy! The thing that is most likely to work here is a complete distraction / change of scenery, but it depends how heavily she's whining!

Hi ladies! Been AWOL a little while but I see it's still on the quiet side here!

DD is a massive whinger but so am I with her I realise, we just whinge at each other. I just can't keep my patience anymore and I think it's a lot to do with having absolutely no break from her day in day out (I sound awful!) so hope when she starts pre-school in September that will help. She's amazing and clever and funny but really full on I'm always exhausted especially with DS now too!

Hello!!

I do keep forgetting about this thread, until it pops up on my 'threads im on' screen.

But of whining here too. I've also noted a recent increase in how much she sleeps in recent months, no idea why, maybe the heat? Anyway, I had put the whining down to being more tired than normal. But maybe it's their age.

I saw @LillyBugg on a sleep board thread just yesterday. She has a 5 week old baby! Nawww. I do miss the newborn age. A good friend on mine is having her fourth child on Monday (planned c section). I'm sooo excited for newborn cuddles.

DD starts preschool in January, is yours an August born @MyGreenSofa? I know most of the staff there already and one of the TAs has children the same age as my older ones, so we know each other well. They are all being lovely about how much they're looking forward to DD joining nursery.

I feel a little tiny bit persuasive over other people developing close relationships with my little girl. Like it's only us that should have that closeness with her. But I'm sure I'll get over myself. It's all part of the process of building independence.

possessive*

Hi.

How is everyone doing? Not toddler related exactly but we've decide to put our house on the market. We need a 3-bed now really since we now have 2 DDs, and all the schools local to us our rubbish, and as we have to apply for DD1s school late next year we decided it would make more sense to move now. Already stressing about the whole thing though and we've only just started the whole process!

We have (for the first time) booked a hall and am organising a 'proper' birthday party for DD1 this year. She understands now that birthday's often involve parties and presents and cake, so I don't think I can skive the whole party thing again. I've booked a hall and a bouncy castle, but not done anything else yet (obviously got ages as her birthday isn't for another 2 months). Still if anyone has any party tips I'd love to hear them!