Three day nanny

[fabuLou]

Anyone watching?

Excellent posts Giles. That mum looked utterly miserable - flat, depressed and beside herself with anxiety all the time - at the start of the program. Treating her 2 year olds like babies was doing her, and them, no good at all. She needed a professional to step in and show her what could be done, and to get her out of the rut of anxiety she was stuck in.

'People are more surprised at dummies, bottles, etc being taken away "so young" or being put into beds or night feeding being normal up til 3 or whatever, than they are at reception children being in nappies or collected in buggies (nt kids here obviously)'

So true. I often come across 2-3 year olds who are still being literally spoon fed - the reason the parents usually give is 'he makes such a mess when he does it himself'. Its just easier to treat toddlers, preschoolers and young school children as if they're babies I guess. It's not doing the child any good though.

It's just confusing with a programme like this. Experts tell you to have a bedtime routine, which they did but No apparently it's not good enough, take away the dummies, milk and parents and just let them scream for 70 minutes so they're confused and unhappy?? and yes it was 70 minutes. Anyone could go in and do that charging £400 a day like she does and call themselves an expert. The reason people doubt their abilities as parents is because of all the conflicting advice we're given. No matter what you do someone will find fault with it. Yes the parents were exhausted but there are better ways of dealing with that situation. I was a nanny for a number of years yet having my own child is on a completely different level. It is much easier to be a detached professional than a parent.
Parenting 24/7 is 100 times harder than going to a job for 10 hours a day then walking out of the door at home time.

giles it was 40 minutes to get to sleep - and 70 minutes in the middle of the night.

absolute abuse.

all those girls had ever known was mummy going in and meeting their needs. suddenly they cry and are ignored - tired, cold, thirsty, scared, pain? how would a nanny who had never met them before know what their cry meant? mum went outside so she couldn't hear it and interpret.

they are exhausted and cry themselves to sleep - all they have learnt is we cried, mummy did not come. no idea why not.

yes i agree the sleep routine needed changing in order for the family to all get better sleep - what i disagree with is how it was done. there is never a good reason for a 1 year old (yes a 1 year old baby - they were not yet 2) to cry for 70 minutes!

Yes but they also learnt that mom rushed in at every little squeak... they werent born knowing that either. They are now learning that its bed time. Once they sleep through, any wake up will have a meaning not just a winge to get their own way. Its different.

The solution is always somewhere in the middle
3 days sounds an impressive sales pitch but when it comes to parenting it should be reconsidered

Fwiw my ds speech therapist was always quick in assessing children with speech delay as globally development delayed insinuating even autism, till she became a mum .... Her 18mo doesn't even bubble so trust me she changed her approach towards her clients!

I like the 3 day nanny but I feel like taking toddler twins as a subject is shooting fish in a barrel (I have 3 year old twins). The pregnancy is often fairly scary, plenty of IVF twins, other complications, prematurity - and then often as not the mum is left alone with two babies pretty much from the beginning and day and night it's just scary, trying to do everything you need to to keep them alive. So you run and run, and never get any time to look at them and see how much they've changed, and lots of gentle sleep training methods and methods of discipline are really hard to enforce because there are two of them so it's really easy to get to 2 years and you're a wreck and the kids are running rings round you. But you've succeeded! Kids still alive, everyone still sane, the worst over and the best yet to come. Why don't they ever say that to the parents, instead of like last night, setting the woman up for failure by doing things like taking the kids into a big shiny shop without the buggy and then pointing at the mum as she fails to be in two places at once?
I have nerves of steel as regards taking the kids out - I have an extremely thick skin to comments from other people and will risk taking them to places where they've previously acted up. I actually did try and take my kids in the supermarket at about 2y 2m without the buggy and without going in a trolley and I tried all those tricks and techniques but one of them was just like "aaargh, toddler rampage" from minute one and the other one, bless her, was trying to get her sister to hold her hand for about the first 5 minutes and then you could see her tiny person stocks of resolve empty out as she joined her sister for a joyous pelt down the middle aisle of Sainsburys. They were about 3 before I could take them to the supermarket and do a shop, and even then the daft one still touches everything. The only way I get to do the fruit and veg shop is to pretend I'm not watching her while she steals and eats a grape. Just one grape, it seems to be enough to satisfy her need to be a rotter. I'm sure thingy the nanny would be shocked and stunned

Those who call two nights of CIO abuse, quite clearly have no concept of what constitutes abuse. It is absurd to call it that.

They weren't cold or in pain or hungry though. they wanted something they couldnt have. The crying fir ages over that goes on for years. ignoring that isn't abuse.

In this case it was a bottle and a dummy. something that needs getting rid of and Co tinting use of itself becomes abusive. It hinders speech and damages teeth and can lead to decreased appetite and creating a vicious circle of filling up on milk then not eating and waking more because they want more milk as they haven't eaten.

why people are so afraid of crying and happy instead to create a situation where everyone is miserable permanently I don't know.

"Absolute abuse"

I Disagree.
The DC were actually yelling, stopping frequently,listening and then yelling again.
Not actually crying, one of them even stamped her feet in rage.
The nanny was right, far better to go all out and have it over with than weeks of misery.

The little girls looked so much happier as did the parents.
They had learnt to whinge for everything and the parents were being ultra reactive to that but it wasn't making anyone happy.
The DC weren't cold,scared or in pain they were just cross!
I can tell the difference in a scared/pain cry in a child they don't tend to stop and see if anyone is coming in !

quite strong

they looked at each other and egged eachother on. they were working together.

toomuchtooold please tell me you now get your groceries online!

"why are people afraid of crying and happy to create a situation where everyone is miserable permanently I don't know"

That's a good question
They don't realise that there is anything wrong and its normal to them that their DC behave like this.
They don't have the parenting skills to sort it out.
They are so utterly sleep deprived that they cant see the wood for the trees and have no energy or resources to sort it out.
Their parenting philosophy doesn't allow anything but a child who gets everything they want ( but not what they need)

They like to feel needed.
I know quite a few "martyr " mums who think being a wife and mother is dropping everything when their DH/DC demand it.
No one is happy but they just cant see it.
One of them asked me when on earth I found the time to read the book I had just purchased, the look of horror on her face when I said I intended to read it later that evening was priceless " but what about the children" and much handwringing.

Anyone who thinks that putting a child down in a comfortable bed in a cosy bedroom, with a full tummy and having had a nice story, lots of night-night cuddles and kisses (and throughout the day) before their parent says, "Love you, see you in the morning for breakfast!", is abuse needs their fucking head felt, a dictionary and perhaps a wee look at some high court judgements for what actually constitutes "abuse".

i dont think anyone could argue that leaving a baby to cry alone for 70 minutes without going inside the room to check that all is okay is not emotional abuse.

if i asked my 2 adopted children what was more important to them - food, shelter, protection, or mummy popping in when they cried i know without a shadow of a doubt which answer they would give - they were removed after several years following several categories of abuse......so no i dont need my fucking head reading thank you.

it just seems that the easiest way to solve the crying problems mum created was to take away the comfort she gave - the dummies - then shut the door and say i've gone now fend for yourselves.

Agreed Craic!

I really didn't like how she handled it. I couldn't do that to either mine or others children.

They watched on a camera- did you actually watch the programme??
They could see the DC shouting and then stopping, looking at each other and waiting to see what happened.
They weren't crying inconsolably, they were yelling and whinging and very cross.

Trying to calm/cajole/pick up my DC while they were cross would just make the tantrum worse and actually undermine how they were feeling.
They were cross they had to go to bed and not muck about with their mother running around all night, sorry but that's life!

I kind of agree with Craic. Im actually at myself as tend to sway to attatchment parenting. But something HAD to be done before the mother cracked or became physically ill.

They watched on a camera- did you actually watch the programme??
They could see the DC shouting and then stopping, looking at each other and waiting to see what happened

yy

they were bloody egging eachother on. One was taking over when the other one had enough. and on a couple of occasions they were doing it in stereo.

they didn't look upset. they looked annoyed at not getting what they wanted. you wouldnt give them a chocolate bar right before dinner cos they wanted it.

You wouldn't buy a toy every time you went out cos they wanted one.

You make the decision as a parent what's best and when and sometimes that passes the kids off. give in once when they start creating a fuss and they know exactly what to start with next time you try to take it away in order to get you to cave.

Another don't worry, I do now take them grocery shopping but they're much better and also I live in Germany so it's probably not your peppers she's giving an experimental lick to

Also the mother/parents had created the situation where the DC had learnt to yell and whinge and she was there instantly.

They were 22 months old and whinging constantly.
Not asking for things or pointing but screaming and whining.

The parenting was designed around stopping the DC whining, not communicating, involving or interacting, just "no,no,no,Aha,Aha- all the time.
There was no tone( Kathryn pointed this out) or emotional involvement- Im not blaming at all here btw.

When the little girls were woken by their parents and they said "did you sleep well" in a lovely tone it was so sweet .

I really,really felt for that woman and Im so happy she was brave enough to go on the programme.

One year olds don't "egg each other on". They may react to each other. Obviously something needed to be done, but it's definitely not a case of CIO or nothing. I don't think the children would have been harmed of course, but I can't believe they weren't at least a little bit frightened if their parents suddenly went from responding to every whimper to ignoring their cries for over an hour.

Oh come on they were clearly a two toddler tag team

They were nearly two