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While this topic is floating around, at what age have people felt comfortable leaving their kid with a non-friend/family babysitter?
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May 20, 2023 00:27
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:41 |
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:As far as I know, co-sleeping can mean two things:
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May 20, 2023 00:58
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my son is definitely into that phase where he starts asking why 10 million times a day -___-
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May 20, 2023 01:02
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Crescent Wrench posted:While this topic is floating around, at what age have people felt comfortable leaving their kid with a non-friend/family babysitter? First time we did it, lil bee was about 2 and a half. It was just for two hours while we went out to dinner.
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May 20, 2023 01:50
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We have found that our kids' day care teachers quite often are taking baby sitting jobs. The good ones are hard to book, though, since everyone else has booked them way in advance. The bonus here is that they've already been vetted by the day care, so there's some level of trust there. Unfortunately since this seems to be a high turnover profession, we often "lose" them. idk it just seems... awkward asking a former teacher to babysit. Feels fine while they're still at the day care, but after it seems like you're bothering them.
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May 20, 2023 01:55
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I’ve seen things about how to handle a kid who is hitting/kicking, and how you’re supposed to “be curious” and ask why they are hitting, or say something like “I see you are angry but i I won’t let you hit me,” etc. What do you do for kids who do it because they think hurting you is funny? The same places I’ve seen the above information says that if a kid hits or kicks then laughs it’s because they don’t feel in control and laughing is their way to express that, but that is SO not the case with my daughter. We will be playing and having a perfectly fine time, then she will out of nowhere kick me or hit her brother in the face, then laugh. I tell her she isn’t allowed to hit or she needs to take a breath or whatever, but then she chooses to hit or kick more, and even harder. She is giggling, and sometimes even says “you’re making me laugh.” This week has been really bad with her hurting me and her brother, and maybe I’m more sensitive or irritable or something because work has been brutal and I’m not sleeping well, but I’ve yelled at her a few times because I can. Not. Handle. It. She also hasn’t been listening to me at all, like I don’t even exist, I have to ask her to do something literally 10-15 times and sometimes get right down in her face and tell her to do it, or do it for her (putting on shoes, for example). I’m exhausted and I feel like a bad mom because every day this week has felt like I’m holding back from completely losing it and screaming at them or something. Anyway this is more of a vent I guess, but I’m so tired of being hit and kicked and having my kids two inches from my face at maximum volume and energy at all times when I’m so mentally and physically exhausted from… *gestures broadly at everything *
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May 20, 2023 02:13
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hitting is like an instant time out in my house. i understand wanting to be gentle with discipline (and timeout is just about the harshest punishment we do) but sometimes there does need to be a consequence for bad behavior. our pediatrician said timeout should be, at most, as many minutes as the kid is years old. certainly i think if you feel yourself on the verge of shouting then a timeout would make sense, if only just for you to take a few deep breaths. that sounds really hard though, its infuriating when they laugh at their own bad behavior.
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May 20, 2023 02:32
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Ugh, we run into this sometimes with our preschooler. I found the most effective thing at calming the behavior down is to have her go to her room, the less fanfare about it the better. I think some of it is that she gets hyped up and caught in this loop of it being a funny game and getting a reaction, even a negative one, and having her spend a few minutes away breaks the cycle. The caveat here is that she generally likes her alone time, so while she understands that it’s a punishment it’s not a huge battle to have her go to a quiet space or stay there. If you figure out something for the listening I would love to hear it though.
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May 20, 2023 02:40
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Crescent Wrench posted:While this topic is floating around, at what age have people felt comfortable leaving their kid with a non-friend/family babysitter? Two seems good. Or at least roughly when they can string a couple words together and walk/toddle. I'm sure if we lived overseas away from family we would have hired a coworker or their kid to babysit by at least 7 months so we could have a night off
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May 20, 2023 03:13
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Koivunen posted:What do you do for kids who do it because they think hurting you is funny? Beyond that I would be firm and say, "you can feel angry(/silly/whatever), but hands are not for hitting" and reiterate until she stops. If she's actively hitting you may have to restrain her to the point where she can't continue, but try to do it as minimally to be effective so she doesn't have a fight or flight response. If you're playing a game, I'd immediately shutdown the game and say, "we can not hit people with our hands, and we can not play the game while hitting people." This may upset her some, so just firmly say that "we can try playing the game again later, but for now we can not hit people." Once she's done hitting you can do the curious thing, explore her feelings, and try to help redirect her to safer expressions of them. But in the moment I've found it's best to just be a broken record about what's acceptable behavior.
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May 20, 2023 03:22
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God help me, I've taken a liking to NumberBlocks
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May 20, 2023 04:19
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My son was pretty obsessed with Numberblocks from 2-4. Has all annuals and plushies. A bit less interested now but it really got him started in math at a young age. They’re good by me.
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May 20, 2023 11:31
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I ruptured my achilles tendon on Tuesday and had surgery yesterday. My wife is pregnant (due Nov) and we have a 2.5 year old. I have not been this thankful that we both have such great parents since the birth of our first.
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May 20, 2023 12:53
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Diva Cupcake posted:My son was pretty obsessed with Numberblocks from 2-4. Has all annuals and plushies. I started off thinking "why is my daughter suddenly interested in this number show for babies" but drat if they don't cover a lot of somewhat advanced math topics with easy-to-understand imagery. They're very careful about their choices of color and accessories for the characters to draw similarities between say, five and ten, etc. It helps create a consistent visual language for kids to remember and ease their use of numbers. Hell, I've even started imagining some of this poo poo while I'm doing math, now. And then there was that trippy episode where One is dreaming about powers of ten. That poo poo was awesome.
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May 20, 2023 13:23
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Parents with kids on the spectrum, do they ever get stuck in "loops"? Often when our kid (4 years old) is already a little off balance, she'll be unable to continue until she repeats an arbitrary sequence of events exactly. And we have to participate too; any deviation distresses her and makes her need to reset. Today before we could drive to the gardens we had to get the following sequence right: - she pees in her potty - I hand her a wipe to clean her hands (no one else) - she gets in the back of the car when nothing is loaded - she climbs into the back seat and says "but I am having a little bit of trouble" 2-3 times in a very specific cadence - I say "are you having trouble?" - she sits in the back seat for a beat and says "okay I'm ready to go" - my wife buckles her into the car seat in absolute silence (We had to figure out that sequence by trial and error like the world's worst raid boss.) It seems like if she's trying to complete a task and gets interrupted/distressed halfway through, she has to try it again in the exact same environment, right down to our positions and offhand remarks. We don't know how to support her except by playing along which does not seem sustainable.
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May 20, 2023 20:12
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I would like to announce that according to the child, I am pretty and daddy is NOT pretty. (I mean I think daddy is pretty but  )
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May 20, 2023 20:57
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My little one calls me “belly-shaped”. 
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May 20, 2023 21:11
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wizzardstaff posted:Parents with kids on the spectrum, do they ever get stuck in "loops"? Often when our kid (4 years old) is already a little off balance, she'll be unable to continue until she repeats an arbitrary sequence of events exactly. And we have to participate too; any deviation distresses her and makes her need to reset. Rituals like that can definitely be an autistic thing. It definitely pings some OCD flags for me but there is so much overlap in outward presentation between autism and OCD in kids, it's hard to tell until you are able to figure out the purpose the ritualistic behavior is serving.  As far as how to support, I think playing along in the moment is not a bad way to go because trying to apply logic to the situation when she's already having a hard time isn't going to help anything. I know there are times when you won't be able to, but as long as you can accommodate it I would. Definitely try to telegraph to her as much as possible what is going to happen when you leave, breaking down step by step. Obviously this is all more doable when it's a trip to the gardens vs daycare in the morning. Does she have ways to deal with sensory stuff if she's feeling a bit off? Things like fidgets or noise cancelling headphones might help her not feel the need to be as rigid in her (and your) behavior.
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May 20, 2023 22:55
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gbut posted:My little one calls me “belly-shaped”. Nice! Now every time you grab a beer you can say you do it to stay in shape 
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May 20, 2023 23:04
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Crescent Wrench posted:While this topic is floating around, at what age have people felt comfortable leaving their kid with a non-friend/family babysitter? We hired a babysitter recommended by a very good friend to watch our 5 month old for 4 hours while we went across the street to a wedding and we had a family member watching the baby for an afternoon even in the second month. I think it’s more about who’s doing the watching rather than how old your baby is more than anything else. The level of trust needed is higher the younger they are.
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May 20, 2023 23:06
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Love when kiddo is down with a mild fever for a day then pops back up but when I get it I’m absolutely toast. Bless my wife forever and always.
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May 20, 2023 23:14
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Blinkz0rz posted:Love when kiddo is down with a mild fever for a day then pops back up but when I get it I’m absolutely toast. Bless my wife forever and always. I’m the opposite. When my kids get sick I usually avoid it and my wife goes down so I’m stuck taking care of sick kids.
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May 21, 2023 01:08
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marchantia posted:Rituals like that can definitely be an autistic thing. It definitely pings some OCD flags for me but there is so much overlap in outward presentation between autism and OCD in kids, it's hard to tell until you are able to figure out the purpose the ritualistic behavior is serving.
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May 21, 2023 04:25
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My daughter is crying inconsolably because we took the leaf out of the dining room table
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May 21, 2023 14:32
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May 21, 2023 15:40
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Sure, "the baby"
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May 21, 2023 19:08
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E/N post incoming Last summer I started going on a few dates, didn’t meet anyone I really liked until this January. Had been seeing this guy usually once a week during my limited free time, and really liked him, he really liked me too. Today he ended things because he wanted to take it to the next level, but wasn’t feeling 100% certain about things long term (both with our relationship and his life/career/living location). Because I have kids, he felt it wasn’t fair to me or them to start a serious relationship with me and meet them and form a relationship with them, if he wasn’t completely certain of the life path he wants to be on. He was very kind about it and I appreciate that he took the time to think of that, especially for the sake of my kids, but what the heck?! Nobody can be 100% certain about anything. He said this was his most positive relationship ever and he really likes me. So let’s go for it?! What if everything works out? Anyway we had many fun dates in the time we were hanging out so I’m trying to focus on that, but ugh. I really liked him. Dating as a single parent suuuuuuuuucks.
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May 21, 2023 20:23
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wizzardstaff posted:Thanks for all this. She definitely pings (to my laywoman's eye) more on the right side of the diagram than the left, and she qualified for special education from the school district's criteria for ASD. We're getting on the waitlist for a medical diagnosis. We have a scarcity of experience with other parents in a similar situation though. Our 3 year old ASD son does the same thing so it’s probably not too uncommon. What I have noticed though is that the “rituals” can and will change without warning so all of a sudden the old set of steps will cause a fit and you’ll have to figure out whatever new steps you’ll have to take. I don’t know what services look like in whatever country/region you’re in but in my experience the formal diagnosis makes a huge difference in what services you can get. We were lucky enough to get it at 18 months old which made us eligible for ABA services. It took us another 6 months before we could get off a waiting list but we found a fantastic BCBA who’s done wonders for our son. I don’t want to downplay the help we got from early intervention/our school district but it pales in comparison to how much ABA therapy has helped him. On that note, I’m kind of curious what your experience with special ed has been. With our son turning 3 he’s switching to our local intermediate unit from Early Intervention, and they want to put him in a special ed class, where he’s currently been getting services in his current daycare. We’re a little gun shy about putting him there for a number of reasons, but we haven’t heard from any other parents with children that young in special ed either.
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May 21, 2023 20:35
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What a day. My partner went to use the bathroom for like a minute, child had to pee and decided to do so ON THE FLOOR OF HIS BEDROOM -_- Then just now he knocked over my water bottle which spilled water all over the rug. His father told him to run and grab a towel from the bathroom…runs out of the room and immediately forgets what he’s doing, I’m like dude…towel. He’s like “oh yeah!” runs into the bathroom and comes back with ONE SQUARE OF TOILET PAPER. -_- I laughed very hard. Edit: also boy we had to take a break from letting him play my switch because he was absolutely melting down at the idea of having to wait for his turn in Mario Party.
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May 21, 2023 21:15
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Genpei Turtle posted:On that note, I’m kind of curious what your experience with special ed has been. With our son turning 3 he’s switching to our local intermediate unit from Early Intervention, and they want to put him in a special ed class, where he’s currently been getting services in his current daycare. We’re a little gun shy about putting him there for a number of reasons, but we haven’t heard from any other parents with children that young in special ed either. After months and months of waiting for appointments and evaluations and meetings (we applied for help in October, we got the IFSP written down in April) we made arrangements for a special ed teacher to do home visits one hour a week. We knew she wouldn't respond well to someone showing up at her preschool, and the school year is almost over anyway. The guy has been to our house maybe five or six times so far. He has brought some tools which seemed helpful at first (sand timers, visual schedules) but whose novelty value is dropping. He also seems really intent on reading her "social stories" about how to react to different situations which she doesn't care about at all. The most effective thing so far has been making some tiny headway in getting her to acknowledge that she has emotions and can name them sometimes. But mostly she just has playtime while he's around. We are also starting up some parallel interventions by doing play therapy. She's always happy to attend those sessions and will even do it alone but we haven't had enough parent check-ins with the therapist to learn what we can be doing next.
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May 21, 2023 22:42
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wizzardstaff posted:It hasn't been stellar, to be honest. Not horrible but not amazing. We also might just need to give it more time, it's been less than 2 months since sessions began. Thanks, that's good to know since I don't have many other parental experiences to go off of. Sounds similar to our "special instructor" provided by the state that we've had until now. But now they want us to move him to a classroom with 6 other kids, 6 hours a week. Problem is it sounds like the other kids are way behind him so at the moment we prefer continuing to get in-preschool sessions so he's with peers he can better learn from. Our BCBA is big into "social stories" too and our kiddo doesn't care about them either, but they've been useful for prepping him for changes to his routine that he might not otherwise be expecting. It's mostly the other stuff that she's done that's made a big difference. More than anything else it's just the time spent with him--he has an ABA teacher with him all day every day at his daycare. In the year they've been with him he's gone from having about 50 words at most to being able to clearly verbally express his wants and needs, often in full sentences, pointing, counting to 150+ and knowing his colors, numbers, and shapes, and even reading 20 or so words. He's still behind his peers but not massively so and we hope to be able to fully mainstream him. But we couldn't get that level of intense therapy from just the state--we needed the official diagnosis (and wait the requisite 6 months on a waiting list) to qualify.
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May 22, 2023 03:32
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Here's a tip: if you're trying to get your kid to poop, just squat on the floor and play legos with them. I've yet to have a lego session not be interrupted by a poop.
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May 22, 2023 13:50
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Chiming in on the asd diagnosis thing to say it's a game changer in the doors and access it opens. After being on the wait-list awhile, I was thinking "I know this kids autistic do we even need a diagnosis??" Now he's able to get access to a therapeutic pre school and meeting with the school district for eventual transition there has been made so much easier. And on social stories, he acted like he didn't like them for a long time, but the other day I caught him reading one to himself about haircuts while mimicking cutting his own hair :3
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May 22, 2023 14:14
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Any tips for keeping the bath water in the tub? Kiddo has started "cooking" in the bath with his duplo blocks and toys, but this involves pouring water into lines of toys on the edge of the tub and our 1960's yellow bathtub has a very very slight outward slope there.
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May 22, 2023 14:47
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Shifty Pony posted:Any tips for keeping the bath water in the tub? poo poo I'd love to know too. Best I've figured out is vigilance and towels on the floor. Lots and lots of towels. We also have corner guards so I encourage him to play over there, but they get really cruddy really fast
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May 22, 2023 15:12
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Koivunen posted:E/N post incoming I’m sorry Koivunen, that must really suck. It must be really hard finding decent men as a single mom, and it seems even harder to keep them. Make sure to be kind to yourself! I understand a lot of people are hesitant to get involved with people with kids, since it would hurt all parties to sever that relationship if things don’t work out. My husband is dating a woman who had a bad experience where she was involved with a family and when the relationship abruptly ended, she was tossed out and couldn’t so much as say goodbye to the kids she had spent years helping to raise. She was worried about getting too attached to our toddler. We’re doing a poly thing at the moment and my husband has been dating other women for the past year and a half. Started with my best friend, but she got too jealous of me after about a year and had to break things off. Now he’s seeing someone else and my kid really likes her. I’m back in therapy at the moment and hope to get to a point where I am a good enough communicator to be able to date others myself, but it feels like that’s years away. I am admittedly not looking forward to dating since the only person I’d want to date is the one person I can’t have.  We have D&D every week and have folks around a lot, so my husband’s girlfriend is treated just like our other friends around our kid. She’s been making fast friends with anyone with tattoos lately and will repeatedly point to them and go, “What’s dis?”
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May 22, 2023 15:51
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Shifty Pony posted:Any tips for keeping the bath water in the tub? Lots of towels and lowered expectations. Our daughter also puts a line of toys at the edge and pours water on them. I try explaining why it’s not good but that just devolved into an ever escalating series of ridiculous consequences so I had to stop.
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May 22, 2023 23:18
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Renegret posted:poo poo I'd love to know too. Best I've figured out is vigilance and towels on the floor. Lots and lots of towels. Look what I just found...    https://www.tubtopper.com $60 tho...
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May 22, 2023 23:59
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gently caress it, bought it. Will report Friday or so.
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May 23, 2023 00:01
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Man that's such a good idea but I will wait for trip reports now lol
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May 23, 2023 00:03
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