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Do any of you have experience with a wheezy baby? My little guy, now four months old, has a slight but persistent wheeze. His pediatrician first noticed it at his two-month check-up; a little after that he got a really nasty cold, and an assortment of colds after that, and even though he's in good health right now the wheeze hasn't gone all the way away. His doc got him started on albuterol in a nebulizer to use as needed, but at his four-month check-up she got him started on a steroid course, hoping that we can just clear up whatever this inflammation is for good. Mostly she tells us that this isn't uncommon and that most babies grow out of it...but the fact that it's still going on suggests potential future asthma. Any of y'all dealt with this? At least he's a cheerful little wheezer! That's almost the trouble; it gets going whenever he gets excited and starts flailing around too much.
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# ? Mar 23, 2013 18:47 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 16:12 |
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Thanks so much for all of the responses to my post on teaching more than one language simultaneously. Sorry I didn't get back to the thread sooner, my son has been sick and things have been hectic in general. Don't have a lot of time here, but I wanted to let everyone know I saw their posts and appreciate the help. I thought I'd bang out a short post while I have the time.randomfuss posted:For exposure, it is important that one person always speaks to him the same language (even if your kid answers you in another language, you have to insist). If you don't, it's easier for them to mix and as they realize that you understand several languages, they'll just be lazy and use one (and generalize that to everybody). So what I'm wondering now is: In your experience (everyone, that is, not just randomfuss), does it seem like I could be causing a lot of confusion by doing this because I'm not separating the languages enough? I hope I'm not baffling him, poor kid. It also reminds me of stories I've heard about Lenin's parents teaching him multiple languages by speaking one language on one day, another language on the next day, and so on, keeping the languages separated that way. No idea if that is even remotely factual, though. randomfuss posted:In daycare at the beginning the teachers did not want to add German for fear of my kid's head exploding or something, but in 3 months they saw it is just fine. Ben Davis posted:We found out that 2 local libraries have children's books in dozens of languages---something that wasn't there when we were kids. There were only 2 board books, but that's still 2 more than we owned, and as he gets older, we can read him the other books. I also found some popular kids' movies dubbed into Greek that he can watch in a year or so.
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 09:34 |
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He's not going to not speak just because you're repeating things, but maybe it'll take longer to figure out which bits are Russian and which are English--not the worst thing in the world One other easy thing we do is have certain stuffed animals who 'speak' Greek and others who only know English. Even for my level of fluency, it's easy to speak for a stuffed animal!
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 09:56 |
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Hello parent goons, I need to ask a big favor from all of you. I'm currently finishing up my undergrad degree by completing a massive internship at a local hospital's midwifery clinic. One of my projects is creating a film to educate individuals on preterm delivery. It would be a big big help if you could please fill out either of these surveys. They're each very short and shouldn't take more than 5 minutes at the super very most. If you have never given birth prematurely (before 37 weeks), please fill out this survey! If you have given birth prematurely (before 37 weeks), please fill out this survey: Thanks so much for doing this, it'll be a huge help and can seriously help me graduate. It will hopefully also help mothers in the state of Georgia deliver their babies at a healthy age! If any mod disapproves of this I can remove it but I thought it would be topical in the Parenting, Pregnancy, and Gettin' Knocked Up threads.
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 13:39 |
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In light of the recent discussion on solids, here's a NYT article about people not following the recommendations of waiting til 6 months, often due to economic reasons and/or outdated advice from medical professionals. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/health/many-babies-fed-solid-food-too-soon-cdc-finds.html
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 15:46 |
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Chickalicious posted:In light of the recent discussion on solids, here's a NYT article about people not following the recommendations of waiting til 6 months, often due to economic reasons and/or outdated advice from medical professionals. Thanks for sharing. I am a little concerned my pediatrician said we could start solids at 4 months. I am combo feeding breast milk and soy formula but only due to low supply now that I'm back at work. Baby is showing some interest in what we eat, but she still has trouble sitting up and has only recently gotten over tummy problems that plagued her first three months. I'm in no rush to start solids.
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 16:17 |
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Chickalicious posted:In light of the recent discussion on solids, here's a NYT article about people not following the recommendations of waiting til 6 months, often due to economic reasons and/or outdated advice from medical professionals. Thanks for posting this! I waited to introduce solids with my first until he was at least 8 months old, and I got a little bit of poo poo for it. I remember seeing someone on Facebook propping up their 3-month old with pillows, shoving rice cereal into his mouth. He was clearly uninterested. Why is everyone in such a hurry for their babies to grow up?
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 17:00 |
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On the language thing. Just to say I read a study recently (on my phone but will try and find it and link later) that suggested you're far better off speaking your mother tongue to your children than speaking a second language inaccurately, even slightly. Because of the ways they acquire languages it can affect the way they acquire all their languages. Apparently.
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# ? Mar 25, 2013 23:21 |
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Does anyone have tips on how to wean from the swaddle? My daughter is 18 weeks and still needs to be swaddled at night. I know I've got to break the habit soon but she's so used to it and it keeps her from smacking herself awake all night.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 01:37 |
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We swaddled until my kid was 6 months old and would have done it longer if we had one that would have contained him at that size. It worked, he slept, we slept and we didn't want to gently caress with a good thing while it lasted.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 01:42 |
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My son sort of self weaned himself from a swaddle. We had him in a swaddle sleep sack and he kept wriggling his hands free to chew on them because he was teething. We just kept making the swaddle on that looser and looser until it was nothing. Now he sleeps in his regular sleep sack without a swaddle.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 01:50 |
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frenchnewwave posted:Does anyone have tips on how to wean from the swaddle? My daughter is 18 weeks and still needs to be swaddled at night. I know I've got to break the habit soon but she's so used to it and it keeps her from smacking herself awake all night. My son was swaddled until 6 months too. It's safe until they can roll over (then you want them to have hands free to roll back). When he started outgrowing his biggest swaddler, I started with one hand out, then both (swaddled tightly under his arms so he'd still feel secure), and then had to make the switch to putting him down awake (which was about due to happen anyways). We introduced a lovey at the same time, which helped immensely.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 02:53 |
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What is a lovey? I experimented tonight by leaving one arm free. Well, it's 2:45am and here I am so you can imagine how that went. She got her other arm free and woke herself right up. Tomorrow we are going back to full swaddle :I
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 07:45 |
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frenchnewwave posted:What is a lovey? A security object - teddy bear, little blanket, etc.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 07:52 |
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I'm kind of reluctant to ask this, but has anyone ever dealt with a really, really late potty-training? My daughter is 3 1/2, and she's only managed to use the toilet once or twice. If we ask her to get on her toilet seat, she'll gladly sit there and play with the toilet paper. We've tried everything we can think of to make her go: * Demonstrating with water and toys "peeing" into the toilet to show what she should do * Waiting until just the right time, when she's due to pee, and getting her to sit there. She just holds it until she gets her diaper back on and goes about 2 minutes later. * Having her wear regular underpants, which she just goes in and never says anything. She still has trouble communicating basic things with us. She often parrots things back at us as a way of answering, and only proactively says things in a few limited situations, so we guess that it just never occurs to her to say "potty" or anything similar, even though we try our best to explain. She starts kindergarten (ages 3-6 here in Japan) next month, and while I haven't talked with any of the staff, according to my wife the staff has said that they'll be supportive and not to worry, but at the same time, they seemed a bit condescending. Yes, I know this is well into the "you should probably devote all your time to fixing this" stage, but for a plethora of reasons we haven't been able to focus on it. I would really appreciate any advice. Thanks.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 08:42 |
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Mezzanine posted:She still has trouble communicating basic things with us. She often parrots things back at us as a way of answering, and only proactively says things in a few limited situations, so we guess that it just never occurs to her to say "potty" or anything similar, even though we try our best to explain. I think is the bigger problem that you need to worry about. Why is her communication limited? She should be spending most of her day chattering away and asking questions and such. I'd be discussing this with her doctor.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 12:56 |
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I might have posted about it before, but she was diagnosed early on with "light autism". This is Japan though, so I took that with a grain of salt. She talks constantly, but a lot of it is the same thing over and over, or her talking to herself. She responds to basic orders and understands simple things, but has a lot of trouble with things like questions about the past, questions about what she's thinking, etc. It's kind of hard to judge, but I've been teaching English to kids her age for years now, and most of them can at least string together full, complex sentences (in Japanese, anyway).
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 13:35 |
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Mezzanine posted:I'm kind of reluctant to ask this, but has anyone ever dealt with a really, really late potty-training? This is not really really late! I would not spend all of your time trying to fix this. She might figure it out easier when she's with a class of other kids doing it. My second son pottytrained like a month before his 4th birthday. I would personally probably back off from pushing it. Other people go with a different method, sitting them on the toilet every 15 minutes and giving them a reward (like chocolate mmm) when they pee. Making the potty a super fun place where you read books and relax, etc.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 15:28 |
dreamcatcherkwe posted:Other people go with a different method, sitting them on the toilet every 15 minutes and giving them a reward (like chocolate mmm) when they pee. Personally I would not recommend rewards. If nothing else for the fact that when you stop with rewards (and realistically at one point you have to stop) it could feel like punishment for the kid.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 16:26 |
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Alhazred posted:Personally I would not recommend rewards. If nothing else for the fact that when you stop with rewards (and realistically at one point you have to stop) it could feel like punishment for the kid. I've also heard that some people present limited rewards for potty training successes. That is, they buy a finite amount of rewards (candies, small toys, etc.) and show them to their child at the beginning -- this probably works best if you're dedicating a weekend or similar time block to really work on potty training. Each successful potty use, the kid can pick one reward, but they see the rewards pile getting smaller each time they pick one. So, in the end, when they pick the final reward, they (hopefully) realize that rewards are done, but they'll still use the potty. This all depends on the kid/motivating factors, of course
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 16:51 |
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Mezzanine posted:I might have posted about it before, but she was diagnosed early on with "light autism". This is Japan though, so I took that with a grain of salt. That's called "scripted language" when they repeat phrases like that. My son doesn't have an official autism diagnosis but he is about a year older than yours and those behaviors were enough to qualify him for assistance - he's getting behavior and speech therapy which has made a really big difference. Not being able to answer questions was one of our biggest obstacles. As far as potty training, what worked for us was that I found a really cool pair of underwear he liked and one Saturday we put them on in the morning and he was so thrilled he never looked back (in fact, it became more of a problem to get him to put them in the laundry at the end of the day). I mention it on the off chance our kids are similar. He gets a little obsessed with favorite clothes. Edit: \/\/ for me potty training is a "whatever works" situation and if flat-out bribes work, it's worth it. Bribes are what turned the corner for my older kid and she's well past toilet training age without being broken. On the other hand, my son couldn't have been less interested in any sort of reward or prize for using the potty after the fact. hepscat fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Mar 26, 2013 |
# ? Mar 26, 2013 17:37 |
Rewarding kids can be tricky, even if it's just verbal encouragement. First of it's meaningless to just praise the kid, you have to be specific (instead saying that the kid as good say that it was good because it went to the potty). There's also the risk that kid experience that the only time it gets praise is when it does something. Giving it rewards have the risk that the kid are doing it purely for the sake of getting rewards instead of learning that going to the potty is good in itself. This is of course spoken as someone who hasn't potty trained kids as a parent, only as a someone who works in a kindergarten. But what I've done is to make the kid used to the idea. Each I've changed the diaper I've put the kid on the potty, I've put the kids on the potty, let's say, every hour but I haven't given rewards because the point isn't that the kid have to pee or whatever but to make them used to the idea. Finally having a "potty buddy" (real or stuffed) is also something that could work. Sometimes the kid just up and decide for themselves that it doesn't want to use diapers anymore but use the potty instead.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 17:37 |
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Training kids in a classroom environment is vastly different than training them as a parent at home. For starters, at school they have the positive social pressure of many other kids using the toilet to motivate them and you are usually just reinforcing potty training that is going on at home. Of course it is impractical to give every kid in the class a small treat, but that isn't the case in a home environment. Also, some kids are motivated differently than others and do really well with certain methods and not so well with others. I gave my first kid a sticker for a pee and a chocolate chip and a sticker for a poop and when I stopped he didn't make a fuss or feel it was a punishment about it because he got to pick out some awesome big kid underwear-- and because I used my ability to talk to him to say "this isn't a punishment, you're a big kid now and know how to use the toilet. You will still get stickers if you want at craft time and have dessert sometime!" I am doing the same thing with my youngest, and it's going well, though she's a different person so she is far more motivated by reading books about it and just letting her roam half naked around the house seems to make her more body-aware. Different things work for different kids, and to say that you wouldn't recommend something because of what you do in a classroom environment (with older kids, and where things need to be more standard for obvious reasons) comes off as a little silly.
Sally Slug fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Mar 26, 2013 |
# ? Mar 26, 2013 18:10 |
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hepscat posted:That's called "scripted language" when they repeat phrases like that. My son doesn't have an official autism diagnosis but he is about a year older than yours and those behaviors were enough to qualify him for assistance - he's getting behavior and speech therapy which has made a really big difference. Not being able to answer questions was one of our biggest obstacles. You can use the scripted language to your advantage in something like potty training. Decide on a phrase what will mean "Take me to the bathroom, I have to go!" - in our house that phrase is "Potty please", every single time you take her in there to sit her on the toilet, say the phrase. Attempt to engage her enough so that she will parrot it back. Always say it, always encourage her to say it. It's a verbal cue for her 1) to know what is expected next - i.e. we're heading the to the toilet now, and 2) The repeated use of phrasing under the potty-going circumstance will eventually become her own personal scripted speech for the situation. She will begin to associate the peeing with the saying of the words, it becomes a matter of time before she being initiating the phrase to announce the peeing is about to occur. Alhazred, I couldn't disagree with you more about the use of reinforcers (not rewards) and praise. You seem to be under the impression that if they are used poorly they can be negative and therefore we shouldn't use them at all. There are decades of research into behavioral therapy that show otherwise. Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA therapy), an evidence based treatment most closely associated with autism but commonly used with other disabilities - which has proven for *years* that praise and reinforcing desired behavior WORKS.
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 18:18 |
Sally Slug posted:Training kids in a classroom environment is vastly different than training them as a parent at home. quote:Of course it is impractical to give every kid in the class a small treat, but that isn't the case in a home environment. It's google tranlate, but hopefully understandable. Fionnoula posted:
I didn't say don't praise the kid, I said be specific in what you praise them for. Alhazred fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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# ? Mar 26, 2013 22:52 |
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Little dude just had his 6 month immunisations and checkup - he's trucking along nicely at just over 17 pounds and 26 inches. I've counted myself pretty lucky so far, he's been a pretty easy going baby and I've been spoilt. There was no sign of any sort of sleep regression when he hit that 4 month mark - instead he has been sleeping 8-10 hours a night straight through since he was 3 months, lulling me into a false sense of security. Now, though, jeeeeeeez. In the last couple of days we've hit a wonderful combination of being able to sit by himself, trying to crawl (he's up on all 4's and rocking, then does a little bunny hop flop before getting up again - rinse and repeat across the floor), the wonder week 26 and I think either separation anxiety or just that whole learning that he and I are two different people and that can be apart/distanced. Or both. Who knows. He is demanding lots of cuddles and when I hand him off to someone else he watches/tracks my movements. If I go out of sight he cries. If I move too far away he cries or fusses. Bedtime used to just be a nappy change, pj's on, a bottle in my lap with a cuddle until he's floppy then I used to just plop him into his cot and bam - out. Now though, we follow the same routine and he either won't take the bottle before bed or he will have just a little bit of it and then cries, so you have to calm him down for ages. Then when he's cuddled and floppy you go to put him in his cot and he screams bloody murder about the injustice of it all. You can just rub his back lightly and he will calm down but it only lasts for a minute before starting up again. Bedtime now is taking an hour/hour and a half where before it was 20 mins, tops. Sometimes after an hour of trying to settle him I just get him up and he hangs with us in the lounge for a while and then I try the whole thing again. Half the problem I think is that he rolls over onto his stomach them immediately gets up on hands and knees.. so he's mostly asleep, up off the mattress with his eyes closed and bellowing. He's fighting naps through the day too. I've found he goes down easier if I give him a bottle while he's lying in his cot, which I've always been reluctant to do in case it creates some sort of feed-to-sleep pattern for him, where he won't go down without. I think up until the other day I had done it twice in the last 6 months, but now it's getting more frequent. Is there a way to help him through the whole separation anxiety thing? Is the fighting sleep a symptom of it too? Is giving him a bottle in his bed to help him get to sleep during this time going to cause issues and make him reliant on it in the future?
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 01:13 |
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So our baby is 19 days old and was born about 10 days early, weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces. On the day we came home from the hospital (day 4), she weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces. Since that point, 15 days total, she has gained up to 8 pounds 6 ounces. A total of 2 full pounds, and almost three pounds from her lowest point. Is this normal? I feel like she's gaining at a much faster rate than she should be...but everything I read says to feed to her hunger at this point. We never force her to feed, but anytime we see a her put her fingers in her mouth (which always is her sign of wanting to eat), we'll feed her. We thought that maybe we were misreading the signals, but when we've tried to not feed her, she always cries and demands to eat...so we know that it's hunger. Any thoughts? Is this a normal weight gain?
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 02:01 |
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Iwik, I noticed that when my son learned to roll over, to get on all 4s, to sit up, to crawl, and to pull up, his sleep went to total poo poo each time. I bet you in a week it'll be a bit better. (I also say this every page or so, but 6 months is a great time to introduce a lovey to snuggle--K has a rabbit and a musical seahorse with him) edit: Acrolos, you just keep feeding that baby I don't have all the records of how fast Kosta grew in the first few weeks, but to put it in perspective, he was 6lbs 3oz at his lowest, and then went up to 14 lbs by 9 weeks. They can really pack it on, especially early on! Ben Davis fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Mar 28, 2013 |
# ? Mar 28, 2013 02:24 |
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Acrolos posted:So our baby is 19 days old and was born about 10 days early, weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces. On the day we came home from the hospital (day 4), she weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces. Since that point, 15 days total, she has gained up to 8 pounds 6 ounces. A total of 2 full pounds, and almost three pounds from her lowest point. Is this normal? I feel like she's gaining at a much faster rate than she should be...but everything I read says to feed to her hunger at this point. We never force her to feed, but anytime we see a her put her fingers in her mouth (which always is her sign of wanting to eat), we'll feed her. We thought that maybe we were misreading the signals, but when we've tried to not feed her, she always cries and demands to eat...so we know that it's hunger. It's fine. Feed your baby.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 02:26 |
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Acrolos posted:So our baby is 19 days old and was born about 10 days early, weighing 6 pounds 7 ounces. On the day we came home from the hospital (day 4), she weighed 5 pounds, 11 ounces. Since that point, 15 days total, she has gained up to 8 pounds 6 ounces. A total of 2 full pounds, and almost three pounds from her lowest point. Is this normal? I feel like she's gaining at a much faster rate than she should be...but everything I read says to feed to her hunger at this point. We never force her to feed, but anytime we see a her put her fingers in her mouth (which always is her sign of wanting to eat), we'll feed her. We thought that maybe we were misreading the signals, but when we've tried to not feed her, she always cries and demands to eat...so we know that it's hunger. It's normal yeah, our baby gained 2 pounds in the first 2 weeks even though he never went below his birth weight (he was on an IV the first couple days). Now at 4 months he's gained about 10-11 lbs and looks like:
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 02:30 |
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hepscat posted:That's called "scripted language" when they repeat phrases like that. My son doesn't have an official autism diagnosis but he is about a year older than yours and those behaviors were enough to qualify him for assistance - he's getting behavior and speech therapy which has made a really big difference. Not being able to answer questions was one of our biggest obstacles. Yeah, with the being extremely particular about certain things, I get the feeling our kids are definitely similar. Ours threw a fit with my wife because when my daughter took off her coat and handed it to my wife to hang up on the coat rack, she apparently didn't like the way she accepted it from her. As far as the potty training, the teacher at her special daycare told us to give up for the time being. She's starting kinder next month, and we're planning to move in the near future. On top of that, like an idiot I had been trying to encourage her by telling her that she's a big girl now, etc. That apparently put way to much pressure on her, and she had started getting violent with other kids at daycare. She started pulling the whole "I'm a baby" thing and asking for milk in a bottle and stuff like that, so we've laid off of that for now. Another thing if it happens to help anyone with a similar kid: I bought her a set of little 20-piece puzzles that she seemed to like, so I got her a 50-ish piece the other day and she took right to it. The problem is that, according to her teacher, she sees it as a task rather than a toy. She would start to get bored with it and stop putting pieces in, but she would start screaming if you tried to put it away before she finished it. When she (or my wife) finished it, though, she'd start right at it again. That goes in the closet for the time being, I guess
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 05:17 |
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Ben Davis posted:Iwik, I noticed that when my son learned to roll over, to get on all 4s, to sit up, to crawl, and to pull up, his sleep went to total poo poo each time. I bet you in a week it'll be a bit better. (I also say this every page or so, but 6 months is a great time to introduce a lovey to snuggle--K has a rabbit and a musical seahorse with him) What's the best sort of thing to use? One of those little heads-on-a-blanket things? A sock monkey / stuffed toy? Should I make sure it doesn't have any sort of noise making things like rattles or that crinkly material? Do you use it only at bedtime & naptime? Do you take it with you when out and about? What about while feeding, would I make him hold it during his bottles throughout the day? He already has a seahorse for sleeping and we've been using it since he was tiny wee. Sorry for the barrage of questions. I suppose the one thing I can be thankful for is that when he's (finally) down for the night, that's generally it until morning. I can still put him in his playpen alone for a while too, I guess he doesn't freak out too much because it's a familiar place for him. Today he's been doing lots of downward dog type poses, looks quite amusing.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 12:50 |
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My ped said any small, firmly stuffed (not beanbaggy) thing or tiny blanket (like the little washcloth-sized ones you're talking about), and that I could tie the blanket in a knot if I was nervous about it covering his face. Basically, something he could accidentally drop on his face and not have suffocate him. We chose a bunny that didn't have any button eyes or anything that could be chewed off and choked on, and I'd tuck the tips of the ears into his mouth for him to chew on. He dropped the habit after a few months, but it helped a lot. I started out giving it to him in the car and having him hold it while he nursed. I also stuck it in my shirt a few times so it'd smell more like me. The one mistake I made was choosing something that had been discontinued for years, so we can't get a backup. Nowadays, I leave it in the crib unless we're having a long day. Sometimes he'll carry it out of the crib with him, but he doesn't really seem to care when he's in the car or out and about anymore. He's more into a sock monkey. I suppose the one is the fun-time toy and the other is more a sleepy comfort thing? I'm totally jealous that yours doesn't mind the playpen. Kosta has a total meltdown the moment he's in there!
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 13:04 |
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Thanks. She was gaining a lot more than most sites suggested for a baby her age, so it worried me a bit.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 15:39 |
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Acrolos posted:Thanks. She was gaining a lot more than most sites suggested for a baby her age, so it worried me a bit. Is she breastfed? The pediatrician told me he'd never worry about a breastfed baby gaining too much. Also, I've read that they tend to gain more early and it balances out as they get older. I don't know how true that is but I wouldn't worry. My baby was born 9lb and now weighs 16lb at 4.5 months. The pediatrician says all is ok.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 16:11 |
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It's totally normal that when babies learn new skills that their sleep gets messed up. Apparently they start thinking about sitting/crawling/creeping or whatever while they are sleeping/trying to sleep and it overstimulates them. It passes, but it does happen a few times during the first 18 months or so.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 17:04 |
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So, I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with my 17 month old. He's a drat clever kid, he'll go up to the fridge if it's open, grab something he likes and hand it to you to feed to him. The problem stems from our two weeks down in Florida with Grandma, who couldn't resist those pleading eyes and fed him cheese sticks, applesauces, yogurt tubes and fruit all throughout the day, and I kind of let it slide because hey, that's what grandmothers do and as long as it's all healthy stuff fine by me. The problem is now he's standing at the fridge all the time, like an hour after a good-sized breakfast he's staring at me and whining at the fridge handle. I'm really trying to manage it so that he actually has appetite for meals by not letting him constantly graze, but is he really old enough that he wants to eat just for the sake of eating or is he doing it because he's actually hungry? He's got a fair amount of chub despite being an active little guy, so I'm trying to find the balance between feeding a growing child and keeping him from developing overeating habits and I'm torn. (Also on the downside he's obsessed with blueberries, which I would be all like "yay a healthy snack eat as many as you like" but it seems to only make him constipated. Also it makes his poo disturbingly sweet smelling.)
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 18:04 |
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Lyz posted:So, I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with my 17 month old. He's a drat clever kid, he'll go up to the fridge if it's open, grab something he likes and hand it to you to feed to him. The problem stems from our two weeks down in Florida with Grandma, who couldn't resist those pleading eyes and fed him cheese sticks, applesauces, yogurt tubes and fruit all throughout the day, and I kind of let it slide because hey, that's what grandmothers do and as long as it's all healthy stuff fine by me. It's super normal for toddlers to graze all day. I would get some snacks you don't care about him eating all day like carrots cut into small sticks, apple slices, etc, and put those in a place he can get them in between meals and other snack times. Some people use a muffin tin and fill it with snacks and put it on a table the kids can reach and that's their snack tray for the day.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 18:07 |
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dreamcatcherkwe posted:It's super normal for toddlers to graze all day. I would get some snacks you don't care about him eating all day like carrots cut into small sticks, apple slices, etc, and put those in a place he can get them in between meals and other snack times. Some people use a muffin tin and fill it with snacks and put it on a table the kids can reach and that's their snack tray for the day. I agree here. I have a 14 month old and we were told that he needs a minimum of three meals and two snacks per day and to expect him to want something to eat every other hour or so.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 19:31 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 16:12 |
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Mezzanine posted:Another thing if it happens to help anyone with a similar kid: I bought her a set of little 20-piece puzzles that she seemed to like, so I got her a 50-ish piece the other day and she took right to it. The problem is that, according to her teacher, she sees it as a task rather than a toy. She would start to get bored with it and stop putting pieces in, but she would start screaming if you tried to put it away before she finished it. When she (or my wife) finished it, though, she'd start right at it again. That goes in the closet for the time being, I guess Definitely sounds familiar - for us it's taking apart locks and latches, then putting them back together again. What we have done for this type of thing is made it into an incentive for him ("if you cooperate we can get out the special toy/activity when we get home"). He is a little older so maybe your daughter is not quite ready for it, but he has gotten so much better about delayed gratification even in the past 6 months. He's 4 yrs 4 months. One of the things that pushed us into getting him evaluated was that he could focus so insanely on something if he wanted to and took it seriously like a task, not so much that it's fun. He's taken off the door handle on our front door, stripped many cabinets of their hardware, taken apart and put back together every flashlight. The only lock we've found can stop him is a flat-out cable tie. We have a game cabinet that locks with a key and somehow he has found that drat key no matter where or how high up I've hidden it and can open it with the key no problem. We have a latch on our front door but he just knows to push over a chair. I know even just describing this it sounds like I must be the most inattentive parent ever, but all these things happen in the time it takes to make him a sandwich for lunch or go to the bathroom. Little bugger. Except the front door thing, that was with a room full of adults chatting on a summer day with the door open, thinking he was harmlessly occupied.
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# ? Mar 28, 2013 19:46 |