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Sockmuppet posted:My solution was to make a very small child - she can't reach the fridge door Nor can mine yet, but he knows how to grab the edge of the fridge door and pull. We just let him go in the fridge, we put anything that is 'his' front and centre on the bottom shelf so he can help himself when he gets hungry. Normally it works, he grabs himself fruit or a tub of yoghurt or whatever else we have there for him & closes the door once he's finished. I figure if he's going to get in there, may as well show him what to do, where his stuff is kept & what he's allowed. Anything that shouldn't be touched is put up and out of the way, or hidden behind other things. We have his bowls, plates & cutlery in a drawer at his level too, so he can grab what he needs. Spoons for yoghurt or cereal, bowl/plate for other snacks/meals. Luckily, the only cupboard in our house he has any sort of inclination to open is the one in the laundry that has the washing powder - he likes to put it in the washing machine. It is normally locked but sometimes we do forget to click the plastic across the front or manages to open it himself. We have a front loader and every so often we'll go to put on a load of washing to find there is a few items of clothing in the machine and the drawer already has the powder in it thanks to his 'helping'.
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Apr 18, 2015 08:20
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iwik posted:
That reminds me of the time my kid filled the washing machine drawer with icing sugar. So close but yet so far.
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Apr 18, 2015 10:57
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My daughter figured out the how to get out of the crib last night. Freaked my wife out when she opened the nursery door and she was standing there. Thankfully, she didn't hurt herself.
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Apr 18, 2015 12:28
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gninjagnome posted:My daughter figured out the how to get out of the crib last night. Freaked my wife out when she opened the nursery door and she was standing there. Thankfully, she didn't hurt herself. My daughter protested her sleep sack wildly for her nap today, so we tried letting her nap with a blanket, which she manages perfectly fine in kindergarten. She was up and attacking the crib bars as soon as I left the room. I think it was sheer luck that she managed not to flip herself over them and faceplant onto the floor. Sorry, kid, no more freedom for you.
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Apr 18, 2015 13:09
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And.. we decided to see how she does it before we converted the crib to a toddler bed. She goes to a corner, swings her foot over the top of the crib (her foot is almost eye level!), then uses that to help pull herself up a little. This naturally lets her foot slide to the outside of the crib, and she can then get her other foot over the rail. At this point, she's a parallel across the the top of the corner of the crib, so she slowly pushes out with her arms, and slowly lowers her legs towards the ground. I guess she'll let herself fall the final couple inches, but we didn't let her while we were watching. It's pretty impressive to watch - whole process must have been 30 seconds.
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Apr 18, 2015 13:42
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One Bad Mother is good, though it is geared more towards moms. The humor and anecdotes are pretty universal though. The two hosts between them have a 5, 4, and two 1 year olds.
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Apr 18, 2015 14:16
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gninjagnome posted:And.. we decided to see how she does it before we converted the crib to a toddler bed. She goes to a corner, swings her foot over the top of the crib (her foot is almost eye level!), then uses that to help pull herself up a little. This naturally lets her foot slide to the outside of the crib, and she can then get her other foot over the rail. At this point, she's a parallel across the the top of the corner of the crib, so she slowly pushes out with her arms, and slowly lowers her legs towards the ground. I guess she'll let herself fall the final couple inches, but we didn't let her while we were watching. It's pretty impressive to watch - whole process must have been 30 seconds. That sounds so much more sensible than my flipping myself out of the cot at 8 months old. So glad my daughter hasn't attempted that yet.
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Apr 18, 2015 22:15
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When you have more than one kid, it’s hard not to play favorites and steal their body parts to stitch together the ultimate child. Don’t! Accept your children for who they are instead of trying to mold them into an ideal flesh-golem.
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Apr 18, 2015 23:04
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iwik posted:Luckily, the only cupboard in our house he has any sort of inclination to open is the one in the laundry that has the washing powder - he likes to put it in the washing machine. It is normally locked but sometimes we do forget to click the plastic across the front or manages to open it himself. We have a front loader and every so often we'll go to put on a load of washing to find there is a few items of clothing in the machine and the drawer already has the powder in it thanks to his 'helping'. I'd do what you could to move the soap out of his reach. Children have gotten seriously ill from ingesting laundry soap (at least one child has been killed because of it), and just because he hasn't done it yet doesn't mean he won't taste it or end up with some of it on his hands when he goes to eat something else.
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Apr 18, 2015 23:37
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LORD OF BUTT posted:When you have more than one kid, it’s hard not to play favorites and steal their body parts to stitch together the ultimate child. Don’t! Accept your children for who they are instead of trying to mold them into an ideal flesh-golem. The first kid is the practice kid, second one is where you get it right. Third and fourth I guess is when you try different strategies, like only feeding them raw meat or not speaking to them so you can find out what language the angels speak or whatever.
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Apr 19, 2015 04:02
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sullat posted:The first kid is the practice kid, second one is where you get it right. Third and fourth I guess is when you try different strategies, like only feeding them raw meat or not speaking to them so you can find out what language the angels speak or whatever. Second one isn't where you get it right. We had all the time in the world to let the first one cry it out at night, and get into a routine. The second one just has to get to sleep whenever, which unfortunately is in a car seat. So she can't fall asleep in her cot. Yay for a 6Mo who still wakes up every 2 hours. The first one was through the night from 4 months.
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Apr 19, 2015 18:19
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My 21 month old suddenly woke up crying AT LEAST once every hour right through the night. No idea what was bugging her, she'd let herself be consoled back to sleep just fine and then pop up screaming after half an hour, but oh my god, after months of sleeping through the night or just waking up once or twice, I can't believe how completely hosed up you get after a night where the longest continuous stretch of sleep is 45 minutes. It's like having a newborn again! I hope this passes quickly, whatever it is, I feel like a zombie.
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Apr 19, 2015 19:15
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Sockmuppet, our kids are like a month apart (mine just turned 22 months on the 17th) and we went through this about 2 months ago. It was so awful. It lasted a few weeks, too. :/ My son has never been a "through the night" sleeper so it wasn't as bad as going from through the night back to newborn but he used to soothe himself after we'd go comfort him. It was baby party time at 3am for quite some time. Hang in there.
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Apr 20, 2015 01:07
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It could be night terrors. We're still trying to fix our kid's lovely sleep routine months later that got messed up from having night terrors around that age. For now he flips his poo poo for hours on end unless he is put on our love seat to fall asleep at night. Once he's asleep he can be transferred to his bed without issues. A couple times a week he'll wake up in the middle of the night and come to our room and we now have a toddler cot for him and he knows to lay down on that and go back to sleep. Its not the best situation, but we can finally get a full nights sleep again instead of being woken up every hour and we have our evenings back again instead of spending until we go to sleep dealing with him freaking out.
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Apr 20, 2015 02:40
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Anyone have a recommendation for a baby gate that our cats can get through? Looking at some with pet doors but it looks like they can be closed or something? Or should I just make my fatty cats jump to get through? e: I"m looking at this one but it seems the door is pretty big. It'll probably be put up permanently between our dining room and living room to keep Colby penned up in the two rooms. Gothmog1065 fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Apr 20, 2015 |
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Apr 20, 2015 15:25
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What are baby gate/baby pen recos in general? Nora is crawling now and dear god she gets around so fast it's insane.
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Apr 20, 2015 15:41
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I have never had a baby or pet gate my cats couldn't get over.
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Apr 20, 2015 16:18
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We actually have our baby gate a couple inches off the ground (it's not on stairs) so our cat can get under. We have a very tiny cat though. It's a wooden swing gate from WalMart. Very sturdy.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:26
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Gothmog1065 posted:Anyone have a recommendation for a baby gate that our cats can get through? Looking at some with pet doors but it looks like they can be closed or something? Or should I just make my fatty cats jump to get through? Unless your cats have mobility issues, it's unnecessary. We just put up a baby gate for crawling reasons  , and our cats leap it with ease.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:50
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Emily A. Stanton posted:We actually have our baby gate a couple inches off the ground (it's not on stairs) so our cat can get under. We have a very tiny cat though. It's a wooden swing gate from WalMart. Very sturdy. This is what we did to keep our dog away from the litter box, and it worked fine.
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Apr 20, 2015 18:17
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Our fat one eyed cat can't jump the gate very well, but we realized it wasn't much of an issue since we're always around when the gate is closed. If he needs in, we can let him in. This probably depends on the setup of our house and cat's temperament, though.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:05
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My wife and I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in three weeks. One part of it our 34-month-old daughter. We had her in a good sleeping phase for a while, but that’s gone to hell now. She frequently decides to stay up until 10 or 11 or midnight no matter how much we try to get her to sleep earlier. Some of it is stalling techniques, some of it is that she just has too much energy to sleep. She also has a bad tendency to take extended naps during the day, which don’t help at all. And then there’s our 7-month-old son. He steadfastly refuses to ever go to sleep unless someone is standing up and holding him, it seems. The stroller doesn’t work. The swing doesn’t work. Except when they do. But laying him down in his crib? Nothing but tears. My wife frequently is up until midnight or 1 in the morning trying to soothe him (while I’m frequently fighting with our daughter, as noted). Finally, she can get him calmed down and sleeping. And then at 4 in the morning (or 3, or 2) he wakes back up screaming. And the only way we can get him to calm down at all is to bring him into our bed where he nurses and sleeps in short fits over and over again. And then the cat starts whining at 6 in the morning because she’s too stupid to realize that her food dish is automatic now and she doesn’t need us to put food in it. Then I have to wake up to head to work and be awake and alert. It’s of the “I know this too shall pass” variety, but neither of us getting a full night of sleep is really starting to wear on both of us and our relationship with each other, much less giving us incredibly short tempers with the kids. And we still have people who are themselves parents that keep telling us that these years are magical and we should cherish them and enjoy it and basically implying that we’re terrible people for wanting to get decent sleep every night. And the house is a mess and the yard is overgrown and dishes pile up and the mail just doesn’t stop and work has deadlines and there aren’t enough hours in the day and it’s just so. loving. overwhelming. But really, a full night’s sleep. Can I at least start with that?
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Apr 21, 2015 01:48
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I feel your pain. What helped was dropping Alexandra's remaining nap. The downside is that by 4pm she's blotto for the rest of the day. The upside is that by 7pm she's so exhausted that she'll actually fall asleep after a token fight. Obviously keeping her from taking a nap is a judgment call day by day, but it's definitely an option.
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Apr 21, 2015 01:52
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We wake our kid up if he's still napping at 3. If he misses his nap because he's fighting it or screwing around, tough poo poo, he has to wait till bedtime to go to sleep. Extended lack of sleep is literally torture. Do you have the ability to hire a neighborhood kid to mow your yard or family that could help? Sometimes just getting control over some aspect of your life can make you feel better. I get really stressed when our bedroom gets in disarray and our lawn is unmowed.
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Apr 21, 2015 02:44
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Axiem posted:My wife and I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in three weeks. People who talk about the magic of early childhood have the rosiest of rose colored glasses. Sleep is an eternal struggle. We have gone through some tough I don't want to phases. We just stuck to our guns, kept the same bedtime ritual. When our oldest son fought, we'd let him cry. It is an age where they aren't crying because of a need like an infant, they're pushing to see what they can get, and get away with. If you have to sit in his door and keep it closed and say nothing than "it is bedtime, go to bed" for hours, then that is what you have to do. They need to understand this isn't a flexible thing. Even if their room is full of toys, they generally want out to do something. Don't engage them, don't let them go potty 15 times if you know they don't need to, don't get them a drink etc. We have strict rules about eating, drinking, etc. in the evening. My son knows that he can ask for more to eat at dinner time, but not at 8pm but he still does it. Sometimes he gives the saddest "but I'm really really hungry!" speech. Tough. He isn't going to perish if he doesn't get a snack. He needs to learn to eat more good food at dinner and not scam for treats before bed. It sucks to have this fight 4 times a week every week for the past several months but he will, at some point, get it. It isn't mean to insist they go to bed when they don't want to. It will be a pain, stick to your rules and do what you need to to enforce them (within reason obviously)
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Apr 21, 2015 03:33
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We have 3 of the Evenflo Top-of-Stair Extra Tall Wood Gate (cheapest at target.com). These are the best and only $33. -Unfinished wood (safe to chew on) -extra tall (lasts longer) -easy for adults to open but requires finger/hand strength kids don't have -swings in both directions (there's an optional stopper if you want it to only swing one way) -nothing to trip on! -no bar across the middle that kids can use to climb over -you can order extra hardware so if you have 2 doorways perpendicular to one another you can just use one gate and swing between doorways or you can move a single gate to another location since it is -easy to temporarily remove/replace -very secure and safe! Our cat jumps up, does a 1 second perch atop it and then jumps down. She is a great jumper and can clear it if she feels like it. We had a roommate when the gates went up and her cat was able to jump it too. Her cat was unbelievably stupid and horrible at jumping. I used treats to train her to jump over it. Only took a day for her to get it down.
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Apr 21, 2015 04:05
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Don't know whats wrong with our kids sleeping either these last days. First Daniel tosses and turns a whole night and wakes up crying a lot, once every hour. This night both of them woke up crying and screaming and it got so bad both of us lost patience trying to comfort them and decided to see if cry it out works or not, not sure it did, Daniel eventually fell asleep but David kept on going until we finally tried again and then he too fell asleep, in our bed. Didn't get no sleep until 3AM and I got up at 6AM, I hate life and everything in it now. Messing with my sleep is bad, I am extremely sensitive to how much sleep I get so I am totally hosed up 10 ways from sunday or whatever the saying is.
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Apr 21, 2015 05:09
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Axiem posted:And we still have people who are themselves parents that keep telling us that these years are magical and we should cherish them and enjoy it and basically implying that we’re terrible people for wanting to get decent sleep every night. The only people who say this, are people who either had those magical unicorn babies that were good sleepers from the start and never stopped, or who are so far removed in time from when they themselves had small children, that they only remember the good bits. I suspect it's a biological survival trait - if we remembered everything about having babies and small children, the human race would die out because we'd all collectively go "gently caress that". Since depriving someone of sleep is, as Alterion said, internationally and legally recognized as a form of torture, you have no reason in the world to feel bad about feeling bad right now. Emotionally it helps that the people depriving you of sleep are your own adorable children, rather than scary prison guards, but the physical effects are still the same. I don't have any real advice, but we have a crappy sleeper ourselves right now, and the only thing that helps me, is to just try to remind myself that this won't last forever, even though it feels like it right now. Oh, and if you have the possibility of getting friends or family to babysit, if only for a couple of hours, do it do it do it. Get out of the house with your wife and remember who you are when you're not attached to a crying child, why you're together and why you embarked on this insane project of having kids in the first place. Good luck, I really, really feel for you. Sockmuppet fucked around with this message at 10:48 on Apr 21, 2015 |
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Apr 21, 2015 10:46
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Sockmuppet posted:The only people who say this, are people who either had those magical unicorn babies that were good sleepers from the start and never stopped, So far our 14 month old is the unicorn. Sometimes I think he sleeps too much actually. He'll take a 2-3 hour nap at daycare, and come home and usually by 6 he's ready to lay back down, and sleep until 6 the next morning. We try to wake him up at 7 or 8 and feed and bathe him, but if we don't he'll sleep through the night (And usually soak himself and his crib). I'm so goddamn scared that #2 is going to be a terrible sleeper and I already know it's going to be hell on my wife and I.
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Apr 21, 2015 16:03
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Axiem posted:My wife and I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in three weeks. Ooof, that's really rough. I'm sure most of us can relate - when no one is sleeping even the most minor things become massive problems. If it were me, I would be cutting out that day nap pronto. It sounds like she's just not sleepy, so avoid naps during the day and try to get her racing around as much as possible (a favourite of mine is the "show me how fast you can run!" game). If she really still needs a day sleep, cut it down to 20 or 30 minutes. YMMV of course, but my three-year-old will stay awake 2 hours past his bedtime if he has a 5 minute cat nap in his carseat on the way home.
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Apr 21, 2015 19:55
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Gothmog1065 posted:So far our 14 month old is the unicorn. Sometimes I think he sleeps too much actually. He'll take a 2-3 hour nap at daycare, and come home and usually by 6 he's ready to lay back down, and sleep until 6 the next morning. We try to wake him up at 7 or 8 and feed and bathe him, but if we don't he'll sleep through the night (And usually soak himself and his crib). I hate to break it to you, we were in the same situation as you. #1 was a super star. She was through the night from about 5 months. Only in illness did she wake up. She would have two 2 hour naps a day and would go down at 7 with out a fight. She would then be up about 8 or 9 the next day. #2 is an arsehole. She's 6 Months yesterday. She's up every 2 hours, she naps for about 30 minutes. She won't sleep in her cot/Moses basket. She sleeps for hours in the car seat, but can't get her to sleep elsewhere. We've put it down to the fact with number one we were able to get all the circumstances right to get her to sleep. Number two, she's just got to fall asleep whenever she can. She spends more time in her car seat because we take number one to nursery. We can't spend hours letting her cry it out as she'll wake her sister. Wonder what number 3 will bring.
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Apr 21, 2015 20:21
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Oodles posted:Wonder what number 3 will bring. Thankfully we won't be having number 3. I'll be heading over to the vasectomy thread after #2. Wife and I agree that 2 is perfect.
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Apr 21, 2015 21:18
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Got done today doing an evaluation for in home therapy for my son. It's really kind of depressing when you actually have to sit down and list all the issues going on. But hopefully this will lead to less aggression (learning that taking a swing at a teacher got him sent home led to maaaany behavior issues) in school, and lessen his meltdowns some. The lady also pointed me to several resources I didn't know existed, because the social service office never likes to tell anyone anything. So that was nice.
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Apr 21, 2015 22:38
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Gothmog1065 posted:Thankfully we won't be having number 3. I'll be heading over to the vasectomy thread after #2. Wife and I agree that 2 is perfect. It is no big. had mine done October 2013. Slight pain, healthy dose of embarrassment and then sitting on a bag of frozen peas for a couple days. Mild occasional discomfort for a few weeks and then good as new.
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Apr 22, 2015 15:55
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We had our infantsee appt today and it went swimmingly. The reception staff was super confused when I made the appt because people so rarely utilize the program even though it's almost 10 years old now. If your child is between 6-12 months, it's definitely worth the 30-45 minutes for the free exam.
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Apr 22, 2015 17:32
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What a great programme! Vaguely related, I asked my dentist when I should bring my kid in, expecting the answer to be "when she's got all her baby teeth", but she was all "meh, unless there are specific concerns, you can bring her back when she's 4-5". That just seems so weird to me - I get that they're baby teeth and don't matter as much as adult teeth, but going years without seeing a dentist just seems irresponsible.
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Apr 22, 2015 20:14
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Sockmuppet posted:What a great programme! In the US, first recommended visit is at 12 months with regular visits thereafter. Tooth decay in baby teeth can have detrimental effects on adult teeth, so you should be at least attempting to brush teeth every day (our kid's idea of brushing is basically chewing on the toothbrush).
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Apr 22, 2015 20:21
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Yeah I have awful teeth, because I was stupid once I was on my own and not under my parents care, so I worry about my son's teeth. I still brush them with one of those finger scrubby things and a little flouride paste for kids, then I let him go at it with his Elmo brush. He still gets milk at night though and falls asleep right after the sippy cup of milk so I worry that I'm destroying his teeth... but his ped has said they look fine and that it's fine to wait till he's about 3 to bring him to a dentist. My own dentist told me the same thing, 3-4 is fine.
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Apr 22, 2015 20:30
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Papercut posted:you should be at least attempting to brush teeth every day (our kid's idea of brushing is basically chewing on the toothbrush). Oh, we brush every morning and evening. She gets to "brush" after I've held her on my lap and properly brushed all her teeth while singing the brushing song - occasionally she'll scream and wail and thrash about in protest, but she knows that the brushing happens regardless, so she usually gives up and just opens wide. Actually, I just checked the official recommendations, and kids get called in for their first dentist appointment at three years of age. I use a private dentist, that probably explains the discrepancy. Still, by the age of three, my kid will have had almost all her teeth for two years. Ah, well, I'll just do my best to take care of them until then.
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Apr 22, 2015 20:30
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sudont posted:Yeah I have awful teeth, because I was stupid once I was on my own and not under my parents care, so I worry about my son's teeth. I still brush them with one of those finger scrubby things and a little flouride paste for kids, then I let him go at it with his Elmo brush. He still gets milk at night though and falls asleep right after the sippy cup of milk so I worry that I'm destroying his teeth... but his ped has said they look fine and that it's fine to wait till he's about 3 to bring him to a dentist. My own dentist told me the same thing, 3-4 is fine. Brushing isn't actually all that big a deal, especially with liquids. Rinsing alone is almost as effective as brushing. Failing to floss and letting solids and plaque buildup stick around in the gums is where the real damage comes from, especially if we're talking about baby teeth that are going to fall out anyway. Gum health is the way more important an issue than tooth health, and good gum care goes a long way towards keeping teeth healthy all on its own. A kid is probably far better off flossing and rinsing once a day than brushing three times a day (assuming you have to choose between them for some reason). GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Apr 22, 2015 |
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Apr 22, 2015 20:43
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