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I used to make my girls the teething biscuits from the King Arthur Flour cookbook (recipe can be found here). They turn out hard as a rock, which is actually good for babies because they can't break off little easy-to-choke-on pieces- they just kinda melt into goo after a long period of gumming. As for switching to milk, when I weaned my youngest she would only drink cow's milk if it was warmed to body temp, same as boob juice. I think it was just the cold temp that squicked her out.
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Oct 24, 2012 00:00
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This was not done by my kid, but rather by one of the 6 year old girls in my Daisy Girl Scout troop. It was so awesome that I simply had to share.
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Nov 8, 2012 15:21
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Believe it or not the 9 year old might like a gift card. Kids that age are really starting to develop independence, and get a big kick out of shopping for themselves.
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Nov 20, 2012 21:05
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I don't think I ever bought any kids albums outside of the TMBG ones (and that I bought for me, not the kids). I always just let my kids listen to kid-appropriate "adult" music. It saves me so much sanity in the end, plus it's hilarious to hear a three year old sing CAKE's "Sheep Go To Heaven". Now that they're older the kids love Vampire Weekend and Muse. I've occasionally caught them singing songs from Bad Religion when they think I'm not listening too. 
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Nov 28, 2012 19:23
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Both my kids ended up in speech therapy, my youngest is still in the program. In our state all the evaluations/sessions are done through the schools for kids over 3 as part of the exceptional education program. I never had to pay anything for an evaluation or for therapy, although they did make me jump through some godawful hoops with my youngest in order to get her in before kindergarten. My oldest had mixed results, but I don't think it's because of any actual impairment, she just talks way too drat fast and slurs everything together. Which for me with hearing that's been through too many teenage concerts is sometimes an issue. If I ask her to slow down I don't have any issues understanding her. When she was younger she was a little behind in speech mainly because she had so many ear infections that impacted her hearing. Ear tubes and speech therapy sorted her out (for the most part). My youngest we noticed early on was having issues with certain sounds. At her 3-year checkup the pediatrician told us it was because she was tongue-tied, and sent us to an ENT. The ENT was reluctant to snip it because of her age, and recommended we try speech therapy to help her work around it. That was when we started the long process to get her into the county program, which took almost a year. She's shown noticeable improvement since then, and now it's only the Th- sounds that seem to still give her trouble.
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Nov 29, 2012 03:26
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Last year we got these things from Michael's called Santa Sacks- it's basically just an oversized felt gift bag. Now on Christmas eve we leave the santa sack by the fireplace and Santa fills the bags overnight. After all, being up on the North Pole Santa knows firsthand how important conservation is and would much rather reuse the sack than waste paper.  On a Santa related note, my 6 year old daughter made 3 lists this year. One for Mom & Dad, one for Nonna and Poppa, and one for Santa. She tells me "I put all the expensive things on Santa's list, since he can just have his elves make it instead of spending lots of money". Can't argue with that logic.
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Dec 7, 2012 12:47
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My kids still believe in Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, the whole nine yards. My oldest is starting to get into the age where I expect her to see through the whole thing any day now, but if she suspects she hasn't said anything. My youngest 100% wholeheartedly believes. Eventually she'll get older and can transition into the whole "Santa is the spirit of giving" belief; but kids her age just naturally take to magical thinking. The downside to this, of course, is she put all the most expensive stuff on her list for Santa because "Santa can afford it".
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Dec 12, 2012 03:48
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I swear all the time in front of my kids. I did cut down quite a bit, putting in substitutions most of the time ("shoot" "dangit" "friggin") but sometimes it just slips out. The first time my oldest mimicked me, I sat her down and had a talk with her. I told her that words like that were rude, and lots of times people didn't like hearing them because they were rude. I never called them "bad"; to us bad words are words that hurt other people's feelings, and that's something you can do perfectly well without cursing. Curse words are rude, and the constant fart/poop jokes are called uncouth in our house. ("Stop being uncouth" is probably something I say at least once a day now that they're in 4th and 1st grade.) So having established that these words were rude, I told her that I sometimes use them when I'm frustrated. However, that doesn't make it OK, so I gave my daughter permission to tell me to stop using rude words just the same as I would tell her to stop if I heard her. She did call me out a few times after that, and I always apologized for my rudeness. I think I only had to call her out once after that.
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Dec 26, 2012 14:37
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Five and six years old shouldn't be an issue playing out front, as long as you feel safe about the traffic. Kids can sometimes surprise you with their own protective instincts. My daughter and her friend across the street were playing outside one time when they were about 6, and they came in suddenly and unexpectedly to tell me that a strange guy was walking around through the neighborhood. The guy hadn't approached them at all, they just didn't feel safe with him around. "He might be a robber" was what they actually said. It turned out to be a utility guy checking the easements, but it sure made me feel pretty good to know that they did the right thing when faced with a strange situation. Of course, we live down towards the end of a dead-end street where the only people who drive down regularly are neighbors- many of whom have kids/grandkids themselves. So cars aren't a big worry for us.
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Jan 4, 2013 21:50
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I always taught my kids that a stranger is just a person you don't know. Most of them are nice, ordinary people, but because you don't know them it's best to be cautious around them when you're not with a parent or other trusted adult. Talking to strangers is OK as long as they're with us. I've also taught my kids that when they're lost (like in a store or park) they should first try to find a person of authority (police, security, store employee) but if they can't the next best option is another mom with kids.
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Jan 5, 2013 13:11
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My oldest eventually asked that question when she was 5 or 6 and I responded with the vague answer "daddy plants a special seed inside mommy and it grows into a baby". That satisfied her for about two weeks, but then she came back asking about specifics. I (very reluctantly! this poo poo is difficult for me being raised Catholic) told her about how human anatomy matches up and her response was "ew. gross." and I never heard about it again.
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Jan 11, 2013 01:58
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Tubes are amazing. My oldest got hers when she was 5 after having a long bout of constant ear infections- one so bad that her eardrum actually ruptured and a pus waterfall poured out (it's just as horrible as it sounds). It took her a few days of adjusting after the tubes were put in because her hearing had been so muffled by the constant fluid in her middle ear, that after tubes were in everything sounded blasting loud to her. But after the adjustment period to having normal hearing everything was a dream. The only downside was we had to make sure she had waterproof earplugs for our yearly beach trip because she couldn't get non-chlorinated water in the ear tubes. Her tubes stayed in for about 2 1/2 years before they fell out on their own, and hasn't needed them again since then. I wish my youngest could get them too but she hasn't had ear infections with enough frequency to qualify under our insurance. Hopefully she'll hit a growth spurt soon and her eustachian tubes will finally stretch out more vertical.
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Jan 24, 2013 02:31
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Bath and pool are fine- there's no special precautions tube kids have to take with those because the water is chlorinated. You need to put in waterproof earplugs if you go swimming anywhere with untreated water (i.e. a beach or other natural swim area) to prevent weird untreated water stuff from getting in the tubes, but we got those for like $6 off the shelf at Target.
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Jan 25, 2013 13:09
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Take a look and see if Mommies network has a location by you. I don't really hang out on their local forums much anymore because my kids are older and I'm no longer cooped up indoors with toddlers driving me crazy- but 3 years ago it was a godsend for me. Obviously with any group the quality of the people you meet will vary but I made some awesome friends through Richmond Mommies who we still meet with 2-3 times a month to do adult playdates of tabletop RPG's while our kids play together.
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Feb 1, 2013 20:41
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My biggest regret is not being more vigilant with the tooth-cleaning routine when my oldest was a baby. She was a night-nurser until she was almost 2, and naturally when having to nurse a screaming child back to sleep at 3AM I was obviously very reluctant to try and clean her teeth after eating and potentially wake her up again. End result was she got awful cavities on her baby molars, to the point where two needed fillings, one had to have a pulpectomy and steel crown put on, and one had to be pulled altogether and have a spacer put in. Cost us a couple grand all told after insurance, not to mention the fact that she had to be put under heavy sedation to have it done which is always a terrifying experience.
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Feb 19, 2013 20:43
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We've machine washed and dried stuffed animals wrapped up in a pillowcase and they came out fine. Just don't use high heat in the dryer.
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Apr 12, 2013 21:45
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So my daughter is 10 and tonight we're hosting her first ever sleepover party. I don't know why this is freaking me out so much when I'm in charge of (much larger) overnight events for the Girl Scouts all the time- maybe because this time  they're in my house. It would have been nice if more than two of the people we'd invited had RSVP'd as well so I know who's actually coming. Aaaaaa I just want to be reassured that we'll survive.
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Apr 13, 2013 12:02
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It's impossible to avoid MRSA these days, sad but true. MRSA is nasty only in the respect that it's more difficult to treat an active infection due to the methicillin resistance that makes up the MR in the name. Everyone has staph aureus bacteria on their skin, and for most people it never affects them. MRSA is just a stronger strain of the germs we all know and carry with us throughout our lives. There's no reason to cut off your step mom for life as long as she doesn't have any open sores from the MRSA. Did you know that over 90% of all health care workers are colonized with MRSA these days? If you cut off your step mom from seeing the baby you may as well cut off your pediatrician as well.
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Apr 25, 2013 21:39
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The four things I always have in the house that my kids have free access to are apples, oranges, carrots and celery. They're the least expensive fruits/veggies to buy in bulk so we always keep a ton on hand. Having free access to these snacks does mean I have to shop for produce more often, but so be it. The kids are eating healthy and they self-regulate just fine, because they know that if they're hungry there's always something it's OK to eat. Food does not have an emotional component for them. In fact, I only have two restrictions I've ever placed on my kids- 1) have something healthy before you have something that's empty calories and 2) don't start snacking if you see me cooking dinner. Two is really more out of a respect issue than a food issue- if I'm making dinner it means we'll be eating as a family very soon, and I want everyone at the table and enjoying what I just spend 30-60 minutes working on- and they know and understand that. Your restriction of the gum seems especially odd to me. The oldest gets a pack to do with as she wishes, but the others having it parceled out to them one piece at a time like it's wartime rations creates a huge emotional differential. If the oldest gets a pack a week, why not give the other kids a pack a week? If they decide to eat it all in one day, well that's their choice. They don't get another pack until next week, same as everyone else. At seven your son is old enough to understand that your child with CP needs a special diet. If you tell him that those foods are like medicine- they help the child with CP to stay healthier, he may be more reluctant to eat four boxes of it in two days. Particularly if he has free access to plenty of fruits and veggies in their place. The key is to change the emotional outlook he has with those foods- right now all he knows is he's not supposed to have them, but doesn't really know why- he just thinks his parents are treating him unfairly so he's going to rebel against the system that's not taking his needs into account. Which he does by sneaking and gorging on what he's being "unfairly" restricted from- food. And then when he does this, he gets punished even harder by being restricted from his toys and games. What I would do in this situation is sit him down and have a conversation with him. Explain to him that the foods you hide in your room are just for the kid with CP, and why. I'd then ask him to pick out his own special healthy snack to have when he's hungry, and make sure he always has it available for when he's hungry. You might even want to change it up every week so he doesn't get tired of apples or whatever all the time- take him with when you go grocery shopping, and let him pick out his snacks. Teach him what the things on the nutrition labels mean so he knows how to tell healthy foods from unhealthy and make better choices. Give him back some of the power to control what goes in his stomach.
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Jun 9, 2013 18:16
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My youngest was the same way with purees, it's entirely a textural thing for her. She would eat food like crazy if she could pick it up and feed herself, but anything smushed on a spoon was a no-go. Even now at 7 she still won't eat "mushy" foods like oatmeal or mashed potatoes, and has just started eating yogurt maybe 3 months ago (but only the kinds that don't have fruit pieces in them, she doesn't like it with "chunks").
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Jun 18, 2013 17:57
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The fastest I've ever gotten my oldest daughter's attention was the time I had to pull out both her first AND middle name. Funniest part was she wasn't even in trouble. We were at a family function and she was playing with her second cousin, who is also named Sofia but has a different middle name- so in order to call for just my kid I pulled the middle name card. She jumped to attention faster than I've ever seen.
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Jun 24, 2013 19:23
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We use baby powder whenever we go to the beach or anyplace sandy. Rubbing baby powder on any skin that has sand stuck to it will make the sand come right off. As for baby oil I used mine to oil my garden tools. 
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Jul 1, 2013 18:58
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hookerbot 5000 posted:Maybe try and get someone else to give him bottles for a couple of feeds first - Ellie won't take a bottle from me but she will from her dad. I can second this. I had to put Sofia on formula when I was put on meds that were contraindicated with nursing. Every time I tried to give her a bottle she'd just clamp her gums shut and turn away from me, but dad or grandma/grandpa could feed her with a bottle just fine. She knew I was holding out on the good stuff and she was mad about it.
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Oct 6, 2013 16:13
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I ended up having the death talk after my oldest in Kindergarten brought this book home from the library at school. Since my husband is a Catholic-ish deist and I'm in a weird place with the whole religion thing, I didn't have too many issues with all the heavenly aspects depicted in the book as they're very generically spiritual. I seem to remember telling my daughter that we couldn't know what happens when we die because no one ever comes back to tell us what it's like. Her primary concern seemed to be a reassurance that she or I (or anyone else in our family, for that matter) wouldn't be dying anytime in the next few days or so. We then had a talk about life expectancy, and how cats have much shorter lives than people so while our cat Suzaku was getting old and could potentially die soon, the rest of our family statistically had a while to go, and she especially had a long expectancy ahead of her. (Side note- today Suzaku is still alive and grumpy as she always was at a ripe 18 years of age).TacoNight posted:A different question: my 20 month-old seems much less outgoing and social than most of the other kids in her various play groups. Of course, sharing is hard, but she doesn't like other kids to be nearby. While on the playground equipment, she was standing on one platform connected to another by a tunnel. As another kid she knows got on the platform, it was "Away Ella!" and she melted down crying when Ella had the audacity to crawl through the tunnel to the same platform. This got lost in the death chat so I wanted to quote it again for you. At only 20 months I wouldn't worry about it too much- that's still the age where "playing together" means "playing in proximity to each other but not really interacting in a meaningful way". Your daughter is at the age where she's wanting to start playing and interacting with other kids, but she's still very self-absorbed and hasn't fully grasped that other kids have their own agency. So, when they do things that don't fit her mental script for how the interaction is "supposed" to go she gets sulky. She will grow out of it eventually, but playing games with your daughter where you have to take turns always helps.
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Oct 18, 2013 14:40
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Obviously ymmv but we had both our girls eating wheat products by 10 months- of course this is with no history of food allergies in the family. By a year my girls were gumming breadsticks/crusts, getting their own portions of baby pastina whenever I made pasta for the family, and generally eating little bites of whatever we were eating along with their baby portions. Growing up Italian it was pretty much a given that grandparents/great aunts were going to give my kids pasta and bread so we got it out of the way early. e: oh yeah and first birthday cupcakes are always hilarious, even if not much actually gets in the mouth.
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Oct 24, 2013 21:23
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Does the vomiting happen more in the morning or after naptimes? It's highly possible that the vomiting is being caused by post-nasal drip which is being swallowed and irritating the stomach mucosa. That happened on a few occasions to my kids, usually more often just after they'd woken up because everything was running down the back of their throats while they slept instead of out the nose.
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Dec 6, 2013 13:01
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I won't hang out with people who won't vaccinate their kids- or perhaps I should say I can't hang out with them. Luckily all my friends are up to date on modern health studies and understand things like herd immunity and why it's a good thing to add your children to the herd rather than rely on said herd to protect your kids. I cannot be vaccinated for pertussis- which has been making a huge comeback in recent years (48,277 cases reported to the CDC last year alone in the US). The one and only time I had a pertussis vaccine I had a major grand mal seizure right there in the doctor's office within minutes of the vaccine being administered. I had never had a seizure before or since. No doctor has been willing to risk giving me the vaccine again since then. Considering I spend a lot of time with kids (Girl Scout leader and frequent volunteer at the school) I'm completely relying on a whole lot of parents I don't know and will probably never meet to have their kids vaccinated so I won't be added to the statistics board on the CDC website. Luckily at my age it's highly unlikely I'll die from the whooping cough, but it's still a highly unpleasant 3-6 month long ordeal I'd like to avoid at all costs.
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Dec 12, 2013 12:58
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My oldest is not a cuddler. She only wanted to be close to me if I was offering a boob full of milk, otherwise she wasn't interested. I can't remember ever having a cuddle session with her after she weaned. My youngest, on the other hand, is my cuddlebug. She just turned eight and will still snuggle with me on the couch while watching TV. She also loves to torment her big sister by chasing her around asking for hugs and laughing maniacally as big sis attempts to escape.
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Jan 24, 2014 23:47
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My oldest cut her own hair. Right before the Kindergarten school picture day. 
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Feb 1, 2014 12:33
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I loved the carrier because you could go anywhere with it. Not everyplace is stroller friendly, so with a carrier I had the freedom to go down every little gravel footpath in a botanical garden, or ride public transport in Chicago for example (good luck finding a station with a working elevator on the CTA). Plus strollers take up a shitton of room in situations where there are a lot of people like zoos and festivals and the like, so situations where I'd sometimes be stuck behind a bigass group of people trying to force an opening for the stroller, instead I could just slip right through with the baby on me. I will admit there were also plenty of times when I used the carrier just because the thought of getting the stroller in and out of the car was too much for me that day.
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Feb 7, 2014 05:07
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Also if you're looking at a good source of protein for babies my kids always loved tofu. It's soft and easy for babies to self-feed because you can just cut it into any size cubes. I'd give my girls the tofu from my miso soup pretty much as soon as they were old enough to use a pincer grasp and they loved it. In fact they still try to steal my tofu to this day.
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Mar 10, 2014 19:01
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Heck, even my eight year old wet herself the other day. She thought she could hold it while she played just a little bit longer.  Luckily it was during the nice weather so she was outside, so cleanup was basically "jump in the bath and put your clothes in the washer". But still. Eight.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:27
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Hell yeah now that I don't have to be there I freaking love parties. Two hours of trampoline time/laser tag/rollerskating for my kid for the admission price of one gift, and I get to do whatever elsewhere. It's awesome. Now parties for my kid, on the other hand, are a bit hairier. I'm planning an outdoor party for my oldest in two weeks and praying to god the weather warms back up to normal temps. Normal for today would be 68F where we live, and we had a dusting of snow this morning. I'm desperately hoping I don't have to have these kids inside my house.
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Mar 25, 2014 18:50
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I'd totally take advantage of an adventure playground like that myself if we had them around here. But I think the point of the article is less about the kids "playing in garbage" and more about the kids having a free space where they don't have parents dictating to them what they should/shouldn't do. It's that old adage about how the only lessons you truly learn are the ones you figure out for yourself. A lot of kids these days aren't given a chance to figure out things from "what do I do when this other kid is being a jerk and won't share" to "agh I'm bored what do I do to stop the boredom" because the parents always step in and hand them a solution. I grew up with a lot of freedom as a kid, and I think it had a big formative influence on who I am today. I try to give my kids some of the same freedom that I had. Luckily we have friends in like-minded parents who also have no problems letting their kids out to play for hours in the neighborhood, or woods behind their home unsupervised.
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Mar 27, 2014 14:59
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The park by my house used to have a more modern version of a merry-go-round. It looked just like the one in this article: http://www.marinij.com/ci_19785273 and my kids LOVED it. It was pretty cool in that it had that "element of risk" in that it was pretty easy to feel like you were about to fall off the drat thing, but it actually moved kinda slow and the fall was such a short distance that it wasn't much more dangerous than a fall off a couch. Plus, no railings to whack you or get entangled in. The county redid that park last year, getting rid of the merry-go-round and all the other play structures even though they couldn't have been there for more than 10 years. The new playground says it's for kids 6-10 but is so dumbed down by safety guidelines that my kids hate it and now refuse to play at that playground. Actually now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen a kid over the age of 5 playing at that playground. We still go back to that park on occasion (it also has a big lake where we go fishing, and the kids like to catch frogs and feed the snapping turtles there) and I've never seen any older kids other than ourselves at that park since the new playground was installed. Marchegiana fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Mar 29, 2014 |
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Mar 29, 2014 15:08
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Yep, my best friend has an almost identical story with her first daycare. Great until her daughter graduated out of the baby room, then absolutely horrible. It got to the point where her daughter would cry every time she got in the car because she associated it with going to daycare. My friend pulled her daughter out and got her into an in-home care run by a little old Italian grandmother who is just the most awesome ever.
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Apr 22, 2014 00:02
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My kids were both pretty young on their first movie excursion, about 2.5 for Sofia and not much more than 2 for Juliana. Going to the movies is A Big Deal for my dad, so much so I will often tell my friends that his religion is movies. (Seriously, he hardly ever goes to church but he's at the theater once a week like clockwork. At home all he watches is AMC and TCM.) So he was all about getting them to the movies ASAP. Neither of my kids are sensitive to loud noises and dark places, so they both were OK. Sofia fell asleep about halfway through her first movie. I think it took her until about the age of 4 that she could stay up the whole way through. Juliana on the other hand had a blast the whole time- not only did she stay up for the whole movie but she ate almost the whole bag of popcorn. However this is the same kid who we brought to the Light Motors Action stunt show at Disney when she was just shy of two and she laughed her rear end off at every explosion and burst of gunfire. 
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May 31, 2014 14:42
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Uh, he's eight months. At that age they're still in the "I'm trying to figure out how this poo poo works" stage of development. And quite frequently the way they attempt to figure those things out involved putting their mouth on it or clumsily trying to get a hand on it- which usually looks like hitting because they haven't quite mastered that whole gross motor skills thing yet. When "things" means "other babies" all you can do is intervene and either keep your child at a safe distance or distract them into exploring something else. If your daycare isn't doing that, then I'd be more concerned for what they're doing than what your child is doing.
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Jun 12, 2014 02:11
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My kids also love "grapecicles" which is just frozen grapes. They're old enough to know better now but they still love them.
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Jun 15, 2014 04:00
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 23:36 |
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I tried everything I could with my oldest. I remember having a sticker chart, giving rewards, potty party, the whole shebang. Eventually it got to the point where she had the pee thing down but she fought me forever on pooping. She would literally go and hide under the table when she felt a BM coming on. I'd ask her if she wanted to sit on the potty and she'd be all "no I don't have to go" as she's grunting red-faced. She was nearly 4 before she stopped butting heads with me over the potty. I think the potty gods decided to give me a break with my youngest. She always wanted to do everything her big sister did, so I wasn't too surprised when one day just after her 2nd birthday she came up to me and said "I go potty now" and lo and behold, she went. I praised her and then tried to put her diaper back on, and she threw a fit. "NO DIAPER. I POTTY NOW." Ok, I thought, let's see where this goes. I had some pullups leftover from the oldest which I put on her instead (apparently these didn't count as diapers in her mind) and from that point forward she just went on the potty. Like I said, the potty gods smiled on me with that one.But long story short, all you can do is introduce the concept and keep trying to reinforce it over and over (and over and over), but the kids will potty train when they're ready for it. And when they're ready for it, they usually tell you in my experience.
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Jul 11, 2014 01:04
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