Toddler advice thread

[Hairraiser]

Basically what jellybean said, are his tonsils really big/bigger than normal? Or have they mentioned his adenoids? My middle suffers severe sleep obstructive apnea and one of the classic symptoms is waking up screaming in the night because not being able to breathe so their brain wakes them up suddenly. What’s his breathing like while he’s asleep? Does he snore loudly? Sorry so many questions!

Funny you say this actually, cause yeah he does snore loudly, it sounds rattly. He’s asleep as we speak in the car seat and it’s awful, and that’s him asleep propped up, he’s worse at night! His doctor really doesn’t want to do anything to help him, he said he will see him again in 6 months time to check he’s ok and that’s it!
I did wonder if it was maybe asthma or sleep apnea! Which is Scary to think about! Is it quite common in toddlers?

 

[Justwannaseescreenshots]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my initial post! we are most days not bothering with a nap and it's working quite well! Also regarding his speech, . Really helped hearing of other experiences and knowing we are not alone! My son has actually come on leaps and bounds with his speech in the last couple of months. He was 2 in october and every day he says something new. We are still not getting sentences just single words but he is saying so many I couldn't even keep count. I do notice sometimes he just says the beginning of the word, for example for teeth he will say "teee" but he is getting there and I am really happy with his progress!

Also loving how much more aware of christmas he is this year. This is his 3rd christmas but definitely the first year he has known there is something going on! I am seriously struggling for places to hide his presents as we don't have the biggest house! We also can't wrap anything until christmas eve because if he sees a wrapped present he will instantly want to open it whether it's for him or not lol.

Is there anything you did differently to bring on this progress? Mine was 2 in November and still only says Ga Da Ma Ba. He does only a few hours of nursery each week but I don’t know what I can do to help get just one word where he attributes it correctly. He understands me when I ask him things and so knows if I’m asking if he is hungry or wants water etc but has no desire to say anything other than his usual sounds.

 

[WhatABore]

Netflix, youtube, Disney+, loads of games! You connect is to your Amazon account. It’s got a camera, they can call you through the alexas if you have one, and much cheaper than an iPad! It also come with a case. Would 100% recommend. Think they’re about £100 on Amazon?

Yeah! Amazon fire is the one I was looking at mainly.

My partner isn't very convinced on the idea.
She starts school in September and I thought things like Reading Eggs and other things would be a great help.
She uses an old phone for long journeys for Netflix so I thought it'd cover that too because it would all be on there!

 

[WhatABore]

Hey looking for some tips please!

hoping to move our 2 year old from cot to bed next weekend (Easter weekend, bank holidays = doesn’t matter if he doesn’t sleep as no work ) and wanting advice to make it easy as possible! Do we go for a bed guard or has anybody used a bumper under the cover? Thank you

This is what we use

 

[Definitelyme]

Thanks for the advice! Yeah see for me my daughter was a only 2 months when lockdown happened so I didn’t need to entertain her as much, then when we went out of it it wasn’t as bad. I think it’ll be easier now the weather is nicer as can go out in the back garden etc - won’t always need to get out! I need to remember it’s ok to be in playing with toys & it doesn’t mean she’s “stuck in” x

It is definitely a hard mindset to get out of. I’ve very much always been “we have to go out!” Especially at weekends. But my husband reminded me that while I’m home all day, he’s at work mon-fri, the older kids are at school and sometimes they don’t then want to be out again at weekends.
It is extremely rare we spend all day indoors though, I will say. Puddle suits and wellies are well used here! but soooooo much easier and nicer for us as parents when it’s warm and dry!

 

[BettyCrockerr]

No light getting in! He falls asleep between 7-7.30 no problem
He was sleeping just fine after the clock change waking between 6.30-7 but the last couple of weeks it’s been 5am-5.45 anytime after 6 I can handle but before 6 I hate

He may be getting hungry. Does he have snack or anything to eat before he goes up to bed?

 

[Definitelyme]

She‘s at nursery tomorrow, then my Dads Friday as I’m at work so it’s just Saturday day I have to deal with naps for. Then next week not until Wednesday every cloud!!!

Why is it they suddenly don’t need a nap? It’s gone from 3 hours to an hour in 4 months

does she nap at nursery?

 

[BettyCrockerr]

I’m potty training my nearly 2.5 year old for just over a month. He’s amazing when he’s not wearing anything on his bottom half, he’ll take himself off to the potty when he needs it. He’s doing quite well in trousers at home, he’ll have the odd accident but they’re really infrequent. However, the moment we go out or he goes to nursery he has more wet accidents than successes (he very rarely if ever poos his pants) even when we remind him of the potty or take him to sit down and try. Sometimes he’ll wet himself straight after we’ve taken him to the toilet. I always make him stop and change his trousers and pants before he’s allowed to carry on playing, we give him loads of praise when he does go on the potty, he has a special sticker chart that he colours in for each time he goes to the toilet. Is there anything I could be doing to help him when we’re out and about?
I’m at a bit of a loss and am starting to feel like I’m doing something wrong because I don’t think we’ve had any success in the potty when we’re out

I don’t think he’s ready yet for toilet training. If you’ve been at it for over a month and he’s still not able to stay dry under normal day to day circumstances I’d stop trying for now and give it another shot in a month or so.

my honest advice is, get rid of the potty completely. Give it a month or so and then start trying him on the toilet. Spend a full weekend at home, put him in proper pants and trousers etc and just go back and forth to the toilet every 15minutes or so initially - go through the routine of pulling clothes down, sitting on the loo, even if he doesn’t do anything go through the routine of flushing the toilet, washing hands etc.
He will wet himself and go through umpteen pairs of pants trousers etc but it should click after a few days of that - if he’s ready. It won’t take weeks and certainly not over a month. At the moment your boy just isn’t there yet - which is fine. Take your foot off the gas, try it again in April/May.

 

[WhatABore]

Anyone on here get the 30 hours free childcare and send their child 3 days a week all year round? Just wanting an idea of monthly cost ahead of my little boy getting his funding in Jan

I think it works out he’d be doing 31.5 hours a week, 51 weeks a year

Ive read the 30 hours a week get you 1140 hours over the year, so we would be 466.50 hours a year over, how do I work out the cost of that?

For reference our nursery is £54.50 a day

I think you'd have to ask your nursery. As it depends if that price per day also includes lunch ect.

The nursery my daughter was going to go to was the price per day and then had to add on lunch too.

Which will also affect it because they take an hour out for lunch and that doesn't come out of your government hours.
Not from previous experience anyway.
So if they're 10 hour days he's there, it would be 9 hours government and then we had to pay for lunch/lunch hour.

But it can differ nursery to nursery. So your best bet would be to ask them pm

Just basing it off you paying just £54.50 a day for the 466 hours you're over. If their days are 10 hours long.
Then it would be roughly 210 a month.

They can split the 30 hours over the full year for you though. Otherwise you'd be paying for the whole of August, for example, where it's not term time.

I don't know if that helps at all sorry haha

 

[Definitelyme]

I fear this may be a long post so sorry in advance!
My little boy is 3 soon and his speech is non existent at the moment. He turned 1 during the first lockdown so he’s technically missed out a vital year or so. He doesn’t start nursery til Spring (hoping this brings on his speech) can anyone maybe recommend any activities/apps/books that have helped with your child’s speech?
Also he’s not potty trained yet. Haven’t even tried. Any tips would also be great.

Have you asked for a referral to speech and language therapy? They’ll be able to help you with strategies to bring him on.
Books with repetitive words would probably be a big help, so something like “we’re going on a bear hunt” which has the same phrase repeatedly, that sort of thing. Same with songs that have repetitive segments in them. Nursery rhymes are also supposed to be great for speech, shops like The Works always have big books of nursery rhymes.

For potty training I always recommend “Oh Crap, Potty Training”. I always give it a re-read when we are getting to that age with my kids, it’s got lots of good info and strategies in it.

 

[WhatABore]

@WhatABore im really strict with what littlepotato viewed and plays with, so I was surprised that the kindle fire has to be always connected to wifi to work. I’m very tech savvy (I only have apple stuff!) so I’m not sure how I thought it worked! You can set limits for how long they spend on there. Littlepotato only has his at weekends, so I set it to be “on” between 2pm-5pm. He LOVES the Toca games.

Yeah, I intend to keep it set to certain times anyway.

Curious about it needed WiFi though as she likes to watch Netflix in the car on long journeys

 

[imtakingabath]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone have advice on helping to teach a very boisterous 2 year old boy on how to walk alongside me safely?

My son is exactly 2.5 years and I am having to use reins, or the pram still with him as I absolutely cannot trust him to walk alongside me safely. He will bolt, and refuses to hold my hand. Doesn't seem to retain any concept of road safety.
I've got a small baby too, who I'm currently putting in a sling so I can use the pram for my son. This makes it even more difficult as the sling means if he does bolt I struggle to run after him! Any tips?
Am I expecting too much? I see similar aged and younger walking alongside their parents, but he just won't do it.
He is smart for his age, and his language is very developed but there is no reasoning with him at all

Oh wow, I feel like I could have written your post myself (except we don’t have another child yet!) it made me feel better about my son’s behaviour. I think giving them more freedom to run freely in the park etc is a good idea so I’ll try to do that more often.

Does anyone have any good toddler recipe books to recommend? I pull out my hair regularly at how little interested in food my little girl is and i struggle to know what to give her. I’m running low on ideas of things she will actually eat!!!

My son’s favourite recipes both come from the Healthy Little Foodies blog. He doesn’t like meat texture, and seems to prefer strong flavours, so I tried the red lentil curry and the vegetarian chilli and they’ve been our go tos ever since. Obviously your daughter’s preferences will be different but worth a look to see if anything seems suitable!

 

[quinzel]

Was reluctant to start a new thread but I couldn’t find an existing one so I hope this is ok!

Thought this would be a good place to share toddler questions and advice.

my son was two in October and since around then we have found he doesn’t want to have a nap every day. On the days he does nap it’s regularly taking an hour plus for him to fall asleep at bedtime. The problem is that when he doesn’t nap towards the end of day he is like a zombie.
Just wondering others’ experiences of this? When did your child drop their naps altogether?
thanks

 

[Ss1471]

Ours both stayed in the cot until they worked out how to climb out!!!!! Probably around the 2 year point? The cot we had converted into a toddler bed so we just took the sides off. You’ll probably find it’s not actually the cot that’s bothering him now though, it’s that he’s realised that it’s bedtime and he knows he’s got to go to bed….! Try to keep the routine so that you settle him but then leave him to go to sleep on his own - try not to get into the habit of staying with him until he falls asleep and then having to sneak out of the room!!!

Yeah I see what you’re saying I could just end up in another nightmare situation where I’m in there all night

 

[Kim Mild]

Hi not posted on this thread before (Hi ) but i need some advice.
**TMI warning**
I have a 4 year old boy, who refuses to poo on the potty or the toilet. With wee's he is fantastic, takes himself off to do them, never any wet accidents hes perfectly fine with wee's, Poo's however he flat out refuses, to the point where he he will have a wee, pull his pants up and poo his pants, ive tried to catch him doing it and put him on the potty or toilet, this caused a major meltdown, im hesitant in doing this again in case it embeds a fear. im completley at my wits end and really worried he wont be clean for school in September, i dont want him to be bullied. Has anyone ever come across this problem, can anyone offer any advice please?

My 4 year old still wears a pull up for a poo most of the time. They have had problems with constipation and someone else is usually in the bathroom when they need a poo so I'm not pushing them .
I'm sure your son will be fine at school as he will likely get into a routine and will probably only poo at home . Just make sure school staff are aware and have a pull up / change of pants for emergencies.

 

[monga]

Anyone know the best thing for teething, neice is having a hell of a time with her side an back teeth coming in, today's been bad, she had some calpol this morning an I gave her some Ashton an parsons before her lunch, we've tried bongela an she has those teething things you keep in the freezer but she's just getting fussy an am finding food to be hard as well, not sure the best things to give her, last night the chicken set her off an she's not had much today, tried some scrambled egg but can only get half down her before it's thrown accross the room

I used to use teething granules between the trading meds but always check suitability before giving anything to a child, the pharmacist will be able to advise you.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

Good morning guys! Mini melon slept till 6.30 this morning so the Cheerios before bed seemed to work thanks so much nap police! X

Awesome!!!!! Glad it worked!!!

 

[quinzel]

Thanks so much for the replies. I read a book recently called Gentle Potty Training book and I’m happy to go forward with the suggestions but they said ideally you need a stretch of 7 days in the house before you venture out. This just isn’t possible for me due to work.

 

[jackieweaver’sauthority]

She will have it during the day mixed in Juice but nighttime is impossible. I dread it when she wakes up in pain or a temp cos it’s literally impossible. She isn’t at the age where she will take something from a teet at 4am

Oh bless her it sounds really hard x

 

[al255]

How am I only just finding this thread???!?!?!?

My daughter is 2.5, she has been potty trained for wees since January and has been dry during the day ever since. However with a poos she just won't go on the toilet at all and has started either holding it in for days or having constant accidents as she wont tell me she needs to go other than saying "my bum hurts", so I would quickly put her on the toilet and she kicks off crying!! I am at a loss, she was constipated because of it and has been given laxatives in case it happens again

any tips?!

Can you not just put a nappy on her for her to do a poo? Sorry that’s the only thing I’d think of if my 2.5 year old was in the same situ. I’m starting potty training once we are back from our holiday in June. I don’t even think she’s showing signs but going to give it a whirl x