Toddler advice thread

[al255]

I don't have advice for the sleeping, but none of my kids will smile on demand nor look straight at the camera

when I was awake last night NOT BY CHOICE X it came into my head like what if she’s not normal cos she doesn’t smile for any photos we have

 

[BettyCrockerr]

She does go to bed late, somewhere between 8 and 9. I wouldn’t mind bringing her into our bed but she just won’t settle there. I posted a while back on here as I still rock her to sleep (I really think I’ve made a rod for my own back ).

You’re right though @honey&lemon getting our evenings back would be nice. She tends to get tired around 4-5pm if she doesn’t have a nap. On the odd occasion it’s happened and I’ve put her down early, she’s treated it like a nap so then been awake for a few hours from 7/8pm. She’s been a nightmare sleepwise, I’d like her to have a sibling but we’re both so shattered there’s not much chance of that

Her bedtime is way to late. Drop her naps. Bath at 7pm and in bed by 8.

 

[jimmyj123]

It's completely normal
All 3 of mine flapped their hands.
My 14 mo still does it occasionally but she's mostly stopped now

How often did they do it? That’s great to hear though thank you x

 

[al255]

I would say so. It's worth a try.

Can you start her bedtime routine earlier?
Do lights out at 7.30?
My 4yo has always taken at least half an hour to settle down

I’ll do that tomorrow night. She’s back at nursery after 2 weeks off due to being on hols so I think being busier all day will be a shock she’s usually quite tired after nursery days! Should I keep naptime at 1 hour 15 or cap It further?I need to make a plan to tell nursery what to do and I just can’t decide. She needs to be up by 2pm defo

 

[quinzel]

I’m wondering if anyones little one has a comforter? My son (was 2 in Oct) has a muslin bunny comforter that he is obsessed with. I don’t have an issue with it but he insists on taking it everywhere, even to nursery. It is even hard to part him with it to get it washed. Now he has also picked up a little dog stuffed toy when we were at IKEA last week and has latched onto this too ‍

 

[Emzykins]

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?!

 

[crazyangel20]

Hi, has he had his 2 year check yet from health visitor ? Mention it to them or you can ask referral to ADHD. If it helps my son is 3 and doesn’t say a right lot he’s getting there slowly. X
Sorry just reread it and seen about HV. If they’re not worried o probs wouldn’t worry

Thank you. It’s so hard to know what to do!

 

[Sailorontheseasea]

Thank you. No, she's never had anti biotics before at all, we were expecting amoxycillin ourselves and were surprised to get this. I'll ask in the morning for something else

Thanks

Doctors are so weird, they literally know the antibiotics kids hate taking I don’t know why they don’t at least try the nicer stuff before hand

 

[al255]

Hi all,

Need some advice. My daughters sleep was going so well until the last few nights.

To make it easier:

-She wakes up between 6 and 7
-She needs 6-7 hours of awake time between waking up and naptime

Then I thought it was the same for naptime and bedtime but it gets past 6 hours and it’s half 8, 8:45pm and she’s still not asleep! It’s driving me mad. I get no evening now, cutting her nap to 1 hour 20 doesn’t help and she wakes up in an awful mood and tearful cos she’s so tired still. I can’t exactly start getting her up before 6am as that’s unfair and I certainly don’t wanna be up before at that time either!

Bedtime just seems to be later and I feel like I’m going wrong somewhere. We have the same bedtime routine as majority of parents, bath, pjs, book and bed. She’s usually in bed with a book for 7:45pm giving her time to wind down and then I say goodnight and take the book away. Her room isn’t bright etc no other external things keeping her awake.

I guess I either have to cut naptime down more? But then she’s exhausted all afternoon which isn’t fair or just live with a late bedtime. Does anyone have a solution that I’ve not thought of please? Bedtime used to be 8pm on the dot no issues but it seems to be getting later x

 

[BettyCrockerr]

Soz in advance for the mumsnet length of this question and the answer is probably really obvious but we are STRUGGLING with our 2 year old and bed time. He could be the most tired human on earth and he’ll still piss around for hours before going to sleep (Mr Sailor has cooked us a lovely romantic meal tonight and we ended up eating at 9:30 because he took so long to settle despite getting him bathed etc and in bed by 7:30)!

We have cut back his nap to 1-1.5 hours ending at 3pm and no later, he has to have a nap otherwise his night time sleep is atrocious and his day time attitude is ratty as hell from about 1pm onwards. He has no screens easily from about 4pm, tbh probably earlier if any at all if we’re out all day. No sugary snacks/anything that I’d say would make him hyperactive, especially in the evening. We attempt to wear him out as much as possible with a couple of hours of fresh air at least in the day, keeping him stimulated etc. It’s not even a case of him going to bed too early, he usually wakes for the day anytime from 7 onwards and he is usually “knackered” by 6 so we start bedtime then.

Our routine is:
5pm - dinner
6pm - up to bed, bit of playtime while I get everything sorted for bed, bath, book, listen to a short audiobook in bed, then bedtime meditation/mindfulness on the yoto box, then lights out and sleep time

My eldest goes to bed beautifully but my 2yo is just standing up, throwing his duvet covers off, trying to get out of bed, jumping up and down trying to wake his brother up etc etc. HEEEEELP! We’ve just had a baby so sorting him one handed his tricky as. Any advice pls help

I think the nap is too late in the day. If he’s sleeping until 3pm I think that’s a problem. Either move the nap to late morning she’s he’s awake again by 1pm or just drop the nap and moved bedtime earlier? I’d also try to cut out a lot of the stuff from 6pm. Just take him for a bath at 6.45pm, a quick bath, then into jammies and into bed for a short story or whatever and then sleep. I think he’s probably not really winding down as you approach bedtime and he’s still wanting to play plus I don’t think he can be that tired if he’s only been awake a few hours after his nap.

 

[BettyCrockerr]

He’s never screamed when he wakes up he just wakes up and is ready for the day! I’ve gave him a bowl of Cheerios before bed anyway so hopefully that helps we will see tomorrow at 5am thanks everyone!

Let us know how he gets on

 

[miamae]

No worries, I know it must be so so hard, I couldn't possibly imagine! Not sure tbh, she was just in a total panic saying they'd assigned a case worker and she wasn't sure what that meant but she'd looked it up online and asked her mum and was told it was SS. The daycare have been on her back for a while so I agree with you she probably does feel like she's getting it from all angles, it's such a shame. Our families are friends too and my mum's been saying for a long time that she's been a detriment to her LO but she has a very extreme view on a lot of things so I try not to take too much of what she says to heart x

Oh bless her, are you guys based in the UK? Just asking as if your not it may be different elsewhere. It sounds to me like they've assigned a case worker \1:1 worker within the nursery for the little girl so they can try and help her behaviour, but I may be completely wrong. SS would have been in touch with her directly and they certainly wouldn't have given this information for the nursery to inform her. That's a massive breach of confidentiality and just wouldn't happen x

 

[Definitelyme]

Hi guys me again!
We are off to Cyprus in 5 weeks, we'll be staying in a villa with a pool. My 2.5 year old has never been swimming/in a pool before, what would you guys suggest in terms of swim aids? One of those weighted vest thingies? Armbands? a pool noodle? I am clueless as to what is best.

I should add, one of the people we are going with is a swimming teacher, so I am hoping she might help us teach her to swim But she's just a family friend not a close one, so I don't want to be presumptuous! I also don't want to pack NOTHING.

Help!

I would just take a rubber ring, or some arm bands. My 3yo would use either.

 

[WhatABore]

We got the Amazon fire tablet for our 5 year old at Christmas. They do one for 3-7 year olds and also an older one (I think 6-10 year olds) we went with the 6-10 and he loves it and it’s so easy to use

Can you get things like Netflix on them?

I know it might sound a silly question but what makes them a kids tablet?
Is it restricted apps ect?

 

[jackieweaver’sauthority]

Can I ask how you stopped the night feeds? Did you just slowly reduce? I’ve been told they wake out of habit for feeds at this age, I don’t know how true that is. I suspect he just isn’t that tired, if we have a busier day he sleeps a little better.

I followed Dr Jay Gordon’s method. It was ok, she was only really upset for 2 nights but I just gave her lots of cuddles and reassurance, validated her being upset. He says to wait til 18 months as they are capable of understanding then. I started cutting day feeds at 15 months and had stopped by 18 months. We read “Loving Comfort” and “Milkies when the sun shines” to prepare her. It took me 2 months to build up to stopping the night feeds as I was dreading it but she did really well. It was 5 nights in total then it clicked and she was fine without it. I did it during a rough patch where she’d be up for hours at night and it didn’t help with that. But once we got through that she would go 4 hours and now can be longer. I kept feeding to sleep though as she needed it. She decided to stop herself in January.

 

[Jellybean093]

I need some night training advice. My 4.5 yr old is the BEST sleeper but still in a nappy at night. She’s very keen to try to be dry but her room is completely pitch black at night. We tried a nightlight she squeezes to turn on next to a potty but she said it was too dark to find it. Does anyone have any genius ideas of ways she can get it light enough to use a potty?

I ordered this for my boys and it is actually really bright and the battery lasts forever!
Does she see a lot at night time? Could it just be the case she needs to be put on the toilet at 11ish at night, I’ve had to do that with 2 of mine x

Night Light for Kids Morfone Nursery Night Light with Soft Warm Light & 8 Color Changing Baby Night Light Lamp with Touch Control & Timer Setting for Breastfeeding Kids Bedroom Child Gifts Up to 200H Amazon product

 

[BettyCrockerr]

Thought I'd do a update, unfortunately shops don't have anbesol liquid here, but they did have somthing called dentinox an it worked amazingly well plus it must taste OK cause usually she won't let me open her mouth but she was happy to have this

So thought I'd say if you can't find anbesol liquid but can get dentinox then it works really good for teething an I believe it's from 3months up as well

Aw fab!!!! Glad you found something to help!!

 

[PillowsofFluff]

@al255, I have no advice as we are in the thick of naptime scheduling woe too, but I just wanted to say try not to stress too much (easier said than done!) All will come good in the end xx

 

[Jellybean093]

Does anyone know any good online resources for help with speech delay/SALT? We have a referral for my 2.5 year old but the waiting list is months and I’d love to do some extra stuff at home in the mean time. We already read to him loads, he loves books. We chat to him and narrate what we’re doing, what he’s doing etc. He can say a lot of words, just doesn’t use them in sentences or communicate very well. Thanks. x

My son had (still has, but is saying a lot more) speech delay and he picked up so much from ‘little baby bum’
I speak to him all the time, when we’re home/out, talk about colours, count etc. he learnt all his colours and shapes from little baby bum x

 

[BettyCrockerr]

Hi,

I’ve put off posting this for a while but I feel like I’ve tried everything and don’t know what else to do. My little one is 2.5 and the terrible twos are in full swing. I know it’s just a phase, I know he’s just testing the boundaries etc, but we feel like we are constantly treading on eggshells around him.The tantrums are unbearable, will last anywhere from 30 seconds to over an hour. He’s very strong willed and will only do what he wants to do, regardless of if we are telling him no because it’s dangerous. He will scream, hit, scram and bite us, throw things, pull draws out. He doesn’t sleep at night. Never has. He wakes at least 2 times everynight. We try to do nice things with him and take him to places we know he’ll enjoy, but he will push the boundary further and further and then tantrum and lash out and scram or hit one of us. He’s had us both in tears today. We’ve tried time out, distracting him from what’s set him off, ask him if he wants a cuddle, everything we could think of. He really is ruling the house at the minute. I feel like such a crap mum that I don’t know what else to do, I feel constantly judged by family members. I don’t have any friends to speak to or anything about it. I’m really stuck

Have you tried just not reacting at all to him? When he has a tantrum, if he’s safe - just leave him to it. I honestly think at this kind of level, there must be an element of attention seeking involved - irrational as it may seem.
The caveat to that - Have you had any medical advice? The lashing out/physical nature of it particularly if he doesn’t seem to care if he gets hurt or hurts others would be concerning me.