Toddler advice thread

[SwizzleMalarkey]

My son (2.5 yrs old) has always been a good sleeper and we were dreading the change to a bed. We had to do it last month when he started climbing out of the cot. It actually went really well, we had a bit of up and down on the first night as it was a novelty but since then he’s been as good as gold. We didn’t put him back in the bed or go in the room, just watched on the monitor. I knew if we kept going in and interacting he would think it was a game. He just decided to get back into bed and now he doesn’t get up at all once we’ve tucked him in.
Would definitely recommend letting them chose their bedding, my son loves his with animals on and remove any toys that they would want to play with!

 

[Bobbleowl90]

Mine probably has a McDonald’s once or twice a month and I don’t see a problem with it. It’s a bit of chips and some fish fingers! He eats a healthy diet (most of the time, when he’s not demanding bic bics) and we’ve never restricted foods from him. He’s always been allowed chocolate etc to the point he’s not that fussed about it now. He does love a McDonald’s thoigh and recognises the branding and calls a fruit shoot “chippy juice”

 

[Blair-Waldorf]

My 3 year old dropped her nap when she was 2 and a half. She was a nightmare though would only sleep in the car or the pram and I’d have to lift her into her bed She wakes up once in the night now and gets in with me. I’ve stressed about it for months and tried making her stay in her room but I’m at the point now where I think she won’t be little forever, it’s not the end of the world and We all just need sleep however it is. My other half works shifts so he just goes in the spare bed. Has anyone else dealt with this? How long did it go on for

My almost 2 year old doesn't sleep through the night . Recently they've had danger naps late afternoon which meant they haven't settled for bed til about 10pm . Then they've slept through. I can't decide if I'd rather have peace in the evenings or a full night's sleep.

I’ve faced this battle when she was dropping her nap. I’d have the evenings peace tbh. She’s always in bed by 7:30pm latest, those couple of hours peace are gold dust

 

[WhatABore]

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.

Tbh, it sounds terrible, but my daughter picked up a lot from TV she went from talking jibberish to talking sentences within months

With potty training though, personally I'd wait until he's got the speech to be able to tell you he needs to go

 

[Definitelyme]

We definitely think part of it is frustration towards not being able to say what he wants, which is equally as frustrating for us, especially when we’re getting discharged by professionals and we can’t afford to go private to get him the help to speak.

It just seems to be if he doesn’t get his own way is what sets him off. I’ll hold my hands up and say we have spoilt him and he’s an only grandchild on both sides, so he’s very spoilt by them too, which doesn’t help. We have said to stop treats or giving into him but they don’t always listen. I feel awful for having to come to tattle to vent, when usually I’m just here for the gossip. I’ll specifically take him somewhere tomorrow and see if giving him the options help the situation. hopefully tomorrow will be a better day

Don’t feel awful at all.We all need a vent sometimes, and sometimes that is so much easier to do to faceless strangers. We all need some help and support in motherhood, it’s not an easy thing at all.
It sounds like he is a really loved little boy, who is just going through a bit of a tougher period with his emotions. Which is really draining for everyone involved

 

[Definitelyme]

thanks for your advice everyone!!

She won’t fall asleep at 11, I’ve got no chance that’s only 4 hours of awake time and we generally have a busy morning too. I think the latter is better - shes gunna be shattered off 1 hour she okly
Had one hour 25 today and she was tearful all afternoon!! Fml feel like I can’t win really

It is a hard transition period, when they still need that nap and yet it can be a real barrier to bedtime. Personally, I don’t think waking up at 2pm is too late at all (and my kids would go to bed at 7pm at that age), but it’s about tweaking and making the changes that fit your situation best. Even though she’s had her routine for a year her sleep needs are changing as she gets older, and unfortunately until she’s ready to drop the nap (which brings its own issues!!) it can be a frustrating time of later to bed. The good news is that, as with all kid stages, it doesn’t last! Even when it feels never ending!

 

[nurseren]

I love Moon and Me so much, especially the Michael Buble guest appearance!

Oh Moon & Me is so cute. My daughter still seems to prefer In The Night Garden to anything else though. Aside from that, she wants to watch Superworm and ‘Cindererra’ over and over. My older children aren’t impressed…

Littlepotato is 4 so it’s all paw patrol, blaze and Lego Batman over here. He loves Wall-E and Wreck it Ralph too. When he was little it was smallpotatoes (hence my old username!) and moon and me! Mr Tumble is royalty in this house

 

[pinksunsetx91]

People always think dropping a nap will make them sleep better when in actual fact, if they need that nap, dropping it will probably make them sleep worse because they're over tired

Yes I completely agree my dads the worst for saying it to me

 

[pinksunsetx91]

Flash cards, stuff on YouTube, repetition defo! My daughter watches blippi no end and she knows at the end he says “let’s spell my name B L I P P I” and she says the letters out like he does and she’s 2.5 too,stick with it. Is there any SALT stuff online you can download for him xx



How are you feeling today? X

I’m feeling a lot better today thanks, explained to husband what happened and he told me I was to have a break and have some self care/rest which has made me feel a bit better. My son and me have had a good couple of enjoyable days to which has helped. Hope your doing ok x

just want to say a thank you for all of help/support the other day it was appreciated x

 

[BettyCrockerr]

My partner does help but if I’m on the house, she won’t go to sleep for him! So he’ll get up and sit with her but he has to wake me up to actually get her back to sleep. I haven’t got pregnant again (another story) so we’ve not had to force the issue. Problem is I will always wake up if she cries in the night whereas he can sleep through so I’m disturbed whatever.

She does have a nap still, one hour around lunchtime. We’ve tried to keep her awake on weekends and things but she can’t quite get through the day without a nap yet and she does seem to sleep better at night if she has her nap.

What time does she go to bed at night? Try keeping her awake during the day but bring bedtime forward by an hour. If she wakes in the night, can you take her in with you? Not ideal but it’s better than battling with her to get her back to sleep. If she wakes up, and your partner gets up for her, would she settle to sleep if he popped her in with you?

 

[watermelon sugar]

Moonbaby from Moon and Me took our binkies. Everything was fine until a few weeks later when littlepotato was FUMING that he saw moon baby on the tv without a binkie.

can we just take a moment for moon & me? I love that show hush hush says the mooooon it’s time…to go ….To sleeeeep

 

[WhatABore]

This has probs been asked before but what age would you recommend the gro clock from?

We did ours from around 2 and a half.
It only took a week of her getting used to it.
Shs'd get up and come into our room and we'd say, "Is the clock yellow?" and she cried the first couple of mornings as we took her back to bed and then she got the hang of it

She has always woken around 6.30 so we set it for 7 and sometimes she even sleeps past that now.
You hear the panic in her footsteps when she does though. When she realises the clocks already yellow and she's still in bed

 

[jimmyj123]

At that age, all day long
Any time they're even the slightest bit excited.

Now she only does it once or twice a day.

My 9yo and 4yo don't do it at all now but also did it constantly when younger.

Ah thank you! My partner keeps telling me I’m over thinking it which I know I am but I just worry about everything

 

[Definitelyme]

Does anyone have a toddler who is not a great sleeper and work full time?

I have a good job which I enjoy (most of the time) and a fairly senior position. I also have a 2.5 yr old who likes middle of the night parties for up to 3 hours she’s better now than she was but when she’s ill, her sleep goes to pot again. I feel like she’s ill every couple of weeks at the moment so I’m permanently exhausted. We’ve just been on holiday for a week but holidays with a toddler just aren’t relaxing and she had a couple of nights where she was up for a few hours in the middle of the night. I’ve come back to work today and ended up breaking into tears this afternoon because of course loads of stuff has built up while I was off and I’m just too busy at the minute anyway. Just wondering how people cope? I’m looking at stress resources we have at work and the top thing it says to deal with stress is get enough sleep but that’s just not an option for me at the moment so what do I do? I think I’m realising you can’t have it all and it makes me sad as I really value my career and want to do well for me and also to show my little girl that women can do well too. Anyway I’m rambling now but I just feel a bit lost. My manager at work is crap too and he’s fairly new so I don’t know him well enough to open up about this properly. I have a supportive partner and he does a lot with our daughter and round the house but she is super clingy to me at the moment and generally wants me if she is ill.

Would be nice to hear whether anyone else has been or is going through this I suppose.

It was many years ago now, as I no Longer work full time, but I’ve been there. Working full time and still up many times during the night, and then with my second up for longer stints as you have described. My job (teacher) is one I enjoy, but I’m lucky to have been able to step back while the kids are young which I know isn’t possible for everyone.

If your partner is willing to share nights you could trade off every other one. I know you’ve said she is clingy to you, but in my experience when our toddlers have transitioned to dad doing bedtime and night wake ups (because a new sibling is coming) it’s been much smoother than you could imagine, never had any big issues with it, and they’ve all accepted from then either dad or I doing bed/night time. All 3 have been around 2.5 when we’ve made that transition.

Does she still nap?

 

[Definitelyme]

Hi guys. Just wondering if I can get some fellow parental opinions.

Took my 2.5 year old daughter to A&E Thursday night. Basically the childminder told me when I picked her up, that she's choked on some food at lunch and been sick, but that she was otherwise ok and just scared herself a bit mainly. Anyway, when we got home, she was hysterical, kept putting her fingers in her mouth, gagging, pulling these weird faces and sticking her tongue out and just generally miserable. So I rang 111 as I was worried that maybe some food was still lodged or something. The GP told me to go to A&E. They were a bit off with us and made us feel like we'd wasted their time, but they listened to her lungs and tried their best to look in her mouth (difficult!) and said nothing was there but maybe her throat was just sore from being sick or she was traumatised etc.
Roll on the next morning, she wakes up with a raging temp of 39.9. I instantly have visions of this being connected and her having bloody sepsis or something so we ring 111 again. After an age on hold, they say to wait for a callback from a GP. 5 hours later, the GP books us a face to face appointment. We turn up, GP is fuming we haven't done a lateral flow (my bad but I don't have any and I'm not paying!). Basically checks her temp which is lower by now as we've given Calpol etc, listens to her chest, checks briefly in her mouth and diagnoses tonsillitis.
NOW my issue is, the doc at the A&E the night before actually expressly said 'her tonsils are quite big but not red and definitely not infected'.
We've been given antibiotics (Penicillin V) but I cannot get them in to her for love nor money. 4 of us pinning her down and she still won't open her mouth and I've tried everything. She gets so distressed she then vomits and it's a waste of time. Can't put it in yoghurt or juice as it's bright orange, so she notices the colour change and the taste and just refuses it.

I know antibiotics are important but:

1) I'm wondering how two different GPs can have such differing opinions when they barely looked in her mouth in the first place.
Also she now has a runny nose and cough, which surely is a virus and ABs won't work?
2) Is it worth distressing my daughter and making her vomit? Disguising it is just not working and I'm worried she'll refuse to eat or drink even the tiny amount she is now having, as she suspects me of hiding it in her food.

If you read all this, thank you

You’ve had some shocking care there, you were 100% right to seek help and you’ve been somewhat fobbed off.
Antibiotics can be hard work to get in. Is it that she doesn’t like the flavour? If so you can request something else for her which she may find more palatable. But yes, I find GPs still massively over prescribe ABX for things when they aren’t needed.
I would request a change in prescription and if she is still refusing them there isn’t much you can do really.
Hope she feels better soon

 

[nurseren]

Moonbaby from Moon and Me took our binkies. Everything was fine until a few weeks later when littlepotato was FUMING that he saw moon baby on the tv without a binkie.

 

[Jellybean093]

Thank you ladies! All of above I’ve got on my list so think we’ll be ok, I just need to stop I literally said to myself don’t feel guilty for buying/asking for money towards farm/zoo/various memberships for him as I know he’ll enjoy that so much more than loads of toys (especially after Christmas) but you know when you just look at stuff and feel instant guilt we went so overboard for my eldest when he was 2 so really trying to reign it in!

Our middle is 6 next month, and is having a party that’s costing just over £300, but I have massive mum guilt over how many presents he’ll have, even though he’s barely touched his Christmas presents as all he plays is bloody PlayStation Such a tough age!

 

[Jellybean093]

My 2 year old seems to have hit the terrible twos as they are called. Constant tantrums, throwing things, kicking and dinner time is just an absolute meltdown. Since I last posted on here he had called down dramatically and is a lot more calmer at his toddler groups now and was back to his happy easy going self. He turned two at the beginning of the month and it’s like a switch has just flicked. This morning was going ok and for the first time in weeks he was ok with my changing his nappy and getting dressed to go out and meet my friend with her little one. Once we got to the cafe/child’s play area he was ok for 30 minutes then he just had tantrum after tantrum throwing things, screaming and kicking me. I do tell him off/explain how it’s not nice behaving like that and makes mummy sad. I fully understand most of the time it’s frustration for him as he’s still learning how to communicate. He can say a few words and learns new ones everyday. I’m not concerned by it as he can understand/follow instructions and can explain what he wants if he doesn’t have the words. Sorry for going off on a tangent I just wondered if anyone has any advice/tips and also please tell me it gets easier

Me and my friend were talking about this earlier. Her boy is a couple of weeks younger than mine and she has tried everything. What is working at the moment, is she cuddles him if he’s having a moment. He screams to get out, but after a couple of second he stops, and she talks to him quietly. She said it seems to have worked
I’ve been very lucky in the fact that my boy can have a tantrum, but it will last a second and then he’ll go off and do something else. He hasn’t got great speech, so I probably let him get away with more than I would as I can understand how frustrating it is for him

2 year olds are hard and occasionally worse than the devil

 

[Blair-Waldorf]

I agree with this … I too noticed my daughter was waking up early or she would have random screaming episodes (hunger) .. she would have tea at 5pm but to expect her to go from 5pm to 6am the next morning without food wasn’t fair. I give her a bowl of cereal like shreddies, Cheerios or weetabix before bed and it tides her over. I started making tea at 5 to eat at 5.15-5.30pm too so everything has shifted and it seems to be helping (fyi she’s 2.5) x

I’ve never thought of it like this I feel terrible now

 

[GlennCoco]

I think mine actually became a better sleeper in a bed in the cot she would roll around so much, ending upside down and sideways and all sorts. She would quite often wake herself up a lot in the night too from rolling around so much. Since she has been in a bed she barely moves and doesn't seem to wake up as much