ILX Parenting 3: Back In (Potty) Training

How did the solo weekend go, Alex?

All these kid are so cute but Howie's eyes - WOAH.

Here is Beeps being Beeps:
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8017/raspberryhg1.jpg

And heres a little monkey see monkey do after hanging out with me for 14 months:
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I've just become a Dad. Woo-hoo!

Congrats! Boy? Girl?

A girl, 'Lucy'.

awww Lucy.

Congrats!!!

Hurrah! Welcome to the world, Lucy NB&S. I'm sure you'll be neither N nor B, even if you are (at the moment) quite S.

(We should have a headcount sometime - we must have a schoolbus full here now. Lots of car seats required, obv.)

Woohoo congratulations!! Do you actually spell her name with inverted commas? It reminds me of the Australopithecus of the same name, seeing it written like that, thought I am sure yours is cuter, and with far greater cranial volume.

Congrats to NB&S (are you the poster formerly known as Teh Hobb?) and welcome to the world Lucy!

Congrats! Pictures, please...

Thanks (for congrats), No (to inverted commas, although I suppose I could start that naming innovation, but it might mean people doing that thing with their hands whenever they say her name), Yes (the artist formerly known as Teh HoBB), No (pictures, unless my wife has a change of heart about putting them up on the world wide interweb). I'm back off to the hospital now...

Are they at Whipps Cross? How was it?! I'm quite glad that we moved and got to use a midwife led birth centre, but I hope you had a good experience.

Hope you get them both home soon, enjoy!

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Mr Nasty, congrats! It also made me realize that Elisabeth is now half a year and no longer a newborn. It's amazing how quick time flies. That said, she's still not used to sleeping through the night.*sigh* But all in all I shouldn't complain: she sleeps about ten hours. I feed her at five am and then she plays in our bed, sleeps a bit and then wakes up again. I have to remind myself that Ophelia in said respect spoiled us rotten with a perfect bedroutine (seven to seven from 4 months). :-)

And since it's the thread title: I have to admit whenever I thght of babies and childrearing, potty training is what scared me the most. Silly no? Anyway we've gently started to potty train her. She wears underwear (no diapers) at the creche but at home we just ask her (after every diaper change). She's already peed once on the pot (while crying so much!) and also did it at the crech once. This after a few days. I'm proud. She can take her time. :-)

After half a year I can one thing: two kids is exhausting but so rewarding. I am so SO SSSOOO happy to have two kids even though time flies quadruple style (compared to one/no kid). :-)

I can also say: my spelling has gone down the drain. ;-)

xpost: Yeah, whipps cross. C-section, so 'mum' will be kept in for a few days. All seems to have gone quite smoothly so far (although that's relatively easy for me to say when I've got the flat to myself).

The boys both had a gnarly stomach flu this past week, barfing all over the place, pooping in the bath, and basically being super-bummed. Here's Owen on Tuesday:

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Here's Ben rockin' his mommy's vest:
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And here's Ben in a nerdy little onesie:

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OK folks - any help or advice would be useful on moving our 2 yr old boy from his cot to a proper bed. He's obviously too big for the cot now because he's a big boy - in 3 to 4 years clothes already. So yesterday the cot was dismantled, the bed installed and his room rearranged and made safer than safe - including a door gate.

Last night he totally freaked about going to bed, we tried the usual bedtime routine of bottle, stories, bed but he didn't like it at all, had to be coaxed off on our bed and then moved to his bed around 9:30pm by which time he seemed quite happy to be in it, tucked himself into his duvet, contented smile as he fell asleep. Come 5am, he was at the door gate screaming at us and no amount of consoling could get him back in his room or into bed, so we've been up ever since.

I can understand his reluctance - he's not used to beds and it's a big shock to him - but if there's any advice anyone can offer which can help the bedtime routine, it'll be useful.

Come 5am, he was at the door gate screaming at us and no amount of consoling could get him back in his room or into bed, so we've been up ever since.

This is possibly not what you want to hear, but this is precisely what happened to us with Ava 15 months ago (a month past her 2nd birthday) and we went with the co-sleeping option: getting her off to sleep in her own bed (which held no real fears for her beyond the first week), then opening her gate and closing the stairgate later in the evening. She then just comes in with us sometime between midnight and 2am (sometimes she's crying at the gate before we're ready to hit the hay, sometimes she doesn't come in until 5-6am, very occasionally she sleeps through the night in her room).

This was in response to weeks of crying-at-the-gate and trying to coax her back into her bed. Four months after graduating Ava to her new bed, we moved her little sister Lulu from the rocker-cot on the landing into Ava's old cot in Ava's room and, after an amazing few nights where they both slept like lambs, we were back to crying-at-the-gate. It was at that point that we decided that we simply couldn't go through the ordeal of trying to get Ava back in her room as she'd just wake her sister and we'd be up all night with both of them. So, co-sleeping it was and we really haven't regretted it. I can almost always get Ava & Lulu off to sleep in their room but Ava is almost always in with us by the middle of the night.

It'll get interesting next year when Lulu is in a bed too...

Things I've learnt in the last twelve days:

1) Newborns have no concept whatsoever of the difference between night and day and may well decide that they are perfectly content sleeping all day long (except for feeds) and then becoming hyperactive around midnight.

2) That brief moment between finishing cleaning up the baby and reaching for the new nappy is taken as the baby's cue to poo - be prepared for this.

3) You can't just turn up at the Registry Office to register your baby. You have to phone up and make an appointment to see them in a few weeks' time. And in fact there is no such place as a Registry Office, it's a Register Office.

4) Bath time is really not much fun for a little baby.

You can't just turn up at the Registry Office to register your baby. You have to phone up and make an appointment to see them in a few weeks' time. And in fact there is no such place as a Registry Office, it's a Register Office

The appointment date I was initially given for Ava was actually beyond the the latest date I could legally register the birth! Fortunately the Croydon office for Marriages, Births and The Other One have a couple of drop-in sessions each week, so you can just turn up and take your chances. I think I waited about 45min in each case.

Rob, I am one of those nasty parents: I actually did a bit of co-sleeping and also had Elisabeth (and Ophelia) in the same room but decided three months (and in O's case 4 months) was the time to move'em out of our bedroom. I do think it helped'em to adjust to sleeping alone much quicker. So sorry am not much help here. :-(

In response to Mr Nasty:

1) This will change depending on temperament of baby. Ophelia was a blessing (and a curse as this made us naively think all babies slept through the night from about 3 months old).

2.) Oh Elisabeth has done this countless of times. Once I was just in time to "scoop" it up with a wet towel. This is not much fun in the middle of the night, but you quickly learn to put a clean diaper right after taking the dirty one away ;

3.) Yes, you can. Here anyway. :-)

4.) Ophelia still hates washing her hair. I am so serious but she SCREAMS the whole neighbourhood together as soon as Thom touches the showerhead. It's HELL for everyone involved. She wants to stand up but this is of course bit dangerous when you're washing her hair. Elisabeth enjoys the bath so much she wants to spin around, which is also a bit dangerous but at least we're all having fun. :-)

4) Oh, yeah, and wait until you have to brush their hair.

Here are my two - growing up fast - dressed up like it's 1660 at Isaac Newton's birthplace.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2108/2504223375_fa563637cd.jpg

Sorry, not sure what 'co-sleeping' is. Does that mean him sleeping in the same room as us? Josiah's been in his own room since he was 6 months, so he knows the room well enough. It's just sleeping in a bed rather than a cot that freaked him out.

ANYWAY... last night was far better. I let him fall asleep in his sleeping bag on our bed around 8:20, moved him into his bed around 8:45 (to make sure he was fully asleep), and he slept peacefully until about five to six this morning, which is only slightly earlier than he normally wakes up anyway (he likes to be up for "Teletubbies" at 6:30 with his morning bottle). So a big success after the night before.

OK, looked up co-sleeping on Wiki. I know what it means now.

I think you're doing pretty good! Lots of 2 year olds (and 3 year olds and 10 year olds) freak over changes. I seriously think we had about 6 years of rough nights between the 2 of them!

When they get to choose their own beds it's a lot easier (and when I say 'choose' I mean you do some Darren Brown on them and they feel like they've chosen their own beds...).

Ha! That wiki on co-sleeping needs a bit of editing...

On the other side, they note that this practice may interfere with the parents' own relationship in terms of reducing both communication and sexual intercourse at bedtime.

Yeah, I did laugh at that. But no, we've never done that - co-sleeping, that is.

He does freak out about any changes. We changed his bathmat the other day, he won't have it in the bath with him, he looks at it like it's going to leap out and bite him and he gives us the lip trembling teary eyed look. He sort of chose his bedding anyway - he adores "In the night garden" so he's got Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy on his duvet. Seems to comfort him.

As a side issue, does anyone else find "In the night garden" deeply melancholy, or is it just me?

Co-sleeping is sleeping in the same bed as you - perhaps it shouldn't really be termed this at/beyond toddler age (its wider use seems to be very specifically baby-related). I'd be curious to know what it is that always wakes Ava up around 1am and sends her rushing into our room; occasionally she disturbs us around 11pm because she needs the loo, so perhaps she's going in her pull-ups later in the night and this wakes her (her pull-ups are usually dry though).

The danger with this approach is that you never really get them to settle in their own room and so you end up co-sleeping with a couple of near-school age kids. I somehow doubt this will happen though. We'll have to make an effort to make Ava's room more appealing as an environment to wake up in (no, this doesn't mean putting a telly in there!). I'm hoping that both-kids-in-beds might actually mean both-kids-stay-in-their-beds come next year...

xxxp

I loved co-sleeping and only really stopped 'cause it got so that neither of us was getting any sleep. I don't know anyone still bedsharing with a school-age kid so I guess when they're ready for it they'll stay in their own beds voluntarily.

Also, yes, ITNG does have a sad air to it and the theme tune makes me a bit throat-lumpy.

Howie is (finally) walking! And as a result, no longer wants to go in his buggy. Which makes trips to the shops a lot more time-consuming.

im posting this for myself

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SS - who are the horrible people on the right? I saw them singing on TV recently and was scared shitless. Seriously creepy.

I have no idea! My guess would be the crepes from the big couch show.

I thought they were called The Rockadoodles or something like that, but Google shows me nothing.

They're in a band together, and the clips I've seen of their live shows, KIDS LOSE THEIR SHIT OVER THESE GUYS.

Re cosleeping: it ultimately comes down to the individual child. We did it with both our kids, to vastly different results. Esther still wanders into our room at some point almost every night. But Abby never really liked sharing a bed with us. She had horrendous crying jags as an infant. The moment we put her in a crib, the hysterics stopped almost immediately. Insert horse/water/drink cliche here.

I don't even want to talk about potty training. Esther's going to be 4 in a few months and she's still resisting. I dread the day we go cold turkey with her diapers.

Esther also had her first record-shopping trip last week. We went to the record store that my uncle-in-law runs in St. Louis (not Vintage Vinyl). Esther was absolutely transfixed by all the records, and she didn't even freak out at seeing her uncle's nightmarish talking James Brown doll blurting out "I Feel Good." I'm so pleased it went well. I may be taking her to her first show next weekend - a local band called the 75s, who are playing an outdoor concert in the Delmar Loop. They cover the Buzzcocks' "Orgasm Addict," but have promised me it won't be in their set list. We'll see.

Those dudes on the right are totally coked out of their minds. There's no way they aren't

Speaking of kids' music: Apparenly I went to college with Laurie Berkner. Rutgers is such a big school that I'm not surprised we never met. I did know her bass player Adam Bernstein, though. Have I mentioned that I can't stand Laurie Berkner's music, "Clean It Up" excepted? (E and A find it motivational.)

If anyone happens to have an MP3 of "Jaguar Day" from Go Diego Do, by the way, you will be my kids' hero.

THE DOODLE BOPS

http://costumzee.com/view/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/doodlebops.jpg

It's a really slow day at work, y'all.

I'm going to have nightmares tonight

The Doodlebops can fuck right off. They make The Wiggles look like Kraftwerk. Which, come to think of it...

I quite like the songs in the Backyardigans (but don't like the animation much) and the inter-show ditties on CBeebies (especially the daisy-age rap tune about the number three).

The daisy age raps about numbers are fantastic, and well worth listening to - the words are actually quite clever. You can download them from the Cbeebies website. Josiah and I also love the Jingles, the band on "Space pirates" which is quite an adult show for kids. But the biggest smiles of all are reserved for "I am a shape", a three minute section of dancing squares, circles and triangles on the "Mister Maker" show.

Do the Jingles ever win? Every time I watch they seem to have to do their sad song about no one voting for them. Their version of "She's A Rainbow" is the definitive one, I think. Yes, Space Pirates has a little mischievous glint in its eye which is probably over the heads of its pre-school audience.

I still don't think much on CBeebies really comes close to the majesty of Peppa Pig on Five.

The Jingles' "She's a rainbow" is very much in the style of World Of Twist's version, which is fine by me. They do win sometimes, but I can't think of any examples at the moment.

We need some more babies, all our children are growing up!

Aidan and I met some other internet mentalists today at a picnic. Fortunately they were internet mentalist mums with babes all born (or due, some arrived early) in August. It was fun! I'm really enjoying taking photos of Aidan and his friends, it's very rewarding.

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I've seen the jingles win a few times, but can't for the life of me remember he song. One had a female vocalist, the other was an instrumental

Someone got their bangs cut.

http://www.axcessmypics.com/photos/photo05/41/00/cd48ef8bea43.jpg

Y U cut a dog's bangs?

Beeps, meanwhile, looks great. :-D

Listen Mr. Raggett, I think I could think of someone else who could use a good hair trimming.

oh great. now my underwear is on the internet as well as the living room floor.

Listen Mr. Raggett, I think I could think of someone else who could use a good hair trimming.

Never heard of it. And for all you know it's been a wig all this time.