The Mom Thread

[Metal Morphosis]

I felt awkward sometimes at the playground or wherever when other babies didn't have one but whatever, it's a very short stage. L likes his soothers and it's clear they make him happy but when he doesn't see them it's rare (during the day) that he seeks them out.

I'm starting to feel a bit like this with my almost 2 yr old and his beloved bottle of milk (as in bottle with a nipple, not a sippy cup). Neither of my kids would take a soother and Elliot just didn't seem to need anything at all to settle, but Thomas loves loves LOVES his milk ... in a bottle, with a nipple. At his 1 yr apt our ped said we should cut out the bottles by 15 mos but he gets so much enjoyment out of it we haven't been hard asses about having him make the switch to a cup. We've tried a few different styles, but he usually hands them back to us. He will take water out of any type of cup / straw, but milk must be in the bottle. At what age does it start to look weird? I dropped Elliot off at camp on Monday and there was a 4 year old there with a bottle of milk - to me that was weird... I suddenly had visions of Thomas being dropped at school with milk and started thinking whoa - maybe we'd better get on making the switch sooner than later lol.

It's so great to hear your take with multiple kids! We are the same, we feel it's only a few years of more intense night-time involvement and then it tapers off and you have your nights back (until the next baby). That said if L showed any inclination to sleep on his own we would run with it, before we moved him into our room this week because of the lack of AC in his room he was showing he was ready to fall asleep on his own, unfortunately it seems to have no correlation with being able to fall back asleep on his own at night yet, we've had some rough nights, first due to ear infection/sickness, now due to him wanting to go downstairs/outside in the middle of the night.

Elliot did really well with the transition - both from crib to toddler bed and toddler bed to his big boy bed. He was almost 3 when Thomas came along so he was fully able to understand the reasons why he needed to sleep in his own bed and call out to us. He didn't put up much of a fuss at all. I can see it being a problem if you have your kids closer in age and the older one is still too young to understand the reasoning, but for us it was a non-issue.

Thomas used to be terrific at putting himself to sleep - we'd sit with him in the rocker, read a story while he drank some milk, he would often point to his crib - you'd throw him in and walk away. But somewhere along the line he stopped doing that - i think it was when we went on vacation in April, and since then we can still put him in his bed fully awake, but he says "chair" meaning he wants us to sit in the chair and sing to him until he's asleep, so we've been doing that to keep him happy.

 

[geminigirl]

Actually, sleeping with him and letting him know that you're always there for him will allow him to grow into an independent kid. ENJOY HIM NOW.

Our fucked up society has taught us that there may be something creepy or dangerous about sleeping with our kids.

Guess what - no one is perfect and no one grows up without weirdness. C'est la vie. So put the baby gate back in storage and go back to the arrangement that makes the whole family happy and cuddly.

ffs.

in other news, i'm totally giving my 3-week old daughter a soother because otherwise I can't eat or sit or do anything without her on my boob. i'm ok with that.

Great post Maria!
And yay for soothers! I looove having a soother baby/toddler. Very helpful. Soothers have played a big part over here for big night sleep and naps.
Ps. Little miss Melody is so sweet. Lucky mommy!

And yes Mcbee - toddlers are indeed nuts!

 

[geminigirl]

Ruby and Metal Morphosis- it drives me crazy when people think that toddlers no longer need soothers and bottles. Same deal as the co-sleeping topic, they aren't going to be doing it when they are 10. There seems to be such a push to get on sippy cups nice and early and potty trained when they are not even developmentally ready etc.. I believe in 'following *their* lead'.
Let them have their soothers and bottles and be proud of your parenting decisions.

Presley also has her soother when out and about - especially if she is tired or needy. At a certain age, I may say that it is just for nap and bedtime. We will see how it goes. Her love for her soothers is craaazy and rather funny. She will have 3,4,5 of them on the go and rotate them(this is at home) or she puts 2 in her mouth at the same time(I need to snap a photo of this). And when I give her a bottle, sometimes she is not sure which one she wants more, so she put the soother to one side of her mouth and her bottle to the other side. Little weirdo!

And she also drinks out of a bottle. Sippy cups are just for water over here. I am in NO rush to take her (as Metal Morphosis says) beloved bottles away. Nooo way. She can have them until 3+ years if she likes.

 

[mingster]

well...lots of reasons really. home birth is really only safe when we carefully screen women and have normal, low-risk deliveries at home. breech is not normal and there is an increased risk of problems due to things like cord prolapse or head entrapment so while vaginal breech is fine - it really should be done in hospital to ensure that c-section is close at hand in case there is a problem. with vbac many would recommend that this also be done in hospital due to the increased risk of uterine rupture. i am well informed and am willing to accept the slightly increased risk for all the benefits of home birth but don't feel that it's a reasonable choice when you combine breech + vbac. these are, of course, all personal choices that need to be thought over and decided upon and aren't the "right" choice for everyone. the OBs at my hospital would think i'm INSANE for even considering having a home vbac but i feel really comfortable with my decision and have parameters that i'll abide by in labour that would make me change my plan.

thank you for providing this sensible and educated answer to that question.

can i ask what lead to your first caesarean?

i'm trying to decide if i still want to try a VBAC or go for a planned c. i had CPD with delivering David, and i have gestational diabetes this time around and baby is already bigger than when david was born, with 3 weeks to go! so i'm leaning back towards a planned c as of yesterday. also trying to avoid going through labour only to end up with a c-section anyways which would be worse. argh! i would hate to have regrets either way.

 

[rubytuesday]

Metal Morphosis, L is still on a bottle and he is nearly 26 months now, so I dunno haha, I had planned to try to take it away at the suggested age but I felt like it was unfair given that L was no longer nursing. We limit it mostly to at home/grandparent's now, if we're out and about he will have water or juice from a straw cup and eat food (or if we're out for a long time he will have a pre-nap bottle in the car), I feel like it's mostly a comfort/association thing at this point (although he does get a decent amount of calories from it too obviously). I wouldn't be surprised if many bottle-less in public toddlers are still getting at least a bedtime bottle. We are trying to get L down to bedtime only bottle, and then dropping that I don't really care as long as he's brushing his teeth before bed. We've just switched him from formula to 2% milk, it took about a week of mixing it together and then I found he would accept watered down 2% (like an extra 60 ml of hot water to warm the milk up). Apparently me and the bf had bottles until we were around 3 so the grandparents don't really give a crap about the issue. L still has bottle and soother and blankie and I love that he gets comfort from those things, if it wasn't for the tooth decay issue I wouldn't care about the bottle at all. My only issue is I am tired of washing and storing bottles, so I'd really like to restrict it to 1-2 a day.

Our ped didn't say anything about the bottle until I brought it up (at 18 months), but when I did she was clear we should take it away, cold turkey if needed, but again the grandparents weren't willing and I felt bad for L because he loves it so much so I didn't push it.
I have friends who act like preschooler/toddler who is still on a bottle is a "baby" and won't be ready for kindergarten and so on and I roll my eyes a bit, like yes I wouldn't give a 4 year old juice in a bottle but the bottle itself is not the problem.

My friend is a pediatric RD and she was telling me that the new recommendations for infants will be no bottles or sippy cups for infants/toddlers, period, if they nursed until close to a year (obviously infants who aren't nursing can have bottles). So switching straight to cups will be pushed to discourage over-drinking of any liquid (even water!).

For soothers I think the recommendation is to start limiting their use around 2 so it's not interfering with speech, and then take them away by 4? It's a lot more lenient than people think, and people who push for earlier have no real basis for the suggestion, except that of course if you wait they will be more attached to it, but again it doesn't lead to any issue unless you don't limit it at all and your kid wants it 24/7. We try not to let L walk around with them in his mouth anymore but if he finds one it can be hard to take it away, especially if he's teething or sick. If he's on a long car ride he'll want his pacifier/blankie and I think it's great he can comfort himself and relax, imo it's akin to an adult coming home and vegging with a favorite show and a drink, you can do without it but it's nice to have.

 

[awwnaw]

There's an issue with toddlers having too much liquid?

 

[mingster]

david is coming up on 24 months and still getting a bottle with homo milk, 3 times a day! i'll be switching him to 2% soon. but i like the fact that he drinks alot of milk and i worry he won't get enough milk if i take his bottles away. plus, he loooooves having his bottles.

i'll probably wait until he seems ready to wean off of them, and then do that. i wait until he finishes his bottles to put him to bed so that isn't an issue for us. i was working on taking his bottles away before baby came, but then i decided i'm in no rush.

 

[rubytuesday]

There's no set amount of liquids but the worry with straws/sippies and bottles is that it prevents kids from being able to regulate their intake the same way with a cup, straws/sippies make it easy to over-drink I guess. So if your baby weaned after 6 months, it would be recommended to just switch to cups of formula or milk I think. The other concern is tooth decay from anything but a regular cup, some kids walk around with sippies full of milk or juice which isn't better than having a bottle, for tooth decay it's the frequency with which the teeth are in contact with sugars I think.

For liquids, I guess it is possible to drink too much water, but the real worry is juice and milk. Too much juice curbs appetite for foods, and too much milk can lead to anemia. The anemia thing was part of why I kept L on formula until now, I was worried with the amount of formula he drank (much more than 20 ounces) he would develop an iron deficiency if it were swapped with milk, and frankly this winter/spring I was too busy to worry about making sure we were doing full on Ellyn Satter eating and limiting formula/milk properly to get him on solids, I figured he was still under 2 and it would be ok in the long run.

mingster that's probably good you're leaving the bottles too given the new baby, I've heard it can make any transition tougher. I think 3 bottles a day is totally reasonable, I would love L to only have 3 a day! I think the daily recommended amount of milk is about 2 cups a day (16ish ounces). I'm trying to get down to that this summer.

 

[Metal Morphosis]

whew - glad i'm not the only one with a toddler drinking from a bottle. feeling a lot better about this now, thanks!
Thomas has been drinking almost a litre a day for the past while - i find it's cutting into his solids at times so that is a bit concerning (for the anemia reason). maybe i'll start trying to convince him that he's a big boy and he doesn't need bottles anymore and that he should give them to baby Beckett (a friend's baby).
this new recommendation for cups only seems rather silly - we give thomas a cup of water at meals and he spills it ALL THE TIME. i usually only put in a very small amount, but it's still a PITA to always have to clean up the spills.

 

[geminigirl]

^^My dr told me 20-24oz is fine. Not that I even pay much attention to 'recommendations'.

 

[mcbee]

I tried to follow the 'guidelines' earlier on, and would give Brooklyn milk only at meals, and water in between. Now I'm much more lenient, and really have no idea how much milk she is drinking lol! She gets some in a sippy or a cup whenever she asks, but we bring water with us when we are out and about. So I'm assuming it evens out!

sarah

 

[rubytuesday]

whew - glad i'm not the only one with a toddler drinking from a bottle. feeling a lot better about this now, thanks!
Thomas has been drinking almost a litre a day for the past while - i find it's cutting into his solids at times so that is a bit concerning (for the anemia reason). maybe i'll start trying to convince him that he's a big boy and he doesn't need bottles anymore and that he should give them to baby Beckett (a friend's baby).
this new recommendation for cups only seems rather silly - we give thomas a cup of water at meals and he spills it ALL THE TIME. i usually only put in a very small amount, but it's still a PITA to always have to clean up the spills.

Me too! And same with bedsharing. Now that it's not a heatwave anymore I moved the futon back into L's room beside his bed, and now we're trying to get him to fall asleep in his bed, but if he wants to sleep beside us at night he can just roll over to one of us. If he starts sleeping a lot better he can come find us but he's still just asking to go outside/downstairs in the middle of the night.

I've found with L, when trying to encourage him to drop a bottle, that doing a straight out switch does not work (so giving him milk in a sippy cup instead of a bottle when he asks for a bottle). It just makes him mad. What works is saying "you can't have a bottle right now, but you can have apple or cereal" (things he really likes). That was working well for a while and then he got sick and was back on bottles all day. The other thing right now is I'll give him some juice and that he will accept, but straight up milk in a non-bottle is a no-go if he's wanting a bottle.

I think it takes a long time for iron deficiency to be an issue, my friend had a 3 year old patient who literally consumed nothing but milk at home, and he had low iron, but he was probably drinking milk and nothing but for a good couple of years.

geminigirl I'm glad to hear your doctor says 20-24 is normal, I think L is probably in the realm of normal but I just feel like it's nice to reduce it a bit so he'll eat with us again. He got really sick last month and went fully back on the bottle, and now he's better but would happily live on berries, milk, crackers, and juice/popsicles if we let him.

 

[kuba]

what is most frustrating with this transition is that falling asleep takes up to 2 hours. last night 9-11 I was in his room. this essentially kills any chance my wife & I can spend together. maybe it sounds selfish but I'm finding that spending time together IS obviously important, as is spending time with the kid.

so, I'm gonna put up a gate, and slowly try to cut this time down from 2 hours to 1.5 to 1 .... etc.

and once he's asleep i'll open the gate and he can crawl in at 5am like he's been doing lately.

 

[grumblegirl]

moms of older kids, what age for letting your kid bike on the road with you?

Ben just mastered the two wheeler but he's great at it, in fact today we biked from King west to Dufferin Grove and back and he was confident the whole way. i started to let him ride in front of me on some side streets, staying close and giving him instruction. He did great, but now I'm wondering if I should wait on that.
he's almost 6

I'm way behind on this thread and trying to catch up, so I don't know what others have said about this, but my kid has been riding on smaller city streets with me since he turned 4. Prior to that, he'd be on the sidewalk beside me (i'd be on the street), wherever possible. Now, he's just too fast to be on the sidewalk - pedestrians are too unpredictable for his speeds - so we ride together on the road, him in front of me, and I ride a little further into the road behind him (so that even if he's not visible, cars have to give ME more space, and therefore, him, too.

That said, we ride everywhere, year round, and have for years, so he knows the rules of the road VERY well, and is an excellent cyclist. If he/we were less sure of himself, I'd probably still have him on the sidewalk.

 

[janiecakes]

this essentially kills any chance my wife & I can spend together. maybe it sounds selfish but I'm finding that spending time together IS obviously important, as is spending time with the kid.

It doesn't sound selfish at all. Some other things that might help:

- no TV in the evening.
- read to him a bunch. some kids will relax into sleepiness if you quietly read to them in bed for longer than normal. when I first started trying to use this to sort out a similar problem with my kid, I was not thrilled at the prospect of reading like 7 books at bedtime but it relaxed him like nothing else, and eventually when the sleep stuff got resolved we went back to a more normal 1 or 2 books.
- an earlier bedtime might help, and moving his nap up earlier in the day might also help.
- I did this thing where after a quick cuddle I moved to the floor beside the bed then to the door, then just outside the door, then to checking on him periodically over a week or two, to gently get him used to me not having to be right there while he fell asleep. I explained I was going to do this ahead of time.
- talk to him about it. very small kids understand more than we think. "we have to fix bedtime so that you can get enough sleep to be healthy." ask him if he has any ideas, and write down what he says, then include it in whatever you're doing to solve it. this feels totally ridiculous when your kid is 2 but then they get used to participating in solving this kind of shit as it comes up when they're older.

I'm sure you're being inundated with sleep advice which is never fun, but that's what worked for me.

 

[janiecakes]

- I did this thing where after a quick cuddle I moved to the floor beside the bed then to the door, then just outside the door, then to checking on him periodically over a week or two, to gently get him used to me not having to be right there while he fell asleep. I explained I was going to do this ahead of time.

I don't think this is clear so let me clarify. I said "Emmet, we are going to do something different at bedtime. Tomorrow, instead of mum staying in bed with you while you fall asleep, I am going to sit beside your bed." Then a couple days later I said I would sit by the door, and so on and so forth.

 

[kuba]

This is good! Advice like this from experience is great. I did read the whole "bribery" thing with stickers but I don't think he understands the concept yet of rewards.

 

[kuba]

I did notice yesterday night that there was no difference between me laying down or sitting beside him. By the way I told MoFo that Emmet is such an amazing name!! Seriously one of the best I've heard lately (unique enough but not crazy).

 

[mcbee]

I love jane's shared listmaking for problem solving!!
Will totally do this in the future.

sarah

 

[mcbee]

what is most frustrating with this transition is that falling asleep takes up to 2 hours. last night 9-11 I was in his room. this essentially kills any chance my wife & I can spend together. maybe it sounds selfish but I'm finding that spending time together IS obviously important, as is spending time with the kid.

.

not selfish at all. taking care of yourself and your relationship is key to being a good parent, imo. I find for me the happier I am (which having time to yourself and time with my husband), the better parent I am.

sarah

 

[janiecakes]

I did notice yesterday night that there was no difference between me laying down or sitting beside him. By the way I told MoFo that Emmet is such an amazing name!! Seriously one of the best I've heard lately (unique enough but not crazy).

Thanks!

 

[janiecakes]

I love jane's shared listmaking for problem solving!!
Will totally do this in the future.

sarah

There are no words for how much I love making lists with this kid. I am saving them all. He wrote out the most recent one himself, which was again about sleep. He was having a hard time falling asleep because he was getting a bit scared of the dark. So this is what he wrote:

1. PUT A BEAR ON THE BED
2. NO TALKING ABOUT ZOMBIES
3. GET A SLEEP MASK

So that's what we did! haha.

 

[Jennika]

hey toronto moms, what's the registration date for Toronto Fun activities in the fall? I can only see the summer dates on the site unless I'm totally inept

 

[mcbee]

hey toronto moms, what's the registration date for Toronto Fun activities in the fall? I can only see the summer dates on the site unless I'm totally inept

I was just recently thinking I needed to ask this! I too want to know, as I'd like to sign up Brooklyn for swimming.

sarah

 

[janiecakes]

The PFR website is terrible. You could try calling 311 and asking them.