T minus 5 months till we have a girl running our world.

congratulations, Dan!

our little guy is a climber.

Kid's in total mommy mode right now. Mommy has to do EVERYTHING, and he throws a mini fit if I try and do anything, or if mommy isn't in visual sight when he knows she's home.

Davin's 2 days shy of 7 months now. He's scooting toward anything with a wire...lamp, television, whatever. He gets in pushup position quite a bit, sometime flat footed.

He's meeting his grandpa, my stepdad, for the first time tomorrow. We're driving down to see him. He was recently diagnosed with emphysema and may have some skin cancer. He's 72 so I'm concerned there may not be more opportunities for him with his grandpa.

yup, went through it a while back. He still does it sometimes and has reverted quite a bit since we moved, but it gets better.

That being said I am scared at what may happen when his baby sister shows up in May.

Oh god.

He can get out of his crib now.

Possibly stupid question -- have you lowered the mattress?

ours can climb/fall into the bathtub. can't quite reach the crib rail with his foot yet, but he climb every other damn thing in the apartment. :)

also, he pooped so much sometime during the night/this morning he had it in his hair! emergency bathtime

Oh how I wish it was that simple. Yeah, it's as low as it could go.

Yeah, I got your kid's age wrong. I thought he was around the same age as my youngest (who are still in cribs on the highest level), but I looked back and realized he's closer to my oldest (who is in a crib on the lowest level).

Yep. He's officially 2 as of today, actually!

I recommend a crib tent. Our son could get out around 14 months and it worked like a charm. Really easy to set up and install.

Our problem now is two fold. He throws a fit if we leave the room after putting him to bed, have to sit in there until he is either asleep or very close. Then he almost always gets up between 4-5 and comes and gets in our bed, which makes sleeping impossible.

haha

Happy birthday! And, to make you jealous, my oldest who's still in the crib turns 3 next month. :p

I can relate to those issues having dealt with a similar thing with our youngest. What worked for me is I basically just decided to stop cold turkey at a convenient time (started on a Friday night when I knew we had no travel plans for a while and so it wouldn't disrupt sleeping schedule during the week). The first night there was a lot of screaming and only fell asleep after becoming exhausted (I may have had to put her back in the bed a couple times, I can't recall) and it was pretty awful. The next night wasn't so bad and it kept improving. Things have been great ever since (this was like a year ago).

As for the climbing into bed, I would just walk him back to his room after maybe a bathroom trip and a small sip of water. I also can't sleep with our youngest in the bed for what it's worth (hellacious kicker).

Good luck, hope you can break him of those habits before your daughter is born. I forgot how time consuming newborns were until I had one again.

Happy birthday!


Yeah, we did the cold turkey on a weekend approach and it took a couple of nights to get him to fall asleep on his own.



after a couple of months we took a trip and we were all sleeping in the same hotel room and that kicked him into the crying for 15-20 minutes before falling alseep from exhaustion and having to be in the room so he'd fall asleep.

Our LG is 18 months on Friday.

He never had any issues until we moved and had been a challenge since. I've tried bringing him back to his room on the middle of the night and he throws himself on the ground and screams bloody murder.

ayup.

well, does so from his crib...

but, my little guy when it's time for bed will satnd up and put his face against mine when i lean over to rub his belly for a few minutes..

i, of course, fall for it and pick him up and rock and sing to him for a few minutes before putting him back.

Davin's crawling now. I feel fortunate. He sleeps through most nights. By most, I mean he might wake in the middle of the night twice a month. My wife, surprisingly to me, insisted after a few days of him being home that Davin sleep in his crib and in his room.

He's been gold since about a month old.

We were the same way, none of that co sleeping shit. Worked great until he became more independant.

I needed someplace other than Facebook to brag on how awesome my kid is.

My middle son, Zachary, is in 5th grade in the local public school and has had quite a year. He started the year in accelerated math and english, and has maintained solid grades in those classes. He has averaged A's and B's all year.

He was recognized for scoring distinguished (state benchmarks, test given last year) in all his classes except language arts where he was proficient. He only missed distinguished by 2 points, and only 3 or 4 kids in the school achieved that level.

He was the primary designer for his schools Lego league, which doesn't sound that tough, but was only sponsored by lego, and was really a robotics competition using the lego mindspark platform. They competed as a school against much older kids in the regional competition for the first time, (4th through 8th grade), and took 11th place out of 32 teams, just missing the cut off for state competition. They also beat the only middle school from our school district, where he is going next year.

In his state standards tests he scored in the 99th percentile in the state in Science, and scores at a high school level for math and reasoning. He was selected to be in the Gifted curriculum for Science earlier this year and has needed more and more challenging work as he hasn't been really tested with it.

Today, he presented electricity and circuits to the class as the teacher instead of having to do the regular class work with the rest of the kids.

He is hoping to become an engineer. He loves the designwork of Frank Lloyd Wright. He is very "green" oriented. He builds very advanced houses in minecraft for his age. He told me he took a test designed to evaluate survival skills in minecraft over 3 game days. He said he got a B+, which he told me was a level a teenager should get. He turns 11 in 2 weeks.

He takes all of this totally in stride, like it's no big deal. I assure you it is to me. I am beyond proud of him and want nothing more than to continue to encourage him and watch him progress through his life.

Yeah, I won that battle. He never slept in our room, from day 1. She actually admitted it was the right call.

Ours slept in our bed for years. The nice part was none of this drama, they just slept. If they woke up, my wife would roll over and nurse them and they'd both be asleep in seconds. It wasn't perfect, certainly, it was at times difficult to sleep with a baby in bed, but the nice thing was never having to get up, so it worked out.

PilotMan,

yay!

Bold: Sad statement on our educational system?

Signs I'm going to hell....

I just taught my son to say "Daddy is my god now!"

I must be doing it wrong. Last night I got my daughter to say "Come on", as in "Cahmmaaaaaaahhnnnn!"

My son learned his last name last night, was pretty cool to hear him say it

18 months old: 33 inches, 27 lbs 7 ozs. 80-85th %tile.
all 16 teeth are healthy.
all healthy.

hates shots. cried almost as bad as the six-set at 1 year checkup.

Last night wife and I decided no more of this nonsense. He was in our bed at 1:00 AM and moved around, kicked, turned sideways, etc...all night until 5 AM when he decided he wanted to get up.

We both woke up exhausted, her more then I because she is 7 months pregnant on top of it all. We decided if he is going to keep up awake anyway we may as well fight the good fight and try to get him in his room.

It usually took something to get me to the breaking point before I changed stuff up too. I'm sure it will work out ok after a little while for him to get used to it. If possible, maybe you can add something minor and not too time-consuming that he likes to the bedtime ritual (whether it's an extra story, new stuffed animal if he's into those, etc... Something to soften the blow of the change in what he's used to.

My oldest (6 years old) had surgery Tuesday to remove an extra adult tooth the dentist spotted a couple weeks ago. She was excited to have it done because she had a ridiculously loose tooth that had been bothering her for a while. After we got there and they started strapping on stuff like oxygen monitoring devices and covering her with a blanket / putting a hairnet on her, she wasn't nervous but started to get a bit wary (as did her father). I explained to her they were going to have to poke her in the arm to put the IV in and that it woukd feel uncomfortable after it was in, but it wouldn't hurt as much as her booster shot. Leaving the room soon after that was tough, but she apparently did well (she told me the surgeon said she handled it better than her adult patients did, which she thought was funny) and she was a little out of sorts for a few hours, but then she acted like her usual self and she's been doing great since then. They had to take out three baby teeth to get the adult tooth out, so she had a big present for the Tooth Fairy.

Wow, that's rough, JAG. My youngest had a cavity filled recently, and they did the blood pressure cuff and a bunch of stuff on him. I was a bit worried he would freak out. But they doped him up first and after he had no idea I was even in the room with him. But anytime you watch something like that is tough. My oldest had his tonsils out and having them roll him away was hard even htough i knew it was a simple procedure.

Glad she was such a trooper JAG.

So he waited until 4 AM to come into our room but eventually did. We decided the best course of action would be to let him fall asleep in our bed then carry him back in. He woke up when I picked him up, cried a bit when I put him in bed, then fell right asleep and stayed there the rest of the time.

We had trouble getting back to sleep because we were waiting for the inevitible wake up, but it never happened.

He woke up around around 1.45a or so this morning and i chanegd him since he was soaking... Tried to get him to sleep for a while and then my wife took over and slept next to him

Well, attempt 3 of breaking him of the pacifier has gone amazingly well.

He's only used it for naps and bedtime for quite awhile - we had him off it for naps on two separate occasions, but he got sick and was so miserable we relented.

This time, we went all in, no more pacifier period. After 2 days, it's gone surprisingly well. He asked about it, we told him it broke, and he's pretty much slept without fuss.

Hmm... I will be following along very closely at your updates on this. What happened on the first two attempts?

Little backstory first.

He was about 1 or so when he first went off the pacifier at daycare, from a complete fluke. We forgot to pack it in his bag one day, and the daycare operator thought we were done with it for naps. Apparently, it worked out not bad there, though obviously I'll never know EXACTLY how it went. But, he hasn't used the pacifier for naps at daycare (4 days a week, basically) for probably close to a year now. Ever. Home, however...different story.

Both the first two attempts went about the same, actually. The first weekend we started (taking it away for naps), he basically cried himself to sleep. And let me tell you, he was very, very much not happy. He threw more of a fit than he did when he was cutting his first teeth. Heart wrenching. Weekend two worked out much better, actually. He did okay, fussed a small amount, went to sleep, not a major deal. After 3 weeks, it was okay - (there'd still be days when he fussed a bit about it, but nowhere near the hell that was the first couple days) we were getting ready to try it for the overnights.

Then he got sick, blah blah blah, you know the drill. He was feeling so miserable we had to cave and let him have it to calm him down. He needed the rest.

This time went amazingly smooth in comparison. He KINDA fussed that first nap, but not bad, didn't throw any kind of fit that night, and the second day/night he was just fine. He asked about it, but we just stuck with the story ( "sorry buddy, it's broke" ). Crossing our fingers, but it's been much, much easier.

Long story short, the first nap/whatever you nuke it, if your kid is anything like mind, is gonna suck. They're gonna wail and cry, you're gonna want to cave. My wife is/was the anti-pacifier nazi between us, and she wouldn't let me cave. I'da caved. The good news is, it got much, much better very quickly.

It is amazing how fast they adapt. First night bringing my son back to his bed he woke up and pitched a fit, now he doesn't even move a muscle.

Progress.

He stayed in his bed all night last night. Woke up at one point around 4 AM because he couldnt find his puppy, wife found it for him and he went right back into his bed.

His big boy bed comes Sunday, curious to see how it goes. Amazing to me he has already outgrown his racecar bed.

So far so good on the pacifier. He's been sleeping / staying asleep better. He still asks about it before bedtime, but doesn't throw a fit when we say it's broken. (Though it still sounds like we took away his best friend.)

In other news...he's starting to show signs of wanting to use the potty. That would be rather lovely.

We go back and forth on the continuum of baby in our bed, but assuming his room is safe, just stick him in there and let him cry it out. Takes 2-3 days of howling and holding your wife down from going to get him.

Yup. And much easier to do before they start talking than after.

Our son is almost 3. He just likes coming into our room so short of locking him in from the outside we need to be patient. First night in big boy bed tonight. He was so excited took a while to get him down. Hopefully he stays in there.

Getting stuck in the middle of constant jabs between my wife and my folks (who live close and watch him about once a week), mainly over the boy, is getting very old, very fast.

Neither side wants to budge, nobody wants to hear they're wrong, I get to be the middle man and pretty have every side pissed at me.

my take on this, CW, if you care: Unless safety is an issue, your wife >> your parents.

latest issue: our boy used to sleep 8.00-9.00 pm -> 6.30 am (sharp, uncanny how great an alarm clock he is) with maybe one little whimper/cry in the middle of the night but goes right back to sleep. I am trying to get him back on the going to sleep between 8 and 9 schedule but we had some disruptions like a funeral to go 2 timezones away and my father-i-l is staying with us to help with some hell work schedules my wife has.

Lately, he has taken to waking up sometime between 2.00 and 4.00 am wailing and wailing non-stop. Check on him, get him settled down, leave, back to wailing non-stop...

Ah, if it were only so clear cut as that. The latest in a long line of soul crushing insanity is over...yes...our boy's shoes.

Wife bought him a new pair. He's got my fat feet, he needs wides. These weren't (but we needed SOMETHING, since his old pair he could just slip off his feet at will, which got highly annoying in the car).

Folks ordered a pair of wides for him, after deciding those didn't fit. Fact is, they didn't fit, were really heavy, and he walked kinda funny with 'em.

Folks don't wanna hear they don't get to flat out decide shit like that. Wife doesn't wanna hear they are, in fact, correct about him needing shoes that fit properly. I'm the bad guy with my wife because I'm clearly not supporting her (wrong) decision, I'm the bad guy with my folks because I'm clearly not supporting their (over the line, but right) decision.

Well, gotten one side to actually back down a bit. Wife is gonna take some more work.

We'll be converting her crib into a toddler bed this weekend. Wonder how she's gonna take it.

Also, her first big mishap yesterday. She was playfully jumping on our couch when I told her to sit down. She did, but onto an unstable couch pillow. She tipped over and hit her forehead on the leg of her small folding table. Luckily it was that and not the heavy coffee table. Nonetheless, she has a small welt on her forehead.

Any potty training tips anyone can offer?

Other than jealousy, if yours is starting on it?

That whole 'interest in using the potty' thing I mentioned a bit ago seems to be a passing fad.

Haven't started yet. We'll probably pick this or next weekend to do this.

So is the idea to go cold turkey on the diapers during the day and have her run around bare-assed?

I have no idea. :)

Potty training is more parent training than child training. Also, each child is different.

With us, our first was almost potty trained at a year, but then we all got the flu and it all went out the window. When he was two, we took a weekend and let him run without a diaper, and when he needed to go, we sat him on the potty. He had a good idea of what it felt like when he needed to go, and without the comfort of the diaper, he was worried about going on the floor. He was also aware of what he was doing when he went. We had 2 maybe 3 messes to clean up and we were good to go.

Our second was more difficult. He was more than happy to fill a diaper. We tried pull ups and training underwear, but he had no problem being wet. It took about 2 weeks to finally get him fully trained. We had to put him on the can every hour for him to go. Finally, he figured out that if he went in the toilet, he didn't have to go sit every hour. We also made him "clean up" a couple of spots as well. With him, we realized that we had to be a bigger pain in his ass, than him taking the time to go to the bathroom. To this day (he' 8), we still have problems with him flushing the toilet and washing his hands.

Mine will be 3 in 2 weeks and has a very passing interest. We give him a sticker if he goes, and he is starting to go at daycare, but still no breakthrough. I am worried with a new one coming in less than a month that he will revert back anyway.

If your kid like stickers, a "Potty Chart" where he gets stickers to put on it every time he uses the potty worked wonders for us. We're not 100% there yet, but we're damn close...we still get wet pull-ups overnight and the occasional accident during the day. Hopefully he doesn't regress with his new sister in the house...

Tonight is a happier & more relaxed atmosphere after my kid's tennis match than we've experience before.

After an 0-3 career start, the monkey is off his back after a solid 8-5 win in JV doubles action this afternoon. What you probably need to know before I say anything else is that he started playing less than 5 months ago. His initial goal was to simply minimize the suckage enough not to get cut. With that mission accomplished (narrowly I suspect), the losing was getting in his head at least a little bit I think.

So .... it was awfully nice for him to get not only a nice backhand passing shot down the line to wrap up their 7th win, but then to get the winner on match point with basically the same shot.

Yeah, proud daddy. Even more relieved really, that was a weight I didn't want him carrying around for 10-11 months since today was probably their final official match of the season.

Whew.

And, as a follow-up ... I'm even happier Monday night happened for my kid, otherwise tonight's 0-8 loss would probably have been quite demoralizing. Completely overmatched against a powerful sophomore from a Class 5A powerhouse (who looked like a probably #2 or #3 varsity singles player for 90% of the teams in our classification).

On the bright side, no notable injuries suffered during his match, so that's something at least.

Davin's trying to figure out the whole walking thing. Loving every minute of it!

I remember when Ashley finally figured it out. As she was walking from point A to point B, she tripped over a toy. But instead of falling over, she actually took a hop-step to regain balance! Was one of my proudest moments, right there.

Matthew's first sustained steps:

Wife & child are now back from the DMV ... despite the fact that he drove home.

God help us all, he's officially 15.

What is the deal with middle school kids attending a middle school 'prom'? When did this stuff start happening? I've got former youth football players posting all of these prom pictures, and it just has me thinking, "kid, you can't even drive yet."

Started a few years ago, sometime after full cap-and-gown kindergarten graduations.

It has been great having family from New Jersey around to help with the new addition, but it is time for them to go. Thankfully my parents leave today, the In Laws will be here until Sunday. Not that I don't love them, but I am ready to move on and get into a routine.

My in laws arrived 3 and a half weeks ago, my parents 2 and a half. Babay was born last Monday. They are all staying with us. House is big enough, everyone has their own room and bathroom, but it is impossible to get a routine down that works with all these people there.

Still, my Son is going to be crushed when they leave, he has really enjoyed having them around. My SIL and BIL arrive from London Saturday and stay until Thursday the 23rd. Will be fun to see them, but I will be glad that Memorial Day weekend will be just us.

I remember we had an 8th grade graduation dance. But it wasn't prom... not even close to it.

If you take your not-yet-potty trained toddler, and want to take them swimming.. Do you just use the water pants or put a diaper under them?

Swim diaper and lining. I take my son all the time.

Yep. Swim diaper.

Yep.. worked great.. looks just like the lining of a regular diaper. He was very apprehensive and unhappy about the cool water, but after he was in, he's very happy and splashing around.

My son has now realized the new baby isn't going anywhere and he has entered full blown " I want Mommy to do everything for me all the time" phase. Luckily he still goes to daycare, but it is maddening at night, especially if the baby needs to be fed during bedtime.

I don't know which is more amazing to me at the moment:
that kids ever survive HS today, or that parents ever survive HS today.

congrats! remind me to stay off the roads!:devil:

Remind to stay off the sidewalks!

This might not be a bad idea. So far my nerves have managed to ride with him twice. Both times I've desperately wanted a drink immediately afterwards.

Considering that I frequently scuffle with the whole "will to live" thing anyway, this should tell you something. Right now turns, and the concept of turning in general, seems to be his greatest challenge.

did you slam on the invisible brakes? grab the top of the doorframe?

I am not looking forward to this in a few years.

I sit in the back, hold onto the oh shit bar & try not to throw up.

Why must my kid always scrape and bang his face, of all places?

Poor guy. Tripped on a step outside, has this hideous looking scrape on his temple. And then banged his head at the playground a day later, earning himself a nice bruise right on his forehead. Swear. Combine this with his perpetually bruised shins, I'm almost embarrased to take him anywhere - it looks like we abuse him.

I feel like I spend every waking moment yelling at my 3 year old son, the kid listens as good as a fire hydrant.

I think my wife has lost the will to live ... she let him drive in the middle of downtown ATL today (down 75, thru the Grady Curve, out to I-20 and on to Conyers ... for those who know the area).

Suicide by teen driver? :D

My boy has officially graduated to a big boy bed.

More accurately, a crib with 3 rails and a small fence in the front instead of 4 rails. :)

My 3 year old son just went potty, and as I am cleaning up the bathroom he runs away with no cloths on. No biggie. I then hear quite the commotion from my wife in the dining room. My son decided it would be funny to run to the table, pull a piece of shit from his ass, and put it on the table.

I'm sure we'll laugh about it someday.

:lol:

It's funny, as much as I wanted a break from the kids, now that they're in California the house is quiet and I don't like it. I miss my daughter's sarcastic sense of humor, and my son's obsession with license plates.

3 1/2 more weeks til we go pick them up. *sigh* :(

Dropped ours off in Chattanooga, TN for a 5 day tennis camp. No biggie & probably not quite noteworthy enough for this thread perhaps, except for what his regular coach down here did.

Put in a call to the guy running the camp (who he played against when he was at Auburn & clinic guy was at UT), had to be at least a half hour or more conversation (based on all the stuff the camp guy knew). The interest level from the camp director was obvious when my kid arrived, was very tuned in about him, upbeat, personalized, etc. etc.

That call had to be one of the nicest things any non-related adult has ever done for my kid.

I'm glad to hear it's not just Bren. We've been working on listening to Mommy and Daddy, but it ain't going so hot...

Age 15 = terrible twos X 7.5

I'm gonna need a bail bondsman if things don't improve soon.

Eesh, I'm seriously dreading when the kids reach that age.

I wish I had better news to report but, at least in my case, I think this past year has felt more like 3-4 years. By the time he heads to college I figure I'll be at least 80 years old (mentally/emotionally).

You'll match your profile pic then. :D

my wife goes back to work next week and I am taking a month off to stay home with our daughter. Lately she has been flat out refusing a bottle, to the point where I am getting worried

That sounds frustrating, Lathum. I know some people have to go through a big ordeal of finding just the right bottle type or just the right way of introducing it. Good luck.

So, two thoughts...

There is a book called "How to Talk So your Kids will Listen, and Listen so your Kids will Talk." Or something to that effect. Some of it is over the top and goody goody, but the general message, I think, is very good. We have pulled a few ideas from there which are very effective. Probably the most effective is to give choices when you want them to do something.

For example, we often have trouble getting my son out of the bath tub and getting on with his bedtime routine. We've essentially fixed the problem by offering him a choice of how he wants to get out of the tub. Instead of back and forth of time to get out, I want to stay in, blah blah, it is, OK, tonight do you want to hop out of the tub like a bullfrog or fly out like a seahawk. He almost always takes a second to think about it, makes a decision and acts on it.

Second thing is we have a short list of rules which he's memorized. Rule number one is listen to mommy and daddy. There are a couple of fun ones (take care of the Ipad and one he made up about sharing a certain toy). But if he's not doing something, instead of the back and forth, we'll just say something like, Hey, bud, are you following rule number one? He's remarkably honest about it and will usually try to do better.

Obviously, each kid is different, but those two little tricks have worked really well for us.

dola...

And a fun story. My three year old has some sort of bug bite under his eye. Looks like he's packing a raspberry under his eye. Kind of sad.

Last night I was asking him if he remembered getting bitten or stung by a bug.

He says, "No, I'm not sure it was a bug who bit me."

I say, "Really? What do you think it was?"

He says, "I think maybe it was a dinosaur."

haha

sounds like a big bug!

we also give our 3 year old choices and it works really well. We are about to start on chores and rules. We'll see how that works out.

This has worked very well for me with my three year old. For example, as part of the bedtime routine, I ask him would he rather go to the bathroom or brush his teeth first. He quickly makes his decision, does whichever task he picked first, and will then do the second.

Those techniques definitely help ... some. There's a bit of a honeymoon phase when they're younger where all these parenting techniques on behavior and eating, etc., work really well. Every time I talk to someone with only young kids they tell me how great their kids eat and behave because they do blah, blah and blah and I just smile and say, "Yep, I remember those days."

That said, even if it doesn't keep working really, it is the right technique to offer choices and open lines of communication. That's the parenting style which is shown to work best in the long run.

Anyone know how to get a 2yo to get back to sleeping by herself after having spent the last 3 weeks sleeping with mommy and daddy during the vacation?

We had some similar issues with my son and tried a bunch of different things. Basically we just praised him a lot on the nights he stayed in his room, and eventually he stopped coming in. Nothing else worked. Once they are out of the crib there is little that can be done.

Yeah, I think it just takes patience. It may seem like it's going to take forever to get them readjusted, but soon you'll forget it even happened. I think most parenting challenges like this require continue pushing the issue the direction you want it, gently. If it doesn't work, wait a bit and try it again.