MSE Parents Club Part 15

delain

CAFCGirl wrote: »

any ideas where is cheapest to get some vari flow TT CTN teats?

They seem to be the same price everywhere, don't think I've ever seen the teats on offer, only the bottles which come with stage 1.

I've had a book of parening club vouchers yesterday for £5 off £20, some might be in the offing for you too hopefully

CAFCGirl

thats what i was finding but just wanted to check as my searching abilities are somewhat carp.....

aless02

We had giant, blizzard-like flurries here for the past 15 minutes, but now it's all but stopped and the sun is shining! Boo, I was half-hoping for another early finish .

Just had my first monthly review where I thought I was going to get told off for personal internet use (I didn't realise how strict the company was until that e-mail came around a couple weeks ago) but it wasn't brought up and instead was all positive. SO glad it's Friday as it's been a really long week and I've just felt so rundown (even stopped my workouts this week as I think I just need some recovery time).

Now if only I could stop sneezing!

BrunoM

Afternoon all.... just been to E's playgroup's Christmas Party - anarchy in a big scout hut with 60ish 1-4 year olds and maybe 40 parents... there was an entertainer who spun plates on his nose and rode a unicycle etc, and then Santa Claus gave all the kids presents (which parents had previously supplied with name-tags), which impressed E immensely. Snowed a little on us as we left - so far we've had 2 big snow flurries very heavy but both only 5 minutes or less.

So last night, approaching bedtime, E was wandering around while I cooked and OH bounced and fed the baby in the living room. He'd been in his nursery for a bit when he came out and approached me with a Fruit Shoot drink he had lifted from a bag in the hall (doesn't usually drink them...) saying "Oh.... spilled it. Very messy.".

What he had in fact done was, clearly shaken it and sprayed it around the nursery carpet for a bit, then got bored and poured all the rest of it into the middle of his bed.

What with being a nasty sticky drink this led to quite a large amount of work and frustration and frankly the carpet needs shampooing now but ugh.

Two parts to this I'd be interested in people's comments on:

1) he is usually pretty well behaved, and this is the biggest-hassle incident of misbehaviour yet. It was obviously on purpose and I kind of assume it might be "acting up" after baby birth (although he's generally seemed quite happy with the new baby). OH is now very anxious that he will keep doing bad/naughty/potentially dangerous things and feels we can't leave him to wander the house now etc. Any thoughts?

2) OH completely blew up at him, to my mind over the top, continuing to shout at him after he was already crying hysterically, etc. I think she and I are being too polarised into good cap/bad cop, she feels because I don't tell him off strongly enough she has to or he won't learn, I feel that if she's going to over-react and treat him too harshly over small things then I need to defend him/make sure he's not too upset rather than tell him off too... trying to navigate a route to us being more consistent and less opposed....

CAFCGirl

well done on not getting told off Aless'

aless02

BrunoM wrote: »

1) he is usually pretty well behaved, and this is the biggest-hassle incident of misbehaviour yet. It was obviously on purpose and I kind of assume it might be "acting up" after baby birth (although he's generally seemed quite happy with the new baby). OH is now very anxious that he will keep doing bad/naughty/potentially dangerous things and feels we can't leave him to wander the house now etc. Any thoughts?

2) OH completely blew up at him, to my mind over the top, continuing to shout at him after he was already crying hysterically, etc. I think she and I are being too polarised into good cap/bad cop, she feels because I don't tell him off strongly enough she has to or he won't learn, I feel that if she's going to over-react and treat him too harshly over small things then I need to defend him/make sure he's not too upset rather than tell him off too... trying to navigate a route to us being more consistent and less opposed....

In my completely non-experienced opinion, I feel like unless parents are vaguely on the same page and consistent with discipline, it will eventually lead to a confused child that inevitably misbehaves more. There's always going to be SOME discrepancy and difference in severity between mom & dad, but from what you've described there's more than just that.

I started typing more than realised I'm a bit talking out of my butt so I'll stop and let people who actually have experience respond now. Plus it's time to go back to work!

Buttonmoons

Does sound OTT from your OH Bruno, but and I mean this in the nicest non offensive way ever, from what you've posted before, your OH doesn't seem to have a big tolerance level for when E isn't playing ball, weather it's routines with naps, or behaviour etc. I would say maybe she is still raging with giving birth hormones, but she kinda always has been like that?

Omg I dunno, I'm crap with words and I'm guilty of going overboard aswell but I'd not continue to scream and hollar if Keira was hysterical, but she is a gloit with spilling drinks and cleans it up herself so I don't find out - using my white bath towels - all stained now - but bless her for trying - but it does sound like he probably did that for attention? I can't remember how old he is Bruno, around 2? So you can expect it, as he won't understand everything, and tbh, I'm quite impressed he told you he made a mess, I can't recall Keira ever doing that at that age......

CAFCGirl

crike bruno i dont know what to suggest for E....

I think when new babies enter the home its important for older sibling to continue to get one on one time, and especially with mumma. And then time when you are altogether as an entire family, so he feels like a part of it all rather than on the side. And by the way Im not suggesting that this is how it is but this is just what i glean from the likes of supernanny and nanny911....

Whether there was new baby or not, isnt he coming up to the age where they start to test boundaries? (sorry i dont know much again) And it may just coincide with new addition. Sorry im not much more help on that but perhaps someone who went through the boundary testing stage can comment...

As for the other point....
I think the importat thing here is for their to be consistency between you and your OH as to how you discipline E, otherwise its mixed messages and hell learn to not pay an attention to either of you, i.e its no good your OH telling him off for something she views as unacceptable, whereas you would let it slide (not entirely but not discipline the behavior iyswim).
Maybe now new baby is here you and OH need to set some rules for how/what E is disciplined for....and what you're happy to let go. From what ive ever read, shouting is rarely productive (although i know I for one find this very hard to remind myself of when i shout).... There needs to be a way in which both of you can discipline E, like the naughty step, where he is warned for the behaviour, given a choice in terms of the outcome and then how you follow it through and end the discipline.....

In actual fact i dont know if half of what ive just spouted is utter utter boo funky so please excuse if none is applicable, and I'll confess to not knowing very much about your situation, i.e parenting style etc....

ooooooooooooh dear, im off for chocolate

SugarSpun

BrunoM wrote: »

2) OH completely blew up at him, to my mind over the top, continuing to shout at him after he was already crying hysterically, etc. I think she and I are being too polarised into good cap/bad cop, she feels because I don't tell him off strongly enough she has to or he won't learn, I feel that if she's going to over-react and treat him too harshly over small things then I need to defend him/make sure he's not too upset rather than tell him off too... trying to navigate a route to us being more consistent and less opposed....

I don't have any proper advice to give you, but Husband and I are like this, he thinks I am too soft and gentle in telling Miss M off when she misbehaves and so he feels the need to add a harsher telling off to my telling-off - which is soft and gentle but which has got the bad behaviour to stop for now - and then I get annoyed with him for having usurped what I was doing to add something unnecessary.

Anyway, after that rambly reason I felt like I wanted to say something where I don't actually have any experience of deliberate bad behaviour for attention (but if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that's what it is, is he testing to see if the rules have changed since the arrival of C or maybe just hoping to gain some attention since C's taking a lot of everyone's time), my point!

My point is very simple, I think that causing a child to become so upset that they stop being able to understand anything beyond their own upset is counterproductive because you've effectively lost the lesson you were trying to teach them. And I also think that while one parent is almost always going to be a stronger disciplinarian than the other because people are different, everyone needs to be roughly of the same opinion because if one parent feels the need to defend the child against the other parent the message gets confused and neither parent feels supported by the other. Which since parenting is a very tough business is something we need if possible.

r.mac_2

BrunoM wrote: »

Afternoon all.... just been to E's playgroup's Christmas Party - anarchy in a big scout hut with 60ish 1-4 year olds and maybe 40 parents... there was an entertainer who spun plates on his nose and rode a unicycle etc, and then Santa Claus gave all the kids presents (which parents had previously supplied with name-tags), which impressed E immensely. Snowed a little on us as we left - so far we've had 2 big snow flurries very heavy but both only 5 minutes or less.

So last night, approaching bedtime, E was wandering around while I cooked and OH bounced and fed the baby in the living room. He'd been in his nursery for a bit when he came out and approached me with a Fruit Shoot drink he had lifted from a bag in the hall (doesn't usually drink them...) saying "Oh.... spilled it. Very messy.".

What he had in fact done was, clearly shaken it and sprayed it around the nursery carpet for a bit, then got bored and poured all the rest of it into the middle of his bed.

What with being a nasty sticky drink this led to quite a large amount of work and frustration and frankly the carpet needs shampooing now but ugh.

Two parts to this I'd be interested in people's comments on:

1) he is usually pretty well behaved, and this is the biggest-hassle incident of misbehaviour yet. It was obviously on purpose and I kind of assume it might be "acting up" after baby birth (although he's generally seemed quite happy with the new baby). OH is now very anxious that he will keep doing bad/naughty/potentially dangerous things and feels we can't leave him to wander the house now etc. Any thoughts?

2) OH completely blew up at him, to my mind over the top, continuing to shout at him after he was already crying hysterically, etc. I think she and I are being too polarised into good cap/bad cop, she feels because I don't tell him off strongly enough she has to or he won't learn, I feel that if she's going to over-react and treat him too harshly over small things then I need to defend him/make sure he's not too upset rather than tell him off too... trying to navigate a route to us being more consistent and less opposed....

Hi bruno. My thoughts/experiences. Hope you don't mind.

On point 1. We get this quite often at the moment. LO will come to me and tell me when she's been naughty, apologies and then show me what she has done:rotfl:Thats if I'm not there (and I only have to be gone fro about 5 secons - lol!) but it also happens infront of me so I do try and intervene, but not always successful. Distraction is great but not always effective.

I'm trying to deal with it by making her help me tidy it up, Explain to her that it makes me sad when she does it and why we don't do it. Usually it involves water - Shes fascinated with the stuff! When I wsa worried about it (I still am, but not nearly so much) I read through a few books including 'supernanny' and 'toddler taming'. They all said similar things, which were
a. remember how young they still are
b. think about how 'naughty' the incident really has been (i.e. probably not nearly as naughty as you think ) and
c. remember how young they still are

on point 2. I find myself sometimes really blowing up at LO over such incidents. I know that this isn't always the right reaction to have, but it can be the last straw in a long drawn out day and at the worst possible moment. I try to keep my cool s much as possible. For us the peeling off her BRAND NEW wallpaper was the worst and it made me cry (I had put it up). I shouted and had to walk away as I was so angry. Now she points at the wall at every nappy change/bedtime/wake up and says 'no touch wallpaper. Wallpaper nice, no touch. Mummy angry. Mummy sad'. Which makes me a little , but I obviously left a bit of an impression on her that time!

so, in summary. I honestly think its their age, a bit of testing boundarys, consistency and not going over the top (save that for really dangerous/dissterous situations) is a good way of approaching it. I can see it from both your and your DW's sides.

I will stop rambling now.