Parenting Catch-all

Dryden wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

The Princess in Black series is a winner in my house.

Seconded. They are spectacular.

We just started them last week! After the first one, I bought the rest.

garion333 wrote:

Proud parent of a seven month old here. Coming to complain that he's hitting us with a double whammy at night:

(1) Teething
(2) Laying on side/stomach and subsequently peeing through clothing.

It's like he's a newborn again!

Very tired again.

Still worth it.

Carry on. ;)

As a fellow parent of a seven month old, I would like to say: be happy he's not sh*tting through his clothes. Two times a night. Carry on! :Lol:

edit: months, not years. Whoops!

Bfgp wrote:

Also, have a look at the picture books by Aaron Becker; it's a (purely illustrated) trilogy with beautiful artwork that my two kids really enjoyed. It's a fun read because a) you will also enjoy it, b) it gets the kids to narrate what is happening and c) they usually notice more details on subsequent re-reads. In a sense, the book grows together with the kids.

FTFY. I love those books, Journey, Quest, and Return, so much so we just bought Journey for a friend's kid's 3rd birthday.

IMAGE(https://i1.wp.com/www.allthewonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/QUEST.int_.2.jpg)

Bfgp wrote:

gravey: mudbunny's comments are pretty good. I would add that it's easier to train them in the warmer months, when they aren't scared of hopping out of bed due to the cold/darkness. Definitely give them their milk/fluids a few hours before bedtime.

It's been almost 3 weeks, and only one accident. She even got up to pee by herself for the first time last night! We followed almost all of mudbunny's advice—I was waking her up before I went to bed, but she only got half-asleep-angry at me every time, so we stopped that.

This was probably one of those things where the kid was ready for a change for a long time, but the parents weren't. Converting the crib to a bed was another of those times too.

garion333 wrote:

Proud parent of a seven month old here. Coming to complain that he's hitting us with a double whammy at night:

(1) Teething
(2) Laying on side/stomach and subsequently peeing through clothing.

It's like he's a newborn again!

Very tired again.

Still worth it.

Carry on. ;)

We had this problem too when ours started sleeping on her side. What solved is we switched to night-time diapers (Pampers Swaddlers Overnight) and the problem went away. Also if they are on the verge of moving up a diaper size, I found it helped to put them in the bigger size at night since it has more absorbency.

LeapingGnome wrote:

My soon-to-be 15 month old has slept through the night for a while, but we still give her a bottle of milk right before bed, mostly because that is the only time she actually really drinks milk. She rejects it most of the day and we are lucky if she gets 2-3 ounces in a day, and then at bedtime she'll suck down 6 ounces or so.

I don't know what's better for her, to stop the bottle but then she doesn't get much milk, or keep the bottle going for longer. I plan to ask at our pediatrician check up later this month. Anyone else have the experience where your toddler just won't drink milk?

Just some closure on this, our pediatrician said we should stop the nighttime bottle but make sure she is getting enough calcium through the day from other sources. Our daughter usually loves cheese so we give her some with lunch and dinner, and we try to make one of her snacks a frozen yogurt squeezer. Per the paperwork the pediatrician gave, kids need about 700 mg of calcium per day, and what you see on packages is for a 1000 mg diet (so if a package says 30% daily value, that is 300 mg).

We're still ramping her down from the bottle, right now it is 3 ounces of water and 2 ounces of milk, should hopefully be done with it over the next two weeks.

LeapingGnome wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Proud parent of a seven month old here. Coming to complain that he's hitting us with a double whammy at night:

(1) Teething
(2) Laying on side/stomach and subsequently peeing through clothing.

It's like he's a newborn again!

Very tired again.

Still worth it.

Carry on. ;)

We had this problem too when ours started sleeping on her side. What solved is we switched to night-time diapers (Pampers Swaddlers Overnight) and the problem went away. Also if they are on the verge of moving up a diaper size, you might start putting them in the bigger size at night since it has more absorbency.

Yup to both. Wife went to the store today to rectify this. She also mentioned shoving a couple maxipads down there to go with his diaper.

dejanzie wrote:

As a fellow parent of a seven year old, I would like to say: be happy he's not sh*tting through his clothes. Two times a night. Carry on! :Lol:

Thankfully our 7 year old doesn't have any issues in this area outside of when he's been on antibiotics. Always hate when he has an accident in the bathtub. Easy to clean up, sure, but then you have to clean the whole damn tub. I'd much rather throw some clothes in the washer.

Seriously though, twice a night poop, yikes.

Gravey wrote:
Bfgp wrote:

Also, have a look at the picture books by Aaron Becker; it's a (purely illustrated) trilogy with beautiful artwork that my two kids really enjoyed. It's a fun read because a) you will also enjoy it, b) it gets the kids to narrate what is happening and c) they usually notice more details on subsequent re-reads. In a sense, the book grows together with the kids.

FTFY. I love those books, Journey, Quest, and Return, so much so we just bought Journey for a friend's kid's 3rd birthday.

IMAGE(https://i1.wp.com/www.allthewonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/QUEST.int_.2.jpg)

My daughter loves those books. Sometimes we act out the events in the books. Plus we can adjust the level of interpretation of the pictures based on her age. So they get a lot of reuse.

Thumbs up on the book recommendations, folks. Journey is already in the mail, and I've rummaged up my own childhood copy of Fantastic Mr Fox.

garion333 wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Proud parent of a seven month old here. Coming to complain that he's hitting us with a double whammy at night:

(1) Teething
(2) Laying on side/stomach and subsequently peeing through clothing.

It's like he's a newborn again!

Very tired again.

Still worth it.

Carry on. ;)

We had this problem too when ours started sleeping on her side. What solved is we switched to night-time diapers (Pampers Swaddlers Overnight) and the problem went away. Also if they are on the verge of moving up a diaper size, you might start putting them in the bigger size at night since it has more absorbency.

Yup to both. Wife went to the store today to rectify this. She also mentioned shoving a couple maxipads down there to go with his diaper.

dejanzie wrote:

As a fellow parent of a seven year old, I would like to say: be happy he's not sh*tting through his clothes. Two times a night. Carry on! :Lol:

Thankfully our 7 year old doesn't have any issues in this area outside of when he's been on antibiotics. Always hate when he has an accident in the bathtub. Easy to clean up, sure, but then you have to clean the whole damn tub. I'd much rather throw some clothes in the washer.

Seriously though, twice a night poop, yikes.

Whoops, corrected! Good luck to all parents out there of toddlers peeing/sh*tting/drooling outside the designated parameters!

Jonman wrote:

We're looking to graduate Ollie (3 and a half) to chapter books. Anyone care to recommend your kids' favorite first ones?

Some good chapter book recommendations in this thread. Let me add one more that my wife and I just discovered: The Little Bear series by Else Minarik. Especially good for a child's first chapter books since they're short and each chapter is somewhat distinct. And the pen and ink illustrations by Maurice Sendak are gorgeous!

Yes, Aaron Becker! Sorry about the typo but looks like Jonman found it anyway. Hope he ordered all three because I was dying to see the next two books and our library didn't stock them for a looong time.

Speaking of which, has anyone come across similar themed or styled illustration books? There was one book which was based (I think) on the Palestinian-Israeli divide and the power of nature as a common bond, I'll see if I can track it down.

Edit: found it, A Child's Garden by Michael Foreman. My (now) 5yo daughter loved this book.

A few other suggestions for children's books:

A Lion in Paris by Beatrice Alemagna

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts

Bfgp wrote:

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts

Also the sister books, Ada Twist, Scientist and Iggy Peck, Architect.

We have all three, and I only-half-jokingly refer to them as The Upper-Middle Class Indoctrination Trilogy. Don't get me wrong, they're great kids books, but I'm half expecting to see Walter Hanager, Middle Manager and Geri Bowner, Small Business Owner hit the library.

Jonman wrote:

We're looking to graduate Ollie (3 and a half) to chapter books. Anyone care to recommend your kids' favorite first ones?

Supplemental question, I should hold off The Hobbit for a little while, right?

If you read the Hobbit now, you may have to read it again later when she will remember it better. You just need to think about how she might react (e.g. to wolves and barrow-wights), and how good you are at reading Elvish poetry aloud.

Think about what other books might have been childhood favorites of yours. (And give them a quick skim to see if they hold up or have out-of-date attitudes hidden inside.) Some of the ones we read to the kids were the Little House books, the Lloyd Alexander Prydain books, the first Harry Potter book, and eventually The Hobbit AND LOTR. Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was an audio book we all listened to during a long car trip. I can't quite place the ages we read each of these, but it lasted up until about the end of elementary school (5th grade) when they lost interest in that sort of bedtime story.

I would think something like Redwall would be better for younger kids than the Hobbit.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I would think something like Redwall would be better for younger kids than the Hobbit.

"Skullface had time for just one agonized scream before he fell. The iron-shod cartwheels rolled over him. He lay in a red mist of death, the life ebbing from his broken body."

We found that the Hobbit went over well at pretty young age. Redwall, for reasons like the above, not so much.

Huh, I don't remember anything like that but I haven't read them since I was a kid either! I just have fond memories.

I have a travel question!

We're going to Hawaii in about a month with the 14 month old. We're trying to figure out the stroller. We thought about getting an umbrella stroller, but it seems like the options are either super cheap-o, or over $100 for a better one. So now we're thinking about just bringing our regular one (an Uppbaby Cruz). It's bigger, but nicer.

So my wife's worried about damage when gate checking it. Uppababy sells a travel bag for it that's $120, but that also comes with a full replacement if it gets damaged. That seems like a big gamble on it getting damaged, which I'm not convinced is a super big risk.

For those of you that have more experience flying with babies, how likely is it that the gate checked stroller gets messed up? Secondary question is does anyone have recommendations for headphones for a little kid?

We've gate checked smaller but decent umbrella styles and Bob strollers and had no problem.
For the head phones, I recommend any over the ear ones with the volume limiter. Look on Amazon, there are many options.

Chaz wrote:

I have a travel question!

We're going to Hawaii in about a month with the 14 month old. We're trying to figure out the stroller. We thought about getting an umbrella stroller, but it seems like the options are either super cheap-o, or over $100 for a better one. So now we're thinking about just bringing our regular one (an Uppbaby Cruz). It's bigger, but nicer.

So my wife's worried about damage when gate checking it. Uppababy sells a travel bag for it that's $120, but that also comes with a full replacement if it gets damaged. That seems like a big gamble on it getting damaged, which I'm not convinced is a super big risk.

For those of you that have more experience flying with babies, how likely is it that the gate checked stroller gets messed up? Secondary question is does anyone have recommendations for headphones for a little kid?

We got out daughter a pair of Kidz Gear headphones and a used iPod shuffle for her second birthday. Gotten great mileage out of both.

On the stroller front, have you considered buying an umbrella stroller from Amazon, then returning it after the vacation? Not exactly super ethical, but then again, neither are Amazon.

When we went on a trip with our (then) 5 month old, we just bought a stroller/baby seat at Walmart when we arrived and returned it when we left.

We traveled from Greece to the U.S. and back, taking with us the whole set of stuff we use at home (car seat that snaps into stroller, AND the normal seat for the stroller). We checked the car seat and base at the ticket counter, with a cheapo cover for it (which absorbed the bit of grime from going through the conveyor belts). The stroller, they take AT the plane, and give it back to you AT the plane. Anything cheap you can fit it in would be fine, as they put them in last and take them off first. We got the official carry case for ours, but it was 30 not 120. I imagine you can find a one-size-fits-all stroller cover on Amazon, like we found for the car seat and base, and that would be more than fine.

BLARGH.

So some background, I am a huge fan of this team and have been my whole life. There is no sport I love as much as baseball. It's perfect and I am a nerd for it. Not just the Indians, but baseball as a concept. Love it.

That said, my team used an obvious racist caricature as its logo for years, only recently making the switch to a VERY boring logo but the racist one is still AN official team logo. The players still wear the patch. Rumor is MLB is forcing us to get rid of it for good after this season. That would be great.

I am a huge, if conflicted, fan of this baseball team. I tossed out all the wahoo gear we had. Literally threw it in the trash. I think we should be above imagery like that yet I still spend money on this team. Yes, I'm a weak hypocrite, let's move on.

So that's the background. Here's the issue:

One of my kindergartners came home with a giant chief wahoo picture to color from art class. I took this calmly. I wrote an email to her teacher asking her to confirm who the art teacher was today. Once that's done, I will write them a firm email.

I realize I am officially that dad but we moved to this town specifically because it prides itself on diversity and inclusiveness. Seriously, it's in my location under the cartoon dog. Google us, we're kind of unbearable about how inclusive we are. And yet... I had to explain to a 5 year old over dinner what racism was because she was astute enough to figure out I was asking more than the usual battery of questions about her day.

sigh.

Anyway, I'm writing this as my realization that I am apparently that dad, at least when it comes to social change. I probably won't yell at anyone.

Oily, I can't believe you didn't realize this, but "diversity and inclusiveness" in NE Ohio, an otherwise overtly racist part of the country, doesn't amount to much imho.

garion333 wrote:

Oily, I can't believe you didn't realize this, but "diversity and inclusiveness" in NE Ohio, an otherwise overtly racist part of the country, doesn't amount to much imho.

Yes, thank you. That's monumentally helpful. I've been here my whole life, I actually don't need anyone to point out how terrible Ohio is.

Whether you believe me or not, the fact is that my little Cleveland suburb has one of the finest public school systems in the country. A large part of that is an open and welcoming attitude towards minorities. There are 16 kids in one of my girls' classes. 4 of them (mine included) are white. This is why we chose to live here despite state-maximum taxes. The bullsh*t is there right under the surface but Solon is at least talking the talk, if not always walking the walk.

Which is why I expect better from the faculty than this.

Oily, as a fan of the Washington DC NFL franchise, I sympathize. Although as a kid I accepted the team line 100% (the name is honors native americans, and actually many native americans take great pride in it!) over the last decade or two I've shifted from totally accepting it, to finding it mildly unfortunate, to finding it to be pretty uncomfortable. Having lived in Vermont the last few years, no longer in the epicenter of DC football fandom, I stripped my car of my bumper sticker and don't wear any clothes with the team name on it (not that, in retrospect, I shouldn't have thought of doing that sooner, but you think about the message of that stuff a lot more when you're no longer seeing tons of other people doing it with you). At least your team's name itself isn't a slur! I feel incredibly conflicted about telling my daughter about our family-approved favorite football team--you can't really teach a 5-year old to dance around the team name in conversation.

I think it's totally fair and reasonable to write the school and ask that they ensure they not use Chief Wahoo and similar imagery in the future. I hope they will be understanding and cooperative--as you yourself used to own Chief Wahoo stuff before you threw it out, I think tons of people have lived with this sort of imagery for so long that they just have a blind spot for it. Hopefully your otherwise diverse and accepting school will realize and accept their mistake when it's pointed out.

Not to derail the discussion...

I have been debating what to do with minimanta in regards to introducing him to various forms of media. I have a little time as he is currently rapidly approaching 20 months and still can't sit still long enough to eat... let alone watch Star Wars...

I just don't know what to expect when it comes to easing him into things like gaming and movies. I hear people talk about 2 year olds doing stuff with consoles and 3 year olds loving Star Wars, but I am never sure about when to begin introducing him to stuff. Most of our play time is goofing off outside or dumping duplos on our heads when he is not "reading" a book to himself. All of these things are awesome and wonderful... I know other things will come with time, but I guess I don't know how to expose a kid to games... (Especially since I'm a PC gamer.) I only ever game when he is asleep as he is way too busy for me to do anything but pay attention to him.

OK... after typing that all out, the real question is how and when did your kids start to enjoy games and movies? Any suggestions for getting them interested when they are ready?

Our kid is 3.5.

She's been playing kids iOS games since she was about 2, but in small quantities, < 1 hour a week. We mostly reserve those as tools for distraction, like when we’re at a restaurant, because we recognize that expecting a toddler/preschooler to sit still for an hour while we eat dinner is a fool’s errand. That said, it’s clearly had an effect – games like Endless Alphabet meant that she was recognizing all the letters before her third birthday.

In the last couple of months, I’ve started letting her play Mario Kart 8 occasionally (with all the assists on, of course). She enjoys it for 10-20 minutes at a time before she’ll get bored. Worth pointing out that she only barely grasps the basic concept, I haven’t told her about the weapons, so the only buttons she uses are accelerate (sometimes – hence the auto-accelerate), and steering (mainly to steer into the wall on the left, because her tiny thumb can only just work the joystick, hence the auto-steer). I’m planning on introducing her to tilt-steering next time.

My wife is planning on letting her do whatever is the equivalent of “star-Female Doggoing” in Mario Odyssey this winter.

I sometimes “play” games with her on my PC, which either means letting her sit in my lap and yank on the steering wheel while a driving game is going, or she’ll sit in a chair next to me with an unplugged mouse “playing” whatever I’m playing. Which means that we switch games every 3-5 minutes. I went through my burgeoning Steam library and tagged everything that I thought would be appropriate with a ‘Kids’ tag, so anytime she wants to do that, I have an easy list to pick from.

Which is all to say that gaming isn’t really a thing yet. I expect it’ll kick in stronger sometime in the next year or so, and I’m planning on picking up a couple kid-focused games (after cruising CommonSenseMedia.com for recommendations) down the line.

When it comes to movies, my opinion is to forget Star Wars for a few years. House of Mouse is where it’s at – Pixar, and modern Disney animations like Moana are solid wins. She went through a Ponyo phase too. I’ve got a Miyazaki boxset which I’ll slowly eke out as she ages into them. I’m thinking Star Wars isn’t going to be worth a damn until she’s at least 5 – she wouldn’t be able to follow the narrative at this point, and would be terrified by it. Because, come on - it’s a film about war (clue’s in the name). She doesn’t need to watch people shooting at each other or killing each other with swords.

Honesty, TV shows are a much better bet, as the attention span for a 90 minute movie isn’t always available. And there’s a crap-ton of solid shows for kids scattered across all the streaming services. We plumped $60 for an annual PBS membership – there’s a PBS Kids app on most any device that’ll give you more than enough good TV for the kid. Daniel Tiger is a strong recommendation for a 2 year old. Teaches excellent life-skills.

EDIT - final thought - when it comes to "games", don't view it as them playing games, view it as you playing with them. Games require discipline, attention and self-control to follow rules, and that isn't something toddlers and preschoolers are good at. If you want to start introducing some of those concepts, go analog. We've had great success working on taking turns

Our son started playing tablet games at about 2.5 years, occasionally. He never got super hooked on them. That's about the time he started watching TV shows like Daniel Tiger, Bubble Guppies, and a few others.

Fast forward to about 4 years old. He then started watching things like Paw Patrol, Transformers, Ninjago, etc. He was still occasionally playing his tablet games mixed in with some online mouse/keyboard educational games on pbs or nickelodeon.com

Fast forward to 5 years old. We now have a semi-nightly ritual where if he was good all day, I'll sit down with him and we'll play one of the Lego games on the PC for a half hour or so together. I think the "together" part is important.

manta173 wrote:

Not to derail the discussion...

I have been debating what to do with minimanta in regards to introducing him to various forms of media. I have a little time as he is currently rapidly approaching 20 months and still can't sit still long enough to eat... let alone watch Star Wars...

I just don't know what to expect when it comes to easing him into things like gaming and movies. I hear people talk about 2 year olds doing stuff with consoles and 3 year olds loving Star Wars, but I am never sure about when to begin introducing him to stuff. Most of our play time is goofing off outside or dumping duplos on our heads when he is not "reading" a book to himself. All of these things are awesome and wonderful... I know other things will come with time, but I guess I don't know how to expose a kid to games... (Especially since I'm a PC gamer.) I only ever game when he is asleep as he is way too busy for me to do anything but pay attention to him.

OK... after typing that all out, the real question is how and when did your kids start to enjoy games and movies? Any suggestions for getting them interested when they are ready?

We actually started with kids book on the iPad at 2.5-3 years - touch interfaces are pretty intuitive. The Susan Boynton book apps were interactive enough that my oldest could touch the screen and see results, but not so interactive that it overstimulated him. Peter Rabbit was another, though I don't remember which version. He wasn't able to sit through anymore than 1 book (~15 minutes) at a time, unless he was eating (and then, he was eating ) We were also heavy handed with limiting screen time (well...up until he went into the hospital for his surgeries. That threw everything out of wack), no more than 30 minutes every other hour at most.

We went from the Susan Boynton books to Toca Boca games, and the time changed to for every hour on the screen, at least 90 minutes of no screen. That was around 4-5. As he started Kindergarten we went from 1 hour on, 90 minutes off to 1 hour on, 1 hour off (some of his stuff was on the iPad/Computer, so we had to adjust).

Now, he's 7 (almost 8) and we're more focused on what he's doing on the iPad and less about how long since he's got a good habit of not being on it all the time. We do the more advanced Toca Boca games together, along with Lego games, puzzle games, and other stuff (like me reading Princess Bride to him, chapter by chapter).

Ours is also 3.5. It was around 2 where we introduced her to TV. Mickey mouse club house and sesame street were early choices. Anything brightly coloured and musical. Same for movies. Disney musicals are a good bet.

She's grown into Daniel tiger. The colours and music were a bit muted when she was younger.

My PC is in the main sitting room, so she's been around games forever. I limit the graphic violence obviously, she has her own controller that she plays with whenever I play. When she starts showing a bit more coordination I'll give her a chance to play.

She's also been playing iPad games for ages. Endless alphabet was an early success and she really likes the starfall games. Also likes YouTube, but tend to end up on videos of the '86 surprise eggs' type.