Easy Like Sunday Morning: Calling All Parents, Advice Needed

In My Humble Opinion
21

I’ve got a four year old girl and a two year old boy, and they’re the greatest things in my life (along with their older brother, my wife, and animals, of course).

They’re advice is EXCELLENT. I can’t tell you how much I agree with them.

so in short:

  1. Don’t worry. Repeat as long as necessary. Tantrums won’t scar them. What you do may, but only if you go overboard into abuse, and you’re not going to do that, aren’t you.

So don’t worry. Take your time. Worse comes to worse, if you feel like you’re about to go ballistic, walk over to the other side of the room. Go out onto the porch. Go to the bathroom. Whatever.

  1. Ditch the high chair. My 2 1/2 year old stands on an adult-sized chair and eats (or crouches, or sits, whatever he’s comfortable with). He also does not get fed unless he asks us to. 99% of the time, he feeds himself. Yes, it’s messy. So what? That’s what a washcloth is for.

  2. Medicine. We use liquid medicine, and we have to hide the bottles because it’s orange flavor or grape flavor. If it’s perscription meds, try powdering them and putting them into a small drink.

  3. Tantrums. We do the “go to your room and scream if you want to.” We also count 1-2-3, and if they haven’t done what we ask by 3, they go to their room (note: we are not rigid about this. If they make any effort to do as we ask, we may forgo the punishment. Time in their room is based on their age: 2 minutes for a 2 year old, 4 for a 4 year old.)

Your mileage may vary. If your child has abandonment issues, being sent to her room may be horrible for her, but you know that better than I.

Love the hug method Abby mentioned. I’ll have to try that myself. I know these kids are growing up fast (even though it doesn’t seem that way), and I try never to give up a chance for a hug. They’re great kids.

As your kids get older, you may find the girl helping you teach the younger kid how to act (including how to act bad :D). Sometimes, they’ll fight like cats and dogs. Sometimes, my daughter will show my son how to do something. They’re great, and I hope you get the same pleasure.

pesch

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Medications can be a difficult one. Many children’s medicines are suspensions and nothing but nothing is going to disquise the taste of the agent being delivered in them. IMO, some of the people who choose the flavours for children’s medications should be shot (whoever thought it was a good idea to put amoxicillin in a licorice flavoured suspension?).

Sometimes there’s an alternative delivery system for the drug which a child may tolerate better. My youngest simply would not take paracetamol (you call it something different in the US, it’s the equivalent of your Tylenol) in any liquid form. When it was essential that she had it (like when her temperature was high enough for febrile convulsions to be imminent), we had to give it to her in suppository form.

I’m nor sure about in the US, but here most OTC medications for children come in a wide variety of forms and flavours - you mightn’t ever find one your child likes, but trial and error will probably lead you to one which they’ll at least tolerate being given. Remember, too, that what seems like a tiny amount of medicine to us is a whole mouthful to a toddler (my poison’s information book gives 5ml - or a teaspoon - as a “mouthful” for a two year old). Sometimes kids will take medicines for other people when they won’t take them for you. While the trial and error process can be expensive and frustrating, in time each one of us works out a way to get our children to take absolutely essential medications.

You’ve taken on a huge responsibility, and you’re on a steep learning curve. Try to relax and enjoy and realise that most of these issues are very transient ones about which you will one day laugh (really, you will).

Playgroup might be a good idea if there’s one in your area, it will bring you into contact with other mums and dads whose children are of a similar age who are facing the same issues. Not only that, each playgroup has a world class tantrum thrower who manages to make you realise that you’re doing pretty well as a parent. :wink:

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I’ve found the following site pretty useful. http://www.babycenter.com They have a weekly mailer that matches your childs age with some good information and what to expect.

For better or worse, we found that bribing China Bambina with a small amount of candy afterwards made the entire taking medicine process easier.

As for the tantrums, we’re not really at that stage yet. although, from what I’ve read and a bit of what I’ve experienced so far, pay attention to what triggers a tantrum and try to avoid those situations. For example, she grabs a fork and won’t give it back, if you take it from her it may trigger a fit, so “trade” a book, toy or doodad. “Honey here’s a book, please give me the fork” as you gently take the fork out of her hand.

Good luck.

24

A few more thoughts.

First of all, they make a children’s vitamin that is in the form of a gummy bear. We can use these to bribe my son to change his clothes! That’s how much he loves them. He will not take children’s chewable vitamins. As for liquid medicine, there is a horrible flat-on-their-back hold you can do, restraining their arms with their legs. It’s horrible, but if they have to take it, well… However, you might also ask your pharmacist about different flavourings, as someone else noted.

“What To Expect The First Year” is 92% fantastic, and 8% utter and total crapola. I say that because on some much-debated (or debateable) issues, the authors write as if their view is in fact the only correct one, backed by empirical research. That is dead wrong because on some issues, YMMV. Your family and your kid and your values are what matter, not what others think. If you get advice from that book (heck, any book) that seems counter to your experience or your heart, listen to your gut.

Also, not all tantrums are about manipulation. Dyanne will go through periods where her mind gets ahead of her body. She will want to do or say things that she cannot do or express. That’s frustrating! Sometimes they have to blow off steam. You can gradually teach them to do it in less destructive ways. Er, at least I hope we can.

Finally, if the little guy is large I have a pretty decent collection of gently-worn boy winter clothes, size 12-18 months. Let me know if I can help out by sending some your way. I might have some smaller, not sure.

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Yowza! Doper parents rock tha house! Thanks, again!

Ok, so I have read everything you guys wrote here, paid close attention while I did so, and have committed it all to memory. Seriously. Test me.

Well, here’s the deal with the high chair: I wasn’t very descriptive before. Dyanne’s fits about the high chair are arbitrary, inconsistent. HOWEVER, I am taking your advice and putting the high chair away for a few months (then we’ll stick Mr. Knight in it). She’s a big girl. She can sit at the table with us. I’m getting a booster chair tomorrow. See? I’m really trying here.

Yeah, Cranky, I’m finding that “What to Expect” is exactly what you say it is. What really gets under my skin is the list of what your baby should be able to do by such a time…but for different reasons than you would expect, I guess. Knight was worse off than Dyanne when he came to us, and although he’s gained two pounds and grown two inches in three weeks (no shite!), he is still having to play major catch-up. The good news is that he is the happiest child alive. I am not kidding. He thinks everything & everyone is funny.

In other news, Dyanne had the best day today, the best she’s had in a long time. Let’s hope her good mood holds tomorrow. I want her to be happy so much.

This is all a bunch of train of thought nonsense. If ya’ll keep writing, I’ll keep reading. I need to go to the store tomorrow for a booster chair, pretty big-girl panties, M&M’s, more freaking diapers, etc.

pesch, you have no idea how many times a day I take a long, slow breath in, hold it, and let that long, slow breath out. Argh.

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Um, I never said that my kids hadn’t made me crazy. I just said that I’m still able function in adult society. :eek:

I hadn’t thought about the high chair thing, either. I think the others who have mentioned it are most likely quite right. It’s about time for her to be moving in to a big-person chair.

And bless you or taking in two kids at once. Their age difference is roughly the same as my own two, and I can say this–you are in for some interesting times. You’ll never, ever be bored again.

I think kids are great. Mine drive me completely bonkers at times, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Life is competely different now, but in a good way. But I also agree wholeheartedly with what flodnak said about taking care of yourself. You’ll need a break eventually, and do NOT be ashamed to admit that. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. It just means that you need a rest.

Keep up the good work!

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The one thing I haven’t said in this thread so far Sophie is how much I admire you and respect you for doing what you are doing. Really and truly, you’ve had some great suggestions in this thread, but the one thing which these two little cuties have going for them which no website or doctor or other parent can offer them is the love you obviously have in your heart.

I know you aren’t going to believe it right now, but that love will be repaid in ways you can’t even imagine right now. Can you promise us all to come back and post when you’re the proud person making Christmas concert costumes until 4am?

You’re heart has already told you what the “right” thing is. I’m pretty sure that if you just keep following it. you’ll not only raise children you’ll be proud of but you’ll also raise children who are really proud to call you their mum.

So use us to bounce ideas off or to which when it gets rough, but really my dear, I think it’s your love - rather than our advice - which is going to see these children through.
If it’s OK with you, you wanta set up an anonymous webmail address for the children so that we can send them Christmas cards and stuff. My kids went through a rough couple of years a few years ago and it was unbelievable how much those animated cards of best wishes lit up their faces.

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Father of four here. You’ve gotten some great advice, and I’ll add my own $.02 on what’s worked for us with our kids.

Our theory on two-year-olds is that they’re physically capable of doing many things, but don’t have the judgement of an ice cube. As such, most folks don’t let the kids do much of anything for themselves, and as a result, the kids feel they don’t have any control over their lives.

Accordingly, we cede as much control as we reasonably can over things that don’t really matter all that much. For example, we’ll tell our current two-year-old that he needs to pick out a shirt and shorts to wear. He might come back with stripes and plaid, but it doesn’t really matter, and he gets some control. (When they’re older we work on concepts such as coordinating clothes.) We’ll give a choice of two or three things to eat, then let him choose how he wants his sandwich cut (2 triangles, 2 doors, four “windows”, or four triangles, not at all). Again, he has some control. YMMV, but it works for us. Asking “High chair or booster seat?” may work for you in your situation.

To keep sane during a drawn out tantrum, I’ll ask them how old they are. They usually stop to say “two.” It’s a reality-check for me, and makes me stop to think that, well, they’re two and that’s what two-year-olds do.

Good luck, stay upbeat, and everything will work out just fine.

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About the high chair- many toddlers hate high chairs. Mine certainly does.

A web site I like a lot is Dr. William Sears’ site. Not only is he a pediatrician, but he & his wife have 8 kids!

His advice was to set up a “grazing” or snack tray for toddlers, as they want to eat and do things. You can use an ice cube tray or a bowl with sections. Our son will not sit in a high chair for us, ever. Of course, he does it for my MIL, but that’s a Pit rant!

Good luck. Don’t worry. Hug her a lot and tell her she is loved. Smile a lot around her and at her. Read to her and get really interested in her toys and videos.

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Hey reprise, that’s awful sweet of you to offer to send Christmas cards to the kids. You can send 'em to my address. It’s on my profile. And, again, you guys are awful nice to say the things you’re saying, but I reiterate that it is the job of adults to take care of kids, and that any of you would do the same thing. Anybody with a heart would, and there’s lots of heart here.

We’re going to get Mr. & Mrs. Stinky from daycare now. Any other thoughts on anything at all in terms of raising a two year old will be appreciated. I’m checking out the parenting web sites, as per your instructions, but I like the anecdotes here better for now (plus, I know the group I’m dealing with here, and I trust the advice here a lot).

The two year old is sleep walking now. Did your kids do this?

Solid food and five month olds: what’s the story? We’re trying applesauce and rice cereal. When do you think he’ll get enthusiastic about it? When did your kids? And what about butternut squash? Does anyone like that stuff in the world?

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I hesitate to give advice on child-rearing because every child is different, but here are two things that might help:

  1. **bare[\b] already suggested giving her choices. This works pretty well most of the time - just make sure that all the choices are ones you want her to make.

  2. Change the subject. Distractions will work for a long time.

Child-rearing mostly comes down to psychological manipulation. :slight_smile: I don’t feel comfortable with physical coersion, but I have no problem changing the subject. Don’t want to eat your oatmeal? Fine, I’ll eat it - you can have this banana. I think I’ll put some honey on this oatmeal. Do you like honey? You want some honey? OK, here’s a nice spoonful of honey [right on top of the oatmeal].

Verbal judo! You have to be able to keep your cool (which may be hard initially) so you can think faster than she can, and you have to think creatively. It’ll work until she’s 9 or 10 at least. At some point she’ll probably catch on, but she still won’t be able to resist it until she gets as good at as you will be after doing it for years.

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Well, having an 18-month old, I’m better with infants, so I’ll talk about food. We started her pretty late, a little before 6 months, but she was nursed. We started with rice cereal and a couple other grains, moved on to veggies, then fruit, and then beans and meat. Watch Mr. Stinky’s digestion and adjust accordingly–we avoided bananas because baby g was already prone to constipation. A friend mushed everything into bananas, and it worked great. My personal advice is, hold off on fruit and juice, because it’s so easy for the kid to develop a big taste for sweet things that it’s good to get him liking green beans first.

Two-year olds can lose control of their feelings easily, and this is scary, so your control and calm is important. I think AbbySthrnAccent’s advice is great, and am going to try it. I agree that two is pretty big for a high chair, and does she use a fork and spoon? If you’re feeding her, you don’t have to. I can’t tell from your post.

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You can tell that deep deep down I am a bossy know-it-all. I can’t stop posting to this thread!

Cranky Jr had his first solids at 6 months and he wasn’t too enthused. We never pushed it. Some kids just take longer. Now, at 2 1/2, he’s a pretty good eater. Yogurt is an excellent first food to try out. It was Cranky Jr’s favorite (sometimes only) solid food for some time. I was stunned, thinking yogurt was an acquired taste, but Cranky Jr opened up for it like a baby bird. I really like Stonybrook Farm’s Yobaby. Not only is it organic, it’s also made with WHOLE milk. Most yogurts are “reduced fat” but Knight needs the fat and calories.

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Cranky, your advice is gold. All of this advice is gold. I’m trying the yogurt in the morning. I have plenty here, as it is Dyanne’s favorite treat (aside from applesauce with cinnamon).

Ok, so I’ve ditched the high chair. Or, I should say, tonight was the last night she’ll have used it. Funny: we got a booster seat and then promptly left it at grandmother’s house. Figures. However, tomorrow is the day. Stay tuned in. This could be good or bad. I do not feed her; she uses utensils and her fingers. Mostly fingers, but s’okay, because somehow her good-for-nothing mother managed to teach her that she has to use a napkin, and in fact, she will not get up until she’s wiped her hands and face. It’s pretty cool like that.

Knight is gaining weight like a champ. When we got him, he was almost thirteen pounds. I can actually look at him and see that he’s getting chubby. I never thought…well, let’s just say that watching - or noticing - that he is growing is quite a shock. Does that make sense?

But about his eating. He does not sleep through the night yet. He wakes up at about one and then again at five like clockwork. When will this end? He’s hungry and won’t go back to sleep until he has a bottle. I will get up with him if I need to, but shouldn’t this part be over by now? I’m almost afraid to quit feeding him at these times because he still has some weight to gain. No child in my house will go hungry, that sort of thing.

Man, I think I hit the jackpot with you guys.

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BTW, I am totally cool with this. It’s how my mom raised us. We look hysterical in pictures. But we were happy, dammit!

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Sophie, bless your heart. You are giving those two little ones a whole new lease on life, and they won’t even begin to understand or appreciate what you’re doing for many, many years.
You’ve gotten lots of good advice, so I would just add a slight caveat or two. It’s possible that the sleepwalking and the tantrums may be related more to the neglect than they are to her age or developmental stage. I still think that waiting the tantrum out is the best idea, but if you find that isn’t effective, it could be that she is not tantrumming the way a kid from a…non-neglectful? supportive and positive home may tantrum.
In other words, you may be looking at a different breed of tantrum than many of us experience with our own little ones, and that may mean at some point dealing with them differently than we might.
Remember that she took quite a while to get to the point she is at behaviorally, and it will take some time and patience for her to learn new behaviors. Tantrums probably used to accomplish something for her–probably no more than getting some negative attention, but at least they gave her some control in that way.
You might check online for a mailing list for therapeutic foster parents. I think you would find a lot of support and advice in a place like that.

Added on preview: Don’t sweat the toilet training at all right now. Both kids need time to adjust to the new home, and you need time to adjust too. It will happen when everyone has settled in and the littles are ready for it. My son is nearly three, and is pretty much toilet trained–as long as he is naked. (He spends most of his day naked, it makes life simpler when he decides it’s time for bath #4.) When he has clothes on, he isn’t trained at all. I figure he can go live in a nudist colony if he hasn’t figured it out by puberty. :smiley:
Best wishes, and hang in there.
~karol

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Bwahaha! My water bill is gonna be huge this month. I’ve never used this much water in my life.

bodypoet, I think it’s 50/50 with the tantrums. However, we made some major progress tonight. For the first time, Dyanne let me talk to her quietly about how big girls don’t throw fits to get what they want, and that, if would would stop crying, I can help her do what she wants. Immediately, she stopped crying. A-freaking-mazing.

The fits she throws (this is some major intuition going on here) are partly her anger at being told “no” (as she has never been told that before, really, as she has had to raise herself, literally) and partly normal two year old pissed-offedness. It might sound like there’s no difference in the two, but if you were here and saw her throw a fit, you’d know what I mean.

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Sophie, I saw your comment about sleepwalking and wanted to let you know that while not all toddlers do it, some do. So it may not be because of her hard start in life. Our oldest did it a now and then between 2 and 4. We just guided him back to bed tucked the covers a little snugger and that seemed to be all he needed.

Additionally,I want to mention something that came as a suprise and was terrifying to me the first time it happened. Perhaps if I mention it now, and it happens you won’t have to be as frightened as I was and you won’t worry that it has to do with Dyanne’s rough start. Toddlers can have night terrors, not just a bad dream with tears or whimpering, but full out screams of terror, flinging arms and legs about. I ran to him and took him in my arms and tried to wake him and assure him that he was safe. He never awakened and the terror eventually passed and he fell back to sleep. Needless to say I slept no more that night. The next morning, he remembered nothing. I called the pediatrician anyway because in the night I decided that something traumatic must have happened at nursery school. He said not necessarily and told me about night terrors and to not awaken him, just comfort him in his sleep. It only happened to us a few times and only with the oldest but because no one had mentioned it and I hadn’t noticed it in any of the parenting stuff I read, I wasn’t prepared for it. Hope this will prevent some needless worrying if it happens to little Dyanne.

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Being angry about being told “no” is normal.

Another tip, if you suddenly realize you are saying no to them alot more than yes, try this. Say yes with enthusiasm. Stay with me a minute, no eye rolls yet please! :wink: When she wants a cookie and dinner is only eight minutes away, say “Yes, you may have a cookie right after dinner,in fact, you may have two!”, instead of “No, not til after dinner.” When she asks to wear her swimsuit to the mall in the winter. The right answer is no, right? Instead, say, “Yes, you can wear your swimsuit if you put your warmy playsuit over it.” Get the gist of it? You’ll find that you can say yes a lot more often and while they still have to wait for the cookie a bit or dress appropriate for the weather you get to say yes and they don’t have to hear no so much. If you watch for chances, you’ll be surprised how often you can use this “trick” to avoid, “no’s”.

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This is actually “Mr. Sophie” here, using my wife’s account.
I’d really like to thank all of you for your kind words and for your VERY helpful suggestions. This has been a time of great upheaval and even greater rewards for the two of us, and in between wanting to kill each other (can’t kill the kids- they’re too cute), we are actually having the time of our lives. Well, no, not really, but that’s what we keep telling each other.
Any way, thanks again to all of you, and I just want to add that between the kids and Sophie, I am the luckiest guy in the world (as the Ohio gang already suspected).