theinfamousj

[Kid's name], stop exercising and get down here and eat some cake!

Which they’ve now decided they don’t like any of the food we make even though it’s exactly the same stuff that would be at daycare.

Are you judging this based on dinner? Ask any pediatric dietician and they will tell you that toddlers and preschoolers are quite likely to skip dinner. It might not be the food but the fact that there is a meal at that hour which is the issue. The recommendation is to serve a full meal afternoon snack and then consider dinner a bonus meal if they even eat it at all.

Which then prolongs the cycle of not eating enough and needing night feeds and then not eating much because there was milk overnight. I feel like we have to cut the night feeds somehow but it feels really cruel to starve them when they’re used to it…

Trust your instincts. It is biologically normal for children to have one or two night feeds up until age 3. Though at some point you can start leaving "the offering" (a bowl of food you are comfortable cleaning up left in their room for them to eat from overnight without waking you, such as a bowl of cheerios).

The sleep is a little better but still not sleeping through the night

Unless you get extremely lucky, plan on your child not sleeping through the night until age 3. Instead, focus on teaching them what is appropriate for them to do by themselves when they wake in their room. You'll sleep through the night and they will wake, play with some toys, and put themselves back to sleep and everyone will thrive and be happy.

As a long term nanny and now a parent myself, I've had exactly ONE charge out of 22 + my own child who can sleep 8 hours with no bottle. He stirs but puts himself back to sleep silently and if you aren't watching a video monitor, you'd have no idea that he had stirred.

But if you ask The Mister about our own child, he'd swear our own kid sleeps twelve hours with no bottle and no stirring. That's because THE MISTER sleeps twelve hours and wouldn't hear a smoke alarm, much less the child stir. So I agree with you to consider the source and that it is very likely fantasy talk.

• most babies do their highest caloric intake at night because it is the lowest stimulation time. While it is possible to have them fast all night long, it isn't in their best interests because their stomach has a fixed size and simply cannot hold enough calories to get them through the nightly brain growth without a meal. Can vs should. And also, that pediatrician needs to attend some continuing education.

• the fact that children sleep less well in the room with the parents is EXACTLY WHY roomsharing is recommended to prevent SIDS. Cannot die in deep sleep if you never get to deep sleep. Sleep apart at your own risk. And on that note, almost every single SIDS prevention tip is designed to give your child sh-tty sleep in order to prevent sleeping deeply because you cannot die in deep sleep if you never get to deep sleep; it is by design. Ask me sometime how I feel about that.

• sleep training doesn't teach them that their bed is safe to sleep in. It teaches children that parents don't want to hear them cry. There have been objective studies that find that children night wake the exact same amount whether sleep trained or not. Absolutely no difference whatsoever. But the sleep trained children wake silently. So this one is one where the benefit is to the child from having a well rested adult caregiver. But the child doesn't learn anything from it other than to shut up.

It for sure counts as "sorting". He's put the two in the same category. Well done for his age and right on target.

I read in another comment that you are trying to avoid a mass shooting episode. Instead of changing schools, let's change access to ammo and mental health services via laws and voting, restricting one and making the other universal and taxpayer supported. I think that would be more effective. It would keep children safe in schools, in churches, in movie theaters, at birthday parties, etc.

I think that children learn best in the environment that fits their brain the best. If that's remote - awesome - but if not, I'll fight a different way for my child's safety in a physically in person school setting. And my child needs the accountability of the in person setting.

I work in childcare. I take care of the children, both mine and those of other parents. Summer is very busy for me.

My 11 month old drank from a water fountain. We expected him to play in it, but he leaned in like a school child who had been doing it all their life and pursed his lips and took a slurp.

Came to say this. Here, have my upvote.

And now, writing in two days later, he starts it on his own and giggles. So we are past that fear, apparently.

In my education, this was called The Charm Hold and is very useful for a gassy baby. Yet there are holds which are more useful for a gassy baby.

But you know what is most useful to make babies stop crying? Figure out what it is that they are communicating and act on it.

Sometimes you cannot figure it out because it is something like, "Dad, I need you to poke my left elbow five times while hopping on one foot," and so they have to cry until something else more pressing comes along that makes their elbow poking irrelevant.

Editing to Add: If you want to stop babies from crying and aren't going to do the figuring out bit, standing up and holding them vertically against you activates an old, old, old primate danger instinct where they will go silent so as not to attract the attention of the predator while the parent, whose fur their ancient instinct insists they are clinging to, makes the escape. Also, blowing in their face will get them to hold their breath momentarily, which has the side benefit of stopping crying. Cannot cry if you aren't breathing.

Editing a Second time to Add: Even my own child instantly stopped crying for the pediatrician when he (pediatrician) held my newborn away from me. It has less to do with how the pediatrician held the baby, and more to do with the fact that the pediatrician wasn't Momma or Dadda and my newborn's sensory awareness of the world couldn't locate Momma or Dadda. Danger! Ack! Better be silent to not attract predators while waiting for Momma or Dadda to come find me!

No, we don't put barrel connectors into our mouths, especially not if they are electrified.

I felt the exact same way. Looking at my first child gave me hope for the future in a way I hadn't, before. We're going to be okay.