January 2003 Toddlers! - Page 6

[jogirl]

Anna is on a roll. I love watching her play. She's all about moving her animals from one spot to another (her little wooden animals, care bears, and other assorted small figures). She loves to lay them down and tell them night night and then loudly yell wake up to them and stand them up. It's very silly. She's finally figured out those small peg puzzles and likes to do them... but she'd rather stand those small little pieces on their narrow bottoms and make them listen to the speakers of her music box??? They occassionally line up to watch tv too. She LOVES books, especially the kid-length ones like golden books (I'm so sick of the pokey little puppy), curious george, cordouroy, etc. She's obsessed with birthday parties and sings happy birthday (in her own way) to every body. Any object can become a party hat and she blows a lot to pretend blowing out the candles.

She's counting to 15 (!? - mostly when going up steps and also just out of the blue) and has associated the number with the word and learned how to point and count. I'm thoroughly impressed since it's not something we're "working" on. She knows her ABC letters through G (that's all the foam letters I can handle in the tub right now!). LOVES her foam bath numbers and letters from Target! Anna just started enjoying playing with her play kitchen and likes to cook. She helped me make muffins the other day and ate a handful of flour (ick!).. she liked it? Her eating is improved, but her weight has gone down. She's 21lbs 1oz (sadly, we own a baby scale to obsess over) and slowly gaining. We just returned her to her full reflux med (prevacid) dose and her eating is much much better.

Talking has been fun. She did her first 3 word combo today (cracker please mama) and is slowly ramping up her intelligible language. She has full conversations with us, but I have no idea what they are about! She likes to pretend to sing too . She just learned "no" two weeks ago and thankfully hasn't abused it. She's a "thank you" monster and says it all the time. She'll surprise us with a "you're welcome" and we remind her about "please". We've a tv family (sad, but true) and she loves her Bear in the Big Blue House, Sesame Street, Hi-5, the movie Aristocrats, and occassionally the Wiggles. She adores being outside and taking walks and we're slowly working on how to be nice to our pets.. she constantly yells at them to "get down" (wonder where she got that? ). Anna just moved into her own room for the first time ever this week. She's finally taking a bath by herself (as in, without me in the tub too!) and is in her twin daybed and seems to be fine with it. We're still trying to adjust to her not being so close. She LOVES the big big slides at the park and insists on going down on her belly (which resulted in rug burn once... now I always remember a tuck in or snap shirt if we're heading to the park!). That's my girl!

[Island Mommy]

Anyone else's babe have a complete fit if you don't have your breast in their mouth within 3 seconds of them waking up? I can't believe my dd. If she wakes up and I try to pick her up or pat her back she just starts screaming and kicking. She won't let me hold her at all. There's nothing I can do to get her to stop crying besides nursing.

I'm not really asking for advice but I'm just curious if other breastfed babes this age do the same thing?

We are nowhere near nightweaning because
a. she is unconsolable if I don't nurse her
b. if I leave and let dh do the parenting I'm worried she'll feel that I've abandoned her and permanently psychologically scar her for life (sarcasm!) but somewhat true.

She has a bad cold and last night she was up coughing and spluttering for almost 4 hours. I'm exhausted...but then I'm always exhausted. Somebody please tell me I'm over the hump...surely she'll sleep through the night by the time she's 40 months old!

[Evergreen]

I don't know about 40 months

But, I can assure you, it will be by 40 years!!! :LOL

[lincolnsmom]

I am in the same boat!!! I am tired all the time, and my son WILL NOT be settled back down without his bah-boo. He's 20 months. Sigh.
I'm with you, though ...

[katmainomad]

yah, same thing...but i don't find mornings that bad...oceano starts a long non-stop nursefest as morn approaches, but i just try to keep him from wiggling enough that i can get a few more winks, then when he's finally UP up we go get breakfast. Night is worse sometimes...the last 2 nights i spent over an hour nursing him to sleep and i wanted to get back up and hang out with papa, so i was none too patient...ah the guilt of expressed frustration...

[cinnamonamon]

Oh dear, no night-nursing horror stories right now! We start nightweaning in a couple weeks! Ian usually does pretty well when there is nothing wierd going on (new bed, new tooth, people visiting, visiting people, too long nap, no nap, ....). On the good nights, he wakes up at 2am and nurses right back down, but I also co-sleep with him from that point, around 5:30 or 6am he nurses on and off until we get up for the morning. On other nights he will nurse most all night on & off (did I mention I have no milk -- just a little colostrum that came in about a week & a half ago?), but there is usually something wrong -- I'm starting to think it's his (cow)milk sensitivity -- I think it might give him tummy aches or indigestion or something.


He blows me away with how "grown-up" he is getting every day. At 6-10-12-14 months I worried sometimes as others talked about all the things their child did, while mine still clung to me much of the time. Now he wanders around the house playing in his different "areas," and has TONS of fun with the two kitties we brought home recently.

When he wants someone he will tug on their hand, or push on their legs & grunt as he tries to make them stand up, and he has successfully began to use his sign for "up" instead of whining and clinging to my legs when he wants to be picked up. He has a decent number of words...mama, papa, bubbles, ball, pei-pei (or pee-pee??) for pizza, out, "gol" (like gosh, but gol -- my dh was teaching him to say "gol mama!" when I did something), so he runs around saying it with the perfect inflection! :LOL I know there are a few more, but they all mix in with his signs and animal sounds, so I forget. He has 5 or 10 signs, and picks them up easily, but he has AT LEAST 20+ animal sounds -- rooster, chicken, cow, sheep, goat, duck, dog, cat, horse, bear, lion, tiger, monkey, snake, elephant...he also has signs for some he couldn't seem to "get" the sound for (or I didn't know the sound for!) -- frog, giraffe, camel, pig, squirrel, ladybug (my favorite!)...there are more, but I can't remember them all!

I'm finally running out of clothes for him -- my sister gave me most everything I "needed" from 0 - 18 months, and gifts filled in anything missing. I'm trying to get into the habit of picking up cheap 24 month & up clothing now (my sister bought her daughter's entire wardrobe for next summer at target for $40!), so I don't have to pay full price later, kwim?

There's so much more, but I haven't even started my post-vacation catch-up, so I'd better get something done!

[Island Mommy]

Tried to assess whether dd was ready for nightweaning last night. I slept in the spare room and asked dh to console her at her first nightwaking.

I gave it 10 minutes then went in. DD was sobbing and screaming even though DH was curled up right beside her, holding her and rubbing her belly. I can not stand the sound of my DD crying when I know there's something I can do.

I guess she is not ready.

Evergreen, what was your experience on the 2 nights your dh slept with your dd?

She looked so big today sitting at her little chair and table drawing circles on the paper. She told me to put my seatbelt on in the car yesterday! I took her to "Gym and Swim" yesterday. I thought she'd be hanging back because she's usually somewhat shy around other kids but she was in there like a trooper. Loved running under the big parachute and going down the slide. Did really well in the pool too, wanting to float on her tummy and jump off the edge into my arms. And that was only her 3rd time ever in a swimming pool. (I am nervous about all the chlorine!)

At the Gym and Swim there was one other women nursing her toddler in the pool. The babe was around 2 I think.

Is everyone here still nursing?

[Evergreen]

No, she never cried for more than 5 minutes, and it was whiney crying, not screaming.

She also decided she was going to start sleeping in her crib at that time, so I think she was ready. It doesn't sound like your dd is. She is now nightwaking once (which I can handle) and cosleeping about 40 percent of the time (again I can handle it as long as my partner isn't in bed as well.!)

[Evergreen]

We are nursing strong. We beleive in CLW, so we will probably be nursing for a long time to come. I haven't gottten my period back yet, though, ans it would be a good time to ttc!

[Island Mommy]

No AF for me either and I have been thinking about another child. However, not a possibility and probably won't with this one nursing as much as she is!

[Daffodil]

It's interesting that there are at least three of us who still haven't gotten AF back after 20 months. I never imagined it could take this long. I'm glad I'm not the only one, or I'd be worried I was starting menopause or something.

Lindy's starting to say a lot more words - except they're not really words, they're mostly just consonant sounds. It's kind of funny. "Sss" for sandal, "ttt" for tail or table or toilet, "ccc" for car or carrot or carry. She doesn't even try to include a vowel sound most of the time, and if she does, it's usually just "uh", like "guh" for green or gray. Seems like a peculiar way of learning to talk, but I figure as long as she's making some attempt to say the words, she's on the right track.

[Evergreen]

Dylan sometimes lieaves out the vowels on words, sometimes says them.

I think I may have ovulated this month and there is a small chance of a I am waiting til October to find out.

[joycenjackiesmom]

I'm new--sort of--I haven't been on line much for a long time. My darling Jackie was born 1/31/03. I'm envious of all of you who still have nusing toddlers--Jackie decided back in June that she didn't want to nurse anymore--what a difference from my almost 6 year old who would probably still be nursing if she had her way!! She amazes me everyday with everything she does and how she helps me to understand what she wants. She wants to be independent and do everything herself and she is picking up new words everyday--the most surprising was a few weeks ago in the car it sounded like she was saying "die, die" which had us puzzled--I finally realized she was saying "sky" It is wonderful isn't it!!