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Only time ours ever came in our bed was if they were poorly. Otherwise get them out. Real bad habit to keep up imo. 
OcUK Dadsnet thread
- Thread starter Devrij
- Start date
100% - my daughter has had one since she was about 18 months - she's 6 and still uses it every night - BEST money I ever spent. Totally worth it.
Great advice
Soldato
Best advice on here, our kids are little for so long I know sleep deprivation is a killer and we all want our own space/time but before you know it they won't need you so much anymore and very quickly they won't want you around! Enjoy it while it lasts!
Soldato
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- 27 Mar 2013
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- 9,150
Can you guys explain to my daughter how the grow clock works, she come through and tells me its got 2 stars left on it
. I don't mind that much but its just a bit tiring sometimes. One thing we've found is although she no longer 'needs' a nap, she had 1/2 hour yesterday as she was knackered and it meant she didn't go to sleep for an extra 1.5 hours (i wish my naps let me do that). Also i noticed that when we had our son, was roughly when i started noticing grey hairs (i don't think that its a coincidence
).
. I don't mind that much but its just a bit tiring sometimes. One thing we've found is although she no longer 'needs' a nap, she had 1/2 hour yesterday as she was knackered and it meant she didn't go to sleep for an extra 1.5 hours (i wish my naps let me do that). Also i noticed that when we had our son, was roughly when i started noticing grey hairs (i don't think that its a coincidence).Can you guys explain to my daughter how the grow clock works, she come through and tells me its got 2 stars left on it
How old is she? As above it has taken until my daughter turned 4 for her to understand the concept.
Star = Still nighttime / Stay in bed
Sun = OK to come into our room
Fair play to her lasting until 2 hours to go though...you may need to adjust the clock to suit and just let her come in with you guys, get her settled into that routine for a week or 2 and then add 10 minutes on to the time you actually want her to hit.
Yeah, no. She's not being remotely fair.
Start by divvying the week up into days, so you get the baby one evening and she on alternates.
You're both working full time jobs, and you both need time off from the baby.
One thing that wasn't really clear to me before it all started for us was that in general (yes this is a generalisation but I certainly found it to be true around here) all these sorts of groups are set up for mothers. If you go to some of them by yourself as a father you're often viewed with downright suspicion, so the inevitable response is to withdraw and not bother. Whereas the entire network is setup to help the mother get out of the house and back to a normal sort of life - don't get me wrong looking after a baby full time is bloody hard work - but it is significantly easier for a mother than it is for a father.
Associate
I read such good things about the Gro Clock, particularly how it helped kids with autism understand day / night and sleep cycles. Little did I realise that *some* children might enjoy watching the time tick over, and that they're clever buggers who can figure out how to turn the time on (and change it) and get around the key lock.
Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2013
- Posts
- 9,150
She is 4 and we've had the grow clock for quite a while. It might be she's too used to it if that makes sense.
We have had ours for a good couple of years.
Do you do a Sticker Chart? Started my Daughter on this and has done wonders with the sleep and behavior...it is just like magic!
Soldato
They tend to be short lived, until they get bored of the stickers/rewards or they decide they will only behave a certain way to earn rewards not just because that is how they should behave, ask a teacher about sticker reward charts! obviously your millage may vary!
Man of Honour
Had my little mans first parents evening last night for pre-school. I thought it was just going to be the usual stuff like they tell you at the end of the day when I pick him up, but bloomin 'eck. I was impressed at how much they keep on record about each child. We were greeted with a huge binder for the year, full of all his milestones and progress through the curriculum. Hundreds upon hundreds of post it notes about anything clever he'd say, or any sign of emotional/mental development. It was eye opening but hugely reassuring just how much attention they pay to him.
What I wanted to mention was, they told us that he's excelled at math at a rather outstanding rate for pre-school, and they've already got him doing Reception/Year 1 school level stuff which he is very comfortable with. I was hugely shocked at this, as I know he's great with numbers, in terms of counting, like he's been able to count to 100 and back on his own since he was 2, he can tell you what numbers are up to the millions, if you show him a number he'll tell you what it is. But I've never really done any maths with him at home other than your basic addition and subtracting, and never really saw any signs that he's got a big talent for it. Made me feel kind of **** tbh.
He's only 3 so still won't be going to school for another 18 months, but they are going to be placing recommendations with the teachers at the school that we apply for. But I really want to make sure he doesn't lose interest or fall behind the level he's at now, I feel like I should be doing more for him at home to make the most of it. But at the same time, I really don't want to do anything at home that makes it then feel like a chore for him and puts him off it so he no longer enjoys it and falls behind.
Does anyone have any experience with stuff like this and how to approach it? I mean should I just keep doing what I'm doing and do the odd bit at home but let them continue teaching him, as they are clearly doing an outstanding job already? Or should I try and make him do more at home?
What I wanted to mention was, they told us that he's excelled at math at a rather outstanding rate for pre-school, and they've already got him doing Reception/Year 1 school level stuff which he is very comfortable with. I was hugely shocked at this, as I know he's great with numbers, in terms of counting, like he's been able to count to 100 and back on his own since he was 2, he can tell you what numbers are up to the millions, if you show him a number he'll tell you what it is. But I've never really done any maths with him at home other than your basic addition and subtracting, and never really saw any signs that he's got a big talent for it. Made me feel kind of **** tbh.
He's only 3 so still won't be going to school for another 18 months, but they are going to be placing recommendations with the teachers at the school that we apply for. But I really want to make sure he doesn't lose interest or fall behind the level he's at now, I feel like I should be doing more for him at home to make the most of it. But at the same time, I really don't want to do anything at home that makes it then feel like a chore for him and puts him off it so he no longer enjoys it and falls behind.
Does anyone have any experience with stuff like this and how to approach it? I mean should I just keep doing what I'm doing and do the odd bit at home but let them continue teaching him, as they are clearly doing an outstanding job already? Or should I try and make him do more at home?
Soldato
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 5,939
Play shop - using coins to add up amount due and change needed etc.
Work it into real life examples etc car purchase for example
Plenty of ways to keep the mind active.
Work it into real life examples etc car purchase for example
Plenty of ways to keep the mind active.
Thats amazing!
Man of Honour
Yeah, he's got a little shop which we do that kind of stuff with. Most expensive shop you'll ever go in, £50 for some milk
When we moved in to the new house, his room was absolutely ginormous and looked really bare to begin with. So one of the walls I made in to a little educational bit, bought a load of these big learning posters. Counting to 100, the alphabet, how to tell the time etc and he just loved the counting one. Got to grips with it so quickly and didn't take him long before he'd show anyone that had the patience to listen to it that he could count to 100, and then back again just when you'd thought he'd finished
Glad to hear the little one is doing well @robj20, fingers crossed you're home soon
Wow didn't even realise this thread was here so I've got some reading to do...
6.5 month old boy here, our first child and we still have no idea what we're doing!
He is amazing though, real little bundle of happiness and sleeps 9-10 hours even now he's teething... Our friends with older babies hate us as they're still struggling to get 4-5 hours with their 9 & 12 month olds. They're both co-sleeping and we've not so we're putting it down to that (no separation issues). Also being bottle/formula fed was our supreme solution! We're in 9-12 month clothes and have been ahead of the curve (size, progress & feeding wise) since very early on.
6.5 month old boy here, our first child and we still have no idea what we're doing!
He is amazing though, real little bundle of happiness and sleeps 9-10 hours even now he's teething... Our friends with older babies hate us as they're still struggling to get 4-5 hours with their 9 & 12 month olds. They're both co-sleeping and we've not so we're putting it down to that (no separation issues). Also being bottle/formula fed was our supreme solution! We're in 9-12 month clothes and have been ahead of the curve (size, progress & feeding wise) since very early on.
I don't want to rain on your parade, because this may not happen with you, but ours was the same until she hit about 10 months and was then up and in our bed most nights until recently.Wow didn't even realise this thread was here so I've got some reading to do...
6.5 month old boy here, our first child and we still have no idea what we're doing!
He is amazing though, real little bundle of happiness and sleeps 9-10 hours even now he's teething... Our friends with older babies hate us as they're still struggling to get 4-5 hours with their 9 & 12 month olds. They're both co-sleeping and we've not so we're putting it down to that (no separation issues). Also being bottle/formula fed was our supreme solution! We're in 9-12 month clothes and have been ahead of the curve (size, progress & feeding wise) since very early on.
Weirdly, since introducing a duvet and pillow a couple weeks ago and getting her out of the bag, she's been way better. She now goes down without protest and stays in bed chilling until we go get her (unless her nappy leaks which is fair enough). Maybe she just came into our bed because it was comfier!
While it was great having a little girl falling asleep on my chest and all that, I'm really enjoying her being able to communicate, and she says some really funny stuff. Talking toddlers are really great fun, so you've lots of cool stuff in the post.
Soldato
Ours was fine until about a week ago, now it takes hours to get her to sleep and she's in with us at 6ish every morning. She's 2 years and 4 months. Hopefully it's just a phase.
Yeah, really looking forward to what comes next, not that we're wishing the time away but it's just so exciting as you can so easily tell that he's enjoying learning and doing new things!
We do understand it may not last forever, we did suffer from lots of bad nights where he'd not always be awake but grunting and making baby noises in his sleep waking us up. He was in his Nexttome bed thingy (which was an amazing bit of kit!) at the time and I think we where waking him a bit at night as well as him doing the same to us. We 'upgraded' (other half says evicted!) him into his own room at around 12/13 weeks old and he slept solidly 9-12 hours nearly every night since until recently (teething). Average is probably 9-10 hours per night now. Since he started semi-solids he does seem to sleep loads better, we're maybe seeing one 10pm wake up per week, usually wind related as he's taken to falling asleep on his night time bottle (at 7pm)...
We've been very lucky with him, a late night/evening routine (from about 4pm onwards) has worked wonders for us. The structure for him is almost perfect, even when the clock change coincided with some rough nights of teething he was still back into his routine (even with the hour difference) within a couple of days. When I say 'rough nights', for us they where generally 3-4 hours sleep, him waking up crying (10-11pm ish), couple of failed attempts to resettle, then teething crystals or calpol if this continued anytime after 11pm. He'd then sleep for another 5-6 hours. Even then he'd be awake in his room (it was daylight due to the clock change) and be amusing himself rolling around in his cot and not screaming. We got to know when these nights where generally coming as when settling for bed he'd begin grabbing his ear due to the pain, actually scratching himself if we let any finger/thumb nails get too long. We had 3 nights in a row of it and they where some of the worst nights since birth. I think because we where so used to the good sleeper we had before and knew there was very little we could do. We always tried and settle him a few times for several hours before resorting to calpol/crystals which I think helped, as now we'll occasionally see him ear grabbing, even waking himself up but then he's self settling and not needing us.
Weighed him roughly this morning at 10kg/22lbs, not bad at 6.5 months! He's almost crawling, strong enough to stand aided (and has been for months!). Rolls both ways from back to front (and back!) regularly, isn't a huge fan of 'tummy time' and now he knows he can roll to get away has bee doing that for a week or so. We're trying to encourage tummy time more, he doesn't get frustrated and is more than strong enough to push himself up. Just trying to encourage him to reach for things when there (which he does) to get the crawling started.
He eats everything. Is a huge fan mushed up peas, pasta cut up and bits of toast to suck on. He will bite and chew things with his two front teeth which came through a week ago. He prefers slices of banana rather than it mushed. Doesn't like spinach on it's own but loves it with peas. Spinach & pea rissotto was amazing. Pasta bake. Cucumber slices. Apple/orange/mango puree on natural yogurt. About the only things we've not enjoyed are 'baby rice' (likes adult rice blended up) and wasn't a huge fan of cottage pie. We made him a baby one (no stock, just water) and blended it up. It did taste boring as hell but as we had so much of it he had 5 meals of it even though he wasn't a fan (will pull faces but still eat things with encouragement!). We got a Cow & Gate baby weening book in one of the Bounty packs and it was good. Started on vegetables for a few weeks before introducing fruits. A cheapy £8 hand blender we got from Argos has been used so much! He's happy to eat and try anything, wheatabix (or the Aldi equivalent) this week as a replacement for porridge. He loved Crumpets yesterday morning instead of toast. Total guts, eats portions twice/three times as large as baby book says and still wants more. Legend!
He can kinda identify his name (Harry) as more often than not when it comes up in conversation he'll look at the person speaking rather than whatever else he's currently interested in. Other times trying to get his attention by name you can't. He will look for the dog (who he finds fascinating) when you ask "Where's Scruffy?". Just a shame Scruffy isn't a fan (6 year old West Highland). I think he still remembers the night-time wake ups! He'll soon come around once balls are being kicked around as he's always been good with other young (but older than Harry) kids.
Ewan the sheep is FANTASTIC. Amazing product, the white noises are superb. None of our kitchen noise/washing machine/dish washer/hoover upset or wake the baby. He doesn't like the hoover in the same room as him (but it is loud) but is getting better. Buy Ewan from Boots. If you get a problem contact the manufactuor and they'll send you a voucher for a new one, redeem it. Then return the broken one to Boots for replacement. Instant 2 Ewans for the price of one! A little bit naughty but means we have a backup so can just quickly swap him at night rather than changing batteries. Have not needed him much the last 3-4 weeks, only when going down for naps when he's a little wired or unsettled. When he's tired he's out like a light, don't even need to rock him!
Worst waste of money we spent was a Tommie tippie hygenic sac nappy bin thing.
We do have another expensive monitor - audio, nightlight, temperature and cot movement. It works very well but there was some of the restless nights where we turned it off. Having the monitor go mental 5s after you'd lifted him out of the cot to settle him (so no movement/breathing in cot) got old very quickly. During the cold weather we used it for temperature more than anything to determine if we needed to put the heating on boost when we went to bed. Even now (hot weather) we use it to help determine what tog gro-bag and sleepsuit to put him in.
Went in at 1am (after being sent home the night before at 9pm). Waters broke around 2am and 2cm dilated then otherwise would've been sent home again. Gas and air but had epidural at 5am as babies cord was in the way and not fully dilated, went into theatre but delivered him with forceps. 8lbs 1oz. First child and we're both convinced he'll be our only one! Mum is 34 and neither of us want to go through that again! Although two different midwives asked me to come back and speak in antenatal classes as they where 'amazed' how I was, but not quite sure why or what I did as it all felt very natural! So wouldn't know how to explain it to others!
I was 8 weeks early myself (back in 1980) and was one of the earliest surviving babies at Birmingham Childrens Hospital. Birth weight just below 6lbs. Was in hospital for 11 weeks afterwards and in an incubator for several of those. I did struggle all the way through school as I was a bit behind (my due date would've put me in the next school year) and was always one of the smallest. They held me back half a year in primary (with 2 others) until they discovered I needed glasses & couldn't see the black board. My grades improved afterwards carrying into secondary I caught all the others height wise by the age of 15-16. I was fairly mediocre in school, struggle to be 'pigeon fed' like in school but am very practical and hands on. Grew up on a farm, now work in horticulture doing IT and system support & most people would class me as intelligent as I understand most things (computers, engines, electrics, plumbing, etc).
We do understand it may not last forever, we did suffer from lots of bad nights where he'd not always be awake but grunting and making baby noises in his sleep waking us up. He was in his Nexttome bed thingy (which was an amazing bit of kit!) at the time and I think we where waking him a bit at night as well as him doing the same to us. We 'upgraded' (other half says evicted!) him into his own room at around 12/13 weeks old and he slept solidly 9-12 hours nearly every night since until recently (teething). Average is probably 9-10 hours per night now. Since he started semi-solids he does seem to sleep loads better, we're maybe seeing one 10pm wake up per week, usually wind related as he's taken to falling asleep on his night time bottle (at 7pm)...
We've been very lucky with him, a late night/evening routine (from about 4pm onwards) has worked wonders for us. The structure for him is almost perfect, even when the clock change coincided with some rough nights of teething he was still back into his routine (even with the hour difference) within a couple of days. When I say 'rough nights', for us they where generally 3-4 hours sleep, him waking up crying (10-11pm ish), couple of failed attempts to resettle, then teething crystals or calpol if this continued anytime after 11pm. He'd then sleep for another 5-6 hours. Even then he'd be awake in his room (it was daylight due to the clock change) and be amusing himself rolling around in his cot and not screaming. We got to know when these nights where generally coming as when settling for bed he'd begin grabbing his ear due to the pain, actually scratching himself if we let any finger/thumb nails get too long. We had 3 nights in a row of it and they where some of the worst nights since birth. I think because we where so used to the good sleeper we had before and knew there was very little we could do. We always tried and settle him a few times for several hours before resorting to calpol/crystals which I think helped, as now we'll occasionally see him ear grabbing, even waking himself up but then he's self settling and not needing us.
Weighed him roughly this morning at 10kg/22lbs, not bad at 6.5 months! He's almost crawling, strong enough to stand aided (and has been for months!). Rolls both ways from back to front (and back!) regularly, isn't a huge fan of 'tummy time' and now he knows he can roll to get away has bee doing that for a week or so. We're trying to encourage tummy time more, he doesn't get frustrated and is more than strong enough to push himself up. Just trying to encourage him to reach for things when there (which he does) to get the crawling started.
He eats everything. Is a huge fan mushed up peas, pasta cut up and bits of toast to suck on. He will bite and chew things with his two front teeth which came through a week ago. He prefers slices of banana rather than it mushed. Doesn't like spinach on it's own but loves it with peas. Spinach & pea rissotto was amazing. Pasta bake. Cucumber slices. Apple/orange/mango puree on natural yogurt. About the only things we've not enjoyed are 'baby rice' (likes adult rice blended up) and wasn't a huge fan of cottage pie. We made him a baby one (no stock, just water) and blended it up. It did taste boring as hell but as we had so much of it he had 5 meals of it even though he wasn't a fan (will pull faces but still eat things with encouragement!). We got a Cow & Gate baby weening book in one of the Bounty packs and it was good. Started on vegetables for a few weeks before introducing fruits. A cheapy £8 hand blender we got from Argos has been used so much! He's happy to eat and try anything, wheatabix (or the Aldi equivalent) this week as a replacement for porridge. He loved Crumpets yesterday morning instead of toast. Total guts, eats portions twice/three times as large as baby book says and still wants more. Legend!
He can kinda identify his name (Harry) as more often than not when it comes up in conversation he'll look at the person speaking rather than whatever else he's currently interested in. Other times trying to get his attention by name you can't. He will look for the dog (who he finds fascinating) when you ask "Where's Scruffy?". Just a shame Scruffy isn't a fan (6 year old West Highland). I think he still remembers the night-time wake ups! He'll soon come around once balls are being kicked around as he's always been good with other young (but older than Harry) kids.
Sister-in-law has the perfect prep. Her son is 9 months older than ours and I can see the benefit, equally we're formula fed, well prepared and have a bottle warmer which only takes 5 mins so would be little point getting one now.
Ewan the sheep is FANTASTIC. Amazing product, the white noises are superb. None of our kitchen noise/washing machine/dish washer/hoover upset or wake the baby. He doesn't like the hoover in the same room as him (but it is loud) but is getting better. Buy Ewan from Boots. If you get a problem contact the manufactuor and they'll send you a voucher for a new one, redeem it. Then return the broken one to Boots for replacement. Instant 2 Ewans for the price of one! A little bit naughty but means we have a backup so can just quickly swap him at night rather than changing batteries. Have not needed him much the last 3-4 weeks, only when going down for naps when he's a little wired or unsettled. When he's tired he's out like a light, don't even need to rock him!
Worst waste of money we spent was a Tommie tippie hygenic sac nappy bin thing.
Worked for us. Took 4 maybe 5 nights of controlled crying. Anything more than 30 mins of complaining we generally intervened and resettled. You can tell the kind of cry anyway. 'Fake' cries and really 'upset' cries.
Seconded. We where in a bad place when we tried it, probably at around 2am one night after 2-3 very broken nights of sleep and just out of patience with him. Controlled cry for about 20 mins, then he slept for 5 hours solid (the most he'd had unbroken for a couple of days).
We have a 'FREDI'. It works damn well and probably one of the best £30 I spent. App is annoying as hell (from a technical viewpoint) but it's a solid camera & works well.
For us having the camera was a godsend. We could check if a loud noise had woken him or made him stir, also noises he'd make at night you could tell by looking if he was still asleep. Night vision was good enough to tell if his eyes where open or not. Like you we avoided a proper wake up screaming session just by popping a dummy in. Even laying your hand on them and saying "ssssssh, bed time" can work. Did for us a few times without him fully waking. We live right next to the SAS camp and helicopters at night along with gunfire in the daytime doesn't phase him. Or hundreds of geese flying over honking at morning/night.
We do have another expensive monitor - audio, nightlight, temperature and cot movement. It works very well but there was some of the restless nights where we turned it off. Having the monitor go mental 5s after you'd lifted him out of the cot to settle him (so no movement/breathing in cot) got old very quickly. During the cold weather we used it for temperature more than anything to determine if we needed to put the heating on boost when we went to bed. Even now (hot weather) we use it to help determine what tog gro-bag and sleepsuit to put him in.
We're dummy here but only if he wants it. Only for night times in preparation for sleep, or if we're out and need to encourage a nap in his pram. If he's sleepy can take it or leave it. Nighttime routine the last 2 weeks he's falling asleep on the supper bottle so doesn't need it!
Yup! You go from "we won't know what to do when he/she arrives" to "well he/she is here now, we're still clueless but just go with it" very quickly.
Our first was born 29th sept. 6 day stay in hospital at first and then another 4 day stay after only 2 days at home. All on the mend now tho, and allergic to cows milk like her dad
You guys are both very close to us, we had ours at 8am on 28th September (due day+4)! Christmas babies! Ours came from two bottles of Prosecco after inviting both sets of parents around on Xmas day...
Went in at 1am (after being sent home the night before at 9pm). Waters broke around 2am and 2cm dilated then otherwise would've been sent home again. Gas and air but had epidural at 5am as babies cord was in the way and not fully dilated, went into theatre but delivered him with forceps. 8lbs 1oz. First child and we're both convinced he'll be our only one! Mum is 34 and neither of us want to go through that again! Although two different midwives asked me to come back and speak in antenatal classes as they where 'amazed' how I was, but not quite sure why or what I did as it all felt very natural! So wouldn't know how to explain it to others!
I was 8 weeks early myself (back in 1980) and was one of the earliest surviving babies at Birmingham Childrens Hospital. Birth weight just below 6lbs. Was in hospital for 11 weeks afterwards and in an incubator for several of those. I did struggle all the way through school as I was a bit behind (my due date would've put me in the next school year) and was always one of the smallest. They held me back half a year in primary (with 2 others) until they discovered I needed glasses & couldn't see the black board. My grades improved afterwards carrying into secondary I caught all the others height wise by the age of 15-16. I was fairly mediocre in school, struggle to be 'pigeon fed' like in school but am very practical and hands on. Grew up on a farm, now work in horticulture doing IT and system support & most people would class me as intelligent as I understand most things (computers, engines, electrics, plumbing, etc).
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