OcUK Dadsnet thread

[willhub]

My son has stopped crying when we take him to nursery now, however he's also stopped saying bye to us too

And in the house he's an absolute nightmare!!!!!! Can't go 5 minutes without him getting angry and chucking toys over the gate into the kitchen area. It's like terrible twos with the volume turned to max, apparently more aggression in the house is a sign he isn't happy at nursery but he seems happy enough playing to me and they've put pictures up too.

 

[ci_newman]

My son has stopped crying when we take him to nursery now, however he's also stopped saying bye to us too

And in the house he's an absolute nightmare!!!!!! Can't go 5 minutes without him getting angry and chucking toys over the gate into the kitchen area. It's like terrible twos with the volume turned to max, apparently more aggression in the house is a sign he isn't happy at nursery but he seems happy enough playing to me and they've put pictures up too.

It could also be a sign of too little sleep (i.e. poor napping at nursery) or even just a growth phase. He feels confident to let out his emotional energy at home but not at nursery.

 

[willhub]

Yeah he's apparently good as gold at nursery, he eats meals 100%, according to the diary does have a 1-1.5 hour nap, seems happy. At home, he doesn't eat his meals fully, just stands banging gate wanting "BISIT" (Biscuit) and demolished the last jar of them, and just throws tantrums.

 

[Brando]

Yeah he's apparently good as gold at nursery, he eats meals 100%, according to the diary does have a 1-1.5 hour nap, seems happy. At home, he doesn't eat his meals fully, just stands banging gate wanting "BISIT" (Biscuit) and demolished the last jar of them, and just throws tantrums.

Some kids seem to save it all up, e.g. angels at home and then a nightmare at pre-school. Or, hold it all together at school and then come home and release hell.

Our 2-year-old is terrible on low sleep, and lots of throwing is a sign of overtiredness for us. She's a proper thug, but also caring with it.

We're in no-sleep hell. Both seem to take 60-90 mins of one of our time to get them asleep and then they wake up 1-3x a night.

 

[willhub]

My son sometimes wakes up a couple of hours on a night, or other night woke up at half 4 and didn't go back to sleep, I don't know what's going through their mind wanting to play at half 4 in the morning.

Also can't put him in his own bed at all, he wakes up if we get him to sleep and put him in, going spare and we have to get him into ours where he'll stay all night, but even putting him in his own bed to play for a few hours on a morning to let us have a few more hours, just won't do it, it wants me to pick him up and take him down. Posted on here previously about him sleeping in his bed, we've tried but it's so severe his tantrums we can't cope to leave him there as he'll likely hurt himself bruise his face / head the force he hits the bed with.

 

[sx_turbo]

My son sometimes wakes up a couple of hours on a night, or other night woke up at half 4 and didn't go back to sleep, I don't know what's going through their mind wanting to play at half 4 in the morning.

Also can't put him in his own bed at all, he wakes up if we get him to sleep and put him in, going spare and we have to get him into ours where he'll stay all night, but even putting him in his own bed to play for a few hours on a morning to let us have a few more hours, just won't do it, it wants me to pick him up and take him down. Posted on here previously about him sleeping in his bed, we've tried but it's so severe his tantrums we can't cope to leave him there as he'll likely hurt himself bruise his face / head the force he hits the bed with.

He does that because he knows it will work.

We went through a phase similar to this (not as bad though) and one of us would lay with him in his bed one of us in the floor and we would just have our hand on his or his back so he knew we were there, when asleep we'd move off gently. Sometimes we'd end up falling asleep to though.

It's something to try if not done so already.

We also got a light clock (can't remember the name now) but basically when it was alight it was ok for him to get up, when it's dark he needs to stay in bed. This worked aswell, at least until the summer months where it's light silly I click on the morning lol

 

[hamesy]

Guys any tips for a nearly 2 year old with separation anxiety?

Over the last week or two, she starts crying whenever I leave the room. She settles down after 5-10 minutes but it's the night times that are a killer. She'll wake up crying calling out for me. My partner will try and settle her but she can see me in bed and wants to get in with us. We've started to leave the landing light on for her so it's not completely dark and we've even started sleeping the other end of the bed so she can see we are there and she's not alone.

She's fine with her bedtime routine, I'll have her on my lap while she's having her bottle, and once she's finished my partner will take her up and she'll go to sleep by herself.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Do you read to her?
Honestly think kids waking up at night is just normal behaviour...my 8 year old still does it just less often.

Obviously you already know that being in bed with your kids is going to lead to long term issues but as a one off every now and again is perfectly reasonable.

 

[hamesy]

Do you read to her?
Honestly think kids waking up at night is just normal behaviour...my 8 year old still does it just less often.

Obviously you already know that being in bed with your kids is going to lead to long term issues but as a one off every now and again is perfectly reasonable.

We read to her during the day and evening. Bottle time she likes to sit there chilling out.

We made that mistake the beginning of last year, she got into our bed one night when she wasn't very well and took us almost a month to break the habit.

She stayed at my parents last night just so we could get some sleep. Apparently she slept throughout the night. Appears to be when I'm around, she's a proper daddies girl.

 

[dlockers]

Pay for a sleep coach and get some proper guidance...............

 

[theone8181]

Pay for a sleep coach and get some proper guidance...............

I know it's a serious comment, but can't believe it's even a job.

 

[OG]

2 and a bit year old son has had raised glands on his neck for a number of months now. He's also been just generally quite ill due to whatever illness of the week has been going round nursery but the past month he's generally remained not ill which is great but still retained the raised glands. Nursery actually mentioned to us last week if we were aware of them and suggested we go to the doctors to get it checked out.

Been this afternoon and he's got his first blood test in a few weeks just to check that everything is all ok. Doctors seemed to think it's just where he has been so ill over winter that his body is playing catchup a bit. I don't know why I do it to myself but a cursory glance online of 'raised glands for long periods of time' returns all sorts of weird and wonderful things so hopefully little man is all good, he's currently completely fine in himself.

Any advice for how to pin down a toddler for a blood test is welcome

 

[Spacedeck]

Don't you just hate school attendance letters. Between September and February, my daughter has had a whooping 11 authorised absences (we always inform school)! Let's not forget a whole day counts as two absences, so in reality she has missed 5 and a half days in that time period. One was half a day for dentist, the others where actual sick days as they themselves have a rule that says they can't go back to school until 48 hours after the last time being sick... They expect attendance to be 97%, and unfortunately we managed 94.58%.

Yet they still send the same threatening letters of being pulled in to a meeting should attendance not improve, even though they were all accounted for and fully informed about. It's ridiculous.

 

[fez]

Yet they still send the same threatening letters of being pulled in to a meeting should attendance not improve, even though they were all accounted for and fully informed about. It's ridiculous.

A better question might be "why do you care?"

You haven't done anything wrong so why would you worry. I assume that periodically a letter is sent out to all the parents whos kids fall under that threshold. Probably automatically. They will then probably follow up the ones that they know are bad cases or ones that fall under a threshold. They are probably hoping that these letters "encourage" people to be better.

 

[Spacedeck]

A better question might be "why do you care?"

You haven't done anything wrong so why would you worry. I assume that periodically a letter is sent out to all the parents whos kids fall under that threshold. Probably automatically. They will then probably follow up the ones that they know are bad cases or ones that fall under a threshold. They are probably hoping that these letters "encourage" people to be better.

I just don't like the wording on the letters, feels worded to put blame on you because your children are too sick to attend school on the rare occasion. Then the threats about interventions/meetings, sure I can understand if it was stupidly low or if unauthorised absences and it was clear they might need to intervene. Letters could just be better worded in the first instance of them sending these letters without making parents feel to blame, especially when you have to keep them at home because of their own rules.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

I've not really had chance to read this entire thread so there may well be some useful intel, but we're expecting our first in September and the whole pushchair/stroller/car seat sitch is a frying my brain.

I'm thinking that a car seat that can be put straight onto a stroller frame would be useful however there seems to be so many options it's making my head fry. Are there are go-to brands and model to look out for? Or a recognised OcUK dads-approved bundle ?

They all seem super duper expensive too unless I'm missing something obvious? I'll likely try and find a model I'm happy with then get it 2nd hand off gumtree/marketplace/vinted.

 

[ChrisD.]

I've not really had chance to read this entire thread so there may well be some useful intel, but we're expecting our first in September and the whole pushchair/stroller/car seat sitch is a frying my brain.

I'm thinking that a car seat that can be put straight onto a stroller frame would be useful however there seems to be so many options it's making my head fry. Are there are go-to brands and model to look out for? Or a recognised OcUK dads-approved bundle ?

They all seem super duper expensive too unless I'm missing something obvious? I'll likely try and find a model I'm happy with then get it 2nd hand off gumtree/marketplace/vinted.

If you’re happy with used I have an Oyster3 3 (think that’s what’s it’s called) system in the garage, used for less than a year.

It's this kit: 5-piece set including: Oyster3 Stroller, Oyster3 Carrycot, Oyster Capsule Car Seat, Oyster DUOFIX base and Multicar seat adaptors.

Personally if I could do it again I wouldn’t buy new, they grow out of it all so quickly. But you have to be 100% sure the car seat hasn’t been in an accident.

 

[dlockers]

I've not really had chance to read this entire thread so there may well be some useful intel, but we're expecting our first in September and the whole pushchair/stroller/car seat sitch is a frying my brain.

I'm thinking that a car seat that can be put straight onto a stroller frame would be useful however there seems to be so many options it's making my head fry. Are there are go-to brands and model to look out for? Or a recognised OcUK dads-approved bundle ?

They all seem super duper expensive too unless I'm missing something obvious? I'll likely try and find a model I'm happy with then get it 2nd hand off gumtree/marketplace/vinted.

To be fair I had my kid during covid but the whole "system" pram thing was the single biggest waste of cash ever. We used the pram (obvs) loads, a Nuna something or other, but the car seat gimmick was never used once.

Maybe "real life" (i.e. now we are out of COVID) would mean you use it more.

Basically don't waste your time on brand new, just go straight to FB marketplace and pay pennies on the pound.

 

[OG]

I've not really had chance to read this entire thread so there may well be some useful intel, but we're expecting our first in September and the whole pushchair/stroller/car seat sitch is a frying my brain.

I'm thinking that a car seat that can be put straight onto a stroller frame would be useful however there seems to be so many options it's making my head fry. Are there are go-to brands and model to look out for? Or a recognised OcUK dads-approved bundle ?

They all seem super duper expensive too unless I'm missing something obvious? I'll likely try and find a model I'm happy with then get it 2nd hand off gumtree/marketplace/vinted.

As others have said, hindsight is a wonderful thing! I think we dropped nearly a grand on a new 'travel system' but only put the car seat on the pram a handful of times. Get yourself on FB marketplace and get a used pram/buggy and buy a new car seat for baby

 

[Noakesy85]

My parents bought us the Full travel system from MotherCare for our now eldest child, it cost around £1800 brand new back in 2016. It moved to Cyprus and back and survived a second child.

As we were living in Cyprus the car seat had a sheepskin cover on it for most of the time (it only ever came off to be cleaned) as it was so hot most of the time. The Bassinet was used on a few occasions. The actual todler seat got the most use but again, that had a cover on it for most of its life.

Towards the end, one of the wheels failed so had to buy a replacement off Ebay but all in all, it served us well.

Ended up selling it in near mint condition for about £300 on FB marketplace about 18 months ago as we were moving and didn't need it anymore. Someone got a literal bargain that day.