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Just to cheer you all up and give you a chuckle, my son has recently started climbing things and generally trying to get at/in everything (he can also do a full set of stairs now at 13 months so be weary). Anyway he thought it would be a great idea to post a small wooden block from his shape sorter inside one of my floor standers. Me and the the Mrs found it hilarious as posting things seem to be his thing.

Crazy how quick they learn things ain't it, Atleast you know he may have a future at Royal Mail (Postie) :D
 
Mine has gone through a bit of a flurry of development, which has been lots of fun. She does all the right animal sounds, sings along (sort of) with nursery rhymes, and my absolute favourite: a few days ago she surprised me by coming in for a hug, and then looked up and gave me a little kiss.

My partner and I are now jealously trying to get more kisses out of her, but she only does it when she feels like it. So far I'm the favourite which has my missus absolutely green with envy :)
 
Our second little boy was born 4 weeks ago, and it's been a whirlwind! Missus's waters broke at 7am, went in to hospital and sent home (as expected). Contractions started at about 7pm, got very rapid very quickly and baby was born just after midnight. Discharged @ 4am and home by 5! Amazing how quickly you get back into the routine once you've got this little thing to take care of.

Current stress is our eldest's autism consultation tomorrow. Really not sure what's going to be happening, and just hoping for a positive outcome as he needs support which is hard to come by without a formal diagnosis. School are being really good about it, but they also need the diagnosis to be able to unlock funding to get him 1-to-1 teaching assistance. It's a frustratingly long process!
 
So my 3 year old son went on his first holiday abroad to Fuerteventura on Wednesday, I unfortunately couldn’t go as I couldn’t get the time off work.

I decided to surprise him and fly out for the weekend as he was apparently having a miserable time at night waking up upset asking where I was and being quite clingy.

Arrive at 4pm local time and he seems quite poorly, got a bit of a cough and a cold by the looks of it. By the evening his cough is quite bad but he’s still happy and even joining in the kids disco, went to bed seemingly fine...

Well...after a night in hospital, turns out he has pneomonia and laryngitis :( absolutely heartbreaking. Luckily after doing some tests and xrays of his lungs, they’ve let him come back to the villa with some strong antibiotics and told to rest.

So scary how he just turned for the worse during the night, and thank god I came out in the end

Don’t think I’m going to be doing much relaxing, and I’ll be staying out here until Wednesday at least but my boss will understand.

Kids eh? :o
 
Sounds rough dude, but at least you're there so not worrying from afar.

It's me that's poorly here. I went to a metal gig a couple weeks ago and managed to give myself tendonitis in the hamstrings (yeah I feel old), so crouching around after my daughter is a fairly painful experience.

She had a little playdate yesterday which was great fun though. They were just clapping at each other all the time as it was the only language they had that made sense to both of them.
 
When / where did you guys take your baby on its first flight / holiday?

Thinkig of taking him to the French Riviera in Feb when he'll be 6 months.


Short flight, civilised place. Just wondering if he's still too young for that at 6 months. He'll only have been term for 3 months (as he was 3 months premature)
 
6 months is a good age for a first flight. Our lad went to Ibiza at just over 5 months old and basically slept most the way there and back, just woke him up for descent and stuck a bottle in his god. thats the only time he cried during the flights. At 2 years old, that's a different matter. :(
 
100% agree with Droolinggimp. 6 months is a fine age to take a baby on a plane. It's much easier before they learn to walk. You're in trouble once they want to run around and can't understand why you're not letting them.

We took our son on holiday abroad for the first time when he was nine months. We choose Portugal for his first trip because it's not a long flight and the flights departed around lunchtime.
 
My boy is just over two now - amazing age. So affectionate and everything is amazing to him. Took him to see Paddington 2 the movie yesterday and whilst I am quite a robust critic of most of the children’s rubbish we are presented with, Paddington 2 was good. Very funny actually and my little man loved it
 
Make sure that if you take them on a plane, you have something for them to drink/suck on during take off. Otherwise air pressure change can give them a banging sore ear and a screaming child for the duration of the flight and well after you land.
 
My twin boys have had Croup all week :(

I had almost forgotten how hard it is to deal with two sick wee chaps at once. Barking cough, vomiting and not eating makes for one tired and worn out dad (and mum)

My little girl had croup a few weeks back. She woke up at midnight seemingly unable to breath. I'm not a worrier but I wanted to get her to the hospital ASAP. Some steroid medicine and she was much better after a few hours. She has remnants of it a few weeks later (slight cold symptoms/cough) but is otherwise fine.

Having to deal with 2 with croup must have been a nightmare though!
 
My little girl had croup a few weeks back. She woke up at midnight seemingly unable to breath. I'm not a worrier but I wanted to get her to the hospital ASAP. Some steroid medicine and she was much better after a few hours. She has remnants of it a few weeks later (slight cold symptoms/cough) but is otherwise fine.

Having to deal with 2 with croup must have been a nightmare though!

Harsh isn't even close. Both wheezing and coughing until vomiting. Scary stuff. I'm a first aider in my work and I've done additional pediatric childcare first aid too. Thank god I did as I was able to stay calm, think logically and keep my head whilst the wife sometimes lost hers. Id honestly recommend you do a child first aid course. Even to learn the basics of dealing with a choking child and how to deal with it, etc. Better to know and use your info, than not to know and do damage trying to help the child.
 
We had our first parent teacher meeting Monday just gone with our lads key worker at his play group. Didn't go well. :( (<sad face for his Mum as she was upset over it).

Basically, he is 3 years old 23rd Jan and they suggest he is progressing like a, iirc, 26month old. They say he should be talking in 5-6 word sentences, be more aware of his immediate surrounding (he trips over a fair bit when running and bumps into other children whilst playing), and a few other concerns.

Now, he does say LOTS of words and also some smaller than 5-6 word sentences. He follows orders, well as much as a nearly 3 year old does, like sits at the table when asked, gets his shoes, coat, tidies up when asked etc hes pretty good at doing what we ask of him. He knows wee and poo but not understanding that he needs to tell us when he needs them not tell us after as potty training is a bit behind and he needs to be fully trained next year for pre-school.

They also were concerned about him being 'too' active?!??!? They suggest something about his 'core' that maybe he didnt develop properly when he was a baby, eg did he miss out crawling, standing unaided etc. Saying to us that he should be staying still or relaxed more.

All this upset my wife and she now feels like a bad mother. I told her its all about ticking boxes and running side by side with official guidelines etc. yeah he didnt start saying words till early this year but over the last few months hes says new words every day and trying to get sentences out. But about the other stuff. You know of a 3 year old who doesn't run about and fall over or bump into things or people? I certainly dont.

She has come to terms with the report and now not entirely concerned with it as we see him progress everyday. He is learning things quickly too. Today we got him the FireHd for kids from Amazon and after an hour watching Paw Patrol and playing a drawing app he managed to stop Paw Patrol and load up the drawing app be himself. I was impressed. He knows what things are used for like Tv remote, rubbish bins for litter, puts his dinner plates and cup in the sink etc, I think hes doing fine but still, in the back of my mind, should he be doing more? Is he really that far behind?

thoughts guys. You been in a similar situation with your 3 year old?
 
We had our first parent teacher meeting Monday just gone with our lads key worker at his play group. Didn't go well. :( (<sad face for his Mum as she was upset over it).

Basically, he is 3 years old 23rd Jan and they suggest he is progressing like a, iirc, 26month old. They say he should be talking in 5-6 word sentences, be more aware of his immediate surrounding (he trips over a fair bit when running and bumps into other children whilst playing), and a few other concerns.

Now, he does say LOTS of words and also some smaller than 5-6 word sentences. He follows orders, well as much as a nearly 3 year old does, like sits at the table when asked, gets his shoes, coat, tidies up when asked etc hes pretty good at doing what we ask of him. He knows wee and poo but not understanding that he needs to tell us when he needs them not tell us after as potty training is a bit behind and he needs to be fully trained next year for pre-school.

They also were concerned about him being 'too' active?!??!? They suggest something about his 'core' that maybe he didnt develop properly when he was a baby, eg did he miss out crawling, standing unaided etc. Saying to us that he should be staying still or relaxed more.

All this upset my wife and she now feels like a bad mother. I told her its all about ticking boxes and running side by side with official guidelines etc. yeah he didnt start saying words till early this year but over the last few months hes says new words every day and trying to get sentences out. But about the other stuff. You know of a 3 year old who doesn't run about and fall over or bump into things or people? I certainly dont.

She has come to terms with the report and now not entirely concerned with it as we see him progress everyday. He is learning things quickly too. Today we got him the FireHd for kids from Amazon and after an hour watching Paw Patrol and playing a drawing app he managed to stop Paw Patrol and load up the drawing app be himself. I was impressed. He knows what things are used for like Tv remote, rubbish bins for litter, puts his dinner plates and cup in the sink etc, I think hes doing fine but still, in the back of my mind, should he be doing more? Is he really that far behind?

thoughts guys. You been in a similar situation with your 3 year old?
Sounds like a **** nursery tbh they shouldn't be getting you worried, however as nurserys have to be ofsteaded it's a side effect. Iirc they said she should have been writing at 3. For my daughter who is 4 in Jan, we potty trained her at Christmas last year (so just under 3 and she got it within a week). She also didn't talk much but she come on leaps and bounds in that time. Now she won't shut up lol. She does still catch things, she must have a dozen bruises on her legs and still sometimes missjudges door handles and catches her head on it. I wouldn't worry if I were you. My daughter is very very active to the point of up at 5 and doesn't stop moving till she's asleep at 7.00 it's very tiring lol.
 
I'm hugely wary of all that for my little boy. I do feel like they try to squash them in to holes that little girls fit perfectly in without any consideration for the psychological effect that has on the little boy and the parents in the long term. Added to that my lad will be the youngest in the year when he does go to school, those two factors , male and youngest, mean that statistically he's always going to struggle to keep up with many of the people who he will eventually go to school with.

My misses is/was an outstanding teacher in underperforming schools (increased scrutiny, more difficult to be graded as outstanding), head of year, English and IT lead etc ask she knows a little bit about teaching fortunately.

I wouldn't send my boy to a play group that wasn't attached to a school for starters, the required qualifications are very different. And thus the level of interaction likely between child and carer would be very different. I also would take with a pinch of salt the stuff about his core. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, most boys want nothing better than to run around screaming, shouting and generally causing chaos, those boys that sit still have just learned a bit quicker that that's what the big people want them to do (not what they want to do). Also the bumping in to things and people, has he been to the opticians? My sister in law after years of her eldest son being a total clumsy clod finally took him to the opticians and it turned out he needed very strong glasses, all that time his whole world was blurry!

Where I would take interest is on the speech development, apparently children get more out of their dad reading to them than they do their mum, perhaps, if you aren't already, spend a bit more time with him, talking, reading etc when ever I'm with my boy, like doing the shopping or playing games I talk constantly, describe everything and generally have a conversation with him even though he doesn't really do much talking back outside of his minion language. I try to get him to repeat things all the time and build his language up. He's his own character though and is very utilitarian; why say 'where is my toy?' when you can say 'toy is?' But again, speech and communication is something where boys typically lag behind girls and it never seems to be acceptable.

Basically no one is going to know your son better than you so take it on the chin, if there's anything you think you could to better at then do try and if not just don't sweat it. People are idiots sometimes, especially when they want to try to pass blame, and I've heard some truly awful stories about some teachers when it comes to protecting their career or reputation, maybe they're just boring and unengaging. My money would be on that!

Edit: oh and women seem to take it much harder when it comes to anything remotely seen as criticism for their child, probably because they generally bear primary responsibility for their upbringing and development within the home, hence why your misses is taking it harder than you. My wife is a wreck whenever she gets a critical look or thinks our boy isn't quite where he should be development wise. Just need to do as you've done, reassure and move on.
 
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When / where did you guys take your baby on its first flight / holiday?

Thinkig of taking him to the French Riviera in Feb when he'll be 6 months.


Short flight, civilised place. Just wondering if he's still too young for that at 6 months. He'll only have been term for 3 months (as he was 3 months premature)

Took both of ours on very long-haul flights when they were young. My eldest we took to Japan when he was 18 months. Man, that flight was so damn exahusting. He basically toddled up and down the aisles and into the galley area the entire flight. 18 hours and I think he got maybe 4 hours sleep. Well, it's more than I got, anyway.

And then when our youngest was born they both flew to Australia at ages two and six months. Surprisingly, that flight was pretty, pretty, pretty good. Youngest slept most of the way and our eledest basically watched Fireman Sam DVDs and slept.

Bascially, I don't think kids are ever "too young" for flights. It's more about what you will have to put with as an accompanying parent :).
 
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