Friday, May 30, 2008

Night lights and teeth

Well time for an update I think.

Kaitereo has been teething for the last 3 or 4 months, and still no teeth are poking through the gums. I can see the white dot of one just sitting under the surface, but they are stubbornly refusing to break through. This is causing my poor baby a nasty rash under her chin from all the dribble. I showed the rash to a friend of mine who looks after children, and she recommended an amber teething necklace. Now I consider myself to be an "open-minded sceptic" when it comes to things that my husband refers to as "ju-ju magic", in that I don't necessarily believe in them, but I'll give them a try if they have worked for someone I know. (I applied this logic to homeopathy and blow me, it worked on me and my cat!) I will let you know if they work! If they do, it will be well worth the money, as they work on both baby teeth and adult teeth coming through, and we are planning to have more children!

Mapera is coming on in leaps and bounds in her development. She is thoroughly into the "terrible twos" and I am pretty sure they will continue into the "troublesome threes". She IS getting much better at coming and asking for help when something frustrates her, rather than simply screaming incoherently and throwing her dolly at the wall, but she is so determined to do everything for herself.
Now she has got the hang of her light she is staying in her bed at night like a little angel, the only trouble is, we are trying to get her to go to the toilet at night now! It seems that the minute you get your child to understand and comply with one rule, then you have to go and break it to get them onto the next stage!! We are encouraging her to get up and go to the toilet if she needs a "mimi" or "teko" and she will get up now, but she was refusing to go into the dark bathroom, for fear of TROLLS (thank you, traditional fairytales!). SO, we got her a little night-light that sticks on the wall just where she can reach around the door, and press it on. This is now a delightful novelty, and she spent a happy hour last night getting up for a mimi then saying she didn't want to go and playing with the light.

How DO you explain to a 2year and 9month old that they are not allowed to get up at night unless they need the toilet, and that the light is just there for the toilet and not for playing and when they've finished they need to turn the light off and go back to bed and they don't need to shout for Mummy and Daddy unless they've done poos?
It's such a complicated concept, I am surprised I am even attempting it!

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A friend of mine has bought a book off the internet on how to potty train your 22 month old in 3DAYS! She is spending this long weekend attempting to do it, and I have promised to buy her lunch if it works.
I'm not sure how good it is for a child to do such an intensive course, but I wish Mapera had trained in 3 days, rather than the 9 months it has taken. I consider her fully toilet trained, despite the odd accident, as she is capable of knowing when she needs the toilet and taking herself off. She tends to have accidents if she gets involved in playing and simply leaves it too late. I do try and take her to the loo if I think she needs to go (we call it "doing the mimi dance") and she usually complies if I reassure her that she can come straight back to playing when she's finished.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

Oh! I'm mad curious as to whether intensive training would work!
Please let me know how your friend gets on.

And...tee hee....don't read anymore troll stories! Only tales about ditzy blondes leaving their slippers behind. ;)

littlehouse said...

stay scepptical about the 3 day training thing ;)

we have a potty in J's room just for night times so he doesn't need to try and get to the bathroom. and he only stepped in it once....

Did you ever imagine, before kids, that you'd spend so much time thinking and talking about poo?