Parent Thread

My 2yo daughter runs around jumping and falling all over the place. She has more bruises that I could possibly imagine. My wife is worried and I tell her kids are tough. Earlier on my daughter would fall/stumble on the ground and would start crying and look for mom and dad. All I would do is to tell her to stop crying and get up and go play. Now she barely flinches where I'm wincing.

Now my son is going to be interesting. He's 4 months right now. He's easily startled but he's a champ physically. I swear he's going to start standing/walking soon. I can hold his two hands while he's sitting on the floor and he can stand up on his own. His balance is shit though as with any 4 month old.

Yeah, our 2 year old has constantly bruised shins and random bruises or scrapes on his elbows, knees, etc. He's just a walking wrecking ball. He tries to sprint as hard as he can when playing outside and gets a little off-balance and inevitably falls or crashes into something. Doesn't seem to bother him, he just dusts himself off and gets up and keeps going.

I always joke with my wife that we're going to get child services called on us or something, but I'm pretty sure this is normal for most toddlers.

chaos_sl said:

My two youngest daughters both had speech delays. My middle girl wasn't that bad, she got evaluated, ending up being a hearing problem, she got tubes in her ears and her speech took off. My youngest though, pretty bad speech problem. She was trying to talk but then she would get pissed off and act out because she got frustrated when people couldn't understand her, or she would just stay quiet and not talk because it embarrassed her. I think the things that helped were moving her to a better pre-school,

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Chaos what determination did you use to decide that one pre-school was better than another. We toured them when my youngest was born and I couldn't create a solid criteria to judge them all, they all seemed alike.

Gotta go to the hospital in July for an ultrasound on little guys head. They said it's just a precaution but can't help but be scared. I mean if it is growing into his head I don't even know what they'd do. They said they've never seen strawberry hemangioma on a soft spot

The Ancient_sl said:

Chaos what determination did you use to decide that one pre-school was better than another. We toured them when my youngest was born and I couldn't create a solid criteria to judge them all, they all seemed alike.

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This was tough for us, too. Know what did it for us, in the end? Talking to parents in the pick up line. There was one preschool that the parents could not wax poetic enough about the place. The others? Parents were saying things like, "it's fine." or "it's good." When you get parents (most or all of them) saying "I can't imagine sending my kid anywhere else, and the teachers invest so much it is amazing." you know you've found the one.

The Ancient_sl said:

Chaos what determination did you use to decide that one pre-school was better than another. We toured them when my youngest was born and I couldn't create a solid criteria to judge them all, they all seemed alike.

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You can look up the violations they get on state inspections online. That is one way. Keeping in mind that of course every school will have some violations.

But the way it worked out for us is we picked a school, mostly based on cost because we have so many kids it was a serious burden. But the curriculum looked good. Over time we noticed things we were unhappy with, and most of all noticed that our daughter's speech didn't seem to get any better and our daughters were miserable and unhappy when we picked them up at night. We dug into the curriculum of the school and started closely monitoring what was actually being done vs what they said was being done, looking at the state of all the rooms as we came in, stuff like that. Then in looking for a new school we knew what to look for, because we had a baseline for "this is bad".

Her knew school has more teachers, better defined curriculum, better communication between teachers/administration and parents, is cleaner, and just an all around better environment. It also costs a fucking fortune.

Noodlemod_sl said:

Gotta go to the hospital in July for an ultrasound on little guys head. They said it's just a precaution but can't help but be scared. I mean if it is growing into his head I don't even know what they'd do. They said they've never seen strawberry hemangioma on a soft spot

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Thinking about ya man. Let us know how its going.

My cousin had one. It turned him mean.

Not because of any physical reason. It's because it scared his mother so fucking much that she let him get away with everything until he was about 12 years old. And by 12 years old it's way the fuck too late to start enforcing any sort of discipline on a child.

So hopefully it goes like that for you Noodle, and you have to be less concerned with your son and more concerned with your wife.

Tuco_sl said:

Son has gotten super needy over the last week. He basically demands attention anytime he's awake. He's about 6 months now, at what point do we let him 'cry it out'? Or is that dumb bullshit and we should just play with him whenever he demands it?

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Seems to me there's a huge gap in between 'crying it out' and 'should just play with him'. Crying it out is dumb shit. Kids are not manipulating you for ulterior motives at this age. They're communicating as they know how. Sometimes it's just the skin-skin contact that calms them. If he's non-consoleable it's your, the parent's, job to figure out the basic need: hungry, tired, wet, soiled, hot, cold, ill, startled, over stimulated et cetera. No shame in asking for help, parents, friends. How's the wife coping, is she worn out?

You should have let him cry it out the day you brought him home. What are you raising, a kitten or a MAN?

Gavinmad_sl said:

You should have let him cry it out the day you brought him home. What are you raising, a kitten or a MAN?

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Damn, that was well put. Why'd you never have kids, Gav?

Izo_sl said:

Damn, that was well put. Why'd you never have kids, Gav?

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I have 2 kids, I'm just not allowed within 100 feet of their mother.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I have 2 kids, I'm just not allowed within 100 feet of their mother.

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How'd that happen? Do you still see your kids?

I don't have kids, probably. And I definitely don't have any restraining orders against me. Can't get a restraining order if you're dead!

I helped my friend a lot during the first year or so of her son's life, I read a couple books, and I see my nieces pretty regularly. I won't pretend to know as much as someone who actually has children every single day instead of here and there like I did, but I know more than your average joe.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I don't have kids, probably. And I definitely don't have any restraining orders against me. Can't get a restraining order if you're dead!

I helped my friend a lot during the first year or so of her son's life, I read a couple books, and I see my nieces pretty regularly. I won't pretend to know as much as someone who actually has children every single day instead of here and there like I did, but I know more than your average joe.

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Well, sounds like you're wiser than most, real father material, yessir. You get right back on that gene seeding mission asap!

Kids definitely can manipulate you at an early age. My 4 month old son does it. Crying it out is fine too, to some degree. You have to get the sound of the cry right to know exactly when to go in and when to wait.

Also Izo is useless so you know not to listen to him.

Draegan_sl said:

Kids definitely can manipulate you at an early age. My 4 month old son does it. Crying it out is fine too, to some degree. You have to get the sound of the cry right to know exactly when to go in and when to wait.

Also Izo is useless so you know not to listen to him.

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I donno if a man who says 'would of, could of, should of' and is manipulated by a 4 mo baby is the brain trust Tubro is looking for either. Crying it out for a 6 mo is for dummies imho.

Tuco_sl said:

Son has gotten super needy over the last week. He basically demands attention anytime he's awake. He's about 6 months now, at what point do we let him 'cry it out'? Or is that dumb bullshit and we should just play with him whenever he demands it?

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As they get older they do get more needy and want to interact so that is normal. That said, kids don't have to be on your nips every minute they are awake. There are things they can do on their own even at 6 months as they learn / play. Naturally a significant amount of time is spent with Mom & Dad but there are things they can do to keep themselves occupied and give them some time to explore on their own.

Cry it out works fine and at some point most parents will use it. It's inevitable that they will want to keep playing at bed time and you'll put them down and let them cry it out until they go to sleep. Among many other things.

Kids certainly can manipulate situations even at a young age.

Izo_sl said:

I donno if a man who says 'would of, could of, should of' and is manipulated by a 4 mo baby is the brain trust Tubro is looking for either. Crying it out for a 6 mo is for dummies imho.

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Thanks. Now please don't post in this section of the forum again.