Tag Archives: Advice

Mar 31 2015

Helping your child to sleep through the night in their own bed

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Many parents will know the frustration that comes with trying to transition a young child to sleeping through the night in their own bed. When your young child has been used to sleeping in your room and in some cases even sharing your bed, it can be difficult to wean them off this habit and get them used to sleeping independently in their own room and their own bed. However, unless you want to be in for many sleepless nights, this is something that you have to focus on doing sooner rather than later.

Fortunately, there are a number of tips that can help to make this process a little easier on both the parents and the child. By taking a few key steps and making sure that you stick to your guns, you can help to get your child used to sleeping in his or her own room and bed far more quickly making the transition less stressful for all parties.

Some of the steps you should take

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In order to avoid having to share your own bed with your child for years to come, putting these simple steps into place is vital. Some of the key steps to take in order to make this transition as painless as possible include:

  • Make sure the room is properly equipped: It is important to ensure that the room you have selected for your child is properly equipped. Spend some time choosing the right decor based on your child’s age and interests, as this will encourage them to want to spend time in the room. You can even get your child involved when it comes to choosing the decor for the room. Also, make sure you invest in a comfortable and practical bed, such as the Bedstar single ottoman bed. This will ensure that your child not only gets to enjoy a comfortable night’s sleep but that they also have a plenty of storage space for toys, books and other items that might otherwise clutter up the room.
  • Develop a routine: It is important to have some sort of routine in place for younger kids, as this will help them to settle more easily. Make sure you establish bed times, how long they can read or watch television for, and when lights need to be out. A routine could help if your child experiences sleep problems when it comes to sleeping alone.
  • Don’t give in: It is all too easy for parents to give in and let the child sleep in their room for ‘just five minutes’ or ‘just one night’. It is important that you also stick to the rules that you put into place, as giving in simply sends mixed signals to the child.
  • Help them to settle: It is well worth investing in some appropriate reading materials so that you can either read to your child each night to help him or her settle or so that they can read for a while themselves.

All of these small steps can help to make it far easier to settle your child into a regular routine whereby they sleep through the night in their own room and bed.

 

Mar 29 2015

From the mouth of the babe: Marks & Spencer – a Dad’s Survival Guide

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Nope Heidi hasn’t started chattering at 11 months, and Dex is no more comprehensible now than he was at 1.5 years. I’m still “Mummis”, Craig still “Diddy”, and the closest we come to a sentence is some pretty dramatic babbling, pointing at the fridge and bottom lip-wobbling when he’s pleading for his after-dinner chocolate mousse.

No, the babe I speak of in the title for this post is He who helped me make them; chief electrician, spider-catcher and chef here at Casa Mills; the man I agreed to marry when drunk who still hasn’t put a ring on it… Craig.

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You see, I was recently contacted by M&S about a little project they’re doing to coincide with their new M&S Baby section on marksandspencer.com. They want to create a Dad’s Survival Guide full of advice from oft-forgotten dads - those magnificent beasts who somehow manage to make parenting both harder and easier at the same time.

Yet, extracting pearls of wisdom from my man is tough. When not under pressure, this man will provide a running commentary to the most mundane of activities. He’ll talk over Orange is the New Black so you have to watch it again secretly the next day. He’ll decide to ask you your opinion on the Battle for Number 10 when you’re halfway through a blog post. He’ll over-complicate the online food shop and deliberate aloud for ten whole minutes about which sausages to buy the kids for tea. In short, he’s never short of something to moan, joke or jump on his soapbox about.

Yet when asked if he had any parenting advice to offer a fellow dad-to-be, he reacted as though I’d asked him about the intricacies of cytogenetics during the mitotic metaphase. The eyebrows furrowed and he grabbed a nappy and set to work on Heidi to escape the question. When pressed, staring down at the contents of my daughter’s nappy, he muttered “Wrap it up”.

Of course he’s joking, he’s a brilliant daddy. But it’s tough to come up with a nugget of winning advice. Sure, two children in, we know loads more now, than we did then. We know that the only baby socks that stay put are from Baby Gap, we know that we wasted a good twenty quid on a nappy bin before Child 1 came along, we know that an tablet loaded with Flixster is your best bet if your child gets car sick. Yet coming up with something truly… helpful? Not easy.

When he turned to me in bed later that evening, his attempt, on the face of it, was a bit saccharine:

“Never waiver in your love, admiration and respect of the mother of your children” Craig

Yet when he explained it, I began to understand it was one of the most compelling things he’d ever said.

He explained that, especially for dads who work, you can feel a little on the periphery of parenthood. On the weekends, when you get up first with the kids, you’re forever getting caught out by not removing the crust from the kids’ toast, or making up their drinks with slightly the wrong ratio of juice to water. At times, you have to accept that your partner knows the nuisances of parenting that you don’t. The slightest deviation from routine can end up in an epic tantrum.

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You also have to acknowledge that the stay-at-home-mum is one of the least respected jobs in Britain. She’s berated and discriminated against by the government, she can’t pull a sicky and she’s not paid for her work. Craig freely admits that after particularly long and difficult weekends with the children, he is sometimes relieved to get up at 5am and go to work. It’s not that he doesn’t love us all, it’s just that the mess, tears and never-ending wiping of snotty noses and mucky bums, is unrelenting and hard.

He goes on to say that if ever you’re having a crap day at work and silently resenting that mum is at home, mentally revisiting a challenging weekend of parenting brings you back to earth with a thud. You therefore have to forgive your partner when she’s snappy or emotional when you come home. Similarly, if she’s in the middle of cooking dinner and a bottle of wine is half-depleted, there’s no point arguing she should have waited.

Finally, you have to see past the fact she has a stress rash on her cheek, her hair is a longer version of Boris Johnson’s and she’s wearing your favourite t-shirt and it appears to be covered in baby vomit. When the day’s toys are swept into the toy chest, you’ve both eaten, she is showered, and you’re preparing for bed, you’ll remember just how lovely she is.

Mar 10 2015

The unholy side of potty training

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Today was the day. We spent last night prettifying the downstairs loo for Dexter (yep, a poster of Dave the Minion now watches me when I pee), and tightening stair gates so he has a straight line access to it from the living room. I wrapped dozens of pound shop toys in tin foil as rewards for successful wees and I even popped a few magazines next to the porcelain throne. We were ready, we were primed, and first thing this morning a tweet was sent out to confirm it… Today, we were Potty Training.

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When I peeled off his nappy this morning and he romped through the house in full on nudey-bum mode, I smiled to myself. I took him to one side and explained that today was going to be extra exciting. He’d get to try out the big boy toilet, there would be toys, there would be high-fives.

He seemed up for it.

Within 5 minutes of waking, he used the little step to mount the loo and sat there with mummy’s iPad for 30 minutes. 30 minutes?! I kept watch from the hallway as he whizzed through episodes of Thomas the Tank and other Netflix offerings. He got so comfy, he had to be coaxed down!

10.30am rolled around and despite lots of straining and effort, we hadn’t yet had to flush the loo. Having finally convinced him that some breakfast might help make a wee in his tummy, I bought in a potty to prevent last minute dashes across our cream carpet. After just one slurp of orange juice I watched him execute the perfect wee in his potty without a drop spilled.

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Proud mummy was an understatement. I even took an iPhone pic and sent it over to Craig. Yet, whilst gloating about how awesome my child is on Twitter, two more wees followed; one hit the side of the sofa, another sloshed across laminate in the hallway.

By midday, I was still mostly pleased. One out of three wasn’t bad. A 33% success rate on Day One is good right? I asked him every five minutes (without fail) if he wanted another tinkle, and took him with me for all my own trips to the loo so he could see it done by an expert.

Then disaster.

After a particularly long stint reading books atop the toilet, I helped him down and watched my little naked dude climb the stairs to his sister’s nursery. She had been deposited in her cot 5 minutes before and was busy rattling her bars and screaming in protest, perhaps Dex could calm her down, and maybe snuggle in beside her for a nap… besides it was cute listening to him soothe her from my vantage point at the bottom of the stairs. Giggling ensued and the odd bump and gallop across the floorboards that usually indicates happy children.

Five minutes later, nappy in hand, I followed Dexter up to pop him in his own room for a nap of his own. I had already decided naps and bedtimes would need a nappy. Dex is in a coma when he sleeps and that little inkling that a wee is brewing would be lost within dreams of fire engines and Norman Price.

What followed next almost made me turn on my heels and run. I wondered where Broadchurch was filmed and what it would be like to fling yourself off that infamous cliff. Dex had been wearing wellies (he wears them everywhere, like they’re his uniform) and his tracks were everywhere. All over Heidi’s bedroom, the hallway… our bed…

It’s not his fault. He must have been holding in his No2 all day. Stomping it around in his wellies (to the obvious delight of his baby sister) must have been simply too irresistible. He’d finally managed the Big One, and without a nappy! He was probably expecting an extra big tin foil gift from me, and not the desperate little scream I offered him.

Half an hour later, I scrubbed and washed, and gagged and cried, with Dexter sat in a bath squealing about his accomplishment, and Heidi decided what her big brother did wasn’t so funny after all, in fact, she was now downright furious and screaming “baby-expletives” at him from her cot.

I don’t bring you this story to embarrass my child or make you cringe. I bring it to you because potty training is bloody hard, exhausting, dirty and thankless. I’d have given my right arm to have had someone roll up their sleeves and dip a sponge in that warm and soapy water with me this afternoon. Yet given Craig was at work and I was alone with a cloying wafting mess that needed to be addressed that minute. So it was down to mummy, unhelpfully cheered on by both the perpetrator and his miniature accomplice.

 

So I’m dedicating this post to the many millions men and women who have successfully dumped their last disposable nappy in their black bin, and to the tens of thousands who have also whipped out Vanish Oxi Action and scrubbed their carpets this afternoon. I salute you, and will be beside you in spirit when you next find a wad of poo behind your sofa. You hold my hand, and I’ll hold yours, and we can do this thing without self-medicating with gin.

 

 

 

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