Parents of pre-schoolers check in

ASmallWonder · September 2014

Or age there about - I'm not picky lol I posted on Parenting earlier because I'm having struggles with Aiden. It seems they're pretty typical struggles and it seems like maybe there are more of us out there. I know this is really our toddler board but let's not discriminate

Our issues right now are: 9 million needless trips out of bed every night, refusal to eat and then wanting a snack or sneaking food the minute my back is turned (and then lying about it!). Just a general malfunction of the listening ears

Anger is getting the best of me more often than it should and it's not that I'm angry at him (though that's what ends up happening). It's that I'm angry that I don't know how else to handle any of this.

I'm opening this up for tips, tricks or plain ole commiseration. I want to enjoy my time with him more than I have been and maybe some of you are in the same boat.

ASmallWonder · September 2014

@megsw85 At least we know we're not alone. The other night I made pudding. I walked away and hear a spoon clink in the sink and then saw a missing spoonful in the bowl. I said "You took pudding? I told you that you couldn't have any." "I actually did not take any." We went round and round about it. It's insanity because they don't even realize that there is zero chance of being believed. They're not even GOOD liars! lol His other thing is "It was an accident." "Did you just throw away your dinner after I told you that you had to finish it?" "Yes but it was an accident."

ASmallWonder · September 2014

@heelibrarian thankfully DS1 is pretty good with DS2 but they do battle over toys.

needanustart · September 2014

Have you seen the sequel to "Go the F*ck to Sleep" is coming out and it's "You Have to F*cking Eat?"

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/25/adam-mansbach-go-the-f-to-sleep-sequel_n_5882138.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037

I'm with you. I yell a lot unfortunately (well you saw it! So you know for realz now). G doesn't sneak food but he CONSTANTLY is drinking milk. He fills up on milk before almost every meal. Per the ped, I just view it as my job is to put out a balanced meal and limit snacks and he'll eat if he's hungry. Sometimes I just can't get him to eat a full meal. I have said it before but for about a year it seems they survive on air and the sweat and tears of their parents.

G doesn't lie (he's pretty in my face with his disobedience) but they say that lying if showing a higher sign of intelligence because it takes more creativity to make up a story than just tell the truth. The clever ones are the hardest!

When I'm getting pissed with him and his behavior re-direction is still working but I use scissor crafts and legos as he gets to use them on the higher table out of Arlo's reach and they make him concentrate and calm down. He gets lost in the world of Legos and scissors, plus he knows they are a big boy treat.

ASmallWonder · September 2014

@calikat80 maybe he's some sort of genius (LOL!) When he was three I went to pick him up at daycare and they told me he'd had a rough day and the consequence was that he couldn't have a freeze pop. We got in the car (my friend had heard the teacher tell me that) and I said "That stinks you couldn't have a freeze pop today. Let's try to have a better listening day tomorrow." He looked me dead in the face and said "I did have one. It was orange." My friend almost died at the blatant lie. He knew that if he refused to acknowledge that he'd gotten in trouble, he would shut down the conversation about his hard day.

needanustart · September 2014

BTW this just seems to fit here in the commiseration. Yesterday G was pretending to be "stuck" (he wasn't really) in a curtain and needed daddy's help. I told DH "it's a game, you are supposed to help him out." DH was slow to help and unfortunately G pulled the curtain hard enough he pulled the rod down (not heavy) and it bonked him on the head. He was NOT really hurt but he was so pissed DH didn't help him in time. He kept saying, "Daddy you are supposed to PREVENT me from getting hurt! It's your job as a Daddy to prevent that!" Clearly he learned the word prevent recently and is ready to throw that vocab in our face. I had to turn my face to stop laughing when he yelled at DH about preventing him from getting hurt.

I will emphasize one more time he was NOT HURT. Because I know you will all understand how they like to play us and I know when he is actually hurt!

needanustart · September 2014

Has anyone else noticed with the moms of 2 on this board it's primarily 2 boys? Sometimes it's a boy girl (wines & librarian & butterflies?) but there seem to be a lot of 2 boys on this board...

DiaMT · September 2014

Thank you for this thread! My favorite time of the day is now the time of most stress and frustration, dinner time. DS pretty much refuses to eat anything in front of him and now we can't even get him to eat the old standbys like mac and cheese. He throws tantrums at the dinner table worse than he has at any other previous milestone. DD is a champ of an eater but DH and I worry that DS's terrible table manners and outbursts are going to rub off on her. We've tried everything and nothing is clicking. It's one thing that he doesn't eat, it's another that he has to be a raging jerk about it!

And the lying. We are right there with most of you. DS will blame things on DD. He's not usually rough with her but on occasion he'll push her or rip a toy from her hands and make her cry. If I don't witness what happened and ask about it, he insists he didn't do anything, all the while covering up his smile! It's so frustrating that he smiles when he lies. At least it's a dead give away but I also think he enjoys the attention.

WasNotWas · September 2014

I hope I'm not too late.

Regarding getting out of bed. What worked for us (after we changed door handles and locks and even put a kid-proof thing on the inside of the door that he actually broke) was...I made a game board and every morning that he stayed in his room the whole night he moved his game piece (a picture of him I cut out) to the next spot. At the end of the trail was the word "zoo" but it could be a picture of a toy or whatever motivates him. I did it one week, the board had 6 spots in case he messed up one time. That's all I had to do and he hasn't had an issue since. I can dig up a picture of the board and post it if you want (we had it shown on the fridge so he could see it and we would like talk about it 15 times before he went to bed every night and freaked out in the morning when he moved his picture)

Regarding food...we all sit, eat dinner, and get up. If you get up, you are done. The plate is taken from the table and put on the counter. You get one more time to try to eat and that's it. If you get up again you either help throw the rest of the plate away or you watch me do it. He usually says I'm a "bad mommy" at this point. This week has been awesome and he eats everything at first try but, in general, I don't fight him if he doesn't want to eat. If he gets hungry, he gets water until the next snack/meal.

Bradley is learning what hurts me and calling me a bad mommy is it. He doesn't lie so much as he just stops talking. Like if I catch him doing something he shouldn't (ie wrapping a shoelace around Tyler's neck) he just shuts down. I really try not to get too mad because I don't want him being that dude who doesn't share his feelings. We have been spending about 15 minutes in his bed before sleep talking about his day, I'm hoping this helps figure out what makes him tick...

ASmallWonder · September 2014

@wasnotwas Aiden says "You are NOT my best friend! I do NOT love you!" when I do something he doesn't like. Le sigh.

ilovemarfa · September 2014

I'm late to the game as I just got the boys down for a nap. I feel everybody's pain. I don't know how B is as tall as he is because he doesn't eat much. I know I shouldn't do it, but I always end up making him something for dinner after he doesn't eat what I cook. He loves chicken nuggets so I usually will pop some in the oven. The doctor told me not to do it and just offer him an apple if he's hungry but I feel terrible making him go without a meal. Lunch is the only large meal he will eat a day and that's usually because I make him scrambled eggs. I also let him snack a lot because I feel bad he barely eats his meals. Thankfully he loves fruit so he eats a lot of it in between meals. He had low iron at around 2 years of age so I try to get a lot of iron rich food in him but he doesn't eat it. It's frustrating.

He makes up stories a lot and he thinks it's cute when he does. He started pre k3 this month and on Tuesday he came home and said a little boy wouldn't let him play puppets. He literally looked like he was going to cry telling me this story and I felt terrible for him. Then all of a sudden he says, " I'm just fibbing! I'm nasty!". I don't know where he comes up with these lines! I'm convinced he's going to be an actor when he grows up.

He also is very mean to his little brother. It's common for me to see him go up behind his brother as he's walking and just shove him. No matter how many times I scold him he still keeps on doing it. He also is very possessive of his belongings. He freaks out if his brother touches his stuff, which is funny because he shares with everybody else.

He still naps, and I think he needs it but then he can't fall asleep for he night until after 9. It's a nightmare. If we keep him up through his nap he's a miserable mess by 5 pm.

Preschoolers are a tough crowd,

daffy2k · September 2014

I don't have a preschooler yet, but happened to be lurking and thought I'd share what my SIL and her husband ended up doing with our niece and nephew in regards to meals. Both kids were constantly wanting snacks, never eating what was offered at a meal. Then being hungry immediately thereafter. SIL started covering their plate and putting it in the fridge. She would say "that's fine if you don't want to eat now. I'll just cover it up and you can have it when you're hungry". 20 min later, the im hungrys start. I want a snack. Ok, well here's your lunch from before. Finish that and you can have your goldfish, fruit snack, whatever they are looking for. If they refused, meal goes back in the fridge, and no snack is had. It only took about a week of not getting a single snack to start respecting mealtimes and finishing their plates (for the most part. It is not a regular occurrence anymore, but still happens occasionally. Mostly when we are on holidays and there is an abundance of snack foods)

daffy2k · September 2014

I should add, if the meal ends up being something they don't like a healthy alternative is offered. But both kids have always been required to at least taste everything before they are allowed to say they don't like it. SIL started doing all of this when my niece was about 3ish and followed suit with my nephew. They are 7 and 5 now and generally very good eaters, willing to try everything.

WasNotWas · September 2014

@heelibrarian said:
Appropriate consequence for deliberately waking their sister up from her nap? I'm tired of this garbage. It happens all the damn time and I haven't found anything thatworks. Not accidental. On purpose.

Loss of privileges. Whatever he wants to do no longer happens. TV, special snack, whatever. We bribe and threaten constantly

needanustart · September 2014

heelibrarian said:
Appropriate consequence for deliberately waking their sister up from her nap? I'm tired of this garbage. It happens all the damn time and I haven't found anything thatworks. Not accidental. On purpose.

Is there something he likes you can take away? My friend had a "truck jar" and every time her son made bad choices he had to chose a truck from his collection and put it in the jar. When the jar got full they would donate it. But they left it out getting full so he could see the consequences. It worked for them. This did not work for G because he really doesn't give a fudge about loss of privileges or bribes. Unfortunately the only thing that resonates with G is the threat of a spanking and that is only for life threatening actions (electrical and wires play, window dismantling, pushing the AC out, running into the street etc.). I think the loss of something needs to have some type of physical reminder or something they can see so they can be reminded when they are about to make a decision. It's too abstract if not.

ASmallWonder · September 2014

Well ladies, tonight we tried choices. He asked what was for dinner. I told him ribs and beans and then made a big deal about how he got to choose which veggie he wanted. He said neither and I said "well none isn't a choice so you get to pick or I will pick." He picked and he ate it all. I also gave him the choice of dinner at the table or dinner in the tv room, with Lion King at the Sesame Street table. He picked the movie, of course, but I told him he'd have to go to the table if he stopped eating.

Bedtime went less smoothly but not horrible. We'll see.

WasNotWas · September 2014

@ASmallWonder‌ keep it up!! That's awesome.

I am so much less stressed since I took that approach. I'm not disciplining him, he chose this. It makes thinks a lot easier

RedCherry1109 · September 2014

DS2 is almost 4 and he tells me "you're mean" every time I say no to him. I have to drag him out of bed, refuses to get in the car then refuses to get out of the car then I have to drag him into school every morning because he doesn't want to go. He has started to hit when he gets mad. We joke that we are going to send him to military school when he gets old enough.

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Parents of pre-schoolers check in

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