Ben is 27 months and has started to get a little more picky about food. He use to eat anything I put in front of him, now he picks at food and only when he is really hungry does he eat anything. I have been making a beef stew with vegetables and barley, lately he has not been eating it. The other day I made exactly the same stew as always but called it Wombat Stew and he ate the lot!
Just goes to show that a bit of creative marketing can be effective.
Jen
Ben loves to get my attention by hitting Emily on the head or lying on her heavily when she is in her bouncy chair. I have started to try and reduce my reaction to this behaviour in an effort to not reinforce it, but this is pretty hard when you are in constant fear that your son is going to hurt your baby. The other day we were in the car, (Ben had shopped the day before with Chris and drove home eating a carrot which he had left half on the back seat) Ben found his carrot from the day before and proceeded to wave it around in the air. He then whacked it firmly on Emily’s head and I lost it! I need to become quicker and a little more creative when reacting to these situations.
Luckily there is not permanent carrot indent on Emily’s head…..
Jen
It has been a couple of months since writing and I now seem to have a little bit of spare time to start updating the blog again. I have discovered that looking after a newborn, although it has its challenges is nothing compared to dealing with a 2 year old.
Well actually that is not completely true, the first 4 weeks with Emily were pretty tough - she was not feeding very well and not putting on enough weight, so I was expressing 8 times a day after each feed and topping her up with breast milk and formula. She had a mild tongue-tie which the experts said may be causing some of the problems. We had Emily’s tongue tie cut and after that and alot of persistence with expressing by 4 weeks I was fully breastfeeding and she was thriving. It was quite stressful for the first few weeks, but definitely worth the persistence as I find breastfeeding to be such a rewarding experience.
Jen
Our little girl, Emily was born on 19th Feb. It all happened pretty quickly and she popped out in the bath. We did hypnobirthing as we did with Ben 2 years ago, and I can not recommend it highly enough. If you want to stay in control, have a natural, gentle and positive birth experience you need to check out hypnobirthing - it has worked really well for me twice.
I think I might go into hybernation for a while now as I cope with a newborn and a toddler. I will be back on line when I have a spare minute!
Jen
Well, I am all ready to pop! Being a few days away from 40 weeks - the house is clean, the freezer is packed full, I have finished work and am now just enjoying a few days to myself (while Ben is in Day Care) to relax and get ready. I will post news of the new baby once he/she arrives and I have enough time or energy to update this blog….
Jen
While I was visiting Sydney over the Christmas Holidays I came across a great new outdoors shop called Five05: Best Value Outdoors. It is in the heart of the city, on Kent Street and has a huge stock of camping, hiking and outdoors clothes, shoes and equipment. It has an ice room - so if you are planning a trip to the Himalayas and know you will be in freezing conditions you can try on a jacket, pants and beanie step into the ice room and find out if the jacket will really keep you warm or not! Better to find out how warm the jacket is while you are in sunny Sydney than to wait until you have trekked all the way to base camp…..You can find Five05 on the web http://www.five05.com.au/ or pop into the shop at 505 Kent Street Sydney.
Jen
Over the Christmas break we enjoyed a couple of days camping North of Sydney on the coast at Tallows Beach. It was a beautiful spot, we pretty much had the whole beach and campsite to ourselves. The only challenge of this campsite is that you can not park next to the tent, there is a 1km walk downhill on a pretty rugged track to get to the site - this would be fine if you just had to walk yourself in, but carrying all of the tents, equipment and children was a bit of a challenge. So if you venture to this site make sure you pack light or bring a strong trolley.
Ben loved the camping experience, each tent was a little cubby house to him and he loved playing in the tents. Normally he sleeps in a cot but he was fine sleeping on a thin camping mattress he even enjoyed a 2 hour sleep during the day! As it was summer we did not have to worry about keeping Ben away from a campfire.
Jen
Being pregnant ie hot and tired in my third trimester I am looking for easy activities to keep my 2 year old toddler active. The other day I discovered no mess painting! all you need is a paintbrush, a small container of water, an outside area with bricks, pavement or tiles and a comfortable chair.
All you have to do is get your toddler excited about doing some painting, give him or her the container of water and a paintbrush and set them off painting the bricks! Ben was able to amuse himself for ages with this activity, and by the time he had finished painting one area the other had dried and he would repaint it again. The comfortable chair is of course for you to sit on and read a book, relax or just put your feet up for awhile…..
Give it a go!
Jen
It is amusing negotiating with a toddler, especially one whose language is really good but comprehension not so good…. Ben loves it when we read books to him and he often tries to negotiate how many books we will read to him. I often say, go and choose 3 books and I will read them to you, Ben turns around, looks earnestly into my eyes and pleads ‘2 books’, thinking he is negotiating more books. I usually reply with an ‘ok’ and we end up reading 3 books - it is a win /win situation!
Jen
Hi,
Ben is nearly 2 years old and I am pretty sick of diapers…. we recently thought about potty training, I got enthusiastic about it but then did a bit of research and found that the experts advised against trying to do potty training with a new baby on the way. So we will wait another 6 months or so.
Have you thought about toilet training? If your son or daughter is between 18 months and 4 years it could be time to give it a go.
If you want a great resource to help you through this trying time have a look at the ‘Secret Blueprint to Potty Training Your Toddler in 1 - 3 Days’ for a limited time you can get several bonuses including beautiful wall charts for boys and girls to aid in the potty training experience when you get this resource. The most invaluable part of ‘Secret Blueprint to Potty Training’ is that you will be provided with contact details of a potty training consultant who you can ask questions to and she can help along the way if you have any difficulties!
So if you want to get rid of diapers once and for all click here and learn how to potty train your toddler in a couple of days!
Good luck, and if you do give it a go I would be very interested to hear feedback about how you went.
Cheers,
Jen
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