Caribbean Nesties
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Toddler moms
Out of curiosity, what would you do with your kid in the following situations:
1. Walking down the street with kid in umbrella stroller. Kid repeatedly tries to stand up. Wants out of the stroller. Keeps trying to grab item from your hands.
2. In a busy square with lots of people watching a Native American drum circle/dancing. Kid keeps running off into the crowd.
3. Riding on the train. It's not jam-packed rush hour, but there aren't any available seats. Kid insists on holding onto the pole....then climbing the pole....and then doesn't want to hold onto anything at all.
I'd love to see what you guys would do in comparison to what my friend did.
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
Re: Toddler moms
Out of curiosity, what would you do with your kid in the following situations:
1. Walking down the street with kid in umbrella stroller. Kid repeatedly tries to stand up. Wants out of the stroller. Keeps trying to grab item from your hands.
Strap him in, unless it's in an area where he can safely walk, holding your hand.
2. In a busy square with lots of people watching a Native American drum circle/dancing. Kid keeps running off into the crowd.
Leave.
3. Riding on the train. It's not jam-packed rush hour, but there aren't any available seats. Kid insists on holding onto the pole....then climbing the pole....and then doesn't want to hold onto anything at all.
Carry him, or strap him into the stroller if possible.
1. strap him in or make straps tighter; hand him a toy or snack shack to distract him from what he wants
2. strap him into a stroller, if he continues to misbehave, leave.
3. pick him up; distract him with something, anything
1. Walking down the street with kid in umbrella stroller. Kid repeatedly tries to stand up. Wants out of the stroller. Keeps trying to grab item from your hands.
Would already be strapped in. Give him his lovies. Sing songs.
2. In a busy square with lots of people watching a Native American drum circle/dancing. Kid keeps running off into the crowd.
Put him in stroller. Give him his lovies. Sing songs.
3. Riding on the train. It's not jam-packed rush hour, but there aren't any available seats. Kid insists on holding onto the pole....then climbing the pole....and then doesn't want to hold onto anything at all.
Put him in stroller. Give him his lovies. Sing songs.
The lovies are my fail safe. My singing is that of a siren. If that doesn't work, we're leaving.
In all three instances, threaten to sell him to the highest bidder if he didn't cut it out.
What?
Whatever, beetlejuice feeder.
I'll be awaiting my Mother of the Year trophy.
Here's what my friend did. Tell me if you think it's about right for an almost 2 1/2 year old:
1. Kid kept standing up in her stroller (she was strapped in, but those things don't really do much). She was grabbing for the box of cupcakes in her mom's hand (she had most of 3 small cupcakes and was demanding more). Everytime she stood up, mom would tip the stroller back and say, "Woooooo!" This made kid giggle and distracted her for half a second, but then she'd just go back to doing the same thing over again.
I did get annoyed when we stopped to talk to somebody and the kid kept demanding more cupcakes so my friend swiped the frosting off the top of one and let her have it.
2. Kid kept running off. Mom would chase her down, pick her up and swing her around. Sort of the same distraction/turn it into a game technique as before. Mom did tell her not to run off a couple times, but kid didn't listen.
3. On the train, mom told her to stay in the stroller. She relented pretty quickly and let her out as long as kid held onto the pole. Then kid started working the pole (it was mildly horrifying when she climbed up and then went spread eagle around the pole as if she was the tiniest stripper in the world....ahh, the naivete of being young...). Mom basically repeated commands that went ignored and then relented and let kid do whatever she wanted.
So I ask because I have no idea if I'm just being a judgy non-parent or if this sounds pretty typical. Is it better to just attempt to distract the kid than provide them boundaries and attempt to make them adhere to said boundaries? Is it too young to take the kid aside, sit them down and explain they are not to run off and if they run off one more time, we are going home?
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
1. Street or sidewalk? If it's a sidewalk or other safe-walking area and he really doesn't want to be in the stroller, I don't see the harm in letting him out. He loves to push the stroller, but obviously there are situations where that doesn't work, so then he gets carried (which means we're pretty much headed out of that scenario ASAP). Straps are useless when the kid can unsnap themselves.
2. Go home, immediately.
3. Hold the pole or hold onto mom, those are the only two options. Option C is mom holds him and that's never popular.
How old is the kid, Cali?
Right now, at the brink of two... all the talking and reasoning in the world doesn't work. He thinks dicipline is hilarious and it takes weeks of constant repetition to get an idea to stick. Ex... Alex likes to scream when he drops something. I've been trying to teach him for a solid month to say "help" when he drops his sippy or lovie and just yesterday he started putting it to good use. With the little scream first.
My friends were here with their 3.5 year old and he seemed much more capable of understanding cause and effect - but he was a little *** too... If he wanted something, his first impulse was to do it, not weigh the consequences.
It all sounds good on paper until you realize there really isn't anything you can do. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I would rather a distracted kid, than publically punishing him/yelling at him when it won't make a shiit of difference anyway at this point.
I'll adjust my answer to say that in contrast to your friend - if I'm going to take the time to say it, I'm going to enforce it. Otherwise, you're doing nothing but reaffirming that they can do whatever the hell the want with zero consequence.
1. He's always strapped in. Always. Otherwise he will try to turn and stand. I don't like that, so as soon as he goes in, he's strapped in. I guess it depends on the stroller but if they're strapped in, they can't go anywhere.
2. Leash? Hold his hand. If he tried to run more than once, which he does because he's a runner, I'd pick him up with him bucking and kicking and remove him from the situation as I do on a regular basis.
3. I don't know. My kid is 1.5 and while he can be a pain in the ass and a runner, I've never taken him on a train except at the zoo. If he tried to stand I told him he had to sit in my lap. I can see letting him hold the pole, but again, if he didn't want to listen, I'd have to pick him up.
"As of page 2 this might be the most boring argument ever. It's making me long for Rape Day." - Mouse
Before 2.5 - 3ish I favor distraction with some rule setting. Little-ittle kids don't know how to find something else to distract themselves so it becomes like the "don't think of the pink elephant" game. Distraction helps them learn this before they can do it themselves. But I'll say something like "that's not safe" or "that's not your toy" then "let's find find something else" to introduce the concept of boundaries. What I don't do is say "don't play with that" and then let them play with it. I also don't have everything babyproofed, just the really dangerous stuff so the first time they run into those limits won't be in an uncontrolled environment.
Your friend might be uncomfortable disciplining in front of you, worried her child might throw a fit and make a scene or doesn't want you to feel you need to leave early because she needs to get her kid out of there. I know I was sometimes at a loss when Bug displayed new disruptive behavior when we were around other people.
My answers:
1. If it's a safe street, let them get out and push the stroller with me. If not, strap them down tighter and distract. With the cupcakes don't give any unless everyone else is having one (in which case they get one or half of one) or we're at home.
2. If there's an uncrowded corner they can see from, let them run around there and watch. If I feel comfortable, offer to go in the crowd while holding them. Some drum circles I've been to encourage participation, in that case I'd let them as long as they were someplace they could see me*. If we were there with other people I'd probably save leaving as a last resort.
3. Sit them on the seat next to me and hold their hands in their lap until they're calm. Then hold my face close and say "climbing the pole isn't safe. If you want to stand up, you have to stand like the grown-ups are. See (point) how she's standing? If you want to stand, you have to do it like that. Let's try it together." If they aren't able, sit them in my lap and distract, distract, distract.
*Kids don't know if you can see them or not, so saying "stay where you can see me" is more effective than the reverse.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
Husbands should be like Kleenex: Soft, strong, and disposable.
I can say with 99.9% certainty that it wasn't that she didn't want to scold her daughter in front of me. In fact, I offered up more discipline to her kid than she did. Kid was told not to crawl on the table but did anyway -- I'm the one who made her get off. I expressed my utter disbelief when friend gave the kid the cupcake frosting.
It is possible that she wanted to make having a kid look like lots of fun and thought that if she made everything a fun happy game, I might believe it to be so. This friend doesn't realize I have decided I want to have kids -- I haven't told her and keep up the facade that I don't want them because she's said some pretty shiitty things to me in the past (not that she meant them to be shiitty, but she's sort of clueless sometimes).
When we parted ways at the end of the outing, she jokingly said to her daughter, "I don't think we've done a good job of convincing Cali to have kids." I laughed and said, "You've just reaffirmed my 'no kids' position!"
"That chick wins at Penises, for sure." -- Fenton
Once you get pregnant you should still pretend, in front of this friend, that you don't really want to be a mom. Then when you hang out if her kid is obnoxious you can be all, "Man, if you can't prove to me that it's possible to make a toddler behave, I may have to go get an abortion." I bet that would work.
1. Use more duct tape to keep him in the stroller.
2. Hope there is a dark van nearby with a sign on it that says 'free candy'
3. Enroll them in stripper school.
I think I agree that the friend probably didn't want to be a hardass and deal with a tantrum in front of you. I also agree that she was essentially rewarding the kid, but was probably just trying to deal and hide her frustration in the moment because you were there.
And one more thing, toddlers are unpredictable. Sometimes they're great in public, and sometimes they're terrible little shiits in public. Sometimes I can take Connor out and he behaves, listens, holds my hand, never tries to run off, etc. Other times, he runs at every opportunity and I'm exhausted and frustrated five minutes in. (Tonight was one of those nights, so we got our food to go and left the restaurant). I think all toddlers can have a bad day and it not be representative of lazy parenting all the time. Any disruption to routine (stayed home with mom because he was sick, missed his nap on a weekend because we were out or had company, etc.) can wreak havoc that leaves you unprepared.
so true. I'm writing a book that is called "Toddlers are irrational a'holes"