(Part 4) Top products from r/breakingmom

I’m sorry love; it totally sucks to be alone. I don’t even live in a foreign country and I have only made one “friend” in the last 14 years of living where I am (not where I’m from). And she turned out to be a mistake. I have really gotten more out of this Reddit alone than I thought was possible; I don’t know where any of you ladies live, but we all hold each other up when shit goes down and virtually high five each other when it goes right. Yes, I would love to have physical friends, and DH has suggested I try to find a knitting group or book club at the library or whatnot to potentially make a friend in person.

TBH, i never had to make friends before - I was born and grew up in the same place, had best buddies since kindergarten, etc. so making new friends is odd for me. It’s like I instantly want to be someone’s BFF, but I know that’s bizarre. So, I’m embracing all the ladies on here right now. If I get in-person friends, that’s awesome too. But I’m so so SO thankful I found this subreddit and all the awesome ladies here.

Don’t know where you are, but perhaps there is a military base nearby? Tons of families from all over, dropped in a foreign country too. Additionally, you could download Duolingo or a similar app and learn the language! If you decide to go that route, consider reading Fluent Forever — it’s an amazing book. I actually have a digital copy I can send you if you Wamt; just PM me.

You're welcome. Glad to have helped. A book that I found helpful was The Late Talker
http://www.amazon.com/The-Late-Talker-Child-Talking/dp/0312309244

It is NOT a replacement for speech therapy with a real speech therapist, but it does have some helpful suggestions in it. (these are some I remember from the book and my daughter's therapists) Have your child drink through a straw to help build up mouth muscles - especially long curly straws. Milkshakes are good because they're nice and thick (but just a regular straw - they're too thick for curly straws) Try to get your child to make noises when playing - making animal noises together is fun. The Fisher Price Little People barn with the different animals is good for this - Plus if your older child plays with this with you and the younger one, he can pick up and move animals and people around and maybe it'll help some of his fine motor skills.

Also, try to have a matter of fact but upbeat attitude about this. Act like it's perfectly normal for kids to get help with stuff (because it is!) and that you are sure that your children will master these skills because they're doing this. I know it can be REALLY hard to act like everything will be fine when you're stressed. My younger one also had trouble learning to read and that was really stressful, but we got her help and she's doing well now and also loves to read.

my almost 4 year old had his first accident today. he's been in undies during the day for about a month, maybe a little longer. he's also ASD, high functioning/level I whatever term is PC this month, biggest challenge is language and communication.

2 things made a HUGE difference when we got serious about starting to potty train. Daniel Tiger and Elmo.

if you're kid watches either, they both have potty episodes or segments, there's even a game for the tablet with Daniel Tiger specifically for the potty.

we got this book and this one ( this one was his favorite) as well as this coloring and activity book we tried the chart with stickers, but it didn't really make that big of an impact, but he liked coloring and I think just seeing the characters and potty activities helped.

the other thing that helped was day care. over the summer we had him in day care half a day 2 days a week, just to keep up the social piece he was missing with no school. they sat them about every hour, he saw other kids going, and I think that made a big difference in his desire to WANT to use the potty.

we didn't do rewards, just lots of praise and clapping, making a big deal, sometimes we'd offer watching a show or other preferred activity. it worked. he script, so a lot of his communication is in the form of repeating shows or movies or songs. so we'd hear him script Daniel tiger's potty song, and we took that as our queue to get him to the potty.

he's getting better about going independently, but we still have a long way to go. and he still needs help with clothes.


my biggest advice is to not rush, which it doesn't sound like you're doing, I think us waiting until he was ready made all the difference.


good luck mama! keep us posted!

I just finished reading this book: http://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Parenting-Toolkit-Step-Step/dp/0544227824

The guy is a psychologist who runs the Yale Parenting Center and he writes about evidence-based approaches to fixing problematic behaviors. His basic point is that punishment doesn't actually work. Like it might work in the short term (yell at the kid, kid does what you want), but it doesn't stop the behavior from repeating. And if you do punish, anything more than a day or two of grounding a kid doesn't work at all and can in fact make things worse. His advice really goes against a lot of what we tend to think works. I've found it really eye-opening. It doesn't help you in the short term but it might be worth checking out!

Edit: I should have included what he says does work, which basically boils down to praising the shit out of the kid when he does something right. So like he listens 10% of the time? "Yes, thanks for doing what I asked, I really appreciate it, give me a hug," or just whatever works for your kid. Toddlers respond well to tons of over-the-top praise, teenagers tend to hate it, so you know what your kid likes. Rewards charts can work too. In general, reward good behavior and you'll tend to see more of it.

Ahhh, selective hearing. They are SO good at it!

I'm going to give you a fair warning, that I'm going to offer unsolicited advice, so if you don't want it (and I totally get that), then stop reading right....NOW!

Here goes:

My toddler (like every toddler) went through the same phase. There are multiple reasons for this. They are discovering that they have a body they can control, they are discovering that they can't control other people's bodies, and they are testing the boundaries of these discoveries.

In my studies in neuroscience, combined with my painful parenting experience (seriously, I have no idea what the fuck I am doing 90% of the time) I have learned some hard-earned lessons.

First, toddlers ARE capable of great empathy. You need to help it grow. It will take a long time, about 18-25 years, but you can start now! You are doing great by telling her that you don't like it. You can add "When you hit me with your hand, that hurts me!" or "When you hit me, that makes me sad." BUT, don't forget to tell her when she touches you gently, that you LOVE it, and it makes you SO HAPPY! Teaching her positive behavior is more powerful than restricting/punishing bad behavior.

We did this for a few months, laying the foundation. And my daughter has the will power to move mountains. Seriously. She will happily scream until she pukes if she thinks that will help her get her way. (It never has, but that doesn't stop her from trying.) Sure enough, one day she came home from day care all sad. I asked her what happened, and she said "Connor pushed me!" I said: "I'm so sorry that Connor pushed you and hurt you. Does that make you sad?" She said it did, so I told her "That is how I feel when you push or hit me. Right now, how you are sad, is how I feel inside when you hit me." I could tell the hamster wheels inside her head were whirring! I followed up with "So that's why we try REALLY hard not to hit people, even when we want to. Because it will make them sad, like we get sad."

Next time she wanted to hit me, she raised her arm, stopped it half way in the air, grabbed it with the other one, and put it back in her lap. She whispered "Connor hit me." I saw it, and almost cried. I hugged her and kissed her, and told her it was SO good of her that even though she wanted to hit me, remembered that it would hurt me. We haven't had much of a problem since.

The other piece of unsolicited advice, is that most of our learning happens through what we experience, not what we hear. What you daughter learns when you smack her, is "I can't smack Mommy, because she can hurt me back." That is a legitimate lesson, but wouldn't you rather her learn "I can't smack Mommy because it hurts her, and I love her and don't want to do that?" The second one takes a lot more time and patience, but that's why we are the parents, and not the toddlers.

Neurologically, it take a minimum of 10-14 days of consistent repetition to learn something new. New behavior can take up to three months. If you want to test this, see how long it take you to retrain your brain out of getting angry every time she hits you. It's fucking hard! And we are adults! Imagine being a toddler and trying to learn this stuff!

If I ever find myself mirroring my toddler's behavior, that is when I know my parenting has gone way off track. I have to model the behavior I want to see in my child. That is the primary way they learn. As a parent, it is my job to teach my child how to control her own behavior, NOT to control it for them. It's way more painful that just training a kid like you would a puppy, but it is respecting the fact that they are intelligent, autonomous people, even if they lack the vocabulary to sound like it.

If you are interested in the neurology behind my ideas, check out the neuroscientist Marco Iacoboni's book Mirroring People: the Science of Empathy and how We Connect with Others

It's a good explanation of how the neural processes necessary to empathy are formed, even before we are born. A lack of empathy in children is mostly the result of not being treated empathetically by the adults around them. (We just keep trying to get them to do tings our way, instead of understanding things from their perspective.)

I hear you on so many levels. I HATE cleaning but I like a clean house. I've been doing a purge and repainting for about a year and a half. Slow steady progress because like anything else it's one step forward two steps back. Good on you for finding a list that works for you! I made a weekly schedule a long time ago. It's pinned to my fridge but I don't use it. Daily goals is the way to go. Take it easy tho you're growing a baby and nobody could fault you for doing what you can. And your husband? He's a damn champ!

And yes that negative self-talk is a bitch. My issue is with anxiety and a little depression (about being anxious mostly). This might sound crazy but what works for me is using that bitchy voice to tell my anxiety to fuck off. It's the enemy not you.

Been in counseling about four years now for this and before I even had my first appointment they recommended me this book and about a year later therapist recommended this one. They're both great in that they have those checklists you were talking about. The second one is a bit daunting. It's about as thick as a Stephen King novel but they're not meant to be read cover to cover. I skipped around finding chapters that applied to me. They're both quite helpful if you're looking to do a little "homework" on your own.

And yay for cleaner! Someday I hope to be able to have everything in order and just have someone come in to maintain the clean. One mess at a time :)

This book has been a family favorite for YEARS since one of my kids found it in the school library. We've worn out at least three hardcover copies at this point - I wonder if your daughter might like it, too. ❤

I love my daddy because

I've heard this is a really good one for his age. You could also try this or this.

I buy secular (never religious) curriculum that was designed for homeschoolers or teachers to teach from (usually written by teachers) and I also enroll him in online courses on outschool.com that are done by teachers for subjects that I'm not comfortable teaching. For math, we used Math Mammoth for a long time and just switched to Teaching Textbooks. My son is taking Japanese which isn't offered in any public school where we've lived. This is an example of a class he already finished this year and more info about the teacher

ETA: When he was little we used workbooks, stuff from teacherspayteachers.com, and time4learning.com and I used Worldbook's Typical Course of Study to see what he needed to learn each year as well. I also used the "What Your X Grader Needs To Know" series and fleshed things out from there. There are so many options though. Build Your Library is a good one too, we're using that this year and next year for history/lang arts.

Thank you. I will look for it.

Is it this one or this one?

I dont know...but my friend is going through this right now and I reccomended this book to her.

Maybe it will help you too?

I skimmed the comments and didn't see this yet, but I apologize if it's a duplicate. I'm in the process of reading this book, Free Range Kids, which is about exactly this!

Jo Frost's Toddler Rules is what we have at home. We have a 3 yo. Some approaches work, some don't. But we have a pretty stubborn kid that may be out of standard deviation.

This book because we’re neeeeeeerds.

Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana:

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0399582754/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ycF.BbPH5ME3G

We don’t usually do gifts for each other but I know he’s going to be so excited for this dumb thing.

When someone asks if you are breastfeeding tell them "that's a really personal subject for me and I'd rather not talk about it". There is no rule it reason that says you have to explain every detail. You can even outright lie if you want to. I didn't make enough either and tried the feed/bottle/pump routine. Lasted a couple of weeks before going a bit mad through sleep deprivation. My husband pointed out that it wasn't worth it if I was so miserable... Formula isn't evil, it's a back up plan and a fucking good one at that. Read this book to help you understand why we feel so guilty over our experiences with breastfeeding.

Let's Panic About Babies!: How to Endure and Possibly Triumph Over the Adorable Tyrant Who Will Ruin Your Body, Destroy Your Life, Liquefy Your Brain, ... Turn You into a Worthwhile Human Being

Check out this dvd workout for prolapse...
Hab It: Pelvic Floor https://www.amazon.com/dp/0510539610/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_EViywbB4JVA9S
It saved me from surgery! The only bad thing is that it's not a permanent fix, it's a muscle so you can strengthen it through exercise (20 min 3 times a week) but if you stop it goes back to "normal" :( Beats getting a mesh imho!