For some reason I was hit by a wave of exhaustion today. We'd had a pretty quiet weekend and not too bad a night - Monty was up once coughing, then up at 6am but by our standards it was ok.
So quite why I nearly fell asleep at my desk today i am not sure but I swiftly excused myself and went for a brisk walk in the very cold air outside then bought a Diet Coke on my way back (how I wish I liked coffee!). Perhaps in the end that big fat sleep deficit just catches up with you. I am going to try and be in bed by 10pm tonight.
In other news, Monty has taken my perfume again. So i am exhausted and not very fragrant - oh dear!
Thankfully Minnie made a miraculous recovery after her shivering episode on Friday night. But she's still coughing and full of snot as is Monty, so we've had a quiet weekend. This has involved a lot of Lego being tipped all over the floor and, today an afternoon of rather messy baking.
Monty made flapjacks (that were somewhat cemented into the tray but tasted good never the less) and Minnie chose cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book. They were a little too advanced for me (I am a very amateur baker - note that I can't even make flapjacks properly) and ended up spreading a bit in the tin and joining up in their little cases but Minnie's wonderful icing technique covered up all of that.
In other news we have had our first piece of craft homework - Minnie's class is learning about the Great Fire Of London and she has to make a model of a the kind of house that would have been in London in 1666 (white with black beams, in case you are wondering). My friend Tom at work tells me that he has a friend who flatly refuses to do any sort of craft homework, declaring it complete waste of time and homework for the parents not the children. He's right, James has ended up making the beamed house. But I think he secretly quite enjoyed it! Here it is in progress - and yes, he is using proper house paint for some reason!
Minnie has gone to bed shivering and with a headache. Really hoping it's not the flu...
Meanwhile Monty is still completely bunged up and has a croaky little voice and is still coughing. It feels like the children have been coughing for weeks.
Tomorrow we're going to eat an entire bag of satsumas to main line Vitamin C!
It sounds bonkers but all you need is a pack of wipes (which, let's face it, we've all got!) some loom bands and some felt tips (again, tick and tick!).
Only from us, but it's getting a bit out of hand. If we tell him he can't have something he will wait for a while, then go and take it and hide it. He does this with toys at my mum's house, whipped a little jewellery box that Minnie had made for me away the other day (then removed all the shiny gems she'd carefully stuck on the outside) and my perfume has been missing for days. I wear Angel which comes in a blue star-shaped bottle that he is very taken with. I have asked him several times where it is and checked under his bed as I am sure he is to blame, but he denies all knowledge. Then, this morning, in the car to nursery, I asked him again, hoping to catch him unawares. 'I know where your perfume is Mummy,' he said. 'It's upstairs in my old room in my froggy thing. Can we share it?'
I am not sure if I should be worried or not about these criminal activities but I have told him that he mustn't take things and he knows he'll be told off if he does.
So on Friday Monty and I were very lucky to get a visit from Lucy Thomas, a nutritionist who specialises in food and nutrition for kids, runs Mange Tout and consults for everyone from Organix to Great Ormond Street. It all came about when the lovely people at Organix asked me to share a video that involved singing to carrots and I said that I couldn’t really imagine doing that myself and that what I really needed as a parent was real advice about how to get Monty to eat more, and more healthily. Amazingly they said they’d send Lucy straight round and I must say it was quite a revelation... here’s what I learnt:
Monty will eat vegetables if you take them away from the table and turn trying them into a fun game where he smells, licks, kisses and tastes them – all to get a sticker on a chart. See the green beans video! It wasn’t a one-off either – he had green beans with his roast potatoes and peas and carrots on Sunday evening.
Breakfast is a disaster because he is often thirsty so I give him a beaker of Ribena or water and then he has no space in his tummy for food. Lucy explained that Monty’s tummy is only the size of his fist. What I am now doing is offering him an inch of drink to quench his food then offering him food.
At Small Talk we talk about being a ‘tuned-in parent’ when it comes to listening to your child’s speech. It turns out that I need to be a tuned-in parent when it comes to Monty’s eating. While Minnie is a big meat eater (she always asks for seconds of meat if we have a roast for example) Monty isn’t keen. When I described his diet and that he liked his carbs along with mozzarella, hummous, baked beans and wasn’t keen on meat or fish, Lucy said that he was naturally following a high-protein vegetable diet. So should I stop giving him meat altogether I asked? Lucy recommended giving him three bite-sized pieces, and saying that he had three pieces because he was three.
I was putting too much on his plate which was overwhelming him, meaning he was rejecting everything on the plate.
I was also expecting him to eat way more than he can, meaning that I was always worrying he hadn’t eaten enough when he probably had. Lucy explained that a small portion of vegetables, protein and carbs - each the size of his little palm - is ideal.
Being wary or fussy about new food is typical of toddler behaviour. Food Neophobia (inbuilt mechanism to help prevent self poisoning from wild berries etc once child becomes mobile. Child’s diet automatically becomes restricted as a result and even familiar foods that are broken or cooked differently may be refused a child will deem them ‘unsafe’ to eat) this may still be present sometimes until 5yrs.
Mealtimes and eating are an inconvenience to most children as it interrupts their play and the fun things. Make sure Mealtimes last no longer than 20minutes - perhaps introduce a sand timer 15mins and turn it over for pudding? Spending long arduous hours at the table can build a reluctance to come and sit down for a meal as there are no boundaries for the start and end of a meal.
Never bribe or threaten to refuse pudding if main meal is not eaten. This can build negative associations with food. So long as pudding is nutritious it could be offered, for example fruit, yoghurt or a healthy homemade muffin or pancake.
Look at food intake over the course of a week rather than a day, children can self regulate and will if they are given plenty of choice and variety. It might seem like your child has not eaten a balanced meal in days, but over the week you will be able to see that one day they perhaps ate only carbohydrate and the next only protein and fruit, but then the next day perhaps they ate more vegetables than usual and some cake.
Most children in my experience up to the age of five will usually eat well for two out of three meals. So aim for 2 good meals a day and anything else is a bonus! Even one good meal can be supplemented with healthy nutritious snacks.
Preparing children that a mealtime is approaching is always a good idea, and offering a choice of two items so they feel included in the decision of what’s going to be on their plate – eg, would you like cucumber or carrots with your pizza today?
Don’t expect overnight success but small steps will mean working progress!
We've had a lovely weekend with our friend Abi who came to stay with her dog Thala, a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy aged five months. Minnie was in heaven! Amusingly Thala needed regular naps during the day, like any baby, and it was a struggle to get Minnie to leave her alone during this quiet time. Here are the besotted pair...
I've noticed that Monty has started chewing the sleeves of his jumpers (yuck!). I wonder if he could be teething or if it's just a habit?
Today I took Minnie and Monty swimming and we were all in the changing room before I realised with a sinking feeling that I had left my swimsuit at home. I briefly considered spending £35 on a new one from the shop at the pool, but decided that this would make for a very expensive swimming trip. So the children had to get dressed again and we all had to get back in the car and drive home to fetch it - they were not amused and I felt like a right wally!
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and I had to make him a hot water bottle again - grr! Tonight he's going to go to bed in double pajamas but I am fairly sure that being cold isn't really the problem - he's doing it for the attention! Let's face it, it's not even cold yet! Last night he apparently also had a melt down with the childminder because she hadn't warmed his socks on the radiator! Good lord, I think the boy needs to toughen up and we need to stop spoiling him.
Monty's at it again. He was tricky to get to sleep last night and then up at half five this morning, wide awake. Foolishly, I'd only gone to bed at midnight so have been struggling all day. In fact, I am so befuddled that I spent much of this morning thinking it was Thursday.
This wasn't helped by the fact that while Monty was up mega early Minnie didn't wake til 7.30, so we still managed to be behind for the school run. And it took me a while to get dressed because I seem to have lost every pair of trousers I own. I vaguely recall throwing away one pair as they had ripped but two others are missing in action.