Our current “game” is figuring out if my toddler is ok with me coming and getting her out of her room or if she wants me to come in, get her clothes, and leave (closing the door) so that she can get up and meet me in the bathroom by herself. If I choose wrong the entire morning is filled with crying over everything else. My husband walked in the bathroom the other day and asked “what seems to be the issue” at her end-of-the-world screams. “I brushed her teeth”.

Give him some words to use in stressful situations.

“I need some space”

“I don’t like that”

Especially if he hasn’t been around other kids a lot. They’re loud. They’ll take what you were playing with. They won’t give you the toy you want. They’re in your space. They’ll run into you. Pack 10+ kids in one room with 1-2 adults and there’s bound to be some chaos.

Teach him to ask for help and vocalize what he needs. Sometimes kids won’t advocate for themselves because they’re so used to the adults in their lives knowing them so well that they anticipate their needs.

Also, I second all the independent stuff from the one poster.

I recently read the Oh Crap, Potty Training book and thought a lot of her ideas made sense. Admittedly, her method is not how we trained our almost three year old, but if I could start over I think I would. The recommended method is: a day (or two or three) of completely naked with the potty in the room. You’re trying to get your child to move from the realization of 1. Clueless 2. I peed 3. I’m peeing 4. I need to pee. You’re also looking for their signs of needing to go. Then you go pantless, then commando for awhile. You’re trying to have fewer things to take off but also removing the “comfort” of having the poop and pee close to them. You’re also having them go every 30 minutes or 1 hour.

A few suggestions about your specific situation. 1. The more you “kinda” potty train, the longer it’s going to take. It’s confusing for kids when you’re only trying once or twice a day. They don’t learn their bodies that way. We had the most success with our kid when we just decided we were done with diapers. I know I could’ve trained her at 2 if I actually gave it my full attention. We did no diapers during the day and no diapers at nap. We still do night diapers but honestly they’ve only been wet maybe twice this month. We also did diapers on an eight-hour road trip, but again, still dry. 2. About her fear, poop is a big thing. It took a long time for our kid. Pantless and leaving her alone is what eventually worked (full disclosure, she did poop on the floor and even step on it before she figured it out). Bring her in the bathroom when you poop. Have her sit on hers while you sit on yours. But giving kids a little privacy can go a long way. There’s an entire chapter in the book about poop if you’re interested in checking it out.

Around this age I started transitioning to the crib in the middle of the night. Fall asleep in our room. Wake up. Get changed. Get fed. Sleep in crib in her room.

Yes, but teaching kindergarten is 24 at once. I am so thankful for my toddler’s daycare teachers because I couldn’t do it. My one is challenging enough.

Tooth fairy is actually what broke the “magical beings that are actually parents” for me too. Luckily my kid is only 2 and I don’t have to worry about any of these yet, but I’m really leaning towards not bothering with the lies as long as my kid isn’t one that would enjoy spoiling it for everyone else.

The only benefit I have seen to kids wearing smartwatches is the ability for mobile payments with their watch for the bookfair or other fundraisers. Phones are not allowed at my school, but wearable tech is. Kids usually don’t care about step counting, sleep tracking, or setting alarms and reminders. Honestly, a kid wearing a watch that doesn’t know how to use it and has an alarm going off every ten minutes is frustrating. As far as communication, I feel like that should be discouraged during the school day. Smartwatches end up being a distraction more than a benefit in most cases. Personally I would be more on board to getting a basic flip phone than a watch for emergencies. If you do get a watch, I would explore different parental control features and “school mode” to see what it offers.

So earlier yesterday we went with no pants or anything. At one point, she stopped in the middle of the kitchen and froze. I asked her if she needed to go and she ran to the potty and went. Then later she said she peed, but when I looked it was the tiniest amount and she stopped herself and finished in the potty. Does that seem like the understanding the emergency?

Also, we’ve had times where she’s held it for a few hours, been completely dry, and peed a bigger amount on the potty. This has even happened at daycare as well.

Very very rarely. Like only at a birthday party. Juice gets her the most excited

It’s possible, but we do offer watered down juice as a reward. A cup for poop, a sip for pee (usually only when she’s really fighting it). She still needs prompting to go, though.

It’s the cheapest, safest, and most convenient to us. And they do encourage her to go potty and she goes multiple times a day there (just in addition to going in pull-ups). While changing daycares may allow for a different policy in their 3-year-old room, I still want my toddler to be potty trained for a multitude of reasons.

It’s hard to have time off with our work schedules, which is why I tried over the summer initially. She doesn’t care as much as I thought she would about going on herself though. She ran in yesterday with a big smile to tell me she peed in her underwear. I’ll check out the book though, thanks!

My husband and 2-year-old daughter are off on Monday but I still have work. We were talking to friends and my husband mentioned maybe having a playdate at a playground since they are also off. My daughter goes “I want to go to the playground on Monday too!” As if the grown-ups were gonna go and leave the kiddos behind.

The Disney plus app has lots of shorts if you have that. We’ve done the spidey and his amazing friends, Winnie the Pooh, and Bluey. There’s lots more on there, even like Cars and Frozen ones

We took our daughter to a high school football game last night. As we’re parking she goes, “I want to watch people play game ball!”

The Halloween section at Costco

Today was a big day! My two year old went on three new non-kiddie rides at an amusement park (pirate ship, caterpillar ride, and log flume) and also went number 2 on the potty twice

Please don’t eat your shoes

2 year old taking a big drink of milk. “Tastes like ahhhh”

Yesterday while sitting at a table waiting for ice cream my two year old looks at me and says “I wanna touch the wall. I wanna touch the wall a widdle bit” So I told her to go ahead. Helped her down. She walked over. Placed her hand on the wall. Then came back to sit. Kids.

Using a stroller fan to cool down hot food. I prop up the fan and then my hands are free to stir the food around. Works much quicker than blowing on it and don’t have to worry about getting lightheaded

So an attempted achievement we had was going ice skating yesterday. There was a toddler class where the ice wasn’t clean from the previous day’s practice and kids could go out on their street shoes. They have sleds to pull them around, mini hockey sticks to hit around pucks, Pom-poms to throw in the net, and other activities to get them used to the ice surface. Then they put on skates off-ice and get used to the feeling. My child took three steps onto the ice and stated “I need all done ice”. We tried for about thirty minutes to get her comfortable in various ways and she wasn’t having any of it. I think a big part of the problem was for whatever reason she was literally the only kid there. So it was her and three adults, two of whom were complete strangers, in a completely new environment, with no other kids to feed off of. So while it didn’t go as I had hoped, she did step on the ice for the first time and hopefully when we go back in a few weeks she’s more comfortable with the idea.

Coming home from vacation we sent my husband on the plane first to set up her car seat and I boarded last with LO to get out last minute energy. She saw a plane outside the big window and yells “Hi dada! Go ahead! See you later!”

So here’s one of our conundrums. Toys in the bath. Several months ago a little rubber duckie got caught under the tap when the tub was filling up. This sent our then 18 month old into a panic. We’ve had to completely remove toys from the bath and have only just been able to recently add them to the water after it’s filled up (before that toys even near the water would have her screaming, crying, and throwing them as far away as possible). Toys can stay in the water when it’s draining, but not filling. If the toys are in the empty tub she says “it’s okay. Toys okay.” but you’d think somebody was dying with the way she panics if there’s anything (even a wash cloth) in the tub while the water is on. She loves water otherwise.

Bubble gun in the bath. I shoot bubbles towards the ceiling and it gets her to look up long enough for me to rinse her hair. Also, we have finger paint soap. For awhile she was refusing to get her body washed after a string of bad diaper rashes from daycare. She would stand up to paint the wall and we could get her clean.

My two year old saw a bug and immediately knelt down by it, exclaimed “ladybug! How sweet!”, then proceeded to stand up and attempt to stomp on it repeatedly.

I’m a teacher and a few days after my first (and only) was born the Uvalde school shooting happened. Postpartum emotions play a part, but it is really difficult to escape the growing negativity about the state of the world. She’s two now and while I do still have many concerns about the future I’m focused now on making each day as positive as I can for her. In my experience, in time, the intensity fades a little. You do what you can, accept you can’t control everything, and make the best with what you have.

2 years old - a puppet at a puppet show story time. She was in tears at the first song then for the rest of the show she kept repeating “puppet not bite you” and “puppet stay in blue box”.

But then later said “I need more puppet” so maybe she got over it.

Kids.