NZ Baby Blog

At 2.12 am on the 18th of June Ms Charlotte Rose Blake joined us in the outside world with a lusty cry to show all was well, and then settled down to see what all the fuss was about - laxing out under the heat lamps.

She weighed in at a very average 3.28kg.

We got started at 6pm ish, phoning Grandma & the midwife around 7pm. By the time Grandma had gotten here it looked like it was going to be another false start, but as the midwife was already on her way to the hospital she said come in anyway.

Off we went, found the birthing unit, and was very disappointed to find we weren’t in a room with the grab bars on the wall, and that we didn’t have a lazy boy either! Si had to sit on the swiss ball in the bathtub!

Things aren’t that exciting when you can read a book while pacing about (Book was the Sari Shop which was OK but sort of petered out at the end).

At 10pm we were looking to break the waters to get things morning along, but as it turned out, they broke anyway themselves.

4 hrs later and full dilation is achieved and then begins the longest 12 minutes of my life complete with a lot of swearing, some pleading, and attempts to negotiate which all failed to impress anyone, but in the end out she came without any interventions.
Then it’s a bunch of drugs to try and prevent an excess of bleeding in me, more gas (mmm good gas), cuddles with baby, checking everyones ok, food for both parties, and finally off to the ward for some rest.

Original Post - Clicker Kid Gets Dressed

As is usual with my training, I can be a bit poor on keeping the reinforcement going, as I do tend to try and fade the reward too early/completely.

However, even so, he is much better about getting dressed most of the time. A few “environment” changes have helped - getting dressed before going downstairs for breakfast is usually better than trying to do it afterwards. He is putting on his bottom halves himself, although still with a quite a lot of prompting so that might be the next thing to work on.

You know you’re getting to the business end of your pregnancy because you start to get more pain! In my case jack-knifing out of bed at 5am with leg cramps.

This is a sub-optimal way to wake up, so I turned to Google in search of answers. What I got was what you often get with non fetally harmful pregnancy conditions “we don’t know why it happens, try eating differently, put up with it”. In this case, try eating more salts & minerals (Potassium, magnesium, zinc and sodium were popular suggestions), walk around to walk it off, put some heat on your leg.

The key here being “we don’t know why it happens so we really don’t know how to stop it happening“. Getting cramps when you’re running a marathon, you can kinda see why you might be a bit short of some vital minerals, and why keeping your electrolites up would be a good idea. Sleeping in bed seems an altogether less strenuous activity (especially when you’re 6 months pregnant), so it’s harder to see why at 5am you suddenly run out of something (assuming you’re not sweating etc in which case removing a duvet seems a good idea).

As it happens, I’ve had general OOS pain issues, and pre-pregnancy had been getting treated at the Southern Cross Pain Clinic in Wellington - but had been discharged. So as I had some hip pain as well I booked myself in to see what could be done that didn’t involve eating my own weight in bananas (Potassium).

Apparently there is quite a simple explanation for why you might get leg cramps in pregnancy. The part of your spine/back where the messages about cramps come from is about a hand width above the small of your back. So your causal options are referred pain (check, pain in hips could do that), and/or just pain from trying to compensate for carrying a 5kg lump out in front - again more plausible than that you’ve had a run on your magnesium store.
Consequently there is some safe treatment that seems to work.

I got saline injections into the area, as well as into my hips, and it’s keeping the cramps under control.  In addition, when I get that “pre cramp” feeling in my legs and feet, I apply a hot wheat pack to my back and it’s meant that so far I’ve had no more jack-knifing out of bed.

The cost of private treatment was about $175 I think, so a bit more than bananas, but worth it I think.

The doctor is Dr Giresh Kanji - a very sympathetic man. If you’ve got health insurance you can probably get it for nix if you get a referal from your midwife or obstetrician (or even GP).

Today I finally got sick of the whole “get dressed do your teeth routine” which takes forever and often involves more manhandling of the child than I can do at the moment, and more tears than is pleasant,  and decided to start clicking for what I wanted.

What a difference - I wish I’d done it earlier but [Insert long list of excuses why not] I didn’t.
INGREDIENTS

1 X 3 year old who hates getting dressed & doing teeth

7 x mini Pebbles, Smarties, M&M’s or similar - about 5mm diamater
1 x container to hold treats

1 x clicker (optional)

1 x parent in the right head space

METHOD

1. Make a show of counting out small treats (mini m&m’s) into container so that child knows you’re doing it.
2. Explain that these are treats for getting dressed and doing your teeth.
3. Ignore pang of guilt as imaginary dentist tells you that giving sweets right after doing teeth is counter productive
4. Tell child you’re off to bedroom/bathroom and that they need to come with you if they want them
5. If child normally wouldn’t do that, and this time they do, click and treat when you get to destination or significantly underway. Click marks that they have done what you want - you want to get a click (or OK or similar) in so that you can do less instant treating in the future.
6. Tell child that they will get one treat per item of clothing
7. At this point my child starts messing around, so I left the room as I was making decision not to “play” our usual game of cajolling him into getting dressed.
8. Child is upset that usual game doesn’t work.
9. Explain that today we are doing clicks and treats for getting dressed, would he like another chance.
10. Yes please.
11. Back to room, child is allowed to wear the clicker.
12. Child steps into knickers on count of 3, gets a click and chooses treat
13. Child steps into trousers (no counting required), gets a click and chooses treat
14. Remove shirt, put on t-shirt (usually a big struggle to get night shirt off and clean one on), Child very happy to comply, gets clicker back too, gets click and treat.
15. Put on socks - click and treat
16. Put on shoes - click and treat
17. Child fully dressed in record time! Mum not feeling cross yay!

CLEANING TEETH & WASHING FACE

1. Again show/tell there are treats
2. Count to 3 was needed for child allowing teeth to be brushed
3. Child stands still, opens mouth etc
4. Praise, click, treat
5. Child stands still with face forward for face wash
6. Click & treat

Again, child is happy, mum is happy, all done nice and quickly.

Once I’ve got this one established, so that we have the idea of a non confrontational get ready embedded, then I’ll work up to putting on his clothes himself, and to putting in a “marker” for the treats like a button or a bead so that particularly the teeth treat might get collected later when I won’t feel so guilty.

We had been doing “you can’t have a DVD until you’ve had breakfast & are dressed”, the problem with that though is that when it all takes such a long time, there isn’t time for a DVD before we go out to daycare or other activities anyway. The no DVD until those things are done will still apply, but I think the direct clicking approach will speed the whole proces up and hopefully he’ll get to a point where he is earning “tokens” which he can then use to “buy” DVD time.

I wish that there was a reliable source of info on good (and bad) cafe’s to take small children to in Wellington.

At the weekend we went to Super (old Island Bay Cafe) in the main shops, Island Bay village on the Parade. The food was good, and they have a nice big “fenced” play area inside, with quite a few toys, and some toys in the “garden” out the back as well.

Our boy is 3, so was perfect for him. If you’re breastfeeding it’s not so good. On a fine day you could get some privacy out the back, otherwise it’s  all open plan and no easy chairs or couch anywhere so you need to have your technique sorted for the unsuported feed.

They do have a kids menu, fluffy was ok, and reasonably quick to come.

As it’s on the main Island Bay bus route, if you have a bus fiend like I do then there is a bit of entertainment out the window as well.

Renovations have this tendency to start off kinda small, and escalate - well mine do anyway. By the time you’ve found that the wall needs rebuilding, and the floor joists replacing (on 2 levels) and thus reflooring must happen in 1/3rd of the house, redoing the whole house seems like a good idea.

Nearly 2 months later and we’re still squatting with relatives (thank you thank you for having us), and wondering why when the rest of us are having to work, tradesmen, or more to the point, tradesmen’s suppliers seem to be able to take the whole of January off.

So we wait for skirting boards to  be run - something about a machine breaking down, and cornice to get dry (plaster cornice takes a week apparently), so that the last week of real work can be done.

In the meantime we show people about from time to time, and imagine how nice it will be to be back in our own house - but I’m not booking the movers just yet!

The upside of the economic downturn is that my builders are free to begin the next phase of our renovation project. The downside of course is that if we need to borrow money it’ll be that much more expensive.

However we’re pushing ahead anyway, working our way through our building consent and we’re up to the last phase of that. We’re making a bigger bedroom for the boy out of the old study & old bathroom, tarting up our bedroom, making an upstairs deck, putting big doors on to the downstairs deck from the kitchen, and reworking the old downstairs bathroom & kitchen into a scullery & kitchen combo.

In the meantime the contents of 3 rooms (including the boy) are all in the front room (bye bye trampoline room you were fun for the winter), and the contents of the kitchen are variously in the lounge, and in the office (bye bye Dean).

Kitchen pack up isn’t quite done, it’s just got to the annoying stage. It’s a little unclear how long we won’t have any kitchen facilities for, maybe only a week or two, maybe a month or two, depends on the plumber among other things.  So we’re accepting invitations to dinner, we’re even happy to cook it

I was going through my trunk of “stuff”, doing a cull, and found again my giant Barbie doll. I didn’t know much about her except that my Great Aunt Patty gave her to me when we visited her in Florida in the 80’s, and she’d said that I should take care of her. She made and collected dolls, so I figured she might be collectable.

So tonight i spent some time on the interwebchatthingy, trying to find out more about my Barbie.

Turns out she is an 18 inch supersize Barbie Bride, with 1976 Mattel printed on her, but probably made in about 1977. She is missing her shoes (Of course! What Barbie ever kept her shoes?) and her bouquet. But she still has her original dress and veil. She’s never been really played with but there is a bit of a rip in her dress at the back (or maybe just stitching coming undone).

I found 2 listings for the same sort of Barbie on different e-Bay’s, one for $84sish, and one for $34ish - mine doesn’t have her box (but does look just like the one on the picture, so I think shes all original).

She’s heading back to her trunk now, but it was a fun outing, maybe I’ll check the auctions again in another 10 years.

What to do when your dog is toilet trained most of the time, but sometimes they’re not.

The dog in question is a sweet young male beagle called Finn. His owners say he’s mostly toilet trained, but that when he comes back from kennels he pees on furniture and the bed. He then might ask to go out as well. So what’s going on and how do you fix it?

What’s going on?

He’s likely marking because the house doesn’t smell enough (like him) for his liking, and so he’s reclaiming the furniture and the bed by peeing on them.

He could be having a bit of anxiety & exhaustion mixing in too if he’s wetting his own bed as well.

What to do about it

I’d take a two pronged approach. If he’s not rock solid on toilet training generally then you need to try and get him that way.

Train a “Go Toilet”  Command
It’s useful if you can give your dog a command (or at least a suggestion) and they understand that they should try to go to the toilet. This is good for putting them out at night, making them go to the toilet at a good place on a walk, making them go when on a long car trip, and before going somewhere scary like the vets.
The command I use is “toilet time” and this is how I train it.

1. Accompany your dog outside when they need to go to the toilet, taking clicker & treats.
2. Wait patiently.
3. When they go to the toilet click and treat them.
4. Repeat
5. Next time, say the word that you want to be your cue word - eg “toilet time” when they are doing it, click and treat.
6. Repeat for a few weeks as often as you can.

Part 2

When the dog next comes home from the kennels you want to empty their bladder before they come in the house, praise them for going toilet outside, and discourage them from going inside.

1. Take dog from car to lawn/backyard. Get him to go use the facilities and let him wander about doing the territory thing outside if he wants to
2. Put dog on lead and take inside
3. Take dog around all his favorite “haunts” in the house, let him sniff and reacquaint himself
4. If he sniffs and looks away then I’d click and treat
5. If he sniffs and moves away then big treat
6. If he tries to pee, grab him and take him outside
7. If he has a pee outside, or after a couple of minutes so your heart stops racing, come back in with dog on the lead and try again.
8. If you use a crate, consider putting him in the crate for that first evening, or only having him out if he’s on a lead.

When you’ve had a few successful goes at this, you can then try doing the same thing off the lead.

We’ve just had a month away with our 2 year old and it went really well. In part it went well because we tried to be as prepared as we could be to fight off the twin event killers - hunger and boredom.

One of our outings was to a very “grown up” pot luck lunch with about 20 ish people including 4 or so other kids ranging in age from 10mths to 8 years. Our man had some food, a bit of a play and then fell asleep on dads lap - nice - we were the envy of everyone.

One of the mums of the older children though was complaining about how her child constantly interrupts her while she’s talking at these “do’s” and so we talked about some a techniqueto teach them for for getting attention quietly - “Quiet Hands”.

You teach your child to come up and gently touch your hand when they want your attention rather than shouting at you or dragging at you. Attention is the “reward” so you need to withold the reward for behaviour you don’t want. You might start by giving attention for shout and touch, but then go only for touch. Her child was 8 so she could explain it to him.

However it got me thinking about going out with a child to essentially an adults “do” and how she really had set herself up to fail. It was a house without kids, or any outdoors, so no toys and no running space. We took our travelling suitcase with toys in it (as we had on our whole trip), and the other children fell on them with great gusto.

So I think if going out with a small, or even not so small child, to a non child friendly place where you’d like to be able to ignore them, or keep them amused with minimal intervention take…

Toys and lots of them, some suggestions are
Toys that they and other adults will want to play with like lego, trainset, cars, mechano
Toys they like to play by themselves like crayons, colouring book
Books either to be read to them or they can read themselves
For older kids then computers, games, cards, anything that some other adult will take an interest in is a good idea (so not the new fangled game boy style things unless they will just play that themselves).

How many toys to take? Well that depends on how long you want to stay with them being quiet, but I figure one toy per 20 mins or so is about right. So if you’re wanting to stay for 2 hours, you’ll need about 6 things.

For our toddler we have a suitcase called a trunky that is both a good carry case and a ride on toy which is pretty well perfect for outings.

And I guess for anyone in their 30’s-40’s who is hosting this sort of event and would like to help thier guests with kids out, stockpiling a few books and toys would be most gratefully recieved.