errraggghhhhh!terrible twos (???) and food food food (long, but please help and shed some light!! I'm desperate!)

bearsmama
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Last seen: 1 year 30 weeks ago
Joined: 04/29/2008

Where has my sweet little boy gone?
I am feeling like Bear hit two and a switch flipped or something.
I hate using the term "terrible twos"..but he turned two and has been a holy terror ever since. No...that is unfair. But he is suddenly suuuuper whiny, throws tantrums and won't do one goddamned thing I ask him too! Yeah,okay, he's a kid thats what they do...hell, I still do that sometimes..but it started almost literally the DAY he turned two.
He is really a pretty sweet boy...friendly, loves to read and play, go outside..but sometimes it is OVERWHELMING when he starts acting up.

Bed time now, unless he falls asleep nursing (which is rare these days) consists of this routine:

He

screams bloody blue murder while I brush his teeth(more abouthis teeth in another post),then has milk.

Once he's done milk he takes his bottle of water to bed.If he wants, we'll read a book. He still sleeps with me at this point and I always have laid with him until he is asleep.

Then the screaming starts. No real reason, just starts screaming(he goes to bed around 9ish, i would prefer it earlier, but bedtime theatrics just go on for longer the earlier he goes, unless he hasnt napped)

He wants me to hold the waterbottle aforhimto drink,then hewon't drink, but if i put it down he screams for more water, then won't drink..and so on until I get fed up with that game and stop holding the waterbottle, at which point he screams louder.

He wants blankets,thenkicks themoff, then wants me to pull them back up, then kicks them off, then wants them back up, kicks them off, etc., until I get tired of that one, warn him that if he kicks them off again, I won't pull them back up..to which his answer is to kick them off and scream louder while grabbing the blanket trying to shove it into my hand or whack me in the face with it.

Then he hasto pee. He's potty trained now,but sleeps in a diaper. So we get up to go pee, and he spends 10 minutes in the bathroom standing by the toilet but never peeing.He screams when i take him back to bed. Then he says he has to go poo. He'll sit on the toilet foras long as i can tolerate it (because usually I am pretty peeved by this time), then screams when i take him back to bed.

Then he decides he's hungry. I always offer him a pre-bed snack, which he always refuses, so usually i don't go along with this one. Screaming continues.

Those things all cycle, like he does one for a bit, tries another,then another and so on until he tuckers himself out and falls asleep.I can't stand it. Not only is it incredibly annoying to try and deal patiently with, but it makes me sooooooooooooooo sad. SO sad. I hate watching him go through that. I feel like I should be able to fix it,but nothing i try to help him with is what he wants.

Then we come to food. He's hardly eating anything at all lately. I refuse to allow him to eat only oatmeal all day. Example: he woke up this morning asking for oatmeal, then came downstairs and did not want it. He ate half of a banana with peanut butter, then shared in my chocolate spirulina pudding thing I was eating. then he ate about 3 chickpeas and afew blueberries and raspberries. Thats it...its after 1, and he's been up since 7:30 this morning. He's in a crrrrap mood, only wants to havemilk and screams when I won't let him have it (he went down to nursing three times a day in February and was fine with it until his birthday...). He won't eat anything else. Everything i offer either gets yelled at or tossed on the floor.

I've got the pediatrician riding my ass saying he's too small..although he's healthy as a horse, has a ton of energy and is very smart and developing at a rate beyond what the pediatricians papers say a two year old would normally be. but he isn't gaining weight..hasn't in a while. He's static at about 23 pounds, even though he gets taller and his head is "where it should be on the charts".

Vegan Mama here already started allowing him eggs(organic free range ones from a nearby farm..and he only eats them in egg form, not in things, and definately no processed food still), and has now, at the request of the pediatrician, who is superb at making me feel like i'm purposely trying to quell my childs growth, goats milk (again, organic from a self sustaining free range goat farm in the area pastuerized at the lowest possible standards to be able to sell..if i am going to feed my kid dairy which i am soooooo against, it is going to be high quality.). Goats milk is apparently not a sufficiant subsitute when he wants mamamilk, not even when i offer to snuggle him up with his cup.

I have never been worried about his size. I'm 5'4 and weigh 107 lbs, his biodad was 5'5 and weighed in at a scrawny 130 for a man. So he's small, it doesn't bother me. but Ye olde Exbeast is taking me back to court trying to say i don't feed him properly. And even though i am incredibly well educated when it comes to nutrition, and started him on the eggs of my own deliberation for sufficient choline intake since we avoid soy, i took him to the Doctor in Ye Olde 3d Worlde who is going off about him being slightly below his growth chart. Which is abit of a pain in the ass becaus enow i'm paranoid, even though he is perfectly healthy.

But now the kid is too busy to even eat,and pretty much refuses anything that is not oatmeal, blueberries, raspberries, dried figs, water,green vegetable juice or the unsweetened carob chips he spazzes out that I won't give him. No wonder he's in such a bad mood,he's got to be starving...

urgh.

anyways...thoughts, advice,ideas would be greatly appreciated on all the things i've written here..please..before my head explodes

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earthgarden
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Joined: 10/28/2006
hang in there mama the twos pass quick

basically he's aware now he's a separate person from you and able to make choices. BUT he really has no control over anything, right? imagine how frustrated you would be if you couldn't even choose what to eat in life. now pair that with the low stress threshold and immaturity of a 2 year old!! ha ha poor little guy. and poor mama! (((hugs))) it does get better, but in the meantime, my advice is give him choices, like a THIS or THAT choice. for example at bedtime, tell him You want the covers pulled up or left down? in the morning Do you want to wear the blue pants or the black ones? Do you want the red crayon or the yellow crayon? like that, give him a choice and let him pick things for himself as much as possible, but try not to make it an open-ended choice that requires a yes or no answer LOL. 2s can handle only so much freedom, ha!

on the food: he won't starve to death, and he will get what he needs. it's worrisome but he will be all right if you let him just eat oatmeal all day. they can be super picky at this age but if you watch he will eat a more varied diet if you allow him more choice (i.e letting him eat oatmeal all day for a few days or so). again, try offering him more choices like Do you want oatmeal or eggs? or whatever.

this year will pass quick, before you know it he will be 3 and then the magical age of 4! (I just love 4, they are so agreeable then) Smile

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biz & etsy & books
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turtle's picture
turtle
gonna plant a tree, filled with hope for apples next year!
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Joined: 02/06/2008
oh yeah the choice thing

We do this a lot. They have to be two choices you are okay with, of course. Sometimes it actually works! Wink

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You want to do what you think is right and what matters to you, and if other people don't like it, as my father would have said, they can go fuck themselves. -- Amy Bloom

cricketsong
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Joined: 05/20/2010
crap i'm not there yet so

crap i'm not there yet so take anything i offer with a huge dose of 'what do you know' salt...
but HUGS to you both.

Choices sound like a good option - and then just let him have them. If he chooses neither, leave it. Try not to get anxious or stressed and push it because that will undo the potential of him getting to choose. My mum swears that if she could do her time over again, she'd worry less about food, and in particular consider what we ate over the course of a week, not a day.

That said, I can hear you're uncertain about adequate nutrition...breastfeeding would still be giving him HEAPS of the best stuff, though, right? And what charts is your paed using? Cos sometimes the norms they compare older breastfed children to are based on weaned/formula-fed groups.

Do you eat with him? And let him share from your plate? Take the focus off food and maybe he'll start sorting himself out??

Hmmm...really, as tough as it is, i gotta commend you for keeping such a spirited soul intact. Some parents would've squashed that spirit outta him by now, even if they didn't mean/want to, because of how tough it is on the parent when kids don't 'conform'.

Hope you get some hugs and support from somewhere...(anyone else in the house able to try something with him??)....and i hope you'll share any small successes you have cos I have a feeling i'll be blogging about this in a year... Smile

be well, bearsmama...you're an awesome mum for feeling sad with him. He's one blessed little Bear. You'll both get there.

~cricketsong. ps love your signature...any way you can giggle him to sleep? seriously! sometimes when i 'give in' to Cricket at bedtime, and turn it into games, it's easier on us both...er, eventually.

turtle's picture
turtle
gonna plant a tree, filled with hope for apples next year!
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Joined: 02/06/2008
argh.

hugs hugs hugs. T is only four months younger than Bear but I feel like on this she is advanced because we are in much the same place- bedtime is okay still (except for teeth brushing which for whatever reason is horrible terrible no good torture as far as T is concerned) but food- not so much. Everything I've heard is that you offer them healthy food and it's their responsibility to decide what they want to eat. You already know this, I know. But it's hard for me to fully take in when what T eats at dinner is half a piece of pasta and everything else is like NO WAY WHAT IS THAT HORRIBLE EVIL THING THAT IS SO NOT EDIBLE!!! (all in sign and vigorous shaking of the head, mind you- she doesn't have a lot of words yet). T has always been on the 50th percentile for weight which the doctor always has something to say about but which we ignore. And she usually does say something about how the Wee Papa and I are both tall and slim - which is particularly true of the Wee Papa- he is 6'4" and downright skinny, especially when he was younger (beer has helped him bulk up! jajajaja!). So yeah- genetics. But I basically don't have anyone to "answer" to like you do with your asshat ex and courts and whatnot. She's 24lbs and gains a few ounces here and there-- verrrrrrrry slowly.

I don't think Bear is starving, I really really don't. I know you are trying- I tried the goat's milk thing but T absolutely refuses it when what she really wants is breastmilk. I think they are both probably going through some growth spurts/developmental stages and so that's why they are nursing more (I'm getting pretty tired of it and am about to post a blog about gentle weaning and if that's even possible). But I do know that one thing people I know with kids who are struggling to get their kids to put on weight try putting healthy fats into the foods they will eat-- so like coconut oil in with the oatmeal? But I am generally terrible at this and don't know the right things.

I don't know if it would help, but as regards the ex - I would document all the things that you offer him to eat and what he does eat and go in there with the research that shows you are doing the right thing-- like "How to get your kids to eat but not too much" or whatever that book is that talks about how it's your responsibility to offer the good, healthy foods and it's Bear's responsibility to decide what to eat.

It sounds like you really don't think there's something else going on here - like celiac or something that might be underlying the lack of weight gain. And he's not fallen off his chart by two percentiles, right? I mean, that would indicate some deeper issue, as far as I am aware. He's just off his own trajectory by a bit? The doc hasn't given him a failure to thrive diagnosis, right? Or suggested any other kind of follow up tests to look for allergies or intolerances or whatnot? She's just concerned in a vague kind of way that serves for nothing but to make you paranoid? (okay, so I'm kinda anti-doctor!!!)

Anyway, I'm a-rambling. As far as the tantrums go-- oy. I feel you. T has started a new habit of hitting and scratching me when she is annoyed about something and it's quite horrible. And the screaming- holy terrors. I let her work through it a la Naomi Aldort (Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves) but it's hella hard. A friend of mine is lending me some of Aldort's CDs/videos about toddlers and I'm hoping that will help. I've been exhausting all of my creativity trying to find ways of avoiding tantrums and hitting up all of my due date club friends for ideas about this. But sometimes it's just unavoidable.

Anyway-- hugs. I'm here with you! It's good to get all your worries and frustrations written out too...otherwise they just swirl in your head and make you crazy. At least, they do me!!!!

bearsmama
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Joined: 04/29/2008
hee...soory, but it thrills

hee...soory, but it thrills me a bit to know that I am not the only one dealing with this..even though I do know that... I've got Aldorts book Raising Children Raising Ourselves, but I still havent read it. I actually pulled it off of the shelf today and looked at it, and put it aside to start reading tonight Laughing out loud

And weight wise-therin lies the issue. She did mention "failure to thrive"...he was born in the 18th percentile or something and his weight is now in thethird or something...wht does that even mean? His height and hed are aparentl fine, just is weight isnt. I cannot blend the idea of a failing-to-thrive child and BEAR...he's one of the most energetic, usually-happy healthy kids I have ever seen. He doesn't sleep more than normal for a two year old..he doesnt even nap now...he doesn't have digestion issues (except when he visit the EXbeast and is fed sugary crap and refined foods, then he get constipated). He doesn't look at all malnourished, he's not bloated or tired looking. He's pretty muscley and has the usual little pudgey kid belly.

I have always been aware that he is light...i've tried feeding hima ton of protien, tried lots of fats, tried super duper extra calcium rich diet(vegan)...and nothing has changed. His weight just stays static regardless. He gets a bit pudgey and then has a growth spurt.
He's not taking fondly to goats milk...he'll drink about 50mL in a day, when its available all day.

Not sure what to do at this point.

turtle's picture
turtle
gonna plant a tree, filled with hope for apples next year!
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Joined: 02/06/2008
failure to thrive

I only know one person who has a kid that was diagnosed with this in real life & she clearly had other issues. Which the doctor recognized and which they followed up on by doing other tests. In my non-medical opinion "failure to thrive" alone doesn't mean a whole lot if they aren't going to DO something about it, look for the underlying causes, etc. Just telling you to feed your kid more? Not so useful, thankyouverymuch. Going down two percentiles is supposed to be a red flag for doctors, but barring any other signs of a problem, I dunno. I just don't know enough. Do they want Bear to come back for a follow-up visit? Maybe he will be in a pudgy phase then.... Do you do the Canadian version of WIC (food assistance)? A friend of mine with a small child gets all kinds of shit from WIC because he's "too small" (he's not on the charts at all) and they are always threatening to call child protective services- it sucks cos her kid is FINE, just little. He has so much energy but he also will not eat dairy and that's what WIC keeps telling her to feed him.....it's a crap situation. Anyway-- YOU ARE SO NOT ALONE. I'm guessing if you go to the toddler board on the mothering site (which is almost the only thing on there that I like), you can find a billion mamas who are going through similar things. You know, if you need more ideas or just more support.

Almost all toddlers go through incredibly picky times and as far as I can tell it's impossible to get them to eat anything they don't want to. The few times I've heard of people force-feeding their kid- well, massive vomitting and gagging and horribleness. This is not teaching good eating habits, in my opinion.

I think you should just keep doing what you are doing, offering whatever you are eating and also you can offer oatmeal all day long, it won't harm him... He might get bored of it though? T gets bored of certain things and then I'm like, crap! There goes THAT food. Tongue But she comes back to it, eventually. All the other stuff he's eating is so good for him, really! I'm convinced blueberries are like a perfect food. When T turns up her nose at fruit lately - especially in-season strawberries! - it makes me weep...

Do give the Aldort book a read- it's very reassuring and has a good system for helping you get through the tough times. It helped ME a lot, to re-parent myself (I am naturally very emotional person and as a kid got all kinds of shit from my parents about it)...

Glamorous
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Joined: 12/28/2009
my two cents

first, sorry you are going through this.

Second, if he will only eat oatmeal, blueberries, raspberries, dried figs, water, green vegetable juice, then maybe just give him those things for his meals until he asks for something else. All of those foods are nutritious, and not one will do him any harm.

Good luck getting through this. It passes fast (but sure seems slow at the time).

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Glamorous

Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. ~Austin O'Malley

bitch-face's picture
bitch-face
having conversations with the boy about gender and 'manly men'
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Joined: 03/29/2006
we had started out with Buggies being vegan

and now we are lacto ovo after discovering he has a soy intolerance. Truthfully I blame myself. I gave him way too much processed soy foods because he would eat them and I was being lazy.

The dried fruit is so so good (and bad for the teeth unfortunately) but great for packing in the calories.

Choices make things a lot smoother here. I let Buggies pick from a few different options and he's happy to have that control. A lot of his tantrums when he was younger were caused by him not feeling heard. Sometimes kids do like to just tear shit up though.

Bugs is a couple years older, when he was two I'd brush his teeth in his sleep, no we have brushing contests, which are just us counting down and brushing together. We also brush eachother's teeth, which gets me stabbed in the nose with my toothbrush much too much but at least he lets me near his mouth.

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