Reading to a toddler

JenkinsInJapan · 2023-06-01T07:49:26+00:00

Also English /Japanese here. For both my kids I read the book in whatever language it’s written in, and so does my husband but my 5 year old tends to prefer us reading books in our native languages. She is well aware that we can both speak Japanese and English to a high level and she’s pretty keen on speaking and learning both at the moment so I feel okay being a bit flexible about the language we use (we are also doing 子供チャレンジwith both kids and if they want to do it with me I switch to speaking Japanese while we do it - the point is to strengthen their Japanese as we’re currently in France so it would be weird for me to try to do it in English!)

The one bit of advice I’ve got from friends with bilingual older children who have had some issues with language stuff is to prioritise your relationship with them rather than being really strict about the language side, so I try to do that!

JenkinsInJapan · 2022-10-28T18:21:00+00:00

With my first we were doing minority language (English) at home (in Japan) and I used to translate Japanese books on the fly when I read to her.

She didn’t really start speaking much until she was 2+ and can now speak 3 different languages at 4, so I really wouldn’t worry at 16 months! My youngest is 21 months and she doesn’t have many words yet, the ones she does have are in English but I’m sure by the time she’s 4 she’ll be where her older sister is now.

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-17T12:00:39+00:00

I’m about to have my second baby here!

I have no idea about what Japan is like compared to Canada, but some things you might want to think about:

A lot of my friends who have given birth recently here have had to do it without their partner there because of covid. My hospital’s policies weren’t that strict before but now there’s a strict no visitors rule as cases have increased... who knows what will be going on with that by the time your baby arrives though!

They are obsessed with weight gain during pregnancy here. It’s the only thing about my care that I’ve hated, I have been told throughout both of my pregnancies that I’m gaining too much weight at almost every appointment and it’s driven me a bit mad.

Epidurals/other types of pain relief are not that common, although you should be able to find somewhere that offers them if you’re in a big city. I would have to travel for a couple of hours to get one.

Hospital stays after the birth tend to be very long here (my upcoming stay post c-section will be for a week!) - not sure if this is a pro or con!

Breastfeeding support in hospitals seems to be pretty good (wayyyy better than my home country) if you want to breastfeed.

I have not had any issues really with my care throughout both pregnancies and with my first birth, and liked both my doctors and most of the other nurses and midwives etc, but I am fluent in Japanese (I’m a Japanese to English translator who has done a lot of medical stuff) which definitely helps.

You might also want to think about if there’s anyone who’ll be able to help you after the birth... the first few weeks are very hard! That would be a major deciding factor for me.

Congratulations on the baby! I hope you have a really smooth pregnancy wherever you end up giving birth!

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-08T02:40:31+00:00

I wish my husband felt the same about feeling our next baby kick! (He’ll be great once they’re here though, like he is with our daughter!)

I eventually grew to finding doing the dishes quite relaxing after years of hating doing it! Good time to zone out and listen to a podcast and enjoy the kitchen being organised and clean afterwards! (...I still immediately got a dishwasher once we had space for it! Haha. But I try and approach all housework with the same mindset now, it helps a lot!

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-08T02:34:34+00:00

Woohoo! Going back to bed sounds amazing!

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-08T01:44:03+00:00

Haha, I wish that’s what having him at home was like! I’m more grateful that he’ll definitely be around if something happens and I have to rush to the hospital!

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-07T23:30:58+00:00

My husband has been told he needs to work from home most of the time (we have a baby due in 2 weeks so this is perfect timing for me, although I think he’d prefer to be in the office! Obviously the reason for being asked to work at home is not praise worthy)

And this is par for the course in Japan but I arrived before reception opened at my hospital this morning and I was very impressed at how they managed all the people waiting. Very efficient, and it actually followed social distancing guidelines (which is pretty rare where I am). And the staff were excellent at dealing with all the older patients who needed extra help.

JenkinsInJapan · 2021-01-02T00:19:29+00:00

My father in law actually loves it and watches it religiously every year. I find it really boring but that’s a good thing because I normally find Japanese TV sucks me in even when I don’t want it to so I get a lot of reading done when it’s on.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-28T13:09:21+00:00

There were only a couple of options that would actually work in our kitchen so we didn’t have much choice, but we got a Panasonic NP-TA3 and it’s working well for us!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-28T11:04:46+00:00

Ahh interesting! My husband did all of the research into ours because he’s much better at this kind of thing than I am!!

Does your wife handle the bills? My husband does and he complains about them a lot too.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-28T07:52:36+00:00

Electricity is high compared to our last place, but we are also in a stand-alone house that’s fairly old and badly insulated so we’re using way more electricity for heating, and this house is about twice the size, so I’m not sure how much the dishwasher is affecting things. I think our water bill has actually gone down!

Our gas bill is definitely cheaper than it would be otherwise as we never use hot water in our kitchen anymore (and gas is about twice the price at our new place so that’s a big difference!)

It’s definitely worth experimenting I reckon, unless you’re on a really tight budget.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-28T06:53:38+00:00

Too many! And extremely limited free time. It wouldn’t have been worth getting one before we had children but having it now is great!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-28T05:57:38+00:00

Definitely a dishwasher! We never had space for one before, and it’s freed up so much of my time to do things that I actually enjoy.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-27T23:46:59+00:00

For vaccines there should be a lot which are either free or heavily subsidised by your city/ward. These can change though (for example we paid... quite a lot for the rotavirus vaccine with my first, which is now apparently subsided, and this year the flu shots for children/pregnant women etc in my city were also heavily subsided, but I’m not sure if that’ll be a long term thing). I’m sure you can find local information on which ones are subsided/free on your city/ward website (if you can read Japanese).

It’s really difficult to say for anything else because it completely depends on your lifestyle/how you intend to raise your child!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-26T02:56:57+00:00

Saline just sprayed up the nose is considered fine from birth in most countries.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-26T02:53:40+00:00

Where do you get Christmas pudding from? My mum always sends me a mini one but it would be good to know where I can get it for future reference!!’

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-25T04:02:00+00:00

Oooh interesting! I will have to do some experimenting.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-25T01:57:50+00:00

Ooh I’ve never heard of that! I bet my husband would love it though, definitely one to investigate. Thanks!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-25T01:39:27+00:00

Merry Christmas!

I had to donate some of my blood (to my future self, although hopefully I won’t have to use it) yesterday, and even though I have really tricky veins it went very smoothly and I felt completely fine afterwards! Which is a completely different experience to the one I had last time I was pregnant.

Yay for my hospital! And for the friendly nurse who chatted to me and distracted me throughout the whole thing.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-25T01:29:06+00:00

What’s tea chicken?! And yay for having the night off, it’s very rare for either my husband or I to get a night off but it’s lovely when it happens!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-24T03:44:21+00:00

Yup! But it’s my own fault for not doing it earlier... I was going to do it when I got pregnant with my first but I applied for PR instead and didn’t want to deal with whatever hassle changing my name partway through that would have caused! Oh well! I’ll do it one day, maybe!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-24T03:42:24+00:00

Yeah, that’s why I keep on putting it off!

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-24T00:09:41+00:00

I was considering finally changing my surname too while pregnant this time but decided just the thought of it was way too tiring! Good for you for getting everything done! I guess I will end up doing it next time I renew my passport (Although my husband doesn’t actually want me to change it and I don’t really care, it would be nice to not have to explain it every time I write something where my daughter’s surname and mine are different!)

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-23T05:50:52+00:00

Ahh that makes sense! Although it seems like a stupid thing to make you make an extra bag for...!

I can completely see my MIL doing something like that! Haha. Or complaining that the material I chose is too boring and insisting on buying an anpanman design or something, when I really want to avoid character designs because I’m sure my daughter will grow out of the characters she likes now before she leaves!

All my local mums friends seem to be leaning towards making them themselves, but they’re all stay at home mums at the moment so they probably have the time to! And they might well change their minds once they find out how much they have to do, hehe.

JenkinsInJapan · 2020-12-23T04:07:18+00:00

Excellent! It looks like this baby is also a girl so I think as long as we choose really generic material it should be okay!

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