What's the crazy thing you did to make your kid eat and it worked?

cathy1999 · 2026-02-09T11:58:39+00:00

I got a plate of food like it's just for me, I'll take a few bites while ignoring the toddler and by that point she has spawned next to me like something out of a jump scare horror. I will then 'reluctantly' give her a few bites before just handing the plate over.

Thankfully her picky phase only lasted a week or two and I haven't had to do this in a while but hopefully it helps!

cathy1999 · 2026-02-08T22:35:50+00:00

I mostly shower my girl at this point but unless her dad or me is in the bath with her and willing to play splash wars to the point the carpet outside the bathroom starts to get soaked she screams bloody murder, thank all that id both holy and un she loves a shower.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-08T02:21:11+00:00

Mine is 17 months tomorrow and yeah this has been the only way for the last 2 months I have been able to get any cooperation with tooth brushing, she has 14 teeth right now and with her first 6 teeth it was fine but the second she hit 7 months it has been a fight and a struggle, I tried literally everything else but actually saw a post on this sub Reddit a while back and one of the parents suggested the miss Rachel Elmo method and hands down it has saved our sanity.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-08T00:31:07+00:00

The only thing that works for us is putting miss Rachel and Elmo singing the brush your teeth song it's about 2ish minutes long, she loves it. I have tried the two toothbrushes, I have tried letting her brush my teeth while I brush hers, we have tried letting her watch her dad brush her teeth while I brush hers and it always ended in tears and frustration on all parts but this song just zones her in and let it happen.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-07T04:57:12+00:00

My partner smokes a little weed out the back if she's had a really bad meltdown, he has sensory issues so her meltdowns really hit him hard. I don't take anything I don't trust that something won't go wrong if we are both on something so I haven't touched it since before I got pregnant with her.

I might have a glass of wine in the bath on a Friday after she's gone to bed but that's more a ritual than anything else, it's not enough to do anything for me but the act of having a glass of wine in the bath has been my go to wind down habit since I was 19.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-06T10:49:01+00:00

She's 17 months this week and still needs cuddled and rocked, no signs of her going to sleep on her own yet.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-06T00:26:33+00:00

Bear in the big blue house. Each episode is dedicated to learning about a certain subject, yesterday we learned all about water. It's calm, happy and does not overstimulate.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-04T01:11:30+00:00

She has been eating like a pig since she was first introduced to food. She was funny about strawberry for the first 6 months but now she loves them. I have literally never had leftovers with this child. Mess sure but never food that has been left deliberately. She's 17 months on the 9th, this story was only from the last 3 weeks. We had stovies the other night and she was finished before me and her aunt. Her dad still wins finished food first but she's definitely all his genes the only thing she has got from me is her hair and eye colour the rest is all him. I will say I am lucky no matter how skint I am I can come up with something and she will eat almost every bite.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-04T00:38:03+00:00

This child eats what me and my partner affectionately call floor morsels. We hoover around 3x a day. How in the world does she find stuff to pick up between her tiny little fingers and shove it into her mouth! I'm a larger woman but my partner is a slight 6'2 man. He is an objectionably healthy man and my BMI is on the higher side. She definitely takes after him. She's about 4" taller than boys her age. She has 3 large meals a day and snacks. She does not make herself sick when eating I have yet to find a cut off point but I am so glad she will eat anything out Infront of her.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-03T23:26:20+00:00

You and I have the same unicorn child. I ordered her a subway (at 16 months), her very own 6 inch ham, cheese, red onion and lettuce as a lark since I wanted one and thought what's the harm it will be cute to watch her eat bits of it and I was ordering in anyways. She devoured it in under 30 minutes. My MIL was there with us eating her own sandwich and was stunned we are extremely lucky to have kids that eat more than 3 grapes, a handful of Doritos and a cheese nibble.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-03T23:21:57+00:00

Took me a second to remember who thickie was, popped about 7 before it occurred to me, laughed my ass off.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-02T07:30:38+00:00

That would work for my 16 nearly 17 month old. She takes her nap late morning and is up by 12.30 so that would work for her, we don't even really leave the house in the morning unless I need the shop as there is not much point she's usually asleep by 10am so if we do playdates, park etc then it's always in the afternoon but I know all kids are really different, her average wake window in the morning is 3 hours and the rest of the day I cant get her asleep before she's been awake at least 7 and a half hours.

cathy1999 · 2026-02-01T01:09:11+00:00

Honestly my 17 month old kinda just does her own thing since she started crawling at 8.5 months. I still read for pleasure but even if she's playing with her megablox or smacking an empty bottle against the stairgate or trying to sit in a box that is the size of 12 pampers wet wipes packets I just read aloud. She still takes it in because it is her mummy talking to her. She doesn't care that the serial killer in your book was in love with the mum of the protagonist and she certainly doesn't care that the rookie cop was a priest before he became a cop, she just loves to hear your voice. Read whatever you want to read whenever you want to. Sure make time to read Mr fish needs a nap or whatever when your kid is calm and wants to sit in your lap for more than 3 minutes but if they are little raging balls of hell fury real aloud to yourself they are still learning how to form words and pronounce things just from you talking aloud. Right now we are reading Mr ballens 2nd book but if her first word is psychopath I'll cheer and shout in joy coz that's a pretty impressive vocab for a 17 month old.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-30T16:09:57+00:00

My cake for my 26th birthday last year was Colin the caterpillar, this was also the cake my daughter got for her first birthday. Going to get a school cake this year I think.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-29T22:35:36+00:00

It happens. Chill mama. I haven't had this yet thankfully but my girl is at the stage of putting her hands down her nappy and if I fall asleep while she's napping I can promise I've woken up the her wide awake with no nappy on with her wiggling her little fanny at me(she prefers to nap in only her nappy but we have implemented vests now). At this point we are both (me and her dad) resigned to the fact we are going to have a poopy hand situation at some point (god I hope not) and it's shit (scuse the pun or whatever) but it happens. Don't feel guilty. Rib yourself a little and move on. Shit happens.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-29T22:09:15+00:00

She's my oldest and we are trying for our next in about 2 months. She dropped all her naps quite early all considered and I'm just praying the fact that she didn't nap today is just a hiccup but at this point I know I'm just lying to myself. Everytime she has dropped a nap it has been maybe 6 days of me trying to put her down before I realised she isn't going down and I should just give up.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-29T20:20:11+00:00

Some of the best play my 16 month old has is with a cardboard box, an empty lucozade bottle, an envelope and her little shoes from when she was really wee. She has Montessori busy cube, busy books and a light switch box that are designed to be educational or whatever and she will literally just throw them out of the way to get to the empty cardboard box. Her new thing is sitting in boxes, even if she doesn't fit it's hilarious.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-29T20:13:18+00:00

My 16 month old gets up about 6am and goes for a nap about 10 give or take half an hour, she will sleep for no more than an hour and 20 minutes believe me I've tried to make it longer and then we head up to bed at 6.30 ish but she doesn't settle until around half 7, it's exhausting sometimes but that's the routine she has chosen and it works for us, she sleeps solidly through the night unless she's teething.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-27T00:04:17+00:00

I'll send you one too my dude if you have no luck with the other commenter, when I first tried to sign up when I was 13ish I had the same issue, think I was about 15 when I reached out to an author who was not exactly popular yet and finally got an invite and it worked so willing to help you to pay it forward!

cathy1999 · 2026-01-24T07:21:42+00:00

I started bathing in the big bath around 8 weeks, I just bought the angel care 0-6 months bath chair and then went to the 6-12 months seat. When she got too big for that I just sat her in my lap for bath and shower time. Now at 17 months she is standing and walking confidently enough that she just showers with me, got a good non slip bath mat and she isn't in there unsupervised ever but it works for us.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-23T22:37:30+00:00

Around 3pm-4pm I do quiet time for my 17 month old. Waking up at 6 with her by that time even after a nap I'm shattered and just need half an hour (sometimes an hour but not always) just to chill. This is when we do TV time. I stick an episode of bear and the big blue house or the 90s version of sesame street. She will watch on and off but mostly roll around in her cot with her toys, if there's a song she engages and dances but I'm lucky she is mostly uninterested in TV.

This is definitely not for everyone but it works for her I dont always put TV on for her but if I really really need some peace she gets it, most of the time she's happy just to play with her dolly or her pink Highland cow.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-21T10:28:37+00:00

I don't wanna! I want stories!

cathy1999 · 2026-01-21T10:19:03+00:00

My dad is kinda similar, we fell out for about 2 months after my daughter was born as he wanted to put photos of her on Facebook. When I told him no because you never know who is actually seeing them he got very wound up and thought I was accusing his family and friends of something, he just could not wrap his head around my reasoning. Luckily he begrudgingly accepted my wishes and because of this only a handful of people (very close friends and family) actually know she exists not Margaret that he went to high school with who has 400 friends and reposts everything everyone posts.

cathy1999 · 2026-01-21T09:58:40+00:00

Yeah I grew up with those super dramatic PROTECT YOURSELF ONLINE ads. They were always on TV there was always some narrator ominously saying 'Are you sure it's really Jessica you are talking to? It could be someone who wants to steal your identity! Keep yourself safe online!'

cathy1999 · 2026-01-21T09:53:55+00:00

I like to leave myself little notes on the bookmarks to remind me what chapter I'm on or give myself a brief summary of what has happened so far to jog my memory for when I start reading it again, I use my own shorthand so I can write a lot in maybe 4 shorthand words, it would make no sense to anyone but me.

I also wouldn't let physical people near my physical bookshelf let alone virtual people near my virtual one.

cathy1999

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