We had it easy with Callum. It may just be my memory sugar-coating it & so I’m looking back through rose tinted glasses but how I remember it is that if we told Callum “don’t” when he went to touch or do something he wasn’t allowed, it would only take a couple of times of saying this to him & moving him away for him to get bored and stop doing it. We had a cat which meant we had a litter tray and cat food – he only tried to eat the cat litter once and he never went for the cat food. We never got a stair gate because as soon as he showed an interest in the stairs, I taught him how to come down and he was very good at doing so correctly. We were very lucky!
I would have loved to have put it down to our parenting rather than accept we just had a pretty lazy little boy whose curiosity was easily & quickly satisfied. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are going to have it so easy with Millie!
Already, she is into everything even with her limited bum shuffle range. She will not accept “No”, “Don’t”, etc, regardless of how many times we tell her, move her, distract her!
She goes for everything she shouldn’t!
She already has a list of 'gross’ things she has eaten (I say eaten, none of which she has actually swallowed except number 4) which currently consists of:
- Loves licking suncream, I have to keep the bottle way out of her reach while putting it on but even when I’ve just put it on she starts licking it off.
- Flipflops, slippers & other shoes – she always manages to make her way to the shoes when I’m distracted! Or best yet, when I’m wearing them! She was going for a man’s trainers at swimming today!
- Plant leaves
- Sand
- Stones
- Contents of her nappy bin
- And the best yet – bird poo!
Clearly I don’t let her eat these things, it will be at the first opportunity my back is turn for just a second or while I’m running for the loo. I’ll check she is clear from anything I think she is going to go for and sure enough, I return to find she has found something I haven’t thought of or has wanted it enough to bum shuffle at some speed!
After the ease of Callum, I would’ve called Social Services on myself if I hadn’t have had friends when Callum was little who shared their own stories of weird & wonderful things their darlings had managed to consume. Cat/dog food appears to be a firm favourite. Considering we are just about to get a kitten I’ll look forward to that!
We may have to rethink our no child-proofing “they’ll learn the hard way” approach to parenting for this one!
Please make me feel better – what weird & wonderful things have your LOs eaten…bet you can’t top bird poo!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for reading. Comments are welcomed.