I just received a Toys R Us catalogue today and noticed that they have Huggies Jumbo Nappy Boxes - Boys or Girls 64, 72, 90 and 108 Newborn sizes for only $30! They are usually $40 at Toys R Us.
This sale is only from 4th - 17th Feb 2009. Limit 2 boxes per customer.
I recently went to Aldi and bought 4 packets of nappies for Jeremy with my mum. When she noticed me putting them in the trolley, she asked me if I was ever going to get Jeremy out of nappies? I felt the same, will Jeremy ever get out nappies?
Jeremy will be turning 3 years old on the 23rd of March and soon after, starting 3 year old Kindergarten. I had began to despair at being one of those mums who I did not want to be, of a child still in nappies at 4 or 5 years old. I was getting sick of wiping his smelly bottom and big cacas.
I came home from visiting Rachel and Sam with re-newed hope that if Sam was successfully toilet training, then why not Jeremy? Their developments have always been on par. With the 2 unsuccessful attempts at toilet training when Jeremy was 2 and 2 1/2 years old, I wasn’t expecting much this time round. However, Jeremy was full of surprises. Not only did he take to toilet training, it only took 4 days for him to be completely out of nappies and within 7 days, he was doing most of his cacas in the toilet.
It felt so much easier and less stressful in this third attempt. Jeremy tells us when he wants to do his pee pee and cacas and is able to hold on until he is on the toilet. When I look back, I think that we tried toilet training him too soon, and he just wasn’t “ready”. What is being “ready”? There are many experts that tell you that you should start toilet training before, during or after the summer your child turns 2 years old and that your child should be able to hold on to their pee pees and cacas long enough to make it to the toilet. There are all sorts of expert advice on this subject and can be interpreted by parents differently.
Many seasoned mums and child care workers have told me that toilet training should only take 1 or 2 weeks at the longest when your child is “ready”. I think they are right. Our first unsuccessful attempt took 4 weeks before we gave up, the second time took 6 weeks and I caved in. This third successful attempt took less than 1 week. I think that parents should use their gut instinct as to when they think their child is “ready” and attempt to toilet train their child, if they are tearing their hair out and getting stressed about it after 2 or 3 weeks, then their child is not ready. Try again in 3 or 6 months. It’s amazing how much 3 or 6 months does to a child’s physical and intellectual growth.
Oh, and it also helps to reward your child with something they love when they have done their pee pee or caca in the toilet initially. For us, it was ‘fait du velo’ - going for a bike ride. At first, Jeremy got to go for a bike ride around the block with his Papa when he did his pee pee in the toilet, now that it’s not such a big deal when he goes to the toilet, he doesn’t ask for a bike ride anymore. Oh, and I think that he’s sick of all the bike rides after all the pees pees and cacas he has done in the toilet.
To bed, he still wears nappy. I am keen for him to just finish all those nappies I bought in Aldi otherwise I’ll have a find a home for them! I am happy and relieved that Jeremy won’t be using those 4 big packets of nappies from Aldi anymore.
Jeremy will be 3 years old next March. It’s hard to comment on how well his speech development is progressing. We don’t know any families who use three languages at home, just ours. When he was around 6 months old, we decided that we would only speak to him in our own first languages of Vietnamese (me) and French (husband). We speak English to each other and live in Australia.
We’ve encouraged Jeremy’s social network to speak to him in the language they are comfortable with, for example, his maternal grandparents speak to him in Vietnames and his paternal grandparents speak to him in French. We’ve found that innitially, both sets of grandparents were unsure as to which language to speak to him in and would try and use all three or at least two.
I’ve noticed that his Vietnamese has been progressing equally as well as his French even though his exposure to French is very much limited to that with his Papa.
Jeremy mixes up his languages and has not been able to associate a language to a person yet. I often get calls from my parents who babysit him while I am work as to what he’s saying. Usually, the conversation starts with, “Jeremy keeps saying (French word). What does it mean?”. I will then say “He means (Vietnamese word) in French, can you teach him that word in Vietnamese otherwise he’ll keep saying it in French to you?” By this time, my parents will take it upon themselves to not only teach him something in Vietnamese but in their accented Vietnamese, teach him that word in French and English too. So he’ll come home sometimes to say something to his dad in French with a Vietnames twist! (Mental note: I must ask my parents not to teach him any languages other than Vietnamese.)
Watching In The Night Garden has taught him all sorts of phrases like “Oopsy Daisy and Oh No”. It’s rather cute seeing him pick up these words. His exposure to English is very much from the television, hearing his parents talk to each other, socialising with his cousins and playmates.
We are excited about Jeremy being accepted into the only French kindergarten in the state. We hope that this will give him a more equal exposure to French and Vietnamese (we have no French relatives here, only Vietnamese). It will also hopefully expose him to other children who speak French or have French speaking parent/s. Perhaps we’ll finally meet another set of parents who are also raising a tri-lingual boy.
Every year since Jeremy was born, we’ve been custom making calenders online as Christmas gifts for two sets of grandparents and a copy for ourselves. Withdoubt, we get very positive responses and much appreciation from both sides of the family plus friends when they see Jeremy’s cute photos hanging on the wall!
Snapfish currently has a special offer at the moment where by you will receive 35% off a custom made calender for $15.95 (usually $24.95). In addition, you’ll receive a further 20% discount on duplicate calendars in the same order.
Type in the coupon code CALAAU8 at the checkout to receive this offer.
We’ve been using Apple’s online calender making tool for our calenders but it works out to be double the price with the special going at Snapfish so we’ll have to switch to Snapfish this year because this offter is too good to bypass!
