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HSAL says
Paging twin mom from yesterday –
I read the comments late last night and it does sound tough. One thing that stuck out is that the nanny is there until 6 and they go to bed around 7:30, so I think it makes sense they want more time with you – they only get you a couple hours a day. How are your weekends? Do things seem easier when you’re all together more?Would it work for your schedule to let the nanny go at 5? My twins will be 6 in June (one has anxiety and ADHD so I get the neuro issues involved) and I also have an 8 year old. My husband passed in November so I’m the only one trying to spread attention three ways every evening, though I don’t have work in the mix. Basically all their dinners are super easy now, because something had to give.
And I agree with the comment about not separating them for bedtime. One pees while the other brushes teeth, then swap. Pjs at the same time. We gave up on reading books at bedtime a few years ago because it just got to be too much, so they get audiobooks at bedtime.
I also liked the suggestion of sitting in there in the dark reading or something. We had to do that the summer they turned two – sleep was awful for a couple months so we had one parent who sat in there at bedtime until everyone was asleep, and the other would take the inevitable night wake up and stay in there until they fell back to sleep.
Anon says
The timing stuck out to me, too. The bedtime routine seems to be the only time they “get” you, so their clingy behavior makes a lot more sense. I agree with letting the nanny go earlier, if possible, and if not then I wouldn’t push bedtime earlier. This seems like a connection issue rather than an overtired issue, with this context. Maybe sit together and read books after dinner, or start a tradition of cuddling and chatting (maybe with a glass or chocolate milk or whatever you do for dessert to make it special). After 15 minutes of total connection, bedtime might go more easily
Anon says
appreciate the suggestions and i have been thinking of you and your family as i cannot imagine what you’ve been through. i was actually coming to report back that yesterday went much better! as soon as they were done with dinner i got them upstairs and we did some sheets from a sticker by letter book. we have both an upstairs and downstairs playroom and i think when they get busy downstairs it is hard to stop what they are doing to go up. one is a bit of a perfectionist and she got frustrated a bit, but i decided that the two hours before bed is not the time to build her frustration tolerance. we then brushed teeth and read 4 stories on the couch and they went into their beds around 7:45. One fell asleep around 8 and the other unfortunately took until around 9:10, but she stayed in her room. somehow the longer we stay in their room the more revved up they get because they want to talk more otherwise i’d happily sit there in the dark and read my kindle. thanks everyone! and so many hugs to you HSAL
Anonymous says
Serious question, is “letting the nanny go at 5” actually realistic for people’s jobs these days? I’ve never been able to wfh and have a commute, so I get my kid at 5:45/6 from afterschool, and when she was little and had a nanny, I got home 6/6:15 (slightly longer commute back then), and this is with making an effort to be gone by 5, which is not always easy. My partner WFH 3 days a week, but is almost never done by 6, because he is regularly on calls that start at 5 or 5:30, sometimes even at 6. Are our jobs that far outside the norm?
The only people I know who are consistently home by 5 on weekdays are teachers.
Aanon says
I am an SVP at a F500 and our nanny is 9-5, M-F. I support both US and international teams but people generally understand that my guaranteed availability is 9-5 and outside of that, it’s hit or miss (if my husband is around and can cover kid duty during that time, or if I need to skip the call, or take the call with a 1 year old and a 3 year old in tow).
It can make for a very hectic 9-5 and sometimes I have to do work in the evenings after they go to bed, but it was really important to me that I maximize family time.
Caveat is that I WFH so there is zero commute involved. And no school drop off since 3 year old won’t start nursery school until Sept 24.
Anon says
We had daycare until 5:30 but picked up by 5 probably 99% of the time. Even if you can’t let the nanny go early every day, doing it some days would have benefit.
NYCer says
I agree. Our nanny stays until 6, as is the case with all of my friends who have nannies. Some even have their nannies stay until 630 or 7. I get home well before 6 most days, but it would make our life much more challenging if she left at 5. My kids have always gone to bed closer to 830 though, so it is less of a time crunch after she leaves.
Anonymous says
My teacher husband is not always home by 5
Anon says
I could be misremembering form yesterday, but I believe OP says they eat dinner at 6, or even finish dinner at 6, so I am assuming she’s off work earlier.
Anon says
We stagger our schedules – I start work at 9 and work later, but my. husband starts at 7 so he’s done earlier for the kids. I do not accept calls that start at 5 or later, unless there is a very good reason. Most things can be scheduled for a more reasonable time.
Anonymous says
I have 3 kids and my middle is…difficult. She sweet and wonderful and quirky but she’s neurodiverse and it can make family vacations a little tricky. She has A Routine at home and deviating from this routine often results in terrible sleep, which results in terrible days with no attention span and unholy objection to whatever it is we have planned unless she’s all in on it. We’ve planned family trips/vacations around her for years, always making sure to get “perfect” flights that won’t disrupt her sleep in any way, booking large airBNBs that give her the ability to have her own room if needed (and it’s often needed), etc. DH and I have been trying out trips where we leave her behind, and I can’t figure out if this is brilliant or awful. For example, the last time we had a family ski trip, she protested everything. It ended up being either me or DH hanging back and the cabin with her while the other adult skied with the other two kids. Problem is, my other two kids are not equal skiers so either my oldest was bored to tears or my youngest had to do stuff she wasn’t ready for.
This weekend, we were supposed to ski. Middle kiddo already started refusing/complaining, even though I’d found a trailside condo with a pool so she could “dabble” in skiing and when she was done it would be easy to alternate adults. We finally decided to pull the plug. Instead, DH is staying home with Middle, putting her in a sewing camp in the morning and *not* taking a day off work. I’m taking oldest and middle up to ski, putting youngest in a full day lesson on day 1 so Big Kid and I can do the tricky trails, then we’ll stay in a hotel and in the morning we’ll ski the greens together.
I think this is right? Everyone seems happy, except maybe DH, though he’s the one that volunteered to stay home. I know it’s hard to please everyone in a family, so we are trying to be flexible but it also feels like maybe we need to teach middle better coping skills? Or…just white knuckle another year or two (she’s 8) then leave her in the lodges with an ipad while the rest of us ski and check in on her between runs?
This isn’t just a ski problem, we have it on summer vacations too when she decides she “isn’t going to the beach, i hate it” on family beach vacations. We have tried to build in lots of non-beach time, pick accommodations that have a non-beach alternative (instead of our usual 2 weeks in cape cod on the ocean, we are doing 2 weeks in the outer banks at a house with a pool a block from the beach and near lots of bike trails), etc…but man, as a kid I was just happy to go on vacation and didn’t get to b*tch about where. My other kids don’t ever complain about where we vacation.
How does this work in your family? Should we be teaching her to be more flexible or continue to accommodate her (potentially, though not always, forcing the other kids to have fewer or less interesting vacations)? We’ve been wanting to take the kids to europe but I just can’t wrap my head around trying to deal with middle kiddo’s fickle nature on a big trip like that.
Anon says
That is tricky! I think your work around for this weekend is a good one. At first I thought you meant the whole family except for her go on vacation, and I could see how that could possibly cause some “abandonment” issues. But you are honoring her strong preference not to ski and making a compromise.
As for the summer vacations, maybe you have to accept that one adult is going to be on middle-child duty each day. Perhaps if you go in with that expectation, it will feel less disappointing. Parent who stays back at the house/pool can read, or nap, and have a break from the three-kid hustle.
That doesn’t mean always completely accommodate her, but maybe after a day or two of doing what she chooses, you do things as a full family and she’ll have a little more stamina.
Does she (or you) have a therapist you could talk to for preparation/coping ideas? I’m inclined to think that you can raise expectations with appropriate scaffolding, but I’m no professional.
octagon says
At 8, she’s old enough to have a conversation about why family vacations are important and why learning to compromise and have a good attitude matter, even if you are not doing her preferred things. Can you talk with her about what she’d like to see happen within the confines of the trip? (E.g., the family is going to the beach for 7 hours this day, what will you need to make this pleasant for you?) Or let each kid pick one day where they get to choose the activities, so that she sees that everyone is taking a turn and doing things that might not be their favorite?
I agree that a therapist could help here, both in terms of helping her process *why* she has such a strong reaction, but also being a neutral third party to help her understand why it matters that she go and participate and not ruin it for everyone else.
Anon says
+1 to alternating the planning of activities. My only child has some tendencies in this direction (though not as extreme) and giving her some say in planning things has been a big help and made her more willing to go along with doing the things we care about, because she knows her turn is coming.
Anon says
I’ll be interested to read the responses to this. My first instinct is that your idea about coping skills seems necessary. Everyone else in the family deserves a vacation too. I also wonder whether there are any camps for kids with neuro issues that might be good for her. Perhaps one of them could be timed over a beach vacation for everyone else plus some bonding time for everyone somewhere at the end.
Anon says
Actually, there was a great article in the Atlantic a few years ago about the perils of “accommodating” kids with anxiety. It’s definitely an anxiety oriented, but I wonder if there might be some lessons in there for you. I’ll see if I can find the link.
Anon says
Here’s the article: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/05/childhood-in-an-anxious-age/609079/?
In the years since, accommodation has become a focus of anxiety research. We now know that about 95 percent of parents of anxious children engage in accommodation. We also know that higher degrees of accommodation are associated with more severe anxiety symptoms, more severe impairment, and worse treatment outcomes. These findings have potential implications even for children who are not (yet) clinically anxious: The everyday efforts we make to prevent kids’ distress—minimizing things that worry them or scare them, assisting with difficult tasks rather than letting them struggle—may not help them manage it in the long term. When my daughter is in tears because she hasn’t finished a school project that’s due the next morning, I sometimes stop her crying by coaching her through the rest of it. But when I do, she doesn’t learn to handle deadline jitters. When she asks me whether anyone in our family will die of COVID-19, an unequivocal “No, don’t worry” may reassure her now, but a longer, harder conversation about life’s uncertainties might do more to help her in the future.
Parents know they aren’t helping their kids by accommodating their fears; they tell Lebowitz as much. But they also say they don’t know how to stop. They fear that day-to-day life will become unmanageable.
Anonymous says
OP here, and I think what is hard is that when we don’t accomodate her, she makes things 1000x worse for everyone else. On our skiing example, she just sat down and refused to do it (I’ll just sidebar here to note that she can ski well, it was nice weather, trails were in great shape, etc). Or on a beach vacation, she’ll refuse to put on sunscreen or a bathing suit and just NOT GO that day. Or she’ll go, begrudgingly, and spend the ENTIRE f*cking time whining to leave or do things like be purposefully difficult (eg. shoveling so hard she ends up throwing sand). We’ve done lots of compromises, and we always take 2 cars whenever we do things as a family so we have a “bail out” car. We try not to bring her to things we think she won’t enjoy but it’s so tiresome.
Anon says
I’m sorry, that sounds really hard and unfair to everyone. I know the atmosphere you’re describing – it can be MISERABLE. It sounds like maybe she does need some professional coaching assistance. I’m not sure if this is OT or CBT or something else, but maybe that could help the family.
Anon 123 says
That sounds so hard! It’s especially hard when it’s a vacation you planned and paid good money for. But I think Anon’s comment above about accommodations making it worse makes a lot of sense here. Doing things like bringing two cars says to her that you doubt she’ll be able to handle it and provides her a (literal, in this case) way out. I think pushing her in the direction of coping with frustration (within reason) is the only way through them.
I like the idea above about having your kids take turns planning outings. Make sure there’s something she’s really excited about on the itinerary. Give her some autonomy and choice and a routine that is reasonable and familiar, but also have firm expectations that you are on a family vacation and you won’t be heading home early (barring a true emergency).
For whole family outings like skiing that can be tiring and high in frustration (I get this, I like skiing for maybe an hour or two and then I’m just done), let her know the time you expect everyone to be out, then give her a time she can duck out with one parent early if needed. “We’re all going skiing from 10-12, but we’ll head back to the lodge for lunch at 12. You can go back to the condo with dad at that point if you need to and work on the craft you brought or go to the pool”. Maybe give her a watch if it would help her have more of a sense of timing and how long she needs to deal with an activity she’s not thrilled with.
anon says
Sorry but I think she needs to learn better coping skills. Being ND doesn’t give her a free pass to make everyone else’s life worse.
Anon says
+1
Don’t make her do things she hates all day everyday but she also needs to learn how to cope
Anon says
there is definitely a balance since it can also mean subjecting everyone to the ND kid’s tantrums (which can be equally unpleasant) and not saying you should always give in (definitely should not), but figuring out where/when
Anon says
Yes, this. I posted below about having similar problems. It’s easy to say just don’t accommodate, but that’s actually worse not better for my other kids usually.
Anon says
this sounds tricky and i would agree with you that you should not take your kids to europe. i only had one sibling who has some mental health challenges and we went on a quite a few vacations that were coopted by her moods. on a trip to disney world when we were teens she ended up spending most of the time at the hotel/in the room, and while she was old enough to stay alone, it kind of zapped the fun out of it. i was very resentful and still am (though i should probably get over it) about how much of our life revolved around her preferences. skiing sounds harder to divide/conquer than perhaps other types of vacations and it is ok if she does not like to ski and i think it is ok to have one kid stay home with DH for a ski weekend. Even once she is old enough to stay alone in the cabin, i think your family attitude is also important because you don’t want to make her feel like an outcast or like there is something wrong with her for not wanting to ski. also- perhaps if you have a kiddo who thrives on routine at home you don’t take a 2 week family vacation right now as she continues to develop her skills. and maybe instead you take a one week vacation and then take each kiddo away separately. i presume she has a therapist or someone you work with and you can ask for some suggestions? it is hard when parenting doesn’t go exactly how one envisioned, but i think you should try to strike a balance between accommodating her needs while also balancing the needs of your other kids. like maybe this means sometimes she is forced to come to the beach (is there an activity she could bring with her to do on the beach that she likes?) or another time you/DH take turns staying back with her (and make sure you take turns so it’s not always the same parent). What will make the biggest difference for her and for your other kids is your and DH’s attitude. I realize it is SO hard not to get frustrated in the moment, but the more you and DH try to plan in advance how you will respond, the better.
Anon says
I think your point about vacations getting “co-opted by her moods” is an important one. I grew up with a similar situation (we frequently vacationed with cousins and one cousin would bring EVERYONE down with her sullen moods). It’s not enough to just stay home and play a video game while others ski – kids need to generally participate in making a positive atmosphere for everyone.
Anon says
I grew up with a profoundly disabled sibling who could not travel and was essentially house bound. As a result, we didn’t take many family vacations but starting when I was very young my parents sent me off on my own as much as possible (long sleep away camp, living with aunt/uncle during summers, etc.). When we did take a rare vacation, my sibling stayed home with caregivers. My parents did the best they could to balance my sibling’s needs with making life more “normal” for me (though our daily lives, especially weekends, necessarily revolved around whether they had coverage for her care, her current medical condition, etc.)
Obviously this is a different situation since your middle child is physically capable of traveling, but I don’t think the solution of just not going/not having as many experiences/parent always stays home with sister is fair to your other kids. It will also cause resentment. I suspect the vacation dynamic of always needing to accommodate the middle child is also creeping into your day-to-day life in smaller ways too. So I would recommend making her be more flexible and not letting her dictate the family’s schedule, but also adjusting for her needs because forcing her to participate won’t work. Could you hire a sitter to stay with her at the house during the day when you’re skiing? Could she go visit grandma/aunt/uncle while you take the other kids somewhere? Staying home with a parent shouldn’t be the default option but a last resort.
Anon says
I really like the idea of having a sitter come in the middle of the day. Then OP’s other kids actually get to ski with mom and dad and get that bonding time.
I agree with other posters that resentment is likely to become an issue if it’s not already.
Boston Legal Eagle says
You’ve gotten some great advice here – I agree to try to draw a fine line between always accommodating her and still doing what’s best for the whole family. I don’t think you should skip all your desired vacations just to please her, but maybe incentivize her with something special she can do on these trips if she “goes along” for a bit? Extra iPad time at night or something? Special dinner with one parent? It’s tricky with 3 when one parent has to be with the other 2.
Mostly commenting here though that I’m a fellow Boston-ian who also usually goes to the Cape but we’re going to the Outer Banks with some friends this summer too! What are the odds. Maybe our spicy 8 year olds can hang. Where are you staying?
Anon says
Does Middle want to stay home? If so this seems like an ok solution. If not I think you should take her even if it makes the trip less pleasant.
Also I may be biased as a non-skiier but I think it would really suck to have to a ski trip every year if you don’t want to. Is she getting a special trip around one of her interests? It’s fair to make her alternate and only go every third year if the siblings like to ski but it doesn’t seem fair to only focus on skiing if she doesn’t enjoy it.
Anonymous says
OP here- and yes, we do lots of things that involve her. It’s not just skiing, that’s just the current example. The problem is she’s just such a fickle kid that when she decides she Doesn’t Want to do something, she perserverates on it and it becomes a HUGE THING. The beach and skiing are good examples because they never used to be issues and now they both are.
One thing that worked well for us is when we did a trip over the winter we took out lots of books and had her read up on it, read restaurant reviews, and choose some activities. We also had a bag we carried with us with food options we knew she’d in case we had trouble finding a restaurant (she is often a great eater but in the right mood is extremely inflexible). She was so busy getting excited that she forgot she declared she didn’t want to go and wanted to spend all vacation at home on screens (obviously not happening). I think the only possible way we could do Europe is have her super invested in parts of it, stay in a giant airBNB near a park/playground where she can just chill, and be prepared for a divide-and-conquor approach.
Anonymous says
FWIW I take my kids to Europe every year and get an AirBnb or an apartment at a resort with a kitchen. We only eat in restaurants 1 dinner every 3 days. They enjoy a trip to the grocery store and discovering new foods and familiar favorites. It’s a lot easier to have dinner at home after a busy day touring.
SC says
I wrote a novel below about my ND 8-year-old, and these are all things that work really well for him. Since we only have one, we don’t have to divide-and-conquer, but I don’t like to sit around on vacation and often go off on my own.
Anon says
I worry about this a lot. How old are your kids? My oldest is 9 and is the hardest of my kids. She’s not diagnosed as neuro-diverse… yet, but she definitely has more issues than the others. I hate hate hate that her moods make their lives worse and more difficult. On the other hand, she’s often a great sister and they have fun together. I hope it balances out. We’re really trying. But we’re also really struggling. So good luck. Sounds like you figured out this weekend well.
Anonymous says
How old is she? Does she ever have fun once she gets going? My middle child is a bit like this — extremely opinionated (but less sensitive to disruptions to her routine). She’s diagnosed with ADHD and her doctor also commented that she also has a lot of anxiety markers, but she’s not currently being treated for that. Anyway, at home, she regularly throws a bit of a scene about not wanting to do XYZ, but 9 times out of 10, once we’re actually on the hike, or bike ride, or at the museum, or whatever, she snaps out of it and has fun.
For me (one of three, and I also have three kids), in a family with multiple kids, it’s important that everyone learns to be a bit flexible. We do take kid preferences into account when we plan vacations, but DH and I both love skiing, so the kids have to come on a ski trip with us. Sorry, not sorry! However, if we force them to do something they’re not enthused about we, give them opportunities to pick a fun thing later. So like, on our ski vacation, middle kid got to choose ski or snowboard school, and once we were off mountain, she had input into dinner choices and pool time. And the “rest days” are open for kid input to activities.
Anonymous says
She does not snap out of it, unfortunately. She will typically double down on her refusal. And she’s 8.
Anon says
I get this. I have a 6.5yo who really “locks in” when he gets in meltdown mode or hits the last straw (we are going through the eval process right now). You can’t *make* a kid like this do what you want. It doesn’t work to just say “suck it up, you’re coming.” They are heavy, for one! But also can become destructive and aggressive and it is a Bad Situation.
With my kid, I imagine there are warning signs we’re missing, or a way to build up his tolerance for these situations, and so we plan to bring in a professional and probably get some parent training.
Anonymous says
Oh I missed the age in your original post, oops! This is tough. My middle is 9, and I feel you. It’s a tough age for this type of behavior because it’s not quite old enough you can just say “fine, you watch TV, and the rest of us will go have fun” but too old/big to be able to physically drag her along on something she’s actively resisting, even if you wanted to.
Will she listen to appeals to sympathy? My daughter is very sensitive, thoughtful, and considerate when she’s calm. She also responds MUCH better to my husband than she does to me. So he will try to pick the right time to talk to her and explain this trip/excursion is really important to [family member] because [reasons]. I know it’s not your favorite, but it would mean a lot to us if you could play along so that we can have fun, because we’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. This is what we do as a family to support each other, and [example of time we all did something she picked]. It’s not foolproof, but it does seem to help.
It’s a slippery slope, but sometimes bribes work, too. Or presenting something as a bribe even though it’s just necessary gear logistics… getting to pick out new mittens made the ski vacation more exciting, for example.
Anon says
I’ve posted extensively in this thread but for my 9 year old she actually tends to dig in when something is important. Like it’s almost guaranteed she will have a tantrum if we’re heading to the airport. Or if it’s a sibling’s birthday. This is making her sound terrible and she’s really not. But for us, I try to play it as cool as possible and that helps sometimes. Can’t do that going to the airport obviously but if she hears something is important to the family, that makes her more anxious and worked up.
Anonymous says
Take this or leave it, you know your family. My just turned 9 year old is in some ways similar- high anxiety, gigantic moods. Not on the spectrum but near and end of the normal curve. We have had to work very hard on scaffolding / not accommodating as anxiety treatment. By 8-9, this sometimes looks like not pushing beyond what we think he can actually do but being firm about behavior that time. So for beach, maybe we only make him go for two hours and not the full day, but we set behavior expectations and follow through with consequences- so for example he can be mad about being at the beach but is not allowed to throw sand/use the word annoying / etc. that said, it’s only pretty recently that he’s been mature enough that consequences have any effect on behavior- two years ago even significant consequences would have had no effect because it was still beyond his abilities to control his behavior when overwhelmed.
Anonymous says
Parent of the 9 year old. I think all these solutions work for younger kids and all work if you only have one kid. Having an older kid doing this – who physically won’t cooperate – and other kids who have to deal with the tantrums when the kid isn’t accommodated is SO HARD. It’s keeping me up at night at my house. She’s also destroying my house – literally chipped the paint on the door when I closed myself into my room this morning to avoid her violent tantrum. Because all my peaceful parenting was clearly not working and I was tired of being hit.
Anon says
sending hugs
Anon from 11:32 says
hugs from me too. My daughter will have a full on meltdown around bedtime at least once a week. Literally she will make angry animal-like grunt/squawk/yells and just lie in her bed and kick the exterior wall (more likely to hurt her foot than the wall, since it’s sheetrock) or run around to various places in the room and kick the wall, which is going to put a hole in the drywall eventually.
I’m not sure what kind of neurodiversity your daughter has, but for my ADHD daughter, understanding the fixation loop that her brain can get trapped in was really important. It doesn’t always really help me help her *exit* the loop, but it does help me stay calm while I wait it out. Eventually she is very apologetic that she “turned into a bear” and couldn’t control herself. It’s just so sad and so hard sometimes.
Anonymous says
It’s a hard balance and three kids makes it harder because you can’t split neatly into one parent and one kid when there are challenges. Getting older has helped, as has finding new ways to balance. When we go on vacation the kids get to each pick one thing that is their most important thing to do and we do each of those. Last year it was ice cream for breakfast, visit the cows at a certain farm we went to before, and horseback riding. Can you rotate in doing something middle kid likes instead of just changing the main activity to suit them?
I try to have empathy both for the other kids whose vacations are negatively impacted and for the kid who has to take a vacation doing something they don’t want to do. Not everyone likes skiing or ocean swimming etc. We stopped vacationing with my sister’s family because they are big pool people and we are ocean swimmers, we were spending tons of money to use different parts of a resort. They also don’t ski at all and we ski all the time. Youngest kid used to hate skiing and complained why he had to ski when his cousins didn’t.
It’s all hard and you’re doing great in a tough situation. Just because everyone isn’t happy doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong.
Anonymous says
You’re torn between treating her as having special needs and treating her as difficult. Build up to this. Take day trips. Go out for afternoons.
SC says
I have one neurodiverse child, who is 8, almost 9. I can’t speak much to the family dynamic, except to say that one feature of DS’s neurodiversity is that he’s very honest about his preferences. I would trust him to tell me how he feels about being left behind for a ski weekend. If all 3 of your children are happy with the arrangement, and both parents are OK with it, then I wouldn’t borrow trouble. (I do think a long family vacation is different than a weekend.)
We also struggle with the balance between pushing DS and accommodating him. It’s so hard to know what’s “right”. I think where we’re at right now, we are teaching DS that he can do things that are challenging for him by taking care of his needs. When we plan a vacation, we do our best to tell him ahead of time what we’re planning and what to expect. Once there, we try to mitigate any sensory issues (hot, cold, sunny, wet, noisy, etc.). We stick to his routines to the extent we can. We avoid booking early morning and late-night flights, and we book direct flights if at all possible. We actually plan many of our trips around driving distance because it’s so expensive to get flights that work for us. We get AirBNBs with a separate bedroom for DS for anything longer than 2 nights, and actually, we sometimes return to the same AirBNB for repeat trips because it does feel more like the routine. We do our best to have “safe” foods available–DS is adventurous about trying things but finds most restaurant prepared food to have too much seasoning. We plan for DS to get a lot of downtime. We maintain his bedtime, more or less, which means early dinners and skipping late-night activities.
And then we push DS to do stuff he’s uncomfortable with. On beach vacations, he’s required to choose either the morning or the afternoon to go to the beach or pool. When we go to the mountains, he hikes with us, and last summer, we pushed through a 3+ mile hike one day and a short hike filled with bees another day. In cities, he goes on tours and to museums and walks a lot. He typically enjoys these activities, as long as his needs are met. I can see it being much more difficult to do a ski vacation if he just hated skiing.
One tip for getting buy-in, which I learned from my parents. Let each family member plan something about a vacation, then emphasize taking turns doing each other’s activities. When everyone has done your esoteric activity, you’re not allowed to complain about their choice. (Of course, parents are allowed to put on restrictions for budget, time, safety, etc.) For certain trips, we read about where we’re visiting ahead of time, or look at websites or photos to get buy-in.
Anonymous says
Lots of good advice here. I think the question for me is, what can you do now in terms of how you manage family vacations/ activities that will set her up for success as an adult? Because guess what, it’s hard to go on a trip with a group of friends if you fight everyone else’s choices. She needs a toolkit that allows her to make it work, but she also needs to be part of the family.
Anon says
i am also wondering whether the OP’s daughter receives any therapy or there is any parent coaching going on etc. It sounds like your daughter has a diagnosis, but presumably this is something you could discuss with some kind of person with expertise
Anonymous says
I’m not sure this is a great parallel though. One of the great joys of young adulthood is not having to take vacations you don’t want to take or do activities you don’t want to do. So if you don’t want to go on a ski trip – you just don’t go. Or if you want to go and ski for 2 hrs and not 8hrs (my skier heart cries at that), then you can sleep in and hit the slopes for a bit in the afternoon or if you don’t want to ski at all maybe you go and do home spa stuff in the day while others ski and then join for dinner. That isn’t necessarily the same for kids and family vacations.
Anon says
Yeah I don’t think “group trips with friends” is a mandatory adulting skill. Plenty of neurotypical people don’t do them. My guess is there are other skills that are relevant to adulthood that are also issues for this kid; I wouldn’t worry about group trips with friends.
Anonymous says
I think this is really hard and every family I know who has more than 1 kid, but especially 3+ kids has a more challenging child. It does sound like you’re catering a bit too much to her whims (to me). I’d definitely ask for a referral to some type of counselor who can help her realize that she can’t control everyone else’s day or just throw a fit because she doesn’t want to do something. That’s life! I have one child who has sensory issues, but when it comes down to it, she’s going to have to exist in the world and some places are going to be loud and crowded. So we still go to slightly loud and crowded places so she can cope. Whereas my other kid is HIGH energy and loves to rock out. So all trips are balancing their needs (quiet vs high energy activities) plus adding what mom and dad want to do. We aim to not make our entire life child-centric because we’re humans too. P
Anon says
Wowza, this was a lot like my childhood (minus the neurodiversity so I’m not helpful there). I’m one of three kids in a family who loves skiing and I HATE it. As a preteen I once got violently ill on a ski trip and had to stay in the cabin all day, and it was the most fun I’d ever had on a trip. When I mentioned that to my parents they finally understood how miserable I was. I actually tried snowboarding the next trip and found it much more enjoyable, maybe your daughter could try that the next time?
I don’t know if I have any sage wisdom for you. My parents were big on “tough it out” and “majority rules”. I understand the data on accommodations and anxiety, but I really struggled with self compassion and essentially white knuckled my way through my teens and 20s so I’d encourage some type of balance.
RiskedCredit says
Your middle child sounds very much like my elder two children who are both neurodivergent. The dx is ASD and ADD but the symptoms are similar. I have been able to crack this because travel is a must as family are in Europe and grandparents are unable to visit the US now they are approaching their 80s.
What really helps is sharing the plan ahead of time and showing them where they are going, what they are going to do. Have alternatives ready if they recoil at the moment of doing the activity. Also, most importantly, have the same structure each day. So, flying to England, I get the 7pm flight which lands at 10am. When we arrive it’s brunch. Leaving it’s ‘bedtime’. On the way back it’s a daytime flight and I get them watching a movie. Each day outside of school has a piece of paper with the schedule on it and the children cross off each item as we do it.
A really good book to read for parenting any neurodivergent child is this book by Dr Ross Greene. Don’t be put off by the title if your child isn’t explosive. It is the only method which has worked for my children and honestly it’s saved me. There is a link on the page to Amazon but take a gander through his website as there is lot of information on there too.
https://drrossgreene.com/the-explosive-child.htm
Anonymous says
I’m one of three kids and on our vacations each one of us got to pick one thing to go and do. If the other two complained we’d risk losing our turn. “One thing” was flexible based on location. If we were visiting a city “one thing” might be a whole morning or afternoon at a museum or a trip to the Statue of Liberty or something. If we were at Disney we’d all pick an equal number of rides (then parents would organize them based on location).
This wouldn’t solve all your problems, but it’s a good model for people with three or more kids.
Anon says
Talk to me about weight gain in early pregnancy. The previous two times I was pregnant (both losses, unfortunately), I didn’t gain a pound before the miscarriages. Now I’m early into the third pregnancy and the scale seems to be creeping up already, even though I don’t think my routine is too different. Is this bloat or gain, most likely? It seems the guidelines from official sources are all over the place on this when it comes to the first trimester.
For what it’s worth, I don’t place too much importance on the number in my regular life, but since I’m trying to do my best to actually have a complete healthy pregnancy, I want to make sure that I do everything I can in terms of nutrition and exercise.
Anon says
I gained a lot of weight in my first trimester. It was part bloat, part extreme nausea that ironically meant all I could eat was a lot of plain carbs. I ended up on the higher end, but not beyond, the recommended weight gain overall and lost the weight within a year PP. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Anonymous says
In my limited experience (1 pregnancy), weight gain in pregnancy is not linear – I would suddenly jump up several pounds, and then nothing. I think there is also a lot of variation between people. It might be a kindness to yourself to just put the scale away and focus on nutrition and exercise. Once you start having regular checkups (if you are not already), your provider will monitor your weight. In and of itself, it doesn’t say much though. There are a lot of hormones involved, so yes you could be bloated or you could be gaining fat or muscle or all of the above. Any of them could be what your body needs to do, but it is unlikely you are ruining anything. If you start experiencing morning sickness, you may find you can’t really stick with a super nutritious diet, but your baby will most likely still take what it needs from your body.
busybee says
I have found that pregnancy weight gain is far from linear. Some weeks/months you might gain much more than what’s recommended, and some weeks less.
With my singleton I gained no weight during the first tri, 25 during the second, and 3 during the third. I couldn’t button my jeans by about week 10 though due to bloat, even though there was no actual weight gain.
With my twins I gained most of the weight in the first and second trimesters. I was ravenous during the first trimester; I ate about 1000 extra calories a day.
Had healthy kids, lost all the singleton weight by my six week checkup. Still holding onto a few twin pounds at 5 months PP, whatever.
Anon says
I gained only ~15 pounds total but the majority of it was in the first trimester.
Betsy says
I would also avoid worrying about the number on the scale. I think the bigger reach in pregnancy is to make sure you’re getting enough nutrients, and if there’s a little voice in the back of your head telling you that you’ve gained too much it will be harder to eat what you need to in order to get your nutritional bases covered. My midwife says the only useful information she gets from weigh ins is when there’s a really odd change, which tells her there might be a problem that requires some investigation, like if you go from gaining a pain a week pretty regularly and then suddenly gain five pounds in a week.
Anon says
Thanks all, these responses are helpful. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing (focusing on good nutrition + some treats and exercising) and hope for the best without too much focus on the number.
Anon says
I am 16 weeks with my second baby. It might be bloat, especially in the very early weeks. I second everyone else who says that weight gain is not linear during pregnancy. I have only started to gain weight as of the last week or two (I had a horrific first trimester, and the same thing happened last time). Be kind to yourself and continue to exercise and follow your usual healthy habits.
Anonymous says
I will chime in as someone who gained more than the recommended amount of weight, as I had extreme morning sickness and my nausea management strategy was to never stop eating carbs: It’s okay. You can have a healthy baby even if you gain weight. I had two, and I gained 50 lbs with each pregnancy. My body hurt and I didn’t like carrying it around, but my babies were okay (and huge, ha!). I didn’t have GD.
I also had two losses, so I know how crazy it can make you, but you know logically that there is nothing you can do to control this. You are pregnant today–try to enjoy it.
Anon says
What songs do y’all sing to your babies? I just learned one in violin lessons called “Coulter’s Candy” that apparently is popular in Scotland, (is that true Cb?)..
Anonymous says
Snuggle puppy! It’s a sandra boyton book, recommend looking up a youtube video, the tune is really cute. My 5 yr old still sings it to me.
Vicky Austin says
This is a favorite in our house!
Cb says
Sitting on yer mama’s knee, greeting for a wee bawbee, ta buy some coulter’s candy….
Popularity confirmed. I learned all my songs at Bookbug. But now I get requests for made up songs, about a specific topic (mostly otters). This is a skill I have, but they are completely ephemeral, I forget them as soon as they are out of my mouth.
Mary Moo Cow says
I sang Christmas carols because they were so memorized, I could go on autopilot, and snippets of whatever pop songs were on the radio/earworms at the time. At night, the Beatles’ “Now Its Time to Say Goodnight…”
Clementine says
Everything. Anything I can think of. Yellow Submarine, The King of Love my Shepherd Is, every Disney song ever, hello little baby by JJ heller, you are my sunshine, every Christmas song ever, old hymns, Irish folk songs.
But the big hits are when I sing big passages from old school rap… the opening of Gangster’s Paradise and Jump around are two of the classics in my house…
Anon says
There’s an episode of Friends where they can only get the baby to laugh by rapping Baby Got Back!
AwayEmily says
All my kids have had “Goodnight My Someone” from the Music Man as their placing-them-into-their-cribs-at-bedtime song. Now sometimes the big kids help me put their toddler sister to bed, and we all sing it to her together. <3
Vicky Austin says
oh that’s so sweet
An.On. says
We do a lot of singing at the house, lullabies, disney songs, cocomelon earworms, snippets of pop songs, whatever random made-up tunes. We’ve been on a Brahms Lullaby nighttime routine for over two months at this point. After our bedtime reading, I have to do one rendition of that before I can leave.
Anonymous says
Raffi, Beatles. For one baby, I sang a lot of “there’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza” as a going to sleep song (don’t recommend). Blackbird from the Beatles is what my dad sang to me so I sang it a lot. I also sang a lot of religious music (we are Jewish, so a lot of the basic Shabbat classics , Hinei Matov, all variations of Osei Shalom, Eliahu HaNavi, etc). And then … all the songs we made up (example: Baby Burrito Bundle to the tune of Baby Beluga).
Bean74 says
Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.” The Beatles’ “Golden Slumbers.” “Soft Kitty” from Big Bang Theory (this one has evolved into “Soft Porg” – thanks, Star Wars!). The third verse of “Away in a Manger.” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” – my son was born in late December and would move like crazy when I played it before he was born. It was an easy one to sing in the newborn phase.
Anonymous says
My dad also sang Blackbird! He’s gone now. Thanks for the memory.
Vicky Austin says
Whatever’s in my head, or whatever I know by heart that has a lot of verses!
DS falls asleep most reliably to All Too Well 10 Minute Version, And So It Goes (Billy Joel), or Forever and Ever, Amen (Randy Travis). We have also gotten a lot of mileage out of some George Strait classics, old Mary Chapin Carpenter songs, and random snatches from Folklore or Evermore.
Also, I learned years ago that humming helps with nausea, and I hate throwing up, so for some reason a little tune from the soundtrack to the movie The Man from Snowy River became my go-to “I’m about to barf and don’t want to” tune. Which led to me humming it in labor, which led to me humming it to my newborn because it was the only thing my exhausted brain could come up with, and now it’s his song forever.
Anon says
Ahhh love all of these!
And the man from snowy river – what a classic!
Spirograph says
omg I sang everything! Church hymns, Christmas carols, Broadway, summer camp stuff, folk & pop songs, Sesame Street (Bananas Don’t Grow Alone was a favorite for a few months), anything on a Raffi album. Standbys were Baby Beluga, Oats Peas Beans & Barley Grow, Maresy Doats, Hush Little Baby, Twinkle Twinkle, Mary and a Little Lamb, My Favorite Things, I Feel Pretty, A Yodeler Went Yodeling, Day-o, You Are My Sunshine, One Elephant Went Out To Play, and What a Wonderful World. We went through a phase when the kids would give me a random word for bedtime songs and I’d sing the first thing that popped into my head, which was pretty fun.
When they were really little babies, I just made up things about how I was so tired and they needed to go to sleep so I could get some rest and be able to function the next day.
Vicky Austin says
Ha, my Last-Resort song is “Sleep, baby, sleep, your mother needs to sleep, [improvised verse about the day, our surroundings, his mood],” ad infinitum.
Anonymous says
Basically the entire James Taylor catalogue. My now 4.5 year old son’s favorite is “Sweet Baby James”.
This made for an interesting pickup at daycare one day two years ago, as DS had been trying to soothe himself to nap, and he was singing this song to himself. At first he was singing softly, and then he got to the line “thinking about women and glasses of beer” and apparently belted that out like he was doing the closing number of a broadway musical. His very young, early 20’s, teachers were not familiar with James Taylor, let alone this song, and brought it up to us at pickup as “DS was singing today… about beer and women.” It was an interesting moment for sure.
Anonymous says
Mine was extremely colicky, and there was a lot of “We Shall Overcome” during the early months.
Anon says
Edelweiss, Do Ri Me, Stay Awake, Silent Night, Amazing Grace, Twinkle Twinkle little star, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, Somewhere over the rainbow, I love you (a bushel and a peck), Christmas songs, hymns/folk songs (eg, tis a gift to be simple)
Anonymous says
My Favorite Things was my go-to with both kids.
Anon says
for people with older kids whose feet don’t grow as much, how often do your kids get new sneakers? i am trying to remember if as a kid i got them twice a year or once a year, not like that should matter exactly what i do with my own kids. all of the kids shoe stores near us have closed so it’s harder for me to figure out what size they need etc.
Anon says
Once a year normally
Anon says
My older kids are 8 and 6 and we get them twice a year, plus natives that they wear most of the time in summer. So, sneakers in Sept and March (ish), and natives or sandals for summer. But we’ve started buying half sizes; they probably go up one full size each year, but for foot health I like their shoes to not be huge for 6 months before fitting
Anonymous says
Conversely I am always looking to make sure there is a finger’s worth of space at the end of the shoe- so if my kid measures a 1 on the dot, we are buying 2 because his toes would hit the end in 1. One of my kids has hammer toes and other toe problems and it’s become really clear that kids’ toes need a lot of wiggle room.
Anon says
I’m 10:36 and agree with that point, so we mainly buy barefoot-type shoes and/or ones with specifically wide toe boxes. My kids humor me for now when I say no to all the brand name styles. So in combination, long shoes would result in them clenching their toes to keep the shoes from slipping.
Kids shoes are one of my soapbox issues, I annoy everyone in my family lol
Anonymous says
Do you have a recommendation for athletic shoes with wide toe box? Barefoot type is not something that will work for my child for sports/recess (which is sports) given his specific issues, and he has very narrow heels and wants things very tight in the heel so it’s a struggle to find wide enough toe boxes. Thank you!
Anon says
My favorite that we’ve tried is probably Xero shoes (but they are a little pricey, and don’t have a lot of styles, if that’s important). We’ve also had luck with Plae. Among mainstream brands Ten Little and See Kai run seem decent. I also tend to Google “wide toe box shoes” and am working my way through. I want to try Saguaro next, but I don’t know if those are too minimalist for you.
(And the reason I don’t just find a brand and stick with it is because my kids think that’s boring and like to switch it up, plus each kid has different feet. I’d be good with buying Xero each time.)
Anonymous says
My 11 year old’s feet are still growing but not as fast. She’s woman’s size 7 so she doesn’t have much more growing to do (I’m a 10 which is probably where she’ll end up). She gets one pair of sneaks per year and they are $$$- she’s got airMax 270s now. She started complaining about wanting new ones and I told her that unless her foot grows a second pair of $100++ sneakers in a year is on her. Worth noting is that she also plays 920423 sports so has cleats and basketball/volleyball sneakers (why yes, airmax sneakers are baseketball sneakers and WHY NO MOM she cannot use her school sneakers) and other shoes too (crocs, ugg boots, birkenstock sandals, cute sorel snow boots that she can wear around town etc).
She’s not really a fashonista so we tend to stick with sneakers/birks in the warmer months and sneakers/uggs in the cold months. She has a few friends that are super into converse and they have a few pairs.
Anonymous says
Doesn’t it depend on (a) have they outgrown their shoes and (b) have they worn out their shoes? (Provided you have enough money to replace.) Maybe my kid is still too young for my opinion to be relevant, but after going through multiple shoe sizes a year for a long time, he just sat at size 5 for over a year. In that time I had to replace shoes that were worn out by not outgrown. If the shoes were not worn out and not outgrown, I wouldn’t have been buying new shoes unless specifically needed for a sport, an event or other particular need.
Anonymous says
Also- we bought a foot measuring device and it’s extremely handy!!
Anon says
I have large, wide feet and now suffer with bunions and hammer toes (from squeezing my feet into too narrow and too small shoes most of my life). I also only buy my kids wide width foot-friendly shoes. They’re toddlers so lots of see kai run, new balance wide width, etc. I am hoping to prevent them from suffering the same fate ha.
Name brand and fashion shoes are so cute but are not very foot friendly, especially for kids with wide feet.
Spirograph says
My kids (especially the boys) are extremely rough on their shoes. Like the soles get worn thin, or the rubber on the toe starts coming off, or there’s a hole somewhere, within 6 months. So, that often. Usually they’re ready for the next size up by then, anyway.
Anonymous says
I have an 11 year old and we end up doing sneakers 2x a year, but that is partly because we often have shoes that didn’t really fit properly in the first place but I didn’t realize it because he hates trying on shoes and will just tell me something is fine and then 2 weeks later it is not fine. His crocs last a year. He has really high arches and a high instep, just like his father, and it is so hard finding shoes that are tall enough vertically in the instep to feel good to him. I think his feet are wide too. I know we need to start going to a shoe store in person more, but they also don’t necessarily all stock wide and extra wide shoes.
Anonymous says
Twice a year, thankfully we still have an independent kids shoe store here!
Anon says
Our dog is having surgery today and my 6 year old asked me this morning to email her teacher an update. If something goes wrong I’m not going to contact the teacher and make her deliver the bad news, but assuming all goes well is it ok to email the teacher and ask her to let my kid know everything is fine?
Anon says
Barring it’s only good news, I think it’s ok! My kiddo is still in preschool, but I’ve done this before several times and the teachers usually have no problem with giving kiddo an update. They’ve told me they usually appreciate it, as they’ll be hearing part of a story all day otherwise. I’ve had them let her know when our dog that had ran away returned home. They even delivered the news that her baby brother was born while she was at school. It’s very special memory for her.
Cb says
Proud moment. My kiddo has had a tough friend year – he’s pretty self-contained, little professor vibe, only child who likes his personal space, and his class is full of the wildest, roughest kids I’ve ever met.
But we had parents’ evening last night, and academically, he’s great but most importantly, his teacher said he’s playing with a much wider range of kids, has befriended the new kid (teaching the kid from India all the Scottish vernacular), and will set boundaries/ask for help if kids are in his space.
Anon says
Yay little Cb! Enjoy the mom win.
Anonymous says
That’s great! But please do not judge those wild, rough boys. I have one myself and he’s a fantastic kid who has lots of friends.
Anon says
It didn’t sound judgy to me.
anon says
I think I have a younger version of this kid (the nurses at the hospital when he was born said he’s an old soul!) and I constantly worry because he’s gentle and not really fond of rough and tumble kids. He mostly hangs out with the teachers at preschool. But he did have a great weekend playing with my friend’s older kids, and I think his mind was blown that playing with other kids can actually be fun.
pt boys says
3 year old has been potty trained during the day for a year, but wets a diaper at night. Just moved to a bed so he sometimes gets up and goes potty before he falls asleep. When this happens he maybe doesn’t adjust himself properly and wakes up with a pee soaked shirt, pants etc. Do we need to use pull ups instead? is there a reusable option that won’t be a wet mess by morning? There are too many options… he hates wearing the diaper, but we told him it must be dry for 3 nights before he can go without.
Anon says
I believe what you are looking for are training pants. No personal experience using them though because you are a little farther along in PT than us
Anon says
Training pants/underwear are basically regular undies that help hold in pee so the accident is minimized, but it doesn’t preclude clothes getting wet. I use them around the house to minimize messes (3 year old is about 80-90% potty trained during the day), but if it’s a big pee, it still can soak through all the things. I think pull-ups or nighttime diapers are OPs friend here.
I’m always amazed at these 3-4 year olds that can stay dry through the night! My older kid wore pull-ups at night until he was 5, and I plan to do the same with my younger kid. My ped told me it’s within the range of normal for NT kids, especially boys, to wear pull-ups until 7.
Anon says
*pull-ups at night
anon says
Peejamas worked well for us, just make sure you follow the directions and actually pre-wash them a bunch of times. I’d buy 2 sets of pants so you can wash one if they have an accident and still have another for that night.
Former Junior Associate says
If I understand correctly, he’s peeing in the diaper (while asleep) most nights, and on the nights where he does a solo bathroom trip too, he doesn’t really get the diaper back on the way it should be so there’s a big leak? If that’s the case, I think you want nighttime pull ups (we use Good Nites brand). They should be easier for him to get back on.
If I’m incorrect and he’s peeing while asleep only occasionally, don’t listen to me–others’ advice makes sense to me for more accident-type peeing.
Anonymous says
Goodnights