first, the easy one...we are going to have our sitter spend the night on occasion. she'd come around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, do dinner and put the kids to bed (that's what she normally does when she comes). then she'll spend the night in the guest bed, get up with the kids, do breakfast, get them dressed and i'll be home around 10 or 11am. we normally pay her $8-10 an hour when she's here for 3 or 4 hours but our official agreement is $5 when they're napping and $8 when they're awake.
sooo, my question is what should we pay her when she does overnight? like if she's here from 4pm until 11am for example, she'd be with the kids for 7 awake hours and then overnight. we were thinking in the $80 range? keep in mind that she is 16.5 years old, not a college kid or older.
ok, next issue - jake is STILL not napping at daycare. it's been a month and he's only napped 4 or 5 times since he started back. :( at first, i was bothered by it b/c he was a GROUCH in the evenings, but now he seems to have adjusted. he's still napping 2-3 hours at home in his crib on the weekends, so i know he's not ready to stop napping.
his teachers were fine with it at first at school b/c he was behaving, but now they tell me that they're having trouble keeping him quiet on his cot for the 2 hours that the other kids are sleeping (um, no sh1t - who would want to sit on a cot in the dark for 2 hours? definitely not a 2.5 year old!). the owner/director has been great and supportive and told me not to feel guilty (which i how i told her i've been feeling) b/c it's the teachers' JOBS to manage him during naptime. i told her i'm giving them free reign to do whatever they want to manage naptime b/c i trust them. for example, there's a closet with a huge window in their classroom. i told them they could put a crib from the little kids' room in there and make him nap in there. IDC! as long as he's sleeping and not a disruption, i know that they are keeping him safe and happy, so i'm going to trust them to make good choices.
so has anyone had an issue with the lack of napping at daycare before they were really READY to give up naps? any tips????
and finally, here's my third issue - jake is STILL pooping in his diaper first thing in the morning before i get him out of bed. it's so frustrating to have him potty trained during the day but then have that huge disgusting diaper in the morning. but i'm not sure how to stop it since it's happening before he's out of bed. he's pooped on the potty a handful of times, but for the most part, he is a first thing in the morning pooper and that's it. has anyone else had this issue? any tips on how i can work on stopping that diaper poop?
regarding the overnight sitter. my housekeeper does that pretty regularly, except the kids are at her home. and i will only pay her for the hours my kids are awake.
i would think that $80 is generous. esp for a high school girl. i would offer that and see what she says.
The payment Id say Id offer 75. I mean she will be sleeping too. However if Jake or emily got up in the night or emily wet the bed or something or other Id probably throw in a little extra.
As far as napping, They cant MAKE him nap its impossible. I know my kids would not be quiet for two hours awake. Maybe start trying to have quiet time at home. I know the duggars use something called a quiet blanket or something that she would take with her everywhere and when the kids needed to be quiet at a meeting or somewhere she would put the blanket down with a toy or book and they knew to be quiet. Maybe try a thing like that and send tht to cot time with him. I guess that still would take a while to teach him the concept but I really have no advice.
I don't know about the first two but I am where you are with the third one. Owen tends to do it RIGHT before bed or right after naptime. He has trained himself to only poop when he knows he has a diaper on. He has pooped in the toilet before and even did it at my mom's so little by little he is getting it. Is his diaper dry in the morning? Does he still need it for over night pee?
I want to say not to worry about it - he's only 2 and a half and is doing so well otherwise. Is he pooping in it while he is still asleep or is he waking up and choosing to poop in his diaper? Does he have a potty chair in his room? It's tough, I'm right there with you.
April, Ethan was never a consistent napper so even though he was not ready to give up the nap entirely, he stopped napping every day. And he was getting in trouble too. I talked to the teacher about letting him do something else. Like he has to lay quietly at first but then he can go play with blocks quietly away from the other kids or flip through a book. So sometimes he does that and sometimes he naps and it's fine.
Also, I know at Ethan's old school, some kids would wake up earlier and they were allowed to go read a book quietly with the teacher.
It sounds like you want him to keep napping and I understand but Leah's right. If he doesn't want to nap, he's not going to.
As for the pooping in the diaper thing, no advice. When Ethan was first trained, he would poop every night after we put him in his diaper. I think he still wasn't 100% about going on the potty and while he would if he had to, he preferred doing it in the diaper. After a few months, he got over it. Maybe if you offer him a treat, like a special breakfast, if he gets you before he goes in his diaper? But then he may get you up earlier.
I think $80 is very generous! I would have loved to be able to make that kind of money in one night while I was in high school.
I don't have any ideas on the nap, that's a tough one.
Is he pooping while still asleep do you think or just as soon as he wakes up? I don't know how Jake does being woken up but what if you went in there like 10 minutes before he woke up and woke him up and took him potty before he had the opportunity to go in his diaper do you think that would work? Maybe that coupled with going night night with underwear on would work? Maybe try the underwear after you've woken him up a couple times... might be frustrating if he just poops in them. I think this would only work if you think he's pooping after he's woken up. If he does it while he's still asleep I don't really have any ideas for helping him through that.
um, we paid her $100. she was here from 2pm on saturday until 11:30am on sunday. that was a total of 8.5 awake hours and 13 sleeping hours. i WISH one of you lived closer b/c i could relax instead of be nervous!!!!
thanks for all the input girls.
re: napping, i definitely agree that if he doesn't want to, he's not going to. i'm just tired of stressing over it. i'm going to see how the teachers act today when i pick him up. if they give him grief, i'm just going to tell them they need to knock it off (not in those words). i have enough stress to worry about without them adding to my plate tyvm.
as far as pooping, ihni if it's before or after he's awake. actually, i think it's probably before he wakes up b/c some mornings matt has to wake him for school and he already has poop in there. he's still in his crib, so the potty chair wouldn't work - plus, he has REALLY loose poops and i'm NOT cleaning that out of a potty chair. omg, i'm gagging just thinking about it. :puke:
first, the easy one...we are going to have our sitter spend the night on occasion. she'd come around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, do dinner and put the kids to bed (that's what she normally does when she comes). then she'll spend the night in the guest bed, get up with the kids, do breakfast, get them dressed and i'll be home around 10 or 11am. we normally pay her $8-10 an hour when she's here for 3 or 4 hours but our official agreement is $5 when they're napping and $8 when they're awake.
sooo, my question is what should we pay her when she does overnight? like if she's here from 4pm until 11am for example, she'd be with the kids for 7 awake hours and then overnight. we were thinking in the $80 range? keep in mind that she is 16.5 years old, not a college kid or older.
ok, next issue - jake is STILL not napping at daycare. it's been a month and he's only napped 4 or 5 times since he started back. :( at first, i was bothered by it b/c he was a GROUCH in the evenings, but now he seems to have adjusted. he's still napping 2-3 hours at home in his crib on the weekends, so i know he's not ready to stop napping.
his teachers were fine with it at first at school b/c he was behaving, but now they tell me that they're having trouble keeping him quiet on his cot for the 2 hours that the other kids are sleeping (um, no sh1t - who would want to sit on a cot in the dark for 2 hours? definitely not a 2.5 year old!). the owner/director has been great and supportive and told me not to feel guilty (which i how i told her i've been feeling) b/c it's the teachers' JOBS to manage him during naptime. i told her i'm giving them free reign to do whatever they want to manage naptime b/c i trust them. for example, there's a closet with a huge window in their classroom. i told them they could put a crib from the little kids' room in there and make him nap in there. IDC! as long as he's sleeping and not a disruption, i know that they are keeping him safe and happy, so i'm going to trust them to make good choices.
so has anyone had an issue with the lack of napping at daycare before they were really READY to give up naps? any tips????
and finally, here's my third issue - jake is STILL pooping in his diaper first thing in the morning before i get him out of bed. it's so frustrating to have him potty trained during the day but then have that huge disgusting diaper in the morning. but i'm not sure how to stop it since it's happening before he's out of bed. he's pooped on the potty a handful of times, but for the most part, he is a first thing in the morning pooper and that's it. has anyone else had this issue? any tips on how i can work on stopping that diaper poop?
tia for any and all advice!
For the napping business- when SD was in daycare and not napping- her teacher had us bring a small bag of coloring books, paper, and crayons to keep her busy and quiet so that she wouldn't disrupt the other kids. But she was 4 so I don't know if that 1.5 yr difference would be a problem in terms of Jake being satisfied with that.
