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Mia was over year old when we finally trained her to sleep through the night. Waaaay older than she should have been, IMO. With this next one we'll be starting the sleep training around 7 months I think. Until then, he/she will get to sleep with us, just like Mia did.

My son started well enough sleeping in his crib with no fuss at 3 months. But everytime there was some sort of growth spurt, physical or mental, he would go back to having problems for a week or two. We went through the crying it out several times. 3 steps forward, one step back. But routines help, like a bath and stories, so they begin to understand that when the routine is followed, they know that sleeping will inevitably follow

She used to sleep great, would go to bed around 6-7pm and sleep straight through until 5-6am. This has been going on over the past month so I hope it won't take too much to break it. So far everything is going well, we try to have a routine but weekends tend to throw it out the window.

I've been slowly learning the whole "dealing with a sibling" change thing because my daughter has been really great from the start. Now however, we're starting to get the sassiness and testiness. Like sometimes she'll come and poke him head a little hard and I tell her no and then she'll go and jab him while looking at my reaction with a little grin on her face. >:|

And the food thing happens much earlier than the age of 5. She used to eat tons of veggies and a few months ago that changed to, "I no like it carrots." and "I dun wan peas." and "Mommy take corn out my foooood."

My mother's attitude was that we didn't have to eat what she cooked, but we were on our own if we didn't.

My older brother lived on spaghetti noodles (plain, mind you) alternated with peanut butter sandwiches for about three years. Then he went to science camp for six weeks and came back ready to eat anything on the table. Apparently they didn't have unlimited access to peanut butter there.

Oh she eats it all right. Otherwise I just take it away. Once I take the food away suddenly she wants to eat it. Jedi mind tricks go a long way. The other day she was whining about pizza and we were like, "oh but we're going to eat CHICKEN." and she paused, then switched to "I wan eat chicken." lol

At risk of preaching to the choir. . .

Yes I had to eat what was put in front of me. Even the sprouts and cabbage

If we didn't eat it at lunch, it was back on the table at dinner. You're hungry enough, you'll eat. I grew up enjoying a balanced diet with fresh meat, fruit & veg.

While I didn't serve up yesterday's left-overs to the kids, they ate what was going or went hungry.

Lose one generation of that and you're lost. Sure, I'd occasionally treat them to a McDs or Pizza-Hut, but by exception.

Now we have generations who only know fast-food or pre-packed plastic crap. At best, some of them waste even more money on supplements, vitamins and crap.

I don't have to worry about money like I did when they were ickle, but their favoUrite meals are freshly made, take little preparation time, and are usually a fraction of the cost of what comes in shrink-wrap or a out of a freezer compartment.

Without reading any part of this thread, I'll leave you with the advice my father gave to me.

Use a belt. And use it often.

It really does work. How do you think I got my 3 month old son to start sleeping through the night?

with food, I have to say I was blessed with a kid who enjoys fruits and veggies as much as he does candy. With dinner though, it can be a struggle even if its something he loves. Ive learned a way to get him to eat which works pretty well in our house. He has to eat X amount of bites before he can be considered done. If he doesnt eat the amount mentioned hes reminded that he doesnt get anything until breakfast time the next morning. The first few times this happened he didnt eat and complained at bed time when he was starving. After he realized we weren't kidding though, he eats the amount specified and rarely complains anymore.

If its something new he hasnt tried before, we tell him he has to at least try one bite. We also make sure there is other side dishes we know he likes in case he doesnt like the new food. But he tries everything once without complaint.

I was actually talking about killing Phin in like 1999. I forget when I played EQ. I think it was just after Kunark came out.

My husband was just talking about something similar just yesterday Nobby. He said he thinks our kids' generation is going to have a really hard time raising kids because by the time they're of the age to have kids the "instant gratification" thing will be so deeply rooted that they won't have the patience needed to raise kids sanely.

It's so weird, when I show my daughter a picture of an old fashioned telephone (by old fashioned I mean the ones with curly cords) she doesn't know what it is.