How do I get my toddler to start trying grown up things? He tells me everything is for his sister, not for him.
He REFUSES to even TRY to drink out of an open cup. At this point, his sister had already mastered it.
He just tells me “No, that’s [sister’s] cup”. Then goes insane if we try to “do it together” or I try to get him to drink out of mine.
we do open cups and straws. thr metal straws get bittenband tye sikicone are teaching him about biting
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These are all great ideas. Thank you. I’m very tempted to try them to see if we can even get one feeding per day from formula instead of nursing.
Does anyone know of any good resources for talking about death? Kiddo has been asking about what it means for something to be dead/killed. Grieving doesn’t really enter into it, mainly his questions are coming from screens - Elsa and Anna’s parents are dead, bad guys in movies almost kill someone but then they make a miraculous recovery and aren’t actually dead, video game characters are dead after they lose all their hit points but then you start a fresh instance and they aren’t dead any more. Thankfully he has a good grip on pretend vs. real so that helps with the video game instance, but I’m trying to figure out how to talk about death without being “you could die at any moment!” or “catching a cold means death!” or that his grandparents are in imminent peril because they’re old.
(He’s also experimenting with talking smack to pretend invisible bad guys and recently said “I’ll kill you!” with gun motions to one and we had to shut that down hard. I get where he’s coming from - he thinks that means he wins the fight - but also he’s going to be attending public schools in the United States and JFC I don’t want to deal with that phone call from the school that he’s suspended or something for making finger guns and threats at another six year old during recess. 
)
Give him a cup in the bathtub. Bath water tastes better!
Actually, he WILL drink it there. That is not preferred by us.
He also will not use a straw. Straws are his sister’s.
And oddly, in this area, she doesn’t have the sibling rivalry. She’s even tried to help show him how.
Is there a reason to get him to drink out of an open cup? We still tend to have covered cups mostly for our own convenience but he does (or did, in the before times) open cups at school. It helped that all the kids got the same thing. At home if we do open cups he tends to want to blow bubbles or put his hand in it and I’m already tired of having to be the food police to get him to keep taking bites of food so he finishes his dinner in a reasonable amount of time. 
So we can stop having to deal with sippy cups? They are a pain to store, to make sure they are washed for the next time we need it, etc.
I’m already tired of having to be the food police to get him to keep taking bites of food so he finishes his dinner in a reasonable amount of time.
We just set a timer, and give a 5 minute warning. If food isn’t eaten, it is saved for the next meal. They eat constantly, they won’t go hungry from one light meal.
I highly recommend the feeding Littles division of responsibility approach. You can use a sand timer or similar visual cue, and when it’s out it’s out and the meal is done. If he gets upset, just remind him when the next snack or meal will be. He’ll catch on and modify behavior pretty quickly, barring a medical issue that leads to slow eating.
The problem is he’s fine with being a light eater but since this usually happens around dinner time the next meal isn’t till the morning, he thinks he’s fine but then wakes up at 3 or 4 in the morning wanting something to eat. The rest of the day is fine, he eats or he doesn’t.
There’s also the problem of Mr. Meer offering him the same thing we’re eating and that’s it, I try to offer a few different things - I don’t go too far out of my way but I’ll add a yogurt or some cut up fruit in addition to what we’re eating, especially if it’s something new or unusual.
That makes sense. I guess we have enough in rotation for that aspect to not come up for us, plus the dishwasher takes care of the washing part for us.
Then I would just lose the lid to one cup every week. You know how they tend to disappear in the dishwasher!
We have a light eater too and it’s so hard. Ours is also on the lowest end of the chart and always at risk of falling off the chart (which we just learned he’s done but we have a lot happening right now so I’m trying not to worry too much)
I’ll second BJs recommendation of kids eat in color. One of her strategies is a consistent bedtime snack so maybe that would help? She is also very in favor of one safe food a meal so it sounds like there might be some good info that might help mr meer with that strategy. We have had feeding therapy and nutritionists and all have been really happy with the no pressure division of labor stuff ans it has also been a lot less stressful for us.
I just misgendered a person and I went through my brain and it’s because I’m only used to using “they” to refer to an individual if they are unknown. So. Best trans etc books for kids that actually have a character with they/them pronouns? I need to practice and I want to be sure my kids are used to it right from the start, we don’t know any non-binary people IRL.
What do your kids call your friends?
Growing up, all of my parents friends, or really, any strange adult, were referred to as “Auntie”, “Uncle”, in my native language. I call them that to this day. My friends’ parents were referred to as “Mr X” or “Mrs X”.
We haven’t done a lot of socializing so haven’t run into this yet, but what do you all do?
Mostly Aunt or Uncle, though some friends we just refer to by name to him. Mostly the non-binary people since we don’t know appropriate titles for them 
We use a lot of aunt and uncle to her for close friends.
A few friends get an auntie equivalent title, most adults Mr or Mrs (first name). But adults are rare.
When I was little, we called most adults by their first name and I plan to continue that unless any of my friends prefer something more formal. We have a couple very close friends who are “aunt/uncle”. In socal this seems to be the norm because we are overly casual.
I’m so against calling friends aunt and uncle in my kids’ life. I know for some cultures it’s the norm (and that’s a separate thing entirely), but I don’t like the ‘honorary’ aunt and uncle thing. I think because I had a lot of close friends of my parents walk out of my life abruptly as a kid, and it seems way worse if you think of those people as relatives who are supposed to love you.
We use Mr./Ms firstname so far. A couple of my friends use just firstname but that’s too casual for me. It definitely seems to be a regional thing too - it’s a lot different in the location we just moved to than it was at home.
Eta: I don’t think i said that very well but I was not trying to be judgy about what other parents do. I just like to reserve aunt and uncle for my kids actual relatives.
