Today Date Triggered Content

What’s not to love about summer? Sunshine, time outside, light nights – wait, light nights? Now added to the list of ‘great before children, now... not so much’. 

As an adult, long, lazy evenings spent in that syrupy summer evening light are truly glorious. But the light nights might not seem quite so relaxing now that you find yourself trying to get through your usual bedtime routine with a young child who won’t be persuaded it’s time for bed when the sun is clearly still very much up and peeping through the curtains just as it might at midday on an especially bright winter’s day. 

As a parent, ‘no’ can very quickly become a word you find yourself using all too often. Jammy dodgers for breakfast? No. Covering the walls in paint? No. Staying at home instead of going to nursery? No. Letting your three-year-old drive your car? No, no, no! 

There are plenty of times we have to say ‘no’ to keep our children safe, healthy, to avoid breaking things or because we have a commitment, like needing to work. But sometimes we become so used to saying 'no', that we don’t stop to ask ourselves whether we might actually be able to say 'yes'. 

“Newborn babies are very aware of their body... What happens with disposable nappies is that brain-body connection is eroded, and so then we have the very difficult problem that parents want to use a potty and the child has a very steep learning curve to assimilate all the skills that they'll need to be able to do that effectively.”  

In this week’s podcast special, you’ll hear the latest research about when to start potty-training and how to help your child – spoiler alert, it happens much earlier than you may think!  

When we first brought our curled up newborn home from hospital, the idea of him starting school seemed a distant impossibility. How would this milk-drunk creature unfurl himself to be able to walk and run, let alone start school as an independent boy, running off with his friends with barely a backward glance?