Five Opinions All Mothers At One Time Hold
Five Opinions All Mothers At One Time Hold
(Although Not Necessarily At the Same Time, As Will Become Evident)
*The amount of time spent believing #1 is in direct proportion to the ease with which the child in question went to bed that night.
1. I am the worst mother ever. Nothing I do is right. My children will be in therapy for the rest of their lives. I have no idea why they were even allowed to come home with me.
2. I screw up a lot. My children will be in therapy, but it won't be all about me. For some reason, they still love me.
3. I make some mistakes, but mostly, I do pretty good. My children might need therapy, but who doesn't?
4. Mistakes? Well, there was this one time when I put the diaper on backwards. My children can spend their therapy money on vacations to the Bahamas.
5. I am the best mother ever. I can do no wrong. Everything I touch is gold. My children will be the therapist.
I need a new bedtime routine for Andrew, because the old one, it ain't working. I don't know if it's because of the cold or what, but he's going on two hours post-bedtime no-sleeping, and this has got to stop.
Granted, the bedtime routine has changed since he's come home. Originally, it was bottle, lullaby, rock, bed. Took about fifteen to twenty minutes, but it worked. Mostly.
Then about a month ago, he started resisting the bedtime bottle, a move I was more than happy to accommodate. Story, lullaby, rocking, bed. And it worked. For a little while.
And then about two weeks ago, that stopped working, because he really got the hang of being able to pull himself up, and let's face it, standing up? Way more interesting than sleeping.
I don't know if it's teething, or the cold, or the change in the temperature, or that he's not only standing but pulling himself along (the first person who says that he's this close to walking is going to get smacked in the back of the head and yes I will come and find you in order to do it). But Andrew doesn't want to go to sleep anymore. Not at bedtime, not at naptime, not in the middle of the nighttime.
We finish the lullaby, and instead of drifting to sleep, he chews on his pacifier and stares at his nightlight. If I put him down, he starts to yell. If I pick him up, he either fakes going to sleep (only to wake back up when I try to put him down) or he wakes up immediately and starts pinching me, hitting me, pulling on my hair, flailing his arms like he's a newborn with no control whatsoever.
If I try to let him scream himself to sleep, he goes into that scream where he's choking and coughing, and he's got himself so worked up that there's no possible way that he can get himself to sleep without intervention. Half the time, when he's like that, the only way he'll stop is a bottle. And I don't don't don't want to slide back into the bedtime bottle habit, not when I did manage to cut it out of the equation so successfully (because yes - it was totally successful for over a week, and I've heard some real horror stories about trying to wean toddlers out of that habit).
Screaming it out won't work - partially because he just won't do it, and partially because I can't. Anyone who's ever heard those gut-wrenching, "There's-a-mass-murderer-under-my-crib" sobs knows why. (Anyone who hasn't...well, if you'd like, next time he gets there, I'll record it for you.) I've tried the five/ten/fifteen minute dance, because that's what worked when he was younger and less mobile. It doesn't work anymore. I've tried putting him in his crib and sitting nearby. It doesn't work - he stands up and reaches for me, and ends up pitching a fit anyway. I've tried refusing to pick him up. He pitches a fit. I've tried picking him up and putting him down once he's calm. Eventually, he just won't calm down.
This is driving me slowly up the wall. His non-sleeping has been getting worse and worse over the last few weeks, but it was never quite this bad. These days, he doesn't even want to nap - trying to get him to nap for more than 30 minutes at a stretch is like pulling teeth.
He finally, finally, finally fell asleep twenty minutes ago. At 10pm. I've been trying to get him to sleep since 7.30. If you want to know why there hasn't been photos, hasn't been videos, hasn't been...well...anything, this would be why. By the time I get the kid asleep, and do the dishes, and make more formula, I barely have enough time to shower and feed the cat. The showering I can skip (and have, much to my regret - do not ask me the last time I washed my hair). Cleo will not let me forget to feed her. She's getting into the habit of joining in the yowls with Andrew - and there's nothing worse than having both the baby and the cat yelling about what a rotten excuse for a human being you are.
Unless it's maybe them doing it at 4am. Which happens frequently.
I read somewhere recently that all the bad habits babies and small children get into are just phases. (The same can be said for the good ones, unfortunately.) And I repeat to myself, "This is a phase. This is a phase. This is a phase." But oh, how I wish this phase would end sooner rather than later. Because someday, I'd like to be able to sit and eat my dinner at a reasonable time of night, and without it getting cold and needing to be reheated three or four times in the same evening.
You know what I need? I need an icon of the penguins from Madagascar, in that scene where they've landed in Antarctica and there's all this snow and cold and wind, and it's sort of quiet, and then the leader penguin says, "Well, this sucks." Because that scene makes me laugh every time, and OMG is it appropriate to my life right now. Or at least appropriate to this post....
(Although Not Necessarily At the Same Time, As Will Become Evident)
*The amount of time spent believing #1 is in direct proportion to the ease with which the child in question went to bed that night.
1. I am the worst mother ever. Nothing I do is right. My children will be in therapy for the rest of their lives. I have no idea why they were even allowed to come home with me.
2. I screw up a lot. My children will be in therapy, but it won't be all about me. For some reason, they still love me.
3. I make some mistakes, but mostly, I do pretty good. My children might need therapy, but who doesn't?
4. Mistakes? Well, there was this one time when I put the diaper on backwards. My children can spend their therapy money on vacations to the Bahamas.
5. I am the best mother ever. I can do no wrong. Everything I touch is gold. My children will be the therapist.
I need a new bedtime routine for Andrew, because the old one, it ain't working. I don't know if it's because of the cold or what, but he's going on two hours post-bedtime no-sleeping, and this has got to stop.
Granted, the bedtime routine has changed since he's come home. Originally, it was bottle, lullaby, rock, bed. Took about fifteen to twenty minutes, but it worked. Mostly.
Then about a month ago, he started resisting the bedtime bottle, a move I was more than happy to accommodate. Story, lullaby, rocking, bed. And it worked. For a little while.
And then about two weeks ago, that stopped working, because he really got the hang of being able to pull himself up, and let's face it, standing up? Way more interesting than sleeping.
I don't know if it's teething, or the cold, or the change in the temperature, or that he's not only standing but pulling himself along (the first person who says that he's this close to walking is going to get smacked in the back of the head and yes I will come and find you in order to do it). But Andrew doesn't want to go to sleep anymore. Not at bedtime, not at naptime, not in the middle of the nighttime.
We finish the lullaby, and instead of drifting to sleep, he chews on his pacifier and stares at his nightlight. If I put him down, he starts to yell. If I pick him up, he either fakes going to sleep (only to wake back up when I try to put him down) or he wakes up immediately and starts pinching me, hitting me, pulling on my hair, flailing his arms like he's a newborn with no control whatsoever.
If I try to let him scream himself to sleep, he goes into that scream where he's choking and coughing, and he's got himself so worked up that there's no possible way that he can get himself to sleep without intervention. Half the time, when he's like that, the only way he'll stop is a bottle. And I don't don't don't want to slide back into the bedtime bottle habit, not when I did manage to cut it out of the equation so successfully (because yes - it was totally successful for over a week, and I've heard some real horror stories about trying to wean toddlers out of that habit).
Screaming it out won't work - partially because he just won't do it, and partially because I can't. Anyone who's ever heard those gut-wrenching, "There's-a-mass-murderer-under-my-crib" sobs knows why. (Anyone who hasn't...well, if you'd like, next time he gets there, I'll record it for you.) I've tried the five/ten/fifteen minute dance, because that's what worked when he was younger and less mobile. It doesn't work anymore. I've tried putting him in his crib and sitting nearby. It doesn't work - he stands up and reaches for me, and ends up pitching a fit anyway. I've tried refusing to pick him up. He pitches a fit. I've tried picking him up and putting him down once he's calm. Eventually, he just won't calm down.
This is driving me slowly up the wall. His non-sleeping has been getting worse and worse over the last few weeks, but it was never quite this bad. These days, he doesn't even want to nap - trying to get him to nap for more than 30 minutes at a stretch is like pulling teeth.
He finally, finally, finally fell asleep twenty minutes ago. At 10pm. I've been trying to get him to sleep since 7.30. If you want to know why there hasn't been photos, hasn't been videos, hasn't been...well...anything, this would be why. By the time I get the kid asleep, and do the dishes, and make more formula, I barely have enough time to shower and feed the cat. The showering I can skip (and have, much to my regret - do not ask me the last time I washed my hair). Cleo will not let me forget to feed her. She's getting into the habit of joining in the yowls with Andrew - and there's nothing worse than having both the baby and the cat yelling about what a rotten excuse for a human being you are.
Unless it's maybe them doing it at 4am. Which happens frequently.
I read somewhere recently that all the bad habits babies and small children get into are just phases. (The same can be said for the good ones, unfortunately.) And I repeat to myself, "This is a phase. This is a phase. This is a phase." But oh, how I wish this phase would end sooner rather than later. Because someday, I'd like to be able to sit and eat my dinner at a reasonable time of night, and without it getting cold and needing to be reheated three or four times in the same evening.
You know what I need? I need an icon of the penguins from Madagascar, in that scene where they've landed in Antarctica and there's all this snow and cold and wind, and it's sort of quiet, and then the leader penguin says, "Well, this sucks." Because that scene makes me laugh every time, and OMG is it appropriate to my life right now. Or at least appropriate to this post....