Five Opinions All Mothers At One Time Hold

[azriona]

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

Comments

[jaradel]

When is the last feeding of the day? (And how old is he now?) I'm trying to remember when H stopped feeding before bed. I know you don't want to get him into a bad habit, but if there's more than two hours between last feeding and bedtime, what about a half-bottle at bedtime? Might just be enough to soothe him and get him to sleep sooner (and longer). Does he still feed in the middle of the night, or is he sleeping through until morning (6am or later)?

I want to say I was still feeding both boys right before bed up to 12 months, at least. They can (and will) wean off of it as they start taking in more at mealtimes and getting closer to a three-a-day feeding schedule. I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will get better, and you're not a bad mother. *hugs*

Answers. Not to the Meeaning of Life, but still.

[azriona]

The last feeding of the day would be dinner - usually between five and six. I think you're right about the two-hour difference between bedtime and dinnertime. I can't say for certain that there's definitely a correlation with Andrew, but what you're saying makes sense, and I can certainly try a small bottle shortly before bedtime, so that it's not in the bedtime routine (and I can brush his teeth before he sleeps!), and see if that helps.

He doesn't usually feed in the middle of the night. Sometimes he'll get a bottle around 4 or 5am, if he wakes and won't go back to sleep with either rocking or just fussing. This is becoming more rare, though - he didn't get a 5am bottle this morning, for instance, even though he woke up. Even when he does get a bottle, he'll generally sleep for at least another hour, and more often an hour-and-a-half afterwards

[azriona]

You rock. *takes icon*

At least Andrew isn't Lucy - when he sleeps, he sleeps. He can sleep through the telephone, the doorbell, the dryer alarm, the house alarm, and our creaky floorboards. He used to be able to sleep through the cat, but that was before he fell in love with her.

Did Lucy get better as she got older?

[crimedoc1]

I know you'll hate me, but this too shall pass. One thing we did was have a CD player in the room and put on music at bedtime. I would usually sit in the room and sing along for a couple of songs and then leave. Of course, my kids are 7 and 9 and still put CDs in at bedtime, but at least they're being exposed to a wide variety of music, and sometimes audio books

[azriona]

I played music for Andrew when he was very very small, and stopped in order to do white noise instead, which worked much better for him. Now he's able to sleep in silence (after the Sleep Sheep turns itself off). Maybe I should try music again - although I have music playing constantly during the daytime hours, too, so far all I know he already equates music with being awake (which sort of defeats the purpose!).

(That said, he still falls asleep in the car when I'm listening to the radio. So my concern is probably moot.)

Because of course teachers today can't do their jobs without parents helping every day. I wonder how my elementary school teachers managed, with at least 50-75% more kids in the classroom, and no parent volunteers at all!Politics, I think. Not government politics per se (although I'm not entirely sure that "no child left behind" helped matters), but inner school politics. I've got a couple of teachers on my flist, and from their posts about school life, it sounds like the inner workings of elementary school

[crimedoc1]

Don't you just love politics? However, I don't think school politics accounts for one of my kids' teachers lecturing (almost haranguing) parents on proper volunteer behavior, and how she needs several days notice if you are scheduled to volunteer and can't make your shift. Because it would seriously inconvenience her if she had to actually do stuff herself. It also doesn't account for the time we had a parent-teacher meeting to discuss my son's boredom, and the lack of any of the academic enrichment promised in the IEP (a special educational plan developed individually for each gifted child), and being told that since I didn't volunteer in the classroom, I didn't know what I was talking about. I quietly pointed out that I had a full time job, and asked how often SHE volunteered in HER daughter's classroom; her immediately backpeddling was almost humorous. It doesn't account for the number of times over the years that both of my kids, and their classmates, have asked their teachers for harder and more challenging homework and been

[honorh]

I think every mother, ever, is required to say, at some point, "You don't even want to know the last time I washed my hair!" (or some variation thereof). And, also, to despair of her beloved child's resistance to sleep.

My sister Erin's best friend, Marci, told a story about one night when she was up with her eldest, who was screaming and refusing to sleep. Marci was a young mother--about 20 when she had Katie--and after a couple of hours, she called her own mother, in hysterics. Her mother told her to give the baby to her husband, Steve. Marci somewhat doubtfully woke her husband, who was sleeping like a brick, and handed him the still-screaming baby. Within a few minutes, both Steve and Katie were fast asleep, and Marci was standing there fuming.

[azriona]

Yeah, I think that story's typical of what happens a lot of the time. And I've certainly read that advice in a lot of the parenting books: if one of you is getting frustrated or tired or whatever, hand the baby off to the other parent. It's easy to say that the baby was feeding off Marci's frustration and handing her off to sleepy Daddy did the trick, and that might have had a lot to do with Katie falling asleep shortly thereafter. It's a lot harder to say why Katie didn't want to sleep in the first place - certainly it wasn't anything that Marci did or didn't do, and that's the part that will drive a mother mad, because of course the baby's not sleeping because it's too hot/too cold/too humid/too light/too dark/too hungry/too full/too tired/too awake/doesn't have favorite toy/favorite song/favorite story/favorite pyjamas, etc. All of which, of course, is the mother's fault.

Silly babies - why can't they just look at the clock, say, "Oh my, it's 9pm, I should really get some shut-eye", and roll over and go to sleep!

[amberfocus]

I'm sorry, hon. *HUGS* I know it seems like times like this will never end. If you don't want to give him a formula bottle before bed, have you thought about maybe some solid food and some water? I used to give T squash or sweet potatoes before bed. If he was hungry he would eat it, if not he'd reject it, unlike formula which he would always take. This way I knew that he was actually hungry (or not hungry) before putting him down.

He quit napping way early. I found he simply slept better at night when I quit trying to make him nap. I hated giving up the nap but it worked out better for my sanity when I did. I also made sure he got lots of fresh air, weather permitting. It seemed to tire him out more than just being cooped up all day.

I also second the music CD. Yes, my kiddo still falls asleep to one today, but I don't care. *laughs* Just change the CD nightly. If you just use one over and over again, he'll always want that one and if it breaks, no good comes of it. (Why, yes, I did learn that the hard way).