APtly Said – Page 50

Q&A: Toddler fights bedtime

Q: My 2-year-old son doesn’t calm down easily for bedtime, and my wife and I need some ideas. We’ve always coslept with him and my wife breastfeeds him, and we’re keeping to a bedtime routine, but a few months ago, our son began to really fight bedtime, even when he is very tired. I really need some help as it’s really hard to not lose my cool when I’m still up at midnight trying to get my child to sleep!

A: That sounds like my 2-year-old daughter! If it makes you feel any better, our pediatrician said fighting sleep like that tends to be a sign of intelligence!

It still often takes us an hour or so to get her down, but here are some things that helped us manage better and get her to sleep at 9:00-9:30 p.m. instead of 10:00-11:00 p.m.:

If she’s not up from nap by 3:00 p.m., there’s no way she’ll get to sleep before 10:00-11:00 p.m. So we ended up moving lunch to an earlier time, so that she is able to start naptime sooner in order to be done with her nap before 3:00 p.m.
If, for whatever reason, she hasn’t started her nap in time to be awake by 3:00 p.m., we skip nap and put her to bed for the night earlier than usual, say around 6:30 p.m. We cosleep, too, so when we skip naptime, I watch for the second she starts to stir — around 10:00-11:00 p.m. — and nurse her back down before she fully wakes up. That tends to prevent her from treating early bedtime as a nap.

Even still, it can get really hard trying to get any toddler to sleep at bedtime.

If I start to get annoyed with my daughter, my husband will take her and walk her or read her a book while I do something to relax. Then he brings her back to bed and goes in the living room to unwind. Doing it in shifts like that helps us both have a bit of a break, so we can cool off by ourselves if we start to get upset.

I’ve also noticed that if we wait for our daughter’s sleepy cues, it’s too late. I think kids who fight sleep, often don’t show them until they’re on the verge of a second wind. I’ve tried to notice when she tends to look sleepy, and then I try to get her in bed about 15 minutes before that.

If she starts rubbing her eyes or yawning, we have an easier time if we skip routine and just go right to bed.

A: It sounds like a second wind and an over-tired kiddo.

Instead of trying to manipulate your nap and bedtime, how about waking earlier? Then naptime can be moved sooner and bedtime as well.

Also when my child has a difficult time getting to sleep, we go into complete quiet time. There is no verbal communicating other than a soothing “ssshhhhh” sound. Lights are out, and white noise is on.

Another thing I recommend is keeping a journal of your days and sleep patterns for a couple weeks and see if there are any patterns with the easy nights and the rough ones. Some children react this way due to food sensitivities, changes in routine and other external factors that are not always apparent until we begin to notice a pattern.

Adding another child…it will get easier, it will get better

The biggest struggles I see from mothers in my API Support Group have to do with the addition of a second or third child.

Whether it’s an older child having difficulty adjusting to the new baby, or the mom herself struggling to meet everyone’s needs, our API group meetings frequently come back to this topic and to the guilt surrounding it.

This certainly has been the biggest issue for me. I have three children, all born two years apart, and I’ve learned that meeting the needs of multiple children at the same time is often impossible. Because of that, it can be hard to feel like I’m staying attached enough to each of them.

Some of it is simply trying to figure out how do multiple things at the same time. Like when I’m cooking pasta for my 4-year-old but my baby wants to nurse, and I can’t ignore the boiling water or the hungry baby. Or when my 2-year-old is having a tantrum and needs me to sit with him while he works through his big emotions, but my tired baby needs me to walk with her to help her fall asleep. Or when I’ve finally gotten my baby to sleep and I want to lie down as well, but one of my boys wants me to read to him and the other wants me to play with him.

And with all of that, there are feelings of guilt. To have to prioritize your children’s needs is beyond difficult. Someone is not going to be able to come first. Someone is going to have to wait. Someone is going to have to cry sometimes.

With my first son, I was able to meet all his needs quickly and without any distractions. If he cried, I could pick him up immediately. Now, with my third baby, there are times when she has to wait. Generally her needs are the most important, but sometimes, like when her brothers have collided and one has a bloody mouth, I can’t respond to her first. To have to put your baby’s needs to the side when you believe so strongly in picking up a crying baby is so hard.

After my second son was born, my older son had a hard adjustment and would hit his baby brother. So often I felt guilty for taking time away from him to attend to his brother, especially because I could see how the addition of a new baby was affecting him.

I made an effort to have as much one-on-one time with him as possible, especially by using my baby’s naptime as a special time for my older son and me. I also had to acknowledge that it was no longer going to be the way it once was, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

Around that time, I read about how we often feel like we’re taking something away from our oldest child by adding another child, but in reality, we’re giving them something: a sibling. We’re giving them someone with whom they’ll have a relationship like no other.

And it’s true.

My son who started out hating his little brother is now his best friend, and it’s amazing to watch. Sure, they still fight sometimes and they always will. They are brothers, after all! But they also play together, take care of each other and clearly love each other.

It took at least the first year for things to get easier for us. I try to remind myself of that now that I’m in the same situation with another new baby. I have to keep telling myself: It will get easier. It will get better. Your children know you love them. You are doing great.

We can do this in our sleep!

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Oct. 14, 2008, but so many parents through the years since and in the future can relate well to its message.

Nighttime has confronted us with some of the most challenging parenting moments we’ve faced so far, but being present for our now 14-month-old daughter at 3:00 in the morning is just as important as it is at any more reasonable hour.

Though it isn’t always as easy, or as pleasant, as engaging her in a silly song, or reading Counting Kisses again, she doesn’t stop needing us when the sun goes down.

Our nighttime parenting has evolved in response to our daughter’s needs — and our fumbling attempts to meet them.

The day she was born, she never left our arms until after midnight, when we laid her carefully in the plastic bassinet the hospital provided before turning in ourselves. As we gazed down at our brand-new baby girl, she spit up a little — and we froze at the terrifying idea that she could choke while we slept.

Without further ado, I scooped her up and climbed into the bed, where she slept in my arms, nursing on and off the rest of the night.

When we brought her home the next day, we carefully attached an Arm’s Reach Cosleeper to our bed, eager for her to sleep close to us. We were aware of the benefits of sleeping in close proximity from reading Dr. Sears’ resources — including decreased risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) — and the Cosleeper made us feel more comfortable about sleeping next to a newborn.

But the first time we lowered our sleeping infant onto its thin mattress, she awoke immediately, howling in protest. We tried again, gently easing her from our bodies to this space where we had intended for her to sleep, but she made it clear she had other ideas.

And so the Cosleeper was relegated to serving as a makeshift nightstand, until its eventual relocation to the storage units Boise, and we began the process of trying to determine how to help our baby sleep.

As a newborn, she slept best semi-upright on our chests. When she was 5 weeks old, we discovered she was suffering from reflux, which explained her profound discomfort at lying flat on her back. But even after she outgrew the reflux at about 4 months, we still couldn’t seem to coax her to sleep for any significant length of time.

We made sure she wore comfortable PJs, was clean and dry, and had a belly full of breastmilk before bedtime each night. We tried putting her down in her crib and in her swing, with white noise and without, swaddled and unswaddled, on her back and on her side, with the nightlight on and off. And each time, about an hour after she succumbed to sleep, she’d wake and we would go try again.

We also tried cosleeping, hopeful that being close to us would provide her some comfort, but found that such proximity only stimulated her to fight sleep in order to nurse frantically all night. I awoke more than once to a find a puddle of my milk pooled under her head. So we’d try variations of other arrangements again, which would allow her to sleep more peacefully, if not for long.

We didn’t expect her to sleep through the night at 6 weeks, or even 6 months, understanding that night-waking is normal. We were more than willing to attend to her in the wee hours, and I was happy to nurse her more than once overnight.

But months of hourly — and occasionally more frequent — waking was wearing us down. Frustrated and exhausted, we stumbled through our days and nights, and desperately searched books on baby sleep for a solution. The mainstream consensus was clear: Our baby should be sleeping through the night by now, and if she wasn’t, we should “help” her by leaving her to cry it out.

We considered that advice but quickly concluded that cry-it-out methods weren’t compatible with the Attachment Parenting approach in which we believed.

Editor’s note: Parents, especially first-timers who are overwhelmed by the conflicting advice of well-meaning family members, doctors and popular parenting sources, need research-based safety information to help them make decisions for their family. Attachment Parenting International (API), in consultation with many experts in the area of infant sleep, has this information in the form of an Infant Sleep Safety Guidelines brochure and wants to get it into the hands of parents everywhere to ensure that all babies can be safe during sleep, at night and at naptime, regardless of whether you share sleep in the same bed, use a cosleeping bassinet, or use a crib.

At some point, we accepted that there probably wasn’t a silver bullet for our sleep struggles. The answer to the question of what to do for our daughter, a restless sleeper with high nocturnal needs, was simple and one we’d known all along: When she cried, we would respond. Every time.

Sometimes I nursed her as soon as she stirred. Sometimes her Dada snuggled with her or patted her bum softly until she drifted back into slumber. We continued to bring her into our bed, and finally, one night when she was almost 11 months old, she finished nursing, rolled over and went to sleep. It was the first night she’d actually slept next to me without nursing for a few hours, and she hasn’t been back in her crib since.

Cosleeping feels right for us.

Though she still stirs often throughout the night, just being beside us seems to lengthen each stretch of snooze. Finally we can comfort her without waking ourselves! And when she does arouse, if she isn’t easily soothed back to sleep, she nestles next to me and nurses, and we doze off together again.

Of course there are nights when we find ourselves exasperated at the fact that we haven’t enjoyed a night of unbroken sleep for over a year, but we are committed to giving her our presence even when it isn’t easy to do so. And when the sun comes up on her sweet face between my husband and me, I wouldn’t want any of us to be anywhere else.

Disclaimer: API urges parents to use good sense regarding the safety of their children. API publishes this information knowing that parents are engaged in the use of cribs and cosleeping in all its forms, and as such, API is committed to keeping children safe and healthy by providing the most current safety information available. API, its Support Groups, its sponsors and its partners assume no liability in the event of infant, child or parent harm and are held harmless from any harm, loss or legal arising from information they provide.

2 paths to adulthood…which will your teen take?

Raising teenagers is a frustrating business.

We are not sure how much freedom to give them or how much responsibility they can handle. We try to set limits, but we get lost in dealing with their defiance and counterwill. We are not sure when rebellion is healthy or when it is a sign of a deeper problem.

Interacting with them is confusing. Sometimes they behave like young children, yet at other times they seem adult-like.

One thing is clear: We have a responsibility to help them cross the bridge from childhood to adulthood successfully.

Crossing this bridge has become a much longer and more arduous journey than ever before. In traditional societies, this bridge was quite short, as children moved directly into the adult world, marrying at a young age and integrating into their family’s farm or business, and community. Today young people have many more options to choose from.

For the first time in human history, there is a youth culture that has its own codes, dress and behaviors, setting it even farther apart from the adult world. As a result, there are many ways of getting stuck or falling off the bridge to adulthood.

Dr. Gordon Neufeld explains that nature has provided two paths to adulthood:

The first path is the master blueprint of maturation. This is the ideal path, but it is more difficult and less traveled.

This is the path to true maturation, where the adolescent discovers his true individuality and personhood. He has an explosion of awareness as he begins to think conceptually, reflectively and idealistically. He experiences the conflict and complexity of reality as he struggles to define his boundaries, priorities, values and goals. This path prepares him for integrating into society without losing his own true self.

It is exciting to see this remarkable and unique person emerge, discovering his own meanings and purpose in life!

The second path is nature’s back-up plan. This is the road of conformity, the detour to adulthood.

Culture pushes the adolescent towards this path when it is concerned about more about fitting into society. The child “learns” how he is supposed to behave, and he takes on the form that others prescribe for him. His energy is invested in conforming rather than in discovering himself.

This is an acceptable way to reach adulthood, but it’s at the expense of the child’s true human potential.

Our role is to support our children’s journey on the path of maturation, all the way through the years of adolescence. We need to provide the right context — the right womb, metaphorically — for the birth of our adolescent’s own personhood. This context or womb gives us the ability to influence, guide and strengthen values. It creates a connection at the heart level and frees the spirit of the adolescent.

We need to provide them with times of meaningful involvement with us, so they can feel how important they are to us. We need to listen to their thoughts, ideas and opinions about how they understand the world. We need to initiate quiet walks together, meal times together and warm conversations with each other without the distractions of electronic devices.

We need to nurture this connection and make it easy for our teenagers to continue orienting to us, as they navigate the experiences in their lives that are often characterized by high drama, social confusion and immature perspective.

This vital connection also provides the context for another essential component of becoming an independent-thinking individual: creative solitude. In a world filled with social pressure and the never-ending distraction of smart phones, what’s up, and Facebook, we need to ensure islands of quiet space so our teenagers can explore their own ideas, interests, aspirations and creativity. Emergent energy can spring forth in this context.

We play a pivotal role in determining which path to adulthood our adolescents will travel — the path to true maturation or the path to conformity.

We live in a culture that believes teenagers need to separate from their parents in order to become independent. The opposite is true.

Teenagers have the best chance of becoming truly independent and responsible when they can depend on their parents and other caring adults to provide safe, secure and deep attachment through all the years of growing up.

Our story of adoption and Attachment Parenting

“I love you.”

Three little words that I whisper into their small ears throughout the day. I look into their eyes and say, “You are special and strong.”

A few years ago, my husband and I met our first son in a crowded, busy hospital lobby. He was just 3 days old. His dark eyes peaked out from under his hospital cap and mesmerized us. It was a long ride home, but once we were there, we held him close and rarely let him go.

After a few years, we were ready to grow our family again and were overjoyed to meet our second son, 2 days old, several states away.

It is difficult to imagine our lives without these boys or the connections we have with their birth mothers and first families.

Families formed through adoption sometimes face challenges in understanding, communicating and connecting with one another. Prenatal stressors, trauma of separation and hardships endured in first families can affect our children and how they respond to us and the world around them.

My husband and I realized fairly soon after adopting our first son that we needed to parent differently than a lot of friends and acquaintances around us. For example, nighttime cry-it-out methods, unfamiliar babysitters for parents’ night out and even the use of timeout for perceived misbehavior were not going to work for us.

We were navigating the adoption realm and still trying to figure out what was right for us as parents and for our children. As I read and studied about parenting approaches, I learned about Attachment Parenting and discovered that this model seemed to support our parenting goals by encouraging connection with our children while communicating love, safety and respect.

Forming a strong attachment with our sons became our goal, and before long, we were busy savoring skin-to-skin moments among other elements of Attachment Parenting.

When our first son was about 6 months old, we found our cosleeping groove and ability to connect throughout the night. We have been bedsharing ever since and now have both of our sons with us overnight. Cosleeping helps foster a bond between my sons and I that wasn’t necessarily formed in the womb but can be made strong now as it allows us to relax, sense and trust one another.

As our boys get older, we are constantly learning and looking for resources that will foster our parenting skills and allow us to maintain connection while trying to understand how our children are feeling.

So now when my 3 year old cries, throws himself on the ground and refuses to comply with whatever I have just asked of him, I have tools beyond threatening words or actions that will let him know that he is safe, his feelings are valid and heard, and I am going to work with him to find resolution.

Along the way we have had to make lifestyle changes that affect our personal social lives. Not everyone understands why we parent this way, and that is okay. We parent in the best way we can for our boys.

For us, that means striving for a connected family. Attachment Parenting International‘s Eight Principles of Parenting support us in raising confident children…purposefully connected and loved within our family.

Preparing for pregnancy the second time around

Before my first pregnancy, I spent months exercising, eating right, going to acupuncture and taking vitamins. I felt really on top of things.

Then I got pregnant and was blindsided by terrible morning sickness. Then I had a miscarriage. Then I got pregnant again. Basically I threw up every day for a year. It was seriously not fun.

Now, I’m getting to ready to add a second child to our family, and my goals have changed. Last time, my only concern was a healthy pregnancy. Now, I also need to be a good parent to an active toddler while I’m pregnant.

While I’m worried about no longer being able to nap under my desk, I also feel like this time I have a better idea of what pregnancy is like. Here’s what I’m doing differently now that I know what to expect:

Exercise

Before my first pregnancy, I had a regular yoga practice. Now, most of my exercise comes from chasing a toddler around.

While I’m trying to prioritize working out, a daily 90-minute yoga session is not in the cards. Instead, I’m focusing on specific muscle groups.

I’m using pilates to work my core and pelvic floor, which really take a beating during pregnancy.

I’m also working my shoulder muscles. I had a lot of shoulder pain with my first baby from constantly picking her up and holding her, so much so that I ended up in physical therapy. By working my shoulders with resistance bands, I’m strengthening my muscles to prevent overtaxing them later.

Nutrition

I’m still breastfeeding my 2 year old, so I’m trying to eat healthy, nutrient-dense foods.

Before my daughter was born, I never drank coffee. Now, I need a cup in the mornings to get going. Before my first pregnancy I would have obsessed over this. Now I’m letting it go, since the amount of caffeine is well within the range considered safe and I’ll be better able to parent my daughter with the extra energy.

The importance of prenatal vitamins is common knowledge, and I started taking them long before I got pregnant. But once I was pregnant, I threw up every time I took one. This time, I researched vitamins that minimize nausea.

I also researched supplements, like milk thistle, that may minimize morning sickness.

Lifestyle

During my first pregnancy, I tried to minimize stress, which at the time was pretty easy. Now, my life has changed a lot — as a mom, I’m basically on-call all the time.

So I’m using my limited free time to multitask, doing things that will both relax me and hopefully prepare my body for an easier pregnancy. This includes chiropractic care, rolfing sessions and pilates classes to open my hips, correct my posture to help with back pain and get in better shape so I have more energy and endurance for my family.

I’m also spending more time stepping back and observing my daughter. It is such a joy to watch her play more independently as she gets older. And now she’ll be used to me lying on the couch while she plays!

Preparing for another pregnancy is definitely more complicated, because I have more than one child to consider. But knowing what pregnancy and the postpartum period are like have helped me target my efforts towards specific goals. Hopefully this will make the transition to a family of four easier for all of us.

How was your second pregnancy different from your first? Did you do anything different to prepare?

Parents need to be the compass point

It’s normal to worry about how our children will turn out in the future. Will they accept the values and ideals that we want to pass on to them? Will they follow the path we hope they will take? Is there a formula or method that will assure us of these things?

There are no guarantees, but there are many things we can do to influence the outcome of our parenting. We could dedicate an entire book to this topic, but in this short space, we can highlight one important factor. This factor needs to be considered carefully, because it used to be taken for granted. It was a given in traditional cultures, but in modern society, it is less available.

This factor is the place of parents in their children’s lives.

I’m using the word “place” instead of authority, because “authority” has become overused and misinterpreted. Parents are told to be more authoritative, while at the same time, our culture is severely undermining parental authority.

Here’s one small example of how this happens: A mother recently told me that she met with her son’s teacher, guidance counselor and school psychologist. She wanted to explain that it was important that her son’s teachers develop a caring relationship with him. When she explained to them what her son needed, their response was, “You’re only the mother.”

In other words, “We are the professionals who know best what students need.”

In the past several years, there has been a groundswell of professionals — psychologists, psychiatrists, consultants and therapists — to take care of children’s “problems.” The attitude that professionals can assess and take care of children better than parents has weakened parents’ confidence in themselves as the answer to their children’s psychological, emotional and spiritual needs.

The attachment village, at one time, was more easily available for parents and children. It was the parents’ place to introduce their children to other adults who supported the family’s values. When the parent could depend on these adults, the child could be securely attached to all the adults in his life.

When a child’s attachments are disconnected from each other, the child can’t orient to both his parents and to other adults who serve as the parents’ support system. This also makes it more likely for the child to attach to other children instead of to adults, and then look to these children for direction.

This has a direct impact on our influence to pass on our values and ideals to our children, when they are young and even more so when they are teenagers. The assumption that teenagers need to separate from their parents in order to find their individuality is false, and well-meaning adults easily assume that teenagers need friends more than their parents.

Parents need to be the compass point for their teenagers no less than for their younger children.

Parents can do three things to reclaim their rightful place in the lives of their children:

Assume responsibility to be your child’s compass point, guide, comforter and safe home base. You may not have all the answers, but it is more important to believe that you are the answer for your child, because no one cares as much as you do.
Provide your child with secure and deep attachment, and continue to protect and nurture this relationship during all the years your child is growing up. This will give him the context he needs to internalize your values while he is developing more maturity and finding his own reasons to believe in these values.
Make room for your child to express his own thoughts, ideas, opinions, questions and feelings. This will give him the room he needs within the relationship to become his own person. Listening to him without judgment will open discussions that give you a window into what he is exposed to and what he thinks about it.

This gives you the influence you need while helping him cross the bridge from childhood to adulthood.

Playing together

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on October 10, 2008, but its message about the importance of presence is as timely today as then.

By Tara, Feels Like Home

I have a secret.

I am a mom’s group drop out. I researched for months and found a local playgroup so that my daughter and I could meet some local moms and kids. I joined, paid my dues and then I flunked out. They didn’t ask me to leave or ban me from membership. I just stopped going. I didn’t fit in.

The problem wasn’t the other mothers or the other kids. The problem is that I’d rather play with my daughter than sit and chat with the other moms.

My own mother thinks I’m weird.

I’m one of those play-on-the-floor moms. I’m not only tuned in to what my toddler is doing, but I want to be a part of it. I zoom the trucks around and read books and make the animals’ noises. I talk and squeal with her while we play. The other moms at our playgroup supervise their kids, but they don’t participate in the play. I join in.

When I’m out in public with my daughter, other adults often offer me a seat because I sit down on the floor. I never take it. I’d rather sit on the floor and play with my toddler. No matter where we are, we play with the toys. I chase her, and she chases me. I point out objects in the room and in pictures and books. We have fun, and we’re usually more than a little raucous.

I love every minute of it, and her laughter, hugs and kisses tell me that she loves it, too.

For me, being present in my daughter’s life isn’t the same as being in the same room at the same time. It’s not about watching her play. Being present, to me, is playing together, being involved with her thoughts and actions, and actively communicating with her.

As she grows up, I hope my daughter will recognize that I would do anything to spend more time with her. I hope she remembers what a happy toddler she was and the times we sat on the floor or in the grass and played.

I doubt that she’ll remember, but I know I’ll never forget.

Even if she doesn’t recall the moments or the days, my daughter will remember feeling loved and adored and knowing that she commanded my full attention. She’ll remember the way she felt when I tickled her belly or pushed her in the swing and how she was important enough to be the center of my world.

I know that all parents don’t enjoy playing on the floor. Whether you do or you don’t, you can still be present in your children’s lives. You can create moments they’ll remember. Let them be the center of your attention. Make them special breakfasts or desserts. Don’t just sit in the same room: Get involved. Draw together. Talk. Play a game. Enjoy their toys together.

You will never regret the time you spent being present in their lives.