Provide Consistent & Loving Care – Page 31

What on earth were we thinking? (Part 1 of series on preparing for baby #2)

Panic.

Complete panic.

It’s 3:00am. I’m 30 weeks pregnant. My 2 year old son wakes up again and wants Mommy. I nurse him back to sleep, get up to pee again (pregnant bladder) and try to find a comfortable position to sleep where my huge belly is neither making me uncomfortable nor in danger of being kicked by a restless toddler.

What on earth were we thinking?

What the hell am I going to do when a newborn and a toddler both have nighttime needs?

Were we wrong to want another baby when our boy was still so much a baby himself? Should we have listened to “mainstream” parenting advice and pushed him away, made him independent, toughened him up? Continue reading “What on earth were we thinking? (Part 1 of series on preparing for baby #2)”

Stepping Out

My 14 month old kicks her feet against the table and makes a deafening screech while reaching for her Daddy’s beverage at the restaurant. As he allows her to have a sip of his drink, I look around to see how many fellow diners are tsk tsking our choice to allow our baby to drink what they must think is SODA! I have the overwhelming urge to announce “It’s only unsweetened iced tea…really. She never has soda, I swear.” But that would not be entirely true and besides, now our five year old is loudly promising to eat the rest of her pasta and veggies after she eats all of the french fries…she promises. The floor is covered in the crushed remains of the fire roasted zucchini and rice pilaf dish we ordered for the baby…her grinning mouth is dripping and bubbling with ice tea, not one single piece of food has passed her lips. I eat my (now cold) food with one hand (not my dominant one) while liberally applying even more ketchup to my daughters fries. My husband is fishing ice out of his cup with a fork to entice the baby with since the tea is now gone and the she is gearing up for another screech fest. Did I mention that our teenager ordered nothing but appetizers and is sulking in the corner of the booth because I went ahead and surreptitiously ordered her a salad and had the gall to ask her to please put some green food in her body before loading it with junk? The single thought running through my head is: If they eat this junky stuff, then everyone in the restaurant will assume that they eat like this all of the time…and that I let them do it! Continue reading “Stepping Out”

Part-Time Co-Sleeping

In my almost five years as a mom, I’ve been lucky to avoid most of the controversial issues that pit parents against one another. I received mostly positive reinforcement and reactions over my decisions to breastfeed, stay at home, use discipline other than spanking, return to work part-time, wait an additional year to send my son to kindergarten and avoid processed foods.

Obviously, I’ve met those along the way that disagree with me and my methods, but for the most part, they’ve been respectful of our differences.

Respectful, that is, except for the issue of co-sleeping.

My husband and I have co-slept with both kids at some point. Our son and the two of us in our bed, or one of us and our son in his bed. Me on the couch with our daughter, or her in the bed with my husband, or even all three of us in our queen size bed when she was a days old newborn. My son was just two years old when my second baby was born, and had stopped napping. It took my daughter eight weeks to sort out the difference between night and day and she wanted to nurse approximately every 27 minutes. Having her in the bed with us was the only was I got any sleep. And I feel that I am spoiling her cause last week when I happened to visit the SleepSoWell website, I happened to read a ton about the best Egyptian cotton sheets and got them. Now our little one only loves sleeping on them.

It worked for us, but when people found out we were co-sleeping, the reactions were definitely negative. One person called it “unnatural.” Someone else said “weird.” I also heard “gross,” and “unacceptable.” One person went as far to tell my husband that under NO circumstances should our son be in our bed. Plenty of people have offered their advice for how to “get that kid out of your bed.”

They are two and four now and I’m still no closer to understanding why so many people have such a problem with co-sleeping, or why they think we do it reluctantly instead of purposely.

There’s more. I wish the detractors would understand one simple thing: co-sleeping doesn’t have to be an all or nothing deal.

My family are what I call part-time co-sleepers. We do it when it works for us, and we don’t do it when it doesn’t. If one of the kids is sick or not sleeping well or needs comforting, we share a bed. If my spouse or myself need some space or the kids are happy, healthy and sleeping well, they sleep in their own beds.

They do share a room, although they are in separate beds and I do feel that that has helped make our choice to part-time co-sleep easier. Room sharing has it’s pros and it’s cons, but that’s another post.

Each morning, when my son wakes up, he comes down the hall and if I’m still in bed, he climbs in with me and we snuggle. It’s my favorite part of the day.

More often than not, these days the kids sleep in their beds in their room, but the frequency of co-sleeping has waxed and waned over the years.

Part-time co-sleeping has been the perfect way for us to find balance between two extremes. On one hand, I like to sleep sometimes without little feet digging into my ribs and having the kids in the bed with us all the time is too intrusive. On the other hand, making my children always sleep away from us, in their own beds and ignoring the benefits of co-sleeping is an idea that makes me uncomfortable and isn’t the right choice for us either. By choosing the middle ground and doing a little of both, we’ve arranged things so our number one priority is met–everyone is happy.

How do you feel about part-time co-sleeping? Has it worked for you?

The Right Stuff

I will admit to being extremely susceptible to all types of marketing. Cell phone camera doesn’t have a flash! Hair dye has glimmering highlights! Chicken at the farmers’ market is locally sourced and fed an organic vegetarian diet! Statements like these make me forget so, so easily that I don’t take pictures with my cell phone (except for when the baby or kitten’s momentary cuteness needs to be captured for posterity), that I don’t want to dye my hair while I’m nursing, and that like my feathered friends, I’m a vegetarian. With my incapability to resist ads in mind, it is remarkable that we have yet to buy the majority of the products that have been marketed to us as not only convenient, but totally necessary and also capable of turning us into the Swedish supermodel parents Sweet Pea deserves. Continue reading “The Right Stuff”

Who’s the Boss?

Like most people I know, I spent my adolescence longing for true independence. Though my parents certainly weren’t oppressive, I was always anxious to assume control of my own life. I wanted to decide for myself, everything from whether to become a vegetarian, to what I wanted to do with my Saturday afternoon or when I wanted to go to bed. Adulthood, even with all its responsibilities, was freedom; finally, I was my own boss. Eventually, I partnered with an amazing man, and together we took charge of our new life. Six years later, I gave birth to our baby girl . . . and was instantly demoted.

Meet the new boss. After only 21 months on the job, she’s shaken things up quite a bit at our place. So much for deciding for myself when I wanted to go to bed. These days, plans often don’t proceed – well, as I planned – because the youngest person in our family has different ideas. And more often than not, when such conflicts arise, we defer to our daughter. (Within reason and safety permitting, of course.)

Continue reading “Who’s the Boss?”

Super Mom Retires

When I was a younger mommy and parenting my first two children, I worried a lot about whether I was meeting expectations. Of course, my first priority was my children and their well-being, but right after that was making sure that I gave the impression of being confident, completely competent, and like I was the type of mom who could do it all. I adhered to the belief that I could have clean, well-dressed, well-behaved children who were a joy, all while being perfectly coiffed, stylishly dressed and madly successful. All I had to do was work hard enough, put in enough effort, and always be doing something. I could have it all.

It makes me tired now just to write that. Continue reading “Super Mom Retires”

Trial by fire

When my son, my husband and I came home from the hospital, my husband had to make an emergency run to get the foul-tasting supplement Poly Vi Sol, as well as a canister of formula. What business do I have on API Speaks? My son, Peter Gwydion, was born at 28 weeks gestation due to my developing severe preeclampsia. Instead of a third trimester filled with belly casts and pregnancy photos that ended with a beautiful homebirth, we spent two months living in an apartment an hour and a half away from our home while Gwyn worked hard in the NICU.

Continue reading “Trial by fire”

Power No-Struggles

Right on schedule, around his second birthday, my son began practicing the word No. I read that kids use no as a way to individuate and to experiment with their personal power. The more attached they are, the more they need to individuate. Well, we were mighty attached because he started saying No frequently. I wasn’t used to our having such different agendas. If I ever felt myself getting frustrated or impatient, I would play Yes No. He would say, “No” and I would shake my head while also saying “No.” Then I would say, “Yes” and nod vigorously. We’d go back and forth until we were distracted from our original difference of opinion and were just playing a game.

Now, we play Yes No without ever having had a conflict to begin with. Cavanaugh looks at me and starts shaking his head. I shake mine. He starts nodding. I nod too. It’s fun, looking into each others’ eyes to watch for a direction shift, mimicking each other and taking turns leading the nod/shake action. Cavanaugh often initiates the game on days when we’ve been busy with activities and haven’t had a lot of alone quiet time with each other. It allows us to reconnect and having Yes No in reserve for those times when I feel us getting into a power struggle is a nice tool too.

Besides Yes No, we play variations of Kisses. A couple of months ago, Cavanaugh started refusing my kisses or I would give him a kiss and he’d wipe it off his cheek, “No kisses, Mama.” It turned out the kisses weren’t actually a problem for him; he liked getting them. He was just experimenting with body boundaries and whether he could say Stop or Go and have me follow his lead. So, I’d stop kissing his cheek and then he’d say, “More” and I’d kiss him some more. He giggled liked crazy and our original game has turned into Kiss Variations. Eskimo kisses with nose rubs turned to cheeks against each other, or chins. All of it accomplishes the same goal though: much fun and laughter, a lot of nurturing touch, and Cavanaugh getting to set boundaries and experiment with his personal power.

At an age when I was led to believe we’d be fighting or I’d be trying to hide my embarrassment during a two-year-olds tantrum at the store, both of us are experimenting with setting limits. Do you have any suggestions for dealing with the power struggles that inevitably come up between parents and toddlers?

Sonya Feher is a writer and mama living in Austin, Texas. She blogs at http://mamatrue.com .