Dear Sprout,
Just a few days ago, we celebrated your third birthday. You are no longer a baby and will be leaving toddlerdom behind soon. You became a big brother a few months ago, will be attending preschool in the fall, and just went to your first day of summer camp. I think both of us are feeling a bit bittersweet these days.
One of the biggest fears when I was pregnant with my second child was that I wasn’t going to love him as much as my first. And of course, people say, “Oh, I was afraid of it, but it just wasn’t true. I loved the second so much as soon as I saw their face.” Well, that hasn’t been entirely true for me. But upon reflection, I realized that it wasn’t such a bad thing. I write about why in a post on the Huffington Post: Why I Love My First Child More than my Second (For Now).
I love my firstborn more than my second.
I love my second and expect to love him just as much as my first – someday. Just not yet.
My second child was born just six weeks ago. Like all newborns, he eats, sleeps and poops. I’ve spent most of my time since then soothing him, nursing him, and reading. I just can’t gaze at my baby for hours on end.
“I want daddy.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Really? You don’t want me to give you a bath?” My voice cracks.
“No, I want Daddy for bath. Daddy, give mommy [Little Bird],” my older son insists.
Sigh. “I’ll give him his bath,” my husband acquiesces and hands me the baby.
I watch as my almost three-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) ambles over to the bathroom, where I usually need to drag him. I’ve always been the one to put him to bed, only relinquishing it to my husband on the rare occasion I’m out of the house. My husband follows him, pulling my son’s monster towel out of the closet on the way.
I didn’t expect it to be like this.
Our little family is in a rough patch.
The sleep deprivation from being up for 30 minutes or (usually) more several times a night is starting to deeply affect me. Last night, there was barely an hour between when I would put Little Bird down and when he would start crying again. While I was running on adrenaline and optimism immediately after he was born, that’s faded. In the middle of the night, I’ve occasionally dozed off, awakening to the fear that I could have dropped him. While I blew through a couple of books in the beginning, I’m now too exhausted to do anything but check my social media over and over again in a soul sucking spiral. In the morning, I wake up with a sinus headache and a serious fog that I never really shake. I’ve had an on again, off again fever over the past two days.
“You’re going to be a big brother!” I told my son (nicknamed Sprout) when he was almost three years old. “That means I’m going to have a baby.” He shrugged and went on his merry way.
Telling him was the easy part. Getting him ready was the challenge. I’m an only child, so the personal aspect of having a sibling was pretty foreign. Chris has a younger sister, but he doesn’t even remember her being born.
To prepare, we looked into advice on the internet, took suggestions from other families, and thought about what we would want if we were a little kid facing this big change.
Thankfully, following these ideas really did help. Almost two years on, our kids have a great relationship. While they shove and complain, they also show incredible generosity to each other. One of my favorite things to watch is when
Here’s some of the best advice we gathered, along with how we applied it:
Sleep has never come easily for my son. As a newborn, he wouldn’t sleep during the day unless he was held. The moment just before his body touched the crib, his eyes would flutter open and he’d start crying. (“Sleep when the baby sleeps,” my ass.) He was seven months old the first time he slept through the night and over a year by the time he did so consistently. And that was only after a couple of traumatic evenings for all involved. In toddlerhood, he often sings and talks to his animals for a full hour before drifting off. But lately, there’s been a significant shift for the worse.
None of this is particularly unexpected, considering my family history. Both Chris and I are night owls, as is my mom and his dad. I had night terrors as a kid, my mom had childhood nighttime seizures, and my dad sleepwalked until he was in his mid-20s. While it would be surprising if Sprout didn’t have any sleep issues, it doesn’t make them less exasperating.
In the last year, we thought we had made peace with his sleep schedule. Sure, he stayed up way past his 8:30 bedtime, but considering he wakes up past 7 pm and still takes naps, he got plenty of sleep. As he’s a bit of an introvert, it seemed like that time provided him the private, wind-down space he needed. It’s not like we had a way to force him to fall asleep anyway.
But in the last few weeks, our structure has gone to hell. The first thing to go was our bedtime routine. Normally, it goes: finish dinner, take bath, jump on our bed, get into PJs, read books, brush teeth, have a short conversation about the day, and say goodnight. Each part provides a balance between the boring bits (washing, brushing teeth) and the fun ones (jumping on our bed, reading).
While the routine has a lot of transitions, they only recently became an issue. Sprout has managed to found ways to extend and delay every one of them. From sitting in the tub long after the water has been drained to sprinting away every chance he gets, our bedtime routine has gone from 45 minutes to over an hour. Sometimes his delaying even starts before dinner, when he puts up a giant fuss about washing his hands. Shifting between activities has become increasingly difficult, but if we skip any of them – even allowing him to turn off the lights – there’s a melt-down as well.
The earlier the resistance starts, the more likely there is to be a snowball effect. Just when I think I’ve gotten him all chill, he remembers a grave injustice from 10 minutes earlier and gets upset all over again. All of my tricks from Happiest Toddler on the Block that used to work, like repeating what he’s upset about or promising it in fantasy, just piss him off more. There’s a constant sense of “What the hell is going to upset him this time and how do we deal with it?”
Tonight was a perfect example. Sprout was smiles and giggles until we wanted him to actually do his five jumps on the bed. (We would be fine with skipping them, but he would not.) We got to jump three when he randomly spit up some stomach crud. Chris turned our Green Bay Packers blanket over so that he didn’t jump in vomit, which meant the “Big G” was backwards. This was completely and utterly unacceptable to Sprout. He started crying and refused to jump. Both suggesting he’d do his final jump or skip jumps altogether elicited screams from him.
We finally carried him off the bed, where the angst continued on the changing table for several more minutes. I requested Chris intervene, hoping a change of scenery would help. It didn’t, although I avoided getting kicked hard in my pregnant belly while trying to put a diaper and pajamas on a flailing toddler. The rest of the evening alternated between him loudly expressing his displeasure, saying “I want a hug,” and sitting on my lap with his face in my shoulder. At 9 PM, I placed him in his crib, where I left after 10 minutes of urging him to lie down. Of course, this set off a new round of crying.
After running that obstacle course, all I want to do for the rest of the night is collapse on the couch. Lately, I’ve really wished that came with a glass of wine, but pregnancy has limited my indulgences to chocolate, ice cream, and decaf tea.
Previously, we were safe once he was calm in his crib. But now the resistance has extended far past his official bedtime. Recently, he’s taken to yelling “Mommy mommy mommy” from behind his closed door, sometimes for good reasons (like because he pooped) and sometimes for bad or pointless ones (like telling me “[Sprout] likes basketball” or asking me to tuck him in when he’s chosen to stand up). S
Sometimes it’s between the two. The other night, I went in after his “Mommy, mommy, mommy” suddenly became more intense. I found a bed full of ice cubes and the top to his water cup on the floor. “It’s broken,” he pointed out. I blinked, noticed that his toys were all at the other end of the bed, and asked, “Did you do this on purpose?” He responded, “No. Yes. Took top off and dumped all over.” At least he was honest!
If I was a stay-at-home mom, these bedtime issues would just be the crummy topping on the challenges of being home all day. But at least I would have the rest of the day – when he’s usually good-natured – to look back on.
Instead, this struggle becomes the majority of my weekday interactions with him. I have a fairly long commute, so I’m home at 6:15 PM at the earliest. That gives me maybe 45 minutes of playtime, dinner, and then the constant balancing act of bedtime. I don’t want to give in – and am often incapable of doing what he wants – but I hate both of us being miserable during what should be special time together.
So it just makes me feel like a crappy parent. Because of my commute, we can’t put him to bed earlier without sacrificing time together. Even though I honestly don’t think it’s over-tiredness, I still worry that it’s my fault somehow.
It’s especially frustrating because it reinforces all my worries about having a second kid. I guess it’s good that he’s still willing to stay in his crib and not climbing out, but it makes me even more concerned that he’ll start climbing out at the worst possible time. Furthermore, I’m already anxious about not having enough of my emotional energy to go around and then Sprout finds a way to drain it further. Because he was such a fussy sleeper, I worry that he’s going to wake up his brother and then his brother will start crying and then Sprout will start crying and then no one will ever get any sleep ever again.
I know like all things Kid, that this is a phase. I just really hope that it passes sooner rather than later.
Any suggestions for making bedtime go smoother?
In my late 20s, years seemed slip together, distinguished mainly by what vacations I took or other special events. But as a parent, the transition from one year to the next feels much weighter, with time measured in huge milestones in your child’s life. While I usually reflect on major milestones on Sprout’s birthday, I liked Mommy’s Shorts reflections on her six year old for New Years. Plus, Chris and I were just reflecting about how much Sprout has changed over the last year.
This year, Sprout learned to –
Talk and actually have conversations: At the beginning of the year, he had a handful of words, with his communication virtually all non-verbal. After his language explosion just before his second birthday, he had a much bigger vocabulary, but still lacked the grammar and understanding to put it together. But in the last six months, he’s turned into a little conversationalist. He can tell you a bit about his day, narrate what someone else is going to do (we got a multi-part explanation of Chris pouring his cereal this morning), and describe the plot of a book. He even makes jokes, which at least he thinks are hilarious. Before his bedtime, we always ask each other what our favorite thing was that day. Invariably, he answers, “My favorite thing was going to the park,” even when he knows perfectly well we didn’t go to the park that day. When we reply, as we always do, “But we didn’t go to the park today,” he just giggles.
Make-believe and tell stories: At the beginning of the year, he loved to listen to us tell stories, but didn’t have the language skills to do it on his own. Now he regularly makes us pretend food in his kitchen, including tea and apple cider. He takes it quite seriously too – he was clearly hurt the other day when he “made” me coffee the other day and I reminded him that I don’t like coffee! He also loves pretending to talk on his play phone. The other day we had a series of conversations where he talked to different relatives who were all coincidently played by me. On storytelling, he’s already picked up on our “There once was a boy named Sprout” structure. Just out of the blue one day, he told us “There once was a boy named Sprout and he loved cake.” Not much of a plot, but it’s a start! To encourage his storytelling skills, I bought him this neat deck of cards for Christmas. While he can’t use them on his own yet, he seems to enjoy making them up with Chris.
Identify his alphabet, numbers, and colors: While we don’t super-emphasize the academic stuff, we do have a bunch of alphabet and counting books. Reading the Dr. Seuss ABC book so many times (even with its made-up words) seems to actually sunk in a bit.
Sing and (sort of) make music: This child loves to sing. (Unless it’s actually in music class, of course.) Chris and Sprout have now been attending Music Together classes for over a year. While we signed him up just to get some socialization in, it seems he’s actually picked up some musical skills, including a sense of rhythm. Considering I played saxophone for eight years and still have trouble keeping a beat, I’m quite proud of him. More importantly, he really loves music. He can sing a bunch of songs (including House at Pooh Corner, albeit garbled) and when he doesn’t remember the lyrics, just sort of says “la la la.” After we put him to bed tonight, he sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to his stuffed animals. He got a mini-drum set and kid’s “saxophone” for Christmas and they’re some of his favorite gifts. Earlier tonight, he was pretending to use a microphone and declared, “Needs more…saxophone!” As my love of music has brought me joy in good times and comfort in difficult ones, I’m so glad that I can share that with him.
Show emotions clearly: For quite a while, Sprout’s emotions were surprisingly hard to read. When he didn’t like something a lot, he let us know, but it was difficult to tell the difference between enjoyment and tolerance. These days, he smiles and laughs easily and often. Similarly, he definitely lets us know exactly when he doesn’t like something with a series of “No no no no nos!” He’s still a serious, focused little boy when there’s something he’s really interested in or in a new situation, but he’s not like that all of the time. Earlier, we could have urged him more to show emotion, but I’m glad we respected him where he was so he could feel free to become himself.
Form opinions on things: So many opinions. It takes 15 minutes to get him dressed because he wants to pick out his own clothes, resulting in some hilariously mismatched outfits. He knows what toys he enjoys the most, especially that great love of trains. He even has specific, quirky opinions on music – he’s requested Bob Dylan several times lately! (Mr. Tamborine Man, specifically.)
Run and climb: Sprout adores running, especially around the house and at church. (The long hallway at our church with a ramp and water fountain at one end is irresistible.) While he’s still cautious, he can scramble right up the cargo net at the playground. He has an absurd amount of energy, so that I actually fall asleep on the couch some nights after putting him to bed, even when he’s chatting to his animals for the next hour.
This year has been challenging, demanding and wonderful. Watching Sprout not just grow up but grow into himself is such a privilege as a mom. I can’t wait to see what happens this year.
How can anyone dislike Santa Claus? However, my relationship with him as an adult is a bit ambiguous. While I hate lying, I’m a storyteller at heart. I hate the modern-day commercialism around Santa Claus, but love the magic of the toymaker myth. So I thought I was going to have a lot of heartache about how to treat Santa Claus when Sprout got old enough to understand him. But I think I’ve come upon an approach that makes sense – emphasizing the idea of Santa Claus as a character rather than an actual person.
It certainly helps that Sprout is the most familiar with Santa as a character rather than a real person. We already read about Santa in books, from ones as simple as Biscuit’s Pet and Play Christmas to as weird as Lemony Snicket’s The Lump of Coal. The un-reality of Santa is emphasized even more by the fact that Santa isn’t even human in all of the books – in Pete the Cat Saves Christmas, he’s a cat, and Merry Christmas, Ollie! features Father Christmas Goose.
Through these stories, we can talk about whatever parts of Santa we want to, instead of the dominant cultural version. We’ll emphasize the idea of Santa as a generous toy giver who brings gifts because he loves people, just as we give each other gifts because we love each other. (And to tie to the actual religious part of Christmas, because people loved Jesus and brought gifts to him.) We won’t touch the “good girls and boys” nonsense with a ten foot pole because I’m already ideologically opposed to using toys as rewards.
Now, distinguishing between a character and a real person sounds terribly naive when talking to a two-year-old. But while little kids have difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality, it doesn’t mean that they’re incapable of it. Contrary to 1960s British “moral campaigner” Mary Whitehouse’s position, kids back then did not actually believe that Tom Baker (then playing the Doctor in Doctor Who) was actually drowning for the entire week between a cliffhanger and resolution. Even Sprout, who is only two, knows that characters in books are not “real.”
So when it comes time for him to find out that Santa isn’t a “real” person, I hope that this approach allows us to acknowledge the fundamental fiction of Santa while maintaining the magic and spirit. An excellent book for doing this, which is also had the most heart-breaking first chapter of anything I’ve ever read, is The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, by Julie Lane. (There’s a couple of other books of that name, but this is the best, obviously.) The beautiful part of it is that it roots Santa Claus and the traditions associated with him in tragic, beautiful, real world (albeit still fictional) circumstances while maintaining a little of the mystery.
Besides “Santa as story,” I think it’s also important when the time comes to provide some explanation as to why we’ve been pretending to be Santa this whole time. Fortunately, even that’s rooted in an idea that Sprout understands – cosplay! Because of our foray into costuming for Baltimore Comic Con, he already understands that sometimes adults wear costumes and pretend to be characters because it’s fun. Clearly, people dress as Santa because everyone wants to be him. People dressed as Batman or Groot aren’t actually Batman or Groot, but it’s fun to pretend we are. And who wouldn’t want to be Santa? He gets to give out presents, eat cookies, ride on a sled pulled by flying reindeer, and only works for a month a year (I assume production at the North Pole starts in late November).
No matter how we get there, I want to teach Sprout that we are all Santa for each other. While there’s no single jolly old man in red dropping off presents, we can act in that spirit by giving each other gifts and reaching out to those in need. Instead of Christmas becoming an orgy of consumer receiving, we want to frame it as a gentle season of generosity. And if I can teach him that, the magic of Santa will always be in his life.
Most museums don’t have multi-floor climbing structures running up their middle. Then again, most museums aren’t designed for patrons under 10 years old. But Port Discovery, the children’s museum in Baltimore, has a great variety of exhibits for kids of all ages. With Chris’s parents in town, we were lucky enough to visit the museum this past weekend.
“Do it myself!” I could probably live happily without ever hearing those words again. Unfortunately, they – or some variation – are a crucial phrase in every toddler’s vocabulary, including Sprout’s. While I appreciate his need to be independent and all of that bullshit, they’re really annoying in practice.
The phrase arises most often when Sprout is supposed to be doing something that he can do, but isn’t actually doing at the moment. For some reason, it’s the most common in the bathroom. When he’s supposed to be washing his hands, he often just sticks his right hand under the water rather than rubbing them together. Other popular options include splashing in the pool of water or sticking his palm against the faucet so it sprays everywhere. For toothbrushing, he prefers to gnaw on it with his back teeth instead of actually brushing them.
In both of these cases, he knows perfectly well how to do the activity – as I’ve seen him do it correctly – but is utterly uninterested in doing so. He’d much rather mess around playing in the sink or delaying bedtime. However, when I try to help him, he flails his hands and yells, “Do it myself!” While he can, it doesn’t make his futzing any less annoying when dinner is getting cold or his official bedtime is long behind us.
Unfortunately, my options for hurrying him up are limited for both philosophical and practical reasons.
In theory, I could get him to obey by physically forcing him to do it the way I want him to. However, I try to limit my physical enforcement of rules as much as possible to only the most dangerous of situations (like running in the road).
Physical enforcement often goes hand-in-hand with “might-makes-right” and authoritarian parenting, messages that I try to avoid at nearly all costs. The more I can convince Sprout that he should follow the rules because he wants to – or at least feels he should – the more he’ll form a moral compass in the future.
On a sheerly practical level, physical enforcement seems more effort than it’s worth for the stress. In a power struggle between a toddler and an adult, the toddler will always win in some way or another.
For example, the dentist recommended if he wouldn’t let us brush his teeth that one of us hold him between our knees and the other force his mouth open. Because that’s a great way to calm a toddler down before bed! No thank you on the additional half-hour needed to bring him down from a massive tantrum.
In fact, forcing him to do these things can actually be pretty dangerous. When he brushes his teeth or washes his hands, he uses a small stool to reach the sink. If he freaks out, waving his hands and stomping his feet, he could easily fall off it. He’s fallen off “dancing” around, much less throwing an actual tantrum. Slightly cleaner hands done a couple minutes earlier isn’t worth head trauma.
Instead, I try to find alternative ways to motivate him. When he says, “Do it myself!” I tell him, “I know you can – so show me!” Sometimes that works. When he’s spraying water all over the place, I prevent him from getting what he wants by cupping my hands around it so the spray is limited. I’ll only sing the tooth brushing song if he’s actually brushing them correctly. When he does actually do things correctly, I congratulate and praise him heartily.
And sometimes I just breathe deep, put my head in my hands, and wait. Eventually, he’ll do it right if I just give him time. After all, it’s just a phase.
When does your kid (or one you know) say, “Do it myself!!”