discipline

The Bedtime Toddler Blues

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

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.

Toddler Bedtime Blues

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?

A Fine Whine

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

A few months ago, the primary adjective I would have used to describe my son was “sweet.” While he’s still sweet most of the time, I have lately been periodically barraged by a cacophony of whining. I often wake up bleary, blinking to see a small person either yelling at me or just about to.

Lately, certain times of day are a series of efforts to hold off a meltdown. It had been mornings, which declined, only to be replaced by the return of the dreaded Bedtime and Middle of the Night Yelling. Sometimes I’m able to stave off the yammering by acknowledging his need promptly and responding in a reasonable period of time. I’m not going to drop everything – he needs to learn some patience – but I also want him to feel like I am listening. While less reliably effective than it had been, Dr. Harvey Karp’s Connect with Respect technique does help to an extent.

But some days, I just can’t help him. Sometimes it’s because I cannot under any circumstances figure out what the hell he wants. He’s up to more than 200 words, but that still leaves out a very large portion of the English language. This is an especially big barrier when he launches directly into whining with any prior indicator of need. I can’t parrot back what he wants if I can’t understand a word he’s saying. I’ve taken to looking him in the eye and telling him, “I can’t understand what you want. You need to use a different voice so I can understand you.” We’ve had mixed results. I think it works when he wants something specific and fails when he’s just randomly cranky, often under the influence of teething. Of course, it works the least at 4 AM, when neither of have any idea what we want except to go back to sleep.

Other times, we’re physically incapable of meeting his request, most often associated with the plea of “Up!!” Chris tried to explain to him recently that “No, you can’t go up into the tree to chase the squirrel.” We have a similar problem at the park, where he seems to believe that we have the ability to lift him up high enough to make a basket. As I’m simply not that tall and even the smallest basketball moves only inches from his fingers, it’s simply not practical. I lift him up into my shoulders, but that’s the best I can do.

Then there are other times that I simply won’t give him what he wants because it’s against our rules and values. We have zero tolerance for anything that purposely hurts another person, physically or mentally. Unfortunately, this sometimes conflicts with a toddler’s desire to have All the Things, All the Time, regardless of their actual owner. A few weeks ago, Chris had to physically extract our screaming toddler from the park for the first time because he stole someone else’s ball and refused to give it back. Thankfully, that’s been an isolated incident – so far.

Other times doing the action once is fine, but I don’t want to set a bad precedent. A few weeks ago, I allowed him to sit in my lap once while I was eating breakfast. For the next several days, he was obsessed with wanting to sit on my lap instead of his own chair. As I need my space and like eating my cereal without a small child’s fingers in it, I really didn’t want to make that part of my morning routine. Similarly, he often wants me to read to him in the morning, which I don’t have time to do and get to work at a reasonable hour. These are some of the toughest things because while he knows the schedule in general, he doesn’t understand context yet and is confused as to why sometimes some things are okay and other times they aren’t.

The worst part of the whining is that it’s incredibly emotionally draining. While the noise hurts my ears, the idea of it sets off my self-judgment. Even though I know he’s frustrated by the general unfairness of the world, the constant “Mamamamama” sure sounds like it’s condemning me. The third day of him screaming to sit on my lap, I actually started crying myself. Thank God his public meltdown was with Chris – I might have had one with him.

Thankfully, the whining is declining a little bit, as he starts to realize it isn’t very effective. I hope this self-control of ours is going to pay off soon because I might need to invest in earplugs otherwise.

Just Saying “No!”

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Sprout is wobbling on the edge of being a toddler. While he isn’t walking yet, he’s cruising from piece to piece of furniture and has more and more non-basic wants. This emotional development is leading to the introduction of the dreaded D word – discipline, along with its cousin, “No.”

For the most part, we try to limit how much we need to say no. Although Sprout is starting to understand what no means, he doesn’t really grasp it yet, so we don’t want to overuse it. It doesn’t mean that Sprout can do whatever he wants. Rather, we try to avoid the negative situation in the first place or change it. Instead of telling him not to put the remote control in his mouth, we just put it out of his reach. Other situations may be annoying, but are tolerable and not worth fighting over. We gave up on putting a bib on him because it became a tug of war where he ended up with more food on his shirt with the bib than without. Sometimes he wants to be picked up when I need to get ready for work, so I at least try to give him a hug even if I can’t carry him around.

On the other hand, there are certain behaviors that are simply intolerable and that Sprout actually can control. When he was first born, he would randomly flail his arms and legs. But now even when he doesn’t have the capacity for self control, but he does have the necessary fine and gross motor skills to avoid hitting me in the face.

Along these lines, most of the intolerable behavior is actions that hurt other people. I’ve been saying, “No biting,” “No hitting,” and “No scratching” a lot. But the most common one is “No pulling!” He loves playing with my hair while nursing, but I can’t tolerate him yanking it.

The other two behaviors are really annoying and gross, albeit not physically harmful. The first one is blowing raspberries while he has a mouth full of food, spraying it all over himself and whomever is feeding him. Similarly frustrating is his insistence on flipping over when we’re trying to change his diaper. While neither are the worse thing in the world, they both interfere with essential activities and we want to discourage them.

With all of these behaviors, I truly believe that Sprout doesn’t have ill intent. He doesn’t understand that other people have thoughts or feelings yet, so the idea that he’s causing someone else pain is pretty incomprehensible. Being gentle or careful requires a lot of focus, so when he doesn’t, he’s just in default mode. This is especially true when he’s really tired and just wants to flail. As he gets older, we need to keep reminding ourselves that he doesn’t always understand how the world works or have the emotional maturity to make certain decisions.

Also, I realize that the things we’re asking him to do are relatively complicated and difficult to understand. He can touch my hair or face – as long as it isn’t too violently. He can blow raspberries – except when he’s eating. He can flip over and crawl – except when we’re changing his diaper. Putting together the “if-then” combination is pretty challenging for him to comprehend, even though adults do it all of the time.

With this in mind, we’re generally taking a “positive parenting” approach, with some tweaks as necessary. While there’s a lot written on positive parenting, the Bible of the movement (as far as I can tell) is How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. While I adore this book, most of the tools require your kid to speak fluently and as such, are of limited use with a not-quite-yet toddler. Fortunately, Dr. Harvey’s Karp’s The Happiest Toddler on the Block provides some good advice on transferring these skills to parenting toddlers, even if I wish he would acknowledge his sources far more.

A major aspect of positive parenting is setting the stage by encouraging and praising good behavior. When he touches my hair without pulling, I tell him, “Nice, gentle hands!” When he allows us to change his diaper without flipping over, I blow raspberries on his stomach, which makes him laugh.

If he starts up with the frustrating behavior, our first step is to respectfully acknowledge and if needed, voice, his needs and desires. Unfortunately, even Sprout’s non-verbal communication skills are limited, so sometimes we don’t know what he wants. This part is often about us figuring out what he’s trying to tell us through the annoying behavior. While sometimes he’s blowing raspberries to be silly, other times it’s because he’s done eating. Although I thought he was hitting me in the face for no reason, it turned out he wanted me to turn my head to reach my hair. We don’t want to reinforce the behavior, but at the same time we shouldn’t ignore what he’s trying to express, even if it’s not in quite the right form.

Next up, we provide alternatives. When he’s too tired to keep himself from pulling my hair, I offer him my hand to high five or slap. If we make funny sounds while feeding him or let him hold onto a toy bird, he doesn’t spit out his food everywhere as much. And a steady round of funny noises and This Little Piggy keeps him focused enough while changing him that (sometimes) he doesn’t want to turn over.

If he continues with the annoying behavior, we then communicate our feelings to him, saying “No!” and when appropriate, combined with “Ow!” (sometimes involuntarily!). We try to use a stern voice and facial expression to express how serious we’re being; I summon up the voice I used when I was substitute teaching.

If Sprout still continues the behavior after a couple of warnings we then proceed into mild discipline territory. The most common approach is taking away whatever is causing the problem, like tucking my hair behind my ear if he keeps pulling it or putting him down if he’s biting us. If it isn’t an object that’s a problem, but our attention, we remove that for a moment. We just turn away from him briefly to communicate that what he is doing is not acceptable. (This is especially important when what he is doing is genuinely funny but something we don’t want to encourage!) Dr. Karp calls this “gentle ignoring,” and I think it’s a useful tool.

As Sprout gets older, we don’t anticipate integrating punishment into our methods except in the most extreme circumstances. Instead, we hope to work our way towards participating in more joint problem solving and allowing natural consequences to work themselves out. Positive parenting requires a lot of patience and empathy, but I think all of us will be better people in the end.