Just a note to check in and let anyone who is still following our sleep travails know that the latest technique change is working.
At the end of our newly refined routine, he’s down to about 45 seconds of Mommy Mommy before he gets quiet and goes to sleep; the first few nights it was 10 minutes, then 15, then 5… I wish we had a video monitor because I don’t actually know if he just spontaneously passes out mid-cry or actually spends some time lying in bed quietly. I suspect it’s the former.
The 20 minutes of mommy-sits-by-the-crib-and-does-pretty-much-whatever-Jonah-asks part of the routine have varied in character from night to night. One evening, he spent the whole 20 minutes pretty much running around the crib in circles, only settling down in the last few. Tonight he requested that I “Do Ohm” almost the entire time, while also demanding one hand on his chest and three blankets laid on top of him (used to just be two).
As our routine has gotten more clear this week, with the results being positive, I’ve started to enjoy this sitting time I have with him on a new level. I’m looking at his eyes more. I know that sounds odd, but most nights of his life, I’ve been trying to lull him into submission, which doesn’t exactly call for eye contact of any kind. Now that we have this quiet-ish lying-down play period together, we smile a lot. We wrinkle our eyes at each other. We make little jokes. “Close your eyes,” he says, and then closes his for a second.
The look in his eyes when I finally leave the room breaks my heart though. He goes from restful to just this notch up towards anxious and starts to breathe faster and get all panicky-looking. And starts crying.
I mentioned it to Scott who pointed out that Jonah does the same thing when you take away his onion.
What?
This morning, Jonah spotted a red onion on the shelf in the fridge and demanded to “Hold it!” He likes to hold “Garrrr-lickk” too. Why? Who knows. So Scott let him hold the onion for a while. Jonah brought it with him into our room. Played with it on our bed. And then, Scott hit that point, that we both do, where you’re just thinking, you know, enough of this. That was fun but now we’re done. Onions belong in the fridge. You’re ready to move on to another activity. You’re sick of thinking about putting the onion back. And you take the onion away from him.
And his face goes all puckery and he cries.
There’s a lot of will in this little man. And we’re constantly facing that question of whether the thing we’re trying to take away or the activity we want to stop doing — how important is it really?
Do we need to take the onion away more often? Does he have to get in touch with his lack of control over his life? Or are we supposed to give in to the onion as often as possible? More than we can stand? Build our stamina. Give him more control over his life.
He’s started throwing things. When he’s mad, if he’s not already holding something, he’ll find something to grab and throw.
I’m trying to think of a sample moment. It’s been happening a lot. The triggers are definitely about control. I can’t remember what I wasn’t giving in to or taking away from him earlier this evening but he grabbed the cordless phone and threw it on the floor.
I told him we don’t throw the phone. I told him I was angry with him. Ummmm, yeah. Didn’t really register.
So this is why parents do that “time out” thing, I thought to myself.
I tried putting him in his room. Looked around, decided it was childproof enough in there. I closed the door.
He pulled on the door handle and opened it. Proceeded to play peek-a-boo with me in the doorway for the next ten minutes, open/close/open/close.
I tried to ignore him. But it was hard.
He wanted attention. At one point he started chanting “Huh-neeeye. Babe. Hon-eey. Babe.” — Because this is what Scott and I shout out to each other across the house when we’re trying to get the other person to come help us with something or bring us something.
So that was pretty funny.
And then Scott came home and I got a break, which was good.
My opinion (and this is the opinion of someone without children, so – you know – take with a boulder of salt!) is it’s important to set boundaries and start thinking about discipline (ie the time out method or whatever works best for you). At least in baby steps.
It’s also about coping skills – right now it feels like the end of the world when the onion (or you!) are removed from “play” but he is learning that he can survive the sadness & cope with his feelings.
Becky
Becky aka StinkyLemsky’s last blog post..A belated Mother’s Day celebration
My son was obsessed with the vacuum cleaner. He didn’t want it on… he just wanted it out of the closet so he could play with it. Every day. All the time. Okay, so it’s not quite an onion, but he had a similar attachment where he would wail if we tried to put it away (so we usually would leave it out and just go with it as much as possible). But for those times when we really needed/wanted to put the vacuum away, we started a routine in which he would hug the vacuum and say goodbye to it. That helped a lot.
I’m all about boundaries. Of course, with as many kids as I have, life would get really ugly if I wasn’t. If I know one of my kids will be upset about losing a “toy” or leaving an activity, I’ll just tell him that he has three more minutes and then he’s done with it. Not that it stops the disappointment, but at least it gives them time to come to terms and wrap up.
Time outs, for us, are somewhere that won’t be fun or lend to games. Depending on the age, I go for an empty crib or, if they are going to a bedroom, it has one of those door knob thingies that makes it impossible for them to open the door. Losing that ability changes their attitude pretty quickly.
Katie’s last blog post..Week 29
Dissapointment is a part of life. Teaching him that he may be dissapointed for the moment, and how to cope with dissapointment is an important lesson for you to impart to him.
Oh yes. The battle of the stubborn child
I’m starting to deal with that more and more each day and I’ve had many end of the day moments of THANK GOODNESS DADDY IS HOME SO IT’S HIS TURN!!!!!
I think the commenters above had good points. Commenter Katie’s advice is a lot of what we use, too. The choice of one minute or two minutes until she gives something up has been helpful as well as the saying goodbye to things. If we say it’s time for ____, she’ll often respond with “Play two more minutes” and then let us leave or move on. So, I guess it’s working!?
We did the sitting in the empty crib thing and now she’ll instead sit on the floor for one minute until we get come get her and talk about what happened.
The whole control battles are just getting started…gulp. Keep us updated on your battles
Susie’s last blog post..A weekend visit in pictures
Thanks, all, for the advice/experience.
The vacuum story cracks me up, because I can so relate. I did mention Jonah likes garlic, right? He’s a fan of our vacuums too though not as much… yet.
Yes, we have been needing to get those door handle thingies.
We use the choices, and two minute warnings already, so that’s good.
The other good news is that he does recover from these little episodes fairly quickly and we did have a conversation today — that he initiated — going over this new idea about how we don’t throw things, especially phones and ukuleles, so I think it may be sinking in.
What a growth experience.
My mother reminded me tonight that he’s testing me also to see if I will still love him after he acts out. And that I need to not get all reactive and angry when he does it.
My mission, should I choose to accept it, is boundaries, and love.
(I’m sure I could be reading a book about this, but frankly, I burned out on parenting books with the sleep thing.)
It’s a fine line to walk because on one hand you really want to pick your battles and an onion seems so inconsequential. But again, we’ve all met those spoiled children with no boundaries whose parents cater to them and never say no. So maybe starting small and young is better.
Jennlm’s last blog post..Ha!
We all get angry, upset, disappointed and frustrated, and when we do we are not being bad. It is what we do about it that separates us solvers of problems and them destroyers of the universe. Taking a time out to calm down and then talk it over works no matter how old you are.