Organized Chaos

Wednesday 21 November 2012

The Sauce of Bad Habits Part 2

Disclaimer: Please take a moment now and vacate the premises of my parenting kitchen if you are in anyway allergic to obscure parenting thoughts, bullshit, venting, or overall fed-upness. (And yes that is my new word!) No children were harmed physically, mentally, or emotionally in the process of this parenting kitchen experiment!


If you are just joining me now, please take a moment and check out part 1 of The Sauce of Bad Habits! It is juicy, exhilarating. It is an adventure in your mouth….oh, it makes sure you aren’t lost today!

Let me now explain the steps to creating the sauce….

Step 1) Allow for spices to dry out…place in pot
Refusal to sleep on own….resulting in bitterness of parents due to lack of rest

Lil Mister needs to be coaxed to sleep each night. We co-slept as an infant because it was nice and mommy worked full time! Then we moved into our own crib.

This took weeks of transition. It was a lovely hair pulling experience. We were in a flat and I promise the birds didn’t even stick around when hearing the blood curdling screams. I think the people next to us wanted to report us for abuse!

Maybe Lil Mister is paying us back for this time!

While in said crib, we eventually learnt to fall asleep on our own. (Again we resorted back to the cry it out. I’ll admit I’m weak and it broke my heart but I’m not abusive and therefore Mommy needed to walk away!)

Then we learnt to climb out and got moved to a big boy bed. This was at the same time as we moved in with the in-laws. So two big transitions resulted in us being a little lenient on the climbing out of bed. Said leniency caused Hubby Dearest and me to take turns “putting” Lil Mister to bed. In reality this means lying with him until he sleeps.

Lil Mister is now in his own room. However, we must still lay with him until he sleeps. THIS MUST STOP!! We both work full time and love EVERY minute we get with Lil Mister but bedtime is the ONLY time we have for each other and to do things around the house!

Let’s be real here, with an infant coming along…how can we put two to sleep with me breastfeeding as well! I’m not up for it! I need both kids (insinuating that I will not be making the same mistakes a second time!) into good sleep habits so I can give necessary attention to all three men in my life!

So now…we break the habit. It is resulting in longer periods of time between going to bed and actually sleeping. It is also exhausting the patience bank. However, it must be done. I feel that 22 months old and in a big boy bed equals old enough to fall asleep by ones self.

Routine is the key. We bath, then eat dinner, then play. 19:45 we give kisses to everyone and head to room. It is then story time, tea time, and lights out. Mommy or Daddy stay in the room but NOT IN THE BED….

I’m counting the days until I can kiss him goodnight and go do dishes before 9pm!!

This process is now 20 days from hitting a year since we first transitioned to crib….this sauce takes some brewing. Allow for a slow simmer of emotions to develop including but not limited to anger, self pity, worthlessness, hopelessness, feeling as if you are cruel to child, and loathing of partner.


Step 2) Add liquid to spices and turn up the heat…

The second ingredient is a teat. Oh yes, that wonderful thing that used to work like a mute button! It now creates the liquid (literally!) in your sauce.

This step must be done first but allowed to sit while you work on other factors. Each time you will be tempted to add the removal of teat to your sauce…you will need to wait as some other age appropriate transition is happening (see previous ingredient!)

Lil Mister almost refuses, blatantly, to give up his teat.

Please do not think I am a heartless mother. I watch my child on a daily basis drink perfectly from a cup. One in every 20 cups results in something being spilt and 9 times out of 10 he has spilt on purpose! He has his own cups and has no quarrels with using them. HOWEVER….

He still wants that darn teat at night….nap time….when watching TV…if he sees it…thinks about…or hears the words bottle, teat, tea, or anything that sounds like that!

I recently bought the last stage in the Advent sippy teats. Check them out…I like them! He drank from the stage before just fine. He drinks from his Tommy Tippee Sippy. He drinks from a straw!! But these things are like the devil right now!

He honestly runs from the bottle if I put them on!

I’m exhausted as I enter the last weeks of my pregnancy. I am still working 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. I still do my things at home. I WANT TO SLEEP AT NIGHT!

Therefore, I keep giving him the dang teat! I put that stupid thing back on his bottle and let him go happily into dream land. I can’t stand the idea of staying up all night for however long trying to wean him!

These teats means that he continues to drink at night. Drinking at night will lead to needing to wee. This wee is an EXCESSIVE AMOUNT of liquid! I’m talking a week could fill the Nile River! Imagine Niagara Falls meets Victoria Falls cascading down the Appalachian Mountains into my child’s nappy! Okay this is a little much but you get the picture!

Join me next week for part 3!!

Shana


4 comments:

  1. Sounds like we are cooking the same sauce - mine isnt going so well though!!!

    We lie with Jack - EVERY night and EVERY nap time!! The nanny said he did fall asleep on his own one morning but that appears to be a once off!!!

    It is exhausting. And the dam bottle is attached to his arm continuously!!!! Drives me mad - he screeches for it.

    Both kids were just as attached to their bottles so it appears its in my gene :-/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're also still lying with Lil Mister at night, try as I might, Hubby keeps saying but he enjoys it so much!
      The bottle is a battle of wills in which his is stronger than mine at the moment but my maternity leave starts next month and then it is just me him and those bottles!
      I am considering throwing them out and blaming it on the dog! He'll be mad at the dog for a day then it's over ;-)
      Good luck! I know this is exhausting time right now! Check back next Wed for the continuation!

      Delete
  2. Ugh, that sounds rough. Keep it up, it will work if you are consistent!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thankfully I've forgotten all those nightmarish times and only relive the ::shudder:: puberty years. Oh yeah. Here from the Weekend Showcase hop and believe me, this is just a tolerance build up. BB2U

    ReplyDelete

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