Avivah Werner

Category: Parenting

  • Jumping on couch

    >>… more about jumping on the couch as an example.  When you take the toddler off the couch, don’t they just get right back on? How many times do you do that? What do you do next, if they won’t stop? Or if they then switch toward some other destructive behavior?<<

    I do it as many times as necessary; when I decide they need to do what I said, that means being 100% ready to outlast my child.  As I said, I won’t make a request that is likely to be ignored if I know I am not able right then to enforce it.

    Okay, about the couch.  I take him off. He climbs back on.  As soon as he starts to climb on, I matter of factly whisk him off.  The ideal is to watch for him to climb back on and stop him as soon as he begins, not after he’s already in the middle of it.  If you can’t get to him until he’s already jumping up and down, that’s okay, but not as effective.  It’s very important to stay calm and unemotional about this – what helps me is remembering it’s not about me and my ego, it’s about helping my child learn, it’s for his benefit.

    Do this as many times as necessary.  Are you imagining this will be fifty times?  It won’t, unless you give him a good emotional reaction.  But you won’t be, since you’re staying detached and matter of fact.  You’re too boring in your response for him to enjoy getting a rise out of you, and you’re too consistent in your response for him to think he’s going to get away with it if he holds out long enough.  Feeling confident that you know how to handle a situation and that your response is going to be effective makes it pretty easy to stay cheerful and not turn this into a hugely emotional power struggle. It’s when we feel powerless that we get overwhelmed and frustrated.

    As far as how to stop them, you’re asking about stopping a very young child, right?  A three year old is very small and you’re very big.  🙂  You don’t have to smack kids around or scare them to get them to understand you mean what you say and they need to listen.  A twelve year old who is the same size as you is a lot more challenging, but strong parental authority works just as well  with twelve year olds.

    Switching to another destructive habit: Why would a child switch from one negative behavior to another? That’s the question I would ask myself, and then deal with the root cause (usually boredom, wanting attention, or testing boundaries).  Generally kids want our positive attention.  I’m not suggesting turning yourself into the police and making your child feel you have your eagle eye on him every minute – not at all!  You should be spending lots of time interacting with him, which makes keeping an eye on things pretty natural.  And kids really love this.

    Remember, it’s not about punishing them, but about building your relationship and creating a pleasant environment to spend time in together.  Spending lots of relaxed and focused time with young children, together with setting clearly defined and reinforced limits is really all it takes for them to stop the behavior.   Their needs are already being met without them needing to misbehave for it.

    Avivah

  • Making time for discipline

    A week and a half ago I posted about stopping negative behavior, and the following was asked:

    >>What about when you are really busy? mentally? Your hands are covered in red beet juice? You are nursing a baby? your surrounded by carefully folded laundry and 3YO is jumping on the sofa? Do you drop everything else? Because that is my conundrum… I have other obligations than just spending time disciplining the 3YO.<<

    Being busy with other things is a real challenge that we face every day!  Keeping your littles close by and in sight is very, very helpful in preempting problematic behaviors, and it’s a big first step.  But realistically, you can’t preempt everything, every single time – at least I can’t!

    How I respond depends on what stage my child is at.  If they’re in what I consider the active training phase, then I make responding to situations that need my attention a top priority.  While raising a child is ongoing, the intensive stage of teaching them what is acceptable and what isn’t is pretty finite.   During this stage they’re learning that you mean what you say, every single time.

    This isn’t convenient or easy for the parent.  That’s part of the power of your unspoken message to them, that helping them to learn proper behavior is your top priority and they’re not going to get away with something because you’re on the phone, in a store, or in the middle of something.  So if I’m nursing the baby and a child jumps on the couch, what to do when telling them to stop doesn’t produce results?  I stop nursing the baby and help the jumping child to stop (as I wrote about in the above mentioned post).  If I know that I won’t be able to follow up, I won’t make the request.  Better to ignore something than to tell them something you have no ability to follow up on, which teaches them that you can be ignored.

    Practically, it means saving certain activities for when they’re not in need of supervision – when they’re napping, in bed for the night, or when they’re visiting a grandparent.  Cut down on what needs to be done – during the initial learning phase, drop your standards of your house, outside commitments, and anything else that will take away from your kids to the absolute minimum.  A number of tips I shared regarding making the postpartum period easier would be useful at this time.   Make super simple meals, use paper plates, and get to sleep early – it takes a lot of emotional energy.

    I know how daunting it sounds to have to make supervising, preempting, and responding a top priority.  It sounds impossible, doesn’t it?!  But what you’ll find is that it really won’t require nearly as much effort after the initial time investment (how much that will be depends on your children and how much time they’ll need to get the message).   You’ll quickly find your kids’ behavior improving, since a) you’re not waiting for situations to escalate so they aren’t becoming the huge deal they may have been before (thus require huge amounts of emotional energy), and b) you’re consistently dealing with it right away so your kids are making a clear connection between their behavior and your response.  Very soon, you’ll find you’re spending much less time disciplining and much more time enjoying them.  The time investment is relatively small, but the payoffs are huge!

    Avivah

  • Stopping negative behavior

    >>What do you do in the opposite situation – when a young child is actively doing something you want them to stop doing (as opposed to them not doing something you want them to do, about which I found your explanations very helpful.)<<

    You mean like a two year old who is jumping over his 5 month sibling, or a 3 year old who is pushing his seven year old brother off the couch by pushing him with his feet?  (This morning’s examples in my house. :))

    I’m pretty straightforward in this.  I tell whoever it is to stop.  Parental authority is the most important tool a parent has.  It’s not about your words, your tone of voice, or technique (that’s why I don’t get excited about books like How To Talk So Kids Will Listen).  It’s about your kids knowing that they have to take what you say seriously.  So telling them to stop is usually enough.

    If they don’t stop, I take action to help them stop.  If the child jumping over his baby brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have picked him up and plopped him on the couch.  If the child pushing his brother wouldn’t have stopped, I would have told him that feet are a gift that needs to be used well, and told him he couldn’t use his feet for a few minutes and would have to sit right where he was.  If they’ve hurt someone, they have to make restitution by being asking forgiveness and then being extra nice to the person they did something to.

    If it doesn’t involve a person – like ds2 peeling all the  new crayons and systematically breaking them into pieces (yesterday afternoon :)), they just have to stop.  If a child was doing something like coloring on the wall, then I’d have him stop coloring on the wall, give him a damp rag to wipe the wall, then give him a coloring book or paper to color on.

    Sometimes a child doesn’t listen the first time.  I’d like to say that after the first time, I don’t ever repeat myself, but sometimes I do.  I do believe that taking action after the first time is very important to teaching kids that you mean what you say.  Anyway, if someone doesn’t do what I say the first time, how I respond varies.  It really depends on what they’ve done.

    Generally I try not to make a big deal about small things, but in our house purposely ignoring a parent isn’t a small thing.  If they heard me but are just having a hard time listening, I either remove them from the situation or give them extra practice situations.  For purposely ignoring me (this would only be a child old enough to know better; little kids are generally just so absorbed by what they’re doing that they don’t realize you’re speaking to them), I’ll give them enough extra work so that they’ll regret not paying attention.  Work is great for older kids.  🙂

    If I didn’t answer the question you were asking, please clarify!

    Avivah

  • Introducing solids and making baby food

    >>When you start your baby on solids, would you mind to blog about your approach and how you introduce different foods?<<

    This was an incredibly timely request, coming less than half a day after giving my baby solids for the first time!

    Generally, my babies start eating solids between 6 and 8 months.  My oldest started at eight months because I had the idea then that the longer you waited, the better.  That wasn’t the case with him; I should have started him sooner but didn’t recognize that and his weight dropped before I realized he needed more food.  My last baby (now two years old) also didn’t really start eating solids until eight months.  In his case, he wasn’t interested, despite being given opportunities periodically from six months and on.   All the others started at six months, at which point they were all showing significant interest.  Last but not least is the current baby, who is starting younger than everyone else at 5 months and one week – and he is sooo ready!  (I think that being born three weeks past his due date is relevant here, since if he was born ‘on time’ he would be exactly six months now.)

    A few days ago, my dd was eating something and commenting on how the baby kept trying to grab her food and stick it in his mouth.  (He’s been doing this for several weeks.)  So she asked if she could try giving him something to eat, and after looking in the fridge, asked if she could give him yogurt.  Generally I don’t give dairy from the start, but after my initial hesitation, told her to go ahead since it was homemade yogurt from organic/hormone free milk.  He loved it!  If we had any doubt about if he was too young or not, those doubts were gone within about two minutes.  He kept eating, and eating, and eating – until he had eaten two cups of full fat yogurt.

    This is the only time I’ve ever started with dairy.  Generally I start with banana mashed very well, followed soon afterwards by baked (and mashed) yam that has coconut oil mixed into it.  I look at solids as supplemental to nursing, not as the source of their main nutrition.  Avocados and other fruits and vegetables soon follow, all cooked if necessary and then mashed well.  Gradually I mash the food less finely, to give the baby  exposure to food of different textures.  By the time they are a year, they are eating almost everything we eat, albeit in a somewhat mashed form.  I also add in milk, butter, gravy, and stock to their foods, depending what they’re eating.

    After a few months, I add in foods like oatmeal.  I don’t feel that cereal grains are ideal foods for a young baby, and when I do serve them, try to be sure they’re properly prepared to maximize absorption of vitamins and to minimize the negatives.  One grain that I very much try to delay is wheat.  Wheat gluten is a very difficult to digest grain, and if I could, I’d keep it away from my babies until they are two years old.  But it’s not so easy when others in the house eat wheat based foods, since they end up finding something and stuffing it into their mouths, or seeing everyone else having some and naturally also wanting some.   This time around I’m planning to  be more proactive and bake biscuits/crackers with alternative flours, keeping them in the freezer so I can pull out a similar looking non-wheat option when he sees his siblings eating something that he wants.  (I have a few months until this will be necessary.)

    For a very short time when my oldest started solids, I gave him baby cereal mixed with formula.  I know, I know, the absolute ignorance of youth can be frightening.  🙂  That’s what the nurse at the well baby clinic recommended (additionally, she also told me to give him chocolate to fatten him up – which was probably somewhat better than the recommendation a friend of mine was given, to feed her baby oil) and that’s what I saw other mothers doing so I thought it was the right thing to do. After less than a month, my husband told me he didn’t like it – “I feel like we’re feeding him plastic”, so that was the last of store bought food for our babies.  From there we switched to what I described above.

    Aside from that very short foray into factory created baby food, I haven’t bought processed baby foods for any of our nine children.  Besides my skepticism about the nutritional value, it’s incredibly expensive.  How much does a banana cost – thirty cents?  That’s a lot cheaper than a jar of baby food that holds a similar amount of food, and with a banana there’s a lot less likelihood of contamination.

    I think parents have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to marketing of baby foods – there’s hardly anything easier than making your own baby food.  You don’t need a scientific formula.  You don’t need a lot of time.  You don’t have to do anything extra to ‘make’ baby food.  You can buy a food mill to grind food up or a blender to blend it, but a fork works just fine.  Since I start with soft and easily mashed foods, there’s no difficulty in manually mashing it immediately prior to serving it.  (The main exception that I’ve had is brown rice – I don’t generally add this in until the baby is very comfortable with texture unless I blend it, since it’s very hard to mash it well with a fork.)

    Some parents like to make a big amount, blend it, and freeze it in ice cube trays for small portions.  I’ve never done that, but can see how it would be a good idea.  This would be especially convenient when they get to the point they are eating something like chicken with carrots and rice blended in, since you’re not going to make a recipe of only one cup.

    I try to give vegetables like carrots and zucchini fairly soon after they start eating, within a month or so, since it’s easy for babies to get used to the sweetness of fruits and after a period of time, often will turn down anything not sweet since it isn’t a familiar taste.  I’m very fortunate that none of my kids have ever been picky eaters, and part of that probably stems from when they are very little, when they eat a variety of  foods.  I still remember when we had a couple of teenage boys for Shabbos/Sabbath lunch, watching in awe as my then 1 year old infant daughter gobbled down three servings of cholent – “Whoa, your baby is awesome! She can eat more cholent than me!”  Maybe cholent isn’t typical baby food, but all of our babies have enjoyed it!

    Avivah

  • Waiting for interest the early years

    >>After listening to your lecture, I have some questions, especially about the early years of “schooling.” You seemed pretty “un-schooly” at first, and I’m wondering how this works for Judaism-related things. Like for instance, wearing a kippah, or washing for bread, or wearing tsit-tsit, etc. Did you just wait for interest, or how did it work? <<

    Yes, I do take a very relaxed approach in the early years!  But it doesn’t mean that things aren’t taught or done as much as we integrate them into daily living instead of creating artificial lessons.  There’s a general tendency that isn’t positive to push our very young (and even not so young) children into formal learning despite the well known fact that formal learning isn’t generally the most effective method.  Too many parents imitate the weaknesses of daycare/school programs (usually because they don’t have other models of how learning happens), rather than building on the strengths of a warm, family centered setting.  We prefer games, activities, outings, reading books, listening to cassettes, etc, knowing that learning is then fun and natural. 

    When it comes to mitzva observance, there’s the passive aspect of being a role model of the habits you want your children to learn. That’s crucial – it would be unreasonable to expect our kids to take mitzvos seriously if we don’t.  But I don’t rely on role modeling alone to teach our children to keep the mitzvos.  It’s like kids don’t learn to clean their rooms by watching you clean (and if this isn’t obvious to you yet, speak to mothers of older children and listen to them bemoan how their kids just watch them work and never help) – they need to actually get hands on practice to internalize whatever they’re seeing.   

    The second aspect is actively teaching them the things you want them to know.  I don’t wait for interest, but generally littles want to be like you and do what you do, so the interest is pretty much there without you having to do too much.  A young child will naturally imitate a lot of things – our littles learn very young to answer ‘amen’, sit quietly for kiddush, hold up their hands to a havdala candle, just by watching all of us.  When they start washing for bread, we teach them the bracha (blessing) to say, usually starting at about 18 – 24 months.  The same with other foods – we start with the first three words and last three words of a bracha. The boys get tzitzis and kippas when they are three – this is something they look forward to for months and is a source of a lot of excitement.  With older siblings, this has become even more exciting for the littles – not only are there more people who build up what they have to look forward to, but there are more big people they look up to and want to be like.

    I’m not of the mindset that I have to wait for interest or desire by my children.  If they have  an interest or desire to learn about something or explore an issue, I’ll try my best to support them.  I do, however, believe it’s valuable to get your kids on board with the ‘program’, so they they support the direction you’re leading them in.  This is one of my strengths as a parent – my husband once told me I’m a good salesman when it comes to getting my kids to go along with my ideas, and though I never thought of it in those terms, he’s right.  I don’t coerce them or try to convince them that my way is right.  When they are little, there’s not much value in discussion – parents make the mistake of trying to get their little children to give them approval or permission for what they’re doing.  It might sound laughable or extreme but if you think about it, you’ll realize that it’s not uncommon. That’s an unfair burden to place on young shoulders. We’re the ones with life experience and the concurrent wisdom that comes with experience, and it’s our job to shoulder that responsibility.  I make the rules, but I  try to make the rules reasonable and fair – firm guidelines don’t need to be harsh to be effective.  

    As they get older, I often share my thoughts and why I want to do whatever it is, or why I believe whatever the issue at hand is.  When they are on the younger side, this is about smaller issues.  As they get older, the issues I discuss with them become more serious and important. I usually ask for their thoughts and opinions, and whether they disagree or agree with me, ask them to explain how they came to the conclusion that they did. This works because I discuss things with them from a position of respect.  I honestly don’t mind if they disagree with me and enjoy hearing their perspectives.

    This approach has worked well for me – our kids are generally supportive of what we do and how we do it, and it eliminates many of the tensions that so many parents experience between themselves and their children, which make raising children of all ages much easier and more enjoyable!

    Avivah

  • Feeling overwhelmed

    >>Right now my oldest son is 5 daughter 3 and son  about 15 months.  I am finding it very hard to cope.  I am not especially organized by nature but I was not a terrible slob either.  Now I feel so overwhelmed by the constant mess and piles everywhere and boxes of unsorted stuff, and the constant needing to feed and dress them and everything.  I am also in my first trimester. 

    I am very far from my ideal.  I want to be organized.  I want to have a place for everything and be on top of housework, with getting the kids involved in a loving, supportive way.  I want to get out of this depresssing mess.  I am finding it very hard to be home with them all.  I am so unhappy being a mother.    Right now I like the concept of homeschooling more than the reality of being home with my kids.   it gets very hard.  When they start fighting, when the one year old is climbing on the table or pulling things down from teh table and  always this internal critic that it’s my fault for not better handling it for being proactive etc .  Of course there must be solutions and I want to change and I don’t want to be so stressed and miserable. I don’t know where to start.  <<

    I’ve had times I’ve felt like this, too!  Being a mother is a hard job, and it’s very common to feel like we’re just not making the grade – I’m pretty confident that most people reading this have felt this way at times.  The very first place to start is to stop beating yourself up for not being perfect.  This is really the most important thing you can do; accept that you have limitations and love yourself as you are.  That’s lots easier to say than to do, isn’t it?

    We mothers tend to expect way too much of ourselves, and give ourselves very little recognition for all that we do.  You don’t hear much talk or validation of the huge amount of work mothers need to do day in and day out just to keep things functional.  Functional, not sparkling or perfect.  Just making sure everyone is fed and has clean clothes to wear is a lot of work.  We want to raise our children with joy and love, but sometimes the things we feel need to get done get in the way of that.  

     There’s also the physical reality that being pregnant takes a lot of energy.   The first trimester is especially tiring, and my memory of that stage this most recent time around is spending most of the day in the reliner in my living room. 🙂   But whether pregnant or not, when we build up in our minds how well everyone else is managing and how we can’t compare, we end up feeling inadequate and dissatisfied with ourselves.  

    Sometimes we think that the only way we’ll improve is by looking at all of our imperfections, but it’s not true.  It’s demotivating to think of ourselves as failures and that no matter what we do, we’ll still keep falling short.  It’s much more effective to recognize what we do well and build on it.  Self-love builds us up, self-criticism breaks us down.

    You might be hoping for organizational tips to help you get things in order (and I’ve shared different tips in the homemaking category that you can look at if you want), but I have a very strong sense that you’re at least average in how you’re managing your home.  So the real issue isn’t what you’re actually doing but how you feel about what you’re doing. 

    That means that meaningful improvement is going to come from you changing your way of thinking about yourself, not from running faster, trying harder, or working longer.  Look at yourself in the mirror when you get up and then later before you go to bed, and say, “I love and approve of myself.”  Fifteen times in the morning, fifteen times in the evening.  If you’re uncomfortable with the mirror, then say it to yourself in your mind – at least a hundred times a day.  There’s a lot of negative programming we need to overcome and the only way to do it is to recognize it for what it is, and reprogram ourselves with thoughts that better serve us. 

    Practically speaking, when feeling overwhelmed by all the work around us, I’ve found I do best when I just do something.  Every box you organize will make a dent in what needs to be done and give you a sense of accomplishment (though you’ll need to remember to give yourself credit for it instead of thinking that it’s inadequate because there’s so much more to do).  I have to periodically remind myself that the reality of life with small children means constant messes and ongoing organizational work no matter how organized you are. 

    The stage of having several small children is in my opinion the hardest in many ways.  I found things started getting significantly easier for me when my oldest was 5.5.  I had a long space between a couple of my kids and it was much, much easier to manage six kids with the youngest being close to four than when most of them were under four!  Kids grow up, we improve our skills, and things really do get easier.

    Avivah

  • Sleep issues with young child

    >>Ds is driving.me.crazy. I can’t handle him anymore. He’s 3. A couple of months ago, we finally cut his nap. It was becoming a nightmare. We also have a 10 month old, and ds3 will not go down easily, he never has. For a while, I would wear him on my back in an Ergo to put him down for a nap – not such a big deal when he was smaller, but it became really impossible after the baby was born. 
    So, I figured, cut the nap. I can’t wear him to sleep anymore, I just can’t. The thing is, without the nap, ds turns into a different person. He’s Mr. Hyde, or whatever it is. Just a complete terror. His whole personality changes when he doesn’t get that nap. So, we moved his bedtime up an hour to make up for it, from 8:30 to 7/7:30ish. 
    By the time 7 comes, he’s completely exhausted, and is pulling his Mr. Hyde routine. I know, I know, he’s 3, come will say he’s acting like a three-year-old. But.. I know my boy, and I know when something’s.. off. Screaming, tantrums over nothing.. I just know him, and I know this isn’t him.  I don’t know what else to do. I feel like he still needs a nap but I simply can’t force him to sleep. I regret that I put him to sleep in the Ergo for so long, I guess he doesn’t know how to fall asleep on his own at all now (what do I do about ds10mo so I don’t repeat this horrible pattern?). I feel like he could go to bed at 5 in the afternoon, and he’ll fall asleep. But I don’t really want to wake up at 5am. Please help me figure this out. I really don’t know what to do anymore.<<

    Though I’ve gotten questions relating to sleep issue in the past, this is the first time I’m touching on this issue on the blog.  I generally prefer to answer this directly so that I’m not publicly misunderstood, and I’ve significantly delayed answering this because of that reluctance.  But the sleep of young children is a very important issue that really affects the functioning of the parents and the children, physically and emotionally.  There are a lot of things to touch on, but I’ll try to tackle it here because it really is too important to ignore.

    It’s very important to realize that you’re doing your child a favor to help him learn healthy sleep habits, because a well rested child is a happy child. Whenever my ds3 starts to whine or act like an obnoxious brat, I don’t bother with any discipline – he goes straight into bed and wakes up a pleasant child again.  Making sure he gets the proper amount of sleep deals with the root of his behavior – it’s very hard to moderate your emotions (even as an adult!) when you haven’t gotten enough rest.  Crankiness can become chronic if a child day after day isn’t getting enough sleep, and a cranky child becomes a difficult child, and a difficult child and parent generally have to work a lot harder than a happy child and parent to bond and get along.

    I’m concerned about a trend I’ve noticed – because ‘crying it out’ is considered child abuse, parents are doing anything to keep their kids from crying at night or at naptime.  This leads to a lot of sleep issues for the kids because they aren’t given a chance to learn to fall asleep independently – and it is a learned skill.  Of greatest concern to me are moms who are bouncing off the walls emotionally due to severe and ongoing sleep deprivation – sometimes a little grumpy, but often filled with rage and frustration, overreacting to any little thing, screaming at their young children or wanting to hurt them – far from loving behavior, and usually in the name of  attachment parenting.  I see this expressed online all the time.  I think if the only choice were letting a child cry for a while for a couple of nights or having a parent who is often filled with hostility towards him as a result of her exhaustion, letting them cry is much, much better.

    We have to stop being so afraid that if our children cry they’re going to have hangups and feel abandoned and unloved.   (If a child grows up never having his cries responded to, yes, he will develop issues and shut down. But that’s almost never the issue.)  Let’s say my ds3 sees a chocolate in the store and asks for it.  Knowing it’s not good for him, I say ‘no’ and he starts to cry.  Does the chocolate become good for him because he is crying for it?  No.  Should I give him the chocolate because he cries?  No.  If you’ve determined your child needs to go to sleep (and sufficient sleep is a serious need), you can’t let him go without it just because he doesn’t want it or it’s hard for him.  Crying before bedtime and naptime doesn’t mean that he isn’t tired enough or shouldn’t go to sleep; it means he wants to stay up later and is going to try to convince you with crying that he should get what he wants.  Just like the chocolate.

    I’m not saying that letting a child cry is the only or best option – it’s not and it’s not generally what I do.  I just want to be clear that I think that it’s not the big hairy deal that moms are making it out to be.  I think the easiest method is preventing sleep issues in the first place.  My babies sleep in my bed for the first 6 – 8 weeks after they’re born.  Then I move them to a bassinet right next to my bed.  This is close enough that as soon as the baby wakes up (not every time he stirs – often they stir and fall back asleep if left alone), I wake up and can nurse him, and we both sleep more soundly like this – babies tend to wake up much more frequently because of the movement of their parents.  And every time they wake up, they end up being nursed back to sleep. Before you know it, you’ve created a cycle of repeated night wakings.  Generally my babies wake up once in the night to be nursed, and start sleeping through the night on their own without much conscious effort on my part.

    Here’s a tip that is counter intuitive, but this is crucial.  Put your child to sleep before he is showing signs of being tired.  This is true for a child of any age.  A few weeks ago, my baby was being super cranky.  Crying all day, sleeping about five minutes after being put down and then waking up.  All day long.  After a week of this, I realized what was happening (remember, there are other people besides me putting him to sleep and picking him up when he cries).  He wasn’t being put down until he was overtired, and because he was overtired, he couldn’t easily fall asleep.   What I immediately did was start putting him to sleep before he looked like he needed it and explained to my kids what I was doing and why, as well as showing them the signs of when it was the right time for him to go in for a nap.  The first day he slept a huge amount – it was literally like he slept all day long except for very short waking periods when he would nurse and then go back to sleep.  He had a week long sleep deficit to make up for!  Since then, he hardly cries at all – we put him down for a nap when he starts to look relaxed and mellow (vs alert and bright eyed), and he falls asleep without whimpering.

    I’ve shared my general thoughts on the importance of sleep, of preventing sleep issues in the first place, and told you when the best time to put your child in bed is.  Now, to the specific question – you’re right, your son is acting exactly like a seriously overtired child.  So the question is how to help him get more sleep.  First of all, I would try to go back to a nap during the day. He clearly can’t handle the long day without it.  In the earlier half of the day, around 12 or so, I’d suggest you have a nice long story session to get him feeling mellow.  Being in one place snuggled next to you is going to naturally relax him.  When he’s looking drowsy, or even just very relaxed, it’s time for a nap. He may suddenly pop up and start insisting he’s not tired and doesn’t want to take a nap.  That’s okay.  Tell him he doesn’t have to sleep, just rest in his bed for a little bit.  Let him get up after a half hour if he doesn’t fall asleep.  Then do the same thing the next day, but let him stay in bed a little longer.  Do this for at least a week or two.  Soon he should start relaxing enough to fall asleep.  What you’re doing is setting up the situation to help him learn to fall asleep without being carried (I have no idea how you did this for so long – it’s amazing the things mothers do for their children!).   Remember, falling asleep independently is a learned skill and it’s going to take him some time to learn how to do it – but you have to give him the chance to learn.

    Until he starts sleeping during the day again, he needs to go to bed earlier.  I don’t know when he wakes up, but since he’s already overwound by 7 pm, I’d suggest trying for 6 pm.  Remember, don’t wait for a child to show signs of being tired to put them to bed.  I understand the concern about him waking up early – go to sleep early yourself just in case he does so you have the energy to deal with it.  But it’s more likely that because you put him to sleep earlier, he’ll sleep longer- the irony is the more rested a child is, the more they sleep.

    Good luck, and don’t give up!

    Avivah

  • Holiday davening and small children

    Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are very important times in the yearly calendar, times that even those who aren’t very religiously affiliated go to synagogue.  It’s no suprise that a time like this can become confusing for mothers to navigate – how does mothering young children and going to shul fit together?

    I can only share my own decision – everyone handles this differently.  I believe there’s a time and season for everything, and the expectations we have of ourselves have to change accordingly.  For me, that means that as long as I have young children, my way of serving H-shem/G-d can’t be to spend long hours in synagogue.  H-shem sent me these children to raise to serve Him, not just on humdrum days of the week but at times that are deeply meaningful.  I believe my job is to mother them and to serve H-shem in this role – that no longer means spending uninterrupted hours in shul on holidays.  I choose not to enroll my children in the available babysitting at the shul because I don’t feel that’s the right environment for them on such a special day.  I can’t say that I would never consider it in the future, and I certainly understand mothers who make a different choice than I do.  But until now this has been my feeling, one that doesn’t seem to be widely shared.

    Some mothers find time in their busy days to pray at home.  I’ve done that and continue to do that, but honestly it’s not usually inspired – probably because it’s usually when everyone is sleeping and I’m already at the end of a long day.  If it’s in the middle of a day, I’m sneaking the time during the naptime of the littles, hoping to get in as much as I can before they wake up.  What is most important for me is to appreciate whatever I can do and in whatever way, instead of comparing it to how I davened before children.  It may be different, but one way isn’t better than the other – the question is what is better for me at this particular time.

    I generally go to shul for shofar blowing – I used to go at the regular time but that wasn’t relaxing because there’s the pressure of keeping everyone quiet.  Then I started meeting dh at the end of davening and being there for the second blowing.  I was blessed for the last couple of years with a neighbor who blew for the women on the block, but he just moved.  🙁   That was especially wonderful two years ago when I had a week old baby and the walk to shul would have been physically taxing for me. 

    Wherever you do or don’t daven this Rosh Hashana, I wish all of you a wonderful yom tova and a year filled with happiness, health, meaning, and abundance of all good things.  K’sivah v’chasima tova – may you each be written and sealed for the good!

    Avivah

  • Toddler traumatized by separation

    >>I was wondering if you can give me some advice on my situation. Ds2  was always very attached. I let him be as clingy as he needed, and eventually he became more independent and not so attached anymore. Then I gave birth (edited – and was in the hospital for two days). Now I know a homebirth would have prevented this issue, but the issue now is:
    He is traumatized that i left him.  He asks me to hold him whenever i’m nursing the baby, is biting me and hitting me, has asked to nurse (though he’s weaned 5 mos already) and is just in general being VERY clingy. He insists on coming with me to the bathroom and watching me when i shower…

    So my question is- what do i do now?
    Just let him be as clingy as he feels the need to, to reassure him that i’m gonna be there for him and won’t leave him, and let him become more independent when he is ready to do so?  Or be very loving and warm to him, but set limits like “no coming with mommy to the bathroom” or “no watching mommy shower”?  And what do i do when he wants to be held while i’m nursing the baby?<<

    Today on the way home from our full day of shopping, we listened to a cassette that I got a couple of years ago – it was a talk on parenting given at a homeschooling conference in 2001.  The speaker was extremely funny – my kids were cracking up, and so was I (though laughing hard isn’t a good idea right now for me, since it caused me to throw up several times – but it was worth it!).  The premise of the talk was that there’s not much support for parents nowadays, and that though people complain that kids today aren’t disciplined, parents who do what is necessary to develop a disciplined and well behaved child who knows his limits and has self control are criticized.  It was a great talk and I mention it here since he shared a philosophy very similar to mine, and touched on a point that you’re asking about – the place of discipline. 

    I don’t encourage clinginess, but I do support giving a lot of love and warmth.  It might seem it’s two ways of saying the same thing, but there’s a significant difference.  When you give a child a message that he is emotionally needy and you’re there for him (that was the first option you mentioned), that’s a very different message from he’s healthy and fine and you’re there for him (option number two).  One encourages his weakness and one supports his strength. 

    Kids need discipline.  It’s not a kindness to refrain from establishing clear limits with your children.  It’s no favor to give them all that they want (hmm, this is sounding like what I wrote about last night that was lost even though it was on an entirely different topic).  

    When a child goes through a situation like this, they do want your presence.  It’s frightening for the person who is the center of your universe to disappear for two or three days, especially when you’re little and have no sense of time, and may even be afraid that they aren’t coming back at all.  He’s not asking just for your physical presence, but for  your reassurance that you won’t disappear again.    There are lots of non verbal ways to do that, but you don’t need to aquiesce to all that he’s asking for if it’s uncomfortable for you.  I don’t mind letting my toddler watch me brush my teeth, but that’s about it as far as my comfort level goes regarding my time in the bathroom and the company of little people.  Moms are entitled to at least that tiny bit of privacy, aren’t they? 🙂  Practically speaking, I suggest you take a shower either before he wakes up or after he goes to sleep to avoid the issue for 2 – 3 weeks.  With time he’ll become increasingly secure about your presence. 

    In general, give him a lot of attention, but don’t overdo it so he thinks that you’re trying to make up for bringing the baby into his life.  Then it will reinforce his feeling that you’ve done something to wrong him.  Newborn babies nurse alot, but they sleep a lot more than they’re awake.  That gives you loads of time when your attention is totally on him.  But even when the baby is awake or nursing, he doesn’t need much of your emotional attention.  When you’re nursing the baby, you can make a point of gathering him into one arm and hugging him – he doesn’t have to be on your lap if you can’t manage that.  You also can give him a special hug right before you feed the baby.  Right after I have a baby, I make it a point to make nursing sessions special reading time for my toddlers.  So instead of feeling resentful that Mommy is spending so much time holding the baby, they love it because when I feed the baby it means they get to cozy up on the couch next to me and hear a story of their choosing. 

    Congratulations on your new baby and enjoy this period – it goes by soooo fast!

    Avivah

  • Kids who are picky eaters

    >>You make a lot of interesting and exotic foods. Do your kids eat all of it, or are they picky eaters? What is your policy in terms of if kids don’t like a certain food?  Or if they’re not picky eaters, how do you ensure that?<<

    Yes, my kids eat what I make.  I don’t see any reason they shouldn’t!  I try to make foods that my kids will enjoy, and they have the ability to enjoy a wide variety of foods, so that makes it easier to make foods they like!  None of them are picky eaters at all and it’s not because they were born with a genetic tendency to eat what is put on the table. 🙂

    The reason they have the ability to enjoy so many foods is because they’ve been given the opportunity on a regular basis without any emotional overtones attached to their eating habits.  I remember years ago a good friend used to always tell me how picky her children were, and how ‘lucky’ I was that my kids weren’t picky.  One day she was at our house and since it was getting late for our young children, I served an early dinner for all of them.  It was egg pancakes, something my kids always enjoyed and her ‘picky’ four or five year old daughter was gobbling it up.  My friend started exclaiming to me, with her daughter sitting right there, “I can’t believe she’s eating this!  She never eats anything.  She’s so picky, I can’t get her to eat anything.  I can’t believe it!”  And right on cue, her daughter suddenly stopped eating and told her mother she didn’t like it.  It was so obvious that the problem wasn’t the child or the way she ate, but her mother paying too much attention to it; the child got a lot of attention as well as a feeling of power because of her ‘pickiness’.

    Here’s my general approach to food: Don’t make a big deal of it and neither will they.  Food is just food.  Kids learn very quickly when the mother has a lot of emotion invested in their eating habits.  I serve the food, and if they’re hungry, they’ll eat.  I rarely insist on them eating if they don’t feel like it.  (They do have to sit at the table with everyone, whether they’re choosing to eat or not, since mealtime isn’t about just the food; it’s a time for family togetherness and connection.)  If they don’t want what I’m serving (and don’t think that they absolutely love every single dish I make – nope!), that’s fine with me.  We have three meals a day and if they’re not hungry right at that moment, then they can eat when the next meal comes along.  I don’t make a second dinner for someone who doesn’t want what everyone else is having, and they don’t have the alternative of making themselves a sandwich or eating a bowl of cereal.  What I serve is what the choice is.

    Does that sound harsh? I don’t think it is. It’s a simple biological reality – the body gives a person signals as to when to eat.  Hunger is the best spice.  🙂  If they don’t feel like eating, I understand that’s not what their body needs right then.  I don’t like every food, and I don’t expect them to. I don’t put food on my children’s plates except when they’re small – we put out serving bowls in the center of the table and everyone takes as much or as little as they want.  I’ve sometimes suggested that they take just a small amount of something new that they’re not sure they’ll like.  I don’t insist they finish everything on their plates, but I also want them to learn not to be wasteful, so I don’t want them to heap their plates full and then end up throwing most of it away.

    I categorized this under frugal strategies because the willingness to eat a wide variety of foods means you can utilize whatever ingredients are affordable at that time, without worrying that someone will turn up their nose at it.  I so often heard people say they could never cook like I do because their families are so picky that they wouldn’t eat beans, or they have to have meat every night.  Picky children weren’t created in a vacuum and it’s a situation that can be changed.

    Avivah