In the last 24 hrs I have gone from 16 & Pregnant mom, to Kate Gosselin, and I am starting to think we are hitting a new stage in life, and parenting.
It all started last night, about one hour after we had put A to bed. Since she is still switching her little body back to the correct time zone, and figuring out that she does in fact love her crib and there are no monsters in her room, we have been cutting her some slack at bedtime. Typically she gets dinner at 5:30, bath at 6:00, and books and bedtime at 6:30...but last night we didn't even get her in the tub till 6:35 making books about 15 minutes later. So it was no surprise that she was a little fussy going down.
Here is our rule (man, just writing this seems like we have a lot of rules for our little munchkin) each parent will go up once to calm her down if she starts to whine/cry in her crib after she has been put down. If after those two times she lets out a blood curdling scream, of course we will sprint upstairs to check on her...but once we know she is fine, she is on her own. So last night was no different...she used her two parent visits in the first 15min then was pretty quiet, until she let out a "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY" scream straight out of Lama, Lama, Red Pajama.
Naturally I jumped up and sprinted up the stairs two at a time, reaching her bedroom in under 2 seconds flat. I burst in the door thinking she has lost a limb or someone is in her room trying to steal her, to find my little girl alternate from shouting "MOMMY" to shouting "MILK". Okay, so what was I supposed to do?!?
This has never happened before so as she is still whine/crying milk, I do what I think any mom should do...I carry her downstairs trying to muffle my laugh (unsuccessfully)...I get her a sippy cup of milk, which she immediately begins to chug, and then one quick kiss from daddy before I cart her upstairs and back into her crib (no milk in there...I heard what it can do to their teeth and ears). After giggling all the way back downstairs it dawns on me...was that a bad call? I definitely don't want to be in the habit of getting the kid milk every night, but clearly she was thirsty? Oh, well, I chalk it up to a bad move a 16 & Pregnant mom would do and settle in for some more episodes of Burn Notice.
So then today, something turns me into Kate Gosselin. As we are sitting at the table having lunch, A starts banging her hands on the table. At first I tell her "no" and she looks at me and starts giggling, the next time I repeat "no banging, A" and stop her hand from hitting the table, again she giggles and says "bang, bang". The third time I look at her very sternly and grab her hand and say "NO banging" while I push her chair back from the table. The it starts...the full on giggle fit accompanied by "bang, bang, bang" as she flails her body around in her booster chair. Now, again what am I supposed to do!?!? When she stops giggling I push her back to the table and pick up her lunch for her to have a bite. Now she is flailing on the table, laughing up a storm. So I push her back, unclip her from her booster, carry her upstairs as she is slapping the crap out of my arms, and make her sit on the landing in the corner.
Our first time-out.
Let me just set the record straight...A is not a child who EVER sits still, so when I place her in the corner and tell her, "We do not bang on the table or hit people because it can hurt them, or we will get a time-out", she looks up at me with her bright blue eyes, gives me the biggest smile she has, and doesn't budge. I turn around so I am no longer facing her, count to 20, then turn back and ask if she is ready to apologize. To this she looks right at me with a big smile and her arms outstretched and says, "yeah" without having moved even a 1/4 inch from where I placed her 20 seconds earlier. So not really sure how this time-out business is supposed to work, but I would say our first one was a massive success and a massive failure all at the same time.
Here's to a new stage for both A and mommy!
xoxo
Daily Mom
Oh man, time outs are the worst for us. Niall never sits still and I don't know if putting him back in the corner over and over is defeating the whole purpose. Lately, I'll just put him there, walk away and ignore him until the time out is over. I figure at least I'm not paying attention to him. It's so tough, though!
ReplyDeleteBud never understood time-outs when he was little. Now that's he's older we have a slightly different variation to the "typical" time-out. When he's being mean to another person or just really being out of control I tell him to go sit on the couch (or whatever is appropriate) until he's ready to be nice again. This could range from 1 minute to 10 minutes but he knows that he can't get up until he's ready. It works out nicely for both of us.
ReplyDeleteBabe is another story. She looks at us and laughs like we are morons if we think she's going to get a time out!
I've learned whatever you do, just be consistent.
Congrats on reaching this new stage. It's fun (Ahem.)