Today is Tuesdays With Murray, which means I’m supposed be writing about Murray. And I have a story to share. But Internet? It’s been a really rough four days and my brain is out of batteries.
You see, Toby and I decided (out of nowhere) that we were going to take away the bappy. Y’all are like, What the hell is a “bappy?” That’s what my son calls his pacifier. He loves his bappy especially when it’s time for night-night or he needs to calm down.
Well, we decided it was time. Just like that. We figured we’d see how it goes for a day. And then when the world didn’t end, we kept going. This is day four and it’s been OK. I won’t try and make things sound too terrible. He has slept relatively well. Things are OK at night. We’ve gotten several desperate pleas for a pacifier, but we usually distract him until he forgets. And those pleas (not to jinx it) are becoming fewer and fewer in number.
But, what’s a nap?
There hasn’t been much napping and when he does nap, it’s a fall asleep where you’re sitting type of thing and it usually takes place the hours right before the bedtime safety zone. The other night he fell asleep eating at 5 PM. I knew that was going to mean later we’d face a great deal of trouble getting him to sleep, but at that point? I so needed a few minutes to myself that I just let him sleep for a while.
The part that’s been REALLY difficult are the tantrums. They don’t happen all the time—most of the time he’s wonderfully funny and sweet and I mean that. But when the tantrums do happen? There’s absolutely NO calming him down. I swear there are dozens of Brooklyn residents that think we beat our child. But that’s a story for another day. I’m not sure if it’s that we took the pacifier away, or if we’re just knee-deep in the terrible twos, but lately the tantrums have been brutal.
So, my days have been tiring and rough lately. And I need a break. I haven’t said that in a long time, but I do. I need a break. And now that winter is upon us and he isn’t in school at all (I will explain whole not moving situation soon) and we don’t have the ability to hit the playground, the days are killing us both. I need to get lost in a movie or something, with a pacifier.
Quite frankly, I have no idea how the anti-TV parents do it. Because the only (and I mean ONLY) downtime I get is when he watches Sesame Street or Night At the Museum for the 100th time. (Incidentally, whomever gave that movie an abysmal 2.5 stars was not a child nor did they speak to children. Stupid, adult movie reviewers.)
Some of you are probably wondering how I’m writing this post—like, what’s he doing right now. He’s building a choo-choo track in his room and begging for me to join him. So, I gotta go lay down some railroad, my friends. But I’ll try my damnedest to have a halfway literate Murray post up later today.
Because this one? Not so much.
We had to go through the getting rid of the soother as well with my daughter. Just like you don’t understand how ‘no t.v’ parents survive, I do not understand how ‘no soother’ parents do. I want to slap those parents who say, ” oh my child never needed one”. It does get better and they get over it. My daughter went through a phase where she loved to help tidy up and throw things in the garbage, so we told her that her soother was dirty and needed to go in the garbage, she threw it in and anytime after that when she asked for it we explained that it was dirty and went in the garbage and that seemed to be enough explanation. Not to say there weren’t a few difficult nights as a result, but it did get better pretty quick. It won’t be this bad forever I promise:) I think letting her feel like she had a part in the decision helped…..maybe a little far fetched, but it helped me sleep at night:) haha
Sometime in the next week we will be taking away the bottle. And I am sure I will be in a world of hurt. And it will be unpleasant and perhaps even torturous. But again, I’m looking to you to see how I’ll get through it! :)
Oh maaaaan. The pacifier was hard for us to get rid of as well. In three day’s time, he was over it, but he was one unhappy 3-4ish month old.
Our biggest hurdles right now are weaning him off of his bottle and getting him to sleep in his crib, which is no fun at all.
Oh and he’s a year old now. Just thought I’d clarify that.
We took my son’s away at 18 months and the first night wasn’t bad, it was the several days later that became hard, because he would ask for one. And we as well got the tantrums and now that he is 23 months old i swear the tantrums are slowly fading. I think they were at their peak when we removed the pacifier because he had no way on how to self soothe and he has now figured it out. Nap times no longer occur at 12 around our home, they are now a 4 p.m. kind of thing if we are lucky. There are days when there are no naps period and those are the hardest. It does get better though…
I feel your pain regarding the tantrums and no napping and needing a desperate BREAK. My son is 25mths and so sweet most of the time, but then all of a sudden he can throw some wild tantrums for up to an hour and it takes all my patience to get through them. Sometimes I think he’s totally forgotten what it was all about in the first place. Sometimes I pretend I’m crying and this seems to upset him more and he’ll actually stop to console me. This works – try it.
Getting him down for a nap takes more energy out of me than anything else. Some of my friends can somehow keep there children in there rooms for ‘quiet’ time for up to 2 hrs but my son will scream down the place if I do so. So now instead of wasting all my energy on trying to get him to nap I lay on our bed with him and reading tons of books and the for the last week he’s actually gone down for a nap (1:30pm – 3:30pm). Unfortunately my two boys (the other is nearly 6 mths) have totally opposite sleep schedules so no rest for me. And the younger one has decided all of a sudden it is time to start eating every 3 hours again through the night. He used to sleep through the night a few months ago. The older one is also not sleeping well. My husband and I are up all night with these two. He woke up the other morning on the floor of the boy’s room and both of them in bed with me! We’re walking around like the walking dead. Passing each other in the dark at night.
I don’t have advice on the pacifier. My son never used one, but he has 2 shameful looking blankets that’ll need to go some time soon.
Hope we’ll get through this phase alive :)
Elle: Your comment makes me feel so much better knowing I’m not alone. But TWO OF THEM? OMG, woman, I’ll send help so you two can go out, see a movie and then fall asleep through the night.
I’m not sure what I’d do with two right now. It’d be mayhem for sure.
Egirl: I have an even bigger more awful confession to make here: Emory still drinks from a bottle before bedtime. :[ We cut it back, and we’re using some bottle/sippy cup hybrid at this point, but still. NOT cool. But we’re not sure how many things we can take from him all at once without losing our minds entirely.
One step at a time. After the Bappy, I’m going to cut the sippycup/bottle. After that, it’s potty training time. (Right now, he does it every time if he’s naked. As soon as I put some pants on him, he’ll have an accident. I’m still learning how to be a parent—every day.)
Confessions:
My son turns two this week and still gets a bottle before bed and I don’t mind at all. It helps him relax and go to sleep and since he isn’t a great eater it gives me peace of mind knowing that he’s getting some nutrition in at the end of the day. My pediatrician would flip out if he knew, but I really don’t think it is hurting anything at all. I read him his book hold him in my arms and he drinks the bottle we put it up, turn out the lights and go to bed. So mihow don’t feel bad, each parent does what is right for their child. We also are in the process of cutting out the “pagy” paci and I use the distract method by saying I can’t find it or it’s being washed… etc. and if that doens’t work I go ahead and give it to him.
Yeah, don’t worry, we’re going out tonight (anniversary) to get out in civilization for a bit. This might sound bad but I always find peace in the fact that someone might be worst off than me. Met a girl the other day that is 38wks pregnant with her 4th child. The other kids are 4yrs, 3yrs and 15mths AND her husband is deployed in Germany and will only be home in 6mths!! C.R.A.Z.Y! But she looked amazing, nails and hair done and not coocoo at all. Makes my problems seem like a walk in the park. Merry Christmas to you and your family by the way!
Confessions? Our E uses a bottle all day and evening long and is only a month younger than Em. If she drinks milk, it is in a bottle. All other liquids she will take in a sippy. It is going to be hell since it is such a comfort item. We got rid of the pacifer when sleep training pre-one year, but that’s about all we’ve done.
And then we’ve got the whole potty training thing to work on….
I try to look at the big picture when I find myself getting frustrated with myself over not meeting the prescribed “deadlines” for taking baby items away…. my kid is happy, healthy and relatively well-adjusted. Her teeth are not disintegrating in front of my eyes, as we brush regularly and have fluoride drops. And the same deadline doesn’t work for every child….
OK! As long as we’re being totally honest. I lied. Emory uses a bottle more than just at night. I am a liar!! I NEVER LIE! But, yeah. If he drinks milk, it’s from a bottle. He refuses to drink milk out of anything else. We’ve tried.
OMG, I hate that I lied. But it feels much better now that I’ve admitted that….
LOL don’t feel bad you only fibbed because society makes us feel like if we don’t do what everyone else is supposibly doing then we’re doing something awful. You’re a great mom and doing what is right for you and EM :)
No advice, but lots of I feel for ya :)
My son gave up the paci at 3 mon. and there were times I’d wish he hadn’t. Bottle was another story. We actually accidentally weaned him off it by losing the last bottle we had, boy that was a shit night.
Just a word of warning, even though we got rid of the bottle, he still had a sippy cup at night. After having to get a root canal at 2 (talking about feeling like a shitty mom), he still took awhile to not want the sippy, but he only got water. His memory of the dentist and that we didn’t want any more sugar bugs was enough to calm down the crying of wanting milk or juice at night.
My son is 4 and still sleeps with me, so we all have our thing. But I think we’re all doing the best we can :)
Hi
off topic from your blog. I noticed you replied to a thread about pot partum hypER thyroid. I have searched the Internet every which way looking for someone who has or is going through it. I came across you. I hope you don’t mind me contacting you via your blog. I am desperate for info on this. Anyway please e mail tour personal experieces with this. All I know is I feel terrible. meantangent@yahoo.com
thankyou so much. You can delete this after reading :)
Dana: I wrote you back. So sorry for the delay. Let’s chat. I’m sorry you are having troubles and completely understand. I’ll do what I can to make you feel better.
Inspired by your post, I decided to work on getting my son weened from the pacifier. He just turned 2 in December. The long term goal had always been to ween him down to only using it for sleep at age 1 (success!) and then taking it away completely at age 2. We put it off a little because of the holiday traveling.
I did some reading about talking about how “babas” are for babies not big boys and how we are going to gift them to a baby we know. Well, the only local baby we know is away on vacation. So I planned to mention it a couple times daily until she returned and we could “gift” her the pacifiers…only…nap time rolled around that first day and he didn’t ask for his baba…so I didn’t give it to him. It took a bit longer for him to fall asleep and there was a lot of rubbing his mouth, touching his tongue (a bit odd) and then he was asleep. Last night he asked for it once, without much gusto and went all night without it.
As a child who sucked her finger for EIGHT years with a brother who sucked his for TWELVE, I am ever so glad for the pacifier and frankly amazed by how quickly he did without it.
Will potty training be this easy?
*fingers crossed*
I found your blog from dooce, I must admit that my daughter still gets a bottle before naptime! I’ve kept this secret from all of my friends and especially my mother. I feel so much better:) She just naps so much better when she has it, and I NEED that time.
I found you on dooce.com. I am the classically boring been-there-done-that 50 year old mother of six and I am really tickled by your work. Writing. Lollipop making.
You bring a lovely enthusiasm to your mommy stories. Thanks for sharing them!
Warmest Regards,
Another pot.