So Long Crib!

Yesterday, Saturday, we got Ari's new mattress delivered. She had gone with us to pick it out and we talked about it for the last week as we prepared for its arrival. When it showed up, she was ready!

"New bed! Big kid bed!

We had also gone to buy sheets together and she had picked out her own sheets. The sheets were actually a bit of a challenge because you see, Ari has a queen bed. Now before you say, are they crazy? Here's what happened. We wanted to buy Ari a full mattress, no box spring, and just lay it on the floor. We figure the closer to the ground you are, the less pain there is when you fall out. Also, we wanted a full because we wanted enough room on the bed for one of us to be able to sleep with her if she gets sick or she isn't sleeping well and we need to stay with her trying to get her back to sleep, and oops, we fall asleep too. Much nicer than falling asleep in the rocking chair. We figured, the full bed will also last her a long time and she can have sleepovers with it. Anyway, we are at the mattress store and they are having this special sale on the mattress that she/we liked. The deal was that it was the same price no matter what size you chose. Now... a king bed would definitely not fit into her room and would be silly, but between a full and a queen, we might as well get the bigger one for the same price! :) More fools us. They don't really sell toddler friendly sheets in the queen size.

So here we are walking down the aisle at Target (after failing miserably in Walmart) and it is Dora.. nope... Nemo... nope... Cars... nope... Fairies... nope... We finally give up on the toddler aisle and go around the corner and hallelujah! They have pre-teen sheets that are all these vibrant beautiful colors and they came in queen! So.. Ari chose a quilt that has all the bright rainbow stripes across it with a matching light blue sheet. It looks so cute and now I don't have to worry about her outgrowing a particular character. :)

She has been doing great! Her first nap, of course, she had to test the fact that she could actually get out of her bed alone, and it didn't help any that she needed to poop. As soon as we got all cleaned up, though, she went right to sleep and slept like normal. For bed time, she didn't even try to get out. She just went right to sleep. Overnight, because she has a mild cold, she was awake for 1 1/2 hours and it was heaven to be able to just lay down next to her instead of holding her rocking her in the chair. Today, again, for nap time, she went right to sleep and for bed, she needed a second visit, but otherwise, was out like a light. We have had our first falling out incident which wasn't so good and I have since moved the offending thing I didn't think she would be able to roll out into away from where it was that she rolled into it. LOL She just had to find the one spot that was going to hurt if she rolled out there.

A couple of notes for those thinking to move from the crib about why I think it went smoothly for us. 1) We have been watching this DVD called Potty Power. In the first segment they play a game called Baby or Big Kid. They proceed to show pictures and ask questions like, "Who can build a tower by themselves? Baby or Big Kid?" So... one of the questions is, "Who sleeps in a crib? Baby or Big Kid?" :) 2) We were thinking to get a new bed frame because ours was one of those with it standing off the ground, then box springs, then a big mattress and even I had to climb into bed instead of just get into it. Anyway, with Ari being able to get out of her bed, we wanted her to be able to get into ours by herself. So... we were originally just thinking to dump the box springs and get a low platform bed but keep the mattress. A long story short, we ended up changing the mattress and haven't gotten the platform bed yet. On the same day that Ari got her new mattress, mommy and daddy got their new mattress. Ours is of course, sitting on the ground like hers. I think that it made it easier for her because we were all going through it together. She was just as excited about being able to get into ours easily as she was by hers. I'm not saying everyone she get a new bed when their children do, but if you think you will be in the market in the next few months for a new bed, then it might be worth moving your schedule up and doing it together. :)

Anyway, my big girl is growing up and it is so wonderful to see! I just hope I don't have to try out her bed again tonight for 1 1/2 hours! :)

P.S. I know my site is kind of boring with no added pictures to posts yet, but I am having trouble locating my chords for my digital camera and so the camera is out of battery and even if it wasn't, I can't pull the pictures off of it. *sigh* As soon as I find those, there will be accompanying photos to go along with many of these posts. :)

Dance Baby, Dance!

On Friday morning Ari tried out her first dance class and it was very monumental to us.  The teacher had initially told us that most times parents will stay in with their child the first couple of lessons and then eventually, the class is supposed to be for the child to be there without the parent.  We went into the class and joined in with everyone and it was really nice but I realized that Ari was really into things for brief times but then she would turn to me instead of listening to the instructors.  I decided that the next moment she was distracted by the activity, I would sneak out and as soon as she got upset, I would come back in, but I was obviously more in the way than supportive.  

Well... Ari stayed in and loved the WHOLE class.  All 45 minutes with me only there the first 5 minutes or so.  She had such a good time with the other children and dancing around to the music.  The class is set up perfectly moving from one thing to the next so fast that they don't even really have a chance to consider being unhappy about mommy not being there.  The milestone is that, while Ari and I have done a lot of classes together in her lifetime, this is the first one where she was experiencing it without me.  My heart was both joyous at how well she did and sad to think that it was really the start of her having a lot of new experiences without me in the near future.  

I totally recommend this dance school.  If you want to hear more about it, please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address if I don't already have it.  Also, leave me your special milestone in the comments, because I would love to hear about them!

Ari's Amazing Day Yesterday

Ari is learning things so fast lately that we are hard pressed to keep up.  I am not good at pulling out my video camera so instead, I am going to start blogging some of her cuter or more amazing moments so that her family can read them and she can read about it when she is older.  :)

Yesterday, was full of such moments so I will just make it a bullet point type of list.  Hehe...

1.  My Mom (a.k.a. Safta, which is grandma in Hebrew) recently bought Ari some underwear.  It isn't because she is potty trained, but more for her to enjoy and also to help keep droopy diapers held up better without wearing a onesie.  Ari loves them!  So I'm changing her yesterday and she wants me to put her underwear on her and I do.  Afterwards, she stands up and says, "underwear.  present. thank you Safta!"  (She actually said someone else's name, because my mom's friend had gotten her presents from the same place and given it to her on the same day as my mom and she mistook who gave the underwear to her.)  She got the presents like 4 or 5 days ago.  I was impressed she remembered they were a present and even more moved by her still thanking the person who gave it to her.  :)

2.  So, as a joke 2 days ago, while we are sitting at a restaurant next door to a starbuck's, my mom's friend points to the starbuck coffee sign and says to Ari, "What does this say?"  This is the perfect trigger for my little speller and so of course I have to now spell the words and then repeat them to her.  S-t-a-r-b-u-c-k-s Starbucks!  C-o-f-f-e-e Coffee!  Yesterday, we ate at a place that was across a wide parking lot from a Starbucks  and this same friend jokingly points across the parking lot asking Ari again, what does that say?  I tell her, look at the green letters honey.  She looks over and finds the green letters and sure enough says without faltering, "Coffee, Starkbucks Coffee."  LOL  We're starting her vices early!

3.  Also at this same lunch yesterday, as we are all eating and playing with Ari, with no prompting from anyone, Ari starts to say something that we are all scrambling to understand.  I ask her to repeat herself and struggle again.  One more time, honey.  Ari: "Uno, dos, tres, quatro,..."  Apparently, she has learned to count in Spanish from watching Dora.  Thanks Dora!

4.  As we are leaving lunch she starts saying Big 5, Little 5.  I figure she is seeing some sign that has a big 5 on it and a little 5 on it.  I look around and find that what she is really doing is reading from the store sign.  "Big 5 Sporting Goods"  She was reading Big 5 and then supplying the little 5 since so many of her books work in opposites.  Hehe...

5.  Lastly, we went to a park in the afternoon and a little girl about her age came up to her and said "Hi."  Ari replied, "Hi!  What's your name?"  That had me in stitches.  She gets it from one of her Signing Time DVDs that is all about meeting new friends.  

Man, they pick up so much!

Sweet Dreams

This is going to be the big elephant in the room with me whenever I am in a room talking about sleep with other moms.  I tend to keep my own council unless I see someone else who is showing signs of seeing this issue in the same way I do.  That said... I have VERY strong opinions about children and sleep.  Strong like... want to tour around convincing people to my way of thinking.  It's such a touchy subject, though, isn't it?  Most of us want to do what is best for our children, but there is soooo much bad information out there and as sleep deprived mommies and daddies, if someone offers us a way to a good night's sleep and tells us it is good and healthy, we are likely to take them up on it.  So... what is this really all about?  It is about what I like to call the Cry-It-Out (CIO) myth.

Let's tackle self-soothing first because it is the big one that you are told is so important about doing CIO.  My pediatrician doesn't really advocate one way or another and I have no idea because I didn't care to know, what he did with his own children.  When I asked him about self-soothing, he said that self-soothing isn't something that is only acquired by leaving a child to cry at night.  It is a day and night thing.  If your child gets into a difficult or frustrating situation and can figure out how to take themselves from frustrated/angry back to calm and even happy, then you have a self-soother.  There are children who truly have no self-soothing techniques and they will completely lose it and have no way back from a bad situation without a parent intervening.  So... doing CIO because you want to teach your child to self-soothe is not necessary nor necessarily productive (see later comments).

Next, let's talk about actually getting sleep.  That's always an important part of why people choose it.   The truth is though that I have never met a parent who used CIO who hasn't over and over again time and again had sleep issues come up.  Children are just not made for sleeping well every single night (not that most adults are either).  They get sick a lot, which keeps them up, they have milestones that get their little minds working so hard that they can't sleep, they have belly aches that they can't convey to us, they wake up from a bad dream and can't convey that either, they need a lot of love and needing comfort and loving isn't something we turn off when we go to sleep.  Haven't you woken up from some bad dream and wanted to cuddle into your spouse for their comfort and warmth?  Now... we have all sorts of advanced thought processes that allow as to mentally say, "my spouse is sleeping peacefully and I don't want to wake him because he has a big day tomorrow, so I will just work it out on my own and go back to sleep.  I'll get my hugs in the morning."  Children can't reason like we do.  So this brings up a few points I would like to separate out. 

When you do CIO, what really happens?  Does you baby learn to happily just go to sleep on their own or do they learn that when they cry, no one is going to address them and their needs so they give up.  There is, after-all, an inherent intelligence to all of us that says when you try to run through a wall, that eventually, you will have hit your head enough that you will figure out nothing is going to change the fact that you can't run through the wall.  So... eventually, a baby will wear themselves out enough and come to the realization enough that they will stop crying and go to sleep.  The problem arises from what I said in the previous paragraph.  When your child gets sick, you can not let them just cry themselves back to sleep because something could very well be wrong.  So... you are now very attentive for a few days.  After they are better, you want to go back to your previous sleep behavior, but your child is now used to getting your attention and you essentially have to start all over again with CIO.  

It has been proven that while all of the things that have happened to us are not in recall memory, they are memories.  This leads to another problem for you as the parent when using CIO.  Who do you think is going to have a better sleep association?  The child who remembers sleep as a traumatic, lonely, separation anxiety full time or the one who has happily been lead to sleep with comforting and nurturing techniques?  Which child then is easier to get to sleep as a toddler?  The one with a positive happy association to sleep or the one who has a negative association to sleep?  Essentially, what I am saying, is that you are shooting yourself in the foot.  Yes, you will get more sleep when they are babies, SOME OF THE TIME, but you will be fighting to get them to want to go to sleep or to go to sleep without too much fuss, for a long time to come.

Let's talk about nightmares and nurturing now.  I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point our society decided that anything that can't speak, is not as worthy of affection and respect.  If you were to ask most parents, what would happen if your 4 year old came to you in the middle of the night and said they had a bad dream and they were scared, they would say something along the lines of they would invite the child to sleep with them, they would go sleep in the child's room, they would help the child look around the room for monsters and show them everything was alright, they would use some sort of imaginary play to vanquish the monsters, and they would definitely hug and kiss their child letting them know they are safe.  Somehow, because our older child can tell us what is bothering them, we are more willing to extend ourselves overnight while our babies and young toddlers, who don't have any way to communicate except crying, are left to deal with any fearful emotions on their own.  Even if an older child came in and said, "Mommy I'm lonely and sad," we would address them in some nurturing, compassionate way and yet, again, our little ones are left crying for a hug alone.

I'm sure I have more to say on the matter and might post again, but here is my last two thoughts on the matter.

Someone once said, though I don't know who, that "a society can be best judged by how it takes care of it's youngest and oldest members of its society."  Essentially, how we handle the most vulnerable around us.  Many people use CIO and many stick the elderly in homes and barely visit.  I wonder how we will be judged?

The last thing is a bit of a story for you to follow.

You have just been in a horrible car accident.  You cannot move anything except your neck up, though unfortunately, your vocal chords were severed as well.  Your loving family, including your husband, are taking good care of you and supporting you.  Your husband feeds you, he gives you something to drink, he takes care of cleaning you and all of your toiletry needs.  After taking care of all of these things all day, he has now brought you up to bed.  He talked to you as he tucked you in.  Told you how much he loves you and said goodnight.  Now... your husband has rigged a string dangling near your face that is connected to a bell downstairs.  If you turn your head, you can bite it and pull and he can hear that you need him.  You are laying in bed trying to sleep and something is wrong... Maybe you started to fall asleep but had a nightmare, maybe you just can't get to sleep no matter how hard you try and you are laying there lonely, maybe even though you did eat, you are hungry again, or thirsty again, maybe your just feeling sad, etc.  Who knows?  So... you turn your head and you give the strong some tugs.  No one comes.  You give more tugs.  You start getting upset as still no one comes.  You tug even harder and more frequently and tears start to fall from your eyes.  You are pulling and pulling but no one is coming!  Eventually, you have worn yourself out, your eyes are droopy from all of your salty tears, and you fall asleep.  This is you experiencing CIO.  

I wish I didn't have to put it so bluntly or it wasn't so harsh, but it is what it is.  And this is what it is.  

I want to say again, that I don't judge most moms that use CIO (most because I can't deal with the idea of actually turning off the monitor and not knowing if your baby needs you or not, I'm more talking about those doing CIO the ferber method or others where it is a progressive and then ultimately left alone thing but you are still listening to know if something is truly wrong like croup developing overnight).  I feel they are just told by pediatricians and books that CIO is good for their baby because they will learn to self-soothe and be good sleepers and that is why I call it a myth.  A doctor can tell you that clinically speaking, your child can sleep through the night at 6 month, but just because something is clinically okay, doesn't mean that it is what is right.  It doesn't take into account that as parents we are here to nurture our little ones day AND night.  When I talk to the older generation, they all say they don't remember sleeping much for about 2 to 2 1/2 years and then their kids (with no training) started to sleep through the night.  They didn't feel entitled to sleep the way many of us do.  It was just a part of being a parent.  

Ari has never been allowed to CIO.  There are times that she has cried from one thing or another in my arms as I comforted her, but she has never been allowed to lay in her room by herself and cry.  She is now almost 28months old and loves to go to sleep.  We have to fight over sleep maybe once or twice a month because she had too long a nap, too late in the day, and she isn't ready to sleep when we feel it is as late as we are comfortable with her going to sleep.  Again, it's very rare.  There are actually times where she will initiate her sleep routine.  We will be watching her bedtime show and we think she still looks kind of awake so we play another short show and she will grab her frog friend in the middle of the show, ask for her pacifier, and say "goodnight mommy" because daddy mostly puts her to sleep.  She gets a certain amount of books, maybe a song or story with the lights off, and we lay her down completely awake, say we love her and goodnight, and she goes right to sleep on her own.  There are no short cuts to this.  Ari slept well from 6 weeks to 6 months using "The Happiest Baby on the Block" techniques.  After that, I have had about 1 1/2 years of on and off bad sleep but still easy going to bed and naps.  Just lately, she has started, on her own, sleeping through the night.  

If this doesn't convince you, then I hope it at least gets you thinking.

There will be more lighthearted posts in the future, but for now this was a big thought I had to get off my chest.

Thanks for reading!

Michelle

Addendum to Terrific Twos

So... my Mom lives just up the street from us and on some mornings, she will take Ari for an hour or so to let me take care of the house or what-have-you. My husband will walk her up there, they say their goodbyes, and he comes back to get his laptop and goes off to work. I should also mention that usually my daughter will just say and want "a hug and a kiss." Lately, though, she has been really into spelling things. She asks us to spell all sorts of random things and we feel like we are a walking spelling bee.

So... my husband comes back today and tells me how it went.

Ari: Spell erough. 
Hubby: Erough?" 
Ari: NO! Spell erough!
Hubby: Enough?
Ari, now pouting: Spell Erough!
Hubby: I'm sorry honey I don't understand.
After about 5 minutes as Ari is getting more and more upset by his total lack of understand...
Hubby: I love?
Ari: YES!
Hubby: I-L-O-V-E, I love.
Ari: Spell you!

It brought tears to my eyes! They can be so amazing and sweet!

The Terrific Twos

Another short but sweet thought.  

You hear about the terrible twos every time you turn around, but does anyone else think of them as the terrific twos?  Are we the only ones?  I'm not saying we don't have stand-offs, days with lots of limit testing, and times of strict discipline, but we also get to actually play together (versus me entertaining), we laugh, we hug each other, we share jokes, and go on adventures.  

My husband and I are soooo not baby people and are so much happier with Ari as a toddler and yet I keep seeing these things that call this time period terrible.  Maybe it is just a perspective thing and when you look at it as terrific, it really is, and when you look at it as terrible, it really is.  The whole self-fore-filling prophecy.  All I know is that I love Ari as a toddler, tantrums and all, because we are having so much more fun together and she can communicate to me her thoughts which are always surprising and interesting.  Getting a glimpse into how her mind works is a wonder.

On a funny note for discipline, one of our standard disciplinary actions that I take is if I need something done timely (i.e. pick clothes out, buckle car seat belt, put clothes on, etc.) and she is giving me a hard time, I tell her I am counting to 10 and X needs to get done by then.  The first few times, Ari didn't quite get it and since she loves to count, she would count along with me, speeding me up, but would by the end or right after, swiftly get it done.  Try keeping a straight face through that!  The more recent variation that I couldn't keep a straight face through was:  

We were in the car with my mom and Ari has to do her seat belt herself.  "Baby's turn!"  When I see she isn't really doing it, but won't allow my mom to do it, I say, I am counting to 10 and then Safta (Grandma in Hebrew) will do it.  I start counting and as I get to 3 she yells out, "Almost there!"  With a barely contained grin, I keep counting and reach 6 and again, "Almost there!"  With a barely contained laugh but a big smile, I continue, and when I get to 10 she yells, Yay!  We did it!  Safta do it!"  Then she laughs.  After our little excursion, we get back in the car and I am prepared for the fight, when I jump in the car, as my mom is about to do up her car seat, Ari says, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!  Safta do it!" and proceeds to laugh.  So much for my discipline.  It is now a fun counting game.  At least we know who's in charge!  LOL  I really do love this time in her life!

Not to make it seem like it's all rays of sunshine, Ari and I have had 45 minute crying, angry, stand-offs, where we missed one of her classes, because we were fighting over putting on a shirt.  I wanted her to wear one and she was thinking maybe no.  Needless to say, I won, because I don't cave once I have put my proverbial foot down, but she got to choose a coat to wear over it, though it was super hot outside.  Ahhh.... I'm still learning the art of compromise.

So... This installment was not as short as I had thought initially, but hopefully still sweet or at least a good chuckle worth.  :)

"You're Going to Spoil that Baby"

How many of us have heard this from strangers because we are holding our babies a lot or being attentive when they cry.  "You are going to spoil that baby", must have been beaten into some people by someone who was not sparing the rod.  LOL

So... what is spoiling?  Is it showing another human being that you love them unconditionally?  If my husband showered me with endless amount of love but our relationship was exactly the same otherwise, would I be spoiled?  Would I expect to always get my way?  Would I behave badly with others?  Would I believe that my wishes were more important than other people's?  Or... Would I just be a person who knew she was loved and was able to be confidant in myself and the world around me knowing I could always turn to my husband when a day goes poorly?

I don't believe there is any way to spoil a child with love and attention.  I do believe that you can spoil a child when you give into their demands all of the time.  If you have said "no", but then turn around and cave because they are crying and throwing a tantrum.  If you let them run amok in a public place without checking their behavior.  If you allow bad behavior to go unpunished because you aren't following through with consequences.  These are the building blocks of spoiling a child.  The amusing thing I have found, is that a lot of times, those same parents who don't believe in giving a lot of attention to their children are the one's caving in to a crying child.  So... whose child will be spoiled?  My disciplined beloved baby girl or the unruly child loved at a distance?

I say... Love, love, and more love!  If I'm spoiling her, then let the spoiling continue!

This is a brief one.  Isn't it nice I'm not writing a novel every time?