Mondays are normally our “get back to the routine” day, but this Monday I was feeling especially sanguine and let the day just be fun. Why? you say after all the discussion of the merit of routine would I do this? Because this Monday was my birthday, everyone else was working, and I was feeling especially old because I’m turning 33- Why does 33 seem old to me?

When I was 10 yrs old I told my entire 3rd grade class how my Mom was too old to be having a baby at 33.

Here I am at 33 with a two year old! Funny how it all comes around.

It all started with breakfast in bed (thanks Daddy!). Isabelle thought this was very cool, then outside to watch the garbage truck which turned into playing with the hose as we washed the recycle bins and garbage can together, this was also very fun because we were still in pj’s and got soaked!

Isabelle asked to play in the backyard (in just her diaper now) to which I replied, “for just a few moments” and she said, “Mommy, get the bell.” I am telling you those kitchen timers are like magic to toddlers!

Once clean and dressed, off to Target and then to Chic-Fil-A, my favorite fast food, but I rarely indulge in as of late. In our local Chic-Fil-A the indoor play area is just a tad too big for Isabelle. She can get in but getting out…the last time I ventured to Chic-Fil-A due to invitation from a Mom friend I almost had a chlosterphobic attack inside the tube slide as 5 older children all slid on top of me as I guarded my sweet baby and eased her out.

So we ate and she begged to go play…I explained the rules that if she goes up she must get out by herself, as I reflected back and broke into a sweat. She agreed and was off. Moments later an older little girl obviously noticing my anxiety over the situation informed me that there were “mean boys” inside. I politely asked her to go up and check on Isabelle, she agreed ….but was easily distracted and gone before making good on the deal.

It was one of those “why did I think this was a good idea” moments. I searched the holes but no sign of her. I paced and thought about going in-you need to know I am 5′8″ and wear at least Large size clothes. This was not something I wanted to do. I rationalized I would hear crying if she were upset.

I prayed, and what I thought to be the “mean boys” came out and back through a few times. Finally I called up the tube slide “Isabelle”, and there it was, the reminder of why I have a routine and do training, the most beautiful 3 little sing song words.

“Yes Mommy coming” (Praise you God!)

Next I saw her cute little shoes scooting down the slide slowly but surely, next her ballerina skirt (its my birthday so I dress her extra cute) and finally her smiling face. Of course tons of Mommy praise followed!

You see we’ve been working on this for some time now, but today was the first public and prompt response I’ve received. And it was right before naptime!

We left Chic-Fil-A with no debate but a little talk of coming again (at least another 3 months from now!) Off to a long nap for her and I set out to clean out my garage and spray it with the pressure washer because choleric Connie simply had had enough of all this and needed to get something done. The pollen has been driving me crazy.

Tonite when I was cuddling and talking with Isabelle she told me “I had good day” - I had to agree
Happy Birthday to Me!

My husband and I really enjoy playing games of strategy. One of our favorites is Settlers of Catan, with the expansions. The board is set up randomly each time so each time you play, it is a different game involving different strategies. You build settlements, cities, and roads among other things to earn points. One night after we finished playing the game with some friends, my husband made an interesting observation. He said when you first start the game, you look at the board and come up with a game plan. You decide where you want to build and which commodities you are going to strive to acquire. As the game progresses, however, other people usually do things like build in your path that interfere with your original plan. If you remain stubborn and stick to your original plan, you are sure to lose. In converse, if you change your strategy to accommodate the new game conditions, you have a good chance of winning the game.

Last week, I was reflecting on my 11 month old daughter’s current schedule. It has changed a bit in the last few weeks (as it often does throughout the first year). I was thinking about her current evening eating schedule and realized I needed to change my strategy with her.

My daughter has always been a big sleeper. She held on to her third nap for a long time. For her, this nap hasn’t even been the short 45-60 minute nap many babies have. It has been a full 1.5 hour nap, only ending because I woke her up. Nothing to complain about. When she was about 9 months old, I decided to start to work with her on dropping the nap. With my daughter, she does better with a “weaning” from naps than a “dropping” of naps. I first gradually shortened the naps down to the 45-60 minutes. My daughter also doesn’t display sleep cues; I have always had to just put her down when it is time to sleep without help from cues. I started keeping her up rather than putting her down unless she was fussy. For her, fussiness is a late sleep cue (for my son, fussiness was his nap cue, for my daughter, it means she is very overly tired). The days she got fussy, the nap was then knocked down to 30 minutes. She slowly started eliminating the evening nap. Some days she needed it, some days she didn’t. At first, days she didn’t nap, we needed to put her down for the night a little earlier than normal. To make a long story a little shorter, she didn’t fully drop the nap until she was 11 months old.

Shortly after the nap was dropped, she got very sick (as did my son and I). We all lost a lot of weight. My daughter has always been a smaller girl. A small girl got even smaller—down to 18.1 pounds as an 11 month old. Once she finally got better and got her appetite back, it came back with a vengeance as I hoped it would. She pretty much ate for a couple of hours straight in the evening (eating finger foods while I cooked dinner, eating finger foods and sharing with me while we ate dinner, then nursing and eating her dinner). This went on for a couple of weeks. I am happy to say she gained her weight back and then some.

She is currently back to a normal appetite and normal meal schedule. My realization about her schedule has come in the form of her eating schedule in the evening. When she was taking the evening nap, her afternoon schedule looked like this:

3:30—nurse

3:45—independent play

4:30—eat finger foods while I made dinner

5:00—free play

5:30—nap

7:00—wake her up and nurse her followed by her dinner

I came to realize I was keeping that snack at the same time, then having her sit and eat dinner with the family at 5:30 instead of taking a nap. During her weight gain marathon, she needed to eat that often. However it hit me that she no longer needs that schedule. She now doesn’t eat finger foods while I make dinner. She waits for that until we are all eating dinner.

I tell you all of that to illustrate that you need to change your strategies with your children on a pretty regular basis. You start with a plan, but then life changes circumstances and your fellow family members might do things that block your path for accomplishing your goal in the way you originally planned.

This is really just another way to focus on why vs. how as discussed in the chapter titled “The Land of Good Reason” in On Becoming Toddlerwise and beyond (incidentally, I love this chapter and think it is very beneficial for parents with newborns on up to read it, understand it, and apply it). Your goals pretty much stay the same (though they are subject to evaluation and change as time goes by). To continue with my game analogy, your goal (the why) is to win the game. The most obvious way to win (the how) is to build settlements and cities, but there are other ways to win. Often times your path gets blocked by other players, making it much more difficult to build. Or perhaps you simply don’t have to resources to build what you need to. If you insist on winning by building settlements and cities, you are likely to lose. But if you change your strategy and build what you can and focus on other, less-obvious methods to win, you have greater chance of doing so.

Your goal is what is important, not your methods to do so. Yes, you keep your methods within the parameters of your moral goals (you want to win but you don’t want to cheat to do so). But there are a lot ways to accomplish the same goal. Don’t put your blinders on and stubbornly insist that your method is the best way to accomplish your goal. Focus on your goal and not your methods, and all of your parenting goals should be easier to accomplish. There are many different strategies available to reach your goals. Each situation is different. Each child is different. You need to be flexible and be ready to change your strategy as situations and people differ. It is impossible to take a “stock” method and apply it to every child.

As Anne Marie Ezzo once shared with me, “The other thing to keep in mind for all - is the proverbial ‘bell curve’ there will always be those on either end of that curve and of course it would be impossible to deal with all of that in one book and is why a blog site like yours is helpful.” Learn the principles and theories (the “why”) of the Babywise series so you can confidently decide what is best for your children. Don’t get caught up in the specific examples in the books. They are there to illustrate principles to you, not to cover every possible scenario that may arise in your child’s life. Understanding the theory will help you to focus on your ultimate goal rather than your methods to achieve that goal. Remember to periodically step back and evaluate your current schedule, goals, and methods of implementation. Make changes where necessary and move forward. Happy parenting!

http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/

Question:

My husband and I are about to take on the task of potty training with our 2 ½ year old son, but we’re both a bit concerned that bedwetting may be a problem since both of us had issues with bedwetting as children. My Toddlerwise book has a chapter on this subject, but is there more you can give us before we get started?
Answer:

Yes! There is more and frankly I think it should be an essential part of every young parent’s library. This little book is an amazing gem. It’s called Potty Training 1-2-3, by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo. Even if your children are beyond the potty training stage, you’ll want to have this one handy to lone to friends.

But back to your question about bedwetting. I’ll just pull this first part right out of Potty Training 1-2-3, and then include some additional comments below:

Bedwetting, or enuresis, refers to children wetting their beds at an age when most children are dry at night. It’s important to remember the last part of that sentence. Children grow at different rates, which mean they achieve nighttime dryness at different ages. Night dryness doesn’t always follow closely on the heels of day dryness. Even if that’s the case for months, it doesn’t mean your child is struggling with the medical condition of bedwetting. Some experts suggest that as many as 50 percent of children under three years of age will battle night time bedwetting to some extent.
In the medical world, bedwetting in not considered a problem until a child is about 4 or 5 years old. However, if your toddler is having reoccurring nightly accidents and you are concerned about it, consult your pediatrician. Your doctor can discover or rule out any health problems that might be part of the cause. Meanwhile, here are some practical things you can do to try to remedy this problem:
Encourage your child to wait as long as possible when it’s time to urinate. This technique can help stretch the bladder so it can hold more urine.
As your child is urinating, have her stop and start a few times. This helps strengthen the sphincter muscles that hold in the urine.
Encourage your child to take responsibility for her wet bedding, but never shame her because of it.
Consider rewarding your child for waking up dry, but do not punish her for nighttime accidents.
Consider buying a bedwetting alarm that will awaken your child as soon as she begins to wet. You can find manufacturers and descriptions of various models on the internet.
As you move through this process, encourage and support your child while holding her accountable.

One of my four fit this description to a tee. We were doing all the “at home” suggestions above, and each year that went by, we (and he) were hopeful he’d “outgrow” it, but he was still wetting nearly every night by his 9th birthday. Money was a bit tight and I assumed the alarms were beyond our budget….until I actually looked for one! We bought the SleepDry alarm from Starchild Labs. I purchased it through a healthcare supply store on-line for about $60.00. There are others out there for similar prices, and many that are much higher, but this one worked perfectly. In his case, he was staying dry every night, within 2 weeks! No matter which brand you purchase, be sure to follow the instructions exactly. Success depends as much on parental involvement and pre-activity training, as it does on the alarm itself.

My daughter Isabelle is a little over 2 yrs old now and an amazing joy to us. Just recently she has been giving us trouble going down for naps. We have our routine of book reading and rocking before nap. But recently she has been singing and playing in her crib for extended periods (up to an hour!) before lying down to sleep. This frustrated me as I began to try and evaluate what I was doing wrong. I found out that when my Mother-in-law keeps her she doesn’t do this. I started to think…was I spending too much time with her prior to her nap? Was I putting her down too late?

I started being much stricter on getting her to nap in a timely manner. I cut short our sweet pre-nap cuddle routine. I talked with her about going straight to sleep. But to no avail…the playing continued, and I felt trapped every afternoon…praying and waiting on the nap to begin and uncertain if she would even sleep on some days. Of course then being frustrated with a grumpy toddler and soon to be grumpy husband as he arrived home to the tired Mommy and child.

It was clear something had to be done so at our GEMS^® meeting I asked the most experienced and wise Mom I know if she had any thoughts on the matter. She simply said ” Have you gone in and established boundaries on what she is not allowed to do in her crib at nap?” Feeling a little silly I gave an excuse of why I felt like I hadn’t gone in and went home.

Upon discussion with my husband and further thinking I realized I was subconsciously paralyzed with fear of my toddler during naptime. Here’s why… many months ago whenever we went into her room if she woke early the nap would be over as she would not go back down. So we had informally established a “no entering” rule until we were ready for the nap to be over. I thought I was in control, but actually I had allowed too many freedoms and her crib funnel was too big.

For the past week we have set up boundaries of no singing or playing in her crib before napping. Then we have gone in when we see she is enjoying these freedoms again and verbally instructed her. She has responded well as we have pulled the funnel in again.

Here’s what I am learning…this parenting thing is ever changing as she grows and what was important before (not going in to her room until we say nap is over) is now an area she can respond to with verbal instruction. Is there an area in your parenting your child has outgrown?

That’s the beauty of being in this like minded community, I am almost embarrassed to say it but I really don’t think I would have thought of this on my own. This is my first try at parenting though…maybe I’ll remember next time!

Questions:

My friend gave me a copy of Babywise before our son was born and it has been so helpful and working well for our family. But I do have a question about “blanket time.” My friend was asking me if we had started this with our 4 month old, but I’m not sure how this is really different from playpen time and how I’d even begin to teach this to him.

Answers:

• Blanket time provides an opportunity to teach a child to remain in a designated place without the ‘visible’ boundaries the sides of a playpen offer. As you would with ‘playpen time,’ start by placing a few toys on the blanket for play. When first introducing blanket time, it may only be for 3-5 minutes. You can either be sitting near your child or you may even be on the blanket with the child, playing. When he starts to make his way off the blanket, simply bring him back saying something like: “Johnny, you need to stay on the blanket and play with your toys.” Make sure to use a timer. When the timer goes off, make a big deal, “blanket time is over” and move on to the next activity. In the early training phase it usually works best to do short increments of blanket time, 3-4 times a day. Gradually increase the time as your child stays on the blanket, eventually working up to 30 minutes. Realistically, this could take several months.
• When to start? Ideally, before the child starts to crawl is a great time to start and after he is familiar to the playpen. [For some who are lacking space for a playpen, they actually begin with blanket time out of necessity.] The first 5 min. of ‘playpen’ time can be used for Blanket time training. Set the timer for 5 min, when it goes off, blanket time is over, and the remainder of the time can be playpen time. Even if a child is crawling, blanket time can be introduced. It will take a bit more work on Mommy’s part - but with consistency the child will learn.
• How long? Start with five minutes. Be consistent. When your child is able to stay on the blanket until the timer goes off, begin to add an extra minute or two at a time until your reach your goal.
• The beauty of a blanket is that it easily moves all over the house with you. I have personally found it helpful during these early boundary training years to have a small basket of toys in rooms that you spend a good deal of time in. That way, when you have your pre-toddler or toddler using ‘blanket time’ you will also have different toys to entertain him. Plus at these young ages it will help prevent your child from wandering, getting into things, and having to discipline more than necessary. Better yet, the blanket is portable for trips away from home! 30 minutes in a doctor’s office waiting room are much less stressful when your child can play happily on a clean blanket from home with toys from home! And visits to Great Aunt Mary’s house will be much more peaceful as well.
• For a 2 year old who is doing blanket time, Mom will still be making most of the choices regarding which toys will be appropriate. Be wise in those choices. An example for a little boy: give him some blocks and cars together to provide an opportunity for his imagination, allowing him to build bridges and roads to drive his cars over. Don’t worry about having to change out toys frequently - certainly the same toys for a week will help a child learn to play with what has been given him.

Hope this is helpful. Be patient remembering it is ‘a process’.

Related Post: Playpen/Room time Re-training