Nursing Your Kids

A friend asked via email, “How is Sam doing? Is he adjusting any better?”

The answer:

Not really. He’s a mess. He’s taken to grinding and clicking his teeth, clenching his jaw into an underbite when he plans on hitting or biting, he’s biting his fingernails and toenails, and today he’s sick so everything is magnified. It’s distressing to say the least. I put him to bed every night and get up with him and cuddle every morning in addition to the times while the baby is napping or Bob’s around that I can spend alone with him during the day. So it’s not like he’s not getting alone time with me. He’s also spending plenty of alone time with Bob. He’s fine if we have play dates or things to do, but when we’re home alone he’s a terror.

I’m on the verge of tears just thinking about it and he’s had me in tears just about every day. He’s such a sweet boy, gentle and easy going that most people who know him don’t even believe me. I get these glimpses of him a few times a day, these moments where I recognize him again, which make me feel even worse about his behavior. I feel awful that he’s so distraught by the new addition but I don’t know what I can do to make him feel secure again. I keep bending over backwards to accommodate him, often at poor Ben’s expense.

Sam doesn’t hate Ben. He demands to hold him and brings him toys and says, ‘it’s okay Ben’ when he cries, but then out of nowhere he’ll just hit him or try to squish him or kick him. He also demands to nurse when Ben nurses, and I don’t know what to do except let him. He doesn’t even want to nurse. He just latches on, looks confused and gets off.

Since moving him to his brand new room just under two weeks ago Sam has slept through the night all but two of those nights. For those of you counting (me) that’s 11 out of 13 nights. Starting the night before we moved him he slept through the night as well (12 out of 14) and in addition, putting the little guy to bed has been easy. Aside from one night when I went up one more time after he called from the gate and one night when my parents babysat and put him to bed and he came downstairs (they didn’t think the gate was important!!!) he’s gone to bed after a few stories without complaint each night.

I haven’t lost my memory completely. I know that Sam’s sleep habits have always gone in phases, both good and bad. I doubt that this wonderful stage that so perfectly coincides with the end of my pregnancy will last. With Sam, all good sleep is bound to come to an end sooner or later, and since the baby will be a huge disruption to our household and our lives I imagine this good sleep stage will come to an end as soon as this baby drops.

He’s also pretty much stopped napping. Car naps have been sporadic at best (one on Saturday and one yesterday) and napping in his room just won’t happen. He obviously still needs the naps, but I don’t know what to do to help him take them. He’s willing to lie down and rest for a while reading stories when the car naps fail, but the sleep won’t come. I am exhausted when Bob gets home.

But he’s sleeping through the night. Some nights I’ve slept through the entire night for eight whole hours. Other nights I’ve gotten up to use the bathroom and I’ve been able to go right back to sleep without having to spend 15 minutes to an hour soothing an angry toddler later.

The best thing about Sammy’s new room is that when he wakes up in the morning he doesn’t start screaming for me immediately. He plays. He actually wakes up and plays. I hear his little voice talking to his trains and the trains running around the tracks. Some days I hear him reading his books to himself. I can go back to sleep and doze for half an hour some mornings hearing him enjoying his books and toys. It’s lovely waking up to a child in a good mood.

Two-year-olds are crazy. Bipolar possibly. Really, really, nuts. Sam’s moods veer wildly between angelic and horrifying. He’s like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. When he’s good, he’s very, very good. But when he’s bad he’s just horrid.

There are days when he wakes up smiling and cuddly and happily plays quietly for a while, eats breakfast, gets dressed and goes out for the day. Other days it’s like I’m torturing him by bringing the wrong fork or plate, or cutting his waffles too big or too small. He’ll freak out over something tiny and wail for what seems like hours, angrily making his little dictator demands. When we go to leave the house he’ll run off without me, causing me and my fat, pregnant ass to chase him all the way to the corner where he’ll either turn and keep running without crossing the street or turn around to grin at me.

A few mornings ago, for no reason at all, Sam bit me right in the belly. We’d just eaten a nice, weekend breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon and Sam was hanging out on my lap being silly. He was standing facing me, holding my hands and jumping up and down, laughing and talking about jumping on mama. He collapsed onto me into what I thought was a hug then bit me, hard, right on my belly. I think he caught a piece of the baby’s foot because the baby freaked out kicking and moving. It hurt like hell and I have a nasty bruise on my stomach. Sam still feels badly about it. When he lifts up my shirt to look at the baby he’ll talk about the boo boo and say, “Sam bit me.” (when do they start getting their pronouns right?)

Yesterday, a no nap day, Sam did not want me to leave his side during the portion of the afternoon he should have been soundly asleep. He cuddled in my lap and asked me to read the same terribly written Thomas the Tank Engine book repeatedly. The book, Thomas-saurus Rex is even worse than it sounds, but it was so nice to have a sweet cuddly boy to read to while my brains melted out of my head I was content to read it over and over again. Sam looked up at me and said, “Mama happy. Mama loves Sam.” I said, “That’s right, Sam. You make mama happy. I love you.” He said, “Love you too, mama,” and snuggled into my arms a bit farther. Then, at the top of his angry lungs he shouted, “Turn the page!”

After a long, long stretch of shitty bedtime habits we’re back to a somewhat normal going to bed routine. I don’t know what changed, or how it changed, but somehow Sam started acting like a reasonable human being at bedtime. For the last week or so after his bath, brushing teeth and a few stories I’ve been able to turn out the light, lay down with him for a few minutes, kiss him good night and leave. Usually when I start to climb over the gate in his doorway he’ll call for me and I’ll tell him where I’m going and to lie down and go to sleep. He’s complied every single night.

Sometimes I tell him I’m going to feed the cat. Other times I’ve told him I have to go fold laundry. One night I told him I was going downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes. Each night he’s just accepted it and gone to sleep. One night Bob put him to bed and didn’t have the same luck I did. Sam didn’t freak out, he just called for us quietly from the gate in his door. I went in to lay down with him for a few minutes and he was asleep in no time at all.

Tonight he was restless when I was cuddling with him. He was playing with his trains and talking. I told him that I had to go fold laundry. He said, “Oh. Okay.” I asked if I should go or if he wanted me to stay for a little while longer. He told me to go. I did, and he quietly fell asleep.

I don’t know what happened, what switch was turned. I don’t know how long it will last. All I know is that it almost makes up for his almost nightly 3 am wakeups.

Since last Wednesday, Sam has slept through the night exactly once. I don’t know why he’s waking and I don’t know how to make it stop. He wakes up, goes to the gate in his doorway and calls for either Bob or me. There’s no rhyme or reason to the parent he picks and he’s usually pretty specific about who he will accept. One night he woke up calling for Dada. I woke up and got up to use the bathroom. He heard me cough and wailed, “Uh-uh! Mama back in bed. Dada! Dada carry.” Some nights he’s more agreeable to the other parent stepping in, and will allow a substitute, but that’s usually after several minutes of screaming for the other parent at the top of his lungs, which means everyone’s awake and unhappy.

I wish I knew what to do. He could be having nightmares or it could be something else. Aside from the wake ups, which are generally pretty brief, he sleeps for about ten hours a night. He’s been napping pretty consistently for 2-3 hours (yes, still in the car) so he’s not especially overtired with 12 or 13 hours total sleep each day. I know it’s not night terrors, since he’s lucent and fairly agreeable to getting back into bed as soon as one of us goes to get him. He also falls asleep pretty quickly once we’re in there, and though I’d prefer not to get into bed with him it certainly makes it easier for me since he quiets immediately and goes right back to sleep.

If this next child isn’t a sleeper I don’t know what I’ll do.

For those of you keeping track, things have gotten better in the sleep department. By night four of our return to sleep training Sam cried at the gate for a little over 15 minutes- after 10 we put him back into bed and he promptly climbed out and returned to crying at the gate. But after a few short minutes more he climbed back into bed and went to sleep. By night five, he only cried for about 10 minutes. He was quiet before we returned to his room. Each night after I held my breath, waiting, and each night he was in bed before we had to put him back in. Last night, his cries weren’t even cries at all. They were just sad, sweet little requests. “Dada? Dada carry. Dada. Mama. Mama, take the gate off.” He was asleep before the ten minutes were up.

He isn’t sleeping through the night every night, but he’s sleeping through most nights and he doesn’t sound as angry when he wakes. He’s been sleeping a bit later in the morning too, which is just lovely for me since I love to sleep in. I think he’s finally starting to fully catch up on sleep. The cycle of sleep deprivation is coming to an end. For now, anyway.

This type of sleep training was a last resort for us. I don’t like letting Sam cry and aside from a few sleep deprived moments of my own, when I let him cry because I was just to frustrated with the crying to deal with him, we never let him cry until he was over a year old. Even after that we tried most other methods of getting him to sleep before we’d resort to letting him cry (or self-soothe, as the “experts” call it.) But bedtime routines weren’t working, rocking wasn’t working, staying with him while he fell asleep wasn’t working and co-sleeping wasn’t working. He was sleep deprived and we were miserable. We took a chance, tried something I didn’t want to try, and so far it’s working.

Knowing Sam and his sleep cycles, I’m sure it won’t last forever and I fully expect a return to sleep hell once the new baby arrives, but until then it’s nice to have two hours in the evening when we’re not arguing with a toddler about bedtime and we can finally watch the Netflix movies that have been collecting dust on our shelves.

My son is driving me crazy. He is whiny and clingy and demanding and rude. He yells at me constantly to assert himself and throws things when his demands aren’t met. These are not behaviors he sees demonstrated on a regular basis so I can only hope that this is a stage.

I hope this stage is short-lived.

Every 15 minutes or so I find myself reminding him that he needs to speak nicely. He’ll immediately lower his voice to a regular speaking tone and say please, then go right back to yelling and demanding. If I give him a blue fork he’ll scream, “Noooooooo! Green fork!” Offering choices makes things worse. If I offer him the green fork or the blue fork he’ll say green then scream, “Nooooooo! Orange fork!” when the fork arrives.

Bedtime battles have returned. Our formerly 15-20 minute bedtime routine is now back to a full hour and a half. The last month of illness has left him unable to settle himself. I don’t object to staying with him until he falls asleep since I know he’s just not feeling well and his better habits will eventually return, but at seven months pregnant I’m just not that delicate anymore and getting out of bed wakes him every time. When he wakes he’s angry, demanding that I lay down on this particular spot on the pillow, then another spot on the pillow. He screams, “More kisses! More, more, more!” and it would be charming if he weren’t so damn angry about it, flailing his arms like a little dictator.

He wants me to carry him constantly, only wanting to walk when it’s unsafe or inconvenient. He no longer sits in a chair by himself for meals, he needs to sit on, “Mama’s lap!!” I can’t just cuddle him when trying to help him fall asleep, he insists on sleeping, “On top of mama, “ a demand I’m currently unwilling to meet.

He’s truly making me nuts. I’m sort of looking forward to a lumpy, blobby newborn who does little but nurse, sleep and poop all day long.