Monday, April 30, 2012

It's Back...

It's laughable how the second time in Edward's 14 months of life he begins to sleep through the night to only be rudely awakened by his teething, causing mad late night havoc for us all. The restless nights and sometimes even hourly wakings are so hard to deal with. To add insult to injury, he's still up at 6:30 am without fail. As exhausted as I am it is my responsibility to be up with him and fulfill my duties to my young man. Although I don't always do it with a smile I am happy to oblige. He's now on the "I want the pacifier all day" kick, and cries until he gets it (he used to only use it during nap and bedtimes). We try to side track him with toys or books, but if he cries hard enough we give in.  We wonder how much of that is because of teething and how much of it is a power struggle.  So we stress over the dumb pacifier fight. He's also been a healthy eater but now seemingly picky, forgoing food he once loved for ice cubes and peanut butter and crackers. I've been told that teething takes about 2 years, so we have 9 more months.

I'm also going through a phase of my own. Maybe it's lack of sleep or a case of the baby blues, but where did my baby go? There are times when my independent toddler wants to be a big boy and then he "reverts" to being a baby. How do I balance this? How much do I give in to the baby's needs? Am I "spoiling" him by giving in? I know each child is different as is each scenario but what about consistency? I don't want to look back and wish I did it differently, after all I'm doing everything my parents didn't, right? Being in this for over a year, I thought I got this parenthood stuff down, but each phase throws me another curve ball and has me questioning everything I do all the time. It's so unrelenting and stressful. As I'm typing I'm thinking to myself, "am I taking parenting to seriously" could I really be over thinking it all? I bet I'll come back here a few years from now with an answer. Until then I'll ponder...

I really thought it would get easier as he got older and it isn't. So I find myself out of the house more often and earlier. We are always at the playground and used to get there after lunch but one early morning, when neither of us could take each other anymore, the playground was our mutually agreed upon choice for our peace treaty.  Although it was 8:30am and we were the first to arrive, it wasn't long before it was filled with other boys his age. I couldn't believe it, I'd never seen so many boys at the playground before. I asked the caretakers and mothers if this was common and they all agreed. So now we join the other boys bright and early on the playground for his morning exercise and where I finish my tea.


Maybe I should take
the advice of my mug
So readers, send me some good vibes to help us through this crazy stage and share your helpful tips of how to successfully plough through.

Love Lots,
Mommy SF



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