Melissa,  a mom to a 21-month-old Gabriel, who commented on my post <a href=”http://parentingis.com/separation-anxiety-at-bedtime/”>Separation anxiety at bedtime</a> has motivated me to write about this issue.  Like me, she is left defenseless by her son’s routine suddenly breaking down.  “Nothing changed except for Gabriel!” she wrote in her comment, and my heart went out to her.

You and I have no means of imagining the magnitude of the ever-constant change our kids are going through.  Every time they learn to interact with the world in a new way (learning increased mobility or communication skills, developing new emotions, new understanding of the world, the change in their manipulative ability and senses), they walk through a door into a different universe.  I often see my son Alex trying to cope with his physical and cognitive abilities, losing emotional control, then learnin to cope and becoming stronger through it… Again and again and again… Surely, I don’t expect that the right sequence of hugs, kisses and lullabies will make him feel the same way at bedtime through months and years of his growth!

I often find that he specifically asks to do away with things that used to soothe him.  For months, he loved the classical lullabies playing in the background as we cuddled in bed. Now he says, “Mommy, quieter!” and eventually, “Music off!” Months prior to that he let me know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like me singing to him. (Gosh, am I that bad at it?!) Each time I comply and find new ways for his growing mind.

I have quit trying to defend this.  I am certain, that for my son and many other kids, if not most, mom and dad will have to be creative and adapt all of his routines over time. I also noticed that varying it just a little day to day and week to week fills bedtime with a little novelty and keeps him happier through it.

My final point has to do with bed time stress. Beware of being firm and consistent if you find it isn’t working.  The consistent message you may be sending is - bedtime is stressful. For Alex, each time we get into that cycle, bed time deteriorates into a struggle. The only thing, which gets us back to norm is my flexibility, creativity, and most importantly, observation of his current needs.

Your child is not being manipulative when he wants to exercise some control over his world. After all, would you prefer to send him the message that he has none? When a few weeks ago, Alex started refusing to lie down with me and instead asked to “sit a while” and “hold fingers” and “talk”, I missed it completely… and had a disaster for a couple of days.  I remembered, regrouped, and let him have his way.  He immediately turned back to cooperation and problems went away. We did reach a compromise - I lie down, and he gets to sit next to me in bed because mommy is tired.  A few minutes later he says, “Baby tired too!” and we are off to the sleepy races.

I believe that patience is a misapplied term in this context. Furthermore, your level of patience is largely determined by your temperament, the amount of sleep you had this week and how many people have irritated you this morning. You may be the most impatient person on this planet, but that should not prevent you from keep a calm demeanor in a particular situation. In other words, you don’t suddenly grow patience as a result of becoming a parent.  You gain something else instead.

Imagine spending an hour in the doctor’s waiting room waiting for your appointment. By the time your name is called, you are probably ready to explain to him just what you think of the way he runs his practice, if you are anything like me. Now imagine you missed your appointment because you flaked; you call the office apologetically and they agree to see you the same day. You show up an hour later than you agreed, but they are still willing to take you. Now the wait isn’t so bad!

I guess it all depends on your perspective, your goals and your evaluation of the situation. If your two-year-old were your spouse, you’d probably kick him out on his butt after the one-hundredth tantrum. Yet you find yourself holding and comforting him as he repeats, “Mommy bad! Out mommy! Go away!” Is that patience?  Well, if you believed that the toddler’s goal were to offend you and he was being deliberately mean, with full understanding of his actions, perhaps that’s what it would be. And I have very little patience for that kind of a thing. What I have instead is the understanding of what’s going on, empathy and perspective. The truth is, I tell myself, he is stressed and upset. He hasn’t learned to cope with his newly developing emotional responses and he is the one having a hard time. What might have triggered this outburst? How can I help?

The other day, Alex was distraught in a way that’s rare for him. He was crying hard and nothing would comfort him. Daddy had been watching TV with him, which was very special. Now it was dinner time and daddy left (the invitation for Alex to come along notwithstanding) and Alex was distraught. No amount of explanations did any good.

I said, “Alex, are you sad? Sad because you want to watch TV with daddy?”  “Ye-ye-yeah!” came a sobbing response. I had his attention. “You are mad that he left for dinner?”  “Yeah! Yeah!” a more emphatic response as he began walking toward me.  “You know something?” I said as I picked him up (now willing) into my lap.  “It happens to me all the time.  I’ll be talking to daddy, and he’ll get up and leave to go potty.  I get so mad! Sometimes he won’t even say anything, leaving me guessing why he left. I guess, there are just thing that we have to do sometimes.  There is eating, potty, sleeping…”  I had his full attention by this time as he was listening to me talk, obviously interested.  “Hmmm… what else do we have to do? Grocery shopping.” “No! Grocery truck!” He was referring to the vons.com delivery we often get. “That’s right! We have the grocery truck come over so we don’t have to do so many things. So we could spend the time together and enjoy it! That’s why we have Anna clean the house, so you and I could do more things together. He started talking: about Anna, the girl from the grocery store, hugs and kisses, and everything else that whirls around in a toddler’s head. I was beaming, proud that I solved the problem so well.  My husband looked at us with joy and pride.

Patience? Anything but! This required no more patience than solving any other problem: it required thinking instead. Hard thinking, serious mental effort, a clear mind. Patience would have been sitting through hysterics and being miserable. The third best option would have been throwing him out on his butt.  So, I suppose, patience could become useful in the absence of volitional effort. But I am not the patient type. And I think you will get far better results with a little mental sweat.

There are several basic approaches to potty training.

First is known in the US as infant potty training, or elimination communication. There is some variance as to the specific methodology, but the basic idea is, you teach the child to go on the potty from infancy - starting some time in the first year. Disposable diapers are a big no-no and ideally, the child should spend as much time as possible with nothing on. The mommy learns to read the signs and “catch” potty moments, and the child gets used to that being how he eliminates.

Advocates of the Positive discipline and Montessori method, as well as many attachment parenting experts believe that you should not be potty training at all.  Show your child how to go on the potty, make the potty accessible and wait for him to begin imitating you.

Probably the majority of Americans take the approach of gradually getting the child used the the potty, switching to pullups, and getting slow steady progress over the course of many months.

Finally, there are those who recommend doing it “cold turkey”: explain to the child what is going to happen, take off the diapers and never put them on again except for sleep.

I looked into elimination communication and decided that I was not willing to invest the time required (mine or the baby’s) into the approach. There is so much I wanted to do with Alex, and I simply did not want to live by the timetable of the next elimination. Another issue is that until the child is physically ready to control eliminations (something which happens at 18-24 months), you won’t achieve success anyway. So the idea is, spend a year or more running to the potty every 10-15 minutes, so you could have him out of diapers by the age of two…

The “let them be” approach would be appealing if I didn’t know so many people whose four-year-olds still preferred diapers. In addition, my little adorable toddler is a big drinker and diapers simply got overfilled after a single elimination, leaving wet messes everywhere! I had to do something sooner rather than later.

I went with the “cold turkey” option after reading Gina Ford’s book “Potty training in one week.” She argues that the half-measures approach of pullups simply doesn’t work because it sends mixed signals to the child. The argument made sense.

Today is Alex’s second birthday. He is happy and proud of himself for having learned to use the potty and astounded all of us by interrupting exciting birthday activities time and time again to go to the potty on his own. This was the first truly successful day after a week of turmoil. We are not done yet - he hasn’t learned to pull his pants up and down. So he is only accident-free while bare-bottomed.

Here are some thing I have learned in the process. Most importantly - accidents are key to learning! How can a child learn to handle a cup properly without being allowed to spill the drink when he does it wrong?! 100% of the stress in our week of potty training came from our (the parents’) desire to minimize accidents. Simply being allowed to eliminate on the floor (roll away the carpet, or plan to call carpet cleaning people after a week or two!), helping clean up and learning that pee-pee is messy will cause him to want to avoid it. At first, it may results in a different kind of accident: he’ll hold it in as long as he can, until he explodes in a gush, which surprises you and him. Well, after a while, he learns that he has to go eventually. As he starts doing the pee-pee dance, you might pick him up and sit him on the potty a few times, showing him that there is a solution!  Before I knew it, he was interrupting activities, opening sliding doors, and heading straight for the “solution” I taught him.

Asking a child if he wants to go potty every 15 minutes doesn’t teach him to use the potty. It’s irritating, stressful and may lead to conflict.  (It did with us!) Coaxing him to sit on the potty is counter-productive. Though catching a moment, when there is little resistance and showing a hesitant child that it’s ok to hang on the potty, can help dissolve anxiety, which has built up as a result of awkward attempts on your part to get him on it too often, too strongly, too everything.

We hit a low on day three. My husband, normally the one to calm and stabilize me in times of anxiety, lost it himself.  He said, “I just know that if he wanted to go on the potty, he could!” He was absolutely right.  Alex was physically ready.  But he was absolutely terrified of this unexpected change in his life. On day four things started coming together. It was time. He got the hang of managing his body; it had been long enough that he began getting used to the idea, and having had a good cry with me on the afternoon of day three, he was just kind of over it.

The most amazing thing is that he is so much happier using the potty than changing diapers! He just hated the process so much that the conflicts caused were a key reason for me to try.  I was getting tired of the constant power struggle in an otherwise cloud-free relationship with my son. Now he is the one in charge, and he loves it!

After we put the finishing touches on our potty training experience and I have more time to reflect, I would like to write a more serious summary of what I have come to believe through the experience.  For now, I am just relieved and happy.  Our new baby, Lily, is due to arrive in just under two months - so we didn’t do this a day too soon!

Alex (22 months) gets a bed time story from a book before his jammies go on and before the light is turned off. Later, as a last thing that happens before he focuses on falling asleep, I tell him a story that I make up! Believe me, making up a story for a young child is easier than you think! Just pick up any picture or board book - the story line is extremely simple and the bar on creative thinking is disappointingly low. So here is what I have done.

First, we decide on the characters. Often, he asks for specific ones: Piglet & Pooh, Blue car, Firetruck; this afternoon it was a Sandwich! Thus he gets to be creative and begins participating right away. Otherwise, I say, “How about we do a story about a Flower and a Lady Buggy?” mentioning things, which we encountered that day.We lay down, cuddle up and I begin. I found that “once upon a time” is not nearly as good as “this morning…” The story focuses on the events of the characters’ day. Alex contributes by naming another character he’d like to include, or one I haven’t mentioned in a while, who needs to be part of the action. I always react by turning the story in the direction he is leading. “No, Tigger!” says Alex. “Right! When they got to Piglet’s house, they saw Tigger was already there!”

The story is based on interesting things, which happened today. I have noticed that Alex looks particularly engaged as I describe a fun activity he got to do, as part of Pooh’s current adventure. I also try to make use of repetitive language. Any toddler loves hearing words he knows and recognizes again and again. Often, Alex asks me to repeat a particular sequence: ingredients in a sandwich, parts of a fire truck and so on. Sometimes I include himself as a character in a story.

Eventually, it’s time to go home. The characters get to recount the events of the day (these are, again, the evens of our day today, modified for the story) and go to bed. To my surprise, it is very effective to describe how they settle to sleep, one at a time: soft pillows, comfy blankie, deep breath. I watch as Alex goes through the motions I indicate in the story, including closing his eyes, even if for a second. I try to have the last of the characters have another (like his mommy) cuddle up with in bed, which prompts lots of hugs and kisses as the Lady bug cuddles with her mommy and gave her a good night kiss! Again, Alex often helps by prompting additional actions to be taken place. I don’t end the story with the characters falling asleep. Instead, I talk about their dreams, listing yet again, the things that happened today, which now made their way into their night dreams. Sometimes, if I feel like I need to go on to wind him down just a little more, or if he asks me to, I talk about how wonderfully happy and rested the character was when he woke up the next morning (or after his nap) and the things he was planning on doing, using stuff I already have planned. This leaves the story on a positive, exciting note, leading him into the world of fantasy, which will create a train of pleasant thought for falling asleep.

This routine did not establish itself overnight. Alex did not like my bed time stories at first! I’d say, “would you like a story?” and get a no! But over time, as I experimented with content, story length and format, he is now often asking for it on his own. It’s really the best part of our day.

I’ll summarize:

• Ask for character suggestions; come up with your own, which are very familiar from books, television, or day-to-day events
• Always pay attention to the child’s creative input and take the story along
• Use the day’s activities as part of the story to help the child form memories and look back at the pleasant things, which took place.
• Use simple language, enumerating familiar objects, repeating the lists in various contexts.
• Put the characters to bed in the most tactile, confy, cozy language you can think of. You can put each one of them into his own unique sleep environment!
• Leave off with description of night dreams and the next day’s plans to help your child use his own creative thought and fantasy as he falls asleep

After the story, I spend a few minutes cuddled up with my son quietly, and follow up with the “mommy will be back” routine I discussed in Separation anxiety at bedtime article. I hope you’ve enjoyed the idea. Let me know how it goes!

Here is a list of fun toddler activities Alex (now 21 months) and I have done, which cost us some change in gas:

• going to the city hall and looking at police cars
• visiting the post office and getting to know mail trucks
• firetrucks are, of course, the best - and if you show up at *any* fire station, they are happy to give you a full tour, invite your child into the truck and let him “drive”!
• I found a truck rental place for small construction machinery. We spent over an hour there!
• Pet Smart is always a great choice. They let us hold the turtles, and play with mice, and so on.
• Aquarium stores are good for at least an hour of entertainment
• Silk floral section at Michaels is great for learning about different flowers. So is the nursery at the home depot.
• The kids’ section at Borders is always a fun choice. Though that’s not free - I always walk away with several books, which were too cute to resist.

I’ve always disliked the thought. Over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my relationship with my husband. What do I need, what am I missing, how are things going? Finally I pieced it all together.

Boy meets girl. They do absolutely everything their little imaginations are capable of to impress the new partner. They are caught up in a whirlwind of emotion and when the dust settles, well, they still love each other, they’ve got three kids… and they are strangers. Perhaps it’s not about the kids. (Plenty of people don’t need those to drift apart) and not about hobbies or busy jobs or different priorities.

How about straight-forward creative effort? When you put effort into something, you experience pride in success, disappointment in failure and you “fall in love” with the project. People working 80 hours per week are often the ones who love their jobs. Parents, whose kids are the center of their lives, are willing to sacrifice almost anything to see them succeed. Your sense of self becomes wrapped up in what you do. It’s normal and natural and how we are most productive.

People say that when you love what you do, you’ll do a better job. True - but I am going to say it backwards. When you put forth effort, give something all you’ve got (particularly thought and creativity), you strengthen your love. When the effort is no longer required, and you settle into a “comfortable routine”, you weaken the bond. Worse, if you feel you are entitled for the relationship to make you happy and are sitting and waiting for that to happen, you will become sorely disappointed. I learned that from a man who said, “Most people believe that their relationship should make them happy. Instead, you have to bring happiness into a relationship.”

Now, back to three kids. Women often complain about lack of romance and “you never take me anywhere nice.” Though I am not one of them, I began to get the sense that things were floating by with all the passion given to the baby, none left for us. Then I figured out that I was giving all my passionate effort and creativity to this new project - and did not consider continuing to improve the relationship that ultimately matters most.

The rest is just practical applications of the idea. Spend some time thinking about what makes your spouse happy, proud, excited - just like you used to when you were getting to know each other. Once these thoughts are in your head, they naturally make their way into our conversation, into the plans you make for the family and into your alone time. Next thing you know - there is that glitter in his eye and suddenly, you are the one feeling special!

Maria Montessori talks about how imagination is not about pretend toys - it’s about getting familiar with the real things, which surround us. After all, you will never imagine biting into a lemon without doing so once.

Almost every day my son Alex and I go out to look at something interesting: mail trucks at the post office, fish at a pet store, machines at a construction site, animals at a park and it’s wonderful every time (see Creative Toddler Activities for ideas like these). But each morning we supplement that with bouncing kangaroos, dropping and breaking objects, waterfalls, oceans, mountains, hundreds, thousands of things. Alex talks about them all the time. “Moose, porcupine! Bubbles! Big dragon!” You can read about porcupine all you want, but having never seen one, you won’t imagine how she can break bubbles with her needles and why one must always be careful when hugging a porcupine.

There is a new television show, “Harold and the purple crayon.” It’s the only thing Alex will watch right now - again and again. A baby tries to fall asleep and helps himself by drawing adventures for himself. Each time he “animates” a different story, creating more as he goes on. When he gets in trouble, he comes out of it by drawing something useful, like a parachute. Every step of the way, he draws something to continue. It’s classically animated (none of the horrible stuff they produce these days on the cartoon network), very simple for a young child and literally shows the world, usefulness of objects, interaction with nature and animals and so on. It is so beautiful and creative, I still enjoy it the fifth time through. Alex usually asks for a specific episode by name. (Baby and buggies! Dragon, moose, pine!) hoping to get a little more out of the particular experience.

At night we have a routine: Dad reads Alex a book. Later, we cuddle and I tell him a story. He asks for the story to be about a particular character, almost always Pooh bear or Piglet. I make stuff up and he obviously loves it. But he doesn’t love it as much without the characters he can as easily visualize.Sponge bob square pants? You can leave that out of your child’s experience forever. And though that’s the majority of what you’ll see at random, there is so much that’s so good! Thomas & Friends, Curious George are our old favorites - they fell out of favor since Harold, which, unfortunately, is on HBO Family, so most people don’t get to enjoy it. Still, I am over the attitude that TV is evil or dangerous or will make my kid miss questions on the SAT.