Baby Detox

These are just random mommy ramblings as I watch my two little ones and think of the third coming soon.

It seems to me that we do a lot of things to our babies, only to undo them later. And, usually the undoing is pretty stressful and complicated. Here are my three examples.

1. Today Nicole, Hannah, nor I could find a paci for Hannah at nap time. She has fallen asleep before (in the car) without a paci, but she is pretty attached. We battled through an hour or screaming and hysterical crying. Finally, after much holding and cuddling, I was able to get her to fall asleep (for about an hour). She woke up hysterically crying and looking for the beloved paci. I picked her up and she laid, still, in my arms for 45 minutes. Clearly her nap was not finished. As she laid in my arms I observed her, several times, making sucking sounds and movements with her mouth. I know this sounds crazy, but she was seriously going through paci withdrawl.

This was all create by me, wanting to have a baby that doesn't cry and "forcing" her to use a paci as a newborn. I created the need, and today when that need wasn't met, it was rather difficult, for the three of us. Hannah was hysterical, Nicole couldn't sleep through the tears, and I was actually handling it ok, but usually I get stressed about these sorts of things. Anyway....it was paci detox. I don't know what will happen tonight. If I find the paci, will I give it back to her? I don't know. When we took Nicole's paci away, she had just turned 2 and was using it just to sleep with. She really didn't have much of a problem, at least not that I remember.

2. Diapers & potty training. I know...this sounds weird, but really...we teach our kids to wet and dirty themselves. It is not natural to want to feel a wet and dirty diaper. Out of convenience, we teach them to just go whenever they want to, we change it when we feel like it (or the smell forces us to) and we move on. It is very convenient to use diapers. However, it is difficult and can be stressful to potty train. Some kids don't train until they are three or four even! I thought two was too long with Nicole. We're working with Hannah, and I hope to have her trained by April. But...really, I am undoing something I taught her to do.

There are people out there who do elimination communcation. They never use a diaper and they watch their babies for signs or clues of when they "have to go" and they hold them over a potty. I am not that die hard, but they are just trying not to teach their baby to do something, only to undo it later. I'm hoping (and seeing) that cloth diapers helps to initiate potty training a little more.

3. "It's all about me" syndrome. From the moment a baby is born, we make life "all about them" When they are hungry we feed them, when they cry, we answer, when they want up, we hold them. I'm not saying Not to do those things...but we teach them very very early that the world revolves around them. Then sometimes between 18 months and 3 years (depending on parents from what I've seen) we begin to be annoyed and frustrated with the "all about me" syndrome. We start discilpling them for their selfishness. We stop responding to their every whim. Or worse yet...we never stop and we raise a generation of spoiled thankless children.

I think here is where I get to be a bit more extreme than a lot of people I know. Once my babies are a few months old, they begin learning, little by little...that they are not number one and first in command of the house. I don't respond quite a quickly....I know they can wait 5 more minutes before they get fed again or I let them "cry it out" a little longer at night. Even now, the big lesson the girls are learning (well...Nicole already has) is that they are not first in the morning. Daddy is first. My first job in the morning is to make Jeremy's breakfast (which is usually their breakfast too) and make daddy's lunch. Usually they get a glass of milk while I'm working, but it's important to me for them to learn that we serve daddy first. I think this helps them learn submission, selflessness and even love. I'm pretty sure Hannah "gets it" now too.

Anyway, I just think it's interesting how we teach our kids one thing, then later go back to reteach the total opposite.

Will I be giving baby boy a paci? probably
Will I be putting diapers on him? Yes!
Will I be putting him first and teaching him that my world revolves around him? I hope not. At first...yes...he is totally helpless and will rely upon only me for his most critical need...food. But, soon he'll begin to learn that there are others I love and serve also. And that, my life does not revolved around him.