Doing away with a nap and sinking her teeth in. Oy!

Posted on Jul 19 in parenting, personal storiesby PrintText Resizer Text Resizer

Looks like Everly is trying to eliminate her morning nap from the daily routine. She’s still having an afternoon nap which is nice and is still sleeping through the nights so I am okay with one less nap, as long as she’s a happy girl.

She’s growing so fast it’s mind blowing. She is walking, when she feels like it. It’s only a few steps here and there when she moving between objects at her will.

We’ve tried our hardest to coax her in to walking while we’ve got the camera rolling, she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t WANT to walk on demand. Isn’t it crazy how much she actually comprehends? I mean she knows she can walk but that she doesn’t need to when we are close by. Stinker!

Oh, and did I tell you that she’s biting me in anger now? So far she’s done it twice and it pretty much ruins my entire day. I know it’s just because she’s experiencing frustration and anger (new emotions for her) and that she’s only wanting more independence but that she’s not quite able to do everything she wants.

Unfortunately, there are still things that she can’t be left to do… Like play with my cell phone and dial 911 or hang herself off the arm of the couch, inviting a head crashing fall to the ground. When I step in and intervene she gets mad, crys, flails her arms and wants to bite down on something to release the anger.

So we are working through the anger and frustration and learning to not bite. No, we aren’t spanking, pinching, doing timeouts or biting her back like everyone seem to think is necessary. She’s not intentionally being violent so we don’t think punishment is appropriate. We are headed down the discipline path and not the punishment path, if that makes sense.

We went to the zoo over the sweltering weekend and had a good time. It was a short trip because of the heat but it was nice to taker her out to see the animals. She notices and is fascinated with all animals and bugs these days. It was especially cute to see her talking to the parrots and being surprised when they squawked back at her.

We are also toying with the idea of visiting the gulf shores for a mini vacation. We don’t care about the oil spill and would love to explore that part of the country and have a fun little family road trip. It will probably be cheaper out that way since so many don’t want to vacation there as a result of the oil spill. Plus, we feel for all the struggling businesses who are suffering so we want to vacation there to help them out.

We’ve also got some serious uncertainties hanging over our heads that we’ve begun coming to terms with. All in all things are going good and we are blessed. How are things with you?

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Entry Details: This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 3:23 pm, by Talina, and is filed under parenting, personal stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print This!
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abdominoplasty

punishment will not work at this age. she won't even understand for what she is being punished or if she is being punished.

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Heather

Someone actually suggesting biting back? That is crazy! She will get over this phase. Mine prefers blood curdling screams.

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Tanya

We are dealing with high pitched screaming at the moment. I think biting would be worse though. When Emily does it I can tell it is just because she has found her voice and wants everyone to know what she wants and when she wants it. It's hard to try to steer them in the right path at this age, I've found that Emily understands so much but it is still pointless to practice any discipline. Still halfway between the instinctive 'demand' crying and starting to learn how to communicate her feelings and needs.

That's great Everly loves birds too, Emily says 'bird' almost at a whisper when she sees one. So lovely.

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Donna B.

I completely agree that punishment is generally unnecessary and always unnecessary at age 12 months! However, I prefer to think of what you are doing as training. I also don't view time out as punishment (though it can be made that way) but as more of an enforced opportunity to calm down. But... spanking? Biting back? Pinching? No way.

Another thing that some parents do that I think is counter-productive is "count to three". It does teach toddlers how to count... but otherwise all that is really accomplished is letting them know they have two chances to disobey before there are consequences.

Also... we must have different definitions for anger and frustration as I've personally witnessed MANY babies well under the age of 1 exhibiting what I think is either or both. It wouldn't be the first time I've used the wrong words for something.

I remember very well my granddaughter's first full-fledged tantrum. She was somewhere between 8 & 9 mos. old and my daughter and son-in-law were putting together a very heavy piece of furniture with some fairly large pieces. They didn't want the baby in the same room, but that's where she wanted to be, of course. I tried all sorts of distractions, but finally just set her down on the floor in her room and let her kick and scream. This was much harder on her parents than it was on her! Or me. I ended up laughing at her (silently!) because I noticed that ever so often she'd slow down enough to check and make sure I was watching. And I took care to make it look like I wasn't after that. That's one variety of a time-out -- simply refusing to reinforce undesirable behavior.

I got babies on my mind tonight... I just drove home after spending 5 days helping take care of my 3 1/2 year old and 3 1/2 month old granddaughters while their parents supervised the movers unloading all their stuff and the subsequent unpacking. (It's been the move from hell involving the moving company "losing" the truck their stuff was on for almost two weeks.)

Yes, 3 hours driving time beats 20 in so many ways... but it actually makes leaving a little bit harder. My plan was to leave at noon today, but I didn't get on the road until 8 pm!

Oh... one last thing. The general advice I give to my daughter and step-daughter (and their husbands, of course) is that no "corrective" activity should result in limiting the parents' activities.

This is something I learned when I was only 12 years old... and had done a VERY BAD thing which my parents decided warranted a 6 month grounding of my pre-teen self. The level of supervision that grounding resulted in ended up restricting my mother's activities more than mine.

No... details of the VERY BAD thing will not be forthcoming...

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