TV 2.0

A few weeks ago Baby M's Waldorf-inspired preschool asked him for his favorite part of the day.  He replied it was when he got to watch a video.  I was horrified, but now I've decided I am giving up my guilt over Baby M's TV viewing.  He watches an hour of TV a day, pretty much every day and he loves it.  Whenever anyone asks me about TV I usually justify it with "He doesn't nap" or "I am selective about what he watches."  Which are both true, Baby M is regularly up for 13 hours a day straight, so even with an hour of TV he is still spending more time playing, drawing and exploring than many of his 2-hour napping peers.  And now that we primarily watch videos over Netlix instant download it's easy to limit his choices. We generally stick to Busytown Mysteries, with the occasional Kipper or Thomas thrown in.

Of course, just because I've come to terms with 60 minutes of TV time a day doesn't mean that Baby M has.  He always wants more.  I've written before about trying to manage Baby M's TV habit, but now that he is nearly 3 and a half his strategies are getting more sophisticated.  He still makes use of the tried and true whiny tantrum, but he has also started trying to charm me ("I'll watch a show and you can take a nap in your bed") , argue with me ("It's just a short one") or reason with me ("My brain is already ruined").  At least I know the message that TV is bad for his brain is getting through.

I'll admit it, I'm one of those parents that has a hard time saying no. So I kept trying to find the perfect approach that would make limiting the TV easy.   I tried coupons.  I tried TV only at certain times.  I tried a fixed number of shows.  But no matter what strategy I tried, Baby M wanted more TV.  Or Kideos on the iPhone.  Or YouTube videos on the PC.  Nothing made it easy. Ultimately, I just had to pick a rule and stick to it.  I know, this is Parenting 101.  But when it's so easy to make the whining stop and when a nap for me is part of the package, saying no can be pretty difficult.  But I did eventually do it. I decided one hour of TV a day, any time after breakfast and before dinner.  He can use that hour however he wants-- two Busytowns, one Sesame Street, any show approved by me.   He can break it up or use it all in one sitting, but when it's used up the remotes get put away.  Baby M still whines about the TV every day, but now that he knows I won't budge he gives up after 5 minutes or so and finds something else to do.  And, goofy as it sounds, I feel a little bit proud of myself every time he does.

Raising Happiness

 Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents is my new favorite parenting book.  I checked it out of the library a few weeks ago and found myself marking so many passages to photocopy that I finally decided to just purchase my own copy of the book.  Christine Carter, the director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, draws on the latest research and her own experience to come up with a succinct guide on how to raise not only happy children, but ones that are kind, grateful and self-motivated.  Not surprisingly, part of the recipe for happy children includes happy parents, so there are also plenty of tips on how to increase your own happiness and create a joyful family environment.

If you've read books like NurtureShock or Unconditional Parenting the science covered in Raising Happiness will not be new, and Carter does not spend a lot of time rehashing the research, she is more interested in the conclusions and how we can apply them to our parenting practice.  The thing that this book does amazingly well is offer specific advice while providing enough flexibility to tailor the recommendations to your family.  If saying a prayer before dinner as part of a gratitude practice doesn't work for you, how about a toast?  If you can't volunteer with your child, maybe you can pick up trash at the park together.  So many parenting books are either so rigid you feel that one misstep will doom your child for life or else so nebulous that you can't figure out how to apply any of their suggestions.

Initially I was a little put off by the book. The first chapter draws heavily on Carter's experiences as a working mom and I was starting to wonder if her tips would apply to parent who stays home.  Especially when, in a section on building a good relationship with your partner, she wrote "busy couples with kids and two full-time jobs don't have sex less than couples with a stay-at-home parent."  As if I have nothing to do other than lay around in lingerie thinking sexy thoughts.  Anyway, despite the shaky start, I was totally won over by the end of the second chapter. Raising Happiness is organized into short chapters, with sub-headings and "Try This" sections that make finding the information you're looking for easy.  She only employs one acronym (ERN - empathy, reason, non-controlling language) which is actually simple enough for me to remember and make use of when dealing with my 3 year old.  Plus, she recognizes that kids may respond differently to her tactics.  She actually includes an example where labeling a angry child's feeling does not diffuse the situation, but instead prompts him to shout "I AM NOT FRUSTRATED.  I AM HAPPY!"  So many of the examples in this book spoke to my own experience, from being bored while playing with my son to chaotic dinner time situations.

Since the book is about creating a happy and fulfilling family situation, its messages are relevant to families with infants all the way up through the teenage years.  Once you are beyond the books on when to introduce solids and how to get your baby to sleep (I read plenty of those!) I highly recommend picking up Raising Happiness.

Two Kids Means No Time to Blog

Sorry for the long absence.  With 2 kids there just never seems to be time for the blog.  One or the other always needs my attention and in the rare moment that they are both occupied (or sleeping) there is laundry, cooking, cleaning, or episodes of True Blood to be watched.  And if I ever try to do any writing while they're awake the baby starts crying and the three year old demands to watch a YouTube video (curse you Peppa Pig!)  But, that doesn't mean I haven't thought about this blog, so here are a few things that I really wanted to blog about but never got around to

-- How well Baby M has adjusted to his new brother and how much I love the fact that he makes plans for their future together (Halloween costumes, sleeping arrangements, who gets to ride shotgun in their first car)
-- How much more I'm enjoying Baby S and whether it is because I know he's probably my last baby or because I'm more comfortable taking care of a newborn or simply because he doesn't cry for 8 hours a day
-- Despite never wanting more than 2 children, why it is so hard to say that I'm done having babies?
-- My fear that Baby M will never develop empathy (after a disturbing incident involving a fire truck and a friend's head)
-- My ridiculous guilt over not starting Mommy & Me classes with Baby S yet
-- How can adding one person to the family quadruple the amount of laundry I need to do?

And, perhaps most importantly,
-- In going for a lower maintenance hairstyle, did I inadvertently give myself "mom hair"

Welcome Baby S!

I based my birth plans for Baby S on my experience with Baby M.  Yes, I'd heard that second babies come faster, that every pregnancy is different, blah, blah, blah.  My pregnancy with S had been very similar to my previous pregnancies and I had no reason to doubt that labor would follow the same general path, just maybe a little faster.  Well, it was a lot faster and quite different.  With Baby M my contractions started mildly, ramped up over the next 8 hours and then I spent another 8 hours in the hospital before he was born.  So 16 hours total.  With Baby S it was less than 5 hours from start to finish.

My water broke late Sunday night.  This caught me off guard, partially because the first time around my water didn't break until I was already well into labor, but mainly because it was 3 days before my due date. I know 3 days is not terribly early, but Baby M had been a week overdue and I figured Baby S would be late too.  At my last OB appointment I was only 1 cm dilated and I thought I had at least another week to wait.  Consequently, I had planned a full day of tasks for Monday -- laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep and packing my hospital bag.

So now we were suddenly in the Hollywood  movie birth scenario.  I was throwing clothes in my hospital bag, calling relatives to come over at one in the morning and trying to convince my husband that yes, we actually did need to go to the hospital.  Right now.

I had been toying with the idea of having an unmedicated birth.  With Baby M I had the epidural and overall it was a positive experience,  but I'd also wondered what natural birth was like.  Was it really as empowering or,  heaven-forbid, orgasmic as all those books said it would be?  (I'd read Naomi Wolf's Misconceptions, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth and watched The Business of Being Born, my head was full of natural birthing propaganda).  On the way to the hospital, however, I realized that you don't really play around with natural birth.  You either need to be committed or not.  And I had never really fully committed.  I still felt flustered over the whole bag situation, my contractions were getting stronger and I forgot all about my visualization techniques.  This is silly, I thought.  I will just get the epidural.

When we got to the hospital it was 2am and I was 5cm.  The nurse checked me in, I got changed and situated in my room and I asked for the epidural.  At this point the contractions were getting quite strong and were right on top of each other.  Most of my focus was just on getting through them.  The nurse checked me again and I was 9cm.  Do you still want the epidural, she asked. Um, yes.  But by the time the anesthesiologist was ready my OB was there saying it was time to push.  So I ended up with an unmedicated birth after all.  I have to say, it was definitely not orgasmic and by the end I did not feel strong and empowered.  I just felt tired.  And that was after only 2 hours of hard labor, I can't imagine what it must be like for the women whose labors last for hours on end.  On the upside, my recovery has been so much easier and I do think that is in part because I did not have the epidural.  And, as my husband likes to point out, I now have bragging rights.

So Baby S came out at a healthy 8 pounds 2 ounces with all 9 on his Apgars.  We struggled a bit with jaundice and the poor little guy had daily heel pricks for a while, but now he is nice and pink.  He sleeps a lot and cries very little (the exact opposite of Baby M at this age).  Baby M is adjusting well and has been very helpful.  We'll see how we fare once my mother goes home and friends stop bringing us dinner, but for now we are all feeling good.

Siblings Without Rivalry

So I decided I'd better get in one book on siblings before baby #2 comes along and Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish came highly recommended despite being written 23 years ago.  I liked the book and thought it was helpful, but it definitely read like something written decades ago, and not just because of the dated cover design and references to the library card catalog.  In case you missed it, I read a lot of parenting books, and I generally try to read current books-- NutureShock, SuperBaby, The Parents We Mean to Be, Unconditional Parenting, etc.  These books were all written in the last few years and tend to be footnoted extensively with references to scientific journals, experiments and additional resources.  And this scientific rigor has never bothered me; I like the fact that the advice being doled out has been tested and that there is more than just some "expert's"opinion or personal experience backing it up.

Siblings Without Rivalry is structured completely differently from most of the books I read.  It's based on a 6 week workshop on sibling rivalry and includes the conversations, stories and handouts from these workshops.  We hear about the participants' struggles with their children, their own sibling relationships and even tearful confessions of what they wished their parents had done differently. At times it is very much like sitting in on someone else's group therapy session from 1987 when latch-key kids were the norm, gender stereotypes were readily accepted and promoting self-esteem was paramount.

I know this does not sound promising, but I actually found the structure quite refreshing.  Instead of reading about carefully controlled experiments I was reading about real conflicts between real siblings.  We don't just read about what the research says you should do, we actually get to see how imperfect, tired, angry parents apply the techniques and hear about how they work or how they don't.  And, perhaps most encouraging, we get to see parents head down a wrong path, change their approach mid-conflict and still end up with a mostly positive result.  In so many of the books I read the author provides so much evidence for a particular approach that I start to feel doing anything differently will doom my child to a life of sleeplessness or low IQ or anxiety, etc. etc.

Sure, some of the illustrations in the book are a little hokey and the first chapter, which asks us to explore our child's feelings about a new sibling by having us imagine our husband bringing home a new wife, was more amusing than anything else, but I do feel that I gained valuable information on how to help Baby M deal with a younger sibling.  (And I did have to laugh when the authors asked me to write down my reaction to my husband giving the new wife one of my old sweaters and saying "you've put on a little weight, your clothes are too tight on you and they'll fit her perfectly.")   Some key points from the book:

1. Acknowledge each child's feelings about their sibling, even if they are negative
2. Do not compare the children to each other
3. Do not put children in "roles", even if both roles seem positive (e.g. the smart one and the funny one)
4. Instead of focussing on giving kids equal parts, try to give each child what they need when they need it
5. Intervene in fights when necessary, but try to put the onus for solving the problem on the kids.

These suggestions may sound obvious, but I can see how easy it would be to forget about them in the heat of the moment.  If my boys were fighting about the number of pancakes on their plates I can absolutely see myself snapping "You both have four pancakes" instead of asking if they were still hungry.  It's straight-forward examples like this one that make the tips in this book easy to remember and hopefully easy to implement.

The Making of a Picky Eater

We really hoped Baby M would not be a picky eater.  We did all the things the books say you should do-- we introduced veggies before fruit, my husband and I continued to eat a variety of foods and rarely prepared special meals for Baby M, we had Baby M help us cook, we grew and ate vegetables out of our garden.  But try as we might, Baby M seems to be getting pickier by the day.

One day he refused to eat pasta with sauce on it.  On another he stopped eating his apple skins.  Over the past few months he has declared that he no longer likes oatmeal, hummus, bananas, blueberries, melons, beans, carrots or celery.  I continue to serve these foods and he refuses to touch anything on his plate until I remove them.  This, coupled with the fact that our family has adopted a mostly vegetarian diet over the past year, means that some nights all he eats is rice.  The only vegetable he eats consistently is broccoli, unless, of course, you count ketchup.

So when a friend gave me a copy of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious, I grudgingly started flipping through it.  I have to admit, back when Baby M was still on a milk diet I wrote a somewhat snarky post about this book.  I assumed getting your child to eat a variety of food was just a matter of offering it repeatedly in an upbeat matter.  Little did I know I would soon be stealthily pureeing beets and butternut squash in an effort to get some veggies into my stubborn stubborn child.

We've tried a fair number of the recipes from the book and they've been hit or miss.  Given the fact that we don't eat meat and Baby M refuses to eat pasta with sauce (including red sauce, cheese sauce, cream sauce and any other type of "sauce" you can think of) the number of recipes that work for us is somewhat limited.  He loved the "Pink Pancakes" (with beets) and will happily eat muffins with any puree I happen to throw in.  He flat out refused the scrambled eggs with cauliflower puree and honestly, I can't blame him.  They tasted like I scrambled a carton of 6 month old eggs.  He also did not go for the butternut squash-grilled cheese, although my husband and I actually prefer it to the standard version, so I think we're going to give that one a few more tries.

The thing is, using a half of cup of veggies in a dozen muffins means a 3 year old would have to eat 24 muffins to get his daily serving of vegetables.  Baby M would probably eat muffins all day long if I let him, but I really don't think that's a good idea either.  Sure some vegetables hidden in a muffin are still better than nothing, but I really wish I didn't have to be so darn sneaky.

The 5 Stages of Potty Training Regression

So, in my last post I noted that Baby M was no longer having daytime accidents.  We've had a bit of a regression since then.  He is now pooping his pants once or twice a day.  He still happily pees in the potty and generally wakes up dry, but he has no interest in getting his poops into the potty.  He will run behind the table where I can't reach him and insist he's not pooping while I try to convince him to come with me to the bathroom.  He poops his pants at the park, at school, at home, whenever he gets the urge. Oddly, he abhors wet underpants but doesn't seem to mind having poop in his pants at all and will go on about his business until I drag him kicking and screaming into the bathroom.

This has been going on for a little over a week and I have passed through all 5 stages of potty training regression.

Denial - Initially I convinced myself it was just a one off accident or a bad day or a few bad days...

Anger - I am not proud to admit that I yelled.  I waved poopy underpants in his face.  I told him he couldn't wear his favorite pirate underpants because they were covered in f@#*-ing poop.  Then I felt like the worst mother in the world, cried and apologized.  It was not my finest moment.  In fact, it was probably my worst parenting moment ever.

Bargaining - I brought the sticker charts back out, I promised trips to Travel Town, as the days wore on I threatened to take away his 30 minutes of TV time (which I did but it was harder on me than him and didn't make a difference anyway).

Depression - I looked back at my schizophrenic behavior over the past week, at the way I did all the things I said I wouldn't do, the things every book and web site tells you not to do, and wondered why the heck I was having another child when I couldn't even manage a week of poopy underpants without a major freak out.  I also ate a lot of ice cream.

Acceptance - I bought a tub of Oxiclean and a bucket for soaking poopy clothes. I keep my diaper bag stocked with plastic bags.  I realize there is no way I can force Baby M to poop in the potty. If I can't fight it, I might as well prepare for it.  I now simply praise him for using the toilet, remind him that poop goes in the potty and try to keep everything clean with as little drama as possible.  At some point he will decide pooping in his pants is not worth the trouble of getting cleaned up.

I don't know what, if anything, brought on the regression.  Maybe the novelty of the potty wore off.  Maybe Baby M saw how upset all the poop was making me and liked getting a response.  Maybe it's a delayed reaction to starting preschool or an advanced reaction to the impending birth of his brother.  Hopefully my new Zen attitude will encourage him to go back to the potty.  If not, you should seriously consider investing in Oxiclean, because at 2 poops a day, we're going through a lot of that stuff.