Parenting

It didn’t matter how many times I told her not to. She bit the fluoride dropper every time I put it into her mouth.

I’d draw up some fluoride, squeeze the excess out until I had the prescribed 0.5 mL, and insert the dropper into her mouth. She’d clamp the dropper between her teeth and grin at me as I tried to extricate the dropper. “This is not funny, Tirzah Mae,” I’d say, “this is disobedient. You should not bite the dropper.” My frustration level to rose higher and higher as the days went on – and so did Tirzah Mae’s sense that this was a marvelous game.

And then, one day, I suddenly knew exactly what I needed to do.

I needed to give some anticipatory guidance.

What is anticipatory guidance?

According to yourpediatrician.com:

“‘Anticipatory Guidance’ is a common term in the field of general pediatrics. It refers to providing education to parents about what to expect, or anticipate, over the next few months or years with your child. Recommendations are specific to a child’s age at the time of a visit.”

Our family doctor’s anticipatory guidance involves reminding me to childproof the house at the 6 month visit, since my little one is likely to soon become mobile. Our doctor is letting us know what to expect and what to do.

In the same way, my anticipatory guidance for Tirzah Mae meant telling her what was coming and what I expected of her.

In the above scenario, that meant I’d tell her something like this: “Okay, Tirzah Mae. Mama’s going to give you some fluoride. Now, I don’t want you to bite the dropper.” In this way, she knew exactly how I expected her to behave (or to not behave). If she followed my instructions, I’d praise her: “Thank you for being obedient, Tirzah Mae.” If she disobeyed my instructions, I’d put on my sad face and say “Oh, Tirzah Mae, you’ve been disobedient. Now mama will have to punish you.” And I’d administer whichever punishment was currently the order of the day.

And, as time went by, she learned what I expected and I no longer needed to give anticipatory guidance for the fluoride drops.

Now, it’s other things. As I see the pastor or elder making his way to the pulpit for the call to worship on Sunday morning, I explain to Tirzah Mae: “See how Mr. Dave is coming to the pulpit? He’s going to read to us from the Bible and then pray. I want you to be quiet and stand next to mama while he does that.” Or as I get ready to take Tirzah Mae out of her car seat, I’ll explain: “We’re going to go into ALDI, but I want you to hold mama’s hand the whole time we’re in the parking lot, until I put you in the cart.”

It doesn’t mean Tirzah Mae obeys every time, or that we never have struggles, but because I’ve articulated my expectations in advance, I’m able to respond to her actions more calmly rather than reacting in frustration. Because I know that she knows what I expect of her, I need not waffle about punishing her when she disobeys for fear that she’d forgotten my instructions. And the disobedience occurs less and less. In fact, she even begins to anticipate my guidance and say so herself.

She reaches out her hand to grab something from the shelf in the gas station but stops herself just in time. “Fold your hands,” she instructs herself, repeating my guidance. “We’re going to go into the gas station, but I want you to keep your hands folded and not touch anything.”

Anticipatory guidance. It works for us.

Tirzah Mae generally does an excellent job of only writing with her markers on paper.

With one exception.

She loves to draw on herself.

Like a week ago, when she put on some eye “makeup”.

We all know by now that the only thing better than sustained tummy time is frequent tummy time. But who has time and energy for that?

It’s enough work to feed (breastfeeding and pumping and bottle warming, oh my!) and diaper (change, rinse, wash, no-time-to-fold, and repeat) and clothe (spit-up, blow-outs, and big-sister-drool) your baby without having to remember to put baby on the floor on his tummy multiple times a day (supervised – don’t forget that tummy time should ALWAYS be supervised [Sarcasm alert].)

But you can’t do tummy time when baby is hungry (read: half of the day) because then by the time you get around to feeding he’ll be too frustrated to latch well. And you can’t do tummy time right after feeding (read: the other half of the day) because then he’ll spit up everything you just fed him (anyone else need to keep their babies upright practically until the next feeding to avoid the dreaded mouth-nose-gasping-for-air-and-crying-like-he’s-dying-whenever-he-does-get-a-breath-spit-up?)

Getting frequent tummy time in is almost impossible.

Or is it?

Our solution is to turn unavoidable “can’t be on mama” time into tummy time.

I use a washable throw rug in our bathroom (actually, it’s two vintage bath towels sewn together to double thickness). After diapering, when I’m rinsing those cloth diapers, I lay Louis on the rug with a clean burp rag under his head.

Voila.

At least 4 or 5 (if not 8 or 9) little tummy times every day.

“Training your child to help around the house will make the job harder now; but it’ll pay off down the road.”

It’s such common advice, it’s become something of a parenting axiom.

The implication is that lazy parents avoid doing the hard work of parenting – that is, training their children in the way they should go – and end up with more pain and work in the future when their children haven’t been trained to do x or y (or to have z or a character traits).

The axiom tells parents to do the hard work of including their children in housework now so that they can offload some of the housework to their children later. Or, less cynically, parents should do the hard work of including their children in housework now so that their children can be responsible for themselves as they grow into adulthood.

The training task of parenthood is often hard – which is why people find it necessary to remind parents to do the hard work now that will pay off down the road.

But I contend that, at least for toddlers, involving your children in housework does NOT make the job harder now. Involving your toddler in housework can pay off in the here and now – not just down the road.

Now, you are probably thinking “Have you seen how much longer it takes to [insert chore here] when my toddler ‘helps’?”

Yes, I get what you’re saying. My toddler tends to smear food around the chairs when she wipes them, which means I have to re-wipe them. My toddler drops the dustpan before she’s emptied it, which means I have to re-sweep a section of the floor. My toddler puts things in the wrong places when she’s picking up, which means I have to re-sort everything multiple times.

Doing a task with my toddler takes 1.5 to 2 times longer than doing a task myself.

But have YOU seen how much extra work my toddler can create when I let her play independently (not right next to me) while I’m cleaning up?

While I’m saving five minutes by cleaning up after lunch without her help, she’s creating ten minutes worth of work in the living room, bathroom, and bedroom.

The reality is, involving your child in your work right now will have benefits both in the future and in the present.

So, if you want to be a really lazy parent, involve your child in housework now.

Have you ever noticed, Rebekah, how distracted you can be?

You get up to do one thing and find a half dozen other things to do along the way, such that you sometimes forget what you were aiming to do in the first place.

Sometimes this isn’t a problem.

Many times this isn’t a problem.

Even if you forget your original intent, it’s rarely urgent and will usually get done eventually – and the half dozen little other things need to be done sometime. Now is as good a time as any.

But there are times when this distraction is a problem.

“Come here, Tirzah Mae,” you say. “We’re going to change your diaper.”

And then you notice the toy on the floor that belongs in the nursery and the socks that belong in the hamper in your bedroom. You pick them up and take them to their appropriate spots.

Returning to the living room, you repeat your plea: “Come here, Tirzah Mae. We’re going to change your diaper.”

But on the way into the bathroom to wet her wipes you realize your water bottle is empty so you grab it to refill it.

And so on and so forth.

Tirzah Mae learns that when Mama says “Come here, Tirzah Mae”, Mama really doesn’t mean it. When Mama says “We’re going to change your diaper”, she doesn’t mean right now.

She learns to ignore your directions until you come and get her. She learns that Mama isn’t serious about changing the diaper until Mama picks her up and carries her off to the nursery.

Your distraction is training her to ignore you.

And that is NOT good.

So try this, Rebekah.

Stand by the bathroom door. “Come here, Tirzah Mae,” you should say. “Mama is going to change your diaper.”

Stay there, holding your hand open for her to grab hold of it, repeating yourself if necessary until she obeys. DO NOT BE DISTRACTED.

When Tirzah Mae comes, you can wet the wipes in the bathroom sink and then the two of you will walk, hand in hand to the nursery, where you will change her diaper.

If you notice something that needs to be done while you’re standing by the door waiting for Tirzah Mae to obey, make a mental note but don’t do anything else.

Your primary job is teaching your daughter, not ensuring that the toys and socks are put away and the water bottle filled. You can do those things after you take care of the first thing – training your daughter to be obedient when you give her instructions.

Distraction in housekeeping is one thing. Distraction in parenting is quite another. Keep your eyes on the goal, Rebekah – train your daughter well.

Going to Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo was an at-least-annual part of my childhood.

We’d load into the car some Saturday morning, singing Dad’s ditty:

“Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo
Beeps and bonks and squeaks and sqwanks.”

We’d arrive at Grandma Menter’s in Bellevue in time for lunch at noon – except that, while Grandma Menter was an excellent cook, she was not excellent at multitasking, which meant that lunch was generally around two.

Tirzah Mae and Papa check out the cow and calf

This didn’t bother us much (that I remember), since we had cousins to play with and 7-Up to drink.

Except that myself, my sister, and the cousin who falls exactly between us in age REALLY wanted to ride the elephants.

As I remember it, elephant rides were available until 3 pm – but since lunch was always at 2, we were never at the zoo in time for elephants.

Other times, we’d go with Grandma to the in-zoo cafe, which meant we were there earlier – but then we’d have to trek through the Leid Jungle, and would yet again miss the elephant rides.

Tirzah Mae and Mama pet a sheep

A couple of months ago, a plane left Swaziland with sixteen elephants on board. The elephants were bound for Dallas, for the Sedgwick County Zoo (in Wichita), and for Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo.

The departure was rather a story because some environmental groups were trying to block the transport and the zoos opted to sedate the elephants and load them up for transport without a permit in order to force the issue (they were successful at doing so.)

Tirzah Mae and Mama with an orangutan statue

I followed the story with interest, partly because it’s Wichita news – and partly because it’s Henry Doorly news. And partly because I never got to ride those elephants.

I still haven’t ridden the elephants (I rather doubt that’s at all d’jour in today’s conservation efforts) – but thanks to Daniel’s employer, our family has gone to see Wichita’s six new elephants.

We spent the afternoon on Sunday at the Sedgwick County Zoo, where we petted the goats and sheep (one got out while we were at the gate!) and where Tirzah Mae clucked and crowed and quacked at hundreds of different bird species.

Tirzah Mae is enamored with large birds

And we saw the elephants, two weeks before the exhibit opens to the public.

Tirzah Mae inspects the elephant

I don’t know that Tirzah Mae was enamoured with the elephants. She was already tired by the time we got to the exhibit – and elephants, unlike birds, are entirely outside of her realm of experience).

But I loved seeing the elephants ambling about their spacious enclosures.

Tirzah Mae and Mama enjoy the elephant

It almost resigns me to not having been able to ride the elephants. Almost.

Since first putting Tirzah Mae in the nursery in August, it feels as though it’s been a constant parade of illness around here.

A little cold that I think might be just allergies except that one of the little girls in my class had been snuffling the day before. A virus that came on suddenly in midday, giving Tirzah Mae and I drippy noses and quickly raw throats – and that lasted 3 weeks. A bout or two of diarrhea (was that just because of her teeth, I wonder, or was it a bug?)

Generally, I’ve felt bad for Tirzah Mae because I’ve been attributing my own pain to her. Her throat has to hurt since mine does. Her ears have got to be uncomfortable because mine are. I’ve empathized in a self-pitying way, reminding myself that it’s no wonder she wants to nurse all.the.live-long.day when her throat hurts like mine does and the only thing that helps is to have a steady stream of warm liquid (that’s not snot) constantly bathing it.

That three-week-long cold? Tirzah Mae started feeling better (for all I can tell) long before I did. In fact, I only just woke up yesterday without my throat on fire.

Yesterday. When Tirzah Mae woke up with a big blob of snot on her face.

I refused to miss Bible study, kept her with me instead of in the nursery. We spent the afternoon cuddling – at least until I had to go to my doctor’s appointment to get a thing-a-ma-jigger removed from my back. She stayed up way later than her normal bedtime (as did her mother).

And she woke me up wailing at midnight.

Except when I went to get her, she wasn’t standing in her crib like she usually does – she was lying on her belly, lifting her head just a few inches off the mattress and then letting it drop back down again.

I fed her, as she snuffled hard through a snot-filled nose.

She fell asleep for a half an hour, woke up again with a muffled cry.

This cry was different, a short mew and then catching her breath.

She wouldn’t breastfeed longer than ten seconds before raising her head and flopping her body over onto my belly. She’d begin the mew again and then a desperate attempt to breathe.

Between patting her back and waving my homemade Vicks Vaporub under her nose and keeping her sitting upright next to me in bed, she managed to breathe easily enough to fall asleep again – so long as I kept her in sitting position and kept the vaporub under her nose and didn’t dare fall asleep myself.

Now my daughter is awake. Completing her morning exercises, the daily exploration of the living room. Except for the heavy mouth-breathing, the crusty eyes, and the snot that I can’t seem to keep off her face, you’d never know what kind of night she had.

And today, my empathy can’t be self-pitying. I may be exhausted, but I am only thankful – thankful that last night’s fears were naught. My daughter breathes, she plays, she explores.

We made it through the night. And, this morning?

She’s beautiful, my snot-nosed baby.

A little over a year ago, I wrote up a post declaring my “side” on the many different parenting decisions for the first year. To quote my introduction, this was so “I can look back years from now and shake my head at how naive and idealistic I was back before I had children.”

Well, now that I’ve had one go-round at the first year, it’s time to see what I’ve done and what I think NOW.

The first days:

I didn’t have a lot of choice about what went on during the first days – between the c-section and Tirzah Mae’s NICU stay, things were mostly done by protocol. I still hold by my theories – but we just didn’t have the opportunity for delayed cord clamping or skin-to-skin this time around (nor did the hospital ask me prior to giving Tirzah Mae her eye drops – even so, while *I* and my midwife know that Tirzah Mae wasn’t going to get chlamydia or gonnorrhea from me, I understand why the hospitals don’t just take a woman’s word for it.)

Diapering

As soon as Tirzah Mae ran out of the one bag of preemie diapers I bought for her when she came home from the hospital, we switched to prefolds and have been using them ever since. We’ve been gifted with covers that we use most of the time (although I have used plastic pants too). We used snappies a lot until Tirzah Mae got diaper rash and I started leaving the cover off around the house – then the pins hold things on much better.

Feeding

Breast or bottle?
I still hate that question. Tirzah Mae has received breastmilk exclusively – initially via a tube into her stomach, then from a bottle, and finally at the breast. Initially, she just got one breastfeeding a day and the rest from a bottle – but we switched around Christmastime (her due date) to breastfeeding ’round the clock with a bottle only before bed for her Vitamin D and iron supplement.

Scheduled feedings or “on demand”?
The hospital enforced scheduled feedings every 3 hours – and it absolutely broke my heart. Even as a preemie, Tirzah Mae gave very clear hunger cues – cues that said she wanted to eat every 2 to 2.5 hours. Once I brought her home, I fed her whenever she gave cues (and continue to do so.) I continue to believe this is nutritionally the best approach to infant feeding (and can be quite doable, especially for a stay-at-home mom).

Vitamin D or no?
Tirzah Mae got drops in her evening bottle until the expressed breastmilk from her hospitalization ran out (sometime in August) At that point, we were going outdoors daily (and I skipped the sunscreen unless we were going to be out longer than 15-20 minutes.) Now that it’s getting cold and we’re not out as much, it’s probably time to start them up again (this time, she doesn’t need them mixed with anything to not spit them out.)

Nursing cover, blanket, or nothing at all?
Still don’t use any hidey devices

Introducing solids?
Adjusting for age made this one difficult. My “no sooner than six months” – is that for corrected or calendar age? Tirzah Mae started eating sometime right around 6 months by the calendar – because she refused to let me eat in peace.

First foods?
The only baby food I’ve purchased is baby oatmeal, which Tirzah Mae ate three servings of. Then she ate table food – we ground it with a handheld baby food mill for about two weeks and she’s been eating it straight from the table (mashed or diced and now in chunks) ever since. I did not introduce one food at a time as originally intended – and I don’t think I ever will.

Weaning from the breast?
Still going strong and no end in sight.

Weaning from the bottle?
I ended up using one, but only infrequently after the first few months – she hasn’t gotten one since the breastmilk from the NICU ran out, and she’s never missed it.

Pacifier?
The NICU never asked, they just started her on one. I’d ask them not to if I were in the situation again – but it didn’t hurt us. She gave it up on her own sometime around six months and we haven’t used it since (even if I’ve tried a couple times in desperation :-P)

Potential allergens?
I’ve been pretty consistent with this one – Tirzah Mae gets the same foods we eat except for honey (until tomorrow!) I have given her bits of cow’s milk with meals over the past month (earlier than the one year I mentioned earlier), but it’s been pretty minimal amounts (and therefore unlikely to damage her kidneys, which is the real concern with early intro of cow’s milk.

Sleep

I REALLY underestimated what my own sleep deprivation would induce me to do in this area!

Cosleeping?
Never in our bed, I said. Ha. That did NOT happen. But we weaned her from our bed and into her crib sometime between 4 and 6 months.

Back or front?
Yep, back to sleep saves babies’ lives – but I never managed to keep Tirzah Mae asleep on her back (until summertime – and then she wanted to be on her back. So weird.

Nursing to sleep?
We still do – and I don’t wake her back up to brush. We brush and do our fluoride drops during the day.

Rocking to sleep?
While I occasionally wish I could just put Tirzah Mae down and have her fall asleep by herself, I generally enjoy our bedtime routine (which, yes, includes breastfeeding and rocking to sleep)

Swaddling?
I didn’t want to rely on this and we haven’t. It was helpful before her due date, but not so much after.

Sleep training/Crying it out?
I still believe sleep training is not for newborns (you’re unlikely to find someone who has actually studied infant sleep who thinks you should.) But I also believe sleep training can be a very loving thing to do. I really will publish that “Loving by Sleep Training” post one of these days – suffice to say that I used a modified version of sleep training on two different occasions and did so because it was the only way I could love my daughter in those circumstances.

Miscellany

Babywearing?
Tummy Time?
Car seats?
I stand by what I said – and I’ve stood by it pretty well this year.

Church nursery?
The NICU really encouraged us to avoid the church nursery until Tirzah Mae was a year old. I held off until I started teaching Sunday School and now she’s in there during Sunday School and my Bible study. She’s with Daniel and I during services. We’ve had two or three colds in the two months since she’s been in the nursery. I think I’m pretty pro keeping little ones with me unless they’re really keeping me from being able to participate (which Tirzah Mae would at this point, with teaching Sunday School and participating in Bible Study.)

So, when theory turns to action, I’m a little more realistic, but I’m still an idealogue. Bring on the next baby (so I can change my mind on more)!