Milk and Cookies
with Kristen
I'm a mother of five, a bargain hunter, a recreational comparison shopper, and always trying to make more time - for me and for you, too. On this blog I'm sharing my favorite tools and finds to help make your work-life juggle a bit easier.
You can find my personal blog at Swistle.blogspot.com.
I have often thought that caring for a baby in their first year of life is like watching the lights come on in a house, one by one. First they’re all unfocused and mewly, then they’re laughing and doing that funny stationary leg-marching business, and soon they’re entirely purposeful and able to reach right out and grab what they want. Click, click, click, one room after another gets lit up in their brains, and their worlds open wider and wider.
If that’s true, then the stage around 18 months is like having all the lights on at once, blazing away, while a mad scientist operates the giant electrical switch powering it all. “MOO HOO HA HA HAAAA!” shrieks the apparition in the white coat, hair standing on end and eyes pointing in two different directions. “HA HA HA—WAAAAHHHHHHHH!”
Young toddlers are insane, is what I’m saying. They’re physically capable of outrunning you, yet they have no sense of self-preservation. Their emotions are as wild and unpredictable as a storm on the high seas, and the smallest trespass will send them flinging their bodies to the floor in order to throw a tantrum loud enough to detonate an adult’s eardrums at fifty paces. They kick, they slap, they throw things, they scream, they eat things that aren’t meant to be eaten while hysterically refusing things that ARE meant to be eaten.
Thank god they’re still formed entirely of Pillsbury thigh-rolls with baby-soft faces and the occasional desire to cuddle, because in my limited experience this is the age which most strongly begs the question, Would It Be Wrong To FedEx My Child to Octo-Mom, Since She Apparently Can’t Get Enough of this Crap?
So! Let’s talk about ways to survive the 18-month zone, and by that I mostly mean “let’s open up comments because I sure don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
Dealing with the meltdowns:
My personal (adorable!) hell-beast is 15 months as of this writing, and while we do tell him no (often many times per day), it isn’t really what you would call an effective technique if what you’re going for is acquiescence. His usual response is to make a little round O with his mouth, lock eyes with one of us, and immediately repeat whatever action he was doing. You mean THIS? he seems to be saying. This smashing the cat with a soup ladle? Why on earth should I stop doing something so immensely satisfying and entertaining?
I find that distraction is the only thing that really works, and my husband and I can often be found yelling “Ball! Ball! Dylan, where’s your BALL?” in order to pry our young son away from whatever unsavory activity he’s engaged in.
Sometimes the only thing to do is pick him up and physically re-locate him, although that approach often results in a Massive Screaming Fit.
Dealing with the food issues:
For a while there Dylan was eating anything and everything, and I thought we’d escaped the pickiness that was such a trial with our older son. Ha ha ha ha NO. Wrong. He just hadn’t had the food-light come on in his brain yet, and once it did, forget all that sweet potato noise. Now he rejects things based on some sort of complicated, ever-changing set of criteria that only he is privy to, which is especially maddening when a food staple that was greatly loved for an entire week (Eggos) suddenly gets re-filed on his S list.
For us, we find that the old spoon-as-airplane standby does occasionally work, as long as you get dramatic about it and add many sound effects. It sometimes helps to hide beneath his highchair tray and pop up in a comical, startling fashion, and stuff the food in his mouth when he laughs. Every now and then, he’ll eat something only if it’s offered via chopsticks, which . . . look, I don’t know, okay? It’s weird.
I know people say that children will eat when they’re hungry and not to resort to special techniques for “tricking” them to eat a meal, but I don’t think those people have dealt with a cranky, food-deprived toddler who doesn’t understand that eating will greatly improve their outlook on life.
Dealing with the violence:
Oh, there’s nothing quite like spending a year and a half of your life tending to someone’s every need, only to have them reach out and smack you across the face because you dare to change their poop-filled diaper.
I think this is one of the hardest behaviors to deal with, mostly because of the knee-jerk emotions it stirs up in me. I feel hurt, betrayed, and of course, angry when my child hits me.
The only thing I know to do here is grab their hands/feet, hold them securely and tightly, and tell them NO—using the Voice of God— right to their furious little face. Then finish what you’re doing and put them down, even if they’re blatting and screaming about it. I have also made good use of the Put the Child in his Crib and Let Him Freak Out On His Own While I Count to One Hundred technique.
Now, I KNOW some of you guys have been through these issues and more, and have some trips and tricks to share. What helped you deal with the more challenging aspects of young toddlerhood? I know it’s just a stage, but despite having gone through it all a couple years ago, I’m finding it exactly as hard as before this time around, and maybe even harder. Any wisdom is more than welcome!
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Mine is 14 months, and while I have yet to encounter the picky food thing with him (with the exception of last night, but I think he wasn’t feeling well), I do get a regular dose of both the tantrums and the violence. Some times I’ll be cuddling him and he’ll just take one of his hands and start whacking me in the face. When I hold it down and tell him no hitting, he proceeds to yell at me and go look for dada or his brother, because hey, maybe they’ll let him hit them.
It’s worse when he uses objects to hit people, because then I have to take away whatever he was using to hit with, which results in MAJOR tantrum.
The tantrums are frustrating, especially when he throws one after telling him no about something that will hurt him. “No, you can play with that plug for your humidifier”, “No, you can not pull knives out of the dishwasher”, “No, you can’t throw yourself head first off the bed”, ect.\
I usually just make sure he’s not somewhere where he can hurt himself and let him have at it. They don’t last long, and afterwards he comes looking for me to get a cuddle. Which is nice, because he also now understands the work “kiss”, so I can usually get a nice hug and a kiss out of the deal.
Cookie | May 27th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
OK, I don’t have kids so I don’t really have any pearls of wisdom to offer here. But I did want to say that I swear I remember you talking about a technique that worked really well when Riley refused to eat. Maybe I’m totally making this up, but didn’t you say that you learned to put food out for him, like on the coffee table and stuff, so that he could grab it at his leisure? And that worked a lot better than trying to force feed him at the table?
Anyway, Dylan might be a bit young for that strategy but if the whole picky-eating thing hasn’t gone away in a few months, maybe it’s worth another shot.
Jess | May 27th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I’m sitting here at my desk furiously nodding yes yes YES to everything, while laughing at the same time. Because have I mentioned OMG YES?!?
As you know Theo is one month behind Dylan, so I seriously look to see what is going on in your household and brace myself for it. So far you’ve been spot-on (DAMMIT).
Instead of saying ‘no’ all the time we say (and I know. . . I know) “Sit down please” when he stands up in the tub and I doubt it’s the words we say but how the tone is. Forcing ourselves to say it that way automatically makes it less harsh sounding than an easy “NO!” bark. We always thank him for being “such a good little helper!” (i.e. handing us every single piece of plastic tupperware we own over and over again, or going through Bryan’s computer wires stored in a box). Even as I’m writing this I want to puke at how sugary-sweet this sounds. Don’t get me wrong–we yell too. When he tries to kill himself during a diper change it takes two of us to hold him down and sometimes no amount of distraction will work (though an occasional DVD box does the trick). If I’m alone? Yeah, he sits in a dirty diaper longer than usual because I have to work up the mental energy to do it. Sometimes shouting his name startles him enough and snaps him out of his thrashing for a bit.
For food? He hasn’t refused food but he will play with it and throw it on the floor when he’s done which I HATE HAAAAAATE. So I only give him 3 pieces at a time to cut down on ’sharing with the cat’ and it seems to work. Also once we actually sat down at the table with him he calmed down. I used to run around the kitchen cleaning while he ate so we are working hard at stopping and eating together which is a good thing to do anyway. Though I LOVE the chopsticks idea.
samantha jo campen | May 27th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
ok so i am oddly excited about this post because i have a few things that worked for us (our son will be 3 next month!)
1. for the ‘no’ thing - you are right, he only hears the last part of that sentance, not the ‘no’! we figured out if we say “dont hit the cat with the spoon, put the spoon down and PET the cat, like this’ and show him - it’s a much better situation all around. and then of course lavish all kinds of praise and attention to the thing you WANT him to do. Basically quickly follow a ‘no’ with the action you want them to take instead. soon they forget about the thing you didnt want them to do because they love the positive reaction they get from the thing you TOLD them to do. give them lots to do (toss paper in the trash, celebration! put a toy in a bucket, celebration! - all i can say is my son is very excited to clean up his toys. maybe he’s just weird, but i’ll take it!)
2. haven’t quite figured out the food thing - we do the same thing and just keep offering. the additions to the crazy cycle seem to happen mostly when we just ignore him and talk to one another during dinner. suddenly he then likes pasta sauce (but not mac and cheese, noooo that would make sense)
3. As for the slapping/hitting. We learned this one from our daycare! They are learning empathy so we expect the same behavior from him that we give to him. In other words, if he gets a boo boo and is hurt you cuddle him and kiss it better right? so expect the same. If he hits you (intentionally or not, actually) let him know it hurts and ask him to kiss it and make it better. You can also practice this with stuffed animals or babies.
i am excited to see what works for other moms!!
Kate | May 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
oh! samatha jo you reminded me of a ‘distraction’ technique that worked for us (most of the time) for getting him changed for bed and/or diapers.
a toothbrush with an LED flashing light. it’s supposed to flash to tell you how long to brush your teeth but he just likes to make the light go and then forgets all about whatever it is you are doing to him (changing diapers, putting on shirts, etc.)
we are also super sugary sweet with the please and thank yous but it totally pays off - he says please and thank you with out thinking about it now (and so do i, actually) and it totally helps keep yourself in check
Kate | May 27th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Jess: yes, we totally did that with Riley for a while! I sometimes do it with Dylan, too, but most of the time it just results in a giant mess (crackers ground into the carpet, cheese thrown under the sofa, a waffle half-chewed then moistly spat somewhere where I invariably step on it. Barefoot. In the dark.) - it definitely isn’t a perfect solution, although it sometimes gets us by.
milkandcookies | May 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Lol… the stepping on the food thing. I get that too. Usually cheerios or spit-out banana. Can you say ewwwww? Lately it’s fruit loops. We usually only do the drive-by eating at breakfasts that don’t involve syrup. I sometimes try it with pizza, and that is always a mistake with Nick. Gabe, however, has gotten pretty good with his food, and rarely makes messes when we let him eat away from the table. Unless Nick gets involved. Toddler + Food = Big mess.
Cookie | May 27th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
If there was an award for Pickiest Eater On The Planet, I’m pretty sure that my kids would win it in a three-way tie.
None of them eat veggies and we decided that we didn’t want the dinner table to be a battle ground. We still offer veggies to them, but we just sneak them in where we can. We give them the fruit & veggie juice boxes (Do you guys have those down there?) and I hide veggies in everything that I can.
My recent discovery was blending pureed spinach into pizza sauce for homemade pizzas. They told me it was the best pizza they’d ever had.
Angella | May 27th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
We just wait till she’s good & hungry, (whining about it, usually) and put out ONLY the food she’s not that into. Like, if we’re having chicken, rice, and broccoli, I know she’d skip the chicken happily (my kid is a veggie kid, won’t touch meat. There’s a million variations). I just give her the chicken first. Then when she’s eaten a decent amount (4-5 bites, more if I’m lucky) I give her the rice and broccoli. Works nicely in our house. So far.
Meg | May 27th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
We’re experiencing all of this as first time parents to a 13.5 month old. Every. Last. Thing. OMG and I was hoping for pearls of wisdom here too.
Let’s see…a couple of nights ago, Miss Cranky McMadPants was being adamant about not wanting to be at the dinner table even though I’d made her a very special side dish (grilled bananas - balalalas being her favorite food). So, in mid-wail, I plopped a banana in her mouth - and then shoveled some grilled swordfish in right after. She was so startled that she shut up and shoveled the swordfish down and started babbling happily.
We’re definitely still in the distraction phase when she’s doing something that “NO” isn’t effectively taking care of (read, everything) and yes, we get the blubbering rage when we move her.
The violence is a little alarming and we’re handling it about the same, Wish I could do better…
Phe | May 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I thought that my 15-month old had gotten awfully picky with food — it seemed she wasnt’ eating at all, after being a GREAT eater at 9-10 months — but then I realized: She was still drinking a LOT of milk.
So in the last few weeks I’ve reduced the amount of milk I give her, replacing some of it with juice/water, and she does actually seem to do better at dinner than before. Not saying she’ll eat salmon and wild rice, but she’s at least putting the turkey dogs and corn away without being begged.
Just a thought.
Lee | May 28th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
I used to worry that my son was never going to be potty trained. As he was approaching his 2nd birthday, I was feeling the pressure to potty train him. He was aware of his bodily functions. He would hide in the corner to do his business in his pull-up! A friend told me not to worry, because he would not go to kindergarten in a diaper. Whether it happened that month or when he was 3, he would be potty trained before kindergarten! I did relax a little after that. Those few months still went by in slow motion! With my second child, I let go of all of my potty training worries and time went by so much faster! We get caught up in the moment and think that everything has to be now, now, now.
SavingQueen | May 28th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
My son is now almost four, so this is what I remember from the years before.
1. I always tried to explain why things are “NO”. Does not matter how small he was. I don’t think I even said “NO” - it was “This is hot, don’t touch, it will hurt”, “Do not throw this - it will break”, or suggested an alternative right away or tried to make it funny. Even though some people commented on “He is too small just say no” - the result is at a little after two - he was actually telling me - “I’m not touching stove, it’s hot”, “Baby should not go up high, he will fall”.
2. Food - I noticed that his appetite was in “waves” - sometimes he would it a lot in one sitting, then there is a month when he just nibbles, drinks a lot , but he was still drinking milk. Usually this appetite spike is right around a “growth spurt”, so I never insisted on certain quantities of food.
He still rarely eats veggies and based on memories from my childhood - I will never force any food on him, does not matter how good for him, so If he ate carrots and apples and strawberries - that’s good enough for me for the fruit/veggie group, he’ll like broccoli later. I actually tell him that that’s what grown people eat it’s good for them and once he is older, he’ll like it too.
3. Violence - just hold his hands, explain that it hurts, and teach him to pat and keep it gentle instead.
Maria | May 28th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
My overall approach was to set high standards and be really consistent in enforcing them. Kids are smarter than they pretend to be, and they understand English quite well.
With “no,” I worked on keeping a mindset where “no” is an undesireable word, and got into the habit of trying to come up with something positive (”keep it on the table” versus “don’t throw your food on the floor”). I saved “no” for the really big/urgent stuff.
With food, I let them work up a hunger for their meals, by not giving them any snacks or juice between meals. At that age, they had two big meals per day, and 4 servings of milk in between. At dinner, I served vegetables first, then carbs/protein, and last fruit, which they liked best. They understood that they had to eat everything else to get to the fruit, and they did. To respect their desire to control their own world, I let them feed themselves to the extent possible (always at the table, and always enforcing “keep it on the table”). If there was something they “hated” (e.g., lima beans), I wouldn’t force it, but everything else got eaten.
As far as violence, this is a big one with me, and I made no bones about it. The first slap was not at me, but at Sister (my girls are 3 months apart), but it was over frustration at me. Obviously this could not be allowed to continue, so I made a big deal out of it. Aside from putting the fear of God into my usually calm voice, I pointed out that she would not like to be hit, and her sister has the same feelings that she has. (I do not, however, recommend telling a tot that he hurt “your” feelings. I doubt it could be true, and it might make a tot feel insecure to think you are that weak.) Because I treat violence as a really big deal, it is very rare for my girls to attempt it.
One thing I’d like to add is that the hollering about stuff like diaper changes seems (to me) to be a sign that the child wants more independence in that area. I put my kids on the potty regularly at that age, and encouraged whatever independence they could manage; and I never got that kind of hollering about any aspect of caring for my kids. I know it’s common; as common as the modern advice that tots can’t plan, reason, or take any responsibility for anything. Something to consider at least.
SKL | May 28th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
When the weather turned nice this spring my son decided that we should go for a walk immediately upon arriving home. I felt that dinner was a more appropriate activity. So he began to cry, then scream, then total meltdown. I thought “I manage huge budgets and timelines and teams, I can surely outlast this kid.” We ended up in the wagon eating cheerios an hour later because guess what, after a 9 hour day in the office, you will NOT outlast a determined 2 year old.
One thing I would advise (that I’m totally stealing from The Happiest Toddler on the Block) is to keep it Neanderthal-like simple when you are communicating during that tantrum moment. It’s great to talk it out when everything is going well, but when a toddler is screaming, explaining to them the whys and hows of what you are asking just goes completely over his head. You may be saying “we don’t throw food on the floor because it makes a big mess and your sister could slip and fall on it and we eat our food and we’ll have to clean it up” he’s hearing “we… throw.. food… mess.. sister… up” or something like that.
“No throw food” or “Food on table” is much more to the point.
Brenda | May 28th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Another thing that worked for me was to tell my kids not just “no,” but when they “could” do something. (”Never” applied to only a few things.) My friends thought I was nuts to tell my 1-year-olds we’d do x in y minutes or we’d be home in z minutes. But it didn’t take the girls long to understand what I was talking about. It’s a lot nicer to hear “it will be time for that in 20 minutes” than to hear “no, you have to do what I say now.” And a little negotiation can work wonders too. “You want to go for a walk now? We can go for a little walk to point X and back, and then we will eat, and then after supper we can go for another walk.” He feels he’s been listened to and had a say in the matter, yet Mom gets the important stuff accomplished.
SKL | May 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
One thing sometimes worked for me was to grit my teeth and mutter to myself “His job is to grow. His job is to grow.” Reminding myself, I guess, that this was all normal and par for the course and noisy, yes, but Part of the Plan.
Yeah, that didn’t work all the time, either.
What didn’t help? Losing my temper and shouting, “You think you can scream? You think so? I can WAY outscream you, babe!”
Hypothetically, of course. *Sigh*
Melospiza | May 28th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I truly thought I wouldn’t live through parenting my oldest as he was an extremely difficult baby/toddler (total pain in the ass). My only comment now is that the details are hard to remember (he’s eight). SO hang in there, nothing works for everyone. Do whatever you can to get you all through the day alive. Eventually the twitching will stop and it will all be distant fuzzy memories.
Amanda | May 29th, 2009 at 1:43 am
In the picky toddler food arena, here is my two cents! I work as a community health nurse with parents and toddlers, and have heard great things about nutritionist Ellyn Satter’s books (http://www.ellynsatter.com/). Her approach makes a lot of sense and talks about the feeding “jobs” for mums and for kids, might be worth a try!
brit | May 30th, 2009 at 3:29 am
For the picky eating thing, I’m sorry I’ve got nothing because my child is the pickiest eater in the entire world, hands down. PATHOLOGICALLY picky. Don’t even get me started.
When she was a toddler, instead of “No” which loses its meaning after a while, I did this gutteral “Aacht!” sound and I’m sorry I can’t really spell it but I learned it way back when I was training my puppy. Believe it or not, you can learn a lot about “training” toddlers by reading about puppy training!
Anyway, the “Aacht!” was way more effective than “No.”
stlfarr | June 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
PS - commenter Angella: I NEED to know about those fruit & veggie juice boxes you mentioned!!
stlfarr | June 3rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I second the Ellyn Satter recommendation-honestly, people-read Child of Mine-it will change how you approach the feeding relationship w/ your children and make your life much, much easier-I promise!!
Leah | June 17th, 2009 at 3:47 pm