It's so hard to walk away from that face!

Regarding 9-12 month old babies:

We understand that the older infant finds it painful to be separated from beloved persons. We grant him the right to protest. At the same time this pain, this discomfort, is something he can learn to tolerate if it is not excessive. We need to help him manage small amounts of discomfort and frustration. If we are too quick to offer our reassuring presence, he doesn’t need to develop his own tolerance. How do we know how much he can tolerate? By testing a bit of the limits of his tolerance as they become known to us. The point at which protesting and complaining crying turn into an urgent or terrified summons is the point where most of us would feel he needs us and we would go to him. This is real anxiety and he needs our reassurance. But we need not regard all crying of the older infant and young child as being of the same order. At this age, in contrast to the period of early infancy, the baby can manage small amounts of anxiety or discomforts by himself….As far as possible we should try to reassure the child in his own bed. Picking him up, rocking him, is usually not necessary and seems indicated only when the baby is unusually distressed by anxiety or illness.

From The Magic Years, pages 74-75.

If you like Selma, Click on “The Quotable Parent” down and to the right for more juicy tidbits, or just buy the paperback — I promise it will end up heavily read, re-read, mashed and dog-eared, like mine. I’m clinging tightly to Selma these days (and nights), as Baby #4 has proved to be exceptionally gifted in protesting loudly, and waking up her siblings. But we are making progress, and so will you. Hang in there!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Dear Dr. Heather,

I’m writing to inquire about our 25-month-old grand-daughter and the attachment that she has to her mother.

Don't Take It Personally, Dad.

Her parents have been very responsive to her since her birth. Our toddler is easy with other people including her regular caregiver, grand-parents, other extended family and just about everyone else. The problem is that when her mother is around she has a strong preference for her, to the exclusion of most others. This happens about 60% of the time.

Her mother and father are gentle and kind and fun-loving. They respond to her emotions and explain the world to her. They are consistent with their house “rules” and explain the world to her so that things make as much sense as possible. She is a bright, articulate, inquisitive, active little girl and appears to be developing normally. Again, the problem is just that she clings to tenaciously to her mom. This is trying on her dad and also tiring for mom.

Any tips on how to reduce the clinging and increase her involvement with others when her mother is present?

Thanks very much.

Grandma
~~~~~~

Dear “Grandma”,

What you’re describing is the sign of a healthy attachment to her mother. Babies at this age have a hard time being in intense relationships with more than one person at a time. Strong parental preferences are COMMON. Unpleasant at times, inconvenient often, but COMMON and NORMAL, at this age. The first step is understanding it, the next step is rewarding her when she works well with her father, you, or other adults. She should be gently encouraged and praised for steps in the right direction, but never scolded if she prefers mom, since this will only work against you.

Your granddaughter is at a stage of venturing out into the world, and then coming back to her “base of comfort” as needed to “refuel”, emotionally. As she gains confidence this will naturally abate. Also, as she grows closer to age 3, she will be more curious about the different activities her father and you can share with her, and this will help too.

I can certainly relate, as I am currently on both ends of the preference spectrum with various of my own children. I’m top of the list with my 9-month-old and 4-year-old, and bottom of the totem pole with my 7 and 9-year-olds — Daddy is their current favorite. All of us need to be understanding about the temporary preferences that our children express — please don’t take it personally, nor should her father. Your time (and his) will come…I promise!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

See me on page 191

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Sure, she sleeps OK in the stroller.

But Tough Love is rough on me — and on the family. A fussing (or screaming) baby feels like a constant reminder of some kind of parental inadequacy, and is really grating on the nerves. Not to mention the fact that it often happens at ridiculous hours of the night when most other babies are surely sleeping soundly. And forget sleep for poor mom. I’m a zombie.

But persist I must. I won’t give in to an 18-pound 8-month old, no matter how cute she is (in the daytime, at least). It will be worth it in the end.

Here are my tips for getting through this rough time, if you’re going through Sleep Training:

Make sure you and your partner are on the same page. There’s nothing worse than arguing about sleep training techniques at 2 am, standing outside the door of a screaming baby. Agree ahead of time — or don’t attempt it.

Prepare the older kids for nighttime noise. I tell my lightest sleeper that he may hear the baby fussing at night. “But you’re a big boy and can roll over and go to sleep. Soon we’ll all get better sleep.”

Use a little reverse psychology on yourself. (You’re so sleep deprived it just might work!) Instead of preparing for a night of sleep, prepare for a night of watching “guilty pleasure” TV, listening to great music from your (childless) past, or even folding laundry. Fooling yourself into thinking you don’t really need to sleep somehow makes it less painful to be up at weird hours.

Take a deep breath, have a zen moment, do some mindfulness meditation, yoga, or pray – pick your version of expressing gratitude and relaxation. Having a non-sleeping, screaming baby at 2 am is really hard. But in the scope of things, not really that big of a deal. A few moments recalling the years when we feared we couldn’t get pregnant, or thinking of friends who have a baby who’s quite ill, and others who have God forbid lost a child, and I’m ready to get through another tough night of sleep training. Having a healthy, happy, non-sleeping baby is a high-class problem we’re blessed to have, quite honestly.

I’ve written other posts about getting through the sleep deprivation aspect of this, but let me also mention our friend caffeine here. Don’t overdo it. At my peak, I have a mug of java in the morning, some iced tea at lunch, and another cup of coffee around 2. That’s 3 servings a day. Any more and I get frazzled and nutty — and no more awake than if I had stayed with the 3 servings. Studies say that some coffee is fine for most of us, but too much will definitely make you feel worse.

Sleep Training eventually works — I’m writing this now as the baby sleeps nicely in her crib. Get through the rough nights and I promise things will improve!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

The current issue of Pregnancy, see me on Page 60

But Lisa was interested in including a quote from me in which I at least am able to mention the issue of guilt and the pressure moms experience to “get it right”.

It’s also exciting for me as I embark on my quest to make important — and useful — parenting information more available. Parenting babies and young children can be difficult, and our generation of parents has to sort through a bunch of inaccuracies and propaganda about child development in the quest to be the best parents we can be. Conflicting messages about breastfeeding, potty training, discipline, TV, and other “hot button” issues make it stressful to feel good about making parenting decisions. I’ve done a lot of work to sort through the garbage and provide you with the most essential and helpful parenting information I can — information that’s vetted directly by me, a psychologist and child development expert, and mom to four young children. To that end, I’m happy to announce that I’m also being used as an expert source in upcoming issues of Parents and American Baby magazines, as well. I’m commenting on some of the most common problems we, as parents, face with our young ones — and suggest what I hope are helpful ideas to make your life simpler and more satisfying, as parents.

Thanks to Lisa for giving me the opportunity to start to reach a wider audience, and to you for your ongoing support! You can pick up the June/July issue of Pregnancy in Target, and most bookstores and newsstands. (I’m on page 60.)

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

I haven’t been able to get much sleep over the past, say, 10 years or so (I keep having babies, what can I say) — and the pursuit of sleep, because of unwilling babies and toddlers, has become an obsession for me. Unfortunately, there’s no holy grail, but at least there’s a good explanation for it. As usual, I turn to the Fabulous Fraiberg for a little support over my sleepless children. I always get goosebumps when I reach the end of this section:

We began with a baby in the first month of life….His world was a chaos of undifferentiated sensation from which he slipped gratefully into the nothingness of sleep…

At 18 months this baby is traveling extensively and has acquired a small but useful vocabulary (just enough to get a meal and bargain with the natives). He has encountered some of the fundamental problems of the human race — the nature of reality, of subjective and objective experience, causality, the vicissitudes of love, and has made promising studies in each of these areas. We could easily forgive him if these first encounters with our world should create a desire to go back to sleep twenty hours a day. But this fellow upsets all notions about human inertia by forging ahead like a locomotive right into the densities of human activity. Sleep?…Let us try to take it away from him and put him back into the darkness. Sleep? But look, he can’t keep his eyes open! He’s drunk with fatigue. He howls with indignation at the extended hands, rouses himself with a mighty exertion from near collapse to protest these villains who take away his bright and beautiful world. From his crib, in the darkened room he denounces these monster parents, then pleads for commutation of sentence in eloquent noises. he fights valiantly, begins to fail — then succumbs to his enemy, Sleep.

Sleep -- at last

From Selma Fraiberg, The Magic Years, pages 63-64

Don’t blame the toddler for resisting sleep. But notice, Fraiberg doesn’t suggest we take him out of the crib and let him keep up his explorations — no, Fraiberg asks us to understand the toddler’s dilemmas, to empathize with him, but to put him to bed nonetheless, when he needs it. A toddler can be “pushed” to go to sleep. A 6-month-old baby shouldn’t (yet). It’s this major disparity in the developmental needs of young children — 3 months, vs. 6 months, vs. 9 months, vs. 12 and 18 and 24 months — that confuses us, as parents. But the more we understand the unique needs of the specific age of our child, the better we will be at negotiating their needs.

And now, off to get a cup of coffee — the baby needs me

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

The chief characteristic of the second year is not negativism but a powerful striving to become a person and to establish permanent

Toddlers -- messy and hilarious

bonds with the world of reality. We must remember when we speak of the “negativism” of the toddler that this is also the child who is intoxicated with the discoveries of the second year, a joyful child who is firmly bound to his parents and his newfound world through ties of love…..Under ordinary circumstances it does not become anarchy. It’s a kind of declaration of independence, but there is no intention to unseat the government….The citizen can be allowed to protest the matter of the changing of his pants (they are his pants, anyway) and the government can exercise its prerogatives in the matter of pants changing without bringing on a crisis. When the citizen is small and wriggly, is illiterate and cannot even speak his native language, it takes ingenuity and patience to accomplish this, but if we do not handle this as a conspiracy against the government, he will finally acquire the desirable attitude that changing his pants is an ordinary event, and one that will not deprive him of his human rights.

Selma Fraiberg, The Magic Years, pages 62-62

It’s a lot of work coping with (and cleaning up after) these shrimpy mess-makers, but try to remember that you’re in charge, after all. Then try to enjoy the wild abandon that is the miracle of your toddler.

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Toddlers say “NO” with such glee. It’s clear that they’ve discovered a powerful tool when they start to randomly chant “no no no….” like the words to a song repeated ad nauseum, meant to irritate us parents. Here’s what the Fabulous Fraiberg had to say about the issue:

Already a politician

So the toddler, with only a few words at his command, has come upon “no” as a priceless addition to his vocabulary. He says “no” with splendid authority to almost any question addressed to him. Very often it is a “no” pronounced in the best of spirits and doesn’t even signal an intention. It may even preface an opposite intention. He loves his bath. “Tony, would you like to have your bath now?” “No!” Cheerfully. (But he has already started to climb the stairs.)…What is this? A confusion of meaning? Not at all. They know the meaning of “no” quite well. It’s a political gesture, a matter of maintaining party differences while voting with the opposition on certain issues….”I wish to state at the outset that in casting my vote for the amendment on the bath, I am not influenced by the powerful interest groups that are behind this amendment, but I am…in favor of baths.” It’s a matter of keeping the record clear.

From The Magic Years, page 60.

So for all practical purposes, it’s important to keep a sort of “Toddler Translator” running at all times, ready to analyze the true meaning of any given “NO”. I’ve found this helps take the grind out of the seeming constant negativity of this age. When you look at them that way, toddlers can actually be quite hilarious. Hang in there!

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Then I realized that our kids have special plans for us — plans to humiliate, embarrass, and otherwise show us for the idiots we fear we are. And these plans don’t stop at toddlerhood, they only get more complex as they get older and wiser. Parents are morons, right? I guess I remember feeling that way about my own parents (sorry, Mom and Dad!)

It helps (a little bit) to know that toddlers act better for others because they love us so much. When they’re with the sitter, they “hold it together”, waiting for the moment when we return. They put on brave little faces and their best behavior for those temporarily in charge. And then when we return — look out! All of that stored up stress and worry and upset about our leaving is dumped at the feet of those who caused it. Here’s a reader question about the issue from the comments section, posted here in case you missed it:

Hi Dr. Heather,

But he never uses a sippy cup at home!

JD

Dear JD,

YES, it’s extremely common — predictable even — that your baby will “perform” better for a sitter. The babies save their best — and their worst — for us. They seem to “hold it together” while missing us at the sitter, and then sort of fall apart for us. Refusing things like milk or cups falls into the same category.

But what to do about the milk dilemma? Milk in particular is reminiscent of the early, close bond with mom, and so there is often a special struggle around it. Try VERY SLOWLY introducing the cow’s milk — say one tenth at a time, and wait until you’re SURE he’s used to it, then another tenth. DON’T MAKE AN ISSUE OF IT — don’t mention it, (and try not to show him both milk containers in the kitchen, maybe prepare them in advance) and just try to be matter-of-fact. Slow, steady, but no pressure.

For the cup thing, offer him a sippy of perhaps watered down juice — just a small amount, ALONG WITH whatever he’s used to, at his highchair. It’s a drag to offer both I know, but he’ll start out “playing” with the sippy and eventually get used to actually drinking out of it. And he won’t fear that you’re trying to take away his usual. You can also make a game of it by giving him juice to drink in the tub, or even in the stroller, car etc. Eventually offer the cup more and the bottle less, and offer a lot of praise when he really starts to get the hang of the cup. Also, point out kids he likes when they’re using their cups. “Look at Max and his cool Spider Man sippy cup. Max sure looks thirsty!”

Aloha!

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink

Check this out, another gem from Fraiberg, about the experience of a young toddler:

The missionaries have arrived

The missionaries have arrived. They come bearing culture to the joyful savage. They smuggled themselves in as infatuated parents, of course. They nurtured him, made themselves indispensable to him, lured him into the discovery of their fascinating world, and after a decent interval they come forth with salesmen’s smiles to promote higher civilization.

Somewhere between eight and fifteen months they sell him on the novelty and greater convenience of a cup over the breast or bottle. By the time he himself has come to regard the cup as a mark of good breeding and taste the missionaries have lost interest in the cup and are promoting the hygiene and etiquette of potty chairs and toilets which, he is assured, will elevate him into still higher strata of culture….They are forever on hand with a clean diaper, a pile of fresh clothes and hypocritical smiles to induce him to leave whatever it is he is doing for whatever it is they want him to be doing, and it’s certain to be a bore. They are there to interfere with the joys of emptying garbage cans and wastebaskets. And of course, they bring in proposals of naps and bedtime at the most unfortunate moments and for reasons that are clear only to them.

Now, admittedly, such interference is necessary in order to bring culture to a fellow who obviously needs it. But from the baby’s point of view most of this culture stuff makes no sense at all. He only knows that certain vital interests are being interfered with, and since his missionaries and he do not even speak the same language, the confusion will not be cleared up for some time.

The baby resists these interferences with his own investigations and creative interests. This earns him the reputation of being “negative” and permits us to speak of the second year as “a negativistic phase.” This is not entirely fair to the toddler who lacks the means for stating his case. If he had a good lawyer he could easily demonstrate that most of the negating comes from the side of the culture bearers, and his “negativism” is essentially a negation of their negation.

From Selma Fraiberg’s The Magic Years, pages 59-60.

That’s why an easy-going toddler toddler with no complaints actually worries me. It’s not developmentally appropriate. So the next time your toddler dumps out your garbage can, think of Fraiberg and try to smile. My 7-month-old and I be joining you there again in just a few months

Aloha,

Dr. Heather
The BabyShrink