Issues

I keep the blog pretty light, mostly documenting Liam and all that he's up to these days. Pretty much just the good stuff. But the past few weeks have been somewhat tough on me. Nothing major has happened. Nothing bad has happened. Plenty of good things have happened. It's just been one of those periods of time (and it's happened before) where I doubt my abilities to be a good mother. Now, I know I'm a good mother. My son is happy and healthy and growing and learning everyday. I've just been wondering if I've really done the best job I could possibly do so far. These feelings typically come up when hormones and emotions collide, and while I know it's probably silly to think about these things, I still do.

It probably started when Liam went to a summer play day at our church and I worked it, but was in another room. The longest Liam had been at the church before this was about 4 hours. This day, we were there closer to 7 hours since I had to be there early to work. We also had to take Will to work beforehand and pick him up afterward. That had us out of the house all day long. Liam was in the baby room with wonderful teachers. He behaved fine as far as I know, but he ate and drank very little all day long, and slept for about 5 minutes. The teachers did nothing wrong. It's Liam's personality, and the fact that when he's there, he's too busy playing to want to do any of those things. He's also easily distracted, so trying to feed him when other things are going on in the room must be quite difficult. It's difficult for me! Going into the play day, I really didn't think Liam would have any problems. I figured he might not sleep, since he never sleeps there, but I figured he would eat and drink since the only thing he had before we left the house was some milk. He needed to eat two meals and a snack while there, and drink milk! I felt like the worst mom in the world when I picked him up and got the run down of the day. He was extremely tired and hungry when I picked him up. His bottle of milk was still in the fridge, so I gave that to him before we left. I cried for several hours about it since it was my fault he was there, and he obviously wasn't ready to be away from home that long. Even though we need for me to make some extra money, we decided that I wouldn't work them anymore or send Liam anymore. Now, we may re-evaluate the situation in August and see if he would be ready for the last two.

I was helping in the room that was the next step up from the baby room Liam was in. That day really brought to my attention several things that Liam doesn't do yet that other kids around his age are capable of doing. Yes I know, don't compare your kid to other kids, or don't compare yourself to other moms. But seriously, who doesn't do that? And why can't Liam do these things? I figure it must be my fault for not pushing him to learn, or rather master, these skills. The two big ones that stood out in my mind were feeding himself an entire meal and falling asleep on his on.

So I've set out to work on him with those skills. Liam can feed himself just fine. There is no doubt in his physical ability to do so. He feeds himself several times a day. And he's feeding himself more and more foods all the time. I do still feed him some things from a spoon, though, like fruits, veggies, oatmeal, and yogurt. To him, a spoon is still just for playing with. I always give him one during meals and try to encourage him to use it, but he never does. I know he will one day, though. Up until this week, really, he wouldn't feed himself vegetables or fruit. He would just smear them around his tray, but he would let me feed them to him. This week, though, he has done an excellent job at feeding himself steamed broccoli, sometimes even shoving it into his mouth with both hands. So that's a start! Liam has also fed himself whole meals a couple of time this week. Those consisted of broccoli, cheese, and bread. I'm also working with him to learn how to take bites out of food. It's only been less than a month since his top two teeth starting coming in, giving him a grand total of four chompers. Before then, when I tried to get him to take a bite of something, he wouldn't do it. But now that he has teeth on the top and bottom, he's getting much better at it. So now, I'm a little less worried about him feeding himself. I still don't know if he could sit down in a chair (not a highchair) and do it, though. Pretty sure he'd be too distracted. It also can take him a while to self-feed a whole meal. He certainly doesn't mind taking his time.

The bigger issue is certainly the sleep one. Liam slept in our room until he was exactly one year old, and I always held him while he fell asleep. I've let him fall asleep in my arms for naps as well. Apparently, I've been setting him up to fail in life by doing that! I know that it's important for Liam to learn to fall asleep on his own. I'm sure it's why he doesn't sleep at church (that, and there's too much fun stuff going on to sleep). The times I've tried to let him fall asleep on his own have been met with many tears, so I'd give in and hold him. Last week, I decided to start some sleep training with Liam so he could learn to fall asleep on his own before he got even older and more set in his ways. I have several books about baby/toddler sleep, so I must have known this would be an issue one day.

I decided to try a gradual approach with me staying in the room until he fell asleep, and gradually moving closer to the door until I was no longer in the room. This way allowed for soothing from crying by picking him up and calming him down, but putting him back in the crib while he was still awake. The first night wasn't horrible, but he did start crying so hard I picked him. He was then asleep about two minutes later in my arms. At nap the next day, I did the same thing, and laid on the floor waiting for him to fall asleep. And he did, after some crying/whining and about 45 minutes. He slept for 3 hours! Things seemed to keep getting better over last weekend, and he started falling asleep faster. There was always some crying, though, and I was there to soothe him. I was not going to let him cry it out. We started putting him to bed earlier, and on Sunday night he was asleep before 8:00 p.m. That has been extremely rare for Liam. Then he woke up in the middle of the night. Trying to stick with my plan of not letting him fall asleep in my arms, it took an hour and half for him to fall back asleep, once again with a ton of crying and soothing. But, he eventually wore himself out and fell asleep...in his crib. I felt bad for him. Monday night it took an hour and half for him to fall asleep, and there was a lot of crying and soothing during that time. He was upset. Very upset.  Then there was a  repeat of the previous middle of the night awakening. 1.5 hours. Both of us awake. Tuesday night, the same thing happened again at bedtime, 1.5 hours of crying/whining/soothing/Liam freaking out. He had become scared of going to bed, the opposite of what I was aiming for. Bedtime was so very stressful. I had failed. I can't remember if I gave in Tuesday night. I think I did. I finally let him fall asleep in my arms. And I've been letting him fall asleep in my arms since then. The gradual approach was obviously not working. Not working at all. I did something wrong. I am against letting him cry it out. Liam is so stubborn and persistent that I have no doubt he would cry for hours until he was throwing up. And that won't be happening.

So, yes, I've gone back to the old way for right now. He has to become not scared of bedtime anymore. Even if that means I have to hold him to fall asleep. So it's the type of situation where I'm a bad mother for not teaching him to fall asleep on his own sooner, but I'm also bad for putting him through what was obviously becoming quite traumatic for him. Can't win!

I will be trying a different approach at some point, hopefully not too far in the future. I really do want him to learn to fall asleep on his own and stay asleep. By not doing this much sooner, I've only made it much harder on everyone. I know that now. I'm hoping and praying he does learn at some point, though. I know it will be much better for him to learn this skill, and learn it soon.

These aren't the only things I've been struggling with lately, but they're the big ones, especially the sleep. I think it's time for a mommy break.