When you bring home a new baby, they're really pretty simple to take care of. They eat and sleep, eat and sleep, and eat and sleep some more. As time passes, things seem to get more complicated: they need toys and stimulation, educational experiences, socialization, comfort, bandaids, etc etc. Are they learning? Are they developing skills to communicate with other human beings? Can they pee on command? Can they roll their tongue? Touch their toes? Jump? Swim? Sing?
I've recently discovered that all those things are hugely overrated. To keep Andrew happy, he needs to eat and sleep, eat and sleep, and eat and sleep some more. It's true!
Remember all those meltdowns I've been mentioning. Turns out that 50% of them are easily solved by feeding the child. Go figure. You've gotta feed your kid. Seriously. His blood sugar gets low and he turns into Frankenstein. No wait. Frankenstein was way too low key. A werewolf. A bowl full of melon, and he is soon smiling and talking again.
Another 40% of tantrums are solved by good long naps and restful evenings of sleep. Go figure. Your kid needs a lot of sleep.
The other 10% of tantrums are a crap-shoot. Really weird 2 year-old-crap. This is unavoidable and without reason. But you can get through 10% of the time, right?
So here's Giselle's lesson of the day...if you feed your child and let them sleep sometimes, they will be more pleasant.
Now when Andrew starts flipping out, I ignore him and try to shove food in his face. If that fails, I put him down for a nap. If that fails, I laugh and wait it out.
(***please don't turn me into social services because it took me 32 months to figure this out...I promise I'll become a good, observant mother soon)
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1 comment:
Okay, so your FIRST baby was easier when he was a baby... but Colin is MUCH easier as a toddler, and will probably still be easier when he's floor-pounding mad. Just hope Crunchy is good so that you don't have the worst of both worlds.
*smile*
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