toddlers Archives

Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness: By Mothers, For Mothers

2015/05 By Lauren B. Stevens Leave a Comment

Every so often I see a call for submissions that forces me out of my usual routine in an effort to get something else written. When I saw the call for the second edition of Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, I knew I had to submit an essay for consideration (even though it meant I had to wake up at 4am to write without distraction).

My son was not a good sleeper, in fact, he rarely slept. By the time he was 8 months old I was up with him an average of 3 times a night, after my husband and myself had exhausted ourselves by cajoling him to sleep. Daytime was difficult, as D only napped in 20 minute clips, 30 minutes if I was lucky. I was beyond exhausted, crying often, my mind in a constant fog. I tried to read books about sleep, but in my overtired state the books seemed as though they were written in a foreign language and when I could actually make some sense of them, they often offered contradictory advice.

When I wrote this popular piece, 10 Signs My Baby’s Not Sleeping Through the Night (so don’t ask!), I was making a stab at humor, but the reality was that many of these were scarily true for me. Thank goodness for Facebook, as I was contacted by a Pediatric Sleep Consultant after posting a cry for help on my blog page. After a quick phone call with the sleep consultant (Jennifer from Gift of Sleep Consulting), I talked things over with my husband. Money was incredibly tight for us but I was desperate. We decided to hire Jennifer and the rest is history!

I still maintain that hiring a sleep consultant was the best investment we made in our son’s first year; you can check out our experience in this one year check-in piece, A Year of Sleep, Thanks to Sleep Training. While sleep training can be a controversial subject, I’ll be the first to say that the people being sleep trained were my husband and myself, moreso than our son. D began napping during the day and sleeping through the night at around 9 months, and I began to regain clarity (and my sanity).

So, yes, when I saw the call for submissions for Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, I knew that I had to write something. I’m happy to say that my essay, The Long Road, was accepted for inclusion in this wonderfully funny and sweet anthology by mothers, for mothers. I just finished the book last night and I loved every moment of it; I actually forsook sleep two nights in a row to stay up reading these delightful stories by a bevy of talented writers. The best thing about Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness is that it is perfect for sleep deprived parents! You can easily pick MMCD, read a story or two and then put it down to be picked up again when you have the time (or the mental clarity) to read.

The second edition of Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness is now available for purchase! Give yourself the gift of laughter and camaraderie by purchasing your copy today! If you purchase the book through my Amazon link HERE, I’ll actually receive a few cents from each purchase (because I’m not exactly ‘raking it in’ by having my essay published). I hope you’ll purchase a copy for yourself AND for all of your mom friends. Let me know what you think, and thank you for your support!

How Toddlers Thrive

2015/04 By Lauren B. Stevens 2 Comments

I’m not a parenting expert, I just play one on my blog. Ha! Nothing could be further from the truth, but I do share about my foibles as well as my successes in parenting.

Now that my son is in the throes of toddlerhood, much of my parenting is about guiding and teaching him to become a well-adjusted, emotionally healthy being equipped to deal with whatever curveballs life throws him. I’m fascinated by child psychology, especially that which deals with parenting.

I’ll be the first to admit that parenting throughout the toddler years can be a challenge. In fact, it has been a challenge for me, which is why I am constantly in search of materials to better educate my parenting techniques. I learned very early on that I needed to take a ‘choose your battles’ approach, but after reading Dr. Tovah Klein’s How Toddlers Thrive, I’ve found that I really don’t have any ‘battles’ to choose these days.

You may be wondering how it is that I, with a two-and-a-half-year-old son, no longer have any battles of will with my toddler; it’s not that there aren’t difficult parenting moments, it’s that I understand the reasoning behind the behavior and am better equipped to parent through what used to be incredibly trying toddler moments. I have Dr. Klein to thank for my new parenting skills (and outlook)!

Dr. Tovah Klein is the Director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development, and is often referred to as “The Toddler Whisperer”. Klein’s twenty years of toddler research, and complete immersion into the world of toddlers, translates into her veritable handbook for [successfully] parenting through the toddler years: How Toddlers Thrive.

Klein’s How Toddlers Thrive is a fluid read, devoid of the heavy use of clinical terms that often weigh down many psychological texts. Parents will appreciate the organizational structure of How Toddlers Thrive, clearly divided into different topic areas (read: concerns), making it easy for parents to flip through to pertinent sections. Most importantly, Klein provides real-life examples of situations parents of toddlers often encounter; she discusses how parents were handling the situation, the causes of that particular behavior, the adjustments the parents made in how they treated the situation, and the outcome after altering their approach. These scenarios, with scripts, are extremely valuable for someone like myself, as probing and acknowledging my child’s feelings isn’t something that comes naturally to me.

Perhaps the greatest wisdom How Toddlers Thrive imparts is for parents to put themselves into their toddler’s shoes, armed with knowledge of the emotional, cognitive and physical abilities of this age (2-5 years old). Understanding that your child’s brain is still developing and is incapable of approaching and dealing with daily life situations in the manner we adults are accustomed to, is the key to parenting through the toddler years. In How Toddlers Thrive, Klein states:

Children are not mini adults. They don’t think like we do. They don’t see the world like we see it. Toddlers are not thinking ahead of themselves. They cannot. They are beings tied amazingly to the present tense, thinking only about themselves and wanting to feel safe, loved, taken care of, and yet independent all at once. (7)

Simple, right? I needed Klein to remind me of this, and explain in greater detail what is going on with my toddler, so that I could (and can) slowly adjust how I approach [what used to be difficult] situations with my toddler. Armed with the knowledge Klein provides in How Toddlers Thrive, I’ve found myself gradually becoming a more patient and understanding parent. I no longer attempt to engage in a ‘battle of wills’ with my toddler, instead, I purposely connect during times of frustration, probing and acknowledging my son’s feelings and [re]actions. And guess what? Temper tantrums and other behaviors one would label as acting out are few and far between.

When my son told me that he hated me last week, I knew he was navigating his newfound emotional independence and testing out a new word in his vocabulary (I’m not sure where it came from, though). His next statement, after I expressed no alarm and probed his reason for making such a statement, was “I love you, mom.” The incident, if you could even call it that, was over before it ever really began. What I was left with was a verbal indicator of how my son’s brain was piecing together information, making sense of the world around him, and asserting his independence in a new way.

Perhaps my biggest reason for reading as much as I can about child development, and learning healthy parenting strategies, is because I want use every tool I can to help my son develop into an emotionally healthy individual. Klein speaks about the importance of this early in How Toddlers Thrive, and it remained in my mind throughout the remainder of the book:

Indeed, how we interact with our toddlers now plays an enormous role in how they develop later. Set a strong foundation during the toddler years, and ongoing development has a firm base. Weaken that foundation during these crucial years, and the consequences are seen for years to come. (9)

Think about the enormity of that statement. If you find yourself struggling to parent through your child’s toddler years, are engaging in daily battles of wills, or are interested in preparing yourself for your baby’s next stage of development, I wholeheartedly recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Tovah Klein’s How Toddlers Thrive; I guarantee you’ll find yourself parenting differently after reading.

For more information about Tovah Klein, her work with toddlers, and more parenting tips, visit www.howtoddlersthrive.com. How Toddlers Thrive is available in major bookstores, or you can purchase through my affiliate link on Amazon HERE.

*I was sent a copy of How Toddlers Thrive for review purposes; all opinions expressed are my own.

Curious to learn more about toddlers and their emotions? Check out this article by The Brain Flux.

Toddlerisms: Levity During Trying Moments in Parenting

2015/02 By Lauren B. Stevens 2 Comments

As any parent can attest, the toddler years can be some of the most trying times and also yield some of the sweetest moments in your child’s life. There are days when I text my husband at work, asking what time he thinks he’ll be home because my patience is on the verge of breaking. Most days, I’m like a broken record, repeating “No” a bazillion times, and contemplating trademarking “please don’t touch that/climb on that/jump on the couch,” as those frequently uttered phrases are now my personal anthem. But for every trying moment, there are more than enough sweet moments, serving to calm my frazzled nerves. A spontaneous neck-hug, a moist kiss on the cheek, and the completely random “I love you, mommy”s are enough to brush away any mounting toddler frustrations I may have. Then, there are those gems, those random phrases spoken during language acquisition that have you scratching your head, biting your lip to keep from laughing, or so funny that laughter erupts from the depths of your belly. Those ‘gems’ I’m referring to, my friends, are toddlerisms.

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Parenting: Saying ‘No’ When You Want to Say ‘Yes’

2015/01 By Lauren B. Stevens 1 Comment

We’ve all had those days when we fall into bed exhausted after teaching, corralling, making difficult decisions, and nurturing our little ones. Then there are those moments where you have to make split-second parenting calls; you know, when your little one says something inappropriate out in public, especially when it’s directed towards someone. I had one of those public moments last week, when my gregarious son, after having been cooped-up in the house with a cold, decided to chat up every stranger we passed in the store. Declan’s a pretty charismatic kid, so people typically engage with him, whether he initiates it or not, but on this occasion, we happened to be next to a woman in the grocery store aisle who seemingly just wanted to shop in peace. After several “hellos”, Declan vocalized his inability to understand the lack of acknowledgement from the woman, turning to me and repeatedly saying “mommy, that little lady isn’t saying hi” and “why won’t that little lady say hi?” Every adult, for reasons only know to Declan, is a “little man” or a “little lady”, and other children are referred to as “little boys” and “little girls” (much to other, older children’s dismay).