Brody has some very peculiar eating habits that we are trying to break. Overall, he is a great eater. But just as Mav did, he is getting a little pickier as he gets older. I have written about Brody and his pocket-gopher food storage methods. But he also likes to mix liquids or add things to his drinks (i.e. if 2 cups are available, he pours one into the other, and then pours them back and forth from cup to cup – and eventually drinks it – he did this with milk and water tonite). Sometimes this makes him look smart like a chemist, or maybe just a bartender? Over the summer months, we have found ourselves using the dining room less, and are trying to get back to the dinner table routine to hopefully get some dinner manners re-established.
So no, we usually don’t let Brody eat off the floor, but here you can see how he handles some of his hunger urges.
Then there is bedtime. Ever since he has learned how to crawl out of his crib, we have been struggling with bedtime. We go thru the same routine of bath, brush teeth, go potty, read books, bed. But then it is repeated by something like (tonite’s example):
1) get out of bed, dad puts him back
2) get out of bed, dad puts him back
3) get out of bed, dad puts him back (says he has to go potty but pull-up already wet) mom and dad tag team and Neil reads to Mav
4) gets out of bed, asks me to read to him – nope, mom puts him back to bed
5) gets out of bed, mom puts him back
6) gets out of bed, heard train and said he is scared, mom puts him back
7) get out of bed, says he has to go poop, not falling for that, mom puts him back
8 ) gets out of bed, meet half way down the stairs, I pick him up and realize he no longer has pull-up on, find pull-up (with stash of other odd things) and put back to bed
9) gets out of bed and all the way downstairs, he is looking for dad, mom puts him back to bed
10) gets out of bed, light on in bathroom, he is going potty again? Find pull-up, put on and back to bed
11) gets out of bed, mom puts him back
12) finally asleep
So I have been trying to super nanny back to sleep method…. and although Sunday’s and Monday’s are the hardest since we are usually coming off a weekend where our typical bedtime routine is tainted by laketime fun, I still think we should have more progress then this? It is usually at least a 1 hour process of putting him to bed again, again, again. And then he is a bear in the morning….when the sun goes down earlier, it will be easier too. It seems like 9:30 is when his internal clock starts to wind down (when it gets dark).
So after a conversation about how mav could not say “breakfast” (sounds something like bress-fiss) we were talking to B about saying “maverick” instead of what he has been calling him, which is “Mick”. So then all of a sudden, B is saying things like, “Maverick, come here, I have to show you something.” And it sounds so grown up.
We went through a long stint with Hayden from when he was about 20 months until just before Maya was born – a frigging long time…
Anyway, we had to actually lay on the floor in his room when he had a toddler bed and in bed with him when we switched to the big bed, so we weren’t going up and down and getting super mad. Buddy would lay on the floor/in the bed with him after books and fall asleep. I would lay in the hallway and read until he fell asleep. He just had to see us and know we were there. Some nights it took 2 hours, some nights it was 10 minutes. We switched off every other night. And I had to do it at naptime too!! It was hell!!
My neighbor would put up two gates to block the door to keep her son in his room. He got so used to it, he wouldn’t go to bed without them up for months.
Good luck, I know it’s not easy! Hope he stops soon, especially with two other kids. =)