The pleasure of bedtime

Some weeks ago I would have never imagined I would write a post under such a title. It took me a great amount of meditation to come over the frustration that giving up putting my little one to bed had thrown me in. Shortly after we weaned, we found out that the only and -at the time- probably best way of helping M to sleep was pacing up and down. Since I was generally tired and carrying weight was not the most recommendable thing for me to do, the daddy took over. For nearly two months he had been putting M to sleep and I really felt frustrated, not only because I missed those snug moments with my girl, but mainly because she had started to reject my presence during bedtime. Every time she said "mama no, mama no", my heart would break into pieces and I ended up feeling rather sad. I know these things do happen but I had never thought it could happen to me and I was determined to find a solution. The daddy was not happy with the situation either and pacing up and down the corridor, even the garden twice or three times a night was not his favorite activity, of course.
Around a month ago I made my mind up and went away for three days, that is three nights and three naps. I knew that could be a totally crazy thing to do but inside I felt a great conviction I would be able to manage it and who knew, we may be able to establish an easier bedtime routine. I nearly forget to mention that during those two months Marina dropped many naps and that, as you can imagine, didn't help at all. She was waking between one and four times a night.
The first night we were away from home, without daddy, it took me nearly two hours to get M to sleep. I know, it is a lot but I was so very happy she had not complained, not rejected me, that two hours felt like ten minutes. Although it was a bit tiring, I was able to put her to sleep three nights and three naps. Besides, she more or less slept all through the night with eventual awakenings to drink or go to the toilet. On the third day, the daddy came to pick us up and we went back home.
With some exceptions, I have been sharing bedtime with M ever since and we are all happier. We both seem to enjoy our newly adopted routine, which includes shadow play, singing lullabies, and caresses. Many nights the last thing M says before falling asleep is her "mamma" in a sweet tone. She seldom awakes during the night and wakes up very refreshed from a good night sleep.

Up to here it may sound like a love story with a happy ending but the best is yet to come.
During the first months of pregnancy I was not only feeling rather sick but also guilty. At the beginning I felt Marina was too young to have to share my/our attention and as time went by my mama-guilt feeling grew towards the other direction, I feared the tiny baby growing in my womb would feel displaced since once the sickness and tiredness was gone I didn't think much about him. All that time I was craving for a feeling of balance. It was not easy to come to terms with the fact that we would have a baby without having planned it at all. However, a good friend of mine kept repeating that a sibling was the most precious present we could give M and in the end she convinced me. I was no longer feeling guilt, which was fine but now I didn't find it easy to connect with my baby. I was so committed to preparing activities for M, being with her, teaching, bringing her places... The surprising thing of it all is that the one who has brought me back to center and helped me connect with this wonderful baby growing inside me is my beloved 20 month old daughter.
Everyday, when we lay in bed singing lullabies and whispering, she asks me to see the baby (read belly) and she caresses it while gently murmuring "baby, baby". Her sweetness and open-heartedness have convinced me it will be fine to have two to take care of. I am so very grateful for her teachings!

What's new: the toilet is my friend!

  I just come from the toilet, where for the hundredth time today we've spent quite a while, which ended in success. I am so happy M is already doing most of her pees and poops in the toilet. While doing the laundry today, I have realized I had less work than usually and that's because there are very few diapers to wash. Over a period of a month or so, M has gone from asking for the potty when she had already gone on her pants to asking for the toilet or potty depending on the moment to asking for the toilet even if we are outside, at other people's places and the like. It is true that we started EC when she was around 10 months (only a pity I had not read about it before, or followed my instinct), by changing diapers in the bathroom where there was always a potty and offering her the potty several times a day. It is also a fact that cloth diapers, used since M was a bit more than 1 months, have also  helped. Not less true is that our doing, quite reasonable according to Montessori and what she called "Sensitive period for toiletting", has not been seen as a normal thing to be done at M's age by some people around us. It happened to me for instance when shopping for a potty with M that the shop assistant self-assuredly stated "it is too early, this girl is very young". There seems to be this costume in Spain to keep toddlers diapered until it is -in my humble opinion- too late, just on time to enter kindergarten (between 2,5-3). I don't want to be rude, though, and in the same way I just smiled to the shop assistant and answered "I think I know my daughter and I try to follow her needs", not listening to her words at all, I can smile now at the fact that aged 19 months M is diaper free. As it happens with the witnessing of every other achievement, this makes me feel really happy.      

We have seen changes in other departments as of late. She asks for the things she is more into, like piano playing and coloring several times a day, she is more willing to scrub her table, put on a bob-pin or clean her face. Although we haven't been able to keep a good teeth brushing routine yet. She loves painting and colors, hence the several related activities we've been doing.
We also spend lots of time in the pool, where she has gone from being totally scared of the water to asking to jump in, do some "dancing, splashing" as she calls it, or simply walk on her own.                      

Our mutual weaning

It is not easy to know where to start, since it feels ages have passed since I wrote my last acceptable post. I am a bit sad to notice I have no posts under the labels 16 or 17 months, so I am going to try and make up for this lack while I have time. M will be turning 18 months in three days. And, what have we been doing for the past two months, you may ask. Well, much indeed. Apart from feeling sick most of the time, I have been trying to keep at M's pace and although I know I am far from perfection, I have tried to keep the "guilty mama" feeling at a minimum.

When I first found out or, better said, guessed I was pregnant, my first feelings overwhelmed me. I felt it was way too early and M was too small and needed me an absolute lot. It took us some days (an wonderful words from special friends) to see the wonder and feasibility of having children 2 years apart. I can say I am really excited now and I know M will handle -and is already handling- it perfectly. There have been, in fact, quite a few things that have surprised me during this first trimester of pregnancy. 

I started out with a strange kind of wild feeling towards nursing while pregnant. It was as if I was telling the baby in my womb: "you will not steal this from your sister". And I realize now that trying to go with the flow and accept facts as they are has been something the new baby has showed me. Already teaching from inside, uh?

For the first three months of pregnancy, we kept the breast-feeding despite my uneasiness, the pain, the feeling of dizziness, and a growing feeling of impatience towards the end. Against all expectations, it seemed that the uneasier I felt, the more M needed to nurse. She was mirroring my inner self, as she has always done. The less comfortable I was with the situation, the more she needed to nurse as if to say "if you give me regretfully, once won't be enough; the more regret, the more we'll need to repeat it". It was her frequent demand what showed me something needed to be changed. Besides, my physical tiredness was ever growing and the milk supply dropping, so we came to a point one day when M started to spend nearly all night asking to nurse and after long sessions she would still cry asking for water and food. Nursing had always soothed her but now it wasn't even doing that, so after a specially difficult night on a Thursday morning before going to work, M's daddy had a gentle and clever conversation with her, which I overheard from bed. The conversation had two clear parts and one objective: weaning. The dad told M that mama was feeling too weak and the milk was going to be less and less; pointed out that the three of us were having worse and restless nights, and invited her to say "bye-bye" to "meme", the word M had invented for nursing when she started to talk. We wanted to make it real simple and easy to understand in order to  have her willing collaboration. Since M was really familiar with the concept of "bye-bye", this seemed to work very well. She responded in a very sensible way and spent most of the day telling me: "bye-bye, meme", and to my surprise, started to mention the baby every time. I was really startled by this because neither my husband nor me had mentioned the baby in the process.

For that first day, she didn't ask to nurse. Then at bed time, the dad put her to sleep and it was ok. Every time she woke during the night, he got her to sleep again. The following day, after a whole morning without asking to nurse, she started to cry desperately and since I had what seemed lots of milk, I offered her some and had a clear feeling that it would be our last session. I made my husband take pictures of it and was not wrong at all. After that, M has never nursed again. 

I must confess I was highly surprised at M's ability to adapt, as well as her understanding of the situation, in the same way I was surprised at my sudden acceptance of facts -such a stubborn girl I am. I like to call this process we've undergone "our mutual weaning". Also to my surprise, my level of tiredness began to fall after weaning and this benefited all of us. What has had me in wonder, most of all, though, is that our bonding has taken a new and delighful direction. Right after weaning, M started to come to me and hug me while saying "mahhma" in a tone full of love. It was the most incredible token of affection. Not only wasn't she bearing any grudge, but she was giving me support, at 17 months! Apart from bringing tears to my eyes, the thought of this has taught me -again- that our children are our most special teachers.

Of socks and smiles

Up to now there were many times when you would do something and I would be amazed at what a clever action you were doing but I felt I couldn't say it aloud or I would be teased for how a proud, silly mother I was. I remember once when you were around 7,5 months I saw you removing the inside circle of a foam letter from a playing mat and then trying to put it in place again. It was way too early for even knobbed puzzles and I was taken aback by the action but didn't say anything, just in case you had done that randomly.
Today it was clear as day that your actions were not the fruit of random. We had just gotten up and I was barefoot, having just dumped yesterday's soiled socks into the laundry basket. You were playing in the bathroom while I was getting dressed and then you've come to me with my pink socks -rescued from the pile of soiled clothes- and with a wide grin you have offered me the socks saying -tah (your own word for "socks"-. It was so obvious that you were helping me get dressed that I haven't been able to deny your offer and with an even broader smile than yours I have put the dirty socks on again. (Don't you worry, I have changed them the next time you weren't looking:-)

Self-inspection

I must confess every time there is a great change in my daughter's life I seem to fail to recognize it at once. I wonder whether I am the only mother who, despite knowing her own child very well, is taken aback by changes and is kind of slow in her reaction.
I don't mean to sound pretentious when I say I know my daughter very well. What I mean is that after having been with her night and day for nearly 14 months (outside // 9 inside) -having never been apart for more than 4 hours in a row- and having observed her closely, I feel I can say I know her. I have observed her a good deal. I try to attend to her cues and follow her lead. And, however, to my surprise some changes seem to skip my observation.
When she started crawling, for instance, I didn't understand that she no longer needed me to carry her everywhere right away. I was so used to having her in my arms that I sort of felt this was going to be so forever... I failed to connect her new ability and her sudden dislike for the baby carrier. Since she didn't like strollers either and absolutely hated the car, we spent some weeks rarely going outside. I have already mentioned this in another post. Babies grow so fast...
I guess the root of my "mistake" is an inner feeling of stability that is challenged by the natural passing of time. When we are pregnant and imagine the future baby, it seems difficult to figure out life with the baby. It feels as if we were going to be pregnant forever. I've felt this way. Inside-outside. There is such a difference. Then, the baby comes to the world and it is nearly impossible to remember how things were before. We "naturally" adapt.
Something similar has happened concerning activities. I used to prepare an environment trying to follow M's current interests and intended it to last for a fortnight or so. Now I see the error. In intending them to last I was actually sort of ignoring her lead. I took her motivations into account in general terms but acted as if I knew how long they would last.
Some weeks ago I started noticing she was dumping objects. At first I thought it could be a non-directed way of trying to find out the use of a certain material. I guess I was wrong, for some days afterwards she spent much time focused on another activity. Then I realized she had only been bored.
Here I esteem it appropriate to bring up one of the basis of Montessori education, the balance of support and challenge. This is in my opinion an interesting idea regardless of your interest in Montessori. I will quote from Paula Pol Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen's book Montessori from the start: "Chidren need challenges but they also need to live in a positive and secure environment" (...) "when parents become rigid and too goal-oriented, there is an imbalance between challenge and support: support is too low, challenge too high. (...) In homes where there is high support and low challenge, children do not develop focused attention".
I have been trying to put this idea into practice for a long time but I must confess I feel I am not quite successful at it. I keep observing M to see what engages her in order to provide materials and activities that in my opinion may lead to moments of focused attention. There have been weeks when she spent some minutes concentrated on one activity -mainly "thing in a slot" sort of activities, but there are many days when she wanders about picking now a book, then something else, moving to and fro... I have had to stop and ask myself: Am I asking too much too soon? Is free education incompatible with the Montessori approach and the emphasis on focused attention? Have I missed a chapter and all this concentration issue applies only to older children? Should we spend much more time outside?
Up to now I have been able to answer that last question and guessed the third one. And I change the main environment at least every couple of days. I set up a sand area in our garden last week and M had a great time playing in it, feeling the sand, getting handfuls of sand, transferring it to a pot, and so on. We have also spent some time in different settings outside our home this week. On one of our outings we went to our local library where apart from books there is a cozy soft area with little couches and construction cushions. M enjoys climbing into the tiny couches.
If you relate to my experience anyhow I would love to hear yours. If you have an answer to my questions, please write to me!

Why we seldom say "no" around here

I have been writing very little lately. I always become aware of how little I write when I start feeling awkward. I find myself complaining about "this feeling of inadequacy" and then I realize of my urgent need to write. It has been like this for a long time. However, I don't seem to find the mood to write in my journal as I used to do, so I've thought I would give it a go here, why not.
Today I was wondering whether I am the only mother who has decided to quit some of her business and stay at home with her daughter most of the time. I know I am not. I mean I follow many blogs whose authors are SAHM -or WAHM. Neither of them lives in Spain, though. It seems there are so very few here I sometimes find it difficult to share. If you are out there and relate to what I say, please stop and say "hello". Even my two best maternity friends have already gone back to work and whereas we share parenting ways and many good get-togethers, I am the odd one now.
One of the issues I wanted to write about was why we very seldom say "no" around here. Without ever discussing the subject, both my husband and I have agreed that giving alternatives worked better than saying "no". If we pay attention to an adult talking to a baby or toddler, we can quickly note the word "no" is on the top ten words the adult uses. I had noticed that before becoming a mother and I found it annoying. Well, I must say I always take words very literally so I found it sort of negative. There are several ways of saying "no" without negating, without prohibiting. And this is actually what my husband and I do with our toddler.
First of all, we don't leave the items we don't thing she should touch anywhere within her reach. There are very few off-limits objects in our house, by the way. She has access to all rooms, including kitchen and bathrooms. Only my husband's camera and laptop are "forbidden" but they are never left on a reachable surface, so out of the question. This eliminates a slew of potential "noes".
When she was a small baby, we let her free to explore and never discouraged her from bringing things into her mouth. Many times I get asked how is it that M doesn't put in her mouth everything she finds along the way and I guess it is because she has overgrown this interest.
We have always let her explore. In the studio, for instance, we used to have many of her books on the lower shelves and she used to grab them, dump them and play on top. Little by little she grew acquainted with books. Our house is full of books. Our experience has showed us that children don't necessarily tear pages. This is, I believe, another of the negative opinions grown-ups have about young children. In my humble opinion, children's behaviors become destructive when they have nothing interesting to become engaged with. This may happen when the environment is not child-friendly and they don't have freedom of movement.
Something similar happens with the ever-present fear of choking. I know our particular experience can't be raised to general, but from what we have seen babies are very capable of spitting out seeds, stones, or pits. It might have been that M was never bottle-fed and hardly ever pureé-fed, but the truth is that she can eat custard apple and spit the pits out. I have also seen other children eating cherries at 10 months without ever choking. This leads me to believe that the more we empower our babies, the more capable they are. Unfortunately, I feel in our society babies are too often over-protected in a way that renders them unable to perform actions which are otherwise natural abilities inherent to human beings.

Of buggies and carriers part 2

Well, I find it surprising but here I am informing the world (or whoever is so nice as to stop by and read what I post) that my little one, M, who for months rejected the stroller every time we tried it, seems to have gone to another stage and now hates the carrier (our otherwise outworn Manduca).
As we were preparing to leave home this morning, she has clearly expressed, as she has been doing lately, she had no intention of being carried. I wanted to give the carrier another go, since we were going to a place where strollers are a nuisance -there are no elevators at the underground station, sidewalks are narrow, streets crowded...- but after a while I have realized M is now in a new stage and we would better use the stroller. Staying at home was not an option, since I had been invited to talk about Montessori at a gorgeous place called "mamás graciosas". To my surprise, I have invited M to sit in the buggy and she has gratefully accepted. We were in the garage, so I have only been able to offer her an ugly toy, one of those I won't have in the house. However, and despite my dislike for the toy, she has started playing with it, we have set out, and she has stayed happily in her seat for a whole walk to the station, around 15 minutes, and 20 more minutes in the train. In the city, my dear "hubby" was waiting for us to have lunch together. Of course, the moment M has seen her father, she has raised her arms to be picked up.
As a memorandum of our " babywearing times":

M was here around 2,5 months and we were both wearing native American costumes.

11 months there and I am afraid that's the end of a cycle.

A visit to the pediatrician

We have been scolded by a doctor today, can you believe it? I was so surprised I haven't even answered back. He said I haven't been feeding her right. She is approximately in the 3rd percentile. I knew M is small -both short and thin-, I am not a big woman myself and we have had this problem all the time. At the beginning we were told to bottle feed her in order to make her put on weight. Nobody succeeded at convincing me and time proofed it was right to breastfeed her exclusively up to the sixth month (a bit more, actually). During the first months she put on weight and grew all right, nearly reaching the 30th percentile. Lately, after the 8th month or so she has been growing, slowly, but growing.
Today the doctor, an old-fashioned, severe doctor, has scolded me and told me to give up breastfeeding "'cause the breast is not feeding her at all now". Humm, my dear doctor, let me disbelieve you. If it weren't for the breast, she would be much smaller... Since she was able to sit and showed interest in food, we have let her lead the weaning and this has meant that some times she was not eating much. Nevertheless, she kept trying new things and eating solids every day, apart of course of nursing on demand. This doctor has probably never heard of "baby-led weaning" but I don't find this surprising. What surprises me is that a doctor may still have this kind of behavior as if he were THE authority. He has scolded me as if I were a young girl doing mischief. Then, the doctor's nurse has meant to correct me when I was explaining my daughter what they would do to her next. To be more exact, the nurse's words have been: "don't tell her so many things, just say "it's nothing, it's nothing 'cause otherwise she complains more". "Oh, my!-I've thought- how many of the attitudes towards children I dislike in only 10 minutes!" I firmly believe it is healthier and more honest to explain things than to discredit a child's own experience. My baby sometimes complains, whimpers or cries but never without a reason and we have encouraged her expression of feelings. I feel to say "it's nothing" is just to repress the expression of feeling.
Well, I would like to see the positive side of this. From now onwards, I will offer M food more often and try to get her to eat more. I won't  force her, though. She knows more than I do when she is thirsty or hungry. It amazes me how doctors tell you how and when to feed a baby as if the baby would not exist.
I wish the real patients at the pediatrician's surgery, that's children, were treated more respectfully.
What is your opinion? I would like to hear about your experiences at the pediatrician's surgery.
Do you believe it is good to tell a child "it is nothing" when something is indeed happening to her?

Of buggies and carriers

Well, and today that M is turning 11 months we have assembled the stroller and used it causing a wave of opposing feelings to beat on me.
M always used to complain a lot every time we tried to use the stroller and I felt stupid pushing it while wearing her so very soon I took on to wearing her all the time and forgot about the buggy.
M is getting a bit heavier and after feeling a bit weak last week today I decided to give the stroller a go.  It felt so very odd to have her look at the landscape and me push her without being able to see or touch her face. I must say I absolutely love to carry her.
Surprisingly she seemed to enjoy the stroll -around the garden. Well, for the first ten minutes...
I have realized that this doesn't really work for us, it is not the way we relate to each other, and it makes us both feel strange. She needs me as much as I need her and it is absurd to push a baby who screams because she needs the comfort of her mother's body while feeling empty because I am used to wearing her close to my heart.
As long as she needs it and my strength is enough, we will go on using the baby carrier.