be a wonderful mother

For awhile now, I’ve been teaching our 23 month old two primary things in the learning discipline. One, she’s got to put her toys away before meal times, sleeping times (1 nap time and sleeping at night), and doing anything she enjoys (watch Elmo, go outside, play with Play-doh). It’s isn’t about me wanting things to be tidy. It’s about her learning to be responsible for her things. Second, she’s learning that even if she is reaching the age where she wants to assert independence, she cannot do this by yelling and screaming (throwing tantrums). Not only will that get her no where, but that may earn her a time-out. Since I am extremely predictable in execution, she’s done quite well with the first lesson, especially. She’s making progress with the second.

She went through a stage where she’d wake up several times in the night screaming, due at least in part to separation anxiety. When she was 12 1/2 months old, I decided to instigate the Ferber sleep training method. That is, we let her cry herself back to sleep. Thought the first few nights might be hellish, but it wasn’t all that bad. She sleeps 10-11 hours overnight. Yay! Still not much of a napper though. Takes two naps a day, about half an hour a piece.

I was born and raised in the States. My English isn’t a problem. In fact, I have a PhD in Philosophy. However, my vocabulary in Chinese is limited. But, I’m trying to speak to my baby in Chinese exclusively. So far, she understands some words in Chinese she doesn’t know in English, such as “milk,” “more,” “go home,” “wait a moment,” “wave,” “raise your hands,” “clap your hands.” We’ll see whether she’ll speak any Chinese when she’s really ready to talk. She’s tried to copy my saying “banana,” “daddy,” “clap your hands” in Chinese so far. It’ll be hard to get the Chinese to stick, considering there really isn’t a Chinese-speaking community where we’re currently living.

For the most part, I keep Isabella with me, even when I am trying to work. My husband thinks that we need to put her in a place where we can leave her on her own. I understand what he’s trying to say. But, I don’t think we should place her in the crib or playpen (Pack ‘n Play) regularly, just for our sake or for convenience sake, so we can do whatever we want. That will send the wrong message to her. She needs to know that those two places are where we put her to nap or sleep, not for anything else. Otherwise, I think if we put her there for other reasons, that will mess up her sleeping routines. Moreover, I think that babies at her age simply need people to engage with them more. Indeed, she needs to be able to entertain herself for brief periods of time. And she can do this, for BRIEF periods of time – look at a book, look at flash cards, play with things that make music. But expecting her to entertain herself for an hour or more at a time, at seven months, I think is unrealistic. Maybe I’m just loving on her a bit too much. Don’t know.

Since a few days after she turned six months, I’ve been working hard to introduce different baby foods to our little one. Started with baby rice cereal. She still doesn’t seem to care for it. Every four to five days, I’ve introduced a different vegetable, including green beans, peas, and carrots. Will try sweet potato very soon. Took awhile for her to get accustomed to the texture and taste of food. First time she obviously took to the baby food was with the peas. But, she really digs carrots now.

I was just about ready for bed and wanted to kiss our little princess. No successful kisses. Instead I woke her up. Crap.

She’s not liking it so far, but I suspect this will just take time. She loves her mommy milk. If she takes after me, eventually, she’ll like all kinds of foods.

isabella was born six months ago tonight. she’s been on breastmilk exclusively. i’ve survived giving her breastmilk exclusively for six months! i’ve survived pumping, when needed. i haven’t run out of milk. i’ve continued providing breastmilk to her despite the fact that i’ve been working since january. i love our little princess.

Well, arguably, you could count the early morning sleep as nap time. But, I’m not counting that. I count it as night sleep with an interruption to nurse.

None of the three naps were over half an hour a piece, but, the bright side of the matter is that she did take three naps. I think our little one isn’t napping very long because she routinely sleeps eight to ten hours overnight.

part of being a good mother is helping the little one sleep. she’s five months old now. she has no problems sleeping through the night. but, i’ve been working on day-time napping for a few weeks now. less than half an hour ago, i put her down for a nap, after using a portion of her night-time sleep routine. i read her a story. then i put on some classical music. within ten to fifteen minutes of struggling and crying here and there, she fell asleep. yay!

hearing her cry and letting her cry can be so hard at times. i feel like a negligent mother or a mother that’s in some way hurting her child. but, from the literature i’ve read, babies need to sleep, and this form of sleep training is actually good for the babies in the end.