Everyone knows that there are certain words you just don't say in front of the family dog: "Walk", "Supper", and "Outside" were keywords in our home growing up and I'd say they're pretty universal don'ts unless you're going to have some follow through.
The dog jumps up and down and gets skittish and excited and impatient and then - if you don't complete whatever you promised - angry!
Well, we have a couple of words in our house to which The Caterpillar has been reacting similarly:
#1. Bathtime
To some young families, bath time is a nightmare - and for us, one day, it might be a point of contention too. But for now, bathtime means so much to us: the wrapping up of a great day; the coming of sleep; and approximately 30 minutes of pure, unadulterated PLAYTIME in water.
After winding down dinner around 5, The Caterpillar routinely pops into the bath at 5:20 to prepare for her 6:00 bedtime. Tired from hours of scooching around the hardwood and pulling stuff out of stuff to throw it onto stuff and waving at people and generally Going on Expotitions, bathtime represents a true Second Wind and guarantees that our girl is ex-haus-ted by the time she hits the crib so we all get at least a few hours of rest.
And tonight, we had a new experience with our bathtime ritual. A true first, and definitely, certainly, absolutely not a last:
We had a protest.
I used my key words: "Say 'night night' to ducky!" / "Bye-bye Bathtime" / "We're going sleepies now"
Which brings us to "B" word numero two-o.
 |
| SERIOUSLY. |
#2. Bedtime
The Caterpillar responded: HUMPH. As in, NO. A little WHINE even. "I'm not leaving" (she didn't SAY that, but you know.)
Girl got a mind of her own. I understand why she wouldn't want to leave the bath. Who would? Bathtime is the epitome of her day. The true highlight. The SPLASHING and the DUCKIES and all of the TOYS floating and the laughing to herself (and once we get through the washing of her hair) the MORE PLAYING.
I realize that this was the first protest of many we will experience as a family. We're now having a few issues with naptime in terms of the "But I wanna PLAY more" mentality (why would I sleep when I could hang out with you?). And that's all good, we want The Caterpillar to be a strong, independent woman who can think for herself - and we'll lay the groundwork for that now by creating an atmosphere where she feels safe to express herself - but we WILL NOT be conceding to "humphs" and "no"'s and whines of a 9.5 month old.
We have decided not to allow the whine to win.
So often it seems that the process of curbing the whine issue starts at age 2 or 3, but I have the personal belief that the protests start (and can stop) now. I don't think whining is a parent's fault (to be fair, I did, but I have changed my mind), and I don't think it's a child's fault either - but I want her to know from as early on as possible that when mama/dada say no, that's what we mean. And we stick to it. When we say it's the end of bathtime, then sorry sister but it's the end of bathtime. Whine it up.
So here we are, cautious with two "B" words and becoming introduced to the Protest stage (which I thought started a little bit later, but there you have it.) Learning to stick to our guns. In this case, sticking to our guns means gently pulling her out of the bath, into her towel, and beginning to brush our teeth together. She forgot that she was whining anyways and had fun while we scrubbed all 5 of her pearly whites. And, as she should, she fell asleep in no time once we put her in her crib.
For us, this one time, us brand-new parents introduced to The Protest, we won. And our plan is to move forward with the confidence that our decisions, sucky as they might seem for miss fun-lover over here, are best for our daughter.
We can't have no pruned up over-tired baby losing sleep; and we can't make any other decisions that seem to have a short-term benefit while shirking the long-term implications either.
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