Battles

As parents, we are guaranteed battles with our children.  We might not like it, but it's a given.  It's going to happen.

Tonight, our house was a regular battlefield.  At bedtime, of course, because all good battles occur at the end of the day, when everyone is tired and cranky.

Or maybe that's just me.

Two battles were fought - and lost - tonight.  Were they worth fighting?  In one case, probably not; in another, quite possibly.  Was harm done in giving up the battle?  Possibly.  But was there another real option?  Perhaps, but it wouldn't have been pretty, and may have done more damage than giving up.

So in continuing the spirit of airing my dirty laundry, I'm going to tell you about these battles, give you some details, and see what some of you might have done in my situation.

Battle #1

The first battle was with the Birdie, and it was by far the more traumatic of the two.

It was The Battle Of The Pajamas.  Or, I Don't Want To Wear This One, I Want To Wear That One Instead.

My husband almost always gets the Birdie ready for bed.  It's become such a habit that if he is around, she won't tolerate me doing it.  Fine, we have two children, so he takes one and I take the other.  And the habit is further cemented.

He got her into some pajamas, and she came and sat on the couch with me.  They were cute pajamas.  Princess pajamas.  Really, it doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Apparently, it does.

As I was putting away the Imp's clean laundry, I heard the words that started it all:  "I don't want to wear this to bed.  I want to wear a nightgown."

The Birdie has roughly fifty sets of pajamas right now, thanks to grandparents, hand-me-downs from friends, and Christmas pajamas that she hasn't yet outgrown.  About six of these are nightgowns.  So you can imagine how often we end up with all nightgowns in the laundry, and nothing but shirt-and-pants pjs to wear.  However, no matter what they look like, all she ever wants to wear are nightgowns.

So it wasn't really a shocker to me when I heard her say that, but we are trying to raise our children to make their choices and stick with them, and not change their clothes three times before they go to bed.  Or fifty times.

My husband denied her request.

The battle began.

At one point she must have taken them off, because I heard, "If you're not wearing those pajamas when I come back in, I'll..."  And she did put them back on.

Then my husband brushed her teeth.  When they were done, she said, "I need to take my pants off.  These are wet."  She had peed in them.  While I know accidents happen, this was just a bit too coincidental.  I asked her whether she had peed in her pajama pants because she didn't want to wear them, and she replied, "Yes."

Sigh.  At least she's honest.

Perhaps this would have been a good point to just go ahead and put her in a nightgown, since we had to put her in something else anyway, but it just didn't seem like a good time.  It seemed like a particularly bad time, actually - one that would teach her that if she didn't want to wear something, all she had to do was pee in it and she would get her way.  Hmm.  Not really a lesson we want her to learn.

While I brushed the Imp's teeth and read him his bedtime story (actually, he read it to me for once, it was pretty cute) Daddy handled the pajama issue.  I heard the sounds of war coming from the Birdie's room, and finally let the Imp sit in his chair and left to see what was happening.  Daddy was leaving the Birdie's room, telling her she could "spend a few minutes in time out."  She was standing by the bed in her underwear, sobbing.

I sent Daddy in to take the Imp his water, and went in with the Birdie.  I held her in my lap while she sobbed, and sang to her until she calmed down.  When she was calm, I tried to get her into the (clean) pajamas.

Absolutely Not.

I held her a little longer, at a loss, then made an executive decision:  It was time to throw in the towel.  We weren't getting anywhere with this.  She was just getting more and more and more worked up.  She was adamant that she wanted a nightgown, not flannel pj's, and I started to suspect that, more than a control issue, it was just that the nightgown is more comfortable to her.  While I don't want her learning the lesson that if she just holds out long enough, Mommy and/or Daddy will eventually give in, it seemed silly to make her wear something that she so obviously did not want to wear and that probably was less comfortable for her.

So.  Did I just reinforce a bad lesson there, or did I do what was necessary to keep the peace?  Obviously, the real solution would have been to avoid the situation in the first place.  The best way to do that is to let her choose her own nightclothes, which is what I had thought had happened in the first place, but in fact was not - Daddy chose the cute Princess jammies.  And they were cute. Just not the right shape.

At what point should we have stopped fighting?  Should we have given in when she first made the request?  At that point, it sounded like toddler flightiness - "No, I want to wear this one instead" - which is something we'd rather not encourage, at least not when it leaves us piles of unnecessarily dirty laundry.  When we chose to fight the battle, should we have seen it all the way through?  Or does there, in fact, come a point where it is more harmful to keep fighting than it is to give it up?

I have no idea.  But I do hope we can avoid that one again in the future.  I hate fighting with her because I already don't get enough positive time with her anyway - she's Daddy's Girl through-and-through, and if he's available she doesn't want me to do much of anything with or for her (unless it means he can hold her while I do something for her).  I love her so much, and I can't stand to see her so upset, especially when it's over something as silly as what she's going to wear to bed.

Battle #2

This battle was with the Imp, and it was not nearly as hard-fought, although perhaps it should have been.  Perhaps it should have been even harder-fought.  But it felt less like a battle than the pajama fiasco because it didn't appear, on the surface, to be a control issue.

One night this week, either two or three nights ago, the Imp fussed after we put him to bed.  Daddy took baby duty and went in to him, calmed him down, and left, only to have the little guy start right back up.  Daddy decided enough was enough and that he'd let him go.

About half an hour later (or less?  Maybe it only felt that long.) his fussing had escalated into sobbing/screaming, and I went in to him.  It took him a good two or three minutes to settle down even after I was holding him, with the residual shuddering sobs hitting him every few seconds.  I held him and comforted him and rocked him while his crib soother played the Winnie-The-Pooh song over and over for fifteen minutes.  He still seemed shaken after that, so I let it go another fifteen minutes before I put him back down.  His nose was really stopped up, so I figured that was what had kept him from being able to fall asleep (in other words, he was sick, so he really did need the comfort).

The next night, it happened again, and instead of letting him go and get all worked up, I just went on in and held him for two rounds of the music, then put him down and he went on to sleep.

Again the next night (or so, depending on how many days ago it started).  At this point, I'm starting to suspect the development of a bad habit.  But it's easy for me to give in, because he's such a snugglebug that I actually enjoy sitting there and rocking him for half an hour.  Plus, I know he's not going to want this forever.  In fifteen (or ten, or five, or two) years, I'm going to look back on this and wish he would still let me do it.  So in a way, it's hard not to love on him and snuggle him while he'll let me, because I know the day is coming when he's not going to want anything of it.

But tonight, when he started fussing almost the moment I left his room after putting him down for bed, I knew a habit was forming and that it was one I can't let develop, because it's just going to cause problems for everyone.  So I asked Daddy to go in and soothe him, instead, because it's not the soothing he wants, it's Mommy.

Craig went in, then came back out maybe five minutes later.  The Imp was silent, and Craig commented, "That was a pretty good job!" and went downstairs to play his video game.

Not a full minute had passed before the Imp had started fussing again.  I sighed, and sat on the couch a bit longer.  Do I go in or not?  If I do, I'm reinforcing the habit, but if I don't, he's just going to scream and cry until he gets so worked up that he makes himself sick from it.  Because we learned months ago that crying it out just doesn't seem to work for him.

So I caved.

The moment I opened the door, he stopped crying.  "Bah-ee (Mommy)?  Bah-ee?  Bah-ee Bah-ee Bah-ee!"

And I melted.

You see, he usually cries until I pick him up, then snuggles his head on my shoulder.  But this time, as soon as I opened the door, the little booger - the little Imp! - made it clear that he had been waiting for me the whole time.  He wasn't crying because he wanted comfort, or because he felt sick, or because he couldn't fall asleep.  He was crying because he wanted me to come in and hold him, and as soon as I opened the door he knew he was getting just that.

And that's just what he got.  30 minutes of being rocked by Mommy.

Sigh.

Not nearly as much of a "battle" as the one with the Birdie, but probably one with more lasting consequences.  But how do we fight it?  Do I let him cry it out?  But I know that won't work.  Do I hope this is a phase, and just go with it until he starts falling asleep on his own again?  Or does Daddy just go in repeatedly, until the Imp gives up?

I don't know.  I just know that when the only thing in the world my little guy wants is for Mommy to hold him, it's awfully hard for Mommy to not give it to him.  Especially since I know from experience - with his big sister - that these days won't last forever, and someday I will miss them.