I am primarily a believer in child led learning and development. Yup, I try and nudge from time to time, and I was certainly not above pointing out to KC that his sister zipped her coat successfully when he was wailing that he could not do it on his own. And yup, that had the desired result of stopping the wails and getting him to try (and succeed). But for the most part I am pretty laid back. One of the things i have seen in my many years of parenting is that they really do eventually learn. And grow. And fledge.
Some things are easy to see. For instance, KC has an amazing sight word vocabulary. We just did a flash card thing this morning because he wanted some school work and i still have little voice. Out of 200 words he got 4 wrong. We are talking words like believe, gentle, locker, because. Not dog, cat, and apple. So clearly my laid back early reader program is coming up roses. He can do basic math, count to 100 and count by 10's. Getting there with counting by 2's. Math's all good too.
The bed thing, well not so much. KC has slept with us essentially since birth. Every prior effort to move him into his own bed has been met with tears, resistance akin to a rock wall, and night mares. The thing is, I believe sleep should be restful, peaceful and enjoyed. Not feared. So I backed off. What I did do, was get a co-sleeping bolster and put it between us so that he was cuddling that in his sleep instead of me. This seems to be much of his issue. He has to have that long person shaped thing to snug up against.
And then Lissa started coming into my bed as well, so I just sort of threw my hands up in the air and went "what will be, will be." Then today KC announced that he was getting big enough to have his own bed. Would I buy a twin and put it at the bottom of my bed so he would still be near me and Sissy and could crawl up if he felt scared. Yup, i can do that!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
YAY!!!! I can relate. We had a 3 year old and a newborn in our bed for forever...The older is now 5 and decided somewhere around 4 that he could sleep in his own bed (but nightmares remained although they have plagued him forever...). The now 2 1/2 year "talks big" but isn't ready although we do have a bed in our room for her that she ocassionally sleeps in. I agree though...they do tell us. She weaned from breast-feeding overnight leaving C. hanging (literally :-)) and did the same for solid foods, getting rid of her bottle, etc. Hopefully will do the same with potty training...
Post a Comment