Replies

I want to thank everybody for all their replies to my blog posts. It's great to hear your stories and advice!! I had a question from a mom named Cindy and was not able to reply through email so I thought I'd post it. Cindy I hope you don't mind!!

From Cindy:
Oh my goodness. Our 10 1/2 month old son Nicholas hasn't gotten into throwing his food yet but he has started to slyly let it drop from his cute little fingers onto the floor. My husband and I are torn on the discipline thing too. We tell Nicholas no to certain things - like throwing his head back when he doesn't want to be picked up or going into the spare bedroom and grabbing the halogen lamp and shaking it. We can tell him no, give him our sternest look and tone of voice - what does he do, but look at us and gives us his killer smile?! What do you do? At what point do they really understand the meaning of the word no? I do have a question for you - maybe you can answer. What about Reese sleeping through the night? Does she? Nicholas was a few months ago but now he's not. What a time of it we are having. And talk about a book burning! I can't bring myself to do the crying it out, baby boot camp thing. We hope it's because he is getting his second tooth. What works for Reese? Cindy

To Cindy:
We get a similar reaction from Reese when we tell her no. Especially about throwing food on the floor. Sometimes I’ll block her hand from dropping food and she gives me this look like “why in the world did you do that?” It’s quite funny!! I’ve noticed that she doesn’t throw as much food on the floor if it’s something she likes. Fortunately we have hardwood floors so it’s not hard to clean them up! We’ve been really lucky with Reese and sleeping. Even as early as 3 months old I could put her down awake and she wouldn’t cry. She started sleeping 8 hours by 4 months old and by 6 months she was sleeping 12 hrs. I heard stories about kids who would sleep through the night for a while and then stop. I have a good friend whose 16 month old still doesn’t sleep through the night consistently. Since we didn’t have any problems I don’t really have any tips to get you through it. I can tell you that if Reese does wake up in the night we usually go in and check on her but don’t pick her up and only stay in her room for a few seconds. She may keep crying for a few minutes but generally settles down quickly. I go and check on her every morning before I leave work at 3:30. She’s started waking up every morning when I walk in her room but she usually just looks at me…I walk out and then she goes back to sleep. I read all the books about crying it out and I just don’t think I could do that. I’m so lucky we never really had to. I wish you lots of luck with that!!!! If anything I’m sure he will eventually grow out of it.