So very sad...

We've been waiting for the cooler weather to tackle Tornado's finger sucking habit for good. We've been working on stopping it during the day wince about 12 months of age, and he had just about stopped when Sweet Pea was born... and now it's worse than it was before. No matter what you do, though, stopping a child's thumb or finger sucking at night is a different matter altogether. Right in the middle of the summer we decided that it would help if we could put a glove or something on him at night... but it wasn't really practical in the hot months of summer... so we waited. Now that it's cooler, you'd think we'd have been ready and waiting, but I didn't remember until last night that we had this big "plan".

Like I said... until last night... when I put Tornado's jammies on. The pair I was going to put on him was no where to be found, so I grabbed the pair of long john jammies from his drawer. Once they were on him, it was pretty funny... the arms and legs are really long (which is great since that tells me they will fit all winter long). We were laughing at the length of the sleeves and how Tornado couldn't get his hands out when the idea it not to help him out. "Arm, arm," he kept saying over and over, trying to get me to free his hands... and "fix... arm". It was very sad when I lay him down in his crib and covered him over with this blankets. When I walked out of that room he was very upset. It was very hard for me as a mommy. Several minutes later, My Beloved went in to check on him and he was angrily thrashing on the bed. My Beloved told him "no" and go to sleep.

He cried and cried off and on for a while. Almost an hour later it was time to bring Sweet Pea in to bed also. I put her down, then went over to talk to Tornado. He stood up first thing when we got in there. I had him give me a hug (without taking him out of the bed.) "Arm," he said. I explained that I wasn't going to fix his arm and that it was going to help him stop sucking his fingers. As he was asking for "arm" again, I asked him if he wanted to sleep on his back or on his tummy. "Tummy" he said and lay down quickly. I covered him up with both blankets... just like he likes.

It was two more rounds of lay this one down, lay that one down, lay this one down and re-cover before I even got out of the room, but the crying stopped and they went to sleep.

At 6 this morning he was crying again, but it didn't last long.

Over all, I think it was a successful evening. We'll see what happens tonight... I may need earplugs!

Labels: As it happens..., Raising Children

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 8:40 AM