The parallel universe of babies and toddlers

It’s only on becoming a parent you’ll understand that the world of babies and toddlers operates very differently to ours.

It’s a parallel universe they inhabit where time doesn’t exist. Nor does logic or reason. Forget expensive hallucinogenics, spend a day with a baby or toddler and you’ll feel like Hunter S Thompson on a bad day.

Babies won’t eat food but they’ll put everything else into their mouths including stones, shoes and they’ll try to eat themselves starting at their hands and feet

Toddlers will not perform when you need them to. Ask them to repeat a swear word or do something for YouTube, you get nothing. Put them in a room full of strangers and you’re bound to hear remnants of last night’s conversation blurted out, like “my cl*t’s still blue!” or something like “f*ck f*ck f*ckity f*ck my g*ddamn balloon just popped!”

Toddlers have no boundaries or social filters. So they’ll happily tell a friend of a friend’s mom’s boyfriend’s sister’s aunt “my mom’s boobs are long!”

Night time isn’t sleep time for little people, instead it’s playtime and midnight or thereabouts is happy hour

Ask a toddler to kiss Aunty Mabel with the hairy wart on her chin and suddenly all the warnings of ‘stranger danger’ kick into effect but they’ll hug and kiss a dangerous stranger in the blink of an eye

Brag about your toddler’s brilliant manners and she will sprout a forked tail and tongue right before your eyes as she screams “see you in hell” when you ask her to say please

Tell the same group of people that she’s potty trained, and she’ll as sure as you’re going to hell, take a dump on their manicured lawn

Wear white and they’ll wipe poop on you. Wear black and they’ll vomay milk all over you. Wear a multi coloured outfit and you just end up looking like a trash can threw up on you

Get to a party and they cling onto you for two hours. Tell them it’s time go home and they throw a kanipschitz cos they’re having too much fun

Buy them a Leappad that they’ve nagged for for ages (and you’ve hunted high and low for) and they end up playing with the empty toilet roll

Ask them to poo in the toilet and you get a look from hell but when they go missing for a few minutes you’ll find them licking the toilet bowl, including the toilet duck

Ask them to repeat the alphabet and they won’t remember it. Let them hear “Blow My Whistle” on the radio once and they’ve got it down pat

Yes, their world has no rhyme or reason but it’s best if you get used to it…quickly!

Ben’s new love…his BinkiBear and Hevea dummy from Queck Baby

This is a product review and Ben is one happy customer

I’m one of those people who if their head wasn’t screwed on properly Id’ lose it. Several times in a day. I lose things all the time. My lighter, my sense of humor and my mind. I also lose Ben’s favourite sleep time fluffy bear and his dummy. Normally when I need it the most.

And then I got an email from the lovely Melinda at Queck Baby. She must be lovely if she’s a Melinda, right? Melinda asked me if I would like to review any products from her amazing range of baby things so I popped on over to the website to see what would work for me right now, with a toddler and a baby.

Believe me, it wasn’t an easy decision. With the most beautiful range of goodies I battled to choose something. From gorgeous Moccis that all the cool kids are wearing, to Chewbeads that all the teething tots are chewing. There’s also the Magnificent Range of baby onesies and bibs and the Diapees and Wipees Hipster bags.

But I have to say when I saw little BinkiBear I was in love, and I knew Little Ben would be too. I also chose the Hevea Pacifier, knowing the two would work well together.
 
BinkiBear is a baby safe teddy bear that securely holds baby’s pacifier. This cute little guy securely  holds your child’s pacifier to prevent them from dropping it and losing it, without extra pieces that would be uncomfy for baby to cuddle when the pacifier is not on the bear, meaning baby can find and replace the pacifier during the day and during sleep without waking you up!

BinkiBear helps Ben sooth himself to sleep at night. He’s got his dummy and his bear! What more could he possibly need.  Of course I don’t need to rummage around in the dark for a teeny tiny dummy because I’m now looking for a bigger bear and I never lose Binki or dummy when we’re out.

Ben took to the Hevea dummy too. Normally introducing a new pacifier takes a day or two. I’m not sure if it’s the shape, the ‘taste’ or if Ben’s just messing with me, but he was content to suck on it, chew on it (thank goodness it’s really strong) and stare at it lovingly.

Thank you Melinda, from Melinda. For these gorgeous goodies. Ben is loving his Binki and dummy and I’m loving the fact that it’s one thing less for me to lose xxx

PND and an angry baby

Ben’s been with us for a while now and there hasn’t been very much to report on. He drinks, poops, sleeps, drinks a bit more, poops even more and sleeps again. When he’s not doing any of the three then he’s crying and crying and crying…and crying and crying. There have been days where I’ve felt completely incompetent and other days where I’ve felt slightly less so, but never a day passes where I don’t doubt myself.

I know this is my second time round the baby block but Emma was three months when she came home. Still tiny but it’s three months that a baby’s had of getting used to his / her new body, a new environment, a  new skin. It’s three months that his / her digestive system’s been working and it’s three months of ‘acclimatizing’.

Ben’s been battling with colic and he takes a while to wind, which obviously causes him a lot of discomfort. I never experienced this with Emma. There’s a chance she might have outgrown it by the time she came to live with us or she never had it. But over and above the colic and the wind, he just seems angry. Sounds odd I know. But he looks pissed off with me and the world.

His little body seems to be in a constant state of ‘flight or fright’. He’s never completely relaxed or calm. In my more confident moments I put it down to wind, exhaustion or hunger. At my most vulnerable I’ve thought that he simply doesn’t like me. I don’t think my dose of PND (or in my case Post Adoption Depression) has helped either and while I wax lyrical about the universe / angels sending Emma to us and being such a perfect match, I also have to consider the possibility that the universe / angels mismatched Ben to us. Maybe someone somewhere made a mistake.

I’ve taken him to the chiropractor and the paed and they’ve both helped with colic and reflux, which I would imagine are the symptoms but not the root cause of this pissed off little person. A few people had mentioned Craniosacral Therapy (CST) to me but I thought it sounded a bit hocus pocus and a lot airy fairy until someone mentioned that their physiotherapist was a trained CS therapist so I started considering it. I was also desperate and ready to try anything.

The first therapist, highly recommended, was fully booked for the next few months, but she gave me the name of someone else who could see Ben almost immediately. She came to our house and the session began. It was an amazing thing to witness and for any moms and babies who went through any kind of birth trauma I would definitely recommend it.

She let Ben cry. His  little face contorted with anger, his body tense with stress. As a woman, a mother, heck, a human being, our instinct is to comfort and shush the wailing but she let him cry it out. The horrified look on my face spoke 1000 words and she quickly explained that crying is a form of communicating for babies and instead of plugging them up with a dummy sometimes we have to let them do it. “Imagine you trying to say something and someone constantly saying shhhhh or putting their hand across your mouth” she said. “How would that make you feel?” “Angry, voiceless, desperate” I answered. “Exactly!”

After what felt like an eternity his cry changed from an angry wail to a sad sob with tears streaming down his little face. And before I knew it the tears were running down my cheeks too. It’s a helpless feeling to see your baby in such distress, with a tangible sadness, and I cried with him and for him. For his feelings of rejection and abandonment. For his loss and the confusion around him. It’s a lot for anyone to deal with, let alone a 6 week old baby.

I don’t know what she did or how she did it but I do know that for the rest of he day he was calmer, smiled a lot more and cried a lot less. He seemed at ease and at peace.

Emma as a baby taught me about unconditional love, acceptance, grace and gratitude. Maybe, just maybe, Ben’s here to help me through my feelings of abandonment, rejection and loss…

Suggested reads:
Craniosacral Therapy: The Road Less Traveled (for children with special needs)
CranioSacral Therapy for Babies