I could give all the background (me being in Chicago for the weekend, staying up too late a few nights recently, moving 3 weeks ago, etc) or I could explain that they both woke up between 5 and 5:30 this morning, but in the end it didn’t matter why.  Tonight, they were so tired, and they simply melted down.  Both of them.  For an hour and fifteen minutes.  When Jason was gone.

Having been a special education teacher in my past life, I often give off the appearance of remaining calm and knowing just what to do in a tough situation.  Tonight, I felt like I had no idea what to do.  I knew they were both tired.  I knew tonight would be an early bedtime.  When Jason left, I knew I just had to get them ready for bed and laying down.  Exhaustion would take over from there.

Unfortunately, we hit a snag in the road right around clean up time.  They had invented a new game.  I’m not sure of the details, but as it appeared to me, the goal was to pile as many toys from the play room as they could onto our living room chair.  When it was time to clean up, they were ready and willing.  I suggested we each put away 3 toys.  Knowing how tired they were, I planned to do the rest later on my own just to get them in bed.  Well, it turned out that I unknowingly took the toy that K had his heart set on putting away back into the play room.   I told him I was sorry I hadn’t known he wanted that one.  K began to cry.  He explained to me over and over that he had wanted to put both big trucks back into the room.  I offered him a couple solutions.  He could go get the truck and put it in himself or he could pick up x, y, or z toy.  Those didn’t work for him.  From there, everything was wrong.  He didn’t like his pajamas(which he chose), his toothbrush, his tooth paste (which he chose), or his diaper(which he chose).  He also didn’t want to help fill up his water cup, nor did he want me to fill it.  He did want water though.

During this time, A was also upset.  He is pretty sensitive, and I think that between being tired and K feeling upset, it was just too much for him, and he shared in the sadness.  Poor kids.  I tried to take turns nursing them.  I offered them cuddles and hugs.  I empathized with them.  “It sounds like you are feeling sad.”  “You really wanted to take that truck into the play room.”

At some point, I started to feel overwhelmed, really overwhelmed.  My instincts were to say something like this, “Enough.  No more crying.  You are tired.  Lay down.  I am not fighting over this anymore.”  I really wanted to do those things.  I didn’t actually think they would help or calm the boys down.  I didn’t think that they would make K or A see the light and think “yep, she’s right.  That is enough crying.  Guess I’m okay now.”  I felt like I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.  That was about 25 or 30 minutes in.

I didn’t say those things though.  I also didn’t say anything like, “You can go to your room, and when you are done yelling, you can come back out here.”  I also didn’t spank (and never have) either one.  These are common suggestions that I get when someone overhears me talking about a meltdown at our house or if someone happens to be over when it happens.

I didn’t say or do those things, because that is not the way we have chosen to parent.  In my moments of clarity during a meltdown, I often think about how I would feel if Jason and I were having a fight that included me being upset and in tears.  If he left me alone until I could talk about things reasonably, I don’t think that would help me feel loved or comforted.  If he said, “I’m going to go watch tv until you are ready to talk” I would be m.a.d. If he tried to help me feel better and comforted me for a few minutes but left when it wasn’t working, I think I would feel even worse.

I know that kids and adults are not in the same roles in families, but I do think that there is value in allowing a child to express emotions and validating them.  I also think there is value in being with a child during a tough emotional time.  Because of these beliefs and many others, we choose to parent in the way I described in this post.

I haven’t written a lot about our specific parenting beliefs on this blog.  I have alluded to them, and we try to practice what we believe when we interact with our kids although sometimes I fall far short of my goal.  One of the reasons I chose to write this post and publish it was a conversation I had with a friend over dinner a couple months ago.  Our friends are married with no children.  They had supper at our house one night.  During the course of the evening, I said, “we don’t spank” and “we don’t use time outs.”  The wife of the couple said to me, “What do you do?”  So, I thought I would give an example of what we do because both spanking and timeouts are so common that sometimes people don’t realize that there are other options.  I know, I didn’t.

To give a little resolution to the situation, I’ll let you know what happened to finally resolve the meltdown.  After we went into the bedroom to get ready for bed, K threw his cup into the hallway.  (We keep a gate in the doorway so they don’t wake up and wander around our apartment at night.)  K felt pretty sad that his cup was in the hallway.  I told him (probably around 50 times) “I can go get your cup if you sit or lay by your pillow.”  I felt like I needed him to be in a place where he would be safe and at least a bit calm before I could leave him and A in the room to get his cup.  Finally, he said, “Can I have mama milk?”  I nursed them each one at a time.  They laid down, and they were asleep within 15 minutes.  Poor kiddos.

More and more over the past few weeks, we’ve been hearing K repeat things that we have said to him. One night, Jason was giving him two choices for getting his diaper changed. K kept telling Jason that he didn’t want to have his (poopy) diaper changed. He wanted to wear it. (On a side note, you can tell we’re not exactly steaming down the road of potty learning . ) Jason told him, “That’s not a choice.” Later that night during the bedtime routine, K and Jason were talking and at one point, K said to Jason, “No, Daddy, that not a choice.”

Last week, we spent a little time with my mother-in-law and father-in-law. One of the days, my nieces (ages 6 and 4 were over). At one point, I heard them arguing, and the six year old was saying, “That’s fair!” to her sister over whether or not she needed to share some toys with her. Fast forward to this morning. I was showing K the new library books we had checked out for this week. He was pretty excited about them, and he kept pulling them out of the bag and saying, “That very fair!”

Then, there are the things he picks up that I’m not sure where they came from. “You know better, Mommy!” “A, you being bad!” “No, no, no, no, no!” These are not things we say to him. I know that now that his peers are speaking more and we are around more and different people, his pool of experiences to draw from also grows.

He’s at an age where he is such a sponge. He doesn’t have preconceived ideas of what is fun or not fun (video games vs. books) or what music is good or not good (pop music vs. opera). He loves so many different things. I think that his new tendency to repeat things that we say at just the right time is good for us in more than one way. While it reminds me that he’s always listening to what we say, it also reminds me that he is picking stuff up All. The. Time. I am raising a little sponge, and I want him to be able to absorb all that he can before this time ends.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I did some reading. I searched the internet for what I felt were informative articles. By the time my breastfeeding class at the hospital rolled around I felt pretty confident. My confidence increased when I went to the class. She didn’t tell me one thing in an almost two hour class that I didn’t already know! I knew I was going to be able to do it. As a sort of insurance, I found a breastfeeding forum/message board and asked if there was anything else I should do to be prepared or informed. The answers were pretty run-of-the-mill. “Just keep on going!” “Don’t let anyone talk you into quitting.” “You can do it!” I knew that I was set.

When K was born, I had a bit of a surprise. Maybe shock is a better word. He was born nearly 4 weeks early and he wouldn’t latch. He looked at my breast. He half-heartedly opened his mouth. Then, he fell asleep. What?!? This wasn’t the plan. He was supposed to know what to do, because I had done my part to get informed about breastfeeding. Well, after three days in the hospital, we were discharged. I had a nipple shield and a baby who ate for 45–60 minutes every 3 hours. Not exactly fitting my plan.

Fortunately, my mom had breastfed both myself (for around 18 months) and my brother (for nearly 3 years). She was an amazing support. She kept telling me, “Trust yourself. You know best. You know what is right for you and your baby.” She got up with me for the middle of the night feedings and held K afterwards until he had his burp and could fall back asleep. She visited with me when I thought I was too tired to do another feeding. She was wonderful, and that was a major component for my success. I am sure of it.

When she left and I was home alone with my baby, I began to doubt myself, so I went back to the message board where I had asked for help so many weeks prior. I began posting question after question after question. I got wonderful support, and I got great information. There was one person in particular on that message board who I still feel a debt of gratitude toward. Her name was Joan, and she was a moderator of the breastfeeding forum. Sure, other people would answer my question, but I didn’t feel like I had the real answer until I heard from Joan. Over the weeks and months, I gained confidence, and I also gained a friendship. Joan is still one of my close on-line friends. She and I have kept in touch over the past few years, and when a friend of mine had a baby who had nursing troubles (oversupply and overactive letdown, something I knew very little about) Joan was available over the phone to help her out, too. I also began reading www.kellymom.com during any spare moment I had. I loved that website. It was so easy to navigate and so easy to read and understand. It is where I got the bulk of my early breastfeeding knowledge.

Almost two years later, when I had my second son, I was pretty confident again. I had been through so much with K that I thought I should have it under control. But, as almost anyone who has breastfed knows, every baby is different. With A, I had different issues, and again I turned to www.kellymom.com and a supportive on-line community to help me get through the first weeks that were tough.

Now, I’ve been nursing K for almost 35 months, and I’ve been tandem nursing K and A for 14 months. I feel like each day I can learn something about breastfeeding whether it be from a book, a website, a friend, another nursing momma, or one of my kids. I think it’s one of those things where you can keep learning more and more, but I’m not sure that you can ever say that you have “learned to breastfeed.” To me, it’s a journey more than a destination.

Check out these blogs for more thoughts on Learning to Breastfeed (updated throughout the day):

• BreastfeedingMums.com
• Breastfeeding123.com
• Hobomama.blogspot.com
• Breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com
• KateWicker.com
• Babyfingers.blogspot.com
• StopDropandBlog.com
• NurturingNotes.blogspot.com

To be honest, this is one stage that I didn’t ever anticipate.  I thought about what would happen when they were both nursing and how to handle that.  I thought about what I would do when A became mobile and wanted to take K’s toys.  I thought about what I would do when we were at the mall and one child went left and the other went right.  I just didn’t think about having them both be in the tantrum stage at the same time.  Whoops.  I wish I would have thought more about this stage so I could have had some ideas on how to proceed when it arrived.  Instead, I’ve had to take each day as it comes and learn from the one before.

Right now, K’s tantrums or meltdowns tend to happen when he is hungry or tired.  Generally, when he starts to yell or cry, my first thought is when did he last sleep (and how was the sleep quality) and when did he last eat.  If either of those is contributing to the issue, I try to remember that.  Of course, it doesn’t excuse a tantrum, but it does put the cause into perspective.  He’s pretty serious about being mad, but I have to admit that I have a pretty hard time keeping a straight face when he starts to jump up and down and wave his arms at me in an attempt to show me just how angry he is.   Unfortunately, if Jason and I don’t catch the tantrum early or if we don’t react in a constructive manner, it can go on for a while.  That is definitely the drawback of an older child’s tantrums.

A on the other hand tends to explode into meltdown mode as soon as he worries something might not go his way.  In fact, today, he and K were playing in our play kitchen area.  A thought that K was taking a toy from him when actually I put it on the floor instead of letting it fall.  A turned toward K and had his mouth WIDE open in anticipation of a good, hard bite.  When he saw his toy on the floor, he just sat down and started playing with it.  Luckily, the tantrum was avoided.  Unfortunately, he is currently in a phase when he hates, hates, HATES having his diaper changed.  Sometimes, all I have to do is move toward the diapers and he starts getting mad at me.  He is easily distracted though, so once the diaper change is over, he’s happy again.  Yay!

Right now, I don’t think that I have a “good” or 100% effective way of responding to either one of them.  I’m not sure if I ever will.  I do think that parenting isn’t always about finding the most effective or efficient way of dealing with a situation.  I think it’s more important to respond in a way that is respectful of the child and myself.  I haven’t read the entire book, but I’ve seen Harvey Karp on a few tv shows.  His book, The Happiest Toddler on the Block has some good tips.  Also, Elizabeth Pantley has a book called The No Cry Discipline Solution.  I haven’t read the entire thing, but the one part of it that suck out to me was that a child will not learn from what you are saying once he/she is crying.  I think part of parenting is seeking out solutions and then using what works.  For us, we haven’t found a foolproof method, but that won’t keep me from continuing to look!