There are always challenges with adding a new baby to the household. Even more so if there is already another youngin’ at home. My two are 2 years and 4 months apart. A newborn and a two year old…didn’t quite think the logistics of that time frame through! But the start wasn’t quite the tumultuous child run nightmare you’d suspect. Our challenges took a bit to surface.
What’s more challenging than a two year old? A three year old! The sassy hit an all time high a few months ago. Adding to her sassy is that this kid is smart. And no, I’m not bragging for brownie point on this next piece, promise. Before her third birthday she was given her final evaluation to test out of Early Steps, a program that has been following her progress since she was released from the NICU. She tested in the 5-6 year old range. She’s also been noted to have “high energy” in past evaluations. Put those all on a blender and what do you get? A child who’s favorite game is what we like to call, “seek and destroy”, when she becomes bored. So, we have to keep this little toddler as occupied as possible. She’s started preschool but because of her birthday cut off she’s in a class with much younger kids. Socially it’s great but I try to keep an eye on whether she’s challenged to avoid becoming a “behavior issue” if she gets bored.
We try to add some other fun games and learning techniques outside of school days. We have found a few games that she loves. We’ve found a few daily routines that make transitions throughout the day easier. I’ll be highlighting these in a series coming up so stay tuned.
On to Sleepless. Oh my little Sleepless monster. At 11 months old, I can count the days this little man has slept through the night on one hand! This is his biggest challenge. He’s my sweet, happy, little man during the day and a royal nighttime terror when the sun sets. I’m talking, walking and rocking at crazy hours of the night just to get him back to sleep. Still over night nursing on average 3-4 times a night at almost a year. This has been the biggest challenge of our year.
We aren’t into cry it out. Not for lack of trying. We’ve tried, my kids have stamina and I have a soft spot that can’t get past the scream fest. I don’t have a solution but your welcome on my journey to follow my attempts…the good, bad and the ugly.
More to come…welcome to our crazy life!
