3:22 am

I’m just glad we made it to almost 3:30 this morning before the battle began.  What was interesting about last night’s episode was that Oscar didn’t ramp up the anger – when he awoke at 3:22 am, he knew he wasn’t getting a bottle, and he was mad.  We did the yelling thing for a while, I tried to walk with him, but he was arching his back and that didn’t work.  I turned to the only thing that helped us through the jetlag when we returned from VN – those music channels (the ones without videos) on tv.  We listened/watched some country music, which made him stop crying immediately, and he was out within 20 minutes.  All in all, probably lasted an hour.

I’m giving this through the weekend.  Our pediatrician has been pushing to cut the nighttime bottle for months.  She wants me to cut out all bottles, which we’re not doing, but in particular the nighttime one.  Oscar gets a bottle in the afternoon and one at bedtime; he also gets milk when he asks for it during the day, so I know he’s getting enough of it there.  It’s not the nutrition that concerns me.

What I worry about is whether this is doing him emotional harm.  We don’t cry it out in our house.  I’m not judging you if you do it; it’s just that we had significant difficulties attaching in the beginning and I’ve been wary of doing anything to jeopardize where we’ve come.  I still wear him in the sling, we’re still co-sleeping and if he cries, I comfort him immediately.  I suppose I’m doing the “attachment parenting” thing, but I hate that label.  It’s just so exclusive.  It’s almost like it’s saying that if you don’t follow these rules you won’t attach, which is far from the truth. 

There are obviously some considerations here that come into play because Oscar was adopted.  What I wonder about is whether I’m taking things too far.  Am I too scared of Oscar crying?  He has to be able to sooth himself to some extent, but I am, of course, worried about him self-soothing in the same manner he did when he was in the orphanage.  Oscar’s method of self-soothing when I got him was to hit his head (hard) and apparently just emotionally check out.  He’s broken those habits and now he does rely on me when he’s upset, which is obviously good. 

Sorry for the rambling; just trying to figure out what’s more important – a toddler with rotten teeth who knows his mom is meeting his every need immediately, but who can only sleep when he’s just had a bottle, or a toddler with a healthy mouth who knows how to fall asleep on his own and as a bonus has a mother who gets 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night.

January 15, 2009 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | attachment, Oscar, Parenting | 4 Comments