Ask Moxie

Q&A: toddler afraid of baths

Here's a classic from Donna that never loses its frustration factor:

My son used to love taking baths, and he loves being in the water in the summertime. But a few months ago, he started not enjoying the bath experience and wouldn't sit in the bath anymore. For months, I've had to wash him while he's standing in the tub. Sometimes he lets me get in with him and he'll sit on my lap, but that's not always possible and seems to be more and more inappropriate as he gets older (he's 2 years+ 4 months old). He seemed okay with the standing-up baths for a while and even played with all of his bath toys, but now he doesn't even like to get in the water at all, even with toys. I've changed the temperature of the water, thinking it was too hot for his little bottom, but that didn't help. For a while, he was okay if I let him put the soap on his hands and let him put it on himself , but now that's not even working. My husband has tried, too, but no luck. I now just give him a quick wash every few days, and shampoo his hair maybe twice a week, but he's crying the whole time. We've reduced the number of baths he gets a week so it won't stress us all out so much,  but nothing seems to help. I've exhausted all of my ideas. Any suggestions would be helpful."

Classic wisdom is that at a certain age kids get afraid of being sucked down the drain. I think sometimes thats it, but not always. We went through this same stage in which a 2 1/2-year-old wouldn't sit down in the tub. I just didn't think much about it, since Ï was too busy trying to get him to let me wash his hair, and trying to keep the two boys from splashing all the water out of the tub.

But now that I think of it, yeah, this stage was a big pain in the butt. And it was the first time around with my older son, too. I don't think I ever came up with any solution for it. I tried a bunch of different things, from cajoling, to playing games, to just muscling through the bath and hair-washing while he screamed. I think what fixed it, though, was that he grew out of it. And his younger brother is now sitting back down, and can be talked into letting me wash his hair, too (he'll be 3 in May).

So is this a universal, that they go through a phase of not liking baths, even if they'll play endlessly with other water? If your kid went through an anti-bath phase, when was it and when did s/he grow out of it? How did you cope during it?

Guest post on Timeouts

Some of you may have noticed occasional comments from Sharon Silver, the Mommy Mentor. Sharon runs a parenting consultancy called ProActive Parenting that deals specifically with discipline of toddlers and preschoolers. Did your ears prick up yet? Mine did, because the toddler age is notoriously hard to discipline. Haim Ginott stuff works fabulously on 4-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 15-year-olds, 20-year-olds and your co-workers, but there isn't much in it that's concrete enough for a 16-month-old. The gap between baby and big kid is long, and I haven't found a lot of discipline techniques that aren't either punitive and focusing on control, or comforting but laissez faire.

So when I saw that Sharon concentrates specifically on that age group, I definitely wanted to look more at what she's doing. Her philosophy is that discipline is always better than punishment, and that parents need to be teaching their kids skills for living. She says, "Discipline expresses a parent's boundaries with the emotional volume turned down." She's been working on this age since her own boys (now adults) were that age, and has come up with some solid techniques.

She offered to write something for Ask Moxie, so I tossed her a reader question about timeouts. The question is from Rosemary:

"I’ve got a 20 month old boy who is telling me he’s “Big Boy Mummy, look!” as he trundles his way through life.  He is in child-care 5 days a week and he loves going there (literally runs out of the door in the morning) My husband and I having been having a long (like 6 month long) conversation on behaviour, discipline, limit setting, exploring etc and the techniques or policies that we want to use.  No brainer – smacking is out for us.  So, that leaves time out as the next most popular strategy but we have one problem.  It just feels so darn wrong to both of us.  We know enough as parents to trust our instincts, and normally that has worked for us. But, I’m starting to doubt my judgement on this as many people whose parenting styles I admire swear by time out.   I’m not sure it is the best fit for my son.  He feels things so deeply and he is attached to us like duct tape (which is just how I like it) and I know how scared he gets when he thinks he has lost us.  He is quite happy to roam around and explore as long as he knows where we (or his child carers) are.

Taking some quiet time to calm down, I understand.  But why does it have to be removed from everyone, sitting on the bottom step or in another room and staying for a certain number of minutes.  What is time-out supposed to be achieving?  No one has given me an explanation I can really understand yet.  All the explanations I’ve heard still seem to come back to one thing:  I’m more powerful than you, and I’m going to exercise that power to banish you from my presence. I understand that he needs us to be in charge and that I actually do have power  and need to exercise it in his own interests sometimes (and we actually run a tight ship around here).  And I guess, deep in my heart of hearts, I feel like taking him to another room and dumping him for some time until he’s got himself under control just feels like plain abandonment.  I can remember times as an adult when I’ve been out of control, and if my friend or husband had just walked away from me, I don’t think it would have helped me calm down much at all.

And here’s the big kicker.  What do I use if I don’t use time out?  We’ve had lots of success with him so far, just by really listening to him, actually teaching him to do things, using lots of modelling of positive behaviour, acknowledgement of his effort and when he manages to control himself, and trying to remove the big sources of frustration and power struggles.  We try and focus on the big things and let the small ones go through to the keeper.  But will that work as he gets older?

Here's Sharon's answer:

Your post raises some really important questions about timeout, and that’s great, even if other moms don’t like that you raised the issue. Your parental intuition told you that timeout wouldn’t work well for your child. Listening to your intuition is always a good thing, even if the only result is a deeper investigation into the topic. My post also includes a response to spanking as a form of discipline. You said you don’t spank, however there are others who do.

As a society we’ve learned a great deal about preschool behavior since the days when we were being raised.

We’ve learned that parents really are a child’s first teacher. We’ve learned, that just like adults, the way you speak to a child determines whether he fights with you or listens to you. We’ve learned that a child’s foundation, the core of who he is, is being built during early childhood. A child learns whether or not her emotions are accepted or punished. She learns whether self-control is managed for her, by spanking or consistent punishment or she learns, by how her parent deals with defiance, that ultimately, she needs to control herself.

Based on all that knowledge, plus the love parents have for their child, I wonder why anyone would spank in this day and age?

As your child’s first teacher what lesson do you hope to send your child when you spank, even if done lightly? Unfortunately by the time your child becomes a preschooler he will have learned that the way to get what you want from another person is to hit them. Is that what you intended to teach?

Timeout for little people has some issues as well, let me explain.

After 17 years of teaching parenting and 29 years of raising kids, in my opinion, timeout for preschoolers, no matter how long they sit, just doesn’t work well for little people and here’s why.

Timeout was designed as a time…out for both parent and child to take a short break so they can get calmer and then come back together to resolve the situation.

That’s not the way timeout is being used today. These days timeout is being used as the “acceptable” way we punish our children, and there’s a big difference between the two.

Parents usually begin using timeout around 18-20 months because normal developmental defiance has begun to appear. Every parent I’ve ever worked with started out with the best intentions for using timeout. The parent starts out being calm, gets down to eye level, says the right words, and is as loving as possible on the way to timeout. Then as the child approaches two or three the way a parent uses timeout begins to change.

The parent’s best intentions then squarely meet the child’s developmental stage and temperament and a collision happens that goes something like this.

The child refuses to listen or cooperate; he wants what he wants. Now’s the time to teach the child about his behavior, but the screaming the child does causes the parent’s brain to become confused. The confusion from the crying, screaming or constant demanding stops the parent’s ability to think clearly about what to do next. Not being able to decide what to do next makes the parent frustrated or angry, and can cause yelling to begin. The parent is unconsciously hoping that the yelling will be the magic key that when inserted into timeout will end this, sooner rather than later, so this can be done.

Unfortunately the yelling upsets the preschooler, possibly to the point of hysteria. I don’t know too many adults that enjoy being screamed at when they’re upset either! The crying causes the preschooler to revert back to a younger emotional place, just to survive the yelling.

You know that emotional place; it’s what’s going on when you say to your preschooler “why are you acting like a baby?” or “stop crying, you're acting like a baby!”

In order to survive the yelling, the preschooler shuts herself down and stops listening.

Ladies, you know this one well; we’ve been accusing men of this for years!

Because the child has difficulty processing her crying, your yelling and thinking at the same time, a preschooler is forced to gain more of the information about the situation from your body language and tone of voice than from your words. And since she’s young and still relies on immature reasoning, what has she learned? All that she has learned is when I cry or don’t do as I’m told, I’m sent away from you—to a place called timeout.

No real learning has occurred. The child has no idea what she’s supposed to do instead. The child was never allowed to try again so she could learn how to manage her emotions and resolve it in a better way next time.

Then the behavior happens again and she’s sent to timeout, again. Her behavior is stopped, for the moment, but she still hasn’t learned how to manage this so it doesn’t happen again, and this goes on day in and day out.

When you see it broken down this way you understand how young a preschooler really is, and you begin to wonder, does timeout work well for preschoolers, is there a better way?

The answer lies in this statement; sometimes the best way to get a child to do something is to speak their language.

I believe that preschoolers need corrections to be made at the preschool level. Don’t forget, your preschooler has only been on the planet for a few years. Even though he’s walking, talking, potty trained and maybe in preschool, he isn’t as old as he looks, especially when it comes to discipline and the ability to change behavior.

Why do I say this, because adults have the ability to use reason and logical thinking; preschoolers haven’t even developed the ability to use logic, and that doesn’t begin until around age 7.

Does that mean you can’t use timeout? No it doesn’t mean that at all. It just means that a better way to use timeout would be to match the concept with a preschooler’s developmental needs.

Just like our computers, I believe that it’s time for “timeout” to get an upgrade!

Here are three things I think need to be included in preschool timeouts.

1. The teaching a parent does needs to be done at the preschool level. An emotional child learns best when information is scaled down to just a few words and the words are something the child can understand even through the tears, words like sit down, no hitting, or use your words, versus that’s not appropriate.

2. The amount of time a child sits in timeout really can be much shorter than 1 minute per age. Having a child sit in timeout for a shorter period of time takes advantage of what I call “child time”, the true amount of time your preschooler can pay attention and hear you when she’s emotional.

3. The ability to “try again” needs to be included with your discipline.

Saying to a child, “you need to try again and show Mommy how you wait for a cookie instead of grabbing one from sister”, needs to be included so a child can learn what you expect them to do instead of what they did.

Deciding how you’re going to correct your child can seem over whelming at times, especially if you and your husband have different points of view or if you feel forced to use something that just doesn’t feel right.

Reading this gave me a big a-ha moment about the need to give the child the chance to correct his/her behavior. That turns the whole situation into a "do over" instead of a big crying scene that just makes everyone feel like a wounded jerk.

Definitely check out Sharon's site www.ProActiveParenting.net, where she has some great free resources (including a PDF about discipline vs. punishment that contains the insightful idea that discipline gives parents choices about how to handle a situation instead of locking them into one course of action) and some awesome paid downloads on a bunch of different discipline topics. She's also doing two parenting seminars in Phoenix, AZ on April 2 and 3, if anyone in the area is interested.

Now you guys know who she is, so when you see her comments here you'll know she's one of us, just a generation ago!

Comments on timeouts, or the difficulties of dealing with the toddler and preschooler years?

The right way

I've been getting a lot of emails lately in which the writer says some version of "I just want to do this the right way" (meaning parenting).

The right way.

The right way is what works for you and your child and your family.

The right way for you is not the exact same right way as the right way for your neighbor, your sister, your best friend.

The right way with your first child is not the right way with your second child or third child or thirteenth child.

The right way is what allows you to be true to yourself and honor your child at the same time, as much as you can, in the middle of situations that should be against the Geneva Convention.

The right way doesn't have anything to do with pacifiers, or putting a baby down asleep or awake, or when your baby is out of diapers, or whether your baby watches TV or not.

The right way is about learning more about yourself and using that knowledge to learn about your child. And then taking that knowledge of your child and using it to learn more about yourself.

The right way is having a long conversation with this amazing little person you've been entrusted with. Sometimes the conversation gets rough and you get tired and angry at each other, but you keep talking. And the conversation just gets more and more interesting as you go along.

For me, the right way is that my mom learned how to text as soon as she figured out that that's easier for me at work than talking.

I don't know if I'm doing it the right way at any given time with my kids, but the conversation seems to be going well, so I'm trusting that I'm doing fine.

Do you want to share your experience of the right way?

Potty training when you can't control all the variables

It seems like the parenting zeitgeist is all about potty training lately. I got three questions on the same day about potty training last week, and have been thinking about it a lot myself lately because my son will be three in May and isn't out of diapers. Then yesterday I spent the afternoon with my BFF and her husband and son, who is almost three and still not completely potty-trained.

As long-time readers know, my older son pretty much potty-trained himself. He started wanting to try it at 16 months and was just really into all things potty. He'd be our bathroom attendant and hand us the toilet paper, stop to observe dogs pooping and peeing on the street, and watch the Bear in the Big Blue House "Potty Time" DVD on a continuous loop. He was in underpants by 27 months during the day, and by 32 months at night.

So I've got nothing, because I didn't really do much of anything other than go with his interests.

The younger one is more of a challenge, though. His personality is completely different, and he really isn't convinced there are any benefits to being in underpants. Plus I'm at work all day now, so I don't have the same ability to control the situation on a micro level. And it's harder to just leave him in underpants all day and not worry about accidents, since we have to leave the house more to work around his older brother's school schedule.

We've talked here about potty training several times in the past few years, and as usual you guys have been a font of information and experience. I'd like to open up another discussion about it, but pick your brains for ideas about training a non-only child who is at the whim of an older child's schedule, and also for training a child (who isn't so sure about it) when there's a childcare issue involved.

Help?

Q&A: introducing nuts at a year, plus a question about post format for the readers

Sorry about skipping yesterday. I was off work to take everyone to the dentist, and thought I'd have time to write a post in the morning. Ha. No one had any cavities, but it was a loooong day for me.

Here's an admin question from Rachel:

"Adore your site, adore your advice, but is there anything I can to do convince you to split up the multi-part posts?  I mean the ones where you put out three or four unrelated topics in one post.  Instead, if you have a lot on your mind, could you put up multiple posts in one day?  That way people could comment on the different topics separately.

Part of what's great about AskMoxie is the sustained conversation that goes on in the comments, and if there are multiple topics, you lose that continuity.  Yesterday was particularly distressing to me on that front, because the very personal and worried-sounding post about sex dreams got swamped by everyone talking about T-Tapp.  Both interesting, but they really didn't belong on the same plate.

Thanks for considering it."

What do you guys think? I was putting them all together figuring people wouldn't want to have to click on multiple posts, plus the ones below the first one just wouldn't get viewed. What do you guys think? (And can I just say how much I love that my readers don't just write in saying "I luuuuv you" or "You suck," but instead give thoughtful comments with well-reasoned positions? It makes me feel special.) I'll go with what the crowd wants.

And now, especially to annoy Rachel and people who agree with her (ha! not really, just because it's a shortish question and I don't actually have a real answer) is a question from Kate about nuts:

"At our daughter's one-year well check today, we discovered that she hadn't grown much since her nine-month appointment.  She's not falling off the charts, but has slid down considerably.  The pediatrician wasn't too concerned but suggested making everything J. eats count, meaning that we should give her as much healthy high-fat, high-calorie food as she'll eat.  I was shocked when the pediatrician recommended nut butters.  We've all heard the no-nuts-until-age-three mantra repeated ad nauseum, but our doctor claims that the latest research shows that it really doesn't make any difference whether you introduce nut products to your child sooner rather than later, as long as the child's parents and siblings don't have nut allergies.  I'd be curious to know whether you or any commenters have heard this, and if following said wisdom has backfired on anyone."

Maybe my brain is just fried from too much time at the dentist's office, but I think my pediatrician said a year for holding off on nuts way back when my older son was a baby. And we never asked if there were any revised guidelines for my younger one, mostly because he grabbed a hunk of his brother's peanut butter and honey (yeah, I know) sandwich when he was 6 months old and shoved it into his mouth. Yeesh. But I've been laboring under the impression that it was one or two years for nuts, not three.

Anyway, my thought is that they're now finding out that the nut allergies are a gene, so that they're something you either have or don't, not something that you develop from too-early or repeated exposure. Who knows if that's what's going to shake out to be the recommendation in 10 years, but I'm guessing that's where your ped is going with this.

The bottom line is, though, that if you don't feel comfortable introducing nuts to your daughter, don't. I mean, there are tons of people who don't want to give their kids juice, or trans fats, or meat, or things that aren't kosher, or brussels sprouts, or whatever. And no one should feel forced to give their kids something they don't want to, as long as the child's nutritional needs are being covered and there's no food coercion going on.

So go with avocado (tons and tons of vitamins, plus good-for-you fats) until you feel fine with nuts (if ever) and be thankful that you have a pediatrician who sounds so a) sensible and b) up on the latest research. Perhaps we can clone her/him.

Comments?

Q&A: Do I have to go outside?

If you watched "Persuasion" last night on PBS, check out the piece I wrote for the PBS.org blog.

Christiana writes:

"I am 33 weeks pregnant with my first child and have been reading books/websites on pregnancy, breastfeeding, and child-rearing for awhile. I love Ask Moxie and am hoping you can help with my current question that I haven't yet seen in any of my books.

I'm not an outdoorsy person. At all. Never really have been, though I remember spending the normal school-time amounts of time outside, going to parks, etc. as a child. But I was always of the opinion that if I could have the choice of indoor or outdoor activities, I would always choose indoor. (Part of this may be attributed to my extremely fair skin that would burn easily and I have always lived in FL so sun and heat have always been a big part of the weather here, but part of it was just my personality. I don't like heat, to sweat, to get dirty, etc.)

But I know it's healthy for kids to spend time outside and not cooped up indoors 24/7. So what do I do about exposing my child to the great outdoors while not driving myself insane? I'm obviously capable of slathering on my own sunscreen at this point in my life, so I'm not quite as worried about getting my own self sunburned (and I know there are plenty of parks and the like that have a ton of shade to keep the sun away from the children). Am I one of the few mothers that deal with this issue, or are there plenty of others who can't really bear the thought of spending tons of time outside with the bugs, the dirt, the heat and the like?"

I am fair-skinned and light-eyed and burn easily, so I hear you on the sun aversion thing. And I'm not crazy about bugs and sweat, either.

The good news about little kids, though, is that for a long time they don't really care where they are, as long as they're with you. And then by the time they're old enough to care, they're taking naps during the hottest time of the day. So you can be outside playing in the morning, but then by 10 or 11 you have to go inside so you can have lunch and then have naptime. And by the time naptime is over the worst sun of the day is over.

If you do have to spend time outside in the sun and heat, your own problems with it will probably help you know how to pace your child. Both of my own kids would just play and play outside until they keeled over from heatstroke, so I think my built-in annoyance with too much sun was good for them. They learned pretty quickly that after awhile out in the sun at the playground we'd go inside to have an ice cream, and I've never had more than a slight pinkness on either one of them. You'll be happy to be so aware because it'll help you avoid problems.

Every locale has areas that parents and kids congregate in to beat the heat, whether it's the public library, a chain bookstore, an indoor farmer's market, big box retailers, museums, the mall, or any other big building. If you can learn to balance time in these big spaces with outdoor time at non-peak hours, your kids will be happy as clams and never notice that they're not spending eight hours at the playground.

People in hot climates: What do you do to beat the heat, since you can't stay in your houses 24/7?

People in cold climates: What do you do when it's cold, so you don't end up with cabin fever?

(One of my favorite indoor places in NYC is Chelsea Market, between 15th and 16th Streets and 9th and 10th Aves. It's just a big long food court, but there are plenty of nooks and crannies for kids to play in, an amazing ice cream place, and enough other food that you could spend the entire day there eating.

Another one of my favorites is the Natural History Museum, because it's just so cavernous, and kids love all the dioramas and the dinosaur bones.)

Q&A: 20-month-old afraid of an 8-month-old?

Shelley writes:

"I have a 20 month old son and an 8 month old daughter. My son runs and hides behind me and screams frantically whenever my daughter crawls towards him.  What’s up with this?"

Heh. I'm imagining your daughter as a pint-sized Godzilla, storming through Tokyo as your son cowers behind Century Tower.

I think he's probably scared because she's crawling, and that just freaks him out. It's the same reason some adults freak out when we see a mouse running across the floor or a large spider crawling on the wall. Even though we're way bigger than the mouse or the spider, it's the crawling aspect and the "otherness" that scares us.

I have no idea what to do about it, really until she starts to walk, at which point I'm pretty sure he'll stop being afraid of her. Maybe some of the readers have a suggestion about what to do to stop the screaming and cowering? I'll just tell you to make sure you videotape his reaction at least once, because it'll be priceless when they're older.

Q&A: feeding problems

Great comments yesterday. Some of you have some heavy stuff on your minds! Much worse than my "problem" of having to make several dozen Norwegian vaffler for the end-of-the-year International lunch today...

You know those composite sketches artists do? Well, I'm going to smash together a couple of emails I've gotten recently on the same topic into one post.

Several parents write some version of:

"My son is almost 2-1/2 and can use a spoon and fork just fine -- but he won't. We call it pasha mode: He waits for us to feed him, which we eventually do because we don't want every meal (especially in the morning when we're trying to get to work) to take 3 hours. Whether we sit with him or not, eat our own meals at the same time or not, offer him finger foods or food that he needs to eat with utensils (or both), he waits. Sometimes he'll start by himself and then say "You do it." It's driving us nuts! Please tell us what to do."

Pasha mode--heh. This is just the flip side of the same old control game back from this post and several others just like it. Assuming he doesn't have a metabolic or feeding disorder/allergy/GI imbalance of some sort, and it sounds like he doesn't because he lets you feed him just fine, it sounds like he's trying to exert control.

I think you have two choices (you probably have more, but these two are what I'm coming up with now): A) Keep feeding him until he grows past this stage and moves on and starts feeding himself, or B) Just ignore the food issue after you serve him his plate, and then when the meal is over clear away anything left on his plate.

Before I decided what to do, I'd check with his daycare provider (or anyone else he spends time with, if you're a SAH with this same problem) to find out how he eats for them all day. If he eats fine at school, then you know for 100% sure that it's all about control, and then it's just strategy for you. (Parenting: A Minute To Learn, A Lifetime To Master) Plus, you know that he's getting plenty of calories at daycare, so it's not going to hurt him if you choose option B above and he doesn't eat much for a few meals in a row.

If he doesn't eat all that well at daycare, and you really want to make sure he's eating a lot, then it may be worth it to you to choose A. In my mind, the problem in this situation isn't the feeding or the not feeding, but the control part of it, that you three are locked in a Battle Royale over eating. So by deciding that you will either just feed him straight off, or that you don't care how much eat eats, you remove the control as an element of the interaction.

Speaking of which, Sarah writes:

"I was wondering how to know if my baby has a feeding problem.  I know a lot of babies stop eating around a year, but I'm more concerned with the fact that my (almost) 11 month old just is not progressing from baby food to table foods AT ALL.  I have been told to "pack up" the baby food by 1 year of age and I just don't see how he won't starve if I expect him to eat only table foods in one month's time!  His repertoire of table foods is minuscule.  I wish I had never fed him the purees to start with.  I know some babies want "real food" and protest being spoonfed bland mush, but my baby is the opposite: I fear he will never move past baby cereals, which are still his staple and the only thing he eats a lot of consistently.  I don't think he has a swallowing problem, since he can manage finger feeding a total of about 5 items (toast/crackers/cheerios/muffins/quesadillas -- basically, carbs completely dry to the touch).  He has never, not once, picked up a fruit, vegetable or piece of meat and put it in his mouth.  Do I take away the baby food and hope he gets hungry enough to eat table foods?  Do I keep feeding him the jarred stuff?  Why can't this be easier???  I feel like I am losing my mind in frustration.  Any thoughts or advice?"

This, again, is all about control, but it's the control that the external culture has over Sarah in telling her there's something wrong if her son doesn't like table foods at this point.

All kids are different, just as all adults are different about what we eat and won't eat. I love tapioca pudding, but I know half of you just squirmed in horror and revulsion at the thought of tapioca. There are plenty of healthy normal children all over the world who are still consuming only breastmilk or formula up to and past a year because they're just not into food yet, even the mashed stuff. And some kids get so completely into table foods that they can barely choke down any milk once they start eating foods.

So I would pay more attention to how you feel about his eating. You know he can eat things with texture, so it sounds like he's just not choosing to. Do you feel in your gut like there's something wrong? If so, ask your pediatrician for a referral to have him tested by a speech therapist. If you don't have any strong feeling that there's anything out of place, then who cares when you're "supposed" to start feeding what? (The whole "stage" idea for jarred baby foods cracks me up because it's such a brilliant marketing gimmick.) He's going at his own pace, and it may not be what you'd like him to be doing, but he'll get there eventually. IME, some kids just sort of click into eating at around 13 months, so maybe that's what's going to happen to your guy.

For more support on following your child's lead on feeding, especially in the first year, here's the link again to my favorite study on babies and solids.

Please, everyone, contribute anecdotes about your kids' eating habits. If anyone does have kids with diagnosed feeding issues, could you walk us through how you knew and how it's resolving? I think it's helpful to have all sorts of data points so we all know what's normal, and what's normal but needs some extra help.

Q&A: Abrupt weaning, and autism (no causality!)

Hmmm. I've republished the entire website, and the comments still aren't accessible. Continuing the dialogue with Typepad's tech support people...

Katy writes:

"As there's been some talk of weaning recently, I thought I'd email and ask a question about weaning abruptly.  We recently found out that our 18 month-old son has autism.  After scrambling to get him services (speech therapy etc.), the next thing on our list is to try eliminating gluten (wheat) and casein (dairy) from his diet which has had great results in many kids on the spectrum (as a side question, I'd love to hear from people who've had positive or negative results with this kind of dietary change). 

Anyway, we decided that Christmas break would be the best time to try it as he won't be in his full-time daycare/therapy program where they give him his lunch and snacks and we'll be able to fully monitor everything he eats.  However, I'm still nursing him and my options are either to wean him or cut out gluten and casein myself, something that rather daunts me as I'm a big dairy person and the holidays seem like an extra hard time to be on a special diet. So I'm thinking of weaning him; this also seems appealing as he's become a nursing maniac in the last month, constantly lifting up my shirt and wanting to nurse, as well as waking lots in the night demanding to nurse.  I'm feeling very frustrated with him as I feel like he's constantly pawing at my body and the night nursing involves lots of sucking, snoozing and groping of my other breast - to the point that my body feels so sensitive I could scream (and, of course, I'm not getting good sleep).  So my questions then are:

  1.  Is this just an awful time to wean if he's so interested?  What's going on with this 18 month nursing mania?

2.  If I weaned him, how would I deal with the constant demands for nursing?  He has limited language so I don't know how well just telling him that he can't nurse anymore would work.  I hate the idea of just saying no to him.

3.  How would I get my milk to dry up? (Moxie, you mentioned something about mint tea in the previous message about weaning - do you have other recommendations?)"

I'm sorry you got this diagnosis, but I'm glad you have a diagnosis. I'm hoping that other parents of kids with autism will jump in with help.

Answers in the order in which the questions were asked:

1. It depends on your definition of "awful." 18 months is just a tough time all-around, and if you're still nursing, it tends to be one of those times the mother just can't deal with it anymore. So, yes, it's going to be really difficult to wean at this age because he's so needy and wants it so much. But it might be worth it for you not to have him nursing anymore. So "awful" here is totally subjective, and you get to pick your own poison.

Personally, having nursed two kids through the 18-month I-can't-stand-this-for-one-more-second, it-makes-me-feel-like-a-worn-out-old-sow, stop-stop-for-the-love-of-all-that's-holy-stop phase, I think it's easier just to self-medicate through the nursing with chocolate and do the weaning in two or three months (why is 21 months so much easier than 18?). But if you have to do it now, you have to do it now.

2. You got me. That's another reason I waited the 18-month phase out. Someone out there has done this, though, and will have something for you.

3. Bear in mind that drying up your milk is NOT going to prevent your hormones dropping when you wean, so be really aware of that and do some extra T-Tapp Hoe-Downs every day, make sure to keep up your Omega 3s and B-complex vitamins, and get as much sleep as you can. PPD on top of all of this would not be good, so do whatever you can to prevent it during the weaning process.

The things I know that help dry up milk are mint and sage, so you can brew mint tea and alternate that with "tea" you make by boiling fresh sage leaves. These aren't going to hurt the kid if you're still nursing while drying up your milk.

If you want your milk to dry up more quickly, you can take the old-fashioned Sudafed (the kind that can make you drowsy) for a few days, which will dry up every liquid in your body, so you'll need extra handcream while you're taking it. But if you're still nursing while you're taking it, it can make your child either super-drowsy or hyper, so use with caution.

All-in-all, I think weaning over Christmas is going to really suck. But going off dairy and wheat yourself is going to really suck, too (eggnog! Christmas cookies!).  If it were me, I'd probably delay the entire project until January, but  you just have to decide which is going to cause the least problems for you.

Now, I'd really like to hear from parents of kids with autism, specifically about navigating the condition, and especially about dietary changes that can help. Thank you guys so much.

Q&A: weaning, or not weaning?

Stephanie writes:

"I’ve been reading your advice since my baby was born 11 months ago. We are approaching the 1 year mark and I can’t quit thinking about how to wean, when to wean, etc. I’m conflicted about stopping and can’t even fathom how I would ever do it. On one hand, I would like my breasts back (as would my husband). I would like to (but don’t necessarily need to) do some work again and be able to leave her with a sitter. And, I’d like to have 6 months or so breastfeeding free before I start trying for another baby and I’d like to start that this summer. OTOH, I don’t want to stop breastfeeding before my daughter is ready. Although, she does eat a variety of solid foods and enjoys them, she is also not showing any signs of stopping breastfeeding. We also nurse for naps and I feel like stopping will make my life so much harder during the day. Additionally, my mom just found out she has breast cancer (non-invasive) and I’ve read how breastfeeding is a protective factor against breast cancer and since I have several other risk factors (started my period early, had my first baby over 30, family history), I feel like I should breastfeed as long as possible. 

In my life before motherhood, I always thought extended breastfeeding seemed weird, but I currently see no end in sight. It seems like so many moms I know said their baby just wanted to stop between 11-13 months. I don’t see that happening with my daughter.

I would love to hear your experience of when your babies were ready to wean and your readers as well.  I’d also like some advice on how to reply to people who say, “You’re still breastfeeding???” Thanks!"

I think we should just call Stephanie "Everywoman," because that's about the most concise summary of the classic set of conflicts between wanting to wean and wanting to keep nursing that I've heard.

(Am I the only one who feels sad that 11 months is considered "extended" breastfeeding? It's such a tiny slice of their lives, even if each feeding seems like an eternity sometimes.)

Anyway, it sounds like you want to do some kind of partial weaning plan. You could go down to one or two nursing sessions a day to keep the benefits, while still having your body back somewhat. Once you're down to those few feedings, you can decide if you're comfortable keeping with those for awhile longer, or if you want to wean completely. And weaning down from two feedings to nothing is lots easier than trying to get down from more feedings to none.

I think weaning is another one of those things that we think of as all-or-nothing, but unless you have to wean completely cold turkey for some medical or logistical reason, you can do it gradually enough that it doesn't feel like such a hard choice. (Let me say once again that if you have the time, it's an extremely good idea to wean gradually over the course of a few weeks. Weaning cold turkey can give you mastitis--which was worse for me than two unmedicated labors--and can also make your hormones drop so strongly that you could get thrown into PPD. Over a few weeks you can cut down a feeding every few days and dry up your milk using mint and sage tea enough to help prevent mastitis and PPD.)

So, back to the logistics. I'd figure out if there are a few sessions that you can drop in the next couple of weeks. The ideal candidates would be sessions that she doesn't seem to care about so much, but that make you nuts. I think if it were me, I'd keep the nap nursing sessions because you know you can get her down easily that way. Since the purpose of weaning is to make things easier, having to create a whole new nap routine seems counter-productive.

I think you should spend the next few days doing some careful observation about what sessions she seems attached to, and what sessions are making you jump out of your skin (if you're at that point). That'll tell you where to start working on the weaning.

Any comments or suggestions? I feel like 11 months is one of those points at which moms are starting to get really sick of nursing (18 months is another huge one). How did you make the decision to stop or not, and how did you make weaning the easiest possible on everyone?