Parenting Survival: When My Toddler Can't Sleep

The Toddler was up at 2am so we went out to listen for frogs. Unfortunately, the frogs in the ditch seemed to be fast asleep. We settled for waking up all the animals in the barn. We got the rooster crowing nicely and the goats got up to pee and poop. Then we turned off the barn light and went out again, leaving them all wide awake. None of it woke the frogs.

Inside the house, we cooked plantain because the Toddler was famished. 

 

Toddler: Friends X and Y were here, but not right now.

Me: No, not right now. You know why?

Toddler: X and Y are sleeping!

Me: YES!!!

Smiles and cuddles. Yawn.

 

ALL this started because Toddler woke up wanting to nurse and in my groggy state I didn't notice that the damn supplementer tube was pulled out of the water and not working, which led to much screaming. Not your average breastfeeding problems, yet somehow I am certain every parent has been there done that in some similar fashion.

Now she has nursed back to sleep and is using my belly for her pillow.

Supplementer? Toddler? Yes. After relying on it heavily when she was an infant, we just have not been able to shed the tube. It is part of our nursing relationship, even though the "supplement" is water. She is about the best hydrated kid I know, and I suspect the water is alright for her teeth, too.

Breastfeeding: My ultimate parenting tool

I am so grateful for nay-nay. That's Jacob's term for nursing, one that he started using about two weeks ago. Before that, I relied on cues like his thumb sucking and pulling at my shirt buttons to figure out when he wanted to breastfeed.


We've entered a new stage of toddlerhood that I'm told is normal, and familiar to parents everywhere. It's called "NNNNNNNNOO!" It is accompanied by furrowed little eyebrows, pursed lips, and flailing arms and legs.

This morning when we woke up, I tried to kiss Jacob on the forehead, and he said, "NNNNNOO!" I asked him, "Do you want eggs or oatmeal for breakfast?" I got, "NNNNNOO!" Later, he brought me his boots, and I said, "Good idea, we'll go outside," to which he responded, "NNNNOO!" In the afternoon, I said, "I love you, you're sooooo sweet," and, you can guess it, he replied, "NNNNNOO!"

Mercifully, he is almost always happy to nurse, and frequently asks for his nay-nay. In these moments of peace that punctuate Jacob's otherwise limitless and energetic curiosity, I know that he loves me. He is busier than any person I know, constantly exploring the world and striving to be independent, until he insists that he needs nay-nay.

I need it, too. Nursing is my most effective parenting tool. When Jacob is overwhelmed with frustration over having to take turns with a toy or eat only one treat instead of ALL the treats, we can turn to nay-nay to cope with the exploding emotions.

I once read a wonderful essay on this subject by Ruth Kamnitzer, a Canadian woman raising her child in Mongolia. She described how Mongolian mothers and even grandmas and grandpas literally wave their breasts around to try to distract toddlers in the middle of an argument. Instead of tediously explaining how to share, over and over again, they simply breastfeed, with a 100% success rate. Finally, I understand this anecdote on a personal level. I can open my shirt and point to my nipples, saying "nay-nay!" and thereby get Jacob to calm down and nurse.

In public, I don't often use nay-nay as a parenting tool, but I know that it is available in my repertoire if we need it. Tonight, for example, a well-meaning stranger tried to pick Jacob up to help him into a shopping wagon. He turned and ran from her, utterly terrified. As I held him, he gasped for breath and said a broken "nay-nay," a request that I couldn't possibly deny. I unzipped my winter coat and sweater and nursed him at the check-out counter. I waited for Ian to pay, and then we walked out of the store together, Jacob still nursing, his sobs slowing down. Ian smiled at us and nodded, agreeing, "Nay-nay."

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Saying No to Nursing for the First Time

Yesterday we had to take our dog to the vet. We had a 10am appointment, but Jacob decided to have a party from 5am to 8:30am, after waking every half hour to nurse throughout the first part of the night. I think somebody was processing his Halloween experience (no, he didn't have much candy at all). I called the vet to get a later appointment and we all slept in.

Minutes before our new and improved appointment time, I was still scrambling to get everyone ready. Diaper (we don't tend to bother with them in our own house), two layers of pants, socks, shoes, sweater, coat, and the hat and mitts that my boy won't wear but I feel I should have with me so that I don't look like quite such a neglectful parent. What can they say if the mitts on a string are dangling from his sleeves? I'm trying, right?? I whip his hat out of my pocket and stick it on him when someone walks by, and then he promptly rips it off. Somehow we WILL get this figured out by the time it gets dangerously cold here.

I got my own shoes on, found the dog's leash under a mountain of toys, and was finally putting on my coat when Jacob pointed at the zipper I was doing up. He started to pull it down. "You want to nurse?" He nodded. Now? "We can't right now. We're late. We really have to go. We're going to the vet's office – maybe you can pet the cat. Would you like that?" He nodded again. For pretty much the first time ever, I said we couldn't nurse right then. I offered to trade nursing for a cat, and it worked!

We rushed down the road and coaxed the dog into the vet's office (at least this time I didn't have to carry all forty pounds of her AND the toddler up the stairs). I thought we might have a moment to nurse while we waited, but since we were late, we were ushered straight into an exam room. The vet came right in, and Jacob was well enough distracted by all the goings-on. As we were wrapping up our conversation, Jacob zipped open my sweater and started pulling at my shirt. The vet smiled and said, "He just wants to be really close right now doesn't he?" I SO didn't feel like explaining that I'm trans, had this baby myself, and yes, still breastfeed him at 18 months. I zipped my sweater back up and cuddled him instead, which more or less worked.

Nursing is the fastest way to get Jacob to sleep

By the time we got back home and sat down for a nice, unhurried nursing, over an hour had passed since he had first asked. It is incredible to think of how this has changed since the newborn days when waiting a few extra seconds to get the supplement from the fridge seemed like a disaster. This is the beginning of a gradual, gentle weaning process that I expect will take years. If Jacob had fallen and bonked his head and NEEDED to nurse at the vet's office, I would have done it no matter what. Had he badly wanted to nurse for any reason, we would have nursed. But this time he didn't. While typing this post, I've been holding him asleep on my chest, and we've nursed a few times when he fussed over the last hour. I'm sure we've got hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of nursing time yet to come, but things are starting to shift.

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I LOVE Toddler Nursing

Nursing my kiddo has never been more fun than it is now.

Boy covers my nipple with his hands. Looks at me. Grins. I show my surprise and confusion: "Where, oh, where did my nipple go? I just can't seem to find it anywhere!" Boy takes his hands away, with a triumphant ta-da type gesture. I demonstrate my delight: "Oh, there's my nipple!" Repeat in classic peekaboo-with-toddler fashion.

Boy looks at my nipple. Yep, he's got that I'm-about-to-latch look on his face. He obviously wants to nurse. He leans in, kisses my nipple, and then pops back up and laughs uproariously. He tricked me! Repeat and repeat.

Some of the best moments of all happen after my boy has had a usual toddler tumble. He reaches up for my arms. Once I'm holding him, his right thumb goes in his mouth and his left hand searches through my shirt buttons. "Do you want to nurse?" I ask him. He nods his head quickly between full body sobs. There is no more guessing – he knows what he wants and how to tell me. He can affirm that, yes, absolutely yes, the only thing that will do right now is nursing.

We started out assuming we would formula-feed with bottles, and now I'm nursing an 18-month-old. I can't wait to see where the rest of this amazing parenting journey will take us.