Mommy Konfessions: First Child Mistakes

When I first became a mom I read all the books and blogs about babies and toddlers and I thought I had it all figured out. I was still scared to death, but I really thought I had it all under control.

Well, there's nothing like some time and a second child to realize how wrong I was.

My boys

I've made so many stupid little mistakes with William that I am now trying to rectify with Jacob. Just to list a few:

• Allowing him to watch too much TV
• Letting him have a binkie for so long
• Letting him have a bottle in bed
• Not enforcing table manners
• Not taking care of his teeth from the beginning
• Letting him graze all day long

You know, stuff like that.

And at the time that I did, or did not, do these things with Will, it all made sense. He loved his binkie from day one. It kept him happy and calm. As he got older and could hold his own bottle, and then sippy cup, he wouldn't sleep without it. Letting him graze all day, in front of the TV and not really forcing him to sit and eat meals with the family made him happy.

But the bottom line here is, I was being partially lazy and just willing to keep him happy so that he wouldn't scream and cry all the time. This stuff starts so innocently. I worked during the first year of Will's life and hated it. So by the time he was a year and a half and I became a stay at home mom, I spoiled him out of guilt.

It just became easy to give him what he wanted. It wasn't until we were around other people that I realized that William was the person in control in our relationship. And then I had Jacob and I realized that my kids needed more discipline. And so I tried.

But it's still so hard during the first year of any baby's life. You can't really spoil an infant and they are so demanding, I just got used to giving Jacob, and Will, anything they wanted. It felt easy, at the time. Until I realized I was pretty much their slave, and I did not like that feeling.

Now that William is four and Jacob almost two, I see more and more the mistakes I made. It is so hard to try to fix those things, but it is absolutely necessary. So now, the TV is turned off at 3 pm everyday, no matter what. I've begun regulating their meal and snack times. We already broke Will of his binkie and then bottle-in-bed habits, but we still need to break Jacob of having milk in bed.

Damage has already been done to William's teeth, but we now brush everyday and so does Jacob. And I'm sure as time goes on, I'll find more stuff that I wish I had tackled earlier in their lives.

So to all my fellow parents out there, know this: You will make mistakes with the first, maybe even second, child. Those mistakes are fixable. It'll be a lot of work, but worth it. So just keeping working on doing what you think is best for your child.

What are some things you realize now that you could have done better when first became a parent? Leave a comment! Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Potty Training & Advice

NOTE: I apologize to any of my readers who aren't parents or who just don't care about this kind of stuff. You can always check out The Writing Blog. :)

We have made a great big step in potty training this week. William is consistently pooping in the potty and hasn't had any accidents of any kind in almost a week. Trust me, a week is a long time in Potty Training Land.

When I started potty training (and I say the rest of this as someone who's still in the thick of it, this stuff ain't over by any means) I did a ton of research about when to know your child is ready and how to go about it and all that jazz. And the one thing I saw repeated over and over is to trust your instincts.

There are some other basics to getting started. Like:

A. Be sure your child can communicate well. There's a lot of explaining that needs to be done. Your child should be able to understand you and vise-versa.

B. Persistence  Once you start, don't give up. Take breaks if you need to, if you or your toddler is just too stressed out by the whole thing. But don't give up.

C. And as I said, trust your instincts. You know your child better than anyone else. You'll know when they're ready and you'll know what strategy will work best to help them learn.

The strategy we've used for Will has been pretty straight forward. In the beginning I had (still have) a potty seat in the living room and I'd make him sit on it ever half hour or so. Every 15 minutes kind of drove me crazy. We also spent a few days running around commando so he didn't have the security of going in his pants.

Once he went in the potty properly we celebrated and rewarded him with cookies. Will loves cookies. After a while he began to understand that going potty=cookies and began to go as often as possible.

Learning to poop took a little longer. We began using a chart to mark when he went potty and when he had accidents. I think that was more for me than him, but he likes getting stars. And then I began not letting him do anything in the morning until he pooped in the potty. Again he went pantless. Will loves his TV time in the morning and was willing to do whatever it took to get his TV.

It did not take long. Within a day he got the idea and being rewarded with TWO cookies after pooping is the best!

So now, my next step is to get the potty seat from the living room to the bathroom. Will's going to miss being able to watch shows and potty at the same time, but that's what books are for!

In other kid news, Jacob now has two teeth and is this close to walking on his own. I'm kind of freaking out about having two little ones walking around. Things were easier when Jacob couldn't move much.

And that's what my life has been consumed with lately.

Thanks for reading! Happy Thursday!