The Age of Reasoning

Last night was a first. It started out normal enough when the kids when to bed. Calina stirred a little bit before we went to bed, but that isn't uncommon at all. When Andy and I went to bed we realized that we had forgotten to give Calina her dose of antibiotic that night. We were both tired and thinking that it wouldn't be worth waking her up for it. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately) she woke up around midnight, so I decided to give her the medicine since she was awake anyway.

As a background, I have been nursing Calina asleep since she was brand new. She's never really been put asleep any other way, except for an occasional night when her mommy is not around and she goes to bed with a bottle. Also, I stopped pumping at work last month, so my milk supply is waning, and I pretty much just have enough to feed her once while she is going to bed and again when she wakes up...no more.

So anyway, last night she woke up and I gave her the medicine and was trying to comfort her back to sleep, so I made a bottle for her. She didn't want ANYTHING to do with it. She was VERY ANGRY with me that I wasn't feeding her in the "normal" way. So I put her in her crib and went to bed. Obviously, she wasn't happy about that either. By this time Cambrie was awake and yelling at her to be quiet. So they sat in their room for a few minutes yelling and screaming until I finally got out of bed again and tried to get Calina to sleep. She was still VERY ANGRY that I wansn't breast feeding her and DIDN'T want the bottle. So, at my wits end, I looked at her and said firmly (but nicely), "Do you want to go back in your crib?" Well, I think the message got through! I didn't expect it to, but it did! She clung to me just like she does when she knows I need to put her down, and I continued, "Calina, you need to calm down and go to sleep or I will have to put you back in your crib." So after that, she calmed down and went to sleep. This is the FIRST time I've been able to reason Calina out of a fit!! YAY!