Tag Archives: mumsnet

Why toddlers are like empty boats

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I’m holding myself back from delving too deeply into the “feral toddler” panic that certain media outlets have whipped up. But to paraphrase:  taking her cues from the French system (as she did regarding childcare ratios for the under-fives), Elizabeth Truss has decided that UK nurseries are too rowdy, and that small children should be more settled, calm, and taught more formally. I really can’t comment much on this as there is such a disparity between nurseries – some are overcrowded hellholes that I wouldn’t want to send my hamster to, while others are  kind, caring environments that alternate between “quiet time” and more boisterous playing. If you want to read more about it, there’s a good thread over on Mumsnet to read.

But I read an article by Leo Balbuta today (regular readers of this blog will know I’m a fan) which prompted something of a lightbulb moment. I’m going to copy some of the article here as he describes it beautifully:

“In her book Everyday Zen, Charlotte Joko Beck tells a story that I’ll paraphrase here:

“Imagine you’re rowing a boat on a foggy lake, and out of the fog comes another boat that crashes into you! At first you’re angry at the fool who crashed into you — what was he thinking! You just painted the boat. But then you notice the boat is empty, and the anger leaves … you’ll have to repaint the boat, that’s all, and you just row around the empty boat. But if there were a person steering the boat, we’d be angry!

“Here’s the thing: the boat is always empty. Whenever we interact with other people who might “do something to us” (be rude, ignore us, be too demanding, break our favorite coffee cup, etc.), we’re bumping into an empty boat. We just think there’s some fool in that boat who should have known better, but really it’s just a boat bumping into us, no harm intended by the boat.

“That’s a hard lesson to learn, because we tend to imbue the actions of others with a story of their intentions, and how they should have acted instead. We think they’re out to get us, or they should base their lives around being considerate to us and not offending us. But really they’re just doing their thing, without bad intent, and the boat just happens to bump into us.

“When we see things with this lens, they suddenly become emptied of anger and stress. Our boss was rude? Empty boat, just respond appropriately, don’t imbue with a story. Kid throws a tantrum? Empty boat, just breathe and find the appropriate, non-angry response.

“This is detachment. It’s seeing the actions and words of others as just phenomena happening outside of us, like a leaf falling or the wind blowing. We don’t get angry at the wind for blowing, and yet the blowing does affect us. Let the actions of your kid be the wind blowing — you just need to find an appropriate response, rather than being stressed that this phenomenon is happening.

“So when your kid is doing something other than what you’d like, let go of that desired outcome that’s stressing you out, and let go of the story you’ve imbued into their actions. Just think, “Empty boat, wind blowing.”

“And then give them a hug. Let love guide your actions. Teach, don’t control. Set an example of how they should behave with your compassionate response. They’re watching you, not listening to your words, and that’s how they learn.”

I absolutely love this – and of course, it’s applicable to all life situations, not just when the kids are driving you mad. It’s so easy to attribute negative intentions to other people’s actions – the word “thoughtless” is used as a pretty damning description of someone’s behaviour. But taken literally, it means the other person wasn’t thinking of harming you – knowing this, your reaction may be less hostile, more muted. My young children push my buttons all the time, but I will try to keep this in mind when they’re doing something I think they “shouldn’t’.

 

Acknowledging the link between reflux and PND

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This post on Mumsnet has prompted me to examine the link between infant reflux and PND. I’m not going to add my comment to the thread itself as it would make me identifiable in RL, but my heart went out to the poster. She talks about her daughter’s silent reflux and her resulting PND being much easier to cope with when the baby is feeding well.

My youngest son has reflux – and has had from about 3 weeks of age. Its severity when he was a very tiny baby was such that he was an inpatient at the hospital for a month from the age of about six weeks. He has been on adult strength antacid medication since then and shows no signs of needing it less.

The impact on our family life of this condition has been huge. I have chronicled B’s sleep problems enough not to go on about it again here, but one reason we have failed to act decisively about sleep training is because we are always second guessing whether he is crying because of acid pain, or for other reasons. At almost two, he is still too young to tell us what is going on, so a lot of it is guesswork.

But in the early months, it was so much worse. Seeing your baby screaming in pain almost 24/7 is extremely traumatic. He had to be held upright all the time, which has given my partner a chronic back/shoulder condition. Breastfeeding was a nightmare and seeing him screaming while attached to my body was a major factor in stopping (not to mention unsuccessful breastfeeding being a key indicator of PND). No amount of “help” could alleviate the agony of seeing him in so much pain, and my inability to do anything about it. It’s impossible to feel good about life and about yourself when you have “failed” at such a basic and instinctive task – keeping your baby safe from harm. All I could try and do was cope. And then deal with the guilt I felt about my powerlessness.

Things have improved hugely since then. In the daytime at least, B is a very happy toddler. His screams currently stem from his being nearly two and angry at the world for not indulging his every whim, and not physical pain. This is due in part to medication, and in part to his body gradually maturing. At once stage he looked like a candidate for surgery, but that possibility has receded. It is now about managing symptoms with as little medical intervention as possible.

But the early mental scars remain. I still panic when I see him refluxing (made worse when teething or ill). It taps into a very dark part of my psyche, one that wants to shut off and ignore the reality because I can’t bear my baby’s pain. The original poster probably will never read this blog, but across the ether I wish her well, and hope both the PND and reflux improve. TIme is certainly a healer on both counts, but it is an issue that I think should be flagged up to GPs and other HCPs when dealing with babies with chronic and painful conditions.

Present and incorrect

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As the second half of October approaches, familiar feelings of dread and mild panic assail my consciousness. Why? Because December means birthdays and Christmas. And that means PRESENTS.

The very act of writing this has me reaching for the smelling salts. You could reasonably argue that it is partially of my own doing, contriving to get pregnant in March of 2008 and 2010, therefore ensuring that both my children (as well as ME, goddamit!) have December birthdays.

Thing is, I am not a scrooge by nature. I’m just incredibly lazy. And the prospect of shopping for birthday and Christmas presents for my nuclear family alone (let alone extended family and friends and my children’s friends) is sending me over the edge. How is any bugger expected to afford it, for a start? Over on Mumsnet there are threads about whether £100 is too little to spend on individual presents for the children. I do sometimes feel as though I am living in an entirely parallel universe – or maybe just hanging out on the wrong websites.

When I was younger and unencumbered I would feel that spending anything over a tenner on a boyfriend meant they were possibly The One. Luckily, my current partner is even more of a “gifting occasion” hater than I am, so I have no worries on that front (Happy Birthday for tomorrow, Mike, by the way. I hope you like the new toothbrush).

It’s especially bonkers when you see people spending wads of cash on children who are too young to know what or when their birthday or Christmas is. When they get older and start asking for the latest pair of trainers or computer game because “everyone’s got one”, you’re going to look back and think “what a bloody mug I was spending £50 on Angelina Ballerina when they’d have been happy with a wrapped up balloon”.

We are on a pretty tight budget due to current circumstances, but even when things were easier financially I’ve always been averse to throwing a whole load of money on just one day, be that birthday, Christmas or wedding – maybe that’s why I’ve never married :-) .

I love the “Christmassy” things about Christmas – the lights, the trees, the gluwein, the carols, the classic films on the telly, etc. I also like giving and receiving presents – in moderation. But the pressure to do it on an epic scale makes me resent the process and takes something away from my enjoyment of the time, probably because of the added birthday factor.  I have no plans to have another child, but if I did, the months of February to April would be strictly off limits on the reproductive front – it wouldn’t be fair on anyone, let alone poor little Ebenezer…

Two great posts/sites about living more simply and saving money

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The first is this – a thread on Mumsnet where readers have contributed their top tips for reducing household bills. It’s about as comprehensive as you can get, and covers where to buy the best, cheapest goods (apparently Sainsbury’s Basics teabags are as good as the branded, and Aldi vinegar at 13p a bottle makes an excellent kettle and shower descaler).

The second is this website called Zen Habits and has some great tips for streamlining your life, improving your health and fitness and saving money at the same time. Check out the archive for  loads of practical, easy tips from how to write a book in a month to how to sit alone in a quiet empty room.

 

 

 

The old black dog’s still here…

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I started reading a thread on the ante/postnatal depression section in Mumsnet last night and was very moved by how raw the poster’s feelings seemed, how desperate she was for help, and yet was struggling to seek it. It was lovely to see such a warm and supportive community responding with kind words and their own experiences.  It brought back my own feelings of shame and anxiety, and with both babies it took me until they were 6 months to finally see my GP. I remember writing in a notebook “I need help” as I sat crying. I covered the whole page with my plea. Everything hurt. Everything felt mad.

How far away from my current feelings, I thought. Then this morning, I totally lost it when trying to get my son off to nursery and me and the baby on a train to London to meet a friend. I rarely do anything like this, and it was a real expedition for me. I felt panicky, lost, out of control. The fact that I had a specific train to catch made me very stressed, I snapped at the children. I felt the madness return and almost burst into tears as I left the house.

Once on the train I was fine. But it felt like I had ripped a hole in the atmosphere of my bubble. The old pain returned, if only briefly, and I realised that I wasn’t as “cured” as I maybe thought. How ironic, too, as I think of my previous, pre-children London life. I lived there from when I was 17 until two years ago. My life was busy, varied, fun. I now appreciate how small my world has become. I find comfort in its safety and predictability. On any day of the week I can tell you what we’ll be doing. I know small children thrive on routine, but I wonder if I’ve been using that as an excuse not to venture out of my comfort zone. I wonder if I’m doing both them and myself a disservice by not being more adventurous.I’m going to have a think about this and see if there are some areas where I can push the comfort zone a bit further.

On another note, I’ve signed up for a PND research study – I’ll be given some CBT sessions and I guess they’ll monitor my progress. I don’t know much about the study yet but they’re going to call me next week. I have trained to practice CBT myself (as part of my lifecoaching diploma) and know it can be useful for a variety of things. It’ll be interesting to be on the receiving end of it and see how it helps my anxiety levels.

The land of no nod

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It’s about as obvious as it gets, but sleep deprivation absolutely does for me. I wasn’t planning on blogging about it so soon, but recent events have made me think of little else.

My eldest son is very accident prone and this week broke his collarbone for the second time in two months. Or maybe he’s not accident prone and I’m a careless and neglectful mother – it’s quite possible. Either way, he is now in a lot of pain and struggling to sleep at night. Combined with this his brother teething for the country and I’m not managing to string together more than an hour at a time. You expect that when they’re newborn and you have some reserves (and adrenaline) but this far in I’m struggling to keep it together.

I also don’t like the way it makes me behave as a mother, more impatient, less fun. Which has the knock-on effect of making me feel guilty and inadequate, and completing the joyous cycle of PND.

A few months back I asked a question on the mumsnet forum (of which I’ve been a member for 3 years, more on this lifesaver another time) about how to cope with very little sleep. I put in the proviso that I didn’t have loads of time for exercise, and one of the suggestions that came back was a CD which the poster couldn’t remember the name of, but which was supposed to be the equivalent of four hours sleep in one listen. If anyone reading this know what I’m talking about I’d love to hear!

Someone also mentioned a programme called pzizz. You can download it onto phones as an app, as an MP3 file, or onto your computer. It’s pretty pricey but you can download one of the shorter ‘sleep’ or ‘energiser’ tracks for less. I think I’ll give it a whirl (as it’s only the price of a few coffees I’m becoming ever reliant on) and report back when I’ve had a listen.