Passing the Baby

– Posted in: Food, Potty Training, Thanks for Throwing me Under the Bus Honey, Worst Mom Moments

Ludicrous Mama is back. She sent this to us after getting about three hours of sleep. It sounds like she’s come to the conclusion that it’s been her “turn” for a while, and now she’s. . . done. You can find more of her writing here at World’s Worst Moms or at her blog, Biting the Hand the Feeds You.

I will let my child go to bed hungry. That’s right. You heard me! If she farts around during dinner time and declines any substitutes offered before bath time, then starts whining that she’s hungry at lights out, I tell her she can have an extra big breakfast tomorrow. I mean, it’s not like she’s gonna starve to DEATH overnight or anything. And I’m not a tyrant saying, “Eat this or eat NOTHING!” when it comes to dinner. I’ll let her have a PBJ, cheese, carrots or apple if she didn’t want what we were eating. I’ll even let her eat in the bath, if she wants. But once that toothbrush hits her mouth, my responsibility for feeding her is OVER. She lost her chance. I usually even remind her and offer her a healthy snack at every transition time (dinner to play time, play to bath, bath to teeth brushing).

My husband, on the other hand, will bring her Goldfish crackers, grapes or apples (sometimes more than once!). So now when she asks me for a snack and I tell her no, she asks for Daddy. So then I tell her that if she wants Daddy, I’m not coming back to lie down with her after (She still has one of us in the room to fall asleep. Hey. We moved her into her own room finally. Baby steps, people.). So a part of me is ashamed that I will use this as an excuse to play Farmville blog instead of comfort my child. But the other part of me reminds myself that I did bedtime for the first 30 months, attached at the nips, sometimes for hours, so it’s someone ELSE’S turn now!

I have also been guilty of lazy potty training. Early one morning, 3:30 a.m., I get woken up by, “Mommmeeeee. I need to go pottteeeee.” Mrph. Nguh. After days and days of having her sit on the potty with no results, I don’t feel it’s worth getting up just to have her use stall tactics to avoid going back to bed. “Just go in your diaper and go back to sleep, honey.”

I hear my husband get up in disgust, and I can feel his eyes shooting daggers at me, and I don’t care. Back to sleep I go. Turns out she peed. In the potty. Lots. Oh well.

The next two nights, when she pulled the same trick, I got up, and she peed again. Yay. Apparently she only uses the potty when we’re in a disgusting public restroom where I don’t even want my shoes touching anything, or when I’m so tired I’d be willing to murder someone just to get a little sleep. Joy.

Previous Post:

5 Comments… add one

Rebecca July 2, 2011, 3:29 am

Yeah, I have some lazy potty training moments, I told my kids that they couldn't come out of their room for any reason unless they used the potty first (There was a potty seat on the floor in their room). Every morning the potty was always full. Sometimes even stinky potty was there too!
My recent post Flipping Fragments

khareen1 July 2, 2011, 11:45 am

Yay! I admire your spunk. My husband and I did something similar at dinner time for our son. He was such a picky, off and on eater at 3. Our job was to offer him a decent meal. If he didn't eat it, oh well. He started waking up during the middle of the night asking for a sandwich. I refused to get up. Hubby gave in the first night, and after that we cut the kid off and he started eating more of his dinner. This is one area where a united front helps a great deal.

Ludicrous Mama July 7, 2011, 5:21 am

Yeah. Mama needs SLEEP! It's not like HE'S the one getting up every 2 hours to feed the baby or anything… hopefully it ends before college… I will, I admit, sometimes cave, but only if she ate no dinner or snacks. Just so she DOESN'T wake up hungry (at 5am. And unable to go back to sleep…) But otherwise I recognize it for the stall tactic that it is. And it's bad for her teeth. You'd think a guy who has refused to go to the dentist for over 15 years would want to give her the best chance possible of preventing cavities. (He won't go because he's afraid they'll want to take all his teeth. Not because his teeth are so good it's a waste of time. His is the first generation in his mom's family to still have all his own teeth after age 25. And my genetic dental legacy isn't all that awesome either! Poor kid is DOOMED!)

Ludicrous Mama July 7, 2011, 5:27 am

Barf. My sister once left me to babysit with apparently a full overnight potty. Maybe it was even DAYS old. Sure smelled that way! And they added crackers to the mix, before dumping it all over the foam puzzle play mat. It got between all the parts of the mat, and under. Oh my god. I kept having to take gag breaks, to get myself out of the miasma of stench so I wouldn't throw up.
Sadly, my daughter wakes up incoherent. She spends 5-10 minutes screaming and/or crying inconsolably not even able to communicate what she wants. Sometimes she'll keep repeating some random word (like "fairy") when she wanted to nurse again, or now when she wants her water sippy. And lately she's added hitting and kicking to the mix. So it takes her a bit to calm down enough to even let me know that she needs to use the potty. And she's nowhere near coordinated enough to do it herself yet. At least not at night. She can hardly even get up on her own. But she conks right back out after. So I'm guessing she's still partially asleep. She may even have night terrors or something.
So no bedroom overnight potty for her just yet. Sigh.

not blessed mama July 8, 2011, 5:49 pm

wow, your husband gets up? he's pretty awesome. i would let my kids pee in my hair before i got up at 3 am to take them to the potty.

Leave a Comment

CommentLuv badge