Sometimes, I looked at DD, I was wondering: is she really a two-year old? She has been growing so big and tall.
At month 25, she was already near half of my height and more than a quarter of my weight. A 3T or 4T shirt wasn’t large enough for her. The perfect size was 5T. Shoes with the size of 5.5W seemed to get tight overnight. She needed an upgrade to 7W.
She could point to an object that I named, recognize the names of many objects, major body parts and some familiar members in English and Chinese, follow simple instructions, repeat some words she overhears, wash and dry hands, hop like a bunny, brush teeth (well, kind of) and play make-believe.
However, unlike most toddlers at her age, her vocabulary was limited. This month, she added one new word — “help” in English. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, between ages 2 and 3, most children should be able to speak up to 300 words. DD was far away from that goal at this time.
Since I pushed too hard one time for her potty training and it backfired, I was careful this time. She began to show willingness to use the potty when asked. Even she just sat on the potty for two seconds, it was a progress.
I also borrowed three books from the local library and read to her. The books are Once Upon a Potty for Girl
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Make-believe
A sparking imagination is one of the most delightful parts of being a human. You can form and develop all sorts of mental images beyond whom you are and where you are. Except those taking the forms of fears, imaginations bring us joy, relief and hope.
It is hard to believe that a two-year-old can make-believe too. DD demonstrated to us that at least she could.
About two or three months ago, DD began to show a kind of fake crying. When I read to her, suddenly she leaned backward and began to cry. Of course it was a fake crying, since there was no tear. And she burst into laughing when I tickled her tummy.
At first, M didn’t understand what happened. He kept asking her “are you ok? What is wrong?” Soon we understood it was just make-believe and we began to make fun of it. Whenever DD began to “cry”, we both made the “crying” sound as she did. When she realized we just imitated her, she began to laugh.
Sometimes, when DD faked crying and refused to go to bed, M teased her and said, “Take three; you need to do better than that to survive in Hollywood.”
Reclaim our bed!?
“Let your baby sleep in her own bed.” This was one of the advices I received in my baby shower. We did, beginning the third day after DD’s birth. I was so proud that she could sleep by herself at such a young age.
It looked we cheered too early. At present, DD refused to sleep on her own bed. She wanted to sleep with us. Sometimes, it took us half hour to talk to her softly and kindly and try to convince her to stay in her own bed, and found out she sneaked in our bed when we brushed our teeth.
Sometimes, we tucked her in with firm and decisive tone, only to see her again few hours later, standing beside our bed. Of course, at that time, we were too tired to argue with her but throw back the covers and invited her in.
Problem was, she was such an active sleeper. She would rotate 90 or even 180 degrees and ended up sleeping horizontally between us. I was awoken at 2 o’clock in the morning by a big kick on my head. M woke up at midnight finding DD’s feet were right against his cheeks. One night, I finally got fed up with her restlessness and went sleep in the guest bed (not her crib) in her room.
When did all these sleeping conflicts get started?
First of all, I have to confess, it was I who started the first case. That was actually long time ago, probably when DD was around 18 month.
That night, DD had a nightmare. Normally I would go to her room, pick her up, hold her against my shoulder and console her back to sleep. Sometimes she wanted to have a drink of water. In that case we would go down to the kitchen and I pour a cup of water and wait for her to finish. Either way, it would take at least half an hour.
That night, I was exhausted. So I took an easy way. I went to her room and picked her up. I asked her “do you want to sleep with mommy?”
DD looked at me, surprised. This was brand new to her.
She nodded and went straight into our bedroom. I picked her up and placed her between me and M. Then I lied down beside her. DD was so grateful that she didn’t ask for anything. Soon we fell into asleep.
I was not thinking right that night, because the next morning was a horror to M. He went to check DD routinely before he left for work. When he looked down the crib, he found DD was missing. Blood rushed into his head.
The first thought popped into his mind was DD climbed out of the crib and landed somewhere under the bed. He bent down, checked under the crib and the guest bed in her room. He found nothing.
Then he jumped to the door and checked the door. The door was locked. The windows were locked too. It looked like nobody broke in.
Where was DD?
The last idea he had was to check our bed. Although it was totally against the normal way, he felt strangely convinced. Then he found his little darling sleeping peacefully beside me on our bed.
Since then, we followed the path of least resistance. Whenever DD had a nightmare, or her growing teeth bothered her, or she was under weather, we would bring her to our bed and let her sleep between us. It happened more and more frequently that DD started to take it for granted.
The next thing we knew was DD began to refuse to sleep in her crib and demanded to sleep with us. One time she succeeded in sleeping with us for an entire week. We were sleep-deprived, especially M.
We decided to take the plunge to put an end to this so-called threesome.
The journey to reclaiming our bed was not easy. We were facing a pretty stubborn child throwing tears, wails and crying, which would quickly melt us down. The sleep training became more difficult after we changed her crib into a toddler bed, since our hardheaded little warrior climbed out of her crib (fortunately she didn’t break any bone).
One night, again, DD refused to sleep on her toddler bed. She sneaked onto our bed when we brushed teeth. M took her back to her room and told her firmly to stay in her own bed. She got the message and didn’t follow M back to our room.
Just when we lied down and felt lucky that we were going to have a nice night of sleep, DD began her fake crying, while lying on her bed.
At first, we simply ignored her.
A moment later she began to call mama and daddy. We chuckled.
Then her fake sobbing began to sound like real. And the way she called mama and daddy melted us quickly.
It looked like another tug of war ahead….
The next thing, before I jumped up, M jumped off the bed and took DD back to our bed…..
A difficult napper…for one week
Since birth, DD had been an excellent napper. When she was tiny, she napped two or three times daily. When she grew up, she was down to just one nap per day, but her napping time became more and more regular. She normally took a nap between noon to one and dozed for two hours. And those two hours was precious quiet time for me to work on blog or do things of my own.
But, around the end of July, she suddenly became a difficult napper. One day, as usual, we both went to bed and took a nap around 12:30am. I was lying on the bed, waiting for DD to drift off.
But DD was quite restless. She was up and down, turning and tossing, while she was still yawning and rubbing her eyes, a perfect sign for being tired.
I asked her to lie down peacefully beside me. She did. But one minute later, she got up, crawling to the other side of me and lie down. Another one minute went by; she got up again and crawled back to her original spot.
Then I threatened to put her back to her own bed. She quickly lied down and stayed still. Just when I felt proud of myself, she was up again. This time, she got off the bed, opened the bedroom door, walked out, and closed the door behind her.
I jumped out of the bed, opened the door and searched for the little rebel. She was downstairs and played with her toy piano. I dragged her back to the bed, only to see her wrest control from me once again.
Our naptime battlement lasted for one week. During the period, M suggested giving her more activities in the daytime. I did. It helped some but not a great deal.
One day, I happened to find out that DD had two more molars breaking through the gum. “Maybe that explained why she was restless”, I wondered.
It turned out to be true. After one week of being difficult, DD gradually turned back to be an excellent napper. She quickly dozed away after lying down, otherwise I couldn’t have time to finish this post. Related posts:
Baby’s growth, month 24
Baby’s growth, month 23
Baby’s growth, month 22
Baby’s growth, month 21
Baby’s growth, month 20
Baby’s growth, month 19
Baby’s growth, month 18
Baby’s growth, month 17
Baby’s growth, month 16
Baby’s growth, month 15
Baby’s growth, month 14
Baby’s growth, month 13
Baby’s growth, month 12
Baby’s growth, month 11
Baby’s growth, month 10
Baby’s growth, month 9
Baby’s growth, month 8
Baby’s growth, month 7
Baby’s growth, month 6
Baby’s growth, month 5
Baby’s growth, month 4
Baby’s growth, month 3
Baby’s growth, month 2
Baby’s growth, month 1
Baby's Growth, From Mommy, Third Year | mommy | 
August 3, 2010 8:00 pm | 
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