Fast Food Rule?!
With Christmas and New year behind us, we begin to adapt to the life in Shanghai, with rountines and our favorite places / things to do (which keeps changing at this point). Michael is also fully developed into a “toddler” (read: difficult with a mind of his own!) Then, Dr. Karp came to the rescue once again. Before Michael was born, a few friends introduced us to watch “The Happiest Baby On the Block” DVD and the concepts in the DVD were just so logical and simple. We followed them quite literally and Michael was an easy baby. Some of the things that were encouraged are:
1. Swaddling til 3 months
2. Side (put baby on the side and they’ll immediately calm).
3. Shushing (yep, loud shush to calm a crying baby!) In fact, white noise is highly encouraged (Michael had a radio that played static while he was asleep!)
4. Swinging (of course, this is when our Swing came into play for nap times!)
5. Sucking (I didn’t believe in it but Ian would have liked to let Michael have a dummy!)
Then, we came across his second book about the “The Happiest Toddler on the Block” and being the bookworm, I got reading about it right away! Once again, he proves to be a “savior”! Some concepts work like wonders:
- firstly, toddlers (from age of 1 - 4) are little cavemen (or cavewomen!). Their brains are hardly developed and their right brains take over when they’re tired / unsettled / don’t get what they want! When you think you’re reasoning with a “crying” toddler, they can hardly hear you!
- fast food rule - when the little one is about to have a tantrum, you have to repeat the order, just like when you’re in a “Drive Through”, the waitress always repeats the order befor asking you to pay. The little one needs to know that you have heard them and that you don’t launch into what he/she should do before he calms. For example, when Michael wants to listen to his wiggles CD (for the tenth time at 6 p.m. at night), the first thing we want to do is to say no… but instead, we should say “Wiggles Wiggles, Michael wants Wiggles” (Simple and repetitive language - just repeat the order like it’d have been done at a “Drive Thru”). Once he seems a little calm, you then explain that it’s almost bed time and wiggles need to sleep (and so does he)! Of course, I don’t explain / write it as well as Dr. Karp, but this is the essence. And it works wonders!
- other rules, such as positive “time in”, “feed the meter”, “patience practice” and the essential ” time out”.
You’d have to read the book to really appreciate all the terms and concepts. However, both Ian and I are having a lot of fun practicing with Michael (although not successful every time). We are amazed every day of how quickly our little boy goes (and how badly he can behave), so we are just so glad Dr. Karp is once again working his magic!
Chinese New Year is coming up (Jan 27, 2009 is the day) and we are getting ready for our guests (Ian’s dad and a good friend of Ian’s)… we plan to do all the touristie things that even we haven’t done!
Until then, much love from Shanghai with photos (apology for the lack of it!)
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| Michael’s album - 15 months |
