Independence in swimming and other skills

Walberswick: Children Paddling

Although I had the pool ready a month ago, it was not until this week that the weather allowed us to use it. Now we are in every day, for hours at a time. Our neighbors’ children have an open invitation, so it’s always a pool party over here.

My first on-the-books job was as a pool lifeguard for the Town of Oyster Bay. While I have the confidence that I could save someone and administer CPR if necessary, it is the last thing I want to have to do. I think I am a little more wary and vigilant than the average adult, because I know that it only take two tablespoons of water in the lungs to drown a person.

My almost-three-year old refuses to use her baby float, the kind that has a seat to keep the child up in its flotation ring. She sees the other kids using the other kind, and insists on being like them. I didn’t quite know what to do when, as I stood with my arms ready to steady her as she entered using the pool ladder, she commanded, “Go away Mom!” while gesturing for me to swim “over there”.

I backed off but was ready to spring on her at the slightest mis-step. She did fine, and improved with practice. Within a few days, she was able to swim with confidence with the other children, using only her swimming ring.

A seven-year-old girl in my neighborhood came over with her sisters, wearing a swim vest. After the first hour, she decided she didn’t need it anymore. “You can’t swim!” declared her nine-year-old sister. “I can too!” she answered.

I stood by, a little nervous because she was still unsure about herself. Then she went off with my twelve-year-old and after another hour was swimming just like the other kids. When her mother came by, she was astounded. “She was afraid of the water!” she said, very pleasantly surprised.

I was surprised too, not having known the extent of this sudden change in her, because I really hadn’t done a thing. Sometimes that is the best thing for parents to do, is to stand by vigilantly while their children test the waters, whether in swimming or using the stairs or climbing a tree.

Sirach
Chapter 40

1 A great anxiety has God allotted, and a heavy yoke, to the sons of men; From the day one leaves his mother's womb to the day he returns to the mother of all the living,
2
His thoughts, the fear in his heart, and his troubled forebodings till the day he dies--
3
Whether he sits on a lofty throne or grovels in dust and ashes,
4
Whether he bears a splendid crown or is wrapped in the coarsest of cloaks--
5
Are of wrath and envy, trouble and dread, terror of death, fury and strife. Even when he lies on his bed to rest, his cares at night disturb his sleep.
6
So short is his rest it seems like none, till in his dreams he struggles as he did by day, Terrified by what his mind's eye sees, like a fugitive being pursued;
7
As he reaches safety, he wakes up astonished that there was nothing to fear.

Separation Anxiety and Naptime Refusal – RESOLUTION! - Part IV

My now-eighteen-month toddler has finally resumed her normal night and naptime schedule. We went out for a quick errand at 11:30 AM today and she promptly fell asleep on the return trip. I took her shoes and hat off and carried her to her crib. An hour-and-a-half later, she remains in a deep sleep. I am so thankful!

She goes to sleep at 7:00 PM and often wakes up at around midnight. We have found that she quickly goes back to sleep if my husband goes in to see her. He cheerfully goes in, tells her to go back to sleep, and she does! This is in line with several parenting books that advise the non-primary caregiver put a child to bed when there is a problem with separation anxiety.

If, on occasion, she wakes up in the wee-morning hours, I can nurse her back to sleep, as I always did before the height of her sleep crisis.

The only problem I have is that she has been waking up earlier than she used to. Last year, her normal wakeup time was around 9:00 AM. This worked great for me and my husband. We normally work on paperwork for our home-based business until around 11 PM, after the children have all gone to bed, then watch television for one hour before going to bed. A 9:00 AM wakeup time gives us a full eight hours of sleep. I could go to bed at 10:00 PM, but then I would be missing out on quality time with my husband.

This new wakeup time only offers me six hours of sleep. When I go in to see her, she is standing at the crib rail closest to the door, holding her “nigh-night” blanket, ready for me to pick her up. If we were in the army, I would tell her, “At ease!”

I am hoping that she will be able to resume her old habit of playing in her crib for a while, rather than waking up crying for me. It has been suggested that I use “blackout shades”, but I do not think this is the problem. Although the older children make every effort to go about quietly in the morning, I do believe she is sensing the activity in the house.

Still, six hours of unbroken sleep is better than what I was getting. And I am more thankful than ever for the naptime that I always had taken for granted! With her newfound sense of independence, I also have learned how to get more things done during the baby’s awake time, giving me more free time to read and write.

To put this whole situation into proper perspective, parents with older children look adoringly at my little one and say they wish theirs were little again.

“It is vain for you to rise early and put off your rest at night,
to eat bread earned by hard toil –
all this God gives to his beloved in sleep.”
Psalm 127:2

Eighteen Months

During these difficult few weeks I had to sometimes remind myself that motherhood was truly a divine gift. “Could one die from lack of sleep?” I wondered. What on earth was I thinking, having four children?

I have heard mothers mocking the parenting textbooks, saying there was nothing they could learn from them. But at the turning of eighteen months my child has been a classic textbook example of the age. Knowing that all babies (and their parents) must resolve these stages; being given various tools to deal with them, albeit the advice is sometimes conflicting; being reminded that all babies express their needs in their own way, according to temperament and personality; all these things I think are empowering to us as parents.

Eighteen months. The coming in of the upper incisors, accompanied by lack of appetite and changing sleep habits (in this case, the apparent dearth of a need for it). Separation anxiety at its height, accompanied by the need for a comforting blanket, whining, clinging, and the related difficulty sleeping alone. The frustration of understanding language and yet not being able to fully express it.

Prayers came from across the continent, from family with whom the spiritual bond is so close that the need for prayer is received by these supplicants without my asking. And at the moment of highest necessity it is felt, like a trickle of water in a desert. A moment of grace is all around me: before me, behind me, beside me, and above me.

There was light at the end of the tunnel. And in that light I found myself again. A newly born confidence in my relationship with God, self, and others – especially, those in my charge as a Mother.

And at the same time, my little one seemed to strike her own required balance of dependence-independence, realizing her own competency and ability to communicate her needs. The sleep pattern is still resolving, giving me just enough to feel on top of things, but she has become quite cheerful and winsome during her waking hours.

It is like the quiet after the storm, when the earth seems shiny and new. One appreciates its beauty all the more for having weathered it.

“God, my Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet swift as those of hinds
and enables me to go upon the heights.”
Habakkuk 3:19

Painting above:
Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
1878; Oil on canvas;
National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.