WRESTLING THE OCTOPUS
When N entered into our world we had no understanding of what the future held. Right there and then my focus was on sharing my love and attention between my 18 month old and a new born, making sure A didn’t feel left out and creating a routine that allowed for this. We were so lucky!! N just kind of slotted into life, he fed every 4 hours and slept well, rarely cried and was happy to sit in his bouncy chair for ages, allowing me to attend to his bigger brother if needed. We were conscious of establishing a good routine, and for N to be able to settle himself to sleep, as we had not done this with A and panic set in with the realisation of juggling a potentially feeding, crying baby with a toddler who needed to be cuddled to sleep every might. As a result we following sleep training which involved leaving A crying for a period of time before going in to resettle, saying nothing and then leaving again. It was torturous and something I didn’t want to have to go through again, so we started right from the off allowing N to settle himself to sleep in the day and the night. He was a total dream and took to it so easily and was sleeping through the night from about 10 weeks. It was great!!!
I can’t really pinpoint exactly when or how, but I do know that as N began to walk and talk things started to change fairly drastically. Everything started to become a battle and even at that young age the temper and aggression was way beyond what would be considered reasonable. It felt like the terrible two’s had come very early and with a force greater than I had ever expected. I was clueless as I hadn’t experienced this with A, and any minor issues we had with A were managed effectively with super-nanny style parenting techniques, and reward charts. (things I now want to propel at great speed towards to sun to be destroyed in a great ball of fire never to be used on this earth ever again💥 ) These things did NOT work with N, and believe me I tried - hours and hours and hours of returning to the “naughty” step, returning to bed, moving his stickers up and down the reward chart. Nothing worked and I felt like I was failing. I didn’t understand why it wasn’t working, in fact all it ever did was escalate the situation resulting in N lashing out in a complete rage of fury. You might think at such a young age this was something easily dealt with but trust me this young boy seemed to turn into the incredible hulk and when trying to hold him to calm and control the aggression, the image of wrestling a wild, slippery, octopus springs to mind, with a crash helmet and boots on who is not only furiously and wildly throwing itself around and wriggling, squirming, and kicking your shins, but pinching, biting and lunging backwards at force trying to headbutt you in the face too. It was exhausting for us both, and happening at least twice a day and for around an hour a time. N was extremely independent not wanting help with anything, even if he needed it, and if he didn’t want to do something you knew you were in for a hard time. This meant that trying to get dressed in the mornings before nursery turned into a massive battleground, and we would regularly turn up with me looking like a tearful, sweaty mess. Evenings were equally tricky over mealtimes, bath time and getting ready for bed. I just didn’t know what to do. I felt very alone as no one else saw it or could imagine the extent to which his behaviours were presenting. His Dad and I had separated when he was around 6 months old, and his Dad didn’t even see it when N was with him for the weekend, but boy did we know about it when he got home! N was 3 before anyone else noticed anything and he started displaying similar behaviours in his nursery setting . The talks at the end of the day about how he had hurt a child or a member of staff, or thrown chairs became a regular occurrence, but with it came some understanding from other adults of what I had been experiencing at home, and the start of some support an intervention.
