Joshua the screamer
Posted on Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 at 9:27 amYesterday and the day before have been a challenge.
Josh has started this new scream. Those of you that have heard Josh cry know how loud and extended his cry is. Well, the little one has kicked it up a notch by wailing in a very high pitched, blood curdling yell. He has also taken to throwing a fit – pitching himself backwards and throwing himself on the floor if I tell him no or try to take something away from him that isn’t safe. Just a moment ago I took away the computer cord and he jumped up and down and whined – luckily this time he didn’t pitch himself on the floor as a fit.
Yesterday was especially rough because nothing seemed to help. If I held him, he threw a fit, pitched back, and even hit his head twice on the floor in the midst of his fit. If I left him alone for a minute to go to the restroom, he would pull out his blood curdling high pitched wail. Finally, at 8pm last night, after dealing with this from 5:00 – 8:00, Josh and I sat on the couch and cried together. Donald came home at 10:30p or so when Josh had finally started to sleep in his crib. Josh woke up at 11pm, with another blood curdling wail, but Donald brought him into the bed and he slept with us the rest of the night until 7am this morning. This is the first time in a long time he’s slept the whole night with us in our bed. Usually when he’s grumpy, we can hold him for a while and lay him in his crib, but I didn’t want to risk listening to his superpowered wailing anymore. Yesterday was one of the worst days as a mommy ever, I just wanted to run away and not come back.
We think he might be grumpy because of his teeth, so I stocked up on tylenol, ibuprofen, orajel, and another teether. I’m going to track and see if making sure he has medicine at regular intervals helps us out today.
Wow, I know those days! It can really be tough sometimes. I try to remember that it must be frustrating to be a little guy and that they must feel unconditionally loved to be able to express themselves so freely to us. It doesn’t help that much in the moment but it helps on later reflection.
I think what I disliked the most was biting and hitting or head-banging: it hasn’t happened in a while but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of it yet.
Hi Jessie,
I am sure that people are giving you tons of advice so I will spare you most of that. I found with some of my little friends to check their mouth when feeding with the spoon. THat way you save your finger if you are trying to check if teeth are poking through. I think it is hard to tell between normal teething grumpiness and when they are sick. That is when the thermometer comes in handy. Hang in there!!!
Nancy