If At First You Don't Succeed...

So we're having an issue with the Gremlin that keeps coming up.

When he was a newborn, he had colic (medical definition: fussy-maker) and reflux (medical definition: fussier maker), making him the most miserable newborn this side of the Mason-Dixon (that's right, Civil War-era reference). He would not sleep, he would not eat (not without doing his best Linda Blair imitation), and was driving his parents to the ends of their ropes - especially his mother.

We were given books and consolations from well-wishers, but the Gremlin was just that - a Gremlin.

Lately, we've been having issues with both hitting and whining. No matter what happens - even if it's good, the Gremlin will whine about it, and possibly try to hit you.

Through these issues, the Mother of the Gremlin and I developed an approach to dealing with issues with the Gremlin.

1) Identify the cause (or possible causes).
It would have been easy to say "he throws up everything" but then we would have missed that it happened after approximately 6 oz of formula. So we cut down on how much we fed him (but increased the frequency), and it helped with the reflux.

2) Identify the possible fixes
Before we realized it was the amount of formula, we also tried switching from regular baby formula to lactose free formula. We switched from Enfamil to Similac. We tried burping regularly, we tried inactivity before/after. We didn't come immediately to the realization that it was the amount, and we tried various things.

3) Make the fix routine
When we began getting the Gremlin ready for bed half an hour before his bedtime (7 in Chicago, now 8pm in Seattle), he would get upset and angry. As we continued to do it, though, he began actually going to bed. We enforced the schedule, and he stopped screaming for half an hour at a time after we put him down.

4) Try something else
If your routine doesn't help, it's time to try something else. We realized the Gremlin became whiny when we got upset. When we realized we were getting upset because he wasn't following directions, we started looking into why he wasn't following directions. We realized the Gremlin is a kinesthetic learner. I would show him what I wanted done, have him do it under my supervision, and then give it a name that I could ask him to do ("Please go 'clear your dishes!'" would still apply if there were cups on his space on the floor or at his mini-table). But through that process we were trying different things - we were taking toys for whining, we were doing the 'Let's do a Calm Down!,' we were telling him we couldn't hear him when he whined, but we kept looking for other things that might help more.


Hopefully this gives help or hope to anyone having a difficult time - but it's a technique we continue to use so hopefully it can be useful to someone else.