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La Famiglia Itri

Saturday, June 22, 2013

We Created A Monster Out of Lila's First Monster

Early this morning Lila woke up yelling for me. "Mommy! Mommy! Come get me!" It took me a second to wake up and get in there, and I picked her up and cuddled her for a few minutes. Usually when she wakes up in the middle of the night I can get her to go back to sleep in her crib. But for some reason this morning she was insistent despite my seemingly lengthy effort to persuade her otherwise. She finally won by asking for daddy. When I brought her into our room she stuck her head right on my pillow and pulled up the covers. Didn't even look to see if daddy was there. But she was pretty good most of the night (as opposed to her usual tossing and turning and turning herself sideways to kick one of us in the head). When we were all awake in bed she asked me to go close her door. She was pretty insistent, so I got up and closed it. I didn't think too much of it because she likes doors to be closed and she asked me to close my door too.

A few minutes later at breakfast she said something about biting her. I don't know if it was that she was afraid something was going to bite her or that something didn't bite her or what. If I had ignored it we probably would have been fine. But instead we probed. "Who was trying to bite you?" "Was it a monster?" "Is the monster in your room?" She started talking about how it tried to bite her pull up, but her jammies protected it. We talked about it for a minute or two. Then lila asked if mommy would protect her. And later said that we would save her. So for the rest of breakfast we talked about how when we were done we would go get the monster our of her room.

When we were ready I picked up Lila to protect her, and we went in with daddy so he could eat the monster. Of course she was freaked. We kept asking where the monster was hiding. "Is it under the bed? Is it in your closet?" And she would always reply no. Then Todd did a brilliant show of eating the monster, and we hoped all was well.

Not so! After Lila goes pee pee in the morning she usually rushes in to pick out her panties for the day. Not today. Today she needed mommy to come with her. And even then she couldn't do anything unless I was holding her. I had Todd come and take some pictures of our stalemate. Lila naked under her blanket on my lap, while I try to convince her that it is safe to get her panties out of her dresser. Even though daddy ate the monster, she is still scared. I just should have ignored that comment about biting.

2 comments:

Lisa/Scott said...

OH the monster years. Fun. Not sure if this tactic will work with you, but we had "Monster spray" which was basically a sleep aromatherapy spray from bed and bath beyond. I would spray my kids bed and pillow with it and it would keep the monsters out. Now we've upgraded to the "No bad dream spray." Hahaha.

Maranda said...

I have the Supernanny book and came across her "Magic Dust Technique" when I was reading about other sleep problems. You could probably find the full thing on the Internet but basically you need a pot of magic dust (glitter), a fairy book or bedtime story, a magic wand, and parents with a lot of energy. Tell her you're going to get rid of the monsters tonight and the fairies are going to help you! Read the story to give her a feeling of security and protection. Then wave the magic wand and say "monsters, monsters go away!" Have her do it too. Blow the magic dust around the room and say "look, the fairies have dropped off magic dust to help us!" Then chase the monsters right out the front door! She said it helps for mom and dad to do it together. Good luck! And I'm a little behind on blog reading so if you've already resolved this issue, GOOD, and disregard this comment. :)