Toddler Troubleshooting with Parenting Coach Gia Gambaro Blount – Ep. 213
August 1, 2022
Listen Now:
Laura and Shanna get answers to questions about toddler meltdowns, defiance, misbehavior at the dinner table and more from parenting expert and consultant Gia Gambaro Blount. Gia imparts some incredible parenting advice about replacement behaviors, emotional hygiene, upskilling and more! Also, Laura reports on the very bizarre thing her 17-month-old did in his crib the other night, and Shanna discusses the conundrum that has her rethinking her future travel plans. Finally, they share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s kids are 3 and 6 years old, and Laura’s kids are 3 years old and 17 months old.
Show Notes:
- Gia Gambaro Blount Want some extra one-on-one guidance from Gia? Book a consultation with her today!
- The Family Room This is where Laura met Gia while taking toddler-and-me classes with Auggie and Sebastian.
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Episode Transcript
Shanna
Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week's episode, we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, which is an interview with a parenting expert who gives us some amazing advice on how to handle our toddlers, including some brand new ideas like emotional hygiene, upskilling, and more. And we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get started. Hi everybody, welcome to episode 213. Hey Laura. Hi, Shanna. Hey, friendo. How are you and your family doing? Give us your check-in.
Laura
Okay, so last week's check-in was that Augie was doing awesome with his sleep. And I'm happy to report that that is continuing. He is even getting better if that's possible. Like he's sleeping until almost seven most days, sometimes past seven. Some nights, he even wants us to leave so he can just read his books on his own. I mean, he's not reading, obviously. Just look at his books on his own and then fall asleep. Just a complete 180, just so pleasant, it's really revolutionized our life with him. Good, that's so exciting. Yay, Dr. Becky for giving you all the tips and tricks. Seriously, Dr. Becky, like if I ever meet her, I'm gonna buy her a drink because she wouldn't say it does. She deserves one. That said, Sebastian's sleep continues to suck. Oh no. Just awful. So like two wakings a night is considered good at this point for us. And it's so rough. It's just so rough.
But it's one of those things where it's like, we know what we have to do. We have to do the sleep training thing, but it's like, you know, it's going to be a couple of nights of everything sucking even worse, you know, like I'm going to have to keep track of how long I'm feeding him every night. And I'm going to have to like set my alarm so I can go in and feed him before he wakes up and like no one wants to set their alarm for like midnight and then three AM, you know, so I've just been putting it off even though You know, everything sucks. The other thing I discovered, which is just like real salt in the wound, is that I think the couch in his room has like a bit of a flea problem. Oh, no. Which is gross. Our cat Cal keeps escaping, and so he keeps getting fleas, and I don't put the flea medicine on them every month because they're indoor cats, but I need to do it now.
I went and got the Revolution or whatever you put on their necks, and then I got Cap Star, which is the oral thing. So they're taking care of now, but I wasn't paying attention, and there were fleas. And I know fleas can't really live. very long if there's no animal host to host them, but like I guess they can hatch in like upholstery and then bite you and then basically they have nowhere to like lay eggs and they die but like still it's there. And I kept having to go into Sebastian's room in the middle of the night to like nurse him and then I end up in there for like an hour, like almost every night I'm just like falling asleep on the couch with him attached to my boob. And then I'd wake up and I have these bites on me. And at first I was like, oh shit, is it bedbugs? But they didn't follow the bedbug pattern or whatever. And there's no evidence of bedbugs.
And then one day before his nap, I'm getting him into a sleep sack. And I look on his forehead. And I'm like, what is that piece of dirt? And it was a flea that had just jumped on him and was trying to go into his hair. And I was like, ah! And of course it jumped right off, but I was just like, oh fuck, okay. So like that day I had to like frantically vacuum and clean like the whole area, like put the cushion covers through the hot wash cycle and like add to the Just add to the stress there, but we need to do sleep training, but we have not done it yet. So we're just continuing to walk around like zombies. But we did have a weird experience this week, which is what I wanted to talk about. Oh, I love weird experiences. Do you recall when Augie was maybe like 12 or like 13 months old?
He had an incident that I talked about on the podcast where he stood in his crib quietly at night for like a full hour. Do you remember that? Yeah.
Shanna
This was in your other house. Yes. Okay. Yeah. That sounds familiar.
Laura
Yeah. He, you know, I don't remember. We must have been going through something with sleep with him. And we were watching the monitor that night and he like stood up and cried for a second and then proceeded to just stand. quietly in his crib for a full hour before he like passed out basically sitting up with his face smushed between the rungs of the crib.
Shanna
That's right.
Laura
Oh, that's so strange. Yeah. So strange. So I was reminded of this because one night this week, right after Dream feeding him, I like put him down, he fell asleep for like 10 minutes or something. Then he woke up screaming like 10 minutes later and I was like, ah, right. OK, fine. So I went in to go comfort him and I like I just dream fed him. And I think he had been latched for like a half hour for that dream feed because I was like busy scrolling TikTok and not paying attention. Right. So I was like, I'm not giving you more boob. Right. So I tell him that I'm like, baby, I'm going to sing to you. I'm going to rock you. We're not doing more boob. And he lost his.
shit like the layling around arching his back screaming like screaming while pointing towards the couch and so I was like honey no we're not doing that I'm trying to like be calm and you know assertive though and just be like no we're not doing more boob there's no more boob left we're just gonna sing I'm trying to rock him, trying to comfort him, and nothing is working. Nothing is working. And he's screaming like a banshee. And then he kept leaning into the crib, which is what he does when he wants to go to sleep. Oh, right. So he'd point towards the crib and I'd put him in. And then I'd put him in the crib, and then he'd start screaming and reaching for me again. And I swear I did this five times, right? Uh-huh. I'd hold him, and then he'd reach for the crib. So I'd put him in the crib, and then he'd immediately reach for me. So finally, I was just like, you know what? Fuck it.
I don't know what you want. I can't help you. And I just told him I was going to go. I was basically like, I think daddy needs to take care of this because nothing I'm doing is right. So I put him down in the crib and leave the room. And he's screaming for a minute while I'm walking to Corey and explaining the situation to him, being like, I think you have to deal with this child. And then he goes quiet. I was like, what is he doing? So I look at the monitor and I see that he is just sitting there quietly staring off into the distance. And this child sat quietly in his pitch black room for like over 20 minutes. just looking around and being a weirdo. Really? Yes. So I have a video of it. I'm not going to send you the full 20 minutes, obviously. Okay, let me see. Here, I'm sending you a two-minute snippet. You don't have to watch all two minutes. You can get a gist in 30 seconds. Okay.
Shanna
Playing the video. All right. He is sitting there. He is looking around curiously. Huh. Not definitely not crying. He seems captivated by something.
Laura
Yeah. And you know what? I'm starting to wonder if like the first part of that interaction was actually like a night terror or also like sleepwalking. Because we weren't really connecting.
Shanna
Right, where he wasn't fully awake.
Laura
Yeah, because what we were doing wasn't really a real interaction. He was pointing and flailing and stuff, but he wasn't all there. And he wasn't really taking comfort from me. So I'm like, maybe he was asleep.
Shanna
Interesting. But then what made him go quiet and sit and stare for 20 minutes? Just the next phase of the night terror, like moving into more of a sleepwalking catatonic phase? I guess.
Laura
I mean, at first I thought, oh, he's waiting for Corey. But if he was waiting for Corey, he'd probably be like, da, da, da, da, you know, like standing and he was, I mean, that video you saw, he's just like looking around. And it's pitch black in his room, pitch black. So, yeah, weird.
Shanna
That's so strange. Well, it does sound like a night terror. You know, I've been through a lot of those with Cece, and that does sound very characteristic of a night terror, but she's never just calmed down immediately and stared around. So, yeah, super curious.
Laura
So weird. If it ever happens again, I will report back, but definitely was a weird moment.
Shanna
Yeah, but you know me, I'm always immediately jumping to, well, it was the shadow man, or it was like some ghost in your house, like coming to comfort the baby eye, you know. But I like to go there.
Laura
Yeah, you're so invested in me having a haunted house at this point, shot it. Oh, 100%, 100%.
Shanna
I'm the one who has to live here. I know. Well, I live vicariously through it. You know, I love creepy stories and stuff, and I don't want to live them myself, but if I could hear about them, I'm all for it. Gotcha. Gotcha.
Laura
You just want me to be tortured.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Laura
Well, anyway, that was our week. Another fractured sleep week with the baby, but at least Augie is doing great. And honestly, his mood is so much better. He's just like, everything is just so much better with Augie after he's been like properly rested. Imagine that.
Shanna
Imagine that.
Laura
Well, that's wonderful. Yay. Good news. Yay. Okay. So that's me. What's been going on with you guys this week?
Shanna
Okay. I have a couple of things to report from this week. Great. Yes. Let's see. Let's start with the tie-in to last week's check-in. Okay. Last week, I talked about how we went to Redondo Beach for my birthday and it ended up being a pretty stressful trip, right? Mm-hmm. CECE was pretty difficult and the car ride there, I don't know if I mentioned it in last week's check-in, but the car ride there was excruciating. Really? This is a one-hour car trip from our house to Redondo Beach. It's not that big of a deal. But the two of my kids together, they are in this phase where they taunt each other, they egg each other on, they make each other scream and cry. Elle, like, complains constantly that she's car sick. I mean, we are in the car for two minutes. She's like, I'm queasy. And she's like, roll down the window. And then Cece's like, I don't want that window down! And screams.
And it looks like I'm on edge, right? I'm like, this is terrible.
Laura
Yeah. You just describing that, like, raised my blood pressure a couple of points.
Shanna
Yeah, exactly. So imagine that for one full hour of your life. Ah, terrible. So the trip ends and I'm just like completely spent. But what my mind is doing is jumping ahead a couple weeks to where I have planned and I have agreed to. drive my family to Phoenix, Arizona to visit my mom and brother, like my family out there. That's what we are planning to do for the week of 4th of July. Like I took off the week, my mom has the week off. She's like, I want the girls to see my house and where I live. Like she lives in a cute little HOA neighborhood with a huge pool and park. Like that's where I grew up and had all my birthday parties and I was like, yeah, Elle hasn't been there in a long time. And my mom comes to visit me so much. I will commit to going and seeing her and visiting her on her turf. I'm down with that.
After this trip to Redondo Beach, I was like, no way in fucking hell am I putting these kids in a car for six hours to drive to Phoenix. This sounds like complete torture. So I have been just stressing out about what to do about this situation because the trip is coming up. I don't want to do the car trip. I don't want to cancel on my mom because we already booked a cabin, like an Airbnb up in Flagstaff. That's part of our trip, right? We're going to go to Phoenix, then drive up to the mountains, and we already paid for that, and I just really don't want to back out. But I just can't do this. And so I'm wracked with guilt on so many different levels and completely stumped on how to solve this problem.
Laura
I 100% understand that feeling. When we went to Newport for my mom's birthday last winter, I think I canceled something immediately after also, because I was just like, I'm not going anywhere with these kids. You know what it was? I think it was going up to Fresno. I was like, I can't take both these kids up to Fresno. Like, it's just too much. And I got so much shit from like, my mom about that basically, because she was like, it's not that hard. I'll help and all this stuff. And I'm like, you don't, I don't think you understand. Like, I think people think that we're just, I don't know, just like not wanting to do hard things or something, you know, like, but as the mom, you are so much like the center point, like the focus of all this energy. And I mean, I got super sick after that trip. And I was like, so wiped out. I just like never wanted to do anything again.
Of course, now we're going to fly up to Portland. So I've clearly forgotten everything. But yeah, time erases all wounds. Yes. But that's a two hour flight, which is different than a six hour drive. Like six hour drive is much worse, which will turn into like a 10 hour drive probably with all the stops you have to make.
Shanna
Exactly. And then we were planning to drive up to Flagstaff once for there, right? That's like a two-hour drive. So I'm trying to figure something out. I'm telling everybody my problem, right? Like other moms in the neighborhood, they're like, just drive at night. Like, leave it 7pm. I'm like, OK, maybe I could do that. And then it's like, well, maybe we could all fly. And I like priced out tickets. It's like $1,000 for all of us to fly. And I'm like. We don't exactly have that money right now, or I want to spend it on other things. I don't know. So I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'm just here to report that I'm completely in limbo. My stomach is in knots about it, and there's no resolution yet about what I'm going to do.
Laura
Well, here's what I'll say. I think you should go with your gut and do what you think is best and not what other people want you to do because we get so much pressure and then we're the ones that have to deal with like fallout from things, you know, it's like, oh, come, we'll help, it'll be fine. You know, there's only so much the grandparents can do. You know what I mean?
Shanna
Oh, yeah. Especially when Cici's in a fierce mommy phase and like, you know, won't let go of me and stuff. Like no one can help in those situations. That's right. So I will be curious what you decide though. Yeah. Hopefully I'll have some answers next week. Alrighty. Well, Godspeed. My other check-in this week is Cece is sick yet again. What? I know. She's like literally picking up every single thing that's going around her preschool. And, you know, it's usually not noteworthy. I don't really talk about it very much on the show, except to just kind of mention it. But this time, it was like, my throat hurts. Like, usually it's just kind of a general, like she has a fever or something. But this time, she's like, throat hurts, my neck hurts, my throat hurts. And so I look at her throat and she just has like red rash, like owies on the back of her throat.
And I was like, oh no, honey, I think maybe you have hand foot and mouth disease. Cause she had a super high fever. She's got these things on her throat and she was extremely fatigued. Like she has been asking all week, can I go to bed early? Like she just wants to sleep. I know, right? She wants to go to bed early. She's like falling asleep during the day and stuff. And, uh, man, I don't know. Have your kids gotten a hand foot and mouth?
Laura
I think Augie had it as like a six month old because he had like the little bumps, you know, on his like feet and hands, but, and like a really slight fever. But it didn't really like register with him. I think he might have had a fever for a day and that was it So he got off pretty easy.
Shanna
Oh good good Yeah, and then like by the end of the week like L had it so it's just like I just want some Relief in my life. The main reason I'm mentioning that is because it's going to tie into what I'm going to report in the last segment of our show. All right.
Laura
So we'll remember that poor little CeCe and her nonstop illnesses, poor thing.
Shanna
Poor thing. But anyway, so that's us for this week. Should we move on to our special segment? I think we should.
Laura
Okay, we are back and we have a very special, special segment this week. We have my toddler and me teacher, my savior, Gia Gambaro Blunt. She is, first of all, she's amazing. She's so sweet. She's so wonderful. She's been my teacher since Augie was like, 12 months, right? I started doing toddler me classes with Augie at 12 months and then the pandemic hit and we did virtual classes for a long time and now I have Sebastian in class with you and we wanted to bring you on because you are an amazing resource. Will you tell us a little bit about yourself and what makes you such a like amazing toddler whisperer?
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, thank you both of you so much for having me on. It's a true honor. And yeah, I've had such a great time getting to know you and your beautiful children. What makes me the toddler whisperer? Well, I am a mother myself. Right, so I had this thing happen. I went to school to learn how to become an early childhood educator. Got my degree in developmental psychology and my master's in early childhood education was like, I know everything there is to know about raising children now. And then I had children.
And oh my word, my boys were so different from one another. It really forced me to be very humble about how challenging parenting is. And I learned so much in the parenting trenches that I knew I wanted to give that back to other new families. So I've spent the last almost 20 years helping thousands of parents tailor strategies to meet their personalities and the personalities of their children. My whole thing is there's no right way. There isn't a one size fits all. So I hope that answers your question, Laura. I mean, that was such a beautiful introduction. Why am I good at what I do? I think it's because I'm good at learning who you are. That's what I hope it is.
Laura
Can you tell us a little bit about your formal background too so people know your qualifications and whatnot other than just being really good at it?
Speaker 1
Well, sure, sure. I mentioned a little bit. I got my BA in developmental psychology and my master's in early childhood education with an emphasis on infant toddler development, how the brain was formed, and behavior intervention plans. And I started working for the local elementary schools. I worked everywhere from pre-K up until third grade. And I was one of those teachers that was always going above and beyond, but also one of those teachers like Well, why would a parent send a Lunchable? Like, don't they know that's math for kids? And then it's the same thing. I had that like, whoa, when I had my own kids, like, Lunchables are awesome. Yes, toxic. But also necessary sometimes. So I think really where my experience comes in is when I started parenting. So I, myself, just like you, Laura, started attending a parent and me class and with my first one, way back in 2003.
And I started to be kind of the go-to parent in that class that offered some tips and strategies. And so my parent ed teacher was like, I think you'd be good at teaching. And the story just kind of takes off from there. It's a true career fairy tale. I went from being a student to teaching the class to being asked to run the program, the entire program, and then being recruited to start the family room toddler curriculum. So I just kept growing in my career. And I think part of that reason is because I never do the same thing twice. I'm always really in the moment and really trying to learn as anytime anything new comes out. I read everything so you don't have to.
Shanna
I love that. That's what we need in our life. Other people to do the hard work for us. Thank you. Exactly.
Speaker 1
I'll be your human Google search.
Shanna
Yes.
Speaker 1
Yes.
Shanna
Well, we have let our listeners know that you're going to be on our show, and we asked if anyone had any questions for you, any trouble with their toddlers that they need some help with. And boy, boy, did we get a lot of questions. A lot of people need help with their toddlers, me included. I don't know if she's technically a preschooler now, but we've got questions for you. But I thought maybe, is it OK? Can I start with my own question? Because I'm very excited you're here, and I need help too. Yes. Yes. Okay, good. Oh, it would be my honor. Yes, of course. Okay, so my three-year-old, she's almost three and a half now, Cece. My listeners and Laura know that Cece is very prone to epic meltdowns like It exhausts me to the core. I often use a strategy of trying to sit quietly with her as calmly as I can on the outside, even though I'm stressing out on the inside.
I try to be present with her while she's going through the feelings and stuff. And that's working to a certain degree. But one thing that really upsets me about her meltdowns that I can't get a grasp on, it really triggers me and I think I need some help figuring out how to navigate it. is that sometimes she hurts herself on purpose when she's in these moments like she will like just make fists with her hands and like start hitting her own head or make fist and like start slamming her thighs. And I'm just like, oh my God, oh my God, you're gonna hurt yourself. It's like, why does she do that? And how can I help her not do that?
Speaker 1
Oh, Shanna, such a good question. And I'm happy you feel safe asking me that and sharing that with your listeners because I feel like people feel shame around that. And you shouldn't because it's very typical. It's when anybody is super overwhelmed. They're not using all of their brain to figure out how to get through that situation. So anytime I hear about really big feelings, I always like to break it down. into two different sequence patterns. For you, it's a before, during, and after. And for her, there's a triggering event, a feeling that feeling causes a behavior. And then there's some time from that behavior till it just peters out. So which one do you want to start with? You or her? Let's start with her. Okay, so if there's a triggering event and maybe you want to share like a real life example, otherwise I can make one up but yeah You want to use the real one?
Shanna
Yeah, an example would be she has to go potty and wants me to help her so she's potty trained So I'll bring her to the bathroom, but I'll do something wrong, right? I'll put the potty seat down wrong or just like one little thing I'll do wrong And she's like, no, I want it the other way. And then she's off at the races. And I'm just like, what happened?
Speaker 1
Right. It just all happens in a flash. Right. Yes. OK. So let's use this as our example. So the triggering event is something is not how she perceived it to be. Right? She had a mental image of things being one way and then it didn't match in real life. And that dichotomy just throws her over the edge. So we could probably find that pattern and other things that go on in her life. Like maybe the toast wasn't buttered perfectly or the dress didn't fall just so. Yeah. So we can talk about that specific thing as well because that's a different thing to troubleshoot when your mental image and reality don't match. Those are perfectionist tendencies and we can talk about that. But the triggering, the trigger in general, so it can be this or it can be you said no to ice cream, you know, whatever, whatever it is.
So what happens with big body meltdowns, also known as tantrums, is you're triggered by something. In her case, it's what we just said. And the trigger causes an emotion. Now, what's your best guess is CECE's emotion when things didn't go according to plan?
Rage fury. That's right. Anger, frustration, rage. That pure red hot heat comes out. So that feeling, that anger feeling, that's a root feeling, right? That's a deep one. That's just a feeling. So the trigger is an event, a feeling is just a feeling, but then there's behavior. So that's number, that's the next thing in this sequence. Behavior. is there are some behaviors that are okay and there are some behaviors that are not, but all emotions are okay. So her rage is okay, but hitting, throwing, yelling is not. So what we want to work on are replacement behaviors that match the emotion, something that is sustainable, over her lifespan, something that you can imagine her using as a 12-year-old, a 22-year-old, a 47-year-old. You want to give her sustainable long-term behaviors that match the range.
And then at some point, because she's not yelling at you right now, she's not laying on the ground hurting herself right now, at some point she regulates, something evens her out. And so that actually that distance between the behavior, the hitting herself and the regulation, that distance between those two things, that's called the tantrum. That's what the tantrum is. It's that length of time from behavior to regulation. So what we often do as parents accidentally is focus on triggers. I'll fix it. Let me cut your toast again. We'll focus on those triggers, which it's too late because the emotion's already bloomed, right? It's already in there.
Shanna
That's so true. It makes her more mad when I try to offer solutions. I'm like, I'll fix the potty seat. I'll do this. I'll do that. She's like, rah.
Speaker 1
Exactly. It's too late. What she needs is a way to express that root emotion. Okay. Right? What's a way? I mean, maybe we can talk about this later, but root emotion and complex emotions and mixed up emotions, there's different ways to handle all of those. But anger is one of our primary six. It's the one every child everywhere around the world and probably on other planets are born with. Right? It's like, we have happy, sad, disgust, blah, blah, fear and anger is one of them. So we need to give her replacement behaviors. So when you're mad, you can. And so these are things you've probably heard before. Stamp your feet, clap your hands, clench and release, verbalize, cry, ask for help. No human can do those replacement behaviors unless they have practiced them at neutral times.
Shanna
That was going to be my next question, like, should I discuss this with her ahead of time, like, you know, at a normal time? Okay.
Speaker 1
That's right. Okay. No, does CeCe, is she prone to, like, do fantasy play, pretend play, imaginary play? Yeah, yeah, she's open to that. So what I would do for her and for other kids that are like this is get dolls, toys, stuffed animals, dinosaurs that she likes playing with and reenact a true story. This baby dinosaur didn't like it when the toilet seat was just so and was like mommy and then the dinosaur like bangs its head on the ground or you reenact it and then and then through pretend play you use replacement behaviors. Right? And then you ask her to be the mommy and then you ask her to be the baby. So if you have a child that's very imaginative, this is fun. And then if this is a way to kind of build up the experience, the practice, I also call that like filling the file, right? You just start putting in experiences to build the replacement behavior file. I feel mad.
So I can blah, blah, blah. Whatever the things are that work for her. And that's also the trial and error to see what she's willing to do or not do or can't even process to understand. What do you mean stop my feed or ask for help or verbalize or you know that kind of thing. A lot of really reputable toddler solution people out there in the interwebs, they say teach coping strategies. And I 100% agree, but they're missing this very important piece. You need a replacement behavior and then a coping strategy. Like you can't just, I mean, no, we can't either. If I cracked my cell phone right now, I would probably be like, aw man, or say a curse word. And then I would take a deep breath and calm myself down, right? So release, recover. That's the combo. So.
So at neutral times practice replacement behaviors, through play, through conversation, it could be mealtime talks, it could be car ride talks. And then for emotional regulation, that should be consistent. So how to teach calming coping strategies? That's the same way that you would teach like what I call emotional hygiene. You teach emotional hygiene the same way you teach personal hygiene, which is using the time place tool method. Okay, so we regularly practice our keeping our teeth clean after or before bed or after dinner. That's time in the bathroom over the sink. That's place. And with the toothbrush and toothpaste, that's the tool, right? We want to do that same thing with emotional hygiene. There's a predictable time, maybe before bed, maybe when we first wake up, maybe in the afternoon during that dead time.
We want a place, a cozy corner, a soft pillow, a rocking chair, a tent. One of the students in our class, Laura, you know, she got her daughter a little teepee, and the daughter goes in there, she's two and a half, and she goes, I calm down now.
That's a great idea. She says her name. She goes, I take break. I take break. So that's the place. And then in that place, you want some tools. Now the tools that you can have a combination of things that are tangible and intangible. A tangible tool would be like a squishy toy. An intangible tool would be like a deep, deep breaths. So you practice that emotional hygiene every day with regularity the same way you take care of her teeth, her body, right? You practice it regularly and you keep switching out the tools until she builds a really great toolkit of strategies that she can take with her to her first day of school. She could take with her to a play date. You know, those things will travel well with her outside of the comfort of home. or when she's about to lose it in target, you won't have your TP and squishy toy, but you will have something, right?
You can say, oh, you're very mad. You're not getting this pack of gum. You know, you can clench and release, stomp your feet. I'm mad. I don't get gum. And now we're ready for a deep breath, a pressure point, a hug, a sip of water, smelling something good. You can carry some essential oil with you or something like that. That can trigger that regulation, that coping strategy.
Shanna
I love that idea. It's like when I'm in the moment with her, it's like, don't hit yourself. Take a deep breath, but these are like... new concepts to her in that moment when she's all enraged, right? So, of course, introduce those ideas at a calm moment and practice them. It never occurred to me. So this is good. This is going to be helpful, really helpful for our listeners too, I think, just in dealing with tantrums and meltdowns in general with their kids. I agree.
Speaker 1
It's a game changer. It really is. The reason you see her repetitive like self-harm is because she can't process in the moment and she can't retain the lesson that you're giving her, right? Because she's in the moment. Then the next day is like starting all over again.
Shanna
Exactly. Ooh, well, I've got some work ahead of me, but I'm excited about it. This is so good. I'm so glad to hear that.
Speaker 1
Well, thanks for listening to all of that. I feel like it was a lot. I'm also a college professor, so sometimes I go into lecture mode. But when I get excited about a topic, and this is my favorite topic, sometimes I slip into lecture mode. Yeah. So I teach child development classes. That's another way to stay current. in all of the cool research and weird experiments and research that they do with children. So that's how I stay really current with what's going on out there. So thanks for listening to all of that, Shanna.
Shanna
Of course, lecture on. I am your student. Great. All right, Laura, do we have some listener questions that we can give to Jia?
Laura
We do. And actually, we have a voice memo for this first one. So I'm going to play it. Awesome.
Speaker 2
Okay, so I haven't reached having a toddler yet, but is every toddler hard? Like, I hope that's not a stupid question. I'm gonna assume yes, and I know some are hard at two and some are hard at three. I don't know if you could address that question, but being that I just have an infant right now, it does really kind of scare me, and I'm sure some are easier than others. That toddler stage, I don't know. It just really kind of scares me. Whoa, sister. All right, good night, ladies. Talk soon. Bye-bye.
Laura
Okay, so that was from Meesee Smith, who we've heard from before. Hi, Meesee. Thank you for sending that voice memo in. All right, so, Gia, tell us, are all toddlers hard?
Speaker 1
All healthy, typically developing toddlers should have some struggle between independence and ability. That is normal part of healthy psychological development. So the good news, bad news is, yes, they're going to give you trouble, but that's because they're healthy and developing. So that's the good news, bad news. A very famous child development theorist is Eric Erickson. Everybody knows who he is. If you've ever heard the term identity crisis, that was him. And he did a crisis for every stage of development. And the toddler one is called autonomy versus shame and doubt. But I really look at it like I said, it's like independence versus ability. and they want to do things on their own and they can't.
So I can give you a hack though, because one of the things that happens is for those first two years of life you see so much change from an infant to a young toddler, and they're so excited to do things on their own. You go as a parent, you go from like doing things to them, changing their diaper, dressing them, feeding them, to doing things with them where you're like, you know, hold your spoon or take off your shoes by yourself or you can turn, you know, you can get in the bathtub by yourself or, you know, and they are so compliant because they're so excited to do that in the beginning. The reason that changes around to when they're an older toddler is because you've given them two years of education, and then usually parents just keep doing the same method, which is super annoying. So to the toddler. So imagine how much you both know it's healthy for you to drink water.
all day, and I come along telling you, drink more water. Come on, Shanna, take another sip, Laura. Laura, have you had enough water, Laura? Laura, drink some more. And you're like, I know. That's kind of how your older toddler will feel. But the shift is invisible. What you see instead is behavior pushback. So the hack is, Once you start having a toddler push against you for something that they have normally done without issue, things like they won't lay still for a diaper change. They won't get in the car seat without a fight. They won't let you change them into their clothes. whatever you're like, but they never did this before or if you hear yourself saying they were always happy doing this until now or all of a sudden any of those phrases means you missed a stage of development that they learned something and now you're kind of annoying them.
So the shift is an independent tweak. We give them an independence upgrade, also known as an up skill. So let's just use the like bath time. If all of a sudden you're like, I don't understand. They used to love bath time and now they don't. That's, that's it. That's your aha moment. You're like, okay. All of a sudden they're giving me trouble with bath time. What can I do differently to increase their independence so they don't give me this trouble? So you could do things like have them turn the water on by themselves, squeeze out the shampoo by themselves, pick out different toys for the tub by themselves, or stop giving them baths and start giving them a shower, right? You always want to slide up towards independence. The what they do is slide backwards with behavior challenges or some kind of turbulence in their behavior and what we need to do to respond is.
go upwards towards higher level skills. So they ask in weird ways to be treated differently. But what they're basically saying sometimes is like, I'm not a baby anymore. Right? Yeah. So they ask, they say that in a way that's frustrating. Yes. It's through behavior challenges. So, you know, the bathtub example is one, the getting in and out of the car seat is another, if all of a sudden they're giving you trouble with getting in and out of the car seat, and before they never gave you any trouble, it means that we need to do something different to increase their independence. So can they open the car door by themselves? Can they climb in to the car seat by themselves? Can they do the first buckle, the clasp by themselves? You know, what can they do that is towards independence that will upskill them.
And that usually extinguishes that behavior problem or that frustration level when they get satisfied by doing a new skill.
Shanna
Absolutely. I've seen that in my own kids. I mean, I didn't implement it as specifically, like as you said, right? Because this is such like new terminology to me and I love thinking about it that way. But like just when it just happens, right? When Cece is so mad about her car seat, and then suddenly she's like, I want to do the buckles. And I'm like, okay, sister, she starts doing it. And then I noticed like it's a happier experience for her. So this totally makes sense. That's right. Our job is to raise adults.
Speaker 1
Not children. That is true. Yes. And so if we keep treating them like children, they will start to push against us. Hey, listen, look at what I do for a living. I did the same to my own two boys. It wasn't until my older son was like, I think five that I just like realized I was still giving him like little sippy cups. I was like, wait, what am I doing? What am I doing? He could use a cup. Like we get into our routines and our ruts and it's totally normal, but they will ask for independence in really not fun ways.
Yes.
Laura
Sebastian's doing a lot of like arching and trying to like throw himself towards the floor head first. That's a that's a fun action right now when he's mad. Yeah. And biting too, which is I've asked you about that in class. I think we're doing okay with the biting, but it's like whoa.
Speaker 1
Sebastian's at a tough age because he's so like his receptive language is 100 percent. his expressive language is not quite there. That dissonance between what your brain can do and what your mouth can do can be so frustrating. Absolutely. Yeah.
Laura
So that actually leads us to our next question, which is from a listener on Instagram. She asks, how can I get my 18-month-old to stop throwing his cup slash utensil slash plate when he is quote unquote done? It sounds like it might tie into what we were just talking about.
Speaker 1
It really does. Yeah, that's very insightful, Laura. 18 months is really getting really close to that older toddler stage. And so that independence is really on high alert. So the first thing that I would ask is, is that 18 month old still in a high chair? They might be over it. They might be like, I've done this for a long time. I'm ready to be upskilled. You can take the tray off and bring them to the table. That would be an upskill example. But the other thing that I'm thinking of for this particular situation is to give him an empty plate and have him do self-serve. So here's the thing, when a child picks their own food, they're less likely to throw it because it's been their choice to put it on their plate.
A transition to family style eating can sometimes, not for all kids obviously, and that's true for all of the things we're talking about, but it sometimes can switch that psychology around like, I chose this, so I want it. That can help eliminate throwing. And then another way that you can eliminate throwing is to have a discard bowl. Because again, if we think about upskilling, there is something that happens later in life about what you do when you're done with your food. Eventually, you want to see that toddler preschooler in early childhood, take their plates, walk it over to the sink, rinse it off, put it in the dishwasher. Those are all in the future horizon. What's a baby step? A little scaffold towards that. Next step might be to have a discard bowl. So when you're done, it goes in here.
And so what I would do is that similar to that replacement behavior, if you throw it on the ground, you pick it up and go, oh, it goes in here, try and get it in the bowl, try and get it in the bowl. And so you give them direction with throwing, and then that's this little baby step. then with a discard bowl that eventually be walked over to the sink, maybe even filled with bubbles. They can quote unquote wash it, not really, but you know. So that's what you want to try to imagine when you have this turbulence with around any behavior issue is what would be the eventual goal of the behavior I'd wish to see and what's a baby step to get me there. Does that make sense?
Shanna
Yes.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Now give them direction. Oh, you're all done. Okay, this is what we do when we're all done. Put in this bowl, fill it with some soap and water and we wash it, right? Like that's what's next.
Shanna
Right. And it's perfect for them and for their age. Yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker 1
And kind of fun. So there's this whole thing. I mean, you know this instinctually already, but I'll just say it anyway. Like whatever you give attention to grows. So we want to give attention to expected and desired behavior and not give attention to behavior we want to extinguish. So if you say don't throw, that grows throwing. If we say throw into the bowl, then you get that directed behavior. And the other thing, and I'm sure you already know this, but it's worth repeating is when you say don't do something and even with like CECE's headbanging. When you say don't headbang or whatever, it forces a toddler to double process, which they can't do. They cannot do it. So a double process is stop this behavior and do another. And that's when we say don't touch the hot stove. They're going to touch the hot stove.
Because they can't think that fast. Right. And you know what? If you catch yourself this week trying to use replacement behavior language. You're going to see it's hard for your grown-up brain. Don't touch the hot stove. What are you going to say? Touch the ground. Touch my hand. If it's hard, if it's hard for you to think of it, it's impossible for them to think of it.
Shanna
Totally, totally.
Laura
I do think I think I need to do the discard bowl with Sebastian, too, because he is starting to throw food when he's all done. And I think he thinks it's fun. And then Augie also thinks it's fun and like they egg each other on. And I do know he loves moving things from one container to another. So this will fill that gap, too. Yeah. So I'm going to try that at dinner tonight and I'll report back. But you know what, I think we could probably keep Gia here for like the next five hours asking her questions. Yes.
Shanna
Oh, she doesn't want to do that.
Laura
We are going to keep her a little longer, but we are going to stick the next set of questions in our next episode because otherwise this episode would be very long and we do want you to get on with your lives listeners. But before we let Gia go for this episode, we do ask all of our guests if they have a BFP they want to share with us. Gia, you said you do have a BFP. Now is your chance.
Speaker 1
Oh, I do. My big, fat positive of this week is my swimming pool. Nice. I recently got very injured. I have a broken wrist and I can't do anything, but I can float. I can float. And oh my goodness, does it feel amazing? It's a million degrees here. And getting in that pool is like, it's better than therapy.
Shanna
Yes. I'm so jealous. I want to pull in my backyard so bad. It's so worth it. That's an amazing BFP. I'm happy for you. Thank you.
Speaker 1
And I'd also like to say, you know, one of the things that I feel very passionate about is giving these tailored approaches to parents. So if any of these things don't seem easily applicable for you, you can find me on my website, Gia Gambaro Blunt and book a one-on-one session with me. I'd be happy to work with you directly.
Laura
Yes, everyone, we're going to have the URL in our show notes. You should absolutely find Gia. She is a genius, as you can already tell, I'm sure. And I have to say that having you as a resource Gia has made my parenting journey so much better and so much easier because I can just, it's so funny. Whenever we have a problem, Cory will be like, well, have you asked Gia about it?
Speaker 1
That makes me so happy. Thank you. That really is my mission. That's my mission is to help parents. And I'm happy to hear that it helped you. So thank you for sharing that.
Laura
I'll just be like, well, it's almost Tuesday. I'll hold on to this to our class. Love it. Love it. But anyway, Gia, thank you again for coming on and answering these questions. And we will be seeing you again for the next episode. So, listeners, please tune in for that next week. But for now, Shanna, should we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? I think we should.
Shanna
We're back and we wrap up every episode with our weekly Big Fat positives or Big Fat negatives of the week. Laura, what do you got for us? I have a BFN. Oh, for some reason I was not expecting that. Okay. Really? Yeah.
Laura
Okay. So this is a me BFN. This is a giving myself a demerit so that I'll do better in the future.
Shanna
Okay.
Laura
But my BFN is comparing my children to each other.
Shanna
Oh, tell me more.
Laura
Okay. So, you know, our listeners know that Augie was a very precocious talker. He was an early talker. He was an early, very complex talker. He continues to be. like very precocious with his speech and just like, you know, there's just an area where he's been, you know, ahead of, you know, or like on the far end of the bell curve, right? And we had this issue, or I guess it's not an issue, but like, I had this experience a lot, especially when he was about two, where we'd go to the park or something and another parent with a kid around the same age would hear him talking and they'd freak out basically and be like, Oh my gosh, did you just say like whatever stupid complex sentence he said, right?
Shanna
Uh-huh.
Laura
And they're like, oh, my son's not even really talking yet. My son's like barely putting two words together. And I would tell every single one of them, please do not compare against Augie. He's like a weirdo. He's off the charts. It just happens to be an area of strength for him. Like you really shouldn't compare because it's not a fair comparison. You know, it's everyone develops at their own rate and blah, blah, blah. And you shouldn't be worried, right? This is great advice I gave to other parents.
But now.
Shanna
You're not taking your own advice, Laura?
Laura
I'm not, apparently. So I now have a 17 month old, actually. I forgot to say that in the check-in. He just turned 17 months this week. Cool. And I was getting curious about his speech because I couldn't remember exactly when Augie started talking and stuff. And Sebastian's babbling and has some words, but I couldn't remember exactly when Augie was doing the same stuff. So I went back in my Google Photos and searched for videos from when he was newly 17 months. And I was watching these videos of Augie from that age and it kind of sent me into a spiral because I was like, Sebastian's not doing that like Augie at 16 months said pepper nose because he like knew that pepper made you sneeze and I remember thinking that was so cute and so funny and like Sebastian. says car for car and car for cat for helicopter and i'm just like this is not the same.
And it kind of sent me into a little bit of a spiral that was all worried, like, oh, no, is he going to need early intervention? Like, how many words should he be saying right now? Shanna, I started a spreadsheet to track what words he speaks.
Shanna
Oh my God, that is so typical. What is on your spreadsheet?
Laura
Here, let's see. Okay, it's titled, Sebastian's Words, and there's a column for word, a column for pronunciation, a date I recorded him being able to say this, and any comments I might have. So for example, I have the word bird, but he pronounces it ba, and you know, stuff like that.
Like again, he says again, but he really says again. I will say that even though like it's probably not healthy to have a spreadsheet of your kids words, it's kind of cute to see what's coming up. And also it did reassure me because like. know, he has like 12 or 13 words on here, which I think is, I think the average is 50 by 18 months. And I can tell he's getting more. And so like, it showed me that it's not like I shouldn't be worried. But that leads me back to my BFN, which is that I shouldn't be comparing my kids like they're different people, you know, Augie, yeah, he's like excelling at speech and language. He didn't walk till 12 months and Sebastian was like walking at 10, I think, right? Or like almost, maybe it was 11 but barely, you know? And he's like, here I am comparing them. See, this is the problem. This is the problem.
The point is they have different strengths and I need to appreciate that.
Shanna
Yes. But what you're experiencing, I think, is so common. And I think a lot of listeners who have two children are going to be like, oh, yeah, I get that. I mean, I hear what you're talking about. And I'm like, oh, I literally did the exact same thing with Al and Cece. I went back in my Google Photos and found videos of Al around, I don't know, 17, 18 months to see what she was saying. And she was also an early talker and extremely verbal. At that age, she was like singing her ABCs. She gave herself a nickname at that age. I was flipping out. And granted, I did end up having some problems with CeCe and her articulation problems down the road. That was like completely irrelevant, I think at like 17, 18 months because like you can't even judge really like what a kid is going to end up developing at that age. Like all the pediatricians, right?
We're like, no, no, no, don't even worry about it until she's like two and a half, three years old, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm just here to say that like that's totally normal. I think we've all been there. I've totally been there. So I get where you're coming from. And yeah, they are different people. You're so right. Like you're realizing it and you're making a point to be conscious of it and that's like the right thing to do.
Laura
So you're all good. And I should say that I make a really like conscious effort to not compare them on anything like in front of them. So that's been something I've been aware of, like don't compare them in front of them. And my mom will do that. She'll be like, Oh, wasn't Augie doing this at this age? And I'm like, we're not comparing them against each other in front of them. But I am so guilty of doing it privately. So I'm going to try to be better and I'll report back. Okay, sounds good. But anyway, that is my BFN for the week. Shanna, I want to know, do you have a BFP or a BFN?
Shanna
I have a BFP. Oh, good. Yes. And it is related to what I talked about in my check-in, which is CECE being sick this week and being very fatigued and tired. And as such, she's been very snuggly in the middle of the day. She just like crawls up on my lap and like, you know, puts her head against my chest. And she did that the other day. And I was like, do you want me to sing to you? Thinking she's going to be like, no, like she has been since she was born. Like she's like, never really let me sing to her. I don't get to sing her lullabies and everything like I did to Elle. And she said, yes. And I was like, oh my god, now's my chance. And so I sang as many lullabies as I could think of. And then I took a chance and I started singing my favorite song, which is the Elton John Your Song, right? Oh, yeah. It's a little bit funny. this feeling inside and she just like listened to it.
She allowed me to sing to her and she was like resting her head on my chest and I sang the song and like she eventually fell asleep and I was nap trapped for a little while and it was Awesome. You don't get that very often anymore when your kids get a little bit bigger. It's actually one of the nice things about them being sick. So I was really happy that I got to sing to her and comfort her. So the next day, similar things. She's still tired again. So she sits on my lap and she said, I want to hear. It's a little bit funny. No song. And I was like, oh, OK. And I'm like, oh, do you want to hear, like, do you want me to play it for you? Like, you want to hear the original? And so I ask Alexa to play it. And the song starts. And after a minute, Cici goes, no, I want to hear your voice. And I was like, oh, record scratch. Excuse me.
The moment I've been waiting for my whole life with you as your mother. I wanted to replay that moment over and over. She literally said, no, no, no. I don't want to hear Elton John's voice, mama. I want to hear your voice. I could not believe it. So I was like, Alexa, stop. I put the kibosh on Elton John, and I got to sing it to her, and she rested her head on my chest, and it was just like the best, the best thing ever.
Laura
Ugh, I love it. Who needs Elton John? I mean, what does he got? Some Grammys or something? Yeah. When you got Mama's voice. He ain't got nothing on Shanna Micko's beautiful voice. It's a little bit funny.
Now I've got that song stuck in my head. I love it.
Shanna
So much. So my BFP is that I beat out Elton John this week. I'm very proud of it. Awesome. Awesome. And that's it. So I think that's it for our show. Yeah. Yes, that is our show. But wait, Laura, do we have a five star review to read?
Laura
You know we do. Alright, this one is from Paige McVeigh. She says, Like gossiping with friends over coffee, but with no social interactions, always quality content and every Monday morning. I can't thank you enough for being bold enough to share all aspects of parenting. Your reach goes farther than you think. For example, my friend and I are going headfirst into gentle parenting now with our one-year-olds and making sure to laugh when we absolutely miss the mark. Just like you taught us, XOXOX PAGE.
Shanna
I love that review page. That's so awesome. I will have non-social interaction gossip with you anytime. Anytime.
I love it. Oh my gosh. Our listeners are the best. Listeners, will you do us a favor if you haven't left us a five-star review yet? Will you head on over to Apple Podcasts wherever you listen that allows reviews Throw us those five stars. Tell us why you love the show. This helps other listeners take a chance on the show and helps us grow our community of awesome, awesome people who are living through similar things. And we're all just kind of one big family laughing through the ups and downs. And we want to reach as many people as possible who need to be part of this community. So thank you so much for doing that. And thank you to Gia for giving us all the tips and tricks on toddler troubleshooting. If you have any other issues you want to let us know about, reach out. Laura, where can they reach us?
Laura
We're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at BFP Podcast. We have a website, bigfappositivepodcast.com. If you want to send us a voice memo or just a regular old email, you can send it to contact at bigfappositivepodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join the group that is the coolest group of people that you will ever meet on the internet, just search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community. Request to join because it's a private group and you got to answer those two membership questions or else we're going to think you're a robot and not let you in. But we want to let you in because it's a great group and so once you answer those questions, you'll get sent straight through and can join in on all the wonderful conversations we're having in there.
Shanna
Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Have a great week. Enjoy those kiddos. See you next week. Bye. Bye.