Published: August 04, 2008 09:54 am            

DADDY'S GIRL: Bad baby habits are hard to break

Breaking a bad habit, whether it be smoking, overeating or picking those kooks out from your eyes in public, is tough.

When you’re trying to break the bad habit of a 1-year-old girl who still falls on her bum every 15 steps — and whose antics are cute even as they reinforce improper behavior — tough is only the start of it.

While I don’t have much of a basis for comparison, Penny seem to overall be a better baby than most. She doesn’t incessantly scream for hours on end, she can play by herself for hours (as long as we’re somewhere in the room with her) and rides in the car quite well.

She does have some minor pitfalls, however, such as falling asleep. After her first couple of months of existence, it took nothing more than setting her in her crib and waiting five minutes for Penny to begin a 10-hour slumber with nary a peep.

She sometimes still sleeps 10 hours, but only after waking up four or five times, being rocked back to sleep and sometimes joining Mommy and Daddy in bed for a short while.

We try letting her cry (she fights back by escalating her decibel level by the minute) and quickly putting her back to sleep within minutes of picking her up (I can sometimes resist the urge to not return, at least until she cries “Daddy!” at which point I turn into a pile of parental goo), but she grows more finicky by the week. She now usually can’t fall asleep unless one of us embraces her on the couch as she drifts off, which is probably not the best way to do it ... but how can you resist cuddle time with such a cutie?

And where she used to fall asleep over my shoulder, she now insists on being horizontal in her slumber, which means I have to hold her upper half in my right hand — she won’t sleep the other way — and her lower half in my left hand. Especially when she burrows into me, though, I can’t help but let her.

Night time isn’t the only time when she’s imperfect, though. She’s discovered that while she’s eating in her high chair, she can entice the dog to accompany her by throwing cereal on the floor. What was once a curiosity has turned into a game, with her glancing at Mommy or me with a knowing smile, then gradually dropping Cheerios like she’s tossing life rafts to tiny people drowning in the carpet.

Even as we warn her, she’ll continue to slowly lower her arm toward the ground. Bella has quickly realized that Penny’s meal time equals her meal time, which doesn’t help the situation.

Another late-forming habit has seen Penny protest diaper-changing time. Cleaning poop is never fun, but the task really stinks when the person being sanitized insists on protesting every second of the event, twisting her hips and contorting herself like she was auditioning for Cirque du Soleil.

There’s not much you can do other than calmly repeat what the correct action is, over and over and over. Since she can’t understand everything you’re trying to say, it takes time and a lot of patience.

The good news is that her comprehension of our requests will increase quite a bit in the coming months. The bad news is that her mastery of the word “no” will climb just as fast, and it should peak right about the time reinforcements arrive.

•••

Speaking of Little Lane No. 2, a doctor’s visit revealed this past week that everything with the baby is developing nicely. We’re early into the second trimester, and my wife is starting to show. As exciting as that is on its own, seeing Penny pat Mommy’s tummy every day and say “Hi baby” to her little brother or sister is as priceless as it is tireless.

Contact editor Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116,or lanep@gnnewspaper.com.

        

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