Melting Down
If you had asked me about meltdowns before my second child was born I would’ve told you a story about the one time my darling boy lost the plot in the long queue at Target. It was not long after they had changed it from separate checkouts to one long ‘toddler unfriendly’ lineup area. He must’ve been somewhere between twelve and eighteen months because I don’t remember being noticeably pregnant at the time and I also don’t remember what it started over. That was the thing actually, I didn’t know what he wanted. If I had I would’ve bought him whatever it was, I would’ve bought him two to stop the screaming that day. The screaming, back arching and the ‘in the stroller out of the stroller’ dance that was attracting stares from all around. I felt every pair of eyes in the shopping centre on me and I felt them willing me to “control my child”. I felt like curling up in a ball and disappearing, like giving up because I clearly had no idea what I was doing and probably had no business being a mum at all. Just as those things were running through my desperate, frazzled mind a smiling stranger approached, handed me a chuppa chup and said simply “try this”! The lollipop didn’t help, in fact I would’ve been better off sucking on it myself for strength, but the gesture helped a whole lot. It said to me “there is at least one person here who is with you, who is not judging you, who understands. It gave me the strength the strap that tantrumming child into his stroller and just push. I pushed him to the car staring straight ahead, ignoring his screams, which of course dissipated by the time we got there.
Now I think you’d struggle to find a mother who has not been through something similar. I knew at the time that I was extremely fortunate to have lasted so many months without that kind of thing happening. Since then it has rarely happened again in public. At three he stepped his meltdowns up a notch, sure, and at four he has become a foot stomping, door slamming, rage filled little boy at times. However it almost always happens at home where the only person judging me and my reaction is myself. This brings me to the kicker, the part where you ask me about meltdowns today. Right now, when I’ve been through those things with my oldest and simultaneously been through a whole other kind of meltdown nightmare with my youngest.
My youngest is a ball of energy, the cheekiest of cheeky who melts my heart several times daily and also makes me sigh just as often. I know I am biased but he is a special kid and also a very challenging one. We have sleep challenges and food challenges and often the two culminate in behaviour challenges. He is headstrong and determined (I often joke he will be a very successful CEO one day) and he is extremely difficult to parent. I can cope with the broken sleep for weeks on end now. I can cope with the extra work of checking every single thing he eats and making most things from scratch. I can even cope with his hyperactivity and acting out when the sleep/food additive balance becomes completely out of whack. I cope with all of these things now, after almost three years because he is my child and I have accepted that this is him. There is nothing wrong with him that I need to fix. He needs me just to be there for him and give him what he needs in the moment.
His meltdowns, however, are something I am still coming to terms with. As he gets older they have changed and grown with him. As a 6 month old bub he would wriggle and wrestle, screaming in my arms, at every sleep time. These days they happen less often but still usually around sleep time. Either he wakes screaming or he loses it trying to get to sleep. We have the usual two year old temper tantrums over spilled water and wanting another marshmallow but these ones, the sleep associated ones are different and they are heartbreaking. To go to your child and have them look straight through you, red and blotchy from screaming, sometimes shaking, sometimes writhing around, limbs hitting and kicking out is unsettling to say the least. To have him then push me away, moving as far away as possible screaming “No Mummy No” is beyond devastating. On occasion, when I have been particularly sleep deprived and its happened in the middle of the night, I have broken down and sobbed with him. Sobbed out of frustration, helplessness and hurt because it takes an incredible amount of resolve not to take something like that personally.
It has happened often enough now that I know it’s not me. I know he can’t help it and that we need to just ride it out together. I know that he will stop in his own time and will want a cuddle and that nothing I say or do will decrease the amount of time I have to endure it. For a long time, as well as taking it personally, I took each episode as another failure. A failure, on my part, to monitor his food and supplements well enough and a failure to control his naps and bedtime. I know that if I could control these things in the perfect balance for him then I could prevent it from happening. The thing is, I also know now that it is impossible for me to control elements of his environment to that extent. Believe me I have tried. I accept it now and I realise that the occurrence of the meltdowns is not the focus anymore. They’re going to happen, sometimes more frequently than others due to a whole range of factors that are beyond my control. The focus now is on how I respond and react when they do happen. Will I, one day, be able to put my discomfort and ego aside and just be with him until he feels better? I hope so and I hope that ‘one day’ comes soon.
This week he woke from one of his naps calling out as usual but by the time I got down the hallway to his room he was kicking and screaming. I ‘shhhhhd’ and sat down letting him know I was there. I tried to reach out to him and caught his little fist in my hand. I stood back and offered him water, the toilet, something to eat. I’d fallen into the trap of trying to make it stop. For the first time in a long time it was happening in the day and my older son came wandering into the room. He asked calmly “what do you want? Mum, what does he want?” not phased by the screaming in the slightest. He sat down beside me and said simply “nothing works, does it?” I shook my head and sat while he went out and brought his little brother a special toy he thought might do the trick. It didn’t. He tried to give him a tentative hug but, like me, was pushed away. He sat next to me a little longer before leaving the room with another idea. I thought he might take the opportunity to stay away but before long he returned with a piece of paper in his hand. He showed me first, then his screaming brother. In the middle of the white sheet of paper were three stick figures huddled together. ” It’s us having a group hug!” he said with a smile.
The screaming continued for a few more minutes and I sat there thinking about my big boy, my first born, who’s life changed so much when his little brother came along. How much of our focus he gave up, how much screaming and crying he has endured as well as sleepless nights and tired days just like us. I often wonder and feel guilty about it all but that drawing said something big to me. It said, he is fine, more than fine. There he was, not even five, understanding and empathising with his brother in a distressing situation. He was thinking outside of the square to find a way to help him when nothing obvious worked. Though he may resent all that he lost when he gained a brother, though he may act out for attention when it all seems to be on someone else, above all he loves his brother and he has his back. Maybe in the long run this will all be worth it? Maybe these experiences are shaping a couple of amazing little humans?
