That Monday started off as an ordinary productive day. Bills were paid, work was being done, house straightened back into order after a weekend of fun, we even got to play outside for a bit before nap time. I asked Lilli if she was ready for her stories and she ran into the house from our porch with great enthusiasm. We read a few of her favorite stories that she picked that afternoon, we rocked in the rocker for a bit listening to our favorite bedtime song, humming along together until the second rendition ended. As usual, I asked her if she was ready for bed and as usual she told me "no." I put her into her crib, gave her a kiss, turned on the monitor and told her "night, night."
As soon as I shut her door, hysterics broke out from a very distressed toddler. It's not an uncommon occurrence when she gets upset at nap or bed time, it usually only lasts long enough for her to get comfortable. Today she seemed more agitated. I took our dog, Taz, outside for a mere 2 minutes and came back in to check her on the video monitor. She was still awake, still crying. She started to stand up and yell louder, a sure sign that it would be at least another ten minutes before she'd be going down for her nap.
I took my laptop to my favorite work space and my work for the afternoon, setting myself up for the next two hours of power-working. I set down my papers, opened up my files, and sat down to work. Suddenly, Lilli started to make a choking sound. I didn't even stop to see her on the monitor, I sprung into action, sprinting down the hall into her room. She had put her fingers down her throat and made herself vomit ALL over.
It's something she had done before in smaller and less dramatic quantities. In the past, she has chewed on her fingers because of teething and spit up when she gagged herself. This was way way way worse. She finished off two cups of juice that morning and a big lunch that afternoon. To say there was vomit all over is putting it mildly.
I grabbed her out of her crib, threw her in the empty tub, stripped her down and dumped buckets of water all over her to get her cleaned off the best I could before running to do damage control. I made her sit there in an empty tub, naked and wet, while I stripped her bed in the other room. I collected all of the stuffed animals surrounding the bed that were in the line of fire, her sheets and blankets, the pillows on the floor (a product of being scared she'll climb out one day and fall), and Augie (her lovey) that were all covered in the foulest smelling substance ever. I ran back and forth between the washer, her room, and the tub to check on her over and over. It was chaos.
Once I got all of the contaminated items into the washer, I quickly made up her bed, found a spare Augie, and ran back to the tub for her second bath of the day. After the initial shock wore off, she seemed un-phased by what had happened even playing in the tub and asking for more tub toys. I, on the other hand, was still shaking from everything (even hours later). Once she was clean (again), she went out to her play area and began to push around her baby doll stroller. Self inflicting vomit to skip nap? I don't think so.
Unless she wants to go back to daycare, I need those two or three hours to get my work done for the day. There was only one option, back to try again. This time I sat with her on the rocker until she fell asleep and gently put her back into bed. She slept a little longer and ate a bigger dinner than usual, but luckily for all of us, she was back to her spunky self in no time.
We read up on what had happened, to see if there was any thing to be concerned about for the future. Apparently this is a common occurrence for toddlers between 18 months and 3 years old. If it continues, it could be come routine and very messy. The solutions are not to give in and to change the sleep routine. Once you find one that works, be consistent. Probably the most over used solution in bed time problems. So far, so good. We are pretty consistent with her, a long walk before and an extra song at bed time seems to have done the trick. I don't think I could be clean up crew every day. I have a pretty tough stomach when it comes to the every day mom-clean-ups, but the memory of the mess still makes me a little queasy.
And since you stomached such a gross story, here's a distracting cute picture:"Song of the Entry"
Ellis the Trellis by Bicycle Voice
