If you have a chance, please checkout my friend's blog. Her son is roughly the same age as mine and she always has interesting thoughts about parenting and her experience as a mom. Today's post is about the differences between a newborn and a busy toddler. Below is my response to her points about the clingy/independent coin with young children. It's an interesting issue especially for someone like me with a background in psychology.
I have to agree pretty much. We're not too worried about the new little sister when she's born because they're actually pretty easy the first few months. They don't go anywhere, drink only milk, need little outside amusement other than being held. Cole is a ton more work now. But I'd say he's also a bigger reward since you get feedback about how he perceives the world. Newborns are kinda just lumps. For us, we've traded sleeping through the night with a much more crazy day that needs to have stuff to do. I can't just sit and watch reruns of CSI with him on my lap. lol Just a word about the self-soothing debate...I also agree there and I think Cole's version of this is that we're letting him still have his soothie and blankie a lot of places and during the day. And I realize he needs to learn to not turn to these in times of stress but something about being 1 or 2 just feels to me like he's not quite ready. If there's any point in our lives where we deserve a little break on being needy it's when you're little like that. And, just like the attachment folks would say, he's shown lots of independence in return...going down the slide by himself, eating a banana without help, etc.. So much of the pickup and tugging on your pants stuff is about mood too. They get tired easily and have no sense of time or the world. They're not rational yet, afterall. You can't explain logic to them. I say until my kids are old enough to understand more complete thoughts and larger cause/effect relationships, my timeouts will be less harsh and my understanding about his emotional immaturity will be greater.
Just your Ordinary Working Mom: Newborns are easy. Toddlers are hard.: So many people I know are about to have babies and it bring me back to the "sage advice" that I often heard. "Get used to sleepless nights" ...