Tag Archives: clingy children

April 10, 2012 · 7:37 am

The Twins Have Started School

The twins have started school and I have mixed feelings about it (they don’t, by the way, they hate it).

I am relieved that they are now out of the house for a few hours, but, I miss them terribly. I am so used to waking up to their combined chatter, non-stop from the time they wake up, to the time they can’t fight sleep anymore and flop down in the night, that now the mornings seem empty and quiet.

Also, I have a confession to make. I cannot take their crying and yelling, as the teachers take them away from me at the school gate. I can hear them (the younger twin especially) pleading for me, and I cave. Yes, I cry. I feel silly, of course, but that does not stop the tears – they keep rolling down and I find it hard to swallow that lump in my throat (it’s coming back now with the memory of that parting)

I dread the mornings, when I have to drop them to school; when I try and create an artificially lively environment in the car by singing and talking about some irrelevant topic as a distraction method. I put on nursery rhymes and ask them to sing along. Needless to say, my completely transparent efforts are met with stoic silence from my otherwise chirpy twins. They look at me with sad eyes and declare that they don’t like school. It makes me want to turn back and take them home. Clearly, my nerves are not exactly made of steel, to put it mildly.

I called my mum when I was at school the other day. She understood, of course, but then she asked me how I’d feel when they’d grow up and go away. I could not imagine it. I don’t like to think of myself as a clingy mother, and I always thought I’d have the strength to let my children go, but now I am having serious doubts on any such abilities I thought I may have had. (God bless my kids!)

These years will pass I know. They’ll pass too soon says my mother, I guess from experience. If she could, she would summon Well’s Time Traveller and go back in time, to when we were little. She does not understand why I want to do just the reverse, to get propelled into the future! I see her point now, though. I cannot imagine how it will be to be old; to see my kids only once in a while; to call them and be told that they were busy- that they would call me back. In theory I know that’s how it will be, but when we are actually there, it’s not like all this reflection would help the reality.

Anyway, I digress. Didn’t mean to write all this. I meant to just pour out some feelings about my “separation anxiety” in child psychology parlance (except that in my case both the kids and the mother suffer from it!!)

I know they’ll settle and I can start to make use of my time. It’s a milestone and I am not sure how I feel about it. When I picked them up from school today, the younger one said “mama, I like home”..

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March 15, 2011 · 6:51 pm

The clingy stage, all over again, and this time, it’s double trouble!!

My five year old is just about getting out of the really clingy stage (still demanding, don’t get me wrong, that’s not going to change – mommy must do everything!) But, she’s past that I-am-going-to-stick-to-your-leg-do-what-you-can state. So that’s something of a relief. (She’s developed other somewhat distressing habits, like the sulking and moodiness of a teenager, but, more on that later – another post). For now I am happy that she’s not hanging around me like a rope, on most days.

However, the twins, now one and a half, are right there! Clingy does not quite define their behavior right now. They are gluey to the point that I cannot even escape to the bathroom without them pounding on the door beseeching me to come out.  And that makes me wonder if this is so extreme because I’ve done/am doing something wrong!

The only thing I can think of is that, at night, I don’t put them to bed. I  leave the room because they drink milk (still on the bottle!) before sleeping and I can’t put two of them in my lap and feed them, so I leave them to their maids, something they were OK with till recently, but now they scream and shout and want me in the room. The problem, however, is that if I do try and put them to bed, they fight over who has to be in my lap, pushing the other out. It leads to much shouting and crying, with both of them saying “both babies!!” or “Mama, I want your lap!”.

It’s now kind of become a vicious circle – I flee because they fight each other for me, and no matter which one I pick up, I feel bad for the other. I leave because then, at least, they know that I’ve not picked one over the other. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I do know that, because I leave, they get clingier. I did try once to lie down next to them and pat them both, didn’t work. They both wanted to climb all over me and fought sleep.

Maybe I need to do this a few times to make them believe that I am not going to leave them at sleep time. But then, I get tired by the end of the day and look forward to a little bit of downtime before I go to bed. And that’s what I am going to have to give up if I have to put them to bed too.  I have no time in the evenings to myself, none at all.  My older one has to be fed and put to bed by 8:00 – 8:20, on school nights, so once we come back from the park, I am on a fast track to get her all set for the night. Then we eat dinner (mostly, I eat with the twins taking turns to sit on my lap while I try and eat!). Then I play with them for about forty minutes, till the maids eat and wrap up. So, by the time it’s time for them to sleep, I am out of steam (and patience).  That’s when I want a bit of time to unwind, talk to my husband (seems like that never happens nowadays – a gap’s developing that I don’t like). The kids sleep with us at night, and the twins still wake up a lot, so I don’t get even one uninterrupted night’s sleep – they sometimes wake up at the same time and in their sleep they cry for mommy. That’s the hardest part, because they are sleepy and not in a mood for sharing their mother and I am not my best at that time either.

What am I doing wrong? Do all mothers of twins go through this?

I have so much to write, but, I need to sleep now. It’s late and something keeps telling me to stop blogging and sleep while the kids are sleeping too. Wonder what tonight will be like..

To bed now.

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September 7, 2010 · 5:30 pm

Patience. I need patience.

I tell myself everyday, literally every night when I sleep, that I shall be more patient. It does not happen.

My four year old daughter returns from school and throws a tantrum. Everyday. I think it’s a phase and I try and be calm, but  I am not a patient person by nature (when you are a parent, that is one quality you must have. Unfortunately, I lack it). But,  I try. She does not want to eat, does not want this and that, everything is an issue. I know why she is doing this and it’s only normal. Her life has changed after my twins (now a year old) were born. She does not get her mother as much as she used to, even though I spend more time with her than with the babies. Also, she’s tired and hungry by the time she gets home and, being a four year old, can’t deal with it, so she just generally screams and flails her arms and legs about – something, it seems, most four year olds love to do. It’s a preferred way of expressing their will.

I have little time at lunchtime – the babies need to be fed too and they cry if they hear her scream and shout. So here I have a clingy four year old, wrapped snake-like around my legs, wailing, and a set of twins crawling their way to me to seek security. Within minutes of entering the house, after picking her up from the bus stand, I find myself holding three kids, all of whom want the other to leave the mommy. Patience. I tell myself. Patience..

There are, of course, good days too, but, it seems, that right now, those are few and far between. I understand the older one’s clingyness and do feel bad that I don’t handle her better, but I feel tired (and sleep deprived) and the screaming just blows some fuse in my head. She was not like this before and, even now, she treats the babies really well and accepts that I am their mommy too. But when she is tired, which she is when she returns from school, she lets it get the better of her and that just starts this snowball effect – she screams, I lose it, the babies cry, I get angry, she cries more, the babies get even more upset, I try and calm everyone down, then – somehow – we make up, she tells me that I upset her, that makes me feel like a worm, I hug and kiss her, and then we eat lunch! Phew.

I know it will get better and, like I said, it’s not like this all the time. So, I am hoping it will pass. And I am working on my patience levels.

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