The Bad Mom

Of course, I'm very careful not to call myself the bad mom in front of Max, however, there is something that as a mom, I'm just not great at. I thought I would be much better about it. I have tremendous guilt over it. I am inconsistent. I go through phases where I'm right on and then I get lax and it goes by the way side.

What is it?

Teeth brushing.

Max has always hated me or anyone to put anything in his mouth like a finger, let alone a tooth brush. It is hard for me to tell if/when new teeth are coming in since I don't get to lookie see. Teeth brushing around here is traumatic. I have to pin Max down with his arms under my legs and his head between my legs and while he is screaming bloody murder or doing the breath holding spell with his mouth wide open I get a quick good brush in. Then, we spend 5 - 10 minutes hugging and trying to calm down after the ordeal. Most of the time, I just am not up to it. I'm tired and just can't take the fight both physically and emotionally so I just hand him a tooth brush and tell him to brush, which he actually does most of the time after sucking off the toothpaste, but he's too young to do a good job, especially on the back teeth.

Not only am I bad at the teeth brushing thing, Max often takes a sippy cup of milk to bed with him. He doesn't sleep with it in his mouth. He drinks it all before he goes to sleep and when I go check on him, I will pull it out of the crib. I had him completely weaned from that with the intent to get him used to drinking milk before bed, then ultimately inserting teeth brushing after that and before bed. However, we are now back to milk in the crib with him. He's drinking milk before bed and is asking for "more mil" during our cuddle and singing time. Drat.

And, he has his second dentist appointment next week. I'm just not looking forward to it. I'm afraid I'm going to be told what a bad parent I am for not being more diligent, even though I know this is true. And, I'm afraid Max is just going to melt down and fuss and scream the entire time. I'm mentally prepared for the worst and will just hope for the best.

However, we had a major break through this evening. I told Max we needed to brush his teeth. I let him pick the tooth brush. We have about 10 for him including a spider man battery operated spinning one. I asked him to open his mouth so I could brush his teeth without having to hold him down...and...he did. It was nice and easy and so much better for both of us. I really praised him up and clapped (he joined in with a big smile) and cheered and told him what a big kid he was and how good and such and he was so darn proud of himself that he carried the toothbrush around for another 5 minutes of so and brushed his own teeth for a bit.

Gosh, I hope that is a sign of change so that we can get better about this and I can get rid of the guilt and self inflicted "bad mom" title.