Change is never easy

This week has been a tough one on Little Man, and on us as a consequence. Little Man moved to a new room in crèche – he is now officially a preschooler. Well a Junior Preschooler. 🙂

What a change it must be for him – to go from being the biggest in the room to the smallest. And to lose his favourite friend in the process – she’s a couple of months younger than him you see, and won’t be moving until the end of the summer. He was sobbing to me after crèche yesterday that he missed her. I was nearly sobbing myself!

He’s obviously working through the change, and coming to terms with it, but in the meantime, we’ve been subjected to quite a few mood swings. One minute he is clingy and full of affection, wanting nothing more than cuddles and kisses. And the next he is crying and screaming. We’ve never really had screaming tantrums before so it’s taken us a bit by surprise.

Thankfully I read the No Cry Discipline Solution while we were on holidays (a book sent to me for review MONTHS ago – but because it’s a real book and not an ebook, I found it impossible to find the time to read it…until I broke my phone on holidays!). I plan to review it soon, but for now, I’ll just say that I found it thoughtful and helpful. It reinforced a lot of what we already do and added a few new tools to our parenting toolbox.

So despite the tantrums, we’ve been able to stay fairly calm in the face of them, and so far they haven’t lasted more than a couple of minutes. We’re hoping that our old failsafe – the love bomb approach – will work this time around, just as it did last year when Little Man switched rooms. In the past, it has proven effective within a few days, so if that’s the case this time, the worst of the tantrums should be behind us by Monday. Here’s hoping!