An outstanding change

Many children have habits which comforts them. Zhirui has one too, which originates from nursing to sleep. As many breastfeeding mums would fully agree, the easiest and most effective way of comforting a baby is to nurse him. Very often, we would nurse our children to sleep too.

After weaning off breastmilk, Zhirui adopted a new habit of suckling her bolster to sleep- resembling the action of nursing. We did not stop her since it comforts her and brings her to slumber quickly. She's still doing it one and half years down the road.

However, recently she 'mutated' the habit into stroking her upper lip. What's worrying us is that she is not just doing it before her sleep, but even during her waking hours, in her class, in car journeys..

We started reminding her to stop doing the action, but it would usually make her upset and she'd kick up a fuss. Her Daddy would use playful ways to tell her the habit is undesirable, like joking that it is a 'baby habit' or trapping her hands. I would usually use a serious tone to express my displeasure.

Two months into rattling, yesterday Zhirui made an astonishing move.. While putting her to bed, Daddy saw Zhirui trying to resist putting her finger on her lips. It was the first time we saw such conscious effort from Zhirui to change her habit. Amazing!!

This morning, we praised her immensely and gave her lots of encouragement for her effort. She smiled and i could sense that she felt proud of herself too. :)

Jia you girl, we (including baby) are all very very proud of your outstanding determination!