My two year old still takes a bottle. Yes, it's true. Just at bedtime and nap time...and we're going to cut it out... one of these days.

But not just yet.

The other day I realized why her bottle time is as sweet to me as it is to her. We were at a doctor's appointment with one of her siblings. It was nap time, and to avoid a meltdown, I'd brought her bottle into the office with us. As soon as we got settled, sure enough, she asked for the bottle. I handed it to her and she sucked for a few seconds, standing in front of me.

Then she held her arms up to me, asking... more

Part One

Part Two

Emotions: During the first month (& even a bit into the second month), our older daughter was regularly not choosing/preferring us & pretty consistently refusing affection & eye contact. This process has been amazing to watch, because it was SO awful at the beginning & is so wonderful now, but living through those months was really difficult because even though I read all the required stuff, I imagined it happening differently.

Seeing little... more

Part One

Bedtime/bath/getting dressed: For our girls these were very intimate, family type experiences & they were completely terrified & traumatized that we (strangers) would want to invade their space. They screamed with terror when we tried to undress them. Copying each other was very common for these early weeks. We never actually did give them a bath in Ethiopia & had Eskedar dress them the day we left.

At bedtime they screamed until they fell asleep in our arms. Once in the US they finally got used to being bathed & dressed by the end of the first week.... more

I got a really great email in response to this post. In it, Sonya shared a letter she'd written to other adoptive families describing the first few months home after adopting two preschoolers. It is full of so many good specific details about new-child adjustment that I asked permission to share it here.

We have three bio kids (7, 9, 11) & brought home our two delightful sweeties (age 3 1/2 & 1 1/2) in early December. So we have been home about 12 weeks.I'm not sure we knew what to expect as we flew to Ethiopia to pick up these precious... more

I've talked frequently about the importance of helping new children get settled, about building trust and helping a child who's experienced loss to fall in love. All adopted children have experienced loss, and therefore are at higher risk of attachment issues. I cannot over emphasize the importance of good attachment. The presence or absence of good attachment can mean the difference between a happy childhood or misery on earth.

I was disturbed not long ago to hear someone talk about bringing a child home. She said she thought the whole cocooning/slow transition idea was a bunch of hooey. Her attitude was, this kid is coming into my family, by golly, and she needs to adapt to OUR... more

I found an interesting idea over at KuddleKids.com. (The formatting of the site is wonky in my browser, making it difficult to read, but there are some good ideas there.) The idea that caught my attention most was the "I Owe You...".

Every parent has times when kids seem to deliberately ignore your requests. They'll 'forget' to take out the trash, even though they've been reminded three times that hour, or they'll once again interrupt in the middle of a conversation- for the fourth time in five minutes.

KuddleKids suggests when you're dealing with that repetitive deliberate misbehavior that... more

Hopefully this week of sharing by adoptive families has not scared the liver out of anyone. From reading years of posts on several adoptive parenting e-groups, I know that the stories shared are a pretty fair representation of the scope and type of issues that many parents of new children face. Some kids will be more challenging, others less.

Most every kid will give you some moments where you'll probably think, Holy smokes, what have we done? But over and over again, while sharing the challenges of the first 6 months or so, parents will add that all the work and all the struggle was worth... more

Today's story was written by Brian, who blogs at On the Fly.

In the adoption mantra “Plan for the worse, hope for the best,” I think we lucked out on the best side of the equation. Personally, I think that there are a lot of people out there with positive adoption stories; it just doesn’t make for an interesting read and/or those people don’t need to seek out help on the internet.

Bonding We adopted our 3 1/2 year old son and our 5 year old daughter at the end of last April. We started attachment “therapy” as soon as we met the kids. I think they were well prepared to join... more

Randi graciously agreed to share their story of her children's adjustment.

We're at 10 months with Rebka-7 and Hana-now 3 and we are so very pleased with things. The first few months were rough but that was mostly everyone getting used to their place and the new dynamic. Rebka and Hana both tested in their ways, but things are settled now and I'm pretty impressed with their adjustment. I wonder if Hana adjusted better and easier because she had a sister with whom she could share the process.

At 10 months home, Hana is an extremely smart, funny, cute child. She turned 3 in August. She can count to 20, sight read about 30 words! She can dress and undress... more

Here's a story from Elizabeth who adopted an almost 5 year old girl.

I know that every child's adjustments are different, but our Hana had a really difficult time. Particularly, I feel she knew just enough to be angry at her father for "leaving her" but is still too young to 1. understand the real curcumstances going on, and 2. to have the emotional maturity to handle the pain and confusion of all the changes.

Just at the time in a person's life when there is experimentation with independence and self control, everything was completely out of her control. As a result, any situation where she needed to relinquish control such as being seat belted on the plane... more