You hear parents say it all the time when their child gets fussy: "Oh, he's over tired!" or, "she's just over excited". Meanwhile, their kid is on the floor screaming bloody murder and you want to shake the parents for whatever act of bad parenting has led to that heinous noise.
I'm here to tell you: don't judge the parent too harshly. I now experience, almost on a daily basis, the phenomenon known in parenting circles as Over Stimulation. Yes folks, "over-tired" and "over-excited" do exist--and sometimes, as a parent, you don't know it is happening until it's too late.
Our first real experience with over stimulation came at Christmas, when Husband's parents arrived late in the evening. Little Man was THRILLED at being the center of attention and showed off all his skills--sitting up, babbling, and tearing at the wrapping paper of each new holiday gift that was offered to him well past his bedtime. He had a blast. That is, until he had a total and epic tantrum in which there was no comforting him. I'm sure my in-laws thought he was a complete hellion while I frantically tried to assure them, over his screams, that he wasn't always like this.
Since then, we've seen over-excited several times--usually when new friends arrive between dinner and bedtime. But I have started to notice that when we do something fun and exciting early in the day, like story time or a puppet show, there needs to be a significant amount of quiet time at home that afternoon. No TV, no new friends--just some quiet play time on the floor with mom and dad.
Our Little Man thinks he's a little bigger than his age bracket, and he loves the noise and attention he gets in the outside world brings. But Mommy knows best--even the biggest Little Man needs his quiet time to avoid an over-tired melt down.
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