How to REALLY Make Your Parents Feel Bad: a Guide for the Two-Year-Old

Here it is, how to REALLY make your parents feel bad, if you're a two-year-old (almost three-year-old).

First of all, you must actually start this process when you are very young. By the time you read this, it will probably be too late, but on the off chance you think you can swing this, here is the process.

Step 1: From the beginning of your existence, you must make it a point to have a very hard time going to sleep unless someone is holding you. This is usually not a problem for most children, so skip straight to the next step.

Step 2: Once your parents tire of this approach, or feel the need to make you "go to sleep on your own", possibly due to the impending arrival of a baby sister, they will begin to try to lay you down while sleepy in order to make you fall asleep on your own. Under no circumstances allow this to happen! Fight the urge to go to sleep with all your body and soul. Give in only after a full hour of kicking, screaming, and crying, eventually making them literally hold down all appendages to prevent movement and thus allow the inevitable (and hated) sleep to come.

Step 3: The parents will eventually decide that they must not actually hold you down to make you fall asleep, but will still be determined to try to make you go to sleep on your own. They may attempt to only sit in the room with you until you fall asleep. Do not allow this to happen. Scream and cry if they are unwilling to hold you or be touching you in some way.

Step 4: Inevitably this is when the baby/toddler resolve will falter. After months of forcing the parents to be in the room with you while falling asleep, you will eventually get used to falling asleep without the touch of your parent. This will cause them to think that they should take the next step of actually (and you won't believe this) leaving the room while you're still awake.

Step 5: Express your deep, deep dissatisfaction with this situation by jumping up and down in your bed, screaming, howling, crying, shaking your crib rails, and generally creating as much noise as possible for at least 30 minutes to an hour every night. Other people will tell your parents that the screaming and crying will lessen after a few nights. Prove your stubbornness by continuing with this ritual for at least 6 months.

Step 6: To punish your parents for these transgressions, begin to lay down in your bed and go to sleep without the temper tantrums for awhile. This may sound counterintuitive, however, the actual punishment comes later. Be patient.

Step 7: Approximately once every three to four days, revert to Step 5. Move on to Step 6 for the next three days. Repeat. Begin accumulating "attachment objects" which you must keep in your crib with you. Ideally, by Step 10, you must have at least two pillows, four blankets, a baby doll, five stuffed animals, a couple of books, and a washcloth in the shape of a duck (don't ask).

Step 8: Begin skipping your naps occasionally. Revert to Step 5 for the four days following said nap-skippage. You should have at least half of your attachment objects by this point. If you haven't begun collecting, be quick about it.

Step 9: Really begin to lull the parents into a false sense of security. Sweetly tell them "night-night" and go to sleep nicely for one full week. Throw in one night per week of unsustained crying, just for laughs, but generally work the parents into believing that you may someday, in fact, be capable of sleeping in a big-boy-bed.

Step 10: You've finally made it! The time has come: it's punishment time!!! Choose a day - a day that seems to be completely normal, typical - a nothing special kind of day. Skip your nap that day so that you are in a very bad mood that night. When your parents put you to bed and leave the room, go back to Step 5, only 10 times worse (you're bigger now - you can make more noise!). Scream for your Daddy. Scream for your Mommy. Scream, scream, scream!!!! Begin hitting your crib rails, hit them some more, start throwing things. Throw everything out of your crib onto a big pile on the floor. Remove your PJ shirt. Throw it on the floor. Remove your PJ pants. Throw them on the floor. After 30 minutes of tantrum, fall asleep curled up into the fetal position, where your parents, on their way to bed, will find you three hours later. In a bare crib. With no clothes on. Curled up, trying to stay warm in a room with the ceiling fan blowing. And a gigantic pile of your most adored posessions in a pile on the floor out of your reach.

And THAT is how to make your parents feel really, really bad.