I feel like I am stuck in a bad episode of Super Nanny.
Could it be the episode with the out of control tantrums?
Could it be the episode with the five year old that still uses a pacifier at night?
No, I have lived through the tantrums and the pacifier withdrawal. Those I could handle.
No, this episode finds the Yonekura household plunged into the harsh, cold reality of life with a jack-in-the-box. You know the type. Out of bed every few minutes for an hour or more with a whole lists of wants and needs and you-gotta-hear-this-right-now-before-I-forgets.
I am sequestered in the catch all/ computer room, waiting and trying not to lose my temper. The last thing we need right now while Sophie is sleeping so peacefully, so quietly is shouting and tears.
I wanna poke my head around the corner. I wanna open his bedroom door, but I am afraid of what I will find. At least, for now, he is in his room and quiet. Simple math, or is it wishful thinking?, tells me that :
In his room (plus) quiet (equals) sleep.
Now, how long do I have before his cold feet find their way into my bed ?
3 comments:
That's why at his age, with my son, we stripped his room of any toys so that he had just a futon and his cuddly toys, and a light high and out of reach. Then we put a hook and eye on the outside of the door.
His new bedtime routine included going to the toilet and getting a drink of water, with comments to him pointing out that his bladder was now empty and he was now not thirsty.
Then he had his story in bed, was kissed, cuddled and sung to, then left.
The hook and eye prevented his endless popping out of the room with increasing demands. We had a few nights of fingers under the door and oddly enough not a lot of actual crying but a lot of imperious "Get in here NOW Mummy!" etc. We just ignored him or from time to time calmly said "Your day's over, night night" and went about our business.
It did work to an extent, in that I didn't snap and yell myself hoarse, or worse, hit him! It didn't work in that to this day he will not go to bed willingly and stay there, though at ten he doesn't need a hook and eye on the door to keep him in his room any more!!
We did keep an ear out for him so that if he had been in trouble or sick or whatever we'd have gone in there right away - it helped that we lived in a small house at the time and his room was near the living area.
And as for yelling, we had a younger baby in the house too and he just had to put up with it for a few days. Better that than years of Mummy dancing up and down the stairs...
(Yes, I'm a cruel mother! But if you think about it, when the kid is a baby in a crib they can't escape either. So this was just making his room one huge crib!)
Oh, and I should say that we unhooked him before we went to bed every night, and EVERY night he ended up in bed with us! But that's OK, so long as he started off in the right place then we didn't mind. He stopped at about six or seven and Harry at six and a half only averages half the week in our bed, and it's getting later and later. (Lately about 5am - I think he gets cold.) It will be no time before the icy feet days are over and I will miss them....
I hate wondering that- especially when it is 2am - why do they like to do this at 2?
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