So we are about to enter the terrible 3's at our house. We are about 1 month out from all out war with our toddler. Bedtime has become a nightmare. And we struggle to find our footing in the shifting sands of discipline. Too young to ground, too old to distract, we are always finding what worked last week, now is obsolete.
Take bedtime. We use to be able to thwart the last ditch attempt to avoid bed by letting Tobo have one more slurp of milk be fore we take the cup upstairs. Now it has turned into a epic length game of door-slamming. I asked Tobo at dinner what he disliked about going to bed. His answer: going to sleep. Then I asked what's your favorite part about getting up at night? His answer: the door slamming part. "I love that part!" Oh dear.
If it was just at bed time that would be one thing, but Tobo "does a runner" about ever other night. He pops up at our bed side around midnight with a "It's morning time". We've taken to times outs and confiscating bedtime items (stuffed animals, pillows, music thing, nightlights, etc.) We're about to start taking out toys next. But its just doesn't seem to get us anywhere.
4 comments:
I remember those days....
If you can sleep this way, we came to the peace treaty that if they wake in the middle of the night they can climb in our bed. They go right back to sleep like that, and eventually they start oversleeping the nighttime pilgrimage.
He's also a kicker. Takes about an hour for him to settle down if he comes into our bed. But never say never, right?
First, love the background of this blog. :) Charlie has been doing this for about 3 months now. It's not unusual, by the way - Roman did it too. The way we eased Roman out of it was to put a sleeping bag at the side of our bed or end, and have him climb in there. Because our floors are wood, it only took a week & he decided his bed was better.
Charlie, we keep saying we're going to put him back in his bed but we haven't yet. But he's not a kicker. :) Good luck!
Yargh... a kicker! M likes to hog all the pillows by turning 90 degrees from normal and sprawling across them, but if he's good and asleep we just shove him over where he needs to be.
Good news is, this shall pass. Three is the beginning of becoming socially acceptable. Ike's piano teacher has a little guy a couple months older and she was commenting the other day that he was making her crazy. My reply, "Three is a bit easier to understand, four is kind of fun, but there's a reason the public schools won't take them until they're five."
Post a Comment