Oh my days! 3.5yr old got his big boy bed.
My eldest is 17, the other two are 15 & 14. I forgot just how tiring it was doing the switcheroo from cot to bed. Now he can get up. We've had 27 wees, 2 poos and 5 books this evening. We started put down at 7:20pm, it's now 9:10pm and I won the war. It took going old school Super Nanny style, waiting for the door to open, scooping up and putting in bed repeatedly whilst staying silent, until he finally burnt out. He did that 19 times.
It took 3.5hrs 6 days ago, last night he was down in 15 minutes, we thought we had it. Oh, so wrong.
I'm not after any sleep advice, just ranting. It's a lot harder when you're mid forties doing this than when I was early to mid twenties, that's for sure.
Feel free to throw me your amusing stories and pains of sleep training a little dude/dudette that's found independence. I could do with a laugh.
My daughter used to curl up with her feet and arms tucked underneath her and her backside sticking up in the air. One day we were trying to get her to nap and she was having none of it, so we finally left her alone in her room and figured she'd eventually settle. Finally exhausted, she ended up curled up by the door in what come to be known as the "protest nap" spot.
We had a camera monitor in her room, and once she figured out that we could see and hear her from it, she'd get right up in the camera and call for us.
respect. It's so, so, so, hard. It's definitely a "never again" thing for myself.
:) Fairly sure some babies like to fight wars of attrition: you may win a battle here or there, but....
We used to watch this show, Pocoyo, and they have this character who's a single parent. Her name is Sleepy Bird. Basically, all we know about her is that
she's a good mom ,
her baby is called Baby Bird,
she's very, very tired, and
her baby is not.
Ah, here's the episode - enjoy
I'd be very interested to hearing your thoughts about being a fourth time parent, across such a huge gap of time. That's quite the voyage. I might snoop into your profile a bit...
Unrelated: browsing that channel for this video, I see that a lot of their recent uploads contain icons for 60minutes, 80minues, 90 minutes.... are their audiences really parking their child in front of a screen for 90 minutes??? or does it just play on the background of nurseries all day every day....? That's kind of terrifying.
We leverage those longer videos not for the full duration but rather for less interruptions. My son will get upset when a short video, a few minutes in duration, stops and a new one begins. These longer videos tend to not have pauses so he watches contently for 15-20 minutes. I'm sure some plop down their kiddo for the entirety but I'm not one to judge. Parenting is hard.
OH thank goodness. thank you for chiming in
We watched Pocoyo in the days of Netflix, before it had suggestions and blah blah blah -- and indeed those interruptions could be really jarring for the child. Back then, Netflix also had the ability to resume from last episode. So probably parents want a longer, uninterrupted play list that they can pause and resume without nonsense being recommended by youtube.
thank you again
I don't know what I'm doing. I have a 2.5yr old and I basically sleep in his twin bed with him. Because otherwise he wakes up in the middle of the night and then everyone is up and he the ends up watching TV while I struggle to function for 2 hrs before he will allow us to go to bed again...
I don't have any advice, but my heart goes out to you, friend!
Same as that, this one hurts. My dude has started the wake up for everyone today at 5:50am. We have a sleeping owl clock so he knows he shouldn't be up, it just doesn't stop him.
This is why we kept him in a cot for so long. When he was in that we had 10-12 hours of blissful sleep every day. Now the fight for my beauty sleep has begun.
What may work is to child-proof his room so far.that he can turn on and off the light by himself and has some quiet/non-destructive toys he can play with (nothing he can color the walls with!) Then he can play quietly until the clock says it's ok to wake everyone else.
I won't give specific advice, but know you've gotta break the habit eventually, and it'll take a few shitty days. But you'll get through it then it'll be easier
God speed! I remember one night years ago when our oldest was figuring things out and just. Kept. Coming. Out. Of. His. Room. My wife was pregnant and tired and exasperated and in tears, and I finally had to stand at the door and literally hold the door knob tight so it couldn't be turned. Once he couldn't open the door it stopped being interesting and he went to bed. Next day and we had child proofing on the interior knob.
Good times!
We started using an individual bed at 1.5 years. Though sometimes we have similar fights, we usually allow him staying up until tired enough. Which usually means no midday sleep, but night sleep at round 20.30 in the evening. I just wait for the time when he will be able to play on his own a little more than 10'
God, the flashbacks! I remember putting the youngest in her crib, one hand on her belly, one on her head, ear caps on, and then to start counting. Regularly went past 500...
Hang in there, it gets a little bit better every day, until the next crisis that is.
I'm reading this as I'm literally holding my daughter's hand as she's falling asleep (in her bed, thankfully)