Ohmygoodness, I am going crazy. Bedtime is one of my really particular things. I'm not a night time Nazi or anything, but I really like to have a somewhat consistent bedtime so we are all happy in the morning. Besides, I really don't do a great job of studying while she's awake so it's my only hope to get decent grades and eventually reach that sweet blessed graduation date. We have a great routine that we have kept for probably two years. However, Aeryn continually battles me until I completely lose all patience. I know I'm not the only parent to have to go through this but my heavens, I am out of ideas. It can't honestly be this hard can it?
What we do now is to get jammies on (which is another battle entirely now that she's learned she can lock me out of the bathroom), brush teeth, hug Grandma & Grandpa goodnight, read a book, get a drink, and say prayers. She knows it backwards and forwards. I used to leave the hall light on as that eased one phase of bedtime chaos but now she has discovered that she has enough light to play in her room endlessly and so I've eliminated said light. She does have a small nightlight and always has a stuffed friend or two in bed. I don't know what the deal is. She's not afraid of the dark, as far as I know she doesn't have nightmares, she just wants me by her side every moment of every day. Since I refuse to sleep in her room unless she's sick, every excuse known to man is used to get me to stay. Lately, it's been violently kicking off her covers and screaming followed by hovering at her door yelling for me or knocking endlessly on my bedroom door and whining. Certainly you can understand why this aggravates me.
Has anyone else had these battles with their kids and what on earth has worked for you? I would love any suggestions... as I'm completely out of ideas.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Help!!!!
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3 comments:
okay, Jeffrey just started screaming every night when it was time to go to bed. I found a book at the library... if I find the name I'll send it to you. Anyway we played a game at bed time called 'someone says...' exactly like Simon says but I think the idea is to not have mommy to rebell against. Everythiing you want her to do is ' someonesays find your pj's...someone says ...going through the whole routine. occassionally throw in an impossible 'kiss your elbow' the auther said to make sure the interruptions were silly, (it is a game) and impossible so the routine is really disrupted you just get giggles. it really worked and roger and I can't remember doing anything more elaborate. but I'll check with the book later.
We've just really had to find something for tyler to help him understand that it is bed time. We used The light is gone, the dark is here for a while and in the morning it is the dark is gone and the light is here. Its taken a long time but we're finally at the point, thankfully its getting dark earlier, where we'll ask him to look outside and tell us what he sees. He says the dark is here. We ask what does that mean. He says Tyler goes to bed and then we can take him down to bed and he only gets up once to go to the bathroom, even though we'd asked him 30 seconds before. Anyway it sounds like you've worked really hard to set up a routine and I think finding the root of her anxiety adn talking to her about it. She seems like she'd be old enough to slowly work with her and find a way to close the day. Tyler is just like me and struggles to shrug off the energy of the day. Good luck!
I saw this a few weeks back. This guy has a few songs that are good on youtube. Anyway it is ironic that I read your post and then a few hours later saw this new post. I hope you at least get a smile from it!
http://www.loveshakbaby.com/2007/10/kids-wont-go-to.html
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