Tough Love

Since moving house I have had a bit of a tough time with Monkey and his behaviour has really gone downhill. I know he is 2 and at that exact age when he is testing the boundaries but we are also at that exact age when I need to be showing him who is boss.

We've had temper tantrums, refusal to do things, insistence that he does things himself when he clearly can't do it and we have taken about 100 steps back as far as bedtime is concerned.

The sleep is the bit getting me down the most. As I have previously blogged Monkey was such a bad sleeper for the first 18 months or so and we worked really hard to get him to a point where we could read stories then leave and he would go to sleep by himself, he would self-settle during the night and he would stay asleep until a semi-reasonable hour.

In the three weeks since we have moved we have reverted to only allowing Mummy to read bedtime stories, insisting Mummy stays in the room (sometimes until gone 9pm) while he chats and sings and does everything bar going to sleep. He's been up frequently in the night and starting his day sometimes before 4am.

I know we have moved house but really we are all settled in now so it has been time to get tough. I have started to take away his toys. The argument I have is that if he needs me in the room while he falls asleep then he is not a big boy he is a baby. So for every night that he insists I am in his room I will take away one of his big boy toys.

He lost all of his happyland people last night and tonight it'll be all his trains. These are literally all he plays with so I think it is going to have a big impact. I'm being so tough because I know that he doesn't need me in there and he knows it too. This is just a power struggle and one which I will win.

I need to win it. He already tells me that he is the boss, that he doesn't believe that I will really take his toys away. I need to show him that there is a consequence to his behaviour.

Fingers crossed his playroom is not bare before he decides he is a big boy again and can fall asleep alone!

Is It Wrong To Stick With One?

When I had Monkey the plan was always that we would wait until he was school-age before we had another child. I have poly-cystic ovaries and so had Monkey young, when I was 26, so that if the condition were to get worse in the next few years I could always look back knowing I had been pregnant and we had at least one child. 

My condition doesn’t seem to be getting a lot worse so I’m as confident as I can be that I’ll be able to have another child. Problem is…I’m not sure I want to.  

I’ve watched the majority of my friends have second children but the broodiness just hasn’t kicked in. Newborns are adorable but I still feel like I’ve been there, done that, not really sure I need to do it again. Plus, it wasn’t easy – why would I want to go through morning sickness, birth, sleepness nights (to name a few) again? 

However, I wonder whether that is just a really selfish attitude? If I am able to do so do I have an obligation to give my son a sibling? Is it wrong to raise him as an only-child if I don’t have to?  

He goes to nursery so has a lot of interaction with other children but will it benefit him to have someone at home, someone with him wherever we go? Will his development be hindered by not having a sibling – will he be a spoilt brat? 

I’m leaving this post pretty open-ended. There is no conclusion, no decision has been made. We’ll see what happens. Perhaps it’ll be like a new season, one morning I’ll just wake up and be broody? I’ll let you know.

Fidget Bum

Monkey is a complete fidget bum but over the past few weeks we have noticed that he actually cannot stay still at all!

Eating his dinner we are constantly telling him to sit back down. He’s not attempting to run off anywhere he just hops up and down all the time – eager to get on and play rather than sit and eat food!

He can’t sit still to watch the telly. He can’t sit still to do painting or colouring. He can’t sit still on a ride on toy – preferring to jump off and push it along instead.

I've been debating about taking the sides off his cot when we move house in a couple of months but he is such a wriggler he would spent the night on the floor and I would spent the night coming to pick him up - I'm going to save that one for when I feel like I need a sleep deprived treat.

However, this inability to sit still was fine. Until now.

 

We are beginning potty training. We are doing it very slowly by just allowing him to sit on the potty every now and then when he is getting ready for the bath or bed.

 

Now, when a child is learning to use the potty you really need him to actually sit down…and stay sitting down. For me, my little kangaroo sits for about ten seconds and then needs to hop up – despite what he may still be doing!

 

Is there such a thing as a potty with a seatbelt?

The Bedtime War

Sleeping!

I blogged the other night about how we are entering Tantrum Town and the main focus of the hysterical meltdowns seems to be about bedtime.

In a bid to assert his authority Monkey has become very un-keen on bedtime in the last few weeks. He wants to go downstairs, he wants to read books – basically he wants to do anything bar going to sleep.

He’s a clever one and has a wealth of tactics to stay up – but I’m a Mummy and I too have a wealth of tactics. The war is on.

Here’s my plan…

1, Go upstairs earlier

This is really difficult on nursery days as Monkey doesn’t get home until about 6.20pm but he really needs to be upstairs by 6.30pm. It’ll be better when we have moved as he’ll be home earlier.

2, Stay upstairs

We used to put PJs on and then come back down for milk and Night Garden. Then it became milk and more playing with toys and now it is milk and running and jumping around like a loon. I can see where I am going wrong with this one.

3, Read however many stories he wants before getting him into his cot at 7.15pm

Yes, this will mean reading ‘Thomas and the Windy Day’ 6 times every night but I’m just going to have to do it.

4, Distraction

I’ve tried this the last few nights and it’s working. Once I have read what I deem to be the last story of the night I tuck him in and I give him a teddy. I ask him to tell Teddy a story while I just pop downstairs and I tell him that I’ll be back in one minute. There is no complaint. Then I leave and just don’t come back.

The bad thing about this tactic is that I have a very clever child and I know it is only going to be a couple of weeks before he figures this one out but I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

It’s one on one in this war – and I’m determined that I’m going to win!

Bedtime battles

December 2011 - the last time he slept

As Shakespeare sort of once said ‘How do you avoid bedtime? Let me count the ways.’ 

1. Singing

You know that both me and your Daddy find it ridiculously cute when you sing songs. We are fairly sure we need to ship you off to genius school sometime soon as at just 2 years and 2 months old you can sing us your entire alphabet. So now at bedtime if we suggest it might be time for you to sleep you immediately jump to your feet and we are now treated to quite the repertoire … with encores aplenty.  

2. Please can I have a kiss and a cuddle?

Whenever we walk out the room you have started to shout this after us. Again, you know that both me and your Daddy find this sort of thing ridiculously cute and that it takes a pretty tough person to walk away from a guaranteed sloppy kiss and baby bear cuddle. But when you decide that we also need to kiss and cuddle every one of the seven teddies you have in your bed then we start to get the game.   

3. I want to use the potty

You realise that I never want to say no to you using the potty. We’re not potty training yet but why not welcome any opportunity to try. So yes, you have worked out this with get you at least another 5 minutes. And 5 minutes after that as I attempt to wrestle you back into a nappy. And 5 minutes after that as I attempt to get your pyjamas back on.  

4. Extreme hyperactivity

Bouncing, running from one end of the cot to the other, launching yourself onto the mattress – you name it you think it’s fun to do at bedtime.  

Anything to do with sleeping has always been the bane of my life with Monkey – the thing that makes me want to send him back to the stork – the thing that pushes my sanity to the brink. It’s been a really bad couple of weeks with the whole bedtime palaver lasting up to two hours from when we head upstairs.  

My only hope is that it is a phase. That I just need to battle through because he’ll come out of it soon enough and I can enjoy my evenings once again.  

Either that or I’m digging out the stork’s number.

Things that go bump in the night

Butter wouldn't melt before bedtime

Everything just looks worse at night doesn’t it? There’s something about the quiet, the artificial lighting and the extreme tiredness that just makes everything seem worse. My husband and I are not a good partnership at night. If Monkey wakes up, which he does quite often, it seems something always happens that leads us to having a 0-60 row.  

These are the rows where you don’t start off with snippy comments and whispered crossed words. These are the rows where you are instantly on your feet with accusations and hurtful words flying. However, we’re starting to understand the way this works. We’ve got better at apologising in the morning and we’re learning to appreciate and allow for each other’ tiredness. Perhaps we’ve also accepted that it’ll happen again next time so there’s no point holding a grudge! 

Unfortunately we haven’t been blessed with a sleepy child. Monkey, now aged 2, didn’t sleep through the night until he was about 15 months old. That is a looong time. Never one to do things by half, my son didn’t just wake up once or twice a night. No, he went for a good 20+ times every single night.  

I look back now and wonder how I coped with it all. I mean, that is a pretty ridiculous way to live for almost a year and a half, and yet we made it through. I remember nights when I would hang over the edge of his cot, patting him back to sleep, and just think ‘I absolutely cannot do this anymore. I’m done’. Then I’d get him to sleep and the next wake-up would be at 6am. The sun would have come out and suddenly it all wouldn’t feel quite so bad. It was like this every night.  

When he started to sleep through the night I didn’t allow myself to believe it for a long time. He’d sleep through one night and I’d be delighted as we woke at a reasonable hour. But then the next night I’d go to bed hoping to get an hour’s sleep before the first wake up, never believing he might do it again.  
 

After 15 months of multiple wake-ups it took me a good six weeks to start to go to bed safe in the knowledge that I too might get my recommended eight hours.  
 

The legacy of Monkey’s terrible sleeping though is that I am always grateful when he sleeps through the night. And I have some well-set bags under my eyes that won’t shift.