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!

A Very Public Meltdown

It's happened. We have had our very first extreme tantrum in public. And I survived...just!

On Sunday we decided to go to a garden centre about 30 minutes drive away as it sold a particular brand of paint (I am DIY-Obsessed at the moment).

The 5.15am wake-up call from Monkey had meant I wasn't in the best of moods when we set off and I had a feeling we shouldn't all be going.

Different Parenting Styles

When you are expecting your first child nearly everyone has an idea of the sort of parent they are going to be. And I think for a lot of people the reality is quite a bit different.

I can’t remember what I thought I was going to be like as a parent but I've become a little bit of a pushover. I pick my battles carefully and so sometimes that means that I give in to Monkey's demands.

A Difficult Weekend

It seems ironic that I wrote only one week ago about what a lovely weekend I had had, when I have just endured one of the toughest weekends ever!

I've been ill having picked up yet another stomach bug, my 8th in the space of a year! The trouble was this time that my hubby was working meaning I was solo-parenting. 

He's a journalist - a job which pretty much doesn't give you a day off when you have an event to cover. So, despite my being ill on Saturday he had to head off, leaving me with a troublesome toddler.

Trying Something New

I've mentioned before that I am not one of those parents who does crafts, who lets their child join in with daily chores or who comes up with endless amounts of imaginative play. In fact, if I had to categorise myself I'd probably say I'm a distracted and slightly lazy parent.

Today, though I tried something different and I said 'yes' more often.

Instead of one of us grown-ups going to Homebase during the lunchtime nap to avoid taking Monkey with us we went this morning as a three. Yes, it took an hour and a half and involved a pretend bath in one of the show bathrooms but that was quite fun.

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!

Welcome to Tantrum Town

Next stop, the complete loss of your sanity! 

Wow, what an evening. Tonight as we made our way through the usual bedtime battles, a monster came and inhabited my son for 30 long and very loud minutes. This monster changed my sweet, talkative 2 year old into a thrashing, red-faced, screaming shadow of himself. It was scary, exhausting and I had no bloody idea what to do.

I’d read about the terrible 2’s and I'd read blogs from Mums recounting the time when the tantrums kicked in. I used to think to myself ‘yeah, my kid cries sometimes too – tough isn’t it?’. Oh, what a novice I am. 

I know now that what I have experienced before was merely a whimper, the prologue to some sort of 'war and peace'-sized novel.  

So tonight I’m going to research the terrible twos and try to work out how on earth I am supposed to deal with these testing times.  

And I’m going to hope really hard that this is as bad as it will get!

Simpler times - Monkey aged 2 months