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!

All Change

On Saturday we began house-hunting for the very first time as potential buyers. What a difference from looking as renters! The estate agents seemingly couldn’t do enough to help us and there wasn’t a queue of other people outside – we had their attention!

I’d done my research of the area, the schools and the toddler groups for Monkey but I was realistic that our search had only just begun. We were due to view six houses that day and from the photos number 4 was the most interesting. 

The houses were saw in the morning were nice but I thought it would be like wedding dress shopping – I’d just know when I had found the one. And then we went into house number 4. 

Prior to beginning our house search I had briefed my hubby on the importance of the poker face when house hunting. When we left house number 4 his first words to me were ‘you weren’t exactly subtle.’

Yes, like a teenage with a massive crush I fell head over heels in love with this house – mainly because it has massive cupboards in the kitchen. You know, the important stuff! I gushed, I swooned and I made it bloomin’ obvious that this needed to be my new house. 

Two hours after a 45 minute viewing of the house (it was obvious we were keen) we were rang by the agent to be told that someone else had put in an offer. Well, what’s a girl (and two boys) to do – on the very first day of house-hunting we put in an offer…which was accepted 10 minutes later!

We are so excited to have our first ever real home but obviously cautious until everything has been confirmed. 

It’s all change in the Monkey’s Mummy household and we couldn’t be more thrilled!

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