WOH and sleeping issues

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2003
WOH and sleeping issues
2315
Sun, 05-22-2005 - 10:34am

We were at a dinner party last night at the home of one of dh's coworkers. They have 2 boys, 6 and 4. They have a bunch of sleeping issues (kids 'scared' at night, won't fall asleep in their own bed, won't go to bed without mom or dad cuddling them, etc.) The mom blames herself because since she works all day and misses them so much she tends to cuddle with them late at night and they fall asleep in a pile on the bed all together. She said that if she SAH, they wouldn't have the same issues.


I sah. For us, bed time is a rigid, welcome respite at the end of the day. Dh has no desire to keep them up either, lol.

Meldi

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:27pm
Well, yeah, but do you know why she's in Target at 9 at night?
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:30pm
And don't forget cribs painted in poop, and also head lice. Lately, puppy love has been a real bummer at my house.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:31pm

That's us too. All parties start at 4 and everyone usually packs up about 8. Gotta get naps in

Meldi
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:34pm
Maybe, like myself, she's just not trying hard enough to make her life difficult. She could, I suppose, insist that the time her child was at school was her time to get housework done and then be all bothered that she had to work so hard to fit in non kid things she likes to do because her son takes up so much of her possible free time. I don't know how you draw your conclusions and evaluate your cause and effect. I try my best to do my running and working out while my kids are otherwise busy with their activities. Its not that I wouldn't want to waste a second of my potential time with them by doing it when they were free - it just seems to make alot of sense to me to do it when they aren't and I am.I have to do something during that time. I suppose I could make it all drudgery and housework and then fuss later about not having time to work out - but why?
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:36pm
How in the world do you keep a 1 and 2yr old up till midnight if they aren't usually up till midnight? Thats the great thing about babies - the sleep no matter what. Parents are another thing. I have a very difficult time believing its the kids who are cranky morning after.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:37pm

My mom never wanted us to get dirty. We got her back by playing hide and seek in the coal bin, lol.


I don't care at all if the girls get dirty. Heck, by the end of the day I'm covered in one form of baby-shmeg or another. Dh calls it the "Shmeg of Pride", lol.


Meldi

Meldi
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 1:44pm

Honestly, QM, much of what you post *does* sound like a great time. It truly does! I'm very serious.


The only thing your scenarios don't account for are missing the naps. I've tried to have Aspen take a nap at many a gathering (the big all day ones, like Christmas and Thanksgiving)...ain't gonna happen. But then we have to bail early because she's a maniac by the end of the day.


I really am looking forward to the times like you mention. That's a lot like the way it was at family parties and stuff when I was growing up.


Meldi

Meldi
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-15-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 2:11pm

How in the world do you make them sleep? Aspen won't even sleep in the car if she's up late. Too much excitement.


Meldi

Meldi
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 2:15pm
My kids just sleep when they're tired.
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-05-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 2:54pm

I'm not missing anything. I've explained the source of this problem many times. And you do have a problem. You are refusing to give your children a chance to develop any flexibility or adaptablitily or tolerance for environment change, and then you are insisting that your babies are inflexible, can't adapt and react negatively to a change in environment because thats the way babies are. Try taking them out and letting them sleep elsewhere all week for a month. Good things will happen. You have hills to climb with regards to this that I didn't - but you put those hills there yourself. They don't disappear with time. All you will get are kids who have to be able to sleep, eat and function socially other than on the home front and on a schedule, and get up and go to school and function well there in all ways all week no matter how atypical and away from home the weekend was - and CAN'T. You aren't setting yourself up to have a family life that can tolerate a social aspect at all.

Two year olds don't have bad weeks because of one missed nap. They have nothing to think about, no goals to meet or tasks to complete or anything at all to contemplate about the future. And if they need sleep, they'll sleep. Their mothers may be another thing. Gradeschoolers are another thing. A gradeschooler, who has been out having a wild time with cousins all weekend, staying up, having fun...doesn't have the option of sleeping in Monday or having an extra long nap Monday or skipping the test Monday or even of going to bed early Monday in enough situations. He has to be able to deal and that requires tolerance built up over years, or he's not going to be able to have the fun and neither are you. They degrade from babyhood on as far as adaptabilty and tolerance for change go, unless you give them lots of opportunity to keep those things working. They start out with all kinds of it and it is a use it or lose it proposition.

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