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: 12-29-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 6:45pm
"they hog the Nintendo." LOLOL!!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 6:46pm
I don't think you have as much to worry about as you think. For one, he's a boy--the mother/son thing is easier than mother/daughter at that age (so I've been assured). And you're setting the stage now for the trust you'll need later. John trusted me with confidences about himself and his friends that just flat out astonished me at that age (he also had his secrets....)...but the really important things, he confided.

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
flat in others,
and really annoying when it's stuck in your head."

Karen

"A pocketknife is like a melody;
sharp in some places,
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 6:54pm
The worst experience of my entire life. My DD2's hair is light red, too. Makes the little buggers easier to see, but not really any easier to deal with.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-04-1997
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 6:55pm
Thanks. 12-13 has been a pretty hard year for me with the older one. He's still a great kid, but it really is like having a big toddler in the house -- you know how a toddler is a baby one minute and super independent the next and completely unreasonable about half the time but absolutely sure he's right? That's what I have -- an amazingly competent man-child who shows up sometimes, an a surly defiant toddler who possesses his body at unpredicable moments (but fairly regularly). At times I think it must be me. At my saner moments, I realize it's just the age.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 7:06pm

You mean, you don't let your 5yo socialize without hovering over him? The one who's almost 6? Are you kidding me? Just this afternoon, my friend and I sat on her deck while my sons and her 5yo ran in and out of the sprinkler. She and I chatted while the kids spent at least 45 minutes playing without any real intervention from us. DS2 came and sat on my lap and I warmed him with a towel once or twice, but that was about it.

No wonder parenting tires you out so much.

Congratulations! I'm so happy to hear it. I just heard the good news and popped back over, just in case you were still checking in.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 7:17pm

So forcing a child who no longer needs a nap to take one anyway because the parent needs that downtime is different how?


Dj

"Now when I need help, I look in the mirror" ~Kanye West~

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-12-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 7:36pm

I'm trying to figure out if kids "come" with compassion or if it something instilled.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 7:58pm

You're confusing the kind of socializing you do with the kind I do. The houses we go to where he might be there at sleeptime (Grandma's, my brother's) are in no way strange to DS, and he's doing just as much socializing as I am. Maybe more. It's even more important to him than to me that he do so. How selfish of me to let him! Edited to add that I do have one exception. We were apartment-hunting when DS was 3, and my maid of honor and her husband, who lived in the area in which we were looking, offered to have us come and stay with them. DS had clapped eyes on the two of them exactly once in his life up until that point and had never seen their house. We made up a place for him to sleep on the floor in the room in which we were staying - a piece of corrugated foam, a blanket and a pillow my friend had made. This, to DS, was a kick - referred to his resting place over and over as "my comfy nest" and could hardly wait to try it out. Slept like a little log, dreaming that he was quite an adventurous fellow. Got so attached to the pillow that my friend made him a matching one of his own.

And you simply don't understand that no one has to "make" a child fall asleep in an unfamiliar place (a hotel, say). They fall asleep in one with as much aplomb as anyone else does, provided they're not totally freaked out by the unfamiliarity of it all, as they might be, if their parents had never let them stay in a hotel.




Edited 6/8/2005 9:06 am ET ET by dogma_2
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 8:02pm
Hey. The only thing that we've found is absolutely, 100% critical that we not run out of for any reason is coffee and filters for the same.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 8:11pm

Life just sucks, huh. Weeks at a time where Felicia has to spend too much time with her own kids. And weeks where she doesn't see enough of them. Nothing but a PITA, this parenting business.

I don't know. This conversation is as bizarre to me as if you had started a thread on "Negative Consequences of Having a Left Leg." Just think of all the downsides. Adds, oh, I'd guess 35 lbs. to your weight. Doubles - DOUBLES - your chances of having a charlie horse or a stubbed toe - and that can be really painful! Not able to negotiate one-leg discounts on pants. Oh, sure, worth it overall to have a left leg, and we all say, of course, that we can't imagine life without our left leg - but of course you know there are days when you'd rather just have a break from dragging one around with you everywhere you go.

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