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: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 8:52pm

Color me confused too. I went to a baby shower Sunday and there were about 6-7 small children there. The tiniest ones (under two) did stay with the adults for the most part. But my ds and 3 other children under the age of 6 were all playing out in the yard and using sidewalk chalk in the driveway. We could see them, and they certainly interacted with us here and there, but they did not require our full attention or supervision. They didnt fight either, or make a mess, or get exceedingly dirty (although I dont care about that too much).


In fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of ANY event where there were kids clinging to the adults, demanding attention or adults needing to intervene in kid squabbles or issues-in all the years of socializing with children around. The kids run around and play, both inside and outside, the adults talk, and there is seldom any fighting or problems.


Dj

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

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 8:53pm

Don't tempt me like that! Are you guys on summer vacation yet?

I could use four extra kids to help me keep the pooches tuckered out lately. I've been working with Tillie on the invisible fence system - she figured it out very quickly and respects the line but is not at all intimidated by it. Arrow, on the other hand, is such a marshmallow that he goes and hides under my bed when TILLIE is in the yard with the collar on, because he's so concerned that SHE'S going to trigger the warning beep. So in order for either of them to have any fun or exercise I'm having to go run them around in the yard separately. And here part of the reason I got Tillie was so they'd play together!

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 8:56pm
Well, you just make it all look so darn easy, you super-organized non-milk-neglecting optimal-nap-providing superwoman, you! How DO you do it (said with a slow awed side-to-side headshake of amazement)?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:12pm
I have certainly never claimed to have seen EVERY woman with implants. What I have seen looks fake. I wouldn't consider breast implants fake appearance aside, the health aspects. I don't like the idea that breast cancer would be harder to detect.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:19pm

You know what? That is *exactly* what I did with dd. I just got tired of being a beotch about it, tired of nagging, tired of grounding, tired of standing over her. We made a few ground rules, and I made very few comments or suggestions. She had to bring home a progress report each friday-no progress report, no fun that weekend. Bad grades (as in lower than a C) and no fun that weekend. She forgot her report a few times, tried to wheedle her way out of it, and when she saw I was going to stand firm, she started bringing it home. I stopped asking (nagging) if she had done her homework. I stopped checking her homework. I told her that it was on her shoulders, that if she ended up going to summer school or getting held back that it was HER problem and consequence, not mine. We pretty much stopped talking about school and grades. And lo and behold, her grades started coming back up. Shes finishing out the quarter with what looks like 3 As, 3 Bs and maybe one C. I can live with the C, lol.


What is really great is her confidence is back up too. I think she just started feeling defeated, and she'd get behind and think she could never catch up. She needed

Dj

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

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:22pm
LOL.
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: 12-29-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:23pm
I hear ya.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-16-2005
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:28pm
Having a man who had been arrested previously for making terroristic threats against the hospital in which I worked call and start cussing me out on the phone because I couldn't check on his wife's appointment time that very second because our computers were down because the hospital was actually on fire at that moment fazed me. Having the brake cable of the fully-loaded-with-mulch half-ton pickup I was driving snap when I was going down a steep hill immediately behind a school bus which was stopping to drop off an elementary school child and having to swerve into oncoming traffic and stop the thing by downshifting and romping on the emergency brake and praying I didn't kill anybody fazed me. Having to punch a man to knock him out of the doorway of my dorm room so I could shut it and lock him out fazed me. Having horses spook and run off with me on them, especially in forests with low branches, occasionally fazed me. DS and DH and me walking into what I thought was my father's recovery room and finding him lying there stone cold dead instead fazed me. Parenting? I'm coming up kind of empty handed on that one.


Edited 6/8/2005 8:59 am ET ET by dogma_2
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2004
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:32pm
;-)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2003
Tue, 06-07-2005 - 9:47pm
Actually, it's better for the children to do the adjusting, especially when it comes to social and emotional development. Emotional and social development may not seem important to a parent who values order and routine above all else, but it actually ends up being pretty important to the children.
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.

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