WOH and sleeping issues
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WOH and sleeping issues
| 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.

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My ds at the age of 5 still remembers being *kissed* by baby Shamu through the viewing glass.
PumpkinAngel
And as was pointed out to you, there are always going to be issues within human relationships. That has nothing to do with parenting in general.
Dj
"Now when I need help, I look in the mirror" ~Kanye West~
LOL. THought so! :)
The poor girl.
Mondo
What constitutes "putting them to sleep"? Are drugs involved? Whiskey?
My kids don't need to be 'put to sleep' at home. It's always been a story or two, tucked in and lights out. No elaborate routine of exactly 3 stories, then some rocking, then 2 lullabys, then warm milk, yadda, yadda. Just plop and go, essentially. They *do* put themselves to sleep, when we are at home.
We we are out, Aspen won't go to sleep regardless of the hour and she's been like this always. No, I didn't purposely stay in hotels away from home to 'condition' her when she was a little baby. Perhaps I should have.
Meldi
I agree. My natural inclination, to be honest, is to shadow and hover. But I've read so many articles about how important it is for kids to develop their own problem-solving abilities that I force myself to let them work it out.
Obviously that doesn't mean letting kids hit or bite -- that's completely unacceptable, and I have gotten extremely annoyed at parents who don't stop their children from hurting others. My older son did go through a biting stage at around two, and I was never more than a step away from him during playgroup. It does, however, mean that I don't intervene when kids argue over a toy. Nine times out of ten, by the age of five, at least, they work it out themselves.
Learning how to work things out for themselves is critical, not only for their social development, but also for the development of empathy and ethics. If you solve each little problem kids encounter, you do avoid immediate conflict, but you are creating serious problems for them (and for society) later on.
The schedule was based on timing. Timing that she grew into herself. I never mentioned where the schedule takes place. We've tried a bunch of times to have her sleep other places. Only truly works if she stays there the whole night and never works at nap time.
Meldi
I say it's okay for 5 year olds to play in the basement rec room without any adults, as long as the door's open at the top of the stairs.
Heck, when I was five we used to wander all over the property. I don't even know if my mom could even hear us in the woods. What's going to happen to a group of 5 year olds in a house?
Meldi
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