I can totally sympathise. We've been having trouble with DD on and off since DS came home. Before this she was the most perfect sleeper. For a few months, we had problems with bedtime, with consistency (and trust me, I lost the plot several times), limiting how long we spent in there, how many books we read etc eventually that settled and she now goes to bed just fine 99.9% of the time. The thing I felt helped to alleviate the stress of it all was to get DH to put her to bed and read her stories. She tended to try to push my buttons a lot more than his. I could also then concentrate on getting DS to sleep or bathing him, feeding, resettling etc rather than going back and forth between the two. It made things so much easier. She resisted it at first but now she's fine with him putting her to bed. I do it occasionally and that hasn't caused any problems. It is good for them to spend this time together too, she gets me all day but her daddy only for a few hours in the evening, so I think it's nice for them both.
Then once that was sorted, we got the waking up in the middle of the night business (which she hadn't done since she was 9 months old). Only last week after months of this have I put my foot down and things are improving. If she gets out of her bed at night to come in with us, she is put straight back in her own bed - no matter how much she cries, how big a tantrum she throws, even if she wakes her brother up, she is put back to bed and one of us stays with her until she is asleep again. Things have improved already and we've only been using this tactic for a few nights, two of which have been pretty much undisturbed. I would not mind her sleeping with us occasionally but it was becoming every night and everyone's sleep was being disrupted, especially hers.
This has almost done my head in and I've looked for answers everywhere - I am now fairly confident that this was her reacting to her brother's arrival and her testing the boundaries. At first I thought she may be scared or having bad dreams etc but now I'm convinced it is purely behavioural and that makes it so much easier to deal with.
Last edited by Willow; July 19th, 2008 at 03:21 PM.
Looks as though we had been a bit slack keeping the routine we had tight. We were letting too much time go between bath and bed. That has now been reigned in and there has been much improvement. Still the odd crappy night.
Arrgh - I am doomed not to post, crying bub to tend to again.
I don't have any solutions and it seems you're on the up anyway. I just had something to offer to take into your next 'battle of wills'. It's this: it's possible (and highly likely) that she does not see the compromises as 'rewards'. Kids are far more evolved than Skinner's rats and far more complex feelings and thoughts are racing through that 3 year old brain She wants to be understood and she likes having you near - that's what I see from your post. It's at odds with what you want to be doing with that time (rushing back to the little one) and this is possibly where the frustration is coming in. There's something she's communicating that is being missed in the cross-fire, and regularity may be a big part of it, so you're on your way already
Reply With Quote
She wants to be understood and she likes having you near - that's what I see from your post. It's at odds with what you want to be doing with that time (rushing back to the little one) and this is possibly where the frustration is coming in. There's something she's communicating that is being missed in the cross-fire, and regularity may be a big part of it, so you're on your way already 
Bookmarks