Am i making it harder for myself in the long run - advice??

[DANNIIM]

Ok so i'm nearly 19wk UTD and DS2 is 2.5yrs so you gotta expect tantrums on his part which i know is completely normal.
I have slightly changed the way am have always parented my children, i'm giving him a little lead way i guess you could call it in certain areas to try and minimise the tantrums which drive me completely insane.
He has alway gone to to bed around 8-8.30pm but since say early May he would be up and down, not stay in bed and wouldn't get to sleep until 10pm so instead i have started to let him stay up a little longer just till i can see he is calm from sitting with me on the couch and he will normally start to yawn as well, so then i say ok mummy's going to go get you a drink of milk now say goodnight o Daddy and he goes without a fuss. He's always been a bad sleeper but this has actually helped and most nights he is sleeping through or i only have to get up to him once.

Just wondering what others thoughts are on this? I thought trying it a different way which seems to be working atm has gotta be better than him ending up throwing a tantrum and me ending up pulling my hair out.

[Catastrophic]

you do what is right for you xoxox thats the best advice anyone has ever given me. if it works it works

[Rivlas]

Does he have a day sleep?

If this works for you at the moment then stay with it. Sleep patterns do change and as he gets older and more active he will get tired and be wanting to go to bed earlier.

DD1 now has a night light in the boys room so they 'read or play' by that and she has found they don't get out as much as they used to.

Some kids need more sleep than others and as long as he is not sleeping in then stick with your method.

[onthefly]

It's fine if it's working for now. It's likely things will change again in the near future anyway.

[Erin_25]

I read in a toddler parenting book one thing that I loved that has stuck with me, and that was "pick your fights" so if you don't have to fight over it and it works another way then just roll with it and what works for you. Like at dinner time we don't fight, we don't cook another meal but if DS1 doesn't want to eat we don't push him, or anything and we all enjoy it more.

[DANNIIM]

Erin funny you said about dinner time because that's another time of day he generally won't sit and eat with us all - we just let him come and go and he will tend to eat more that way without the arguements.

Rivlas he does still have a day sleep of around a couple of hours but i like that because it gives me a breather during the day and if he only sleeps for the hour he wakes up really grumpy and just generally is a pain to be around all afternoon.

At the moment i would just rather roll with it and he is much happier that way too.

[Stevie]

My DD is 20 months, she is terrible to get to bed. You know i dont even put her to bed, she lays on her couch on the floor and goes to sleep anywhere from 7pm till about 8.30pm (then i move her off to bed). SO many people cant belive this is what i do. Cant understand how i DONT have a bed time, and keep reminding me how hard it will be when she's older. But you know what? it works for us! this is what we do. i will cross each bridge when i come to it. If thats working for you then thats awesome (i personally would love it if thats what i end up doing when DD is a bit older)
Good luck, i hope it stays nice and easy for you

[Gigi]

When we left DD's daddy late last year, her sleeping routine went all haywire.

Someone suggested that i keep her up late e.g 8.30pm and so i tried that.
It really helped us get thru that difficult time.

Now she's gone back to an earlier bedtime, so it hasn't made things worse (for us).

Do what works for your child, like MummeNurse said. Some things work, that normally you wouldn't do, but there are always special circumstances (you being pregnant). If it saves tantrums and means you all get a better night's sleep - sounds good to me.

[Arcadia]

So much changes with kids, i don't think there is a 'long run'. Dd and I slept for hours during the day when I was pg, and she was never in bed before 9:30, but that worked for us. Now she sleeps every second day and is asleep at 8pm most nights...

Do what works best right now...it's all kids understand anyway

[Shezabelle]

I agree with everyone else! My golden rules are "do whatever works for you" "pick your battles" and "if it doesn't bother you don't change it" DD1 (4.5now) always went to sleep on me never in her bed it worked fine and then I got sick of it as DD2 came along so I expected a huge fight everynight but she was great. If it works for both of you then by all means do it. And especially if he's Stijl having such a big day sleep he sounds like he's getting enough sleep.

[ellasmummy]

Yup agree with everyone else. I'm a night owl, so when dd wouldn't go to bed I just let her stay up, she is almost 4 now and by 7.30 is absolutely hanging out for bedtime and gets super excited when we announce its time to clean teeth etc...at the time I got told it would be hell when she's older etc...as I was told with co sleeping, then sitting next to her bed for to go to sleep etc...but its worked out just fine