Ranting. Because I can.

mesamyt

I hope everyone is enjoying their babies while they are still little. Once they get older they start giving you gray hairs.

***RANTING***

I agreed to let my 10 year old have a sleepover for her birthday.  I fully expected not a large turnout since it was since short notice. But NOPE! I have 8 crazy, very loud girls in my house. They just came banging on our bedroom door just after husband went to bed, thankfully Lacey has been asleep for a couple of hours. OMG I wanted to beat those friends. So now I'm parked at the bottom of the stairs to make sure they don't wake my sleeping littles. Grrrrrrr. 

BarrettJ89

I absolutely dread this with my stepdaughter! She's about to turn 10 and the bedrooms are all in close proximity (4 bedrooms, all upstairs). I flat out had to tell her that sleepovers aren't happening here until her younger siblings sleep through the night... There's no way in the world that she and her friends could keep quiet enough to let the littles sleep. Let alone, baby still isn't sleeping through the night. 

stephanienjer

I have an...ahem...asshole 9-year-old that won't stay in bed. We have to play warden and stay within listening distance of his open door or he wanders the house and raids the pantry. I've been up since 5 with the baby, and now I'm stuck until he falls asleep, because my husband was "dying" or something, after sleeping until 7, and then napping for three hours while we were at the women's march. I've been at my post for an hour, and I'm understanding how people get desperate and tie their kids to their beds.

Cricket99

@stephanienjer I was a wanderer when I was little (2-3, not 9) and my pediatrician told my mom to put a lock on the outside of my door. Bedtime is bedtime. I don't know if it's an option, but my mom says the first night I threw a holy fit, then never got out of bed again. Good luck with your midnight wanderer!

mesamyt

I agree. Some kids are just asshats. Our bedrooms are upstairs as well so I let the girls sleep in the family room downstairs. The only one asleep when 3 of them came knocking was my daughter. They wanted to prank her. Her best friend stayed up just so the other girls wouldn't. Poor thing flew in from Florida just the day before so I knew she was tired. I was up with them until 3 because they kept ransacking my kitchen. It was awful. I've learned my lesson. 

ariasbabyblog

I completely second the locking them in at night. For my then 2 yr old, he thought getting in and out of bed and his room was a fantastic game that he could play all night long. We flipped the lock, and 3 nights later he wasn't getting out of bed anymore. Yes, those three nights were rather hellish, but now at 3 almost 4 years old, we don't have to lock it anymore, and we are actually dealing with the opposite problem of he won't come out to go potty. It's a process. We will do the same with the new little once he is too big for his crib too.  A few nights of hell is worth being able to trust them to stay in their room.

KFrob

@ariasbabyblog we had the potty problem with my 4 year old step daughter when we were in a real struggle with potty training at 3.5 and we ended up just putting a potty in her room and haven't had an accident since!