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Blended Families
Need a little advice...
So I married a man with a 6yo boy, I'll call him M, who for the first 5yrs of his life has been raised with little discipline 9by both of his parents). He is a very sweet kid but he can be a handful when it comes to treating others with respect, manners and listening to direction. I am now 7.5 months pregnant with my first child. I work long night shifts and sleep all day. Occasionally we are met with me working on the weekend. While normally both my guys are gone all day and I can get a good 'days' sleep, but on weekends they are both home. Now M, is a very smart high energy/loud child who screams and pounds throughout the house. This is something I am trying to 'tame' in him. Like 'Time and place' mentality. Inside noises, outside noises. The problem is is that his dad thinks that he is 'only 6 yo' and can't be inhibited or given boundaries. I feel that he is in school and should be able to follow direction by now. (Forgive me if I sound nieve, I birthed a 5yo boy with no experience in raising kids and don't know what is normal expectation and what isn't. I have friends with kids and M is by far the loudest most high energy kid I've been around. Completly uninhibited. Not always in a bad way.)
So on days like these I ask his dad about it adn he says he tells him to be quiet. But dads discipline ends there. His discipline lines are "You can't do that." End. There is no follow through, no explanation, etc. I do think M's behavior is the result of bad parenting (in my opinion, of course) and not his 'fault'. but I also believe that a little consistency and patience and foloow through M would change. (many of our friends tell me that he is already different since I have been with them, not such a wild child)
So, Should I push his dad to discipline him with corrective measures if he doesnt listen, especially about days whn I am sleeping (and also pregnant)? (I'm talking time out and explanation of why it is nice to be quiet when someone is sleeping) I aks bc dad thinks he is a normal 6yo boy and its inconvient for M to be quiet in the house on the weekend. (for one day while I sleep for work.) (Why he didn't take him somewhere, I don't know....)
I just don't know if I'm being selfish, but I do NEED to work. should I be more understanding of a 6yo? Should I push dad to get on board? I predict this is not something that will go away, and when the baby comes it will be very hard to get sleep if this is what is happening. I don't want M to feel upset when the baby comes bc I end up discipling him bc he wakes me or the baby.
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Re: Need a little advice...
I don't think there's a good way to bring up the fact that you kind of think he's a bad parent in terms of discipline. Personally I think I'd suggest going to a parenting class together to get on the same page. I'm a huge fan of Love and Logic parenting. I do agree that consistency and follow through are needed. It's really hard to change your ways once you've gotten into habits. A parenting class could really help.
I think it would be great if he could be quiet for a little while so you can sleep. I also think it's unrealistic to expect a 6 year old to be quiet all day. I think some sort of compromise would be the best option. Maybe he's quiet for a while in the morning then dad takes him out for a special father-son activity and when they come back he doesn't have to be quiet. Working nights sucks. I've been there. You deal with noise and light all day while you're trying to sleep. It's just one of those things you have to try to make the best of while you work nights.
I think you will probably both have to make some changes.
Yes, he should be disciplining his son, regardless of it impacting your sleep.
But I also don't think you can expect a silent house either and that you will somewhat just have to get used to it. My dad worked 3rd shift my entire childhood. Not only did he have to sleep through the 3 of us, but my mom ran an in home daycare too. The only solution was a heavy door, blackout curtains, and a loud fan.
I think once you have your LO and have to sleep through a child being around all the time you will get more used to it.
This exactly.
Fortunately DH and I don't have jobs that require our sleep throughout the day but he has a 4.5 year old son and almost 7 year old daughter. They are definitely disciplined to know better than the be that rowdy inside. Sure sometimes they are loud when they get hyper or excited while playing certain things but they also know to quiet down when we say so. Right now i'm just working on running in the house for my SS.
But I will say there were many talks my DH and I had about parenting. I am expecting my first so I didn't have the experience but there were lots of times I saw him let things go that shouldn't have been and ultimately, IMO, it was just guilt. He wasn't seeing his kids 24/7 and only about 3-4 days per week so he didn't want to have to discipline all the time. But eventually that stopped. I think all parents have some sort of guilt after divorce and don't want to be too harsh on the children. Its a fine line for everyone involved though. good luck.
I hate when people tell me this. Just because I will not be getting sleep once the baby arrives doesn't mean I have to accept losing sleep now.
OP, you have two issues. First, your DH should be disciplining his kid. You two need to get on the page as far as discipline goes ASAP because you'll be fighting this battle once your LO arrives.
Second, I also agree that its unreasonable to expect a totally quiet home. I've worked 12-hour night shifts before and they suck. I ended up with black garbage bags over the windows and a loud fan for white noise. There should be expectations about SS minimizing how noisy he is (not okay to scream and yell), but stuff is going to get dropped, voices are going to get loud, etc. You need to figure out what works to help you sleep through the day and then compromise. If SS is still waking you up after you take reasonable measures, then that is probably an unacceptable level of noise.