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Working Moms
KathrynMD
member
DD being a pill at bedtime - give me your thoughts
KathrynMD
member
in Working Moms
We have a very compressed night time schedule - I get home @ 7ish, we eat dinner quickly and then DD goes to bed at 8/8:15. DD and DH normally get home about 6/6:15 and he starts dinner and DD watches TV/plays, sometimes they go to the playground or run an errand. I take DD upstairs around 8. Some nights she's good and will get on her PJs, quickly pick books and then we'll read and she's in bed/asleep by 8:30. Other days - its a total mess - and DD stalls every step of the way - she doesn't want to go upstairs, she goes upstairs slowly, I put the wrong PJs out, she wants to kiss Daddy upstairs, not downstairs, can't pick a book, I'm looking at her wrong, etc, etc. you know - crazy preschooler stuff.
My tolerance for this BS is waning b/c #1 she knows what the expectation is (same bedtime routine for 3 years now) and #2 she's tired and I know she's tired. I start to get a little sharp/short with her after indulging her first 3 stall tactics and giving her choices, etc. And, then it escalates and I'm annoyed/mad and DD is borderline hysterical - so then she's got to calm down before we can resume bedtime prep (meanwhile, now we've added on 20 minutes to our nighttime when she's already tired as heck).
DH thinks I'm being too harsh on DD and that her main issue is that she's feeling a need to connect with me, but that I'm rushing her through bedtime which is "our" time b/c I want her to get more sleep.
IDK - I sort of see DH's point, but seriously, the girl's tired - whether we cuddle more or not. I don't really know if I need advice, but I'm sure some of you have either been here or are here - is this just regular 3.5/4 yo manipulation or do I need to help her/us connect more at bedtime so we can avoid these struggles.
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Re: DD being a pill at bedtime - give me your thoughts
I always loathe bedtime. Its so unpredictable (not the routine, but whether or not it will go smoothly). I really have zero advice, other than, it seems 100% typical to me. I wish there was a magic button that made bedtime easy EVERY night, but, there are just some nights where it is a big PITA.
Maybe some sort of incentive, like a reward chart or something. That if she follows the routine with minimal issues every night you guys go get ice cream on Saturday or something? I dunno..?
DD does this, too. It is definitely worse when she is overtired (this child has always hated sleep and is prone to getting up before 6am and refusing to nap, but that is another post). No amount of cuddling is ever enough for her. She seriously would like me to sleep in her bed with her, which is not going to happen at this point.
I don't have a ton of advice because not much seems to work, although sometimes I will just calmly tell her that if she can't decide on PJs or brush her teeth or whatever it is within the next x minutes we will only have time for 2 stories instead of 3, then 1 instead of 2, then none. She hates to go to bed without a story, so that usually works OK.
First of all, I feel your pain. DS is very much like this. Two things, one of which I have done so far (and it's worked somewhat):
* make a list of what she had to do to get ready for bed using pictures (magazine, printouts, etc.) and laminate it. Let her check off the items with a dry erase marker. Sometimes that feeling of control helps and it is something else fun to do.
* tangible consequences. I tell my kids when they start getting ready for bed (or it is time to) that they start with 5 books. It will dwindle if there is dawdling (time is wasted and not enough for the full amount of books) or poor behavior. DS has gone to bed with no reading only once. Both love their reading time so this is key. Also keeping up with new library pulls helps as well as there is always something new to read.
GL!
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
I agree with trying to add in some time together before bedtime routine. I am going to try to include a link which I hope is helpful!
https://www.ahaparenting.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?PostID=209534&A=SearchResult&SearchID=5205229&ObjectID=209534&ObjectType=55
Gosh this sounds EXACTLY like my DD1. She's 3 1/2 and will be 4 end of October. I get home an hr earlier but DH travels so it's all me. By the time I'm done making / eating dinner it's 7. I found by taking the extra 15 minutes to bond with her has stalled her antics MOST of the time. There are still night where I'm saying my Hail Mary's for a little patience... but the bonding time was key. Not stories, not TV, not brushing teeth; just sitting, cuddling and chatting about our days.
Give it a shot. GL Mamma!
In the past, bedtime problems have most often centered around DS being overtired, so I would move up his sleep schedule a bit, and that would fix the problem. For the past couple of months though, bed time has been awful with him staying up till 9 or 10 playing, and it didn't matter if he went down early, went down willingly or cried and protested. Just this week DH has started letting DS keep his door open at night. It has a made a huge difference. I thought it would make things worse, that DS would leave his room and try to ask us for stuff, but instead DS spends maybe 15 minutes playing quietly or looking at books, and then he dozes off. DH seems to think DS just needed the comfort of hearing us nearby. He is 3.5 years old, so he is at an age where he maybe developing some fears.
Bedtime for us has gone sideways with my 5 year old recently too. The irony is that I know that 90% of the problem is that he is tired, he's dog tired. I've had more tears/meltdowns in the last month over bedtime than over the last year.
I know in my kid's case, much of it is driven from the new stress in his life (french immersion) and all of the challenges that go along with that.
I have a couple of thoughts. Routine is great, but perhaps you might change a thing or two. Maybe dad could get her into her pj's right after dinner, she can pick her books then too. Then, the pj's/books aren't the trigger that getting into bed is imminent. She can play or watch tv in her jammies and when you get home, instead of doing the business of going to bed, you just do the reading and snuggling.
The other thought I have is discussion bedtime expectations at breakfast or on the drive home (your DH would do this). Tell her that you expect her to cooperate, etc. Talk about it when things are calm and happy, not in the middle of the event and stalling.
Good luck. I hate this phase when the days ends on such a sour note.
DS has started stalling a lot, too. What I do is either have a definite time for the routine and if brushing teeth, bath, etc. takes too long, we don't have time for books. DS is very motivated by books!
We were doing play time and then bath time. This week, I've started having him take a bath first and then we can play after teeth are brushed, jammies are on, etc. This helps because if he stalls, he's just cutting in to play time, so he's more motivated and I don't get as worked up about it. It also helps because he seems to get kind of wound up by bath and playing (quietly) afterward helps him calm down a bit more.
I should have read the other replies first. This is what I do!
Thank you all so much for your thoughts and suggestions and commiseration!
I printed out some graphics and I'm going to make some kind of chart w/ DD this weekend. And, I'm going talk to her too. She's really so funny to talk to about these things and normally gives me a good ideas.
This is my DS exactly. Stall tactics, really compressed schedule (we get home at 5 and DS goes to bed at 6:30 with dinner, bath, etc. all in there), preschooler, etc. We started using bedtime stories as leverage. We start out with three stories -- everytime I have to remind him more than once to do something or everytime he get "sassy" with me about putting on his PJs or whatever, we lose a story. We had to be ruthless and super consistent in implementation, but within a week things were a lot better. Within two weeks, WAY better. We had a few really bad nights of no stories and tears, but he "got it" so fast that it was really just two or three.
GL!