Bed time has never been easy with our daughters and as they share the same room we might have been too lenient in order not to wake the one who was already asleep.
I had recently granted them the last 30 min to play/draw/color and it seemed to work fine. Usualy Rachel would fall asleep while Natalie was still trying to get an extra kiss.
All was quiet and tranquil.
Till recently. Now Rachel wants Yossi to stop by to say good bye too and hold her hand for a while. (I know he used to do it and I found it very sweet). But now our evenings turn into battles with the girls.
On top of that they now wake up during the night because of nightmares: 11, 2am or 3am.. one cries and come to our bedroom. We will not last under these conditions!!!
As of last night we have reinforced discipline and as you know I do not like to raise my voice on my children and threathen them to close the girls should they keep crying at bedtime.
We will read the book in teh living room before going to bed and I will try to put them in bed 10 minutes earlier and we will not come back to their room under no conditions (normal ones of course).
Help me God!
Would welcome any sane solutions.
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4 comments:
Vodka
I think starting the routine earlier is a very good idea. Do you have time to let them color/draw right after dinner ? I think it's so nice that you do that.
You might also try writing down to drawing pictures of the steps of the bedtime process: toilet, brush teeth, pajamas, in bed (or whatever routine you follow) so that they can follow along and know what's coming next.
As for the nightmares, I think that's just a phase that comes and goes. Ramona currently has dreams about wolves and skunks.
Kind of like what TSM described, I made little photo books for the girls of their daily routines. Not sure if that helped or not.
Is there another area of your apartment or house you could sleep in one night? We notice that whenever we shake up our routine, like when I leave for work really early, the girls settle back in to better sleep habits.
Part of this I am sure is a phase. It is in our kids job description to test boundaries and see if any rules have changed. I agree with tsm and Laurie. When bedtime gets too much for me we change the routine and I make a new schedule on the wall. I love having a picture schedule for them tomfollow because then it is the schedule that tells them what to do, not me.
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