Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Subject Topic: Help with bedtime, please! Post ReplyPost New Topic
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ALmom
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Posted: Jan 24 2006 at 2:22pm | IP Logged Quote ALmom
I don't know if this will help or not - as we are co-sleepers, etc. very much in the line of Elizabeth's post and currently have a 3 yo in our room. He chooses sometimes to go sleep with a sibling but mostly still in our room. But here are a few things that have helped the settling process.

We establish a routine that we all can live with and do it every night. Our youngest settles better if he thinks everyone is going down for the night (even if we plan to watch movie later). So we pray night prayers all together in our room and read night books - one for 3 yo first and then one for the older dc. We do this routine every night.

We have a water bottle by the bed for dc. Some of ours would wake up in the night because of thirst and then would have a hard time resettling - but we didn't want water spilled everywhere either. With water bottle right there, they didn't get as disturbed and didn't have difficulty resettling. Also leaving a light on in the master bath was a comfort (perhaps dc thought we were in there getting ready for bed and didn't get upset that he didn't see us).

We check on temperature comfort - most of our dc will get very crabby and unable to settle if they are too warm. I tended to get cold and overdressed some of our little ones before I figured out that that was the problem.

Is the bed mattress comfortable. Dc outgrow crib mattresses (we had one on the floor by our mattress like an Elizabeth co-sleeper except sometimes everything was on the floor including our mattress) and then cannot sleep well. Also often toddler mattresses, bunkie mattresses, etc. are not as well made and can be lumpy and uncomfortable. We went to a regular mattress for all dc because of this and it does help.

Sometimes my 3 yo will be extra clingy at night - not wanting me to leave etc. whereas other times he settles quickly and things are fine. We have found that the clinginess will sometimes appear when he has been lost in the shuffle of all the older ones and really does need my TLC. I find that as I focus on giving attention and helping dc be secure during the day, some of the annoying nighttime stuff disappears.

Sometimes, when I am having a low tolerance point with dc - if I stop and think, it isn't always dc that is the real issue. I have learned to think about whether or not my patience is being tested because I have real needs of my own that haven't been met. (Have dh and I had time to talk heart to heart or is it that I had plans for an intimate conversation and dc is "ruining" those plans. This is often the case with me - and the real need is for us to re-work how to get my real needs met as well. So maybe dh and I can plan a lunch date for some real talking - and suddenly my tolerance level improves or we work at an area where my feelings have been hurt, etc.). Sometimes I just needed more sleep and had to let something else go - not stay up doing housework or lesson planning or grading until we were back on keel.

I hope some of this helps. I know I have sometimes gotten to the frustration/impatience feelings you described and felt frustrated - but at the same time, I never really wanted to give up the nursing, co-sleeping at a deeper level and a screaming baby is more stressful to me than anything else so we tried to find rather creative solutions.

Janet
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