OK My turn.

[kokonutmama]

this is a spinoff of helle's thread, i guess.  we're having our own sleep issues, and it didn't even dawn on me how troublesome they are until I read what all your kids are up to sleep wise.  A lot of this is rehash of stuff I've moaned about before, but some is new:

Kody nurses to sleep still, and it's really not possible to have it any other way at this point.  If i pull the boob about when he's almost asleep, he root around and if he doesn't get a boob, he wakes up crying.  If I were to lay down with him and not give him a boob at all he'd claw at me until he got it one way or another.  He's reallyvery skilled at unearthing a breast from whatever is between him and it.  so, there's that end, noone can put him to sleep but me and it has to be just so.  Sometimes he insists on being nursed to sleep in the easy chair downstairs.  I think it's the more cozy contact he gets that way.  You're thinking, "he insists? teach him not to" (well, maybe you're not, but that's what I get from the other people in the house) but it's really not that easy.  obviously I'd like to have him go to sleep when (not 10:30 as is his preference) and how it's convenient for me, and I've tested the waters a little to find that he is just as stubborn as can be and nothing I can think of helps.  Fine, so at least I know how to put him to sleep, it's not the most convenient, but it's reliable.

The latest problem is that he wakes up in the middle of the night and insists on going DOWNSTAIRs to pee.  If i offer his bblp, he throws it across the room, if I take him to the upstairs bathroom, he will stand inches from the toilet and leak onto the floor.  Once I bring him downstairs he will go in the toilet, but then he wants to watch a video.  it's 2am here.  Some times I can convince him that the middle of the night is no time for watching videos, but sometimes we do end up watching, until he falls asleep.  This past week a couple of times I actually brought my computer upstairs so he could watch while I slept in bed.  I'm f-ing exhausted.  It's bad.  I don't know how to get across that I'm not out to be permissive.  If I don't give in and let him watch a video, he'll open the door and run down the stairs to put one in himself.  If I sit in front of the door so he can't open it he hits me and cries so it sounds like he's going to suffocate.  he's not getting any closer to sleep, and neither am i.  there have been times when I just stuck it out, but a few nights in a row of that and i can't function during the day. 
In the morning, then he wants to nurse for hours, three hours to be exact.  it's so frustrating.

now, if you've made it through all that, thanks.  I guess I'm getting frustrated that it sounds like your kids are falling asleep on their own, at least without a breast, and sleeping the night with maybe a little encouragement or attention, but nothing of the drama i've gotten so used to i didn't even realize it was an issue.  that's not to say you guys aren't suffering.  helle, I can't tell you how much I feel for you, having to go to work and only getting a little time with cm and all that.  What I am wondering, is what you guys have done differently than I have that made your kids so _reasonable_ by comparison.  Too much TV?  too much junk food?  a traumatic birth experience?  or is it just personality? 

ok, enough b-ch and moaning.  thanks for your ears girls.

[jnezmama02]

Adrienne, I'm not really sure what to tell you. As you know, we have our own bed time struggles. I just wanted to send lots of  your way. Hopefully, one of these gals w/ good bed time routines will have suggestions. We're struggling to move to an earlier routine and it's been tough. So, I understand!!! 

[moogie]

Kody is one persistent little man.  I know, I've seen him in action.  He knows what he wants, but he needs to know that those things aren't necessarily going to happen.  Its easy for me to say these things when i've got a back up system here.  i mean, if dh and i have a hard nights sleep, whoever is more tired gets a sleep in, i don't think thats a posibility at your house.  Could you maybe set a plan in action where you slog it out, that is, no midnight movie (as a set 'rule') and if you get too tired to deal in the morning, could your dad watch Kody while you catch a few extra    .  He's not going to suffocate.  Yeah he's really upset that he's not getting what he wants and that should be acknowledged, but letting him watch it i think is teaching him that "if i persist long enough I will get what i want".

The 3 hrs of nursing in the morning has got to be tough on you.  I don't know if its sounds mean or not understanding of your situation but Kody is at an age IMO  that he needs to know that you have other things to do in the house and that 3 hrs is just too long. 

Maybe setting up times for things for him so he can learn some more limits.  Like ok, when the little hand is on the 5 you can watch a movie, and Kody when the little hand hits the here(point to 9 for eg) mum has to do some dishes or its time for us to read a book.  I hope I'm helpin and not being rude.  I think the biggest thing you can do for him is be consistent that if you say he cant do/have something then you don't back down.  He'll soon learn and the struggles should become less and less because he'll know what to expect.   

[ShannonandDel]

Oh Adrienne, we have problems too, and I hate it! Delaney bed hops. She will fall asleep with me and wake up and want to sleep with dh. Then she wants to sleep with me and hour later, then dh, and so on. If I tell her no and she crys, he comes in and gets her. I agree with a lot of what Megs says, and I need to try to do the same thing. My problem is actually dh. He won't let me be consistant with keeping her in one bed. He can't stand crying.  I don't love it, but a few minutes of it vs a whole night of it? Ahhhh!
We are going to have to have a serious talk about it, again. This can't keep happening.

I also think I am going o try to wean her. I don't really want to, but I think I need to. We have the nursing marathons in the morning to, and it drives me crazy and kills my back. I think these two are twins seperated somehow!

[kokonutmama]

Shannon, they may well be, I have thought the same thing about Del and Kody.

Megs, you're not being rude, everything you say makes sense, during the day.   Which is when I need to think about these things, not leave it to the middle of the night to decide and then being half asleep and hysterical.  well, I'd type more, but that's more to think about then I thought it was: "make the decisions during the day, dunba$$!"  ...

before I go, though, to be fair to myself I should explain that the three main reasons I end up giving him the unreasonable midnight demards are (1) I can't tell whether I'm being mean or not at that hour, so I err on the side of too nice. (2) There are two other working adults in the house who need their sleep, too, and at least one of them is very and vocally judgemental of my parenting practices.  (3) Kody snores.  I'm afraid that his insistance of sleeping semi-upright is because he has trouble breathing and therefore sleeping when he's laying down in bed.  he alsso has allergies, and his dad was allergic to dust really badly so I worry that the bed is just a hard place for him to sleep, and _I'm_ the one being unreasonable by asking him to sleep there at all.  I asked the ped about it and she blew be off.  There's also a little bit of (4) guilt.  i bet it's pretty common among single parents to be a little too permisive, it's hard not to be.

[skeettafic]

Adrienne -

I'm so sorry you (and all the mama's with hard nights right now) are going through this.  I have a few thoughts, some random, some more from my work background.

1.  I really think a part of it is personality.  Jocelyn is still really mellow and may get really upset about some things, tends to calm down relatively quickly and adapts to new routines just as easily.  She's typically been one of the better sleepers on the board and I don't know that I really had anything to do with that other than to help her work through bumps as they occurred.

2.  As much as it sucks, I think you really are going to have to bite the bullet when it comes to the night-time TV.  When Jocelyn first started really watching TV she would wake up and ask to watch it sometimes.  In our house the rule is no TV in the middle of the night and if she throws a temper tantrum then I have to remember that she is just sharing how mad she is the only way she knows how.  Could you give Kody the choice of "you either use the little potty or you have to wear a diaper" to keep from going downstairs and keep him from the temptation?  You are not being mean - children need limits and guidelines and this is a generally universal one for most kids - you don't get up at 2 am and watch TV (at least not until you're old enough to do it without me  )  Can you have a talk with your parents and let them know that you have decided that you really need to help Kody learn that night-time is for sleeping and that you are not going to let him watch TV at night so there may be some crying for a few nights - would they get behind you on that?  Could you start on a weekend so that it wouldn't be as detrimental to everyone in the house.

3.  I would see if you could get someone to take a look at the snoring.  I think snoring is a sign of sleep apnea and I would want to have that addressed - even if it was just allergies, it can be really hard to sleep when you are all snuffly as I call it

4.  Now this is work-based stuff.  The permissive style of parenting is a very slippery slope and I would like to tell you that it is something you are going to need to be mindful of if you feel you fall more to that end of the parenting spectrum.  Parenting styles (as discussed most often by Baumrind) are made up of 2 components - warmth and discipline.  The permissive parent is generally very high on the warmth and very low on the control/discipline.  Kids raised by permissive parents tend to have very high self-esteem (great) but also exhibit many behavioral problems such as lack of self-control, aggression towards others, drug and alcohol use, etc.  They tend to feel as though they are entitled to do what they want and everyone else should help them get that result.

I'm not trying to scare you and I certainly don't think that being permissive once in a while is going to be a problem I wanted to make you aware of some of the ramifications of that type of parenting since you seem to be questioning what type of parent you want to be.

The one other thing I would suggest would be a rock-solid bedtime routine.  NCSS would help with this.  When Jocelyn was sleeping her worst, establishing and running her bedtime routine was the most helpful thing to getting her back on track.  Once you had the routine in place and he was responding to it you could try moving the routine earlier to attempt an earlier bedtime if you didn't want to tackle it all at once.

I really hope I haven't offended or insulted you because that really isn't my intention.  I'm sorry you're struggling so much - I would come and get up with Kody in the morning if I could!  

Remember, our kids are at a point where they know we are there for them and they are testing to see where their limits are.  It really is our job to set them so our kiddos learn how to function within the boundaries of life.

[moogie]

Like Jessica said, you're not being mean by setting stricter boundaries and it will all help you and him in the future.  I can also certainly understand the 'guilt' issue.  good luck.

[kokonutmama]

Jess, of course you haven't offended me.  Actually, last night after I got off here and made up my mind what to do when k woke up in the middle of the night, he fell asleep at 8, (he hadn't had a nap) and only woke up a couple of times during the night and only for a few sedconds to get latched on, then went right back to sleep, slept 'til 7:30, then had to poop, so he told me "Poop and pee, go bathroom quickly, be right back, one minute, mommy stay here," and took himself to the bathroom.  hey.  maybe it was teething, ear infection, something that's passed.

oh, and as much as I'd love to limit nighttime TV, again, it's not up to me.  and my dad's practicly deaf (I'm exagerating) so it's pretty impossible to ignore.
AND giving him time limits on nursing has been happening for a while now.  so much in fact that when he wants to nurse, he says, "boobie in the [insert chair of preference] two minutes."  It's pretty funny, he's a little negotiator.  Once two minutes is up, he asks for two minutes all over again. 

[kiskar]

Hi Adrienne,

This is sorta related to what you are talking about although the exact behavior is different because Ben and I no longer cosleep and he no longer nurses, but anyway... I sorta posted about this on the other thread, but basically I tend to reinforce Ben's night waking. Recently he was sick, and because he was sick and because I felt bad that he was sick, I let him come in to bed to sleep with me in the middle of the night. Well after two nights of that, he decided that he preferred to "sleep" in "mama's bed" so when he would wake up in the night, instead of just going back to sleep, he'd start calling for me and demanding to come to my bed. The problem is that he doesn't really sleep much in my bed, and instead is very active, talks to me, kisses me, runs around the room, opens drawers, etc., so we don't get very much sleep. I decided that since he was no longer sick, I'd start setting limits again about staying in his own bed at night. Unfortunately because I'm sick too and pregnant and overworked and tired, I would eventually give in to his incessant demands because I just didn't have the energy in the middle of the night to fight it. So what did he learn? If he's just persistent enough, mama will give in! That's what I mean about reinforcing his behavior. So we had a week or so of hellish nights, with me saying no, him escalating until I gave in, me giving in, repeat the next night... I was exhausted. So finally I just had to accept that I created this problem and I'd have to suck it up and fix it. So I decided that my goal was for him to stay all night in his bed and even if he woke up and wanted to come to mine, I would not give in. It took a couple of nights being consistent - I didn't abandon him to cry in his room, but I was firm about his ability to sleep in his own bed all night and that coming to my bed was not an option. It worked. He stopped demanding to come to my bed and started putting himself back to sleep as he had before he was sick. Thankfully! I hear ya about the single mom thing though because I sometimes opt for the immediate fix out of exhaustion or frustration and the fact that I'm the only one who has to deal with it, but ultimately because I'm the only one who has to deal with the ramifications, the long term effects aren't worth the short term bennies. I'm sure you can relate! I hope it gets better for you!

Hugs,
Kerry

[kokonutmama]

Thanks Kerry.  I'd love to hear more about how you're doing, outside of sleep issues. 
So far so good.  We're on night three of asleep by 8:30.

[moogie]

  i want to know how you're doing too Kerry?

[HanoiHelle]

While we certainly have our sleep issues (mostly one of taking a long time to go to sleep!), I do think that a lot of people here are on to something. Basically, in my mind, it's about teaching our DCs that they are part of a family - what ever that family may look like: one or two parents, siblings, grandparents, etc. - and that members of a family have respect and regard for each other. May sound oversimplified, but I think it's about teaching the little ones that they do not get to set the agenda for all the other people all the time. They have a voice, and they are absolutely given room to say what they want, but that doesn't mean that's what will happen.

For example, TV at 2 am. Kody should be allowed to express his desire to watch a video, but he also has to know that this is not acceptable, or nursing for 3 hours if it hurts his mother. If he persists, maybe holding him tight while he cries and telling him that it's ok and that you love him and understand what it is he wants, but that it's not going to happen now, that he can watch a video in the morning, nurse later, etc.

Sometimes, when I drop CM off at school, she cries a bit. I know she loves going to school and spend time with her friends, so it's not because she is unhappy, it's just that she would prefer that I stayed and played with her and her friends. She stops crying before I am even out the gate, so I take it as her way of expressing her preference . . . but also knowing that she understands and is happy that it is not an option. Other times when she wants something that I don't want - like watching TV while we eat, or get up from the dinner table right away, and I turn off the TV or tell her to sit in her chair for 2 minutes - she'll protest b/c it's not want she wants, but she also accepts it. I tell her that it's not for now, but later, and that this is want I and her father want and we want her to sit with us, talk to us, etc.