My son will do anything to stay up past his bed time. He is not averse to being incredibly defiant, nor is he unaware of how cute he can be. Tonight he tried a combination of tactics.
Mommy put him to bed and read him a book. He asked for Daddy to come upstairs. Before I could come up to sing to him, he got out of bed in an attempt to trick Mommy into letting him stay up. He thought if he was cute enough she wouldn't send him back to bed. He was wrong. He tried to run away from her, laughing all the way. He stopped laughing when she caught up to him and carried him back to his room. The laugh quickly changed to a tantrum.
Enter Daddy for the singing. Mommy is gone, so baby thinks he has a clean slate to work with. He snuggles into Daddy and wants a story. The book he chose was a simple book on colors and objects, so it wasn't so much reading as it was naming things for him and asking him to point out the various items. He recognized just about all of them, which was pretty good I thought. I told him to lay on his pillow if he wanted Daddy to sing to him. He laid down and I thought he was finally ready to sleep. I was wrong.
While I was singing to him he kept trying to grab books, sit up, play, and anything else he could do to stay awake. I told him to lay down again if he wanted more songs, so he did. We are trying to sleep train him, since I tend to fall asleep lying down with him. We read him stories and sing to him, and attempt to walk out without too big a tantrum. I told him I was on my last song, and he cleverly snaked his body around my arm, making it impossible for me to get up without removing him. He got a laugh out of Daddy for that one. He also got a few more songs.
I left him in bed with firm instructions not to get up and came downstairs. My wife took over the enforcement duty. Sure enough, the moment I sat down to blog he was coming to see us. He again tried the cute tactic, but it still didn't work. He keeps getting up, so hopefully he will go to sleep soon. We really need him to be fully sleep-trained before his brother is born. For those inclined to pray, we could use a prayer or two on his behalf. :)
3 comments:
Enjoy those days because in the blink of an eye, they're teenagers and the mayhem will be way less cute.
BTW I was a thin child and to stay up late I would use hunger as an excuse. My mother would do just about anything to get me to eat.
I will pray, but I have to tell you (as mother of 3 and grandma of 2) I have found prayer doesn't help much in the bedtime dramas!
Good luck.
Vixen
http://vixensden.com
Chewbacca is an expert negotiator and has the cute thing down pat, so we change tactics on a stage-by-stage basis. When he was 2, we put the baby gate in his doorway. When he was 3, we let him roam because the baby was up until 3am anyway, so why not? Now if he gets out of bed he has to go to bed an hour early the next night, 2x and he loses playing video games with Daddy, 3x and no songs the next night--that one's just as hard on me as it is on him!
Good luck!
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