Wednesday 24 February 2010

Bedtime meltdown

Over the last few days, our little angel reasonably well-behaved daughter, has taken testing boundaries to to the outermost limits – somewhere approaching Alpha Centauri. And she is doing this at bedtime, a time that we had got pretty much sorted.

The usual evening routine, that has worked perfectly for a fair while, goes roughly like this:

  • We all eat dinner together at 5pm.
  • Rosemary brushes her teeth while I start getting Eleanor into her bedclothes and Chris walks the dog.
  • Rosemary gets her pyjamas on while I finish getting Eleanor into her bedclothes.
  • I read Rosemary and Eleanor one or two stories (basically until Eleanor starts crying very loudly).
  • I go through to our bedroom to feed Eleanor and put her to sleep, while Chris reads Rosemary a few more stories.
  • Rosemary lies down, gets her covers put on her, chatters to her teddies a bit, sometimes listens to Paolie’s (My Pal Scout) music, and falls asleep, usually within a few minutes – sometimes it takes maybe 15 minutes.

Every few nights, the girls have a bath after dinner, but the rest of the routine stays the same.

Quite often there will be a couple of attempts to put off sleep – going to the loo, asking for a drink, asking for a teddy to be brought up, but nothing more.

Until now.

Every part of the routine goes perfectly well, pretty much, with no arguments. Stories are read happily and peacefully. But when it comes time to actually go to sleep, all hell breaks loose, with every possible delaying tactic brought out, along with tears, stomping, leaving the room, running upstairs, downstairs, in her parents’ chamber, screaming, and threats.

Oh boy, the threats.

“I have to have the light on, otherwise I will scream and scream and scream.”

“You have to flatten my covers, otherwise I will not love you anymore.”

“I have to sleep in your room, otherwise I will hit you.”

It has been escalating since we got back from Scotland (and there were a few issues there, too). She has been getting worse every night. And we have been getting worse every night. Meaning we are shouting and screaming, too. We’ve both slammed doors. We’ve both threatened things that we’re not able to go through with. (Last night, I threatened that if she didn’t stop misbehaving, I would go downstairs, walk out the front door and go away somewhere for the night. Duh! It made her cry. Didn’t stop her misbehaving. And, of course, I didn’t do it. Because how would that even be possible.) We’ve all three of us ended up with sore throats from shouting and screaming. And she pretty much hasn’t gone to sleep until she’s completely exhausted herself with crying and screaming.

We know the shouting and screaming and so on is almost certainly making it worse, but we’re seriously at a loss of what else to do. Threats, bribes, calm explanations in the morning, nothing seems to be working. This morning, I talked to her about it and she said she didn’t know why she was doing it, but agreed that it was making it worse for her and that she wouldn’t do it tonight. We talked about it later in the afternoon, and she agreed that she would go to bed nicely. While I was reading her stories tonight, she agreed that she would go to bed nicely.

But then she didn’t.

Some of the behaviour seems to be creeping into late afternoon now, too, mostly when she’s tired out, I think. The rest of the day, she’s pretty lovely, creative, bright, friendly, affectionate, inquisitive. She’s not perfectly behaved, of course, and she’s experimenting with bargaining and the like, but to nowhere near the level that we’re seeing at bedtime suddenly.


So, I’m throwing this out to the parenting panel… Does anyone (oh, please, please, please) have any advice? And is the perfectly normal behaviour (while knowing it is wouldn’t actually provide a solution, I think it might make us feel a little better, somehow). Have you been through it? How long did it last? What worked?


Edited to add:

I just had a sudden realisation... Over the last few weeks, we have gradually accepted a new rule that Rosemary made. That she would get a cuddle everytime anyone left her bedroom. It's such an innocuous thing a cuddle, that we happily and unquestioningly agreed to it. And gradually there have been more reasons for us to come into her room. It's not sudden at all. She's been building up her cuddle quota! No wonder she's finding more and more reasons to delay. Cuddles are such lovely things! So, the plan is to let her know tomorrow that she will get one cuddle from each of us when we say goodnight (me, when I take Eleanor through; Chris when he finishes the stories) and that will be it. If she needs help to go to the toilet, or needs a drink, we will help with those things, but she won't get any more cuddles. And, in the meantime, she can have as many as she wants during the day.

11 comments:

  1. I'm sorry you're having a rough time. My girls always go through phases of refusing to go to bed and putting up fights.

    My only bit of advice would be to stick to your routine, read her the same amount of stories every night and then say goodnight, kiss, cuddle regardless of what she says or does.

    Then if she complains calmly explain it is bedtime and keep firm no matter what she does. She is probably doing it for attention so if you give her attention in any form she will just keep doing it every night. If she gets up lead her back to bed without speaking and say goodnight.

    I hope she settles soon, i have just had a restless weeks or so with my pud and 2yr old making a fuss everynight at bed time. I have stayed firm and tonight they both went to sleep with no fuss. Be strong you can do it and i hope my advice helps xxxxxxxx

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  2. What time (before this started) were you typically turning out the lights? Is it possible that she's just not tired yet and needs another 20-30 minutes before she's sleepy? Does she wake in the night or is she sleeping later than usual the next morning after this happens?

    If the answer to all of those is no, then it's probably not an actual sleep issue and more of a boundary-testing exercise. Or she could be scared of something, having nightmares, maybe? Ask her if there's anything in her room bothering her or if anything is going on at school, too.

    I'm sorry that it's so stressful right now, I hope it's just a minor blip and things are back to normal really soon. xx

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  3. Amy: Thank you. Staying calm and firm is the thing, isn't it? I've been pretty good at doing so in many circumstances that would previously have got me shouting over the last 6 months or so, I'd say. Don't know why I'm suddenly errupting so easily, except perhaps being ill didn't help.

    Anyway, I just had a sudden realisation... Over the last few weeks, we have gradually accepted a new rule that Rosemary made. That she would get a cuddle everytime anyone left her bedroom. It's such an innocuous thing a cuddle, that we happily and unquestioningly agreed to it. And gradually there have been more reasons for us to come into her room. It's not sudden at all. She's been building up her cuddle quota! No wonder she's finding more and more reasons to delay. Cuddles are such lovely things! So, the plan is to let her know tomorrow that she will get one cuddle from each of us when we say goodnight (me, when I take Eleanor through; Chris when he finishes the stories) and that will be it. If she needs help to go to the toilet, or needs a drink, we will help with those things, but she won't get any more cuddles. And, in the meantime, she can have as many as she wants during the day.

    Noble Savage: There have been times (couple on holiday and once on Monday) when it has been a lot to do with not being able to get to sleep, because she'd fallen asleep in the day time. And I think during that time, she probably saw how much she delaying she could 'get away with', and has increased what she does on a normal night. Normally, she gets pretty much the exact amount of sleep she needs, really.

    See above to Amy, though. I think I may have worked out what's happening, and we will be initiating a 'one cuddle' rule at bedtime, with 'infinite cuddles in the daytime'. Fingers crossed it will do the trick.

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  4. I agree entirely with NS, unless she is genuinely not tired then it sounds like a boundaries thing. She pushed them with that innocuous "extra cuddle", they fell, so she is pushing some more and needs them to hold.

    Is she by chance three and a half? All my mom friends here are in agreement that three and a half is without a doubt the most ornery, defiant, difficult age they have encountered to date. It was hellish for us, Geekygirl (bless her sweet heart) being a challenge at the best of times.

    I feel for you, we are still having the exact same kind of issues one more story, sit with me for a bit longer, get me a toy..... (not as bad as at 3.5, it did get easier), but I need to take my own advice and hold a bit firmer.

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  5. We were told that children try to control the only things they can ie eating and sleeping and once they see thay can thats when they start pushing the boundries and they push hard. Stick to your guns. We have been through this with both boys on and off

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  6. Ah bless you all, how exhausting for you.

    Sounds like you have a plan with the cuddle thing, let us know how it goes!

    Cuddles for YOU.

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  7. Mty daughter started going through something similar about 6 months ago. We gave her a torch to play with whilst she falls asleep - now all is fine. We got one of those wind up ones so it doesn't eat batteries and the having something to do in her bed whilst she falls asleep seems to have calmed her right down.

    I hope your cuddle solution works!

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  8. It could just be the cuddles thing. It's often such a simple thing. We had a similar situation recently, and it was all solved with a stronger night light (he'd been scared of monsters - I still don't know why he just didn't tell us).

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  9. Geekymummy: Goodness. She's almost exactly 3.5 years - couple of weeks more. That's very interesting!

    TheMadHouse: Yep, eating and sleeping are indeed the places where she tends to have issues, when she has them!

    Surprised: Will update tonight on how it went. She has been primed, and we've both been giving and receiving lots of extra cuddles, which is lovely in itself.

    Heather: That's an interesting idea. We have a couple of tose torches. Will see how we go with the new One Cuddle Regime, but may well try that if there are still problems.

    Mwa: Rosemary has a thing about skeletons in the corner of her room. One of my written-in-my-head blog posts is about it, actually. If the One Cuddle Regime doesn't make a big difference, will see about that, too.

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  10. You look like you have all the advice you need, but just wanted to say I also have a 3 & 1/2 year old and I read this post yesterday (although I didn't comment then) and felt like I could ahve written it! Our daughter has got really bad with procrastinating at bedtime and is up and down like a yo-yo too! You are not the only one, good luck with the cuddle thing, I have my fingers crossed for you :)
    With my daughter being my third, I have been through this phase twice before and so at least I know it will pass.

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  11. Freya (3 1/2 yesterday) is a champion procrastinator too, but it's not so much the going to sleep, more just messing around and playing when she's supposed to be getting ready for bed... or, indeed, doing just about anything. She often has to be threatened with no story, and the smallest misdemeanour on our part (e.g. not squeezing the facecloth out over both the basin AND the bath) can trigger meltdown.

    For the sake of our sanity we've started allowing her to keep her bedside light on. She always demands that whoever put her to bed sit at the top of the stairs (only necessary for 5-10 mins, until she drops off), but on the nights when I have put both of them to bed she has to accept that I'm going next door (to my room) to feed Xander. A few times this has resulted in a strop but generally she reluctantly accepts it.

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