Every parent performs certain experiments on their children. I'm not talking about injecting them with things or seeing what happens when you throw them in for a cage fight. I'm talking about what you do when something clearly isn't working. Case in point: bedtime at our household. Things go well from dinnertime to bathtime to book reading to lights out. But after that? That's when things get bumpy. Not only does Ragsy not want us to leave, he won't go to sleep after we're gone. For two hours. This doesn't particularly bother me. After all, he's in bed. He'll pass out eventually. But it bugs the crap out of my husband. It's one of those things that eats at him and eats at him until eventually he goes back and demands that he close his eyes, relax his arms and legs and, for God's sake, go to sleep so he can feel good in the morning. He'll go back again and again and eventually get so frustrated he sits and simmers. It can't be good for him.
And it never works. Now it's a control issue. Ragsy is wonderful and very well-controlled with Evelyn, and though he throws intense tantrums with us, everything boils down to us being bigger and therefore able to control the situation until he gives. So, when he falls asleep is really the only thing he can control absolutely, which makes me feel awful.
I talked about this with my husband and we decided we'd experiment with a couple approaches - he would suggest one and we would try it Tuesday. I would suggest one and we would try it tonight. Yes, yes, I know - you have to give an approach longer to work. But we're impatient people, which probably doesn't help the whole situation. Anyway...
My husband's: let him tell us when he's tired. I wasn't a huge fan of this approach, but it's really common in India. Most children don't go to bed until well after midnight when the whole family goes to sleep together. That's just the culture - dinner is usually at 9 or 10 p.m., then people sit down to chat for a while, get ready for bed, etc. and by the time people are winding down, it's usually around 12:30 or 1 a.m. Putting children to bed at a time other than when the parents sleep is virtually unheard of. Many kids simply pass out wherever they happen to be after a while and are carried to bed whenever the parents go to bed. I'm pretty sure that's why a siesta is built into the day. Everyone's so tired from staying up so late.
Mine: more textbook, but with a later bedtime to accommodate more transitions from one activity to the next. So far, he has a really tight schedule. Get home, play for 10 to 20 minutes, dinner. Immediately after dinner, bathtime. If he's lucky, he might get to play for 5 minutes between dinner and bath. After that, bedtime. So I'd like to try something that'd hopefully benefit both kids, with dimming lights, longer quiet (emphasis on quiet) playtime and, once Ragsy is in bed, informing him that he can sleep when he wants but needs to stay put (what? it worked with toilet training).
Last night's results were not that great, though I did cut things short. I probably shouldn't have - presenting other than a united front in front of your child is just not cool - but, dammit, I'd been trying to get Evelyn to sleep for two hours. She was starting to get upset and I was tired of laying in a dark room with a baby whose eyes snapped open at every frenetic shriek. At 10:30, I had to call it quits. When I finally went to the living room to tell Ragsy to go the heck to bed, I found all the lights in the house (other than the dark room where I'd been putting Evelyn down) blazing and Ragsy, looking a little wired and with dark circles under his eyes, helping his dad do laundry and take down our Christmas tree. Anyway, after he got into bed, Ragsy stayed up singing for another hour anyway and was impossible to get up this morning and once he was up, was stumbling a bit for a few minutes. He was also whiny and had very little time between waking and getting out the door.
Sometimes I feel like we're torturing our child. Oh, well - I guess trial and error is how you get to what works. I really, really hope my approach works. I don't care about being right. All I want is a little freaking peace, fewer tantrums and better quality sleep for everyone.
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