Getting the toddler out of bed

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I have few disagreements about raising our 2-year-old daughter, but one has cropped up recently and I’d like to hear some Doper opinions.

Our daughter typically wakes up between 6:45 and 8:00 in the morning. She sleeps in a room down the hall from ours, in her own crib, and we have a baby monitor on in our room overnight. As a result, we can (in theory) hear when she wakes up in the morning.

Now, it used to be that she’d wake up, stand up in the crib, and immediately commence with serious crying for escape, at which point one of us would go get her out of the crib. More recently, she’ll play with a music box for a few minutes before starting in a constant stream of “Mommy. Up please. Up please. Mommy, up please.”

This monologue is not anguished, there’s no crying, and if one goes in to see her, she’ll often be still lying down in the crib and in no hurry to get out. There’s no sign she was crying, or even particularly unhappy, unless you count the aforementioned litany of “Mommy, up please.”

This morning, my wife was hurrying to get ready for work, and it was my turn to get the toddler up. Our daughter had been calmly repeating “Mommy, up please,” for a while. But after my wife went downstairs, I fell back asleep – the noise from the baby monitor wasn’t enough to keep me awake. Half an hour later the wife comes storming into the bedroom, pretty angry that the toddler had been left alone all this time, stuck in the crib. My attitude is that, if she’s not crying or upset, and has books/stuffed animals/etc. in the crib, I shouldn’t feel obligated to rush in and get her out if I otherwise really need a little extra sleep. (I agree that if she sounds distraught, someone ought to rescue her.) Also, teaching her that she won’t get what she wants immediately simply by demanding it, seems a decent lesson. On the other hand, my wife’s attitude is that if she is vocalizing a desire for a parent, even if calmly, it’s cruel to leave her there by herself.

Am I out of line, or a bad parent, because of my attitude?

Thanks for your thoughts,

-P

2

I would be inclined to be pissed off too, not because the child was injured in anyway but because…

Your daughter may now think that quietly saying “Mommy up” isn’t enough, so it may be time to scream as soon as you want attention.

Also, I would feel guilty that the baby would feel ignored and abandoned (at first), but that’s over-reacting, maybe your wife feels that way?

3

I’d go check on her the first time, personally; change diaper if needed, make sure distractions are available, make sure she’s not hungry, etc. If she doesn’t need any of that, hell yeah go back to sleep. She’ll let you know in no uncertain terms if there’s REALLY something wrong. :smiley:

It’s never too early to establish some level of independence. Spend a little time reassuring her – it’s important to know that mommy/daddy is around, even if they’re not RIGHT THERE – but tell her you’re going back to sleep, play with your toys.

What we did with my son was this: when he woke up and asked for us, we’d make sure he was physically ok (clean, not hungry, etc), then set him up in the same room as us… and go right back to sleep. He’d happily burble and play with his blocks and stuffies and whatnot and we’d get another hour or so of much-needed sleep. He just wanted to be around us, and didn’t want to sleep any more. Maybe you could try something similar?

4

I think your wife overreacted. As you said, the child was in her crib, with her toys . . . she was in a safe place. That’s all that matters.

One incident where your daugher might feel ignored and abandoned, even if true, won’t traumatize her. But as you said, “This monologue is not anguished, there’s no crying, and if one goes in to see her, she’ll often be still lying down in the crib and in no hurry to get out.” It sounds to me as if she hasn’t fully grasped the meaning of her request; if she truly wanted out, she’d cry and scream–toddlers know that will get your attention.

Don’t worry about it.

5

I agree with the others. Change her if necessary, make sure she’s ok, and then if she seems content (which she did) I’d let her be for a little bit and catch up on your zzzzzz’s. If she was lonely, she’d most likely pitch a fit.

6

There are fewer lessons more valuable to a 2-year old than the value of alone time. Let her have it.

I listen to my babies do their thing (an 18-month old in a crib and a 3 year old in a bed, sharing the same room, closed door that the older knows how to open and baby monitor) for as long as a full hour before they decide that it is finally time to get out of there. The first thing they do when they wake up is call us. We just let that pass and they just do their thing for whatever time they want.

If we happen to be in a hurry to get out of the house, though, we storm their room at the first call, of course.

The trick is, never open that door when she is crying. Wait until she stops and THEN open the door. That way she doesn’t learn that crying is what makes you come.

7

And if that doesn’t work, just climb over the top of the crib bars like a monkey, to be found at some later time zorching around the room. That’s what I did, anyway. Surprise! :stuck_out_tongue: And after that there was no stopping me - once I figured out I could get out on my own, I just did it - my parents ended up putting me in a regular bed sooner than they’d expected to.

IANAP, but using the above as my ‘cite,’ I’d say it would probably be a good idea to check on the kid just in case. :wink:

8

I don’t have kids, so take this with a shaker of salt, but it seems to me that having taught your child not to scream bloody murder to get up, but rather to ask really very politely for a toddler, repeatedly ignoring her as you did today might result in teaching her that her calm polite request doesn’t work and she’d be well advised to go back to screaming. I’m not sure that’s really where you want to go with rearing her.

But that’s not what you’re teaching her. She’s not “demanding” something specific, she’s requesting to get out of bed. Again, the lesson appears to be that if you wants something, you should start seriously crying to escape.

I don’t think you did anything wrong this morning in falling back asleep, and the kid wasn’t hurt. I just wouldn’t corrolate “what she gets” with “how urgently she asks for it,” because that’s actually the opposite of the lesson you want her to learn long term.

9

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. I didn’t mean to ask-and-abandon, but I don’t always have the time to post in a timely fashion. That’s life with a toddler for you. (And to clarify, she’s not technically two yet – she’s 1 yr 11+ months – though she has the size, vocabulary and guile of a three-year old. :slight_smile: )

I agree with Jodi about teaching bad lessons – I wouldn’t wait until she’s screaming before getting her up, and it’s been months since that last happened. It’s much nicer now that she makes more polite requests.

Teaching her to say “please” has been, and still is, a long and arduous process, but it’s starting to pay rewards. She usually understands, after a few tries, that when she asks for something and isn’t getting it, it’s because she hasn’t said “please” yet. (I can usually get the “please” out of her just by giving her a look, after she’s made some demand a few times.)

Of course, now there’s the dilemma that she sometimes thinks she should get anything she wants the moment she wants it simply by saying please. On the one hand, I want to disabuse her of that notion. On the other, I don’t want to discourage the polite behavior we’ve worked so hard to ingrain.

Parenting is hard! :wink:

-P

10

If it were me, I would go get her just because it seems a little rude to ignore her polite request. I think I’d get a little bored, sitting in one place waiting for someone to let me out, even if I had a few toys to play with. If my husband was in the same sort of situation (ha! I’m not sure how that would happen) and he called politely and asked for my help, I wouldn’t even consider rolling over and ignoring him. I guess I just don’t think every parent/child interaction has to be a learning one and I really try to say yes to most requests and save my nos for things that really require a no (and there are millions of them…every day). YMMV.

11

I agree with C3. If the baby wants to get up and be with you, what’s the harm? To go further though, I think your wife had every reason to be upset. She counted on you to take care of the child and you elected to go back to sleep and ignore her instead. If the baby was sleeping, that seems reasonable but she was not. She wanted out and if you didn’t want to get up, you should have made arrangements with your wife to take care of the baby for a few more minutes.

12

Yeah, I’m going to take a stab at this and guess that your wife was more aggravated that you showed more of an interest in sleeping than you did towards interacting with the baby. One of the reasons a toddler that age cries is because she wants to be with you guys, and so when you roll over and go to sleep, your wife may see it as a rejection of the child on your part.

I have a 2 1/2-year-old, and my husband and I have these kinds of conversations all the time.

13

You can say “please” and “thank you” to a kid a 1000 times and they still won’t repeat it. But if you say a bad word just once… and they own it.

On this one particular occassion (it doesn’t sound like a regular occurance at all) he needed an extra 1/2 hour of sleep while his daughter quietly and happily played. And that is a rejection of the child? Wow. I guess taking a nap on the couch is damn near abandonment?

I’m with the other posters that thinks he didn’t really do anything wrong. That isn’t to say the wife overreacted, because she is certainly entitled to the viewpoint that the child deserved to be attended to. It is just a difference in parenting.

The OP is neither cruel nor a bad parent. You were available if anything serious should happen and it doesn’t sound like your daughter really cared if you showed up right away or not given the fact that she wasn’t crying when your wife came back. I agree you should try to get her quickly in the morning if she is asking so politely, but the fact that every once in a while you sleep in is pretty much a non-issue in terms of being a neglectful parent.

14

You are overinflating what I said…I don’t think it’s rejection or abandonment. And I don’t know enough about what their relationship is like to know if this is a regular occurance, or if his wife is prone to over reacting, or what. All I am saying is that, from my experience (I have only one husband and one kid, so it’s limited experience at best), that mommies tend to run to the aid of the kids more often and faster than daddies do, and that sometimes this can be aggravating for the mommy, that’s all. (Note extreme potential for bias here, based on my own status as a mommy, not a daddy.) I think a lot of the aggravation comes in when sometimes we feel obligated to do more stuff for the kid than the dad does, because dad doesn’t jump up to do it in what we moms (unfairly or not) consider to be a timely fashion. And, a lot of dads don’t have as much time as moms to spend with the kids, so it’s nice to see them make a little effort to do so when they have the chance.

15

My guess is that when its one’s turn to get the toddler out bed, that implies, a host of toddler care activities and engagement of that little person.

stay hands-on Dad!

16

Really. Here is the full quote of what you said:

Note that in this instance, the kid wasn’t crying but the OP did roll over and go back to sleep. So either this was a total strawman (he didn’t roll over and go to sleep while the child cried) or you are saying that in this instance, when he did roll over and go to sleep, his wife may have viewed it as him rejecting the child.

Also note that I never claimed you said it is rejection, only that you think it is possible his wife thinks it. I even left in the part about “your wife may see it…” To even consider that is a possibility of how the wife feels stunned me. I mean, sure, anything is possible, I suppose, especially if the mother is stressed and sleep deprived (and what first time parent isn’t?!). It just seems WAY out there in terms of possibilities.

17

On a more practical note, if you want to try to teach her not to get up so early in the morning, one trick is to get some cute nightlight and plug it into a timer. Then you teach her that “it’s not time to get up until bunny is awake!” (or whatever the nightlight looks like). Since little kids can’t tell time, it can be hard to understand the concept that sometimes it’s just too early to get daddy out of bed unless there’s a serious problem. But telling her that you will come get her if she asks to get up after bunny wakes up, but that if bunny is not up yet, she should play quietly in her crib or try to go back to sleep, gives her a little better sense of why you don’t always respond to the polite requests. You can just leave out the part about “I’ll come get you if you really scream.” If there’s something really wrong, she’ll scream, but there’s no reason to suggest it to her.

18

I guess I should include more detail about my specific situation, for those interested in discussing it.

I work full time, and my wife works part-time (2 days in an office, 1/2 day at home). Young Daughter (hereafter “YD”) goes to a small local daycare for those 2.5 days. On the days my wife goes to work (and about half of the remaining days) I get YD out of bed, change her, dress her, feed her breakfast, play with her, and (if relevant) get her to school. I love those mornings – YD is a fantastic little kid who picks out what shirt I wear to work, wants to find out where the cat is, wants me to sing songs to her or play the piano, and makes sure I’m wearing the proper hat at all times. Trust me, I want to be as hands-on a dad as I possibly can.

This has been a big transition for me over the last two years, as I was always a night-owl who typically slept until 10:00 before going to work (yay flexible work hours)! Obviously, I’ve done it, and it’s worked out fine, but there are stretches of work (about once or twice a year, I’d say) when my hours become ludicrous for weeks at a time, and I’m in one of those stretches now. As a result, on some mornings, I’ve only slept for 4-5 hours before it’s time to get up for “morning duty,” as we call it. The morning in question was one of these – I perhaps should have put in bold the phrases: the noise from the baby monitor wasn’t enough to keep me awake and if I otherwise really need a little extra sleep. I wasn’t thinking “YD wants up, but I’m enjoying myself some lazy time, so she can wait.” I was rather thinki… zzzzzzzzzzzz… hm, what? When I’m more awake, I typically go in and get her pretty soon after she starts making noises.

As for my wife, she’s a fantastic mom, and very seldom gets angry. She does fall more to the permissive side of the parental divide, a natural byproduct of her immensely compassionate nature. It breaks her heart to see YD in need of something, or unhappy about anything. I obviously don’t want to see YD suffer, but I’m more inclined to uses phrases like “you can do it yourself,” or “you’ll have to wait a minute” or “no, you already have enough stuff in your crib.” (Aside: do other toddlers go through a stage where everything plus the kitchen sink has to go in the crib with them? Books, toys, stuffed animals, stickers – it’s amazing she has room to actually sleep!) It may be impolitic to mention, but my wife is also pregnant right now with #2 (woo hoo!) and her hormonal swings are more… er… unpredictable than usual. She apologized for snapping at me that morning, and I apologized for falling back asleep, and we’re all good.

I know that my wife wishes I had more time to spend with YD (and so do I!), but the job makes that tough. These days it’s especially tough since I dont’ get home in the evenings to see her for that last hour and help put her to bed. It’s going to be like that for the next 6 weeks or so and then should get back to normal.

Anyhoo, I didn’t include all of that in the OP because I also have an interest in the generalized case. As my parents tell me, in the days before baby monitors, they’d have no idea if I were crying or asking politely to get up, or anything else. They’d get up, and then they’d get me up, and that’s what my toddler-self had to live with. By all accounts I had a happy toddlerhood, and I’d like to think I turned out passably well in the end. :slight_smile:

And again, thanks for the discussion!

-P

19

You are right…upon re-reading, the child was not crying. It wasn’t an intentional strawman, it was a mistake.

I don’t think it’s way out there in terms of possibilities. My husband doesn’t have a lot of time to spend with our toddler, so when he doesn’t take the opportunities he has, sometimes it aggravates me. I’m just saying that the OP’s wife may feel the same way.

20

Back in the days when baby monitors were new and not everyone used them, one of my neighbors used to brag about how good her kids were as babies…they slept through the night practically from the start!

Then one night, a car horn went off in the parking lot right across from their bedroom window, and kept going off continually for an hour. Since this neighbor’s husband was a military policeman, we all figured he would be calling all the proper authorities to get the situation looked into, and that the horn would stop soon. Nope. My then-husband finally called the MP’s himself, and they came out and did whatever they had to do to shut the darn thing off.

The next day, at the playground, all us mothers who’d been awakened by the horn were sitting around talking about the annoyance of it all, and it soon became apparent that the neighbor didn’t know what we were talking about. We asked her how she and her husband could have slept through all that noise a mere twenty feet from their open bedroom window (summer, no air conditioning). She said they never heard it.

That’s when I realized that her kids didn’t sleep through the night right from the start…the parents were just such heavy sleepers that they never heard the kids, either! And they seem to have turned out just fine, despite the semi-neglect.