Parents--Advice? Sympathy? Drugs?

[PeskiPiksi]

Stargazer, *thank you *for that first link. I’ve been searching on the internet for something addressing this, but almost everything I’ve been finding has been for newborns or older kids. It’s nice to know this is normal and I’m not alone!

We’ve definitely considered the teething question, and when I took her in to the pediatrician I double-checked with the doc how much Tylenol or Motrin I could give Kate safely. So we’ve been giving her as much Motrin as we can before bedtime, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference so I don’t really think it’s teething. Besides, she’s cut many teeth up to this point (including molars) and it’s never resulted in anything like this.

She doesn’t have a lovey, much to my dismay. She does have a Bunny she likes to tote around sometimes, but it doesn’t seem to offer her much comfort in times of distress so far. I keep pushing it, though. It makes me laugh…I, at age 33, still have my own blankie, and my own daughter disdains such childish things!

I think we’ve pretty much decided that for now we’re making her start off in her own bed, but if she wakes up after midnight she gets to come in with us. I’m just too tired with this pregnancy to be up all hours, and like **Green Bean **says, she always ends up winning those battles because I’m so exhausted, which is bad, bad, bad. (During the day I think I do a pretty good job of being the Big Mean Mama Who Stands Her Ground, but I’m vulnerable and weak at 2am.) So I’ve just decided to eliminate the battles entirely for now. We sleep okay that way (thank god for king-sized beds), and to me getting a full night’s sleep is more important.

I’ll keep trying to re-institute the old routine at bedtime, and we’ll get past this eventually. Maybe in the fall, when she starts going to Mother’s Day Out two days a week and I’ll have the ability to nap, we’ll kick her back out of our bed, if she hasn’t gotten past this on her own by then.

[overlyverbose]

@Green_Bean

Well, actually I kind of meant the opposite! You can let them win sometimes, but you can market it as not a “win,” if you know what I mean. In other words, give them what they want/need, but figure out some way to show that you’re not doing it in response to their bad behavior.

And I don’t have a second. I just figured that it would be good to get this problem resolved now, so that they won’t be in the middle of a power struggle when the new baby arrives. That way, they can give her the extra attention she needs, but it won’t reinforce the bad behavior.

I see what you’re saying. I think it’s just a question of different marketing - if my son disagrees with me calmly, I’ll usually market that as a win as long as it’s something that’s really not important to me (for example, if he wants to wear his shirt inside out and calmly states that he doesn’t want to change it around, I’ll concede, especially if he put it on himself). Calm disagreements are music to my ears. But, like you, once you’ve gone past the Point of No Return or it’s something that you really can’t agree to, you have to stand firm.

And good luck, PeskiPiksi. Our son took a long time to wean from our bed to his, but even so, both my husband and I strongly feel that we made the right decision in letting him sleep with us. Whatever you do, it’s important that you don’t feel guilty about your choice. So many people disagree with co-sleeping that sometimes it feels like a dirty little secret, but you’d be surprised how many people do it just to get some rest. If it works for all of you, it’s the right decision. There’s no broad brush solution that works for everyone.