The technique for getting a kid to stay in bed is basically the same if they are 2 or 10: Set rules during the day; enforce them at night. Kid gets put back in bed, again and again and again and again, until they grok that they have to stay there. It’s just with older kids you can get their cooperation in solving their own problem, and you can more clearly set out your expectations and the consequences (good or bad) of meeting or not meeting those expectations. But 2 or 10, it’s: back to bed. Back to bed. Back to bed. Back to bed.
Which brings me to the second point: I never said it was easy. Just because it’s basically pretty simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. It isn’t. I do have sympathy for a hard situation; I just get frustrated with your insistence on assigning blame (to your ex, of course, a theme you come back to in every single post) rather than focusing on fixing it.
This is 100% accurate. My daughter went through a phase of wanting to come and crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night, around the time she was 3 years old. The only thing that worked to stop it was to consistently get out of bed, calmly but firmly escort her back to her room, tuck her in, and go back to our bed. Some nights I think we must have done this 5 or 6 times. We did not engage her in conversation, we did not scold, we did not entertain requests for additional songs or stories, we just put her back to bed, gave her a quick kiss and a, “Good night,” and that was that. It took about a week and a half before she stopped coming into our room at night, but once she stopped, she stopped for good.
I would also make sure that she is getting plenty of positive attention during the day; that will help if part of the overnight problem is that she just wants attention. This is why you need to give her essentially no attention at all (negative OR positive) when she comes into your room at night. Which is fine, and a good technique, as long as she’s getting a lot of positive attention at other times.
When I first moved into my new place, I had my son’s room all set up, but the arrangement of the living room was still in flux. My son’s room opens off the living room. He asked me to put my desk in a place where he could see me if I was on the computer. So I did. It was immensely comforting to him to know that I was right there. Now that it’s been 10 months, I don’t think he’d care any more, because he’s thoroughly comfortable here. But while he was adjusting, it really helped.
Belrix’s daughter may feel very alone and isolated in that room. Maybe he can make temporary sleeping arrangements that will make her feel more secure, while still having her keep ownership of her room. (Keeping her toys and clothes in there, etc.)
I overreacted with my “ignore” statement and I apologize.
I’ll stand by my “hijack/cirrhosic death” sentence, though, rude or not… in part because I was getting very tired of the hijacks about Tylenol (and the perceived need to involve CPS in something that’s already solved) and in part because I think I’m pretty proud of finding the word, “cirrhosic”.
Being cool, not fixing the problem when it occurs has, frankly never occurred to me Jodi. It seems, well, heartless but my current method isn’t working - I’m ready to try something new. I’ll talk it over with my wife.
Green Bean - I wish it were that easy to be that casual with my ex. I do suggest to Sally that “bedtime is near, now is a good time to call” to her many nights (and she calling out is the usual pattern).
My hang-up with it is not the actual phone call, it’s the fact that Sally often starts out smiling at the beginning of the call and is sobbing by the end (and the fit that occurred when Mom, in fact, wasn’t on the other side of the call and didn’t return it in two minutes).
You’re right though, people are doing it better here and that’s exactly why I came to the board with my problem - I was looking for new suggestions.
John Rosemond had a pretty good idea about how to implement this in a recent column. When you start implementing these rules, if you don’t want to come across as a “harsh, mean, Daddy”, tell your daughter that you’ve been talking with the doctor because you’re worried about her and this is what he recommended. That makes what you’re up against less of a power struggle between you and your daughter and makes into more of a temporary condition which can be fixed. Rosemond explains it better than I can. That way, when a privilege is taken away or a treat delayed, it’s not because you’re mean or don’t like her. Instead, this (imaginary) doctor is the one setting the rules so she can get healthy.
As far as the phone calls to her mother go, would it make sense for your kids to call her in the morning instead of the evening? Maybe not first thing in the morning, but over breakfast or lunch?
You’re welcome. I’m glad my novel didn’t get lost in the page turnover there!
This has the makings of a breakthrough. Seriously. I’m a “want to fix it” person myself (as you might have noticed from my posting history ). Accepting that sometimes it doesn’t have to be all better, it just has to be, is a huge step in parenting. Good luck.
This is excellent advice (as is much of WhyNot’s advice, in this thread and others). My kids are younger than the OP’s, but my oldest is 7. All three of mine are much calmer and more emotionally steady in the morning, and by bedtime, they’re tired, perhaps annoyed or frustrated by something that happened during the day, and less able to rebound from a disappointment.
As a matter of fact, right now I have a 3-year-old having a screaming tantrum on the kitchen floor because he’s disappointed that his Dad and step-sisters aren’t home yet, and it’s almost bedtime. He’s so tired he can’t even walk straight, and has no emotional control at this point in the day. Had this happened this morning, or even early this afternoon, he would have been over it after 5 minutes of pouting.
I second the recommendation to call at a different time of day, if possible. I was separated from my husband for 6 months, due to a job situation, and it was much easier to deal with the emotional aspects when I was fresh–first thing in the morning.
Green Bean, you rock. You said it MUCH better than I ever could have. And you are spot on. Love your child more than you hate your ex. Repeat as often as necessary. I am not saying I did everything right during and after the ex asked for a divorce, but damn, I swallowed a WHOLE lotta words and never said one negative word to my kids about their dad. It’s tough, no doubt, but the payoff is huge. Now at age 17, my son is emotionally healthy, extremely mature, and he loves and likes both his dad and me.
Belrix, get a grip, please. It has been said before, but there is a whole lotta good advice here.
You still have to get your daughter to a doctor and tell them that you and your wife have been giving her nightly doses of Tylenol PM for an extended period of time. I don’t care how defensive you feel about being called on that. It’s not trivial.
Question: Why can’t you have your kids make all their calls to their mother over the speaker phone so you can supervise? Not every activity a child does deserves privacy. Let your ex know that you’ll be standing by, monitoring the call (you don’t have to be over their shoulder, but be in the room, or the next room, and have at least one ear on the conversation), and if you see your children starting to become agitated by anything she’s saying, you’ll intervene and say, “Time to say night-night to Mommy, “Night-Night Mommy””, then hang up.
Your house, your rules. She doesn’t get the privilege of creating chaos just before bedtime. If she can’t behave herself, she has “consequences”, too, in shortened phone calls.
Yes, but. He has no control over the Ex, and it sounds to me like she is not about to cooperate in such a mature phone strategy as that. The OP is angry, sure, but the Ex (to me) sounds like she is using the kids to get back at the OP. It’s complicated, I’m sure.
Belrix–I give you credit for posting here–it’s not easy to not become defensive when you are battered with advice, criticism and judgement. Daughter needs a consistent, firm but gentle approach to appropriate limits. She is acting much like a 3 year old, not an 8 year old. I’m more than willing to cut her much slack, but she must learn about the bedtime stuff. Can you keep her door ajar? or a night-light as was mentioned. You need to establish a bedtime routine and stick to it.
Parenting is hard, even at the best of times, we all mess up at one time or another. And we all have our weak spots where we don’t do as well as we’d like to think we do… I think you’re a good Dad who is overwhelmed and not sure what to do–and no wonder. I think you also need to start building some kind of relationship with your Ex. She may have been the one who was walking out on you, but you remarried–I’m sure she feels abandoned etc. That does not mean I sympathize with her or think what she did (or is doing) is ok–I don’t. But no matter what, you need her to get on the same page as you, somehow, for the good of the kids. That requires patience on your part and trust.
My BIL and SIL have a 5 year old daughter who has conditioned herself into getting up every single night at 3am. They’ve tolerated it far too long and now it’s become an unbreakable habit. It wasn’t so bad before the new baby because S- would just crawl in bed with them. Now it’s intolerable.
They gave her stickers for a while and that worked for a bit. But I just heard tonight that she’s back to her old tricks. My SIL is too soft hearted and/or lazy to consistently discipline her. Hence nobody gets a good night’s sleep.
If Belrix had any communication with his ex-wife, they could try and work out a solution together. But if his daughter is getting up consistently every night at his ex-wife’s house, then she’s established a habit that is going to be hard to break without consistent rules from both sets of parents.
Shayna–I didn’t mean my Yes, but for your post. I think the speaker phone call is ideal and would stop Ex in her tracks. She’s playing both ends against the middle. I’m sure the boys feel this too.
I wouldn’t even tell her about it. Just tell Daughter (don’t ask, tell) that from now on, daddy will be putting mommy on the speaker phone for the nightly calls. I’d maybe even get the boys in on it, so that all can talk to mom at the same time. Be ready to speak up, ONLY if needed. Be ready to bite your tongue as well. Calm–remain calm. Calm fixes a lot of shit, really.
Pundit–I have friends who never disciplined their daughter in this way. She crept into bed with them until she was 14 and her dad kicked her out (of their bed, not their house!). She is still a lousy sleeper.
Your eight year old is so emotionally overwrought that she’s been on sleeping pills for a year and THIS is the battle you’re choosing to fight?
The content of the calls may be a different issue. If your ex is deliberately stirring up the children and unsettling them, then that’s something that needs to be worked out. But with regard to her calling and talking to them once a day… I do not think it’s out of line for a parent to have daily phone contact with children of this age, and to tell them that s/he misses them. That’s even more true when the children have been going through 15 months of changes and turbulence.
I’d save the battle for their independence for when they are emotionally grounded enough to be independent. Right now, they need both of you badly, and I think the best thing either of you can do for your children is to show them that you are there for them and that you love them - and that you miss them when they aren’t around, and that’s ok because it’s normal to miss the people you love when you’re not together. I’d tell them things like “When I miss you, I think about what I’m going to tell you when I see you next. I tell myself how fun it will be to tell you about <my small daily adventure / weird/cool thing I saw / silly thing I did / thing that made me think of you because … / thing I miss most about you> and that I shouldn’t be sad because it will be just a few more days until I see you again.”
But I’m not a psychologist or therapist and my child is far too young for this to be an issue so my ideas might be all wrong. It just seems to me that the kids should know that it’s perfectly ok to miss Mom when they aren’t with her, and that she doesn’t forget them as soon as they walk out the door.
No worries! I only think she should be told so that she doesn’t feel “ambushed” the first time he has to intervene on the call, and find a way to use it against him with the children. Plus, if she knows from the start that he’s there looking after his childrens’ best interests, she might be less likely to try to pull her usual stunts.
ISTM that you need to dial down the emotionalism on both sides – both yours (frustrated and angry) and your daughter’s (genuinely overwrought or, possibly, manipulative, or both). The easiest way to do that IME is to deal with what must be dealt with in the now and talk about it later. Then you are able to discuss things with your daughter without either of you being upset.
To deal with the last part first: Your ex-wife does not live her life to be at the beck and call of her daughter. This is not a reasonable expecation and having a fit over Mommy not being instantly reachable is, again, not acceptable. This is another example of something that IMO is your daughter’s behavioral issue and not your ex’s. In our family we had and have a saying: “You get what you get, and you don’t have a fit.” Hissy-fit throwing is not tolerated. Go to your room if you can’t behave; come back down when you have a better hold on yourself.
Regarding the first part: If your ex is upsetting your daughter in her calls, I suggest you talk to her about that non-judgmentally. This is what’s happening, it’s a problem, what can WE do about it? But this may be approaching a level of cooperation with her you just can’t muster at this point, I don’t know. But I think limiting calls to one a day and moving them to earlier in the day is an excellent idea. Sounds like you have enough bedtime drama as it is.
I can’t put myself in your shoes as I never was in that situation. Their father never saw them more then the custody paper said he was allowed. I did offer to him to take them more if he wanted but he never did.
To be quite honest I think he only took them every other weekend because he felt he had to because the paper said so. He looked at it as more of an order than a father wanting to spend time with his children. This made me worry even more for the two days they were gone.
They have not followed that schedule for at least three years now, maybe longer, I have lost track. Our daugher sees him maybe once a month but more like every two months. I don’t know when the last time my son saw his father. He is grown and moved out now so that is no longer any of my business really.
I have to admit when I left my ex I wanted to do some of those same things. I wanted to go to bars and meet people and hang out. I was very young though, 22, and I never sewed my wild oats so to speak.
After we split up I did do just that. I hired a babysitter or asked my parents to watch the kids. Does that make me a bad mother? Should I have to give up my mom status because I wanted to have a little fun? Should I never be allowed to have a boyfriend?
Being a mother or father does not mean you give up being a person. There are many many sacrificies we make and life changes forever but we do not have to give up ourselves in the processes.
It sounds to me like you and your ex have very different views on what a mother is and how she should act.
You seem to be the home body type. You want to be a father and a husband and that is the sort of thing that appeals to you and that is great. There is nothing wrong with that. It may suit you well. To others you may appear to old fuddy duddy that is a bore. It is just a different perspective.
It seems you have started to take some of the suggestions from other posters to heart and I am glad to see that. Just for that fact that you want to spend as much time as you can with your kids shows you are a good father and good parent.
I do want to address this though.
That is not her mothers job, that is your job. While agree some encouragment on her mothers side could not hurt, Sally needs to discover this on her own and at eight years old that is not going to happen. Hell it may not happen until Sally is a parent herself one day.
Now being a good father she will see as she gets older and learns to appreciate you more and more. My children are 17 and 19 and I can’t say they truly understand all the sacrifies I made for them and still make for them but they can see as they get older and get more and more responsiblites like having a job and having a car that life is not always as easy as it appeared to them when they were eight, nine, ten etc.
I really think with some changes like the phone call time and the boundries of getting up at night that Sally will come along and things will settle with time.
I would also encourage you to call your children when they are at their mothers. I am not saying every night as that would just make you appear like you are being an asshole. But a call every other day or every third day can’t hurt. Even if it is only for a couple minutes to say hi and ask them each about their day can’t hurt. It will show that you care for them all the time not just when they are at your house.
In the opinion of virtually everyone who has contributed to this thread, that is not true. And we are reading your own version of events. Perhaps you should reconsider your opinion.
As usual, I’m skeptical of Rosemond’s advice. Lying to your child and making up a fake authority figure isn’t a technique to be used lightly. In this column, there was “a 5-year-old boy who had taken to scratching his arms and legs until they bled.”, a good deal more serious than this situation. There’s some downsides to this approach.
If it’s overused, it becomes less effective.
It confuses the line between doing things because they are wrong/impolite/immature and doing things that are unhealthy/unsafe.
What happens when she goes to the real doctor and dislikes him? She might be less willing to follow real medical advice.
What happens when she’s older and realizes her Daddy lied to her? Daddy may not look so good to the teenage version of this 8-year old.
It looks like a “use with extreme caution” technique.
I definitely agree with the people who are advising you to get some counseling for your daughter. Your ex-wife’s decision to medicate her for her issues with sleeping pills, instead of solving the issues, is astounding to me. Don’t go along with this. Give your daughter a safe place to work through her feelings with a trained, neutral professional.
One resource I’ve used a lot as my son had grown are a series of books written by the folks who run a child development lab at Yale. I’m not suggesting you run out and buy them, but I did want to share something I learned when I read the 8-year-olds volume last year:
Eight-year-olds really need their moms
It’s a big part of the age. They just do. It has nothing to do with your parenting or your ex-wife’s–it’s the age she is at. You just have accept that. She needs things from you, too, but you shouldn’t take the clamoring for Mommy time as an insult, or as disrespect, or as lack of gratitude. It’s what a LOT of kids her age need–she’s just being normal.
). Accepting that sometimes it doesn’t have to be all better, it just has to be, is a huge step in parenting. Good luck.