ok...I wish I could stop asking questions here...

[TrinMama]

I feel like every time we get somewhere it's all for nothing because then a new issue arises...and I know that I don't have the worst sleepers, but they're not great, either. Usually I can just deal. Not this week...

So Trin, who's almost three, has the normal toddler fears. Madelyn, 14 months, sleeps in the next room over in her crib, and usually I nurse her to sleep and back to sleep when she wakes. Fine. Except that Trin lately is getting extra upset when she hears the motorcycles that bother her, and her upset-ness is turning into yelling and screaming that wakes Madelyn. So, when she does that, I have to leave her to get Madelyn, then dh goes to Trin, and let's just say that he's not on-board with more gentle techniques. He believes in threats to get her quiet. I may soon be asking him to not help at all for bedtime.

Now, my question is this, how would you handle a situation where the older child is so upset she wakes the younger and now you have two upset kids on your hands? M only wakes up more when she sees T, so it's hard to nurse her back to sleep in T's room. If I try to leave T until M is back to sleep, M just is curious why T is so upset and wants to go to her room. Tonight I had a hard time convincing T to stay quiet as I left her room after 20 minutes of praying/talking/stroking her head after she'd heard the motorcycles that bother her. I need advice!

[arwen_tiw]

Jenna is afraid of the fireworks (though why there are occasionally fireworks going off at this time of year is beyond me). She's three, Morgan is eight months. When Jenna is crying and I'm feeding Morgan I go with feeding Morgan back to sleep in Jenna's bed, but Morgan is OK to settle like that. She will get up and try to play with Jenna but I plonk her back down and get a breast in her mouth - easier with a tiny!

It sounds like you need to talk your concerns through with DH. My DH too sometimes has difficulty keeping his patience with Jenna, especially at night, and although he does firmly believe in our discipline approach he doesn't act on it at 1am. He has asked me to remind him what to do with her before he goes through, so I just say, "she can't help being awake, just gently remind her that she needs to settle down but stay with her and reassure her, sing and pray with her, until she's back to sleep." I feel like I'm nagging but he says it helps. :shrug

If you don't talk about it I can't see any alternative but to take M in with you. How do you deal with discipline during the daytime? It's hard if it's all your responsibility. :(

[TrinMama]

Well, DH is pretty much on board with "my ways", as he calls them, during the day. He thinks she needs something firmer at night. Whatever. He's not willing to budge much right now. We talked it over last night, I was hoping to find a "middle ground" set of solutions to try, and he thinks there is nothing in between my way and his way. He did at least say he'd help until his fuse was gone, so to speak. And last night, he did put M back to sleep twice..but she was waking for totally unrelated reasons to her sister waking up.

Discipline during the day is as positive as grace-full as I can manage...and DH takes my lead (usually).

:shrug

[arwen_tiw]

:hugheart A lot of the families I know IRL who are closer to AP than most still have a very punitive/CC approach at night, so I kind of see how you could be having that particular sticking point with DH. I often feel like I have the responsibility for our choices and he will go along with it because he sees it working and thinks it's a good idea, but left to his own devices it isn't there. :(

I'll pray that you get some more sleep somehow and that responding to your babies doesn't come between you and your hubby. :)

[SansSouci]

I can normally "read" the noises coming from my oldest, and I'll go in to her before it gets out of hand (that way she won't wake her brother).

I lay boundaries like "If you cry, I'm going to shut your door." (I'm not telling her not to cry, but I'm telling her to control it a bit so she doesn't wake her brother. Otherwise, I'll shut her bedroom door so the crying isn't so loud as to wake her brother.)

Sometimes I can just tell that she's not going to settle down and cooperate by making less noise, so I just offer her that she can go sleep in our bedroom (she likes to sleep on the floor by our bed). That way she's super-thrilled AND she's not making noise which will wake the younger one.

But it sounds to me (unless you listed only one example out of many) that your kiddo is afraid of the sound of a motorcycle. Do you know anyone with a motorcycle? If so, could you ask them to bring it over so T can check it out? Do you have any books with motorcycles in them? Can you show her that even though they're loud, they're "okay", and the sound ought not scare her?

[TrinMama]

The motorcycle is one of many things that bother her. We're still having issues. Bigger. At least to us they are. Aside from tonight (but she had no nap today), she has fought sleeping HARD. "I don't want to sleep in here, I want to sleep on the couch" Move to the couch, she wants to be upstairs. "I don't want to sleep". WAIL. We also have the same boundary of shutting the door when she continues to cry, for the same reason. We've tried having the option of sleeping on our floor; she either rejects it or keeps up her whining/crying/attitude. Since I last posted, we've had two nights of sleepless-ness, even WITH me by her side. She only closed her eyes when I told her, but didn't sleep for over three hours. I am wondering about insomnia now, because NOTHING is working. :shrug