Greetings from one tired Mama. We've been dealing with some pretty heavy behavior issues where sleeping is concerned these past few weeks, and J and I are walking around like zombies. Last night, after going down peacefully to bed at 8 and after 45 minutes of silence, the Noodle decided to "make her presence known". The crying started and then she quickly moved into the wailing of "Mamaaaaa! Daddyyyyy!", the shrieking, the standing up in the crib and the yelling so that for the next hour and half, until 10:10 p.m. to be exact, we had yet another full-blown temper tantrum on our hands. She finally caved to exhaustion but then decided to go for round two at 4:00 a.m. That one lasted until 5:15 a.m. J and I are totally at a loss as to why this is happening, how we should handle it and what we can do to prevent this from becoming "standard practice". Thankfully it is not happening every night, but still once or twice a week is soooo unlike her.
Each night after the consistent bedtime routine, before she goes down, we remind her of what "good going to sleep" looks like (i.e. quiet body, eyes shut, no yelling, crying or temper tantrums, etc.), how once we give her that one last kiss and cuddle then we're not coming back in and how if she does have a temper tantrum, then she'll not be able to play with her car (HIGHLY motivating toy right now--and it seemed like there should be some consequence for totally inappropriate behavior, even if it is delayed). When we do go in to check on her, during the beginning of the tantrums, she employs all kinds of "stalling" techniques--kleenex for the eyes, covers on, covers off, bear in the crib, bear out of the crib, etc., etc. and is able to completely stop the behavior IMMEDIATELY. The behaviorist in me feels that this is just classic manipulation and a child being strong-willed. If there was something really wrong, then she wouldn't be able to stop crying just because one of us walks into the room. Sooooo we're waiting her out and gritting our teeth in the process. Even if it takes an hour and a half because, hey, if they pick me up and settle me down after an hour and a half, then I know they'll eventually cave, I just have to keep up my display of emotions.
My mantra to J and myself is that "the behavior will get worse before it gets better. It will get worse before it gets better." Her speech therapist also reminded me today that we need to give it 3 days of the same response to the behavior and then see if that doesn't make a difference. Anyone have any old N*nny 911 or Supern*nny shows for us to watch?!
2 comments:
Just a thought, but Katey did the same thing until we cranked down the AC. Since I began setting it lower at night, she sleeps just fine. Lindsay did the same thing when she was a baby, but we didn't have AC, so Thad & I ended up buying a window AC & kept her room cold. While we were roasting she was in the next room with blankets:)
Is your little Noodle still taking naps? To me, it sounds like she might have outgrown the afternoon nap...granted, I do not have any children of my own but am very blessed to have lots of faux-nieces and nephews who are in CN's age range and once the afternoon naps were cut out they slept like very tired kittens!
I hope you are all sleeping well tonight!
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