Parenting Forums

Posted: 16 June 2008 at 10:07pm | IP Logged

With Fred it seems that every step forward comes with half a dozen steps backwards.  Finally at the ripe age of 3 he hs started his terrible two's (which fits in with his understanding age).  However over the last week or so, we have come full circle back to him being a baby, and I am now having to settle him down to sleep before he lets me leave the bedroom.  We've had to have a specific routine for bedtime, as he doesn't like things changing, but a couple of weeks ago, he spent over 3 hours screaming on and off and every time we left the room (either dd, ds2 or me) he would start up again.  Eventually I got the hint and thought seeing as though he was extremely tired I would stay in there and stroke his face/his nose, and see if it worked.  Well within 5 minutes he was out cold, snoring away happily to himself, then Winston decided he wanted the same treatment.  Not that I object, but as the week or so has progressed, Winston now plays and messes about disturbing Fred going to sleep, so I'm usually up there for 3/4 hour to an hour.  Neither of them will let me take one or other of them to bed first.  I had thought about moving one of the little ones in with one of the bigger ones, but that wouldn't be fair on the older ones, with both the little ones being in beds, it would mean all their stuff being boxed up and put in the attic, not fair at all.  My dilemma is that one of them prefers the door wide open with the light on, the other prefers pitch black.  So settling them both is in art in itself.  They scream if any of the older kids help me, and dh is never home before 11 these days with the farm, so I can't even ask him to do part of the job (having said that he'd probably just play with them then shout at them to settle if he got bored! lol  Does anyone have any advice as to how I an get round this, I've already had to cover the window with a black bag in 2 parts leaning out from inside, just so they were't up at 4am!