When children want to sleep in your room – Pt 2_

The night before last didn’t go too badly. Marie tried a new tactic and told Faye that she would be checking in on her during the night. This seemed to work because she only tried coming in a couple of times. The problem was our daughter Hannah (3 months old) decided to wake up at 3am for feeding and then we had Faye come in at 4am wide awake waking us up telling us it’s playtime :-)

Last night Hannah went to sleep at 7pm and Faye by 7.30pm. Faye didn’t come into our room at all last night and if it wasn’t for Hannah waking up at 3am for a feed it would have been a good night. Faye entered our room at 5am bouncing all over the place so I left Marie in bed and took both kids downstairs.

Now last week we had Faye sleeping in her room by Thursday and Friday but she goes to her Dads over the weekend and when she came back last week it was back to the bad routine. Let’s hope this Sunday she isn’t as bad.

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Marie’s Sister’s baby has just recovered from Chickenpox and it looks like Hannah may be getting it (would explain her being cranky).

After living on my own for so long it is so nice to wake up next to the women I love and the kids I also love and adore. Hannah this morning was smiling at me from the moment she woke up and it gives me a high for hours after.

Yesterday evening I had Hannah actually giggling at me for over 2 minutes. She’s only managed a few seconds for me before. I don’t think there is anything better in life than watching your child laugh as you play with them!

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THE SCREAMING FIT_

Last week Marie went swimming and I was left looking after Hannah. I’ve already posted that Hannah scared the hell out me by screaming so much she went red, then blue in colour. I really panicked.

Yesterday evening Marie had a bath and Hannah repeated the performance. This time though I was prepared. First off I tried feeding her and she screamed even more. I then tried winding; no effect. I checked nappy and all was fine. The only probable thing left was she was tired so I tried various sleeping positions with her screaming louder if she didn’t like it until I hit the position she wanted to be in and within seconds she was gone.

I’m not sure if all babies are the same but Hannah really fights going to sleep and it can be hard work finding out how she wants to lay down to get her off.

When Children won’t sleep in their own bedroom at night_

We are still trying to get Marie’s daughter Faye to stay in her own room at night. Sunday night was really, really bad. Our method is to not say anything to her and each time she comes into our room I put her back into her bed without saying a word to her. I had to do this repeatedly and she came out with every kind of excuse possible. By around 2.30am she’d given up.

We seem to be making better progress last night but it still leaves us with not much sleep at night. Last night as I was about to go to bed I saw Faye on the landing. She said she wanted to do a wee and then ran around me towards our bedroom. I grabbed her and took her back to her room. She tried to come in a couple more times and once she realised she would be taken straight back to her room she just sat in her bed screaming and crying at the top of her voice. Over an hour later she was still doing it. In her mind she had convinced herself we would eventually give in but although really tough we held firm and we didn’t go to her room or speak to her at all.

By about 2.30am she had given up but at 4am I woke up with terrible cramp in my leg. I couldn’t help screaming out as my leg seized totally. Needless to say it woke Faye up and we were both too tired to do anything about it (she was scared by my screaming it has to be said).

The progress is she stayed in her bedroom after a few failed attempts but she’s now screaming the house down trying to get one of us to comfort her which would be the next best thing in her mind.

I know this is really tough for Marie when Faye is screaming and crying but I’m certain any kind of attention, no matter how small, at this stage would only cause us more nights with little sleep as she changes to this method instead.

Anyone got any tips? :)