Brooke has been out of her crib for almost a year now. I can remember countless mornings of her calling, "Mommy, Daddy, I want you," or, "I'm ready to get up!" Each morning I found myself wondering why she wouldn't just get of bed on her own and come see me. However, all of that has changed recently. Miss Brooke now takes it upon herself to get out of her bed and it's not always at the right time...
John and I are fine with her getting up when she's done with her nap or when she's ready to get up for the day. After all, that's what I always wanted, right? On the other hand, we are NOT okay with her getting up two seconds after she goes down for nap and declaring, "I'm all done with my nap now." Yeah, NOT COOL.
Last night she staggered into my room around 3 and I was so tired that I didn't really feel like arguing with her. John was working so it wasn't a huge deal. About fifteen minutes later she had to go potty so of course we got up. Obviously waking up to go to the bathroom is something that cannot always be avoided but coming in to cuddle with me in the middle of the night is not okay.
Another popular game in our house now is that Brooke ALWAYS uses the potty as an excuse to get out of bed when she can't sleep. Each night we take her right before bed but I can't even tell you how many nights she claims to need to use the potty a few minutes after we tuck her in. It is SO frustrating!
So, how in the universe do I help Brooke to differentiate between when it's not acceptable to get out of her bed and when it is? Or maybe she DOES know the difference but she's just taking me for a ride on this? Something tells me that that's probably true. This is uncharted territory for me. Does anyone have any advice?
1 comment:
Ah, the potty-delay technique! There really is nothing to do about it, is there! I usually tolerate it about twice (#1 and #2, lol), and then I tell her that she can wait until she's done sleeping to go again, since she's "such a big girl". I also have a digital clock in her room, so she knows not to come out of her room after nap until there's a "4" in the right spot on the clock, and not to come into my room in the morning until there's an "8" in the right spot. For nap, most of the time she doesn't actually sleep, but as long as she's resting and quiet, I don't care. In the morning though, she usually wakes up when Dan goes to work, around 7:15, so she plays in her room for a while, though sometimes she goes back to sleep.
Post a Comment