Parenting outside the bed…

I love Aaric, but man, can he be a real hard headed pain in the rear end some days…

For his latest trick he has decided to reintroduce screaming at bedtime (seriously, I thought we were past this…).

Tonight he spent two and a half hours wailing after being tucked in. Note that pre-tuck in routine includes bath, story (4 chapters of Peter Pan), and a cuddle. The pre-tuck routine takes almost an hour. So in total we spent over 3 hours getting the man to sleep tonight (seriously, I thought we were past this).

We utilize the super nanny method… tuck in, wait for him to crawl out, tuck back in (without saying anything), wait for him to crawl out, tuck back in, wait for him to crawl out, tuck back in…until someone surrenders (hopefully the child, preferably to sleep). Aaric of course used every excuse in the book when he crawled out…

“I’m hungry” (false),
“I have to potty” (false, put on potty, nothing came out),
“Something’s wrong” (false, nothing was wrong),
“I pooped my pants” (true, changed, why this didn’t happen during potty step?),
“I need to bother Kieran” (false, need is not the same as want…)
and finally…
“My bed is yucky” [My thought process as I went about soundlessly preparing to tuck him back in]… Okay, fine, your bed is yucky. How about option B, comforter on floor with pillow. There you go sir, no yucky bed, just a nice pallet on the floor…

I really didn’t expect it to work… but I think he gave in to the shock factor, or the fear that a tent on the porch was next.

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