Last night was by far the most tiring night we have had in years in our house. It really all began with us going the Aquarium and watching a 4D movie in which there were some very harmless underwater snakes. The girls had talked so much about the snakes that I believe if they hadn't J Man would have watched the whole movie, including the snakes, and been fine. Then we hit the car for a longer ride home and J Man is sleeping instantly. To our defence, the movie was very 3 yr old friendly and we try REALLY hard not to have J Man nap in the car.
There were a few more factors though that contributed to our night. My mom was flying out at 6am this morning and Paul needed to drive her there at 4am, so there was action in the house around 2:30 onward as they got ready to leave. We all went to bed early for that reason and J Man was still wide awake even when us adults went to bed.
Ok, on to the night adventures.
2:30am. J Man wakes up in terror and runs into our room yelling about snakes in his bed.
Over the next two hours I tried many different tactics to solve the snake fearing boy problem.
First tactic. I was firm.
"Go Back To Bed Jude!" "No, there are NO snakes in your bed, go back to bed!" "Look, feel your bed, NO SNAKES!"
Tactic Two. I was compassionate.
"ok, hunny, you can climb in my bed to sleep" Doesn't this tactic usually work? Really, in my defence again, we haven't had to deal with stuff like this since Cici was 2, Beaner NEVER left her bed, she didn't even know she could. After about a half hour of getting kicked and poked I woke to a boy wide awake sitting up in MY bed pointing to snakes in MY bed! REALLY?? My bed was supposed to dispel any fear in this boy, now he was scared and seeing snakes in my bed too!
Tactic Three. Ignore him.
This worked for Cici, when she was two we would just ignore her and eventually she would see the futility in her actions and just head to bed to stay. After putting the boy who was scared of snakes back into HIS bed from mine he came out and stood by my bed and whispered to me. By this time, Paul had gone and it was all me. He whispered and whispered, I ignored and ignored, until I heard his whisper that he had to poop. AH!! So, up I get AGAIN and help him find the light and wait for 5 minutes as he does his thing.
Tactic Four. Get REALLY FIRM!
After helping him in the potty, I turned out the light, told my son (who was playing with a car in the hall in the dark) that I was going to bed! I laid down to the sound of birds starting to wake up outside my window and listened to him crawl around in the dark in the hall, then he started playing with his blind in his window. I am a responsible parent even when I am REALLY TIRED and decided that me sleeping and letting my 3 yr old loose in the house was a bad idea. So, I marched into his room, put him in bed and as firm as I could communicate without yelling and loosing all control told him to "STAY IN BED!!!!!" He said "alright mommy" and that was it.
Conclusions.
I have no idea what I am doing as a parent and this is just another example.
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