Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2001-10-14 01:29 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2001-10-14 01:29 pm
the age of reason
I think Nephew's finally getting to the age where you can talk coherently to him and receive a coherent understanding of the message you're trying to convey. I may have solved some of the crying at bedtime problem.
Friday night I realized that the vast majority of the crying at bedtime was the lack of hugs and cuddles and "tucking in" before he was told to go to sleep -- I was raised with a great amount of hugs before bed, and the tradition continued in one form or another until I was at least fifteen (FatherSir would read bedtime stories to us, the books getting progressively more and more complex as we got older) until we finally ran out of books that were acceptable to us all.
Nephew just gets told to go to bed, that's it. He was used to Mommy going to bed at the same time with him at Grandma's house, and this new "Nephew, go to bed" thing is alien to him. So he cries, hoping that we'll come in and talk to him.
I figured it out Friday night, and proceeded to hug him. I explained to Votania, and she took over in the hugging department. Nephew requested hugs from Neighbor, who was visiting that night, and got hugs from Neighbor too.
There was remarkably little crying that night.
Today I put Nephew down for a nap, and got the whole wailing fire siren thing the instant I walked out of the room. Rather than letting him cry himself to sleep, I walked back in, gave him a hug, and then told him, once he'd stopped crying, that if he needed hugs before he went to sleep, he should say, "Auntie, Mommy, I need hugs," rather than crying, because crying is more likely to get him yelled at and ignored, and a simple request "I need hugs please" is more likely to get him hugs.
"I need hugs," he said, and I hugged him for several long minutes and then left him to his nap.
It seems to be working, as I've gotten only one small outburst of yelling (when I had to come in and take his automatic weaponry away from him, as machine gun fire in the room is not conducive to napping) out of him so far, which is far better than normal.
Friday night I realized that the vast majority of the crying at bedtime was the lack of hugs and cuddles and "tucking in" before he was told to go to sleep -- I was raised with a great amount of hugs before bed, and the tradition continued in one form or another until I was at least fifteen (FatherSir would read bedtime stories to us, the books getting progressively more and more complex as we got older) until we finally ran out of books that were acceptable to us all.
Nephew just gets told to go to bed, that's it. He was used to Mommy going to bed at the same time with him at Grandma's house, and this new "Nephew, go to bed" thing is alien to him. So he cries, hoping that we'll come in and talk to him.
I figured it out Friday night, and proceeded to hug him. I explained to Votania, and she took over in the hugging department. Nephew requested hugs from Neighbor, who was visiting that night, and got hugs from Neighbor too.
There was remarkably little crying that night.
Today I put Nephew down for a nap, and got the whole wailing fire siren thing the instant I walked out of the room. Rather than letting him cry himself to sleep, I walked back in, gave him a hug, and then told him, once he'd stopped crying, that if he needed hugs before he went to sleep, he should say, "Auntie, Mommy, I need hugs," rather than crying, because crying is more likely to get him yelled at and ignored, and a simple request "I need hugs please" is more likely to get him hugs.
"I need hugs," he said, and I hugged him for several long minutes and then left him to his nap.
It seems to be working, as I've gotten only one small outburst of yelling (when I had to come in and take his automatic weaponry away from him, as machine gun fire in the room is not conducive to napping) out of him so far, which is far better than normal.