Hot answers tagged bedtime
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When legally adult children continue to live with their parents, they implicitly accept to live by the rules of the house because they are legally free to choose to move out and live by their own rules.
The times you mention seem on the conservative side to me. I'm sure your parents mean well but if you want to change things then I would start by figuring ...
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I would keep doing it as long as the child is interested in it, and might even press the issue a while later.
Jim Trelease is an advocate of reading aloud thoughout (at least) the elementary years, and his research is compelling. He has published collections of stories and book recommendations that are age appropriate as children grow up.
This story of a ...
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I'd say keep reading the bedtime stories for as long as your child is willing to let you! It is not only a great opportunity for parent-child bonding, but it also fosters an appreciation of reading.
Eventually you'll reach a point where they feel they're "too old" for that, and I suspect you'll wind up missing that ritual.
If the stories themselves are ...
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It's difficult for everyone when a child is fighting sleep. Everyone is tired, which makes it hard to be patient (for parents) or obedient (for children). Parents are desperate for even a few minutes of quiet, private, intimate time, and that time is quickly evaporating as the child keeps bouncing around.
Recognize that alarm clocks and strict scheduling of ...
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You didn't specify how you put him to bed, so here are a few suggestions. I think the infant will feel abandoned if you just put him down without a word, and then simply remove your hands, and then leave the room. I don't imply that you do, but it's a contrast. Have you tried to:
Make soothing sounds ("sssshhhhh...") before, while, and after you put him ...
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It is important to recognize that even though we, as adults, know that there are no such things as ghosts, to the child they are real. And no amount of logic will convince them otherwise. You have to accept, for a while, that what they think is real, is actually real, and then you can deal with making it not scary.
So rather than trying to reverse their ...
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Our daughter used exactly the same tactic (altough it was only in early morning)
Do not give in on letting her into your bed. I think this is a thing to be consequent about. You will have to be strict and clear: calling you out of bed to go to potty is ok, doing this to get into your bed is not. Under no circumstances she should be allowed to use this as a ...
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Kids vary. Some take to the bed without any real difference from how they went to sleep in the crib, and others are all "oooh, freedom!" and getting up every ten seconds for a cuddle or a drink or to see what you are up to.
For the "oooh, freedom!" type, here's what I do:
First of all, make sure a good, solid, consistent bedtime routine is in place. Put ...
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As a teacher, librarian and parent, I can tell you that there is no end to the benefits of reading to your children. I would encourage that you continue reading aloud with your children even into high school. Beyond the valuable bonding time it provides you with your child it allows for a number of educational benefits. First, even when a child can read, ...
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The key here is Don't Read Books You Don't Enjoy.
Peter: [reading a review of a boxing match in a hushed, storytelling way] The champ caught Smith with a savage left hook...
Michael: What are you reading her?
Peter: [responding to Michael in same tone] It doesn't matter what I read, it's the tone you use. She doesn't understand the words ...
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I was once told keep the kids in the crib until they start trying to get out. That is kind of what we did. We switched our daughter to a bed at about 2.5 years and the main reason we did that is because we were preparing for her to share a room with her little sister and her sister needed the crib.
My daughter took right to it. She rarely ever gets out of ...
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Check out this article and its sources, the combination has a lot of depth. I'll summarize some of the high points.
The excessive stress from crying it out reduces long term coping skills for stress. The article I link can lead to a fear of being alone, separation anxiety, panic attacks and addictions as well as a 10 times greater chance of the child ...
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"My rules or get out" is not a good way to teach children to compromise (and we hear that rhetoric so often when being critical of how a country is run, where this is learned I see clearly now..) or negotiate with other adults. You risk casting your children to the wolves, and I've seen friends devoured.
In this case, you should be able to calmly sit down ...
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When our son started doing this, we took the following tack:
With very rare exceptions, we make sure he takes a nap. Sleep begets sleep, and a skipped nap in the middle of the day just means he'll be more tired, cranky, and (perversely) wound up at the end of the day. Our escalating scenarios for the nap are a walk around the block in the stroller, ...
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I think @deworde has the best advice to help motivate you to read stories. However, I wanted to add an answer that mentions options other than reading.
Until they are about six months old, babies will rely on tone of voice and sentence patterns to help learn to understand you.
The more you interact with them, the better they'll be able to learn how to ...
9
Kids go through periods where sleep is hard to come by from time to time.
I would suggest taking a few steps with him.
First. Does he have a routine for bed-time still? They still need a calming ritual. My own daughter is allowed to read to herself for about twenty minutes and then she has to turn the light out to try sleeping.
Next,
Ask him what ...
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If you want your child to understand language, you have to talk to your child. A study was done on the differing number of words per hour spoken to a child in low income, middle class, and professional families. The difference was startling. A low income child would hear 600 words per hour. A middle class child 1200. A professional class child 2100. A ...
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Routine - routine - routine. My youngest daughter, now 13 was an extreme night owl. She would rarely fall asleep before 2am when she was a toddler. What I found out through trial and error was that if we put her to bed at exactly the same time each night, her body got used to it. Give her a ritual before going to bed, do it the same way each night. Once ...
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The physical development needed to avoid bedwetting doesn't come in as quickly as that needed to stay dry during the day. It's quite normal for a child to wet at night long after being toilet trained. The Mayo Clinic says bedwetting as late as 7 years old isn't cause for concern..
Reprimanding a child for something she can't physically control yet isn't ...
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I don't like answering my own questions, but the only other answer didn't really apply, so here goes:
"Letting him cry" didn't work for us. We discovered that the cause was discomfort rather than defiance, although not in a very obvious way. Our son's bedtime unrest and crying has been increasing recently, and it now turns out that he didn't want the ...
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We just upgraded our toddler from a crib to a toddler bed, and we were concerned for the same reasons. There are a few toys and lots of books in her room, and we weren't sure how she would do.
I guess we got lucky because she didn't have any problem staying in bed as she was falling asleep. However, she usually wakes up 30-60 minutes before we get her out ...
8
Another explanation could be psychological. Hear me out, it sounds far fetched but makes sense.
Yawning is contagious because a group's social ties are strengthened using such mechanisms. This can be seen across many species of pack animals, and humans belong in that category.
So when you want your kids to sleep, you are putting yourself in a suitable ...
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In general, I would do the same thing to an 18 year old as any of my kids. They gradually get more freedom to set their own bed time, computer usage, etc, until they are sleeping in, not getting things done, etc. If they blow it, then they are on a tight schedule (For some time, I was sending them to bed at 1900, because they were having serious problems ...
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When Andrew was going through this phase (which was accompanied by copious amounts of mommy-guilt because I was pregnant with our daughter and we had just moved him into his big-boy bed), we finally had to just let him be upset for awhile because it finally dawned on us that he was all ready cutting in to our evening work every single night with his constant ...
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Captain Obvious again ... you have to not let them work. Good parenting takes courage. Show no fear!
NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES give in to tantrum behavior. It needs to be punished, quickly and firmly. Raise the stakes. If the kid shouts, his teddy bear goes into time out. He screams again, every other toy goes into time out. If he works himself ...
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No matter how well your child reads in elementary school, there's always going to be plenty of material that's appropriate, but beyond what he or she could read and really understand on his or her own. Reading together is a chance to expose your child to lots of great literature, and that in turn makes it much more likely that they'll read more on their own ...
7
These kind of stories are meant to scare children - the child collector from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the wicked witch, Grimm fairy tales, Doctor Who - we have a rich history of scary stories for kids.
The problem isn't the being scared - it's actually a good healthy part of growing up. The thing to do is not try to persuade your child that they shouldn't ...
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It sounds like she's simply not tired, if she was tired she'd be out like a light. Or she might be too wound up by some sort of activity just before bed. It's also possible that she just likes talking and playing a bit before sleep.
Standing in the room is the least productive thing you can do, it's not going to make her go to sleep, in fact it probably ...
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While blue may be a calming pigment choice for paint, according to Harvard Health, "blue wavelengths—which are beneficial during daylight hours because they boost attention, reaction times, and mood—seem to be the most disruptive at night."
Light of any kind decreases the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that helps you sleep, and light at night ...
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