©Maria Foy – Happy Mum Happy Child
Are You A Control Freak About Your Kids’ Sleep?
I recently read an article on Scary Mommy about some parents being control freaks when it came to their kids’ sleeping patterns.
Want to know a secret? I AM A CONTROL FREAK when it comes to my kids’ sleeping.
As the article said, there really are two different types of people – people who live by the schedule and don’t break it; and people who just wing it and their kids go to bed whenever.
With my eldest I had no idea what I was doing, but getting my kid to sleep was the bane of my existence. It took 6 months to get her to settle into some kind of sleep pattern.
Once I had the schedule down, I REFUSED to budge for it.
Invitation to activities out? If it messed with the sleep, then I said no.
Dinner invitations out? Well bedtime was at 7pm, so that was out of the question.
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I missed out on going out a lot because I refused to break the sleep. I didn’t want ANYTHING to stop my girl from sleeping.
I’m sure people were frustrated with me because I refused to budge, but I didn’t care. My baby and getting her to sleep was more important than anything.
I AGONISED about getting my eldest to sleep though.
When she went through sleep regressions, I went for long walks to encourage her to go back to sleep. OR I went for long drives. Whatever I could do to keep her asleep.
My kids never fell asleep in weird places either (other than the car or pram). I stuck to the routine I had implemented, and the kids fell into line.
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When my second child was born, he fitted in nicely into the sleep routine, and before I knew it both kids were having two sleeps a day.
Then my eldest dropped a sleep – but still they had a nap together.
To this day, my 3 year old still has a nap, and every now-and-then my 5 year old does too.
I wasn’t a very confident parent with my first, so not going out wasn’t an issue. Focussing on the sleep was a way to continue hiding at home.
We are a lot more relaxed now though – if we are invited out to dinner it doesn’t bother us that the kids go to bed late. However when they were babies, I was a control freak about it.
That’s who I am though, at my core – I love being in control.
What are you? A control freak? Or more relaxed?
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