A tddler wakes screaming & crying in the middle of the night. I think Toddler Daddy can identify with this topic.
For 3-4 nights since Caitlin’s birthday party, we’ve been woken by her crying in the middle of the night. She’s not fully awake, she doesn’t suddenly scream prompting Daddee to reach for his baseball bat / hand-me-down golf club / nail clippers, she just starts by sobbing, & then cries. But her cries are comprehendable: Exclamations of not wanting for something required of her. Eg go shower, putting her toys away, etc.
While growing up myself I have heard of this old wives tale: That toddlers playing too much in the hours leading to bedtime will later have bad dreams & nightmares. I am never one to listen to these tales, & frankly cannot remember if that theory ever held true in my own childhood.
However, desperate for sleep, I carefully broached Caitlin the topic of her bad dreams. I shared the tale of what “the aunties” said, & suggested that we gave it a go- not to play too much after dinner, not too much running around ha-ha playing, resorting to just reading or playing with her birthday present puzzles. She was game for it, so to speak. Perhaps she too needed the sleep… No, she still naps in the afternoons. Maybe she pities Daddee’s panda eyes & thought he deserved a break.
I broached this carefully because she has sometimes surprised me by how easily freaked she is by simple concepts. For eg, she seems to be scarred by this one scene of one of Thomas’ friends (the tank engine) derailing from speeding. That show is now banned in this household.
I don’t think she is generally chicken, but I guess everyone has their kryptonite.
And so Tuesday evening I didn’t play with her vigorously. She was very keen to unwrap her new Pooh Bear puzzle, even though she is guilty of losing some pieces of another simpler puzzle; it was a freebie actually from a purchase but you know… After setting some ground rules that she is only allowed to play with Daddee, we unwrapped it.
That night & the following night we only played with the puzzle or flipped through / read some of her new birthday present books.
Other than the routine “I wanna go pee” anywhere between 2-4am, we’ve all slept very well….
Which of your old wives tales tactics have actually worked?
3 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Nov 29, 2007 at 10:33 PM
Funny. We started rewarding our 3-year-old with a sticker on her ‘sticker chart’ every time she did NOT call us until there was a 7 on her clock in the morning (we put tape over the other two numbers). Once she got five stickers, we would take her to the dollar store to buy a prize. Seemed to work pretty well!
2 Moomykin // Nov 30, 2007 at 12:24 AM
I think it’s true about not playing too vigorously before bed to avoid nightmares…the brain gets too charged up has to find an outlet.
But Micah has very extreme emotional frustrations in the day that are displayed in his sleep too. He’s be crying and shouting, “No, Max” or “No, no! Not that…This, this!!” or some other emotionally-stress exclamations.
But last night he had a nightmare about a fire, of which he remembered just now when he was dropping off to sleep. He remembered it and started sobbing. I comforted him and he finally fell asleep.
3 Daddee // Nov 30, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the example of how to engage the little ones. Caitlin can recite her numbers up till 10, anything in the teens she still gets confused. Can’t really count properly either at the moment.
But I do welcome her middle-of-night pleas for assistance to pee. It’s progress or achievement in the toilet training area.
But your “reward” trips to the dollar-store would give her a sense of achievement too, I feel.
Does she know how to budget yet?
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