Remember this

I'm a crazy posting fool!  Third time today.  (I had to record this immediately so I don't forget for the future.)

Owen has been a child who tests his limits since day 1.  The parenthood immersion experience has taught us that the only way we were going to have a peaceful home and orderly evenings when it came to bedtime was to have a bedtime routine, put Owen in the crib, and leave for good (whether he was happy about it or not).  Of course we assumed we would rock him to sleep, put a contented, drowsy child on the mattress, exchange a few last snuggles and watch him slip into sweet slumber.  It became clear that was not an option.

Fast forward a year or more to the recent past.  As he's gotten older, we've gotten increasingly wobbly about bedtime.  Now he can talk to us, he can tantrum, he can negotiate.  Somehow it's harder to just walk away and leave him when he's a) madder about it, b) more able to stay awake and complain longer, c) able to come up with more reasonable-sounding problems and excuses, d) so darn cute.  In about the last 6 months it sort of crept in that our goal at bedtime was to leave the room and have him be happy as we did so.  We actually had success at that pretty regularly for a while, which was a new experience for us.  Sometimes it meant that bedtime was later than scheduled because it took some extra time to deal with whatever problems or fusses were happening that night.  But overall we stayed on track and it seemed blissful.  THEN.  Somehow with the two vacations over the holidays and changes in routine, plus his increasing smarts as he heads toward three, in just the last couple of weeks bedtime got completely out of hand.  Every night is a major battle of demand, after demand, after demand.  And since we hadn't really changed our subconscious goal of trying to not have him tantrum to sleep (because we tried that, and we ended up caving), we were being manipulated and controlled in a major way and not at all sure what to do about it!!  He has been getting a bit more tired every night, a bit more bratty during the day, and it seemed to get worse every night.  And he was calling me in the middle of the night.  It just hasn't been clear what to do because a 2.75 year old doesn't really cry it out, right?  Well, here's what I came up with.  We have our routine, we firm it up being as gracious as we can in the process while staying in charge, keep it on time whether he's happy about it or not, and plop him in the crib when the time comes.  So we did that, then left the room.  He was ballistic!  He's used to having us come back in multiple times now.  So he screamed and hollered and waited.  If we'd have left it at that, he'd have been up screaming on and off all night.  So, I softened it by going back in once.  I took a timer with me and told him that I would stay with him for 5 more minutes, then the timer would beep.  When the timer beeps, mommy is going to leave your room and not come back until morning comes.  It is your job to stop crying and go to sleep when the timer beeps.  Well, I spent the 5 minutes trying to do anything that might be necessary...getting him a drink, blowing his nose, getting stuffed animals, etc.  Then it beeped and I left, to a very loud shrieking accompaniment.  I gritted my teeth and we watched a movie while he wailed and threw fits intermittently til 9:30, at which point he fell asleep.  Really, it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.

Tonight, he was pulling his stunts and stretching things out again.  We set him in the crib, said a few last warm fuzzies, and left the room.  He was incensed, as expected.  I took the timer in and repeated last night's explanation.  Between sniffs he said, 'Mommy, I need one more hug.'  I said sure.  Then he laid there and stared at me in a funny way.  I asked him what was wrong and he said, 'Mommy, it's going to beep.'  I said yes it will, do you want me to sing to you until it beeps?  He said, 'Mommy, make it beep!'  So I reset it to 1 minute and told him I would pat his head until it beeped.  When it did he looked very relieved, said goodnight and closed his eyes.  I left.  Not a sound more!  Success in 1 night!

Unfortunately, this is going to involve him getting really mad every night when we initially enforce the bedtime and leave prior to the return with the timer.  But I think it's really a good system since the tantrum is then short-lived.  I can't at the moment think of any way to do it where we don't get a tantrum at all, and this keeps us on schedule, which is important for him.  'They' always say kids crave limits and get stressed when things aren't clear-cut and consistent and in this matter that seems to definitely be the case!  It was so amazing how content he seems to have this game stopped, but he just couldn't be the one to stop it.  Bizarre psychology!