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I have to chuckle as I read this. Who would need help when your children sleep 3 hours a day and both parents home all afternoon and evening?
Part of it may just be the luck of having kids who nap easily, but some of it is good time management by both parents. Dad goes to work early so he can get home early. Mom makes a daily schedule a priority, and schedules a few minutes for her self. She counts curling her hair as "me time!" Compare that to the OP complaining about going to the gym 2 nights/week.
Is the kid still up at 10pm while the mom sits beside his bed waiting for him to go to sleep? OP, please take action. This has been noted over and over again. He should be asleep whether he screams and yells at first or not. He has got to learn to go to sleep on his own. You are probably hurting him by hovering like this.
Naptime for both is at 2pm (they're just waking up now at 5pm).
Whow, stop there! Your kids nap for 3 hours, AND then go to bed at 7:30, just 2.5 hrs after they wake up?? AND then sleep almost 12 hrs till 7? I mean I get the one year old, but the almost-3 year old?
There's just no way that my son would go to sleep that early. He needs at least 5 hrs or so from waking up from nap to bedtime, and he's taken to sleeping no more than 10 hrs at night. So if he skips his nap, he's cranky by 6 and in bed by 7:30-8 and then up at 6 am - which is absolute death for me. So usually he'll nap from about 2 to 4, and then we'll get him in bed by 9, but if he's not tired enough he often won't fall asleep till 10...
Is the kid still up at 10pm while the mom sits beside his bed waiting for him to go to sleep? OP, please take action. This has been noted over and over again. He should be asleep whether he screams and yells at first or not. He has got to learn to go to sleep on his own. You are probably hurting him by hovering like this.
Sigh. The problem is, he doesn't scream or yell 'at first'. He'll just cry and NOT SLEEP, to the point where I'd actually be afraid for his psychological health if we actually let him scream himself to sleep, and I'm not convinced that would even happen. This kid is intense. The reason we were never able to sleep train him to begin with is exactly that, he wouldn't just cry for a bit and go to sleep, even as a baby he would scream bloody murder and was not able to console himself enough to get to sleep. It doesn't work for everyone. We figured it wasn't worth the trauma for everyone involved. Now that he's older I'm trying to get him used to the idea by talking about falling asleep like a big boy, but I am not going to just walk out and let him scream the whole night, because I know his temperament and I can't say for sure that this wouldn't cause actual emotional damage. He is an intense, emotional, high-strung kid, he's extremely advanced mentally, he gets agitated easily yet has an amazing attention span for his age and always did, which is why distraction and redirection did not work for him past a yea old, he remembers every.thing. better than I do and is impossible to calm down or distract if he gets wound up. The only thing that has been effective with him for the past year, and still is, is talking things out and explaining. If he gets why something is a certain way, he'll listen. People give me flack for discussing and reasoning with a three year old, but I know what works for my child and what doesn't. I've seen other kids his age and have confirmed that they react very differently, how most are so easy to redirect or distract when upset, while he gets stuck on something and can't move past it. Point is, all kids are different. Unless you're willing to come over and take over the parenting for a few weeks, don't tell parents how they're doing everything wrong.
I'll leave it to the experts but I still don't think it would hurt him to be put to bed and left there, screaming or no screaming. Once he sees that you won't come in and sit next to him, he'll stop. He can't really enjoy screaming, it's just a ploy to get his way. He's smart.
Oh and another clarification: when I say i take him to activities I don't just mean classes...i mean anything, park, playground, library, indoor play centre, children's museum, etc. We live in an apt and don't have a yard, so even just to get him outside to run around we need to go somewhere, i can't just let him outside and do something at home
I'll leave it to the experts but I still don't think it would hurt him to be put to bed and left there, screaming or no screaming. Once he sees that you won't come in and sit next to him, he'll stop. He can't really enjoy screaming, it's just a ploy to get his way. He's smart.
He doesn't enjoy it but he doesn't do it just to get his way, he doesn't start off screaming, but he'll start repeating non-stop 'mommy, mommy, come, I want mommy to come, mommy, mommy sit with me, mommy', and he'll go on, non-stop, I swear to god, and he'll get progressively wound up, progress to whining and whimpering, then crying, sobbing, and then full-on meltdown, and then he'll be too psyched up to sleep and it'll take forever to calm him down, and he still won't sleep if I'm not there. We've been there, take my word for it.
He doesn't enjoy it but he doesn't do it just to get his way, he doesn't start off screaming, but he'll start repeating non-stop 'mommy, mommy, come, I want mommy to come, mommy, mommy sit with me, mommy', and he'll go on, non-stop, I swear to god, and he'll get progressively wound up, progress to whining and whimpering, then crying, sobbing, and then full-on meltdown, and then he'll be too psyched up to sleep and it'll take forever to calm him down, and he still won't sleep if I'm not there. We've been there, take my word for it.
I'm curious: What's the longest time you guys tried to wait it out?
I'm curious: What's the longest time you guys tried to wait it out?
I think we've gone about 1.5 hrs, after which it took another 40 mins or so to get him to calm down because at that point he was in completely non-sensical meltdown mode, edgy, jittery, and slept badly the whole night after. Problem with him is he doesn't easily calm back down after a meltdown, he stays super wound up, almost like an adult would I guess, and it takes forever to get him calm. And doing that before sleep, when he should be winding down and relaxing, I think is just wrong and to keep doing this would border on emotional abuse at that point...
Believe me, I'm not bored, lol! If anything I would LOVE to have the time to be bored. I know many moms with young children around and our weekdays and some weekends are usually packed with stuff to do. What i don't have nearly enough of is a bit of time to just chill and be on my own, without the constant demands of a toddler. I'm grateful I have the time with him, but for my sanity I NEED a bit of me-time, and to be able to sleep in at least one day every few weeks, mornings have always been very tough for me, and there's a reason every job has weekends, it's so people don't go crazy! I know families where the mom is SAH yet the husband gets up with the kid one weekend day every week! If I suggested that to DH he'd probably laugh.
And yes him spending the time with DS is extremely important too, but he thinks that tossing him for 15 mins or putting him on his lap while he watches hockey qualifies as a lot of quality time together. He goes on about how he wants to do this and that with him, but when it comes down to it it's a max of 15-30 mins, and often it's 'oh well I'm too tired today', 'I didn't sleep well', 'I need to finish up some work', etc etc. And if I didn't ask him to do this, I'm certain it would happen even less cause as I've said, he never volunteers to spend time with him one-on-one, ever, I always need to be there. It's like he wants to spend time with him in theory, but in practice he doesn't want to put time and effort into it, and really it's like he wants to still live the lifestyle we did before having DS - sleeping in, lazy weekends, strolling down for some coffee, then playing computer games for the afternoon and wild sex at night. I mean sure, I'd like that too, but I live in the reality of having a toddler who has needs, and if I keep my mouth shut DH will just spend his weekends like this while I do everything else . AND he thinks that he's entitled to actually having that, because he WORKS and I don't . And everything I do during the week doesn't count because 'well you WANTED to stay home, you chose this'. His other favorite phrase has become 'this is the ONLY thing you do!' - THIS meaning raising a child and taking care of a household, because clearly it's easy-peasy
And we're planning a second one, but honestly at this rate I'm kind of scared, because I just don't feel like I have any support in DH aside from financial - and yes I know that's important, but it's not all, I don't feel like I can truly rely on him when I need it, without him doing a little count of 'who does more' and stashing points against me...I guess that's the real problem here
You are whining again.
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. AND he thinks that he's entitled to actually having that, because he WORKS and I don't 
