ARGH IM GOING NUTS - VENT

seriously, completely and utterly silly-gaga fricken doolally nuts

I want to scream

My lovely nearly 3 yr old has decided that not only now does she not have to go to sleep until close to 9pm at night despite being put in her bed at 7pm, but she can wake at 3 am every morning screaming for a drink, and believe me when i say screaming, it's as if there's someone in the room with her or something terrible is happening, to which i jump out of bed and go to her just to get her to shut the heck up before she wakes the rest of the house. She is unresonable, you cannot talk to her you cannot get her to do anything she just rolls around screaming until you figure out whats wrong, she then will go back to sleep, only to wake at the crack of dawn again.   This has started happening, mike doesn't hear it, and i am exhausted,To make it worse i am on mornings at the moment, and yet still she is waking before me, she wakes about half an hour before my alarm goes off, which it does at 5.45am, I wake and try to get her to go back to sleep, then go and pretty much lie in my bed for the next half hour wishing i could go back to sleep, but never do. I sit in the lunch room and nearly fall asleep each day, I feel so tired i just want to cry and cry. The day starts that way, she has minimal sleep at daycare, then comes home and all she does is tantrum, you breathe the wrong way and she screams at you, you can't reason with her, she's a stroppy grumpy little toad and i am getting to my wits end. It's tantrums all the way through the day despite my best efforts to be nice and consistent which always worked with her sister, Paris is so sick of her that's she's got to the point that she is hitting out at her because she's so frustrated with having her sister being nasty and annoying to her, she calls out time after time after time after being put to bed, so really my day starts at 5.15am, runs through until about 9pm at night when she finally falls asleep, to which i then try to crawl into bed, to be woken by certain people coming to bed if they've stayed up or like last night they were still up with said mates playing playstation yahooing each time something awesome happened. I got to sleep close to midnight to have her wake at 3 am then again just before 6 am, she screamed till she could come in our bed, proceeded not to go to sleep like she promised she would then she got up and has spent the morning being loud while i tried to remind her nicely to please be quiet as it's dad's birthday and he gets a sleep in. Fair enough they don't have to be quiet often but her idea of whispering is about 250 million decibels.

To be short, I'm extremely low on sleep, and She's just pissed me off so much this morning.

Wonderful day for mikes birthday - he woke to me jumping back in bed because i had to get away from them otherwise i was going to scream. Poor guy.

I was going to keep them home with me tomorrow for my birthday as mike starts back at study and i took the day off work and didn't want to be alon eon my birthday, but not now, they are going to daycare, sounds horrible but right now the best present for me would be a few days away, completely by myself, to eat without it going cold, without tantrums over what spoon she has, about what bib she's wearing (even though she just darn well picked it herself) about what she's not going to eat and about the mouthful she's kept in her mouth for the last hour and a half and won't swallow but doesn't want to spit it out. To sleep for more than 3 hours in a row, and not just like i do after ngiht shift out of necessity and sheer exhaustion.

ARGH

There i said it, I'm normal, My kids have gotten to me and i just want to be alone for a few days. I am sick of being a grumpy mum because of sleep deprivation.

Mostly things are usually ok, but this week has seriously sucked, and with that comes the knowledge that obviously someone at work thinks i love mornings because i have the next 2 months on constant mornings and somehow they've managed to sneak me back on to every weekend despite me saying i cannot work every weekend but every second weekend otherwise, funny ha - THIS happens.

Most of all, I am sick of not having any family to turn to, No grandparents on either side to come and take the kids for a night away, for a couple of hours, or even long enough for me to sit and have a milo without being plagued by "can i have one, can i get up can i sit on the table can i have a biscuit i want a a biscuit".

I just wnat to curl up back in bed and sleep for a few weeks


Edited by mum2paris

oh and happpy birthday for tomorrow... sending them to daycare and having a sloth day in bed sounds lovely...

No advice but lots and lots of sympathy!

These kids sure know how to keep us on our toes. I love the way kids often look the picture of innocence for the 5 seconds people see them in public! I often find myself admiring lovely gentle kids but very quickly remind myself that all kids are terrors!!!

I've heard that 3 is a huge transition and often the hardest of them all. Hopefully she will settle down soon.

Hang in there and vent at us as much as you need to.

Awwww big hugs Janine. I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow!

Ah Janine, sounds like you really need a day to your self tomorrow. Hope you have a good one

Oh matey that sux big time. I had similar problems with Jake, which I have mostly ironed out.

What I have done is let him ride it our till 9pm or whatever, as much as I hate it, I have sucked it up and let him quietly play in his room or in the lounge till about then, then put him to bed. It has been easier not fighting it, if you get my drift. After about a week or so, I have wound it back 15/20 mins and now his is going to bed at 7.30 8pm, which is much more manageable and we are all happy. With it getting darker earlier makes it easier now.

The night waking we also had to suck up, and it was awful, we (I) went in to him once, the first time, and tried to settle, told him no milk, tried to cuddle, and ended up leaving him to scream, which he did for about ten minutes the last time we cried it out (used to be able to do it for up to an hour, that kid) Anyhow, that lasted about 2 nights this time around, other times its been a week, but this time around we have had the longest success ever, since the second week of Jan he has slept through now, YAY.

BEfore he goes to sleep, we go throught he rules, as he is old enough to know them and the consequences, which is no tv in the morning, lol. He can tell me the rules, which are no getting up, no more milk, no getting into mummies bed and no mummy getting into my bed. And, so far, so good.

as for discipline, I have started ginving him 2 choices, which shows him he HAS to do something, but he can choose how, it makes for less tantys, giving him some power over what he does. For example, you turn the tv off or mummy will.. "NO!" ok, mummy will then.. "No!! Jake do!"
Well, not the best example, but you get my drift, though.

I have been cutitng his sleep down in the afternoon to 2 hours max, and make sure he is up by 3pm latest, and I have found he sleeps right through now most nights doing this. Not too sure how you can get her to have a sleep though!!

Sorry for hte ramble. You are doing a good job, you are a very together type of person. Its ok and normal to feel frustrated and angry, especially when you are tired and holding the family together, as such.

Big hugs to you, and I hope you have a good birthday!

xx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANINE!!!

I think your birthday plans for a day without kids are such a good idea - and no, it doesn't sound mean at all.  Fair enough.  Sounds like you're loooong overdue for a break (and aw chick, I hope it gets better soon - sounds freakin maddening). 

Thanks guys, she had just gotten to me yesterday.

Mostly she's a pretty good kid, but i am getting slightly tired at the amount of work it takes for her, I mean mostly our tactics work but it takes about 80% more effort to persuade her and a whole lot more negotiation.

We've always had the rules with choices etc, makes it harder as the girls take turns to do things etc, and there are some things that we don't have choices for.

Sleep times these days are about 45 mins max, and night time's really don't get negotiation as mostly we are up early early in the morning so 7pm it is, plus the fact that her sister goes to bed at 7pm, so no special treatment for her, she just mucks about sometimes, it seems though that since i've had alot of early mornings co-incided with her turning a bit feral which isn't the best combination.

Argh, just fed up with having a little bit of a stubborn child who needs just that much more work - especially when i am just so tired.

And yep, need a break.. by the time i get a couple of days off in May for Ayja's birthday it will have been 5 months since i could get any leave, which was 1 week, before xmas.