![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
I want my Mommy!
You know, I have fun when I'm babysitting, all the way up until it's time for bed. Then it is just SO exhausting.
E will just not go to sleep! She follows the whole bedtime routine perfectly - potty, pajamas, toothbrushing, two books... then all hell breaks loose. She just Will. Not. Sleep. She lays there, eyes wide, telling me she misses Mommy 873278723957 times. (And I know she misses Mommy, and I feel bad that she misses Mommy, but really, what can I do about it?)
I've tried almost everything... from cuddling and trying to make her feel better to explaining that Mommy will be home soon to ignoring her after the first couple of times to saying, "Shhh, time for sleep, no more talking" a million times to laying in bed next to her and reading a book. Sometimes she falls asleep eventually (bedtime is at 8 and the moms come home between 10 and 10:30 usually) and sometimes she is still awake when they get home.
It's just so exhausting. In fact, I'm now dreading going over there because I don't want another 2 hours of "I want my Mommy" when there isn't a dang thing I can do to help. It's not like I can mysteriously make Mommy come home, you know? (I tell them this is going on, that's really the best I can do.) It becomes so tedious and last week I really felt myself becoming irritated.
I need to think of another strategy, and quick, because I'm not up for that tonight.
E will just not go to sleep! She follows the whole bedtime routine perfectly - potty, pajamas, toothbrushing, two books... then all hell breaks loose. She just Will. Not. Sleep. She lays there, eyes wide, telling me she misses Mommy 873278723957 times. (And I know she misses Mommy, and I feel bad that she misses Mommy, but really, what can I do about it?)
I've tried almost everything... from cuddling and trying to make her feel better to explaining that Mommy will be home soon to ignoring her after the first couple of times to saying, "Shhh, time for sleep, no more talking" a million times to laying in bed next to her and reading a book. Sometimes she falls asleep eventually (bedtime is at 8 and the moms come home between 10 and 10:30 usually) and sometimes she is still awake when they get home.
It's just so exhausting. In fact, I'm now dreading going over there because I don't want another 2 hours of "I want my Mommy" when there isn't a dang thing I can do to help. It's not like I can mysteriously make Mommy come home, you know? (I tell them this is going on, that's really the best I can do.) It becomes so tedious and last week I really felt myself becoming irritated.
I need to think of another strategy, and quick, because I'm not up for that tonight.
no subject
Because she's not my child, I don't feel like it's my place to change up the bedtime routines... and since the moms have been really lax about "helping her fall asleep" (for a while they were sticking to a cool 'Mama will sit in the chair and not talk and you can put yourself to sleep' thing that lasted maybe 2 weeks) I feel like it would be disaster both for E and for me as a babysitter if I instituted a harder-line "Monday evening only" routine.
I have talked to her parents a couple of times about this and there's always some element of "yeah, we need to get back to that..." but in the end, it's their call, not mine.
I've managed to stick some little things in the framework of their routine (like answering everything she says after the first couple of statements with, "No talking, time for bed.") but what I usually end up doing is busting out the Big Gun: "If you talk again, I am going to go sit in the chair." That usually works - she's not sleeping but she doesn't talk anymore.
I don't feel comfortable doing much more because she's not my child and it's not really up to me to change her routines. Blah!
no subject
Cats don't obey but at least they LIKE sleeping ;)
no subject