Audrey has been a real sensitive soul for the last few days. Overly so. I also wonder if she feels like she's not getting enough attention. I do my best to give both of them equal attention.
Problem #1: I think it's due to a lack of sleep, but we haven't been able to figure out how to get her to go to sleep. (Personally, I'm afraid that using children's benadryl or something similar would have the opposite effect on her and she'd be bouncing off the walls all night.) She goes to bed at a reasonable time, but we end up having to go back in again and again to turn the light off, or ask her to stop yelling or stop kicking the wall. Some nights she's still awake when I go to bed around 10:30-11. She's horribly cranky during the day because of it.
Last night, during one of our many efforts to put her back in bed, she failed to mention she had to use the potty and ended up having an accident. Normally she uses the potty as an excuse to get out of her room, so it's really unusual for this to happen. Today, she took her sweet time going up the stairs to the bathroom, and ended up soaking herself again. I don't know if it's linked to something, or if it's just a totally random moment.
Problem #2: The whining. The crankiness leads right into the all-day-long whining. Tonight after she threw a fit about having her hair washed, I thought she needed an object lesson to show her how loud her whines are. So I made the exact same sounds she was making, and she burst into tears. "That noise scares me!" I told her it scared me too, and that I didn't like hearing it. I don't know how much of that she understood.
Later on, while I was out at the store, she started screaming in her room (subsequently waking up her brother twice) and Ammon had a little talk with her. Audrey asked for a hug, and he complied, but then she burst into tears again, saying, "Daddy, that hurts! Your beard is killing me!!"
My mother reports that I was not like this at all (first born vs. last born probably has something to do with it), so I have no idea how to handle it. Coddling is out of the question (as seen in my previous posts), but I don't want her to have bad memories either.
It's like having to grow up all over again.
being a stay at home mom
9 years ago
1 comment:
Hmmm...the only thing I can think of is to put her to bed earlier. Like, 6pm earlier. And then not go into her for ANYTHING. She sounds over tired. Have you tried asking your pediatrician for some advice and/or guidance? Also, what's been working for us is LOTS and LOTS of one on one time.
Also, me leaving for 3 days really seems to have put me back into perspective for her. I think I was missed. Come see me for a few days! :)
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