to want the smugness to stop!!!!

[wobblywibblyknicks]

DD (4yo) has been having trouble going to sleep for the past week or two and on the last couple of nights has stayed up crying until about 10pm. Now I know the general sleep advice and I'm partly guilty because I've gone in to her too much and should be leaving her to have her temper tantrums alone.

BUT why did my sister have to inflict a half hour lecture on me about how dd was just trying to wind me up and would end up a spoilt child unless I did the right thing (ie what sis says). Much as I love her, she doesn't have kids, precisely because she'd go to pieces, so she's not best placed to tell me how to handle mine. Ok, she means well but ARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

Why do people without kids think its 'so bl**dy obvious' what to do??? Don't they realise that kids don't read cc'ing books and don't know when to shut up and go to sleep and that us parents doing what seems best is NOT necessarily going to turn them spoilt.

Sorry, I'm just frustrated!!!!! I'm not the most confident mother at the best of times and I don't need this. A quick suggestion of letting her cry would have been fine but this was a half hour lecture ffs!!!

LOL @ your silly sister!

Did you tell her to f* off or were you very polite?

btw I think sometimes you instinctively know when it's the right time to break the rules - I don't think you should be guilty about going in to your dd.

Smugness is the worst personality trate to have in my opinion.....tellh er to bugger off.

well, it is obvious what someone else needs to do though, especially when you don't have your own to distract you from the perfect parenting you inflict upon those around you!

I was very polite because I know she means well, in her own weird way. She's built her life around having everything very ordered and following set patterns and rules - so tries to apply that to kids not realising they are chaos and midget form.

sorry IN midget form that should have been!!!

true FT, if I could have shut dd's noise out to straighten my hair (what she was doing at the time) I'm sure I could have dispensed pearls of wisdom too

sometimes people with kids aren't immune from stating x/y/z is bl**dy obvious .

I would gently laugh in her face and tell her that you will revisit this conversation and take her viewss more seriously when she has a 4 year old child herself. (must admit I took this approach when my friend who KNEW how mentally unwell I had been during my PG told me how selfish I was for not planning to have any more children)

Is she older than you by any chance? I think sometimes they find it hard to accept that you're not both children any more and still like to tell you what to do.

EVERYONE is older than wobbly though, so it wouldn't be hard

at MTS.

hi mts and ct! True, have had 'advice' in the past from fellow mothers but at least they do have a little experience. Lol @ selfish for not having more children!! It's not like you left them waiting on the doorstep!!!

And yep, she's 12 years older than me so still thinks she's my mother, and has a lot of issues herself about growing up so I think its pretty painful for her to see me being a mother.

WWK - its because us parents make it look so easy

Ignore her, smile sweetly, and feel smug as and when she has her own

Ah - well meaning sisters and their advice - I have lots of experience (I have three of them, all older than me).

I'm familiar with the smugness and it can really wind you up.

You know you're doing your best for your dd -trust your instincts and ignore your sister's smug preaching. You know she can't possibly understand how it really feels to go through it night after night.

I'm interested to know what her advice was and where she got it from though?

mts - they aren't now!!! It's horrible, people are younger than me - I'm getting scared. The bloke I'm trying to seduce actually said to me the other day that I was the most mature person he's ever tried to sleep with (he's 2 years younger btw)!!! I was not amused!!!

Thanks fanella and VVV. Her advice was let her cry because if I go to her (at all I take it) she thinks she's won and will therefore somehow think I will jump whenever she asks. Far better for her to cry herself to sleep and she will miraculously transform into a stable, secure child.

...And she got it from her own imagination.

Ooops! Just re-read the thread and it looks as though I was sniggering at MTS having problems with her pregnancy. I was laughing at the 21:42 post.

Lol ct - she's probably p*ssed off with you now and will never talk to you again, except to laugh when her 7 kids attack you in red arrow formation.

LOL ct!!

And to add to my annoyance, after leaving dd to cry for a bit she has in fact gone off to sleep.

Maybe I'll hand her over to my sis for a week and go off for a holiday, then come back and either have a military-style well behaved or a very understanding sis!!!

no worries Coppertop, I just knew it had to be my hilarious comment you were laughing at.

wobbly - that's a win win scenario, get that holiday booked NOW

oh and was the seduction successful?

If it's any consolation, ds2 (4) is still wide awake. I could send him over to your sister too? If she's not grey yet, she soon will be!

MTS - Phew!

Yes, I was so busy being paranoid that I missed the seduction bit in WK's post.

Yep, maybe I'll suggest it to her and see her go pale

And no it wasn't successful, he tried to get me very drunk and partly succeeded, I tried to get him drunk and did, got back to his....where he remembered he didn't have any prophylactics - so we went to sleep. Since then his ex-girlfriend has decided she's no longer ex and he doesn't want to hurt her feelings before going on a holiday they booked months ago, so he's dumping her afterwards. So I'm not touching him with a bargepole until then. It's all good fun!!!

Yep ct, the more the better - she obviously thinks its easy!!!

One of my mottos is:

'never take advice from someone who doesn't have hands on experience".