Talk to me calmly....

[makkapakkamoo]

My anger levels are rising,

extremely tired and trying to adapt to becoming a lone parent but both dc (2 & 3) are awake.

This is happening night after night but tonight I a already fryed from being harassed by xp.

Just need to vent really, and it's either this or shout at dc

Hey - sorry you're having a rough time. Is there anything you can do to get them to go to sleep? Are they in the same room? Could you separate them?

i am in a flat and one is in bedroom, one in lounge, and i am in kitchen.

can hear 2yo crying cos she wants to play/climb, but i have had to strap her in to try and get her to sleep.

3yo just wide awake singing/playing in bedroom

i really really just want to scream at them both to get to sleep. i am deliberatley staying out of their 'rooms' but 2yo cries until she is choking. i ran a bath for myself about 3 hours ago and still waiting to get in...

i have tried cuddling etc but nothing is working and i am usually up til 4/5am before they have both given in.

i know they are missing their dad and he's what they need, but he was abusive to me, so that isn't an option.

Ummm am not much of an expert, only have one, but don't want you tearing your hair out on your tod. Can you focus on one of them? Get the 2 YO to go to sleep. Lie them down, read them a story, sing, stroke, whatever. They must be exhausted. One down and then it won't seem so bad. Then you can cuddle with the other on the sofa until they fall asleep and bung a blankie over them and go to bed in your own bed for a few hours

I'm a bit alarmed by ' i have had to strap her in'. What do you mean by that exactly? How will it help?

I'm a mum of 2 boys now 15 and 14 and went through similar hellish patch at about 2 and 3.

You poor thing. I would actually suggest bunks and they can be in together - then you'd have a bit more room to yourself and they can chat/sing/entertain each other.

And run that bath away. You deserve a hot bath for sure

Oh for goodness' sake - you can't put a 2 and 3 year old in bunks!

finally have the 2 yo settled after an hour of soothing. 3yo led quietly in bed so should be asleep soon. then i can eat, bath, sleep....cleaning can wait until tomorrow

'strap her in' means into her baby chair, it has restraints similar to a highchair and it rocks. she is very active and likes to climb into the window cills (overlooking a busy street) and she can open them and take the guards/locks off. she can also open the baby gates that are fitted. most mums are advised to make sure baby cannot harm themselves and leave the room. she climbed out of her cot over a year ago, so her rocker-chair thingy or her pushchair are my options. she is never left there for extended periods but obviously i need to be able to leave her unattended sometimes and carry out chores/wee etc.

they do sleep in the same bedroom overnight, but x was quite toxic and contradicted all my efforts to teach 2yo dd to get herself to sleep. he has been gone about 3 weeks (still had them weekends)and before he was here or i could vent to him on the phone.

am much calmer now there is quiet around me.

if its any concellation im going through the same think. finally got both the kids off to sleep at midnight but then dd has wokenu up again and i know she will be awake at 5am in tthe moring. im praying that she sleeps tonight. ds is finally out for the count.

gl hun i am hoping for some peace now too. i know i should already be in bed but i need to unwind for a short while too x

hope you manage to get some sleep. Im hanging but dd wants to plaay. people keep telling me it gets better. Fingers crossed eh!

Ok, if you need to go through all the stress of the first months of being separated, you really need to lay the law down and get them to sleep, because, the most important to get sleep at the time is... YOU.

You need to be rested in order to be able to cope with the demands of being a single parent, and survive in one pieve.

At what time are they waking up? Is there any possibility of them up around 6 am one day in order to get them to go to bed at a reasonable time? I know it may look impossible at the moment but you may sort the problem in one single day. You really need to keep in good shape (getting some sleep included) to survive this part of the process without more damage to yourself.

Obviously, I'm also a single parent, too tired to make sense. (plenty of words missing, I'm afraid. I better take my own counsel and head to bed. Good night )

thank you all who have posted.

Mongolia, some mornings they are running water in the bathroom or creating havoc in the kitchen as early as 5.30am ready for another day of it! your suggestion of getting them up early sounds like one i will try. i can survive the odd day of tiredness but this is catching up on me, like when you have a newborn. ds (3yo) used to go to bed like a dream at 7pm but has been hard to settle since the split.

most days i do manage to to hold it together, however today like i said x has been calling every 5 mins to hurl abuse at me. i have not answered the phone in several hours but it has left me on edge, and i have over 30 missed calls on my phone from him in a 3-hour period. i have to keep the phone on as i am recording his attempts to try and bring a harassment/witness intimidation case against him (to add to the assault). these calls will eventually prove that i can have no direct contact with him wrt access as he uses it to verbally/physically abuse me. happy days....

sorry for your situation makkapakkamoo.
i hope it gets better soon.
maybe they dont feel tired enough to go to sleep.
or their diet may make them alert like that.
i am sure you are a loving mum but now their dad gone they may need more loving, attention from you.
good luck

You must be absolutely exhausted. It's not good for you to eat and sleep so late either. It sounds like you need to do a bit of a bedtime boot camp to completely reset their bedtime routines. Here's what I would do..

Avoid any sugary foods, or anything containing artificial sweetener or caffeine from lunchtime onwards. Start a bedtime routine from about 6pm, with a bath, story and bed. Mine like the Beebies bedtime hour and have learnt to recognise that when the night night sign comes on, they're off to bed.

I'd put them both in any bedroom that's big enough to hold a cot and a bed. Make sure it's completely dark in there, and you have a blackout blind if there's a streetlight outside.
Move any toys out or up high which could distract them from sleep. Get someone in to fit proper window locks if you have any concerns about safety in there.
Put a stairgate (you can get those travel ones which don't need screwing in) at the door. If they can get one open, I've heard of people putting another directly above it so the catch is well out of their reach and it blocks the catch on the lower one. Make sure you can still easily reach it though, so you can get them out quickly in any emergency.

I think the priority is to get them both sleeping in proper cots or beds, rather than swinging chairs, without you needing to go through hours of soothing to get them there. It's nothing to do with not loving them enough, it's establishing a clear routine which will help them feel safe and secure at bedtime. It will also mean you can stay with other people in future without having to go through this at their houses.

I hope this helps a bit. I had to get it cracked as I am evil when tired so sleep was the area I was strictest in. I can't tell you how much it paid off. ds2 is the cheekiest monkey going but never ever plays up at bedtime, or wakes up in the night. I think it's because his routine has never changed, wherever we are, he goes to bed in a cot at 7pm.

I hope this helps, I know it's not easy at all, especially with all you're going through but I do think if you can stick to it for a couple of weeks you will really start to see some results and that will make things easier for you.

do you have a separate phone just for him? i got a pay as you go for that purpose.

or get a new one for you for other people to contact you.
then you dont ahve to actually have it on - just switch it on once a day to receive the missed calls/msgs. or you can have it on silent and only check once a day.

agree on bedtime routine - you could also try in short term melatonin, calpol, benadryl....

ok there are some extremely useful suggestions here which I am able to look at a bit more clearly after some pro plus!

our current routine is

go to nursery 1pm
tea (at school) 4.30pm
pick up from nursey 5pm (both dc)
walk home, i spend about half an hour playing with them/talking about their day at nursery
i offer them some cereal/toast/fruit at 6pm
bath at 6.15/6.20
i sing nursery rhymes with them when they are both in the bath
6.45 pjs/cuddles/bed time story

.... then i am lost.

neither dc will stay in their beds so i think the tiered gates thing might be the next to try. there are no toys in their bedroom, just a wardrobe/beds

maybe is just too early for them? put them in bed at 8 pm?

Ok - so maybe try turning their lights off (I even took the bulbs out at one point to stop ds putting them straight back on) and also making the room outside their bedroom dark so they haven't got any stimulation there either.

Then, every time they get up, just take them straight back to bed with minimal interaction. I bet you'll have to do this hundreds of times to start with, but if they realise they're getting nothing out of it, they will hopefully just give up.

And like cestlavie says, maybe try moving it all back a bit if they don't seem tired. I do feel for you and hope you get a better night tonight!

I tightened the gate on their room today, then at 6.30pm (i was bearing in mind that this could take several hours) i read both a story and put dd in her bed. then i took ds into lounge, closed the door to minimise the noise from dd, and spent some 1-2-1 explaining that I need his help to teach dd to sleep by herself.

i 'sandwiched' the request for his patience and understanding (obv using 3yo lingo) with plentiful praise about how he is a great big bro and how he usually settles himself well.

we managed half an hour like this, dd screaming at gate continually, me returning her to bed every 10 mins with no communication other than leading her back, before being disrupted by someone knocking loudly at the door. grrrr...

i kept my calm but dc were both to disrupted to continue for tonight. after a 5 min dimmed lights tv break (i ALWAYS give 5 mins warning before bed/bath/lunch/any change) i took ds to bed as he was v tired. i laid dd on sofa whilst i went to the bathroom and came back to her snoring

my intention is to start again tomorrow night, by that i mean putting dd in her bed at 6.30pm. i'm not sure on how often i should be returning her to bed tho... tonight she didn't stay in bed for a second after i'd placed her there, so i decided upon 10mins as that's what i've heard of for controlled crying in babies, but i have no idea if its the same for 2yo? i have ds to consider too, so i wont be able to do it every second iyswim? and i am not sure how long each night to carry on. i don't think it would be fair on ds to continue for several hours. i am worried that if i let him start to sleep on the sofa i might be replacing one problem with another.

thank you all for helping me with this xxx

makka - is the 2yo napping?

with nap she wont sleep till 8pm.

without nap 7pm

putting her to bed so early if she's wide awake is counter productive.

if you have a gate. put her in. explain fully she's to go to sleep and give the controlled crying a bash. going back in every 10 mins.

i have 2yo and 3yo. both in rooms at 7pm. not always sleeping. but they know not to get out of bed now.

i do however know if we're on hols or at gp's house.. they share a room and there's no chance they will go to sleep. i have to put one in first then the other.

if the 2yo has had a nap. i put the 3yo in bed first at 7pm. then the 2yo at 8pm.

Makka.., keep a record of the calls in case you need to report him in the future.

Don't pick up the phone, ask him to text you instead and... don't erase those texts no matter how unpleasant they are. Keep them in record, I don't want to scare you and hope things calm down soon, but keep the record, if at some point it becomes too much, you will be taken seriously.

And remember, it doesn't matter how annoyed he is, what have you done to him or visceversa, you are NOT required to put up with harassment.

Hiya Mongolia I am keeping my current sim to keep a record and I am writing them down too. I haven't responded to any of the calls or texts, except the first. I only answered that thinking it would be about dc/access but he started calling me names again so I haven't responded since. If they'd arrested him already for the assault I would be protected by bail conditions and the calls would be classed as Witness Intimidation iirc.

Hey - I've got to tell you about a sleep tip that has (touch wood) changed my life since I first tried it a month ago.
It comes from a book written by a sleep expert, and a friend told me about it. Worked for our two 4 year olds, hope at least your 3 year old might go for it too.
It's so simple.
All you do is tell your child, "Tonight we're going to do the rules of sleep. (Kids love rules, they say). Here are the rules:
Rule 1: stay in bed
Rule 2: lie still
Rule 3: close your eyes
Rule 4: go to sleep
First time we did it we had to go over the rules many times, but at least she didn't get out of bed ... The following night and every other one since then, we've got into a routine where she instantly lies still and scrunches up her eyes and I pretend I CANNOT BELIEVE SHE'S ASLEEP ALREADY, she's SO GOOOOOD AT THOSE RULES! And the next moment, she's asleep. Honestly, she's only got up twice in a month, both times for water. She used to be a total late bird, I thought she was somehow on Mediterranean time - but turns out she can do the sleep thing, yay! Really hope this might work for you too.