My parents in law have always babysat for dd, which is very good of them and very handy. You may recall my rantings about PIL on other threads. They are very sweet people but not massively competent with DD, MIL is obese (spelling?) so can't do much and FIL is ok and able to do lots but has some irritating ways and sometimes does silly / slightly dangerous things.
Anyway I am veering off the point. Recently when they have babysat dd she has been up each time we've got in. This never used to happen and she is going through a difficult stage. She is a very knowing 16 month old, stringing words together, very clearly telling you what she does and doesn't want, and generally far too much into everything. She has never been the best sleeper but we never had problems like this before with her / them.
We have always said that they shouldn't let her get into too much of a state if she wakes and to take her into our bedroom to calm her down if necessary. The first time it happened was just before xmas and we went out for dinner at a friends house and came back and she'd been up for about an hour. It took us quite a while to wind her down again as she's not just been in our room but been downstairs playing. It resulted in her being more tired than usual and waking even earlier than normal (if that's possible !). It has happened a couple of times since then and seems to be forming a habit. I am extremely irritated when I come home and find her up because the last thing I want to do is go through the whole wind down and putting her to bed routine again.
I know I am probably sounding like an ungrateful bitch and I dont mean to be but it does get on my nerves. I have told them that she's very knowing and they need to leave her to cry and I guess we'll have to see if it works next time. I just don't think they are able to do it. My dh never slept as a child and I think it's partly because they were too soft, although I am sure there were other reasons. He used to conk out at 8 having not slept all day and then wake at 2 and never go back to sleep. I think this is because he was overtired.
It's very difficult because I am tempted to just get another sitter in but dh is very against this one because we don't pay his mum and dad and secondly because he thinks it would hurt them as they don't have much looking after responsibility with her at all (mainly because they aren't up to it). We are supposed to be going out this Saturday and they are supposed to be babysitting and I am tempted to cancel because I dont' want to come home to her up and playing. I also think that she is trying it on now with them because she knows. If she wakes in the night with us she never does this.
I hope I am not sounding too much like an ungrateful bitch because I am grateful for the favour but it makes going out less and less appealing especially if she does this on Sat and they leave her to cry but don't really know her cries, if she's ok etc. They won't know and also will find it very stressul I think.
Any suggestions very welcome. I did suggest to dh that they come down another night during the week for a trial run and we'll just sit downstairs and let them handle her but be here to offer guidance but he thought that was a bad idea.