Bedtime & the Terrible Threes

Dear Amy,

First, thank you for your advice about potty rewards. We more or less followed your advice, and he has been totally potty trained for what feels like forever. In fact, he didn’t even regress when the baby came.

Here’s the new thing. There’s always something, right?

He had been a great sleeper since he night-weaned around one. As in, he slept for 11-12 hours straight without waking literally Every Single Night for two years. We transitioned to the big boy bed last spring, no issues. He gave up pacifiers soon after the baby came, no issues. He’d never had a tantrum that lasted longer than, I dunno, 30 seconds.

And then he turned three (he’s just a tiny bit younger than Ike).

By the time he had been three for two weeks, I was calling friends crying about how three was so much worse than two. Button pushing, boundary defying, starting to ask for extra stories or cups of water at nap time, etc etc. While on vacation later in the summer he woke up in the middle of the night a couple times and needed a hug, but we were in a strange place and it seemed reasonable.

And then he started preschool. He LOVES preschool. He loves his teachers, he loves his friends, he loves his carpool home. But he’s spending much less time at home with his familiar things (me, babysitter, baby, dogs, toys).

We expected some acting out. But bedtime has turned into WAR. His first week of school, my husband and I had weird–unfortunate and unavoidable–schedules, with the result that there was only 1 day when we were both there at bedtime (usually I start his bedtime routine, then switch and go to the baby and my husband finishes up). Then the next week my husband was traveling. And the third week I had two late work events. You get the idea–new routines, new experiences, too much change, not enough consistency. Plus the baby started cruising, which means the play area is baby-optimized and some of his things are less prominent (though still visible! We’re not total idiots).

Last night was the worst yet. There was screaming, hitting (from the kid, not from us!), kicking (ditto!), holding a door closed (that one is on us), and lots of pathetic protest. I think — though I’m a little fuzzy – that it started because we wouldn’t let him crash the baby’s story time. But then there was something that led to a time out, except he refused the time out, which meant we said no bedtime story. Because, you know, you can’t REFUSE a time out with no consequences. I mean, you can imagine. Oh, and a huge dose of “I want Mommy, not Daddy”.

I’ve never seen anything like it, though I’ve read about it on many a blog, so I know I’m not alone. Eventually he calmed down, started using words instead of screams, asked politely if he could be put to bed, and my husband tucked him in with a kiss an hour after his normal bedtime. He was asleep approximately 5 seconds later and more or less didn’t move (per the video monitor) until it was time to wake up.

I think some of this is because the preschool schedule has cut naptime short, so he’s overtired (it’s half day school, but then there’s a lot of things he wants to sneak into the mid-day/afternoon at home). I’m going to prioritize fixing naps so that he’s not so tired. But also, he doesn’t eat at dinner. I won’t short order cook. I make a dinner that everyone should be able to eat (no super weird ingredients, if the “real” version is spicy his is less so, always something on the plate that he likes), and then it’s up to him. If he doesn’t eat…he doesn’t eat. But of course that exacerbates this – in the past it didn’t matter, as we eat close to bedtime so we can have family dinner – he’d fall asleep quickly at bedtime, wake up cranky in the morning but not be expected to do anything before breakfast. So we ignored it when he claimed not to like spaghetti (untrue) or some other food that he’d inhaled thirds of two days earlier.

Do I put string cheese on his plate every night until we’re past this? Do we buy a lock for his door and let him scream (the baby doesn’t seem to notice)? Do we just give in to his whims given how volatile things have been?

(We have a star chart. While that is sufficiently motivating for things like sharing toys with his sister and brushing his teeth, it is not at all effective for this. He gets out of control).

Help.
-dreading bedtime.

Welcome to three! IT’S OFFICIALLY THE WORST.

So first of all: Deep breath. You’ll get through this. You’ve correctly identified all the swirling whirling reasons behind the recent meltdowns — too much change, not enough consistency, an overtired, hungry, jealous-of-new-baby child who just wants to EXERT HIS WILL ON THE WORLD.

Off the top of my head, because I’m guessing you aren’t in the mood to hear my long, rambling Deep Thoughts on all the individual issues in play here, but would rather just get to the damn action items already:

1) Move bedtime earlier. Even just 15 minutes. Half hour. He’s exhausted and that’s not helping. Fixing naps is a good start, A slightly earlier bedtime won’t immediately solve the tantrum issues, but it at least means the tantrums aren’t significantly cutting into his established, much-needed sleep time.

2) Combine bedtime routines. He sounds very jealous. He sounds like he is very much not a fan of you leaving mid-bedtime routine and handing things over to Dad while the baby gets your attention. So try to combine what you can. This is probably the most appropriate area to seek a compromise on, since a combined bedtime routine isn’t a “bad habit” you’ll regret later. In fact, you’ll probably appreciate having steps combined down the road. Read bedtime stories all together. Nurse or bottle feed the baby in his room while you read aloud. Hold and rock both of them. You obviously don’t want to screw up the baby’s routine, but if she’s pretty chill and ignores his screaming, try to find a way to merge their routines so everybody stays together with him, up until final lights out in everybody’s respective rooms.

3) Stay consistent at dinner. This one, on the other hand, is where I am a Big Old Mean. But! Believe me, you will regret caving at dinner to get through the terrible threes and it will become a Whole Big Thing later and it will SUCK. BALLS. Don’t do it. We’re going through fairly regular dinner strikes with our three year old right now too. (Seriously, children, stop lying about not liking spaghetti. EVERYBODY LIKES SPAGHETTI.) Ike had a bad habit of filling up on milk or juice before (or during) dinner, so now he drinks water with dinner, just like his brothers. This. Is. An. Outrage. He pitches a fit over this several times a week, and for some reason STILL thinks that by refusing to eat, we’ll cave and get him the milk or juice he’s screeching for. It’s a power struggle, plain and simple, and has nothing to do with the food in front of him.

Unfortunately for our three year old, he’s our THIRD three year old and this ain’t our first dinner strike rodeo. No one’s going to make you eat. Whatever. No one’s getting you milk in the sippy cup you’ve completely outgrown, especially since I know you’ve gotten more than enough milk for one day already. No one’s going to give you string cheese and Goldfish crackers because you’ve decided chicken is unacceptable. But know this: You don’t eat dinner, you go to bed earlier. Not even as a punishment, but more because I want to get you to breakfast as soon as humanly possible, and to get you to sleep before you realize that oh. Yeah. Eating probably would have been a good idea. Usually bedtime around here is 8/8:30. If Ike refuses to eat dinner, it’s more like 7/7:30 for him, which also means he misses their one nightly cartoon. Some nights a reminder of this consequence will get him to eat. Some nights it doesn’t. I try focus on not giving a crap and letting him make his choice.

I sense there’s a direct tie between Ike’s dinner-strike antics and whether or not he napped at preschool. He goes to the Nap Room every after day after lunch, but his teacher reports Actual Sleep only happens about 50% of the time. This makes me feel less guilty about sending him to bed early on those nights, if that makes sense. It feels like a punishment to him, but I see it more as making the Mom Call to prioritize his needs. And he clearly needs sleep more than an extra 30 minutes of TV time.

I’m going to guess your son is acting out for negative attention, which is tied to the new-ish sibling jealousy, combined with a lot of change, the physical demands of school, and being thrown by some unavoidable scheduling hiccups that kept you guys away from him. Don’t prod or remind him to eat. Don’t scold no matter how irritating it is. Make sure the baby isn’t sucking up all your attention, and praise him for literally WHATEVER you can think of.  Sure, he’s not eating, but is he sitting up in his chair? Generally demonstrating some kind of nice table manners? AWESOME GOOD JOB.

(This is so much easier said than done, I know, especially at the end of a long day of button pushing and irrational three-year old behavior. It is damn effective, however, to counteract negative-attention-seeking behaviors with a steady stream of positive attention.)

If he still tantrums and behaves unacceptably at bedtime, well, that’s probably up to you on how to handle it. I tend to avoid time-outs for bad behavior at bedtime, personally, because I sense my kids catch quickly catch on that they can use them as a stalling tactic, and act out accordingly. Usually, tantrums or hitting or whatever just means you go to bed IMMEDIATELY, do not pass go, do not collect your 300 stuffed animals you need in your bed. I have taken away the bedtime story as well. But again, everybody’s discipline methods are their own, and it sounds like the eventual time out did its job and calmed your son down.

We generally respond to bedtime misbehavior by doing our very, very best to stay calm and not let them see that they are driving us over the edge. We say goodnight, turn out the lights, and close the door, even if they’re still mid-freak-out over God-knows-what and standing in the middle of the room. This usually startles them out of the tantrum because wait! Come back! They’ll come out, and then we guide them back in for calm tucking in and kisses. Rinse and repeat as necessary. For you guys, focus on tips 1) and 2) the most — kick off the routine a little earlier tonight, and try to switch up the half-mom/half-dad duties so your son doesn’t feel like you’re ditching him mid-routine. Try to drastically up the amount of positive attention you give him during the day — not just stuff he does at your request, but just anything good/pleasant you “catch” him doing that isn’t button-pushing or boundary-pushing.

And once he’s in bed, go back to the kitchen and pour yourself some wine, and remember that they’re only three for one year, and it’ll be a least another couple years before you have another three year old and get to go through this ALL OVER AGAIN.