Sunday, April 12, 2009

Solving children's sleeping problems

Does your child have difficulty falling asleep ? My younger dotter, Katelynn does have this problem.. which makes us really headache..She wakes repeatedly during the night and start looking for her nanny(kakak), which we dun really encourage the nanny to come and comfort her as we dun want her to be too attached to the nanny.We were tired, frustrated and often angry.
We have had lots of advice on how to handle the situation from friends and relatives. "Let her cry; you're just spoiling her" we were told, or " that's just a phasel; wait until she outgrows it.".. We really dont's want to wait but begin to wonder if we really have to, since despite all out efforts, the sleep problem still persists. Then, FINALLY.. one day.. Brandon and I decided to be "no mercy anymore" and we gotta have to do it !!.

We decided to start on a Friday night ( as saturday and sunday we dun need to work),I bring Katelynn to guest room to sleep with me, to prevent her from waking up Aerwen at night.
The clock strike 3am... here she comes again !! She started to cry with her eyes closed and shouting for her nanny. I did not ignore her for the start but start patting her/ comfort her that kakak(the nanny) was not around and only mummy is here... She refused to listen and start crying again until my maid came down, wanted to hug her.. Luckily , Katelynn did not see her kakak, i quickly asked the maid to go into her room and said i dun need her help .... she cried for 30 minutes and then.. stop for a while and cried again.. until i bring out a Twilight turtle for her.. she seem to calm down a bit...looking @ the sparkling little stars on the wall.... ok.. it seem to be a good investment.. hahaa... then.. the 1st night passed with the help of the Twilight turtle.

2nd night (saturday), she started her nightmare again and cry for her kakak, as usual. However, this time, the Twilight Turtle is not working on her, she still continue to cry even when i switch on the Twilight thingy until i really fed -up. Leave her alone, and let her cried... she stopped after 1/2 hrs, i guess she was tired.. and 2nd night..passed...

3rd night...she did wake up and scream a bit.. but stop, after i told her that mummy is here. she saw me sleeping beside her, she got back to sleep again... phew ~~ what a weekend for me...

But i felt very pround of myself for able to "handle" this "project" becoz i was always being known as "the weak"est" one at home " and never able to solve any issue regarding my two previous... kekee. I AM A PROUD MUMMY..

I guess the morale of the story is that, we really have to be persistent/firm when solving the child's behaviour issue. We gotta let them know that what's the correct way of doing something..