I'm Going To Need About 4 More Hours A Day

Oh man. I am so behind on my updates. I want to continue with the Labor Day weekend post because we had such a good time seeing friends there. The thing is, Avery has decided to turn into a Difficult Child at bedtime and our nights have gotten way more complicated. Any advice you want to give is very welcome.

Here's the rundown.

My normally very consistent, routine-driven child is changing the rules in the middle of the game. Rather than watching about 15-20 minutes of Barney and then turning the TV off herself, she is freaking out when the timer goes off and refusing to move.

And then instead of leading the way into her room so we can read 2 books before we rock in her chair and then go to bed, she screams and kicks from her chair in the living room until we have to pick her up and take her to her room. Meanwhile, she wakes up Jack with all the screaming, which doesn't stop once we are in her room.

After that we usually don't read any books at all because that is her "punishment" which just serves to further escalate the situation. Even on the nights that she does get a book or two she still freaks out when we are done and refuses to go down quietly.

Then we are just in for more screaming, kicking, crying, and thrashing around. Matt and I usually leave the room and then we can hear her talking/crying/whining/calling out to us on her monitor for another 45 minutes to an hour.

It's lovely. It really is.

So that leaves me with about an hour less at night to get my own things done. It has really thrown me off. I can't even manage to keep our room clean because of it. ha!

I just keep hoping tomorrow night will be better but so far, it just hasn't been.