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Showing posts with label advice needed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice needed. Show all posts

Saturday, January 25, 2014

help.

I've been neglecting my blog so much lately. I don't know why, it's such a great record of our family life and is immensely helpful when I make our family yearbooks! 
So I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging more, just my daily thoughts and whatevs.
And I'll start with this post.
I need help.
Major, major help.
Juno is three. Until a few months ago, she slept from about 7:30-8:30 and took a 2-3 hour nap every day. Then, all at once, she dropped her nap and started waking up at 6 am every day. So she dropped 4+ hours of sleep pretty much overnight.
Most days she doesn't really need a nap (she can get by without one) and she still naps inconsistently--maybe twice a week. But getting up at 6 is really hard on the whole family. She won't play quietly in her room, so I spend the 6-7 hour getting up every 15 minutes and telling her to be quiet, leave her sisters alone, etc. We've tried putting a door lock on her doorknob so she just can't come out, but she can still open the door with it on.
I'm not totally opposed to getting up at 6 because at this point, my body now thinks that 6 is the time to wake up so I am not super tired, but it just makes the day so long. The only thing I can think of to do with her at that time is to watch tv and since she doesn't nap anymore, I need her to save her tv hours for midday when I need a break. Getting up for the day at 6 makes our days 1000% longer. It somehow adds way more time to fill than just an hour, I don't know why. It's really tough. I'm especially worried about how that would work when school gets out for the summer and I don't have anywhere to send my kids at 8:30. 
So, that's my first problem: how on earth do I readjust my expectations to starting my day at 6 am? What can we do that early in the morning??
My second problem is quiet time/naptime. 
I absolutely have to have 2 hours to myself in the middle of the day. It is necessary for my mental health and the well-being of my children. It will only get more important when I have a newborn in 3 months. Unfortunately, I have a really hard time relaxing when Juno is awake because I worry about what I will find when I come back downstairs. She's not the best about just watching tv and not destroying things. Also, her sister Helena is a bottomless pit who thinks you have to eat while you watch tv and will come in my room and ask me for a snack every 20 minutes of our 2 hour quiet time. I don't want her to eat a snack while she watches because a) it will be a huge mess that I have to clean up and b) she will still expect a snack at 3:00.
How can I make my kids quietly watch tv for 2 hours without constantly coming in and bugging me? Is 2 hours just too long? Do I need to readjust my expectations to 1 hour?
Please, throw advice at me. I am really stressing about how I will handle a newborn when I am getting up so early and not having a good mommy break during the day!