Helping Kids Cope with Covid Stay-at-Home
Parent Q&A
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Pre-schooler Sleep Issues During Fires, Covid
–Sep 14, 2020I’m looking for feedback on whether your kids are struggling with sleep right now. Has it become erratic? What’s helping you?
We moved at the start of the pandemic and my child is in her own room, for the first time. It’s close to ours, but she’s really stumbled with both going to sleep and sleeping through the night. Bad dreams, or not enough excercise, especially this week stuck inside. Many times, when she wakes, she’s up from 3am.. til 6am. This has been hard.
We’ve used melatonin to get her to sleep so she’s not taking 2-3 hours to fall asleep. We’ve done sleep training throughout her life. But she’s particularly scared of fires (first really bad dream here was about fires in her school, many months ago :(. We don’t want to over use melatonin, nor do we want to be so severe in sleep training during this time, but open to what makes sense. We’ve let her have books in bed to cycle down, or slept by her bed or have her come in with us, with a really bad dream or night. We want to stop a lot of that within reason but with these times, it’s felt like the best thing in the moment.
We’re struggling with whether to be just plain rigorously consistent in never staying there or letting her in bed, no books, and only check in’s (like extinction method), or perhaps continuing to really meet the trauma needs and knowing this is a long game, and offshoot because of this hard season. Thankfully, she’s a pretty well adjusted in this time, although beyond bored this week (no matter the exercise, obstacle course, etc).
Really want her to get good rest, and us too. It’s been hard.
Thanks for what’s worked for you.
Sep 14, 2020Help with my world-class whiner
–Jul 2, 2020This is ironic because I spent years and a small fortune trying to have my daughter, but I don’t think hate is too strong a word for how I feel towards her these days. The problem in a nutshell is her interminable whining. It feels like 80-90% of her interactions involve whining. We’ve tried counting her, ignoring it, emotional coaching, positive discipline, labeling feelings, but are increasingly turning into people we don’t like when we look in the mirror... yelling, avoiding her, glowering at her, just turning and walking away.
Yes, there are moments of joy (she was an angel at 3) but they currently don’t outweigh the dread I feel ten minutes before she wakes up in the morning. It’s all downhill from there. She’ll wake up bawling, because she “doesn’t want to be alone“ when I’m feeding the baby in the other room. Then I’ll ask her to get dressed and she’ll flatly refuse “No.” Then she’ll whine when I pick an outfit, and cry when I tell her to pick out her own. She’ll fall to the floor when I tell her to get dressed to join us for breakfast... “I can’t!” I don’t give in but she has nevertheless adopted a feigned helplessness. She’ll sometimes purposely trip while walking to garner sympathy. Just now she dropped the iPad saying it was “too heavy.” She has this annoying, high-pitched “damsel in distress” tone she defaults to, even though we’ve asked her a hundred times to use her “regular voice.”
Teachers say they haven’t seen this side of her. We stayed with grandparents for 3 months during lockdown and even in their infinite patience noted they were disturbed by her bad behavior. I was mortified when she covered her ears when they advised her not to put her fingers in her mouth or scowl at them. Tell her not to show food in her mouth and she’ll squint at you and do it defiantly. Tell her to potty before a car trip and she’ll fight you tooth and nail. Twenty minutes after picking at her lunch she’ll whine that she “wants to eat something” and then repeat it for half an hour. Ask her to take a deep breath and she’ll whine “I don’t want to!” Show any interest in a song that’s playing, and she’ll sing the ABC song over it. Say it’s bedtime and she’ll run away, making you chase her down. Get her in bed and she’ll whine “I don’t want to sleep!” until she wakes up the baby. She doesn’t stay in bed, either. At her new post-reopening preschool the boys there chased her with a toy knife and called her cry baby. Frankly I had no sympathy left, and instead thought to myself that that sounds about right.
Is this normal? A sign of teenage years to come? Or is she getting it out of her system? It wasn’t like this pre-COVID but we also had her in preschool full-time so were able to actually enjoy the few hours we had as a family each night.
Jul 2, 2020Where to go for kids to ride a bike
–May 3, 2020I do not mean to offend anyone.
We have strictly adhered to social distancing. I have not even taken kids out for a walk and we rely 100% on contactless delivery.
When I tend to the front yard, I wear a mask.
I am sad that my kid learned to ride a bike a week before the SIP order and his shiny new bike is sitting in the garage. He’s wobbly and isn’t a proficient rider yet. He keeps asking when he can go out and ride his bike again...
We used to go to a local elementary school to practice riding. I think it’s closed now.
Is there a good place to go to practice bike riding in Oakland/Berkeley/Alameda or do we just need to be more patient?
We don’t have flat streets in our neighborhood to practice riding. Seriously regretting buying a house on a hill...
May 3, 2020My daughter's birthday party got cancelled this spring (like many many others) and she is understandably very sad over it. Family is sending gifts to open on her birthday over video conference and she will get a song from family over video conference but it is not the same. I want to get her a gift or several to make the birthday more special since she cannot get her normal big party and won't get the usual many gifts from friends. Any ideas of something special to get an 8 year old girl to cheer her up. I want something more special than usual but as our usual gifts are outings or tickets to shows/event (which are no longer an option now and I don't want her to wait unknown amount of time to get to enjoy her gift) I cannot think of anything to get her now and she is not really into any of her toy sets so adding to a collection is not an option either. She has a lot of activities continuing over zoon and is over it so adding another cool activity over zoom is not an option. I was considering getting her own ipad but not sure I want to have the argument about limiting screen-time when the device is hers though her own device is tempting with all the school work lately and i cannot think of anything else. I know this is such a first world problem at this point but I really want to cheer up my little girl on her birthday. Any ideas? I know many birthday parties are cancelled so figured others might have done something special as well and maybe there is something big I'm missing.
Apr 22, 2020Explaining pandemic to your young child(ren)
–Apr 16, 2020Hi BPN folks, hope everyone is finding ways to stay safe, healthy and supportive/be supported in this crazy time. Up until now, I have not really 'questioned' how I was explaining the pandemic to my toddler and preschool kids. I have been saying that there is a virus and that a lot of people are falling sick, so we must wash our hands and be careful not to touch our faces. Sometimes they will catch a glimpse of the news if I have it on, but I try not to have it on too much in their presence (anyway, they already get a lot of screen time these days!). When they clamor to go outside or see their friends, I tell them we have to stay home because a lot of people are sick (it's a bit like a broken record). When they see me with a mask outside, I tell them this is so that other people won't get sick. However, I have a friend who has chosen not to tell her school-age kids anything (they are all under 9) because they get very worked up and anxious - a choice that obviously fit her family better. It also prompted me to wonder though - how are other people managing to explain to their children what is going on and the reasons for the huge adjustments they've had to make? How do you balance telling a child about grave matters and the fear/anxiety that would surely arise from that? I have not noticed a huge difference in the behavior of my kids, but I just wonder what they must be thinking/feeling.
Apr 16, 2020
Hi there,
I’m so sorry to hear about these sleep struggles! I’d highly recommend consulting with a professional sleep coach - we’ve used Darrah Torres of Sleep Wise Consulting in the past and she’s been incredible. Any bumps in the road, I always go back to her. https://sleepwiseconsulting.com/
Good luck!
Beth
Ugh, I’m sorry! This is such a tough one. My daughter went through the same around 3 when we moved her into a bed. Up for hours in the MOTN, often with tantrums. Every night for months, without fail. Our younger son was 6 months at the time so we were desperate for sleep and tried everything, sleep training wise. What eventually worked was a combination of several things, and I think also just passing through the phase (although I will say, she’s almost 5 now and still up 2-3 times a week but they’re usually brief wake ups unless we’re traveling or she’s sick- but in general much easier to deal with). Like you described, we struggled with whether we should just give in and lay with her every night or do some sort of sleep training. We did both for awhile which didn’t work. Finally we asked her what she needed to feel ok in the night and over a couple weeks she came up with: a special buddy (stuffed animal), soft blanket, sleeping with one of my t-shirts, a nightlight, and a light on in the hallway. I also told her she could call out one time for reassurance but no more after that. We also did a reward chart- the first couple nights when she finally slept through I gave her a little treat in the morning for immediate gratification and a sticker towards a larger goal (picking out a toy). I know, this sounds like a million things and maybe overindulgent, and it probably was, but we were all desperate for sleep and basically not functioning- I was sick for 3 months straight during the worst of it due to exhaustion! Anyway, involving her in the process seemed to help and at least gave us a little more insight into her mind during this whole ordeal. Good luck, and I really hope you get some rest soon! Oh, we also got her an ok to wake clock and explained how important sleep is for our bodies/minds- I got a few picture books on the topic too- the llama llama goodnight one was good at that age.