Gaby's behaviour lately has been VERY challenging (when she's not being adorable, she's being a devil) - and I haven't really known how to deal with it - except using timeout - and that just doesn't work now... I was stupid and gave her the option of tidying up her books, or going to timeout - and she chose timeout.. of course! We're slowly getting on top of it, but when we take 2 steps forward, we seem to take another 1-5 back, and it's all getting a bit frustrating.
Bedtime is the worst for us - Gaby does everything she can to stay up a bit later, or to keep me in her room a bit longer, and all it leads to is her crying, and me getting grumpy... part of it is that she asks for about 10 blankets to be put on top of her, when she's in bed - she has plenty of blankets on her bed, but she is always asking for the extra's.. I give them to her, then check on her 20 minutes later & she's sweating her little booty off. I don't mind a couple of extra, but I don't want her overheating - and now that it's summer (well, spring) it's warmer at night. Maybe I'm just overly paranoid, due to Brodie dying of SIDS.. I don't know..
Last night the usual bedtime rigmaroule began, but rather than give in to her 'demands', I put all the blankets away, and told her she was to have one extra blanket. I tried to explain to her that too many blankets can make you too hot, and you can get sick, but I think she just thought I was being mean. She kept grizzling & that's when it dawned on me.... Gaby knows who Santa is & what he's all about - so I could start using the 'if you're not a good girl, Santa won't come' threat.... I did it. I felt mean doing it. But it worked! She stopped grizzling, stopped crying, stopped whining. I explained to her about Santa's good vs bad lists, and that he's ALWAYS watching - and to be honest, I think that scared the bad behaviour out of her! We got up this morning & she put away all her toys that were on the floor, and has used manners whenever she's spoken to me...
Could it be that for 6 weeks of the year, I might have the 'upper hand', as far as her behaviour goes???! Wow!
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