{"id":3736,"date":"2003-04-04T08:24:47","date_gmt":"2003-04-04T13:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3736"},"modified":"2003-04-04T08:24:47","modified_gmt":"2003-04-04T13:24:47","slug":"thump_thump_thu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/04\/thump_thump_thu.html","title":{"rendered":"Thump-thump-thump"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Lileks is having problems getting Gnat to stay in her room and go to sleep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This magic dust stuff isn\u2019t working. Little Miss Peripatetic was up a half-dozen times last night. I\u2019d leave my studio and find her standing in the hall like something from a spooky movie where the Sensitive, Preternaturally Attuned Child recognizes that the minions of hell are swirling around the house. I\u2019d guide her back to bed, explain why she had to sleep, get a solemn assurance that she would indeed float off on the tides of Lethe, and I\u2019d go downstairs. As soon as I was under her room I\u2019d hear the little feet hit the floor above. Repeat until dawn.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I hear that. It’s still <\/i>a constant struggle between Us and Kitten. We wheedle. We kiss. We cajole. We harangue. We look sad. We exact promises. We tell her we’ll lock her door. We actually do <\/i>lock the door (more on that in a bit).<\/p>\n

Makes no difference. If she can exit her room, come down the stairs, peer at life in the family room from the landing, toddle further down and greet us with joy and happiness, then she will.<\/p>\n

She seems to clearly understand that Mommy & Daddy don’t care for this behavior. She knows she’ll be punished. There doesn’t seem to be anything she wants in particular, except to be up, to be with us, to watch TV, and to not go to sleep.<\/p>\n

Rrg.<\/p>\n

Margie and I agree that Katherine will not be one of those kids who gets to stay up until they fall asleep. Not good for the kid, not good for the parents.<\/p>\n

But I’m growing uncomfortable with locking her in her room. Too many whispery echoes of child abuse stories come to mind. I feel uncomfortable saying <\/i>it’s something we do. <\/p>\n

(Usual mode: we give her a bath, we put her to bed, we read her a story, we say good night, we go downstairs, she gets up in between one and sixty minutes, she toddles downstairs, we chide her and take her back up, we repeat the last three steps between one and five times before we lock the door, we eventually go to bed, we unlock her door on the way so she can get up in the morning and come say hi to Mommy and\/or Daddy.) <\/p>\n

Rrg.<\/p>\n

We’ve tried to teach her if there’s something she wants, she can knock on her door. She does this. Sometimes.<\/p>\n

We’ve tried leaving the door open a crack, so that she doesn’t feel the need to test it to see if it’s open. She only complains that it’s “too loud” and she comes downstairs anyway.<\/p>\n

I don’t mind that she’s not immediately drifting off. I do mind that she’s not staying in her room.<\/p>\n

And, yes, she’s only almost-three. But I still worry about warping her. (“You see, doctor, they used to lock me in my room! It was horrible!”) And I think that 7-7:30p is a perfectly reasonable bed time for her, since she gets up these days at 6a or so, and only intermittently takes naps.<\/p>\n

Ah, for the days of laudanum …<\/p>\n

Just kidding. But I’d settle for some magic dust that worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Lileks is having problems getting Gnat to stay in her room and go to sleep. This magic dust stuff isn\u2019t working. Little Miss Peripatetic was up a half-dozen times…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parenting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":398,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/22\/single_dad.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":0},"title":"Single Dad","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Apr-03 7:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"Kitten crashed pretty easily last night, protests notwithstanding. She gave a single squawk around 3, when the milk man came. Around five, she woke again, and complained (via baby monitor)...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1070,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/19\/mistakes.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":1},"title":"Mistakes","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Oct-01 12:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd like to think this is just one of those chain-of-mistakes sort of things You know. Someone writes a wrong number on a blue print. Someone else forgets to lock...","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6152,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/05\/06\/more_than_meets.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":2},"title":"More than meets the eye","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 6-May-04 1:11pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As has long been known in the legal and justice system, eyewitnesses see a lot less than they think. Indeed, as a survival mechanism, we tend to see or notice...","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Nature"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Nature","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/12\/no_more_bugs.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":3},"title":"No More Bugs","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 12-Jul-03 11:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"Alas, the last factory manufacturing Volkswagen Beetles -- the real kind, not the fancy-schmancy ones done up here in the States for the past few years -- is soon to...","rel":"","context":"In "Cars"","block_context":{"text":"Cars","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/cars"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31752,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/12\/tweets-from-2012-12-12-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":4},"title":"Tweets from 2012-12-12","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 12-Dec-12 9:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"RT @BassoonCPA: RT @moorehn: So, we're back to religious figures handing down statements on tablets. Link (@AFP) # RT @SandyBoynton: 12\/12\/12 This is the last time in this century M\/D\/Y are identical. Watch for my witty followup tweet on Jan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31479,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/25\/fearing-moderation.html","url_meta":{"origin":3736,"position":5},"title":"Fearing moderation","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 25-Nov-12 3:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Obama campaign was much more worried that John Huntsman would get the nomination than that Romney would. \u00a0The reason is obvious -- most of the Right would have held their nose to vote for a Republican moderate, and much of the middle might well have chosen Huntsman over Obama.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}