I totally failed on my weak attempt to start writing in my blog again, sorry. I just don't know how you moms of little ones have the time. My boys don't let me leave their sight to do anything (not even go to the bathroom). Oh well.
I am writing today because I need some advice and know that you all will be able to help.
Cameron (well both boys actually) have recently been upgraded from their cribs to toddler beds. The transition went amazingly well. The "problem" is Cameron is waking up earlier than he used to. He still gets 10 hours of sleep at night and takes a 2 hour nap daily.
However, he has had bad reports coming home from school lately. The only thing that I can think of is that he is tired and therefore, acting out. He thinks doing things that are naughty are quite funny.
I must admit that I have been slacking a little bit in my consistent discipline with him as well and am hoping to be a little more routine with it.
My question is this, how do those of you who have 3 or 4 year olds with Down syndrome discipline? Does it work? I most often feel that Cameron doesn't get it and sometimes think, why bother trying.
What day is it, even?
3 years ago
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2 comments:
Lucy's almost three, and we do time outs with her. Sometimes it's just in her little chair in the living room and there is no "time" attached to it. The "shock" of the verbal reprimand and physical redirection tends to bring the message home. Brodie is 18 months and we've just started using the same technique with him. There have been times, with both of them, though, that they get a "real" time out...usually if they are aggressive with each other. I put Lucy in her crib for two minutes. (I've read the guideline is one minute per year of age.)
Aside from the discipline, we also recently had a problem with Brodie waking up too early. He's still in his crib so he stayed contained but he was getting up with the sun. As the days were getting longer, he was waking up earlier and earlier. We picked up room darkening curtains. I got them at Target for $15/panel. They are made specifically for kids' rooms and came in lots of different colors. He's now sleeping the schedule he used to!
Cameron's change may be that he would wake up when it got light out, but because he was contained in his crib, he either laid there quietly or went back to sleep. Now he's free! Ha! Maybe if you can keep him from waking in the first place, you'll see his happy, good-boy self re-emerge! Good luck!!
We do a variety of things with Braska. She doesn't get the idea of time out as far as sitting in a place for a period of time, and I've never been a big fan, so we do alot of firm talking, short concise reprimand, and loss of privileges/toy/removing her from the area, all depending on what has happened. If she has been blatently mean, she may get put in her crib for a few minutes with no toys. That's about as close to time out as we get. She doesn't mind this at all, so it's not really an effective correction.
The key with Braska has been the consistency. Like 100% consistency---which is SO hard. But if we give in one time, it seems she loses all the concept she had of what was expected. So we spend alot of time enforcing what rules we have set as priority. (No hitting or pushing your sister, you can't stand right in front of the TV, etc.) I will say that Braska has always been very compliant, and we started the consistent thing when she was a very small baby. So we've not had huge challenges, but she has been showing more signs of testing the boundaries lately, kind of showing that she's 3 and knows it! :o)
This stuff is hard, no way around it... Courtney had great thoughts about the curtains. Hope you can find something that works for him!
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