A phase that he is going through at the moment, is thinking he is the parent and he is in charge. If dinner is cooked to his satisfaction, he says “well done mummy, good girl”. This makes me smile so much. However this new phase has a more challenging aspect. When I decide I need a bit of me time in the evenings, to catch up on rubbish TV and maybe relax with a glass of wine, he will decide that I am not allowed to do this. I cuddle him to sleep every night and then I will go downstairs to watch TV or read a book, whatever. But, no , this is no longer an option for me as he has forbidden it. Now when I try to army crawl out of bed as soon as I think he is asleep, he will wake up, and demand that I stay in bed and that I am not allowed to go downstairs to watch TV. He has also told me on numerous occasions that I am not allowed out in the evenings with my friends. I think I have actually done this twice so far this year and on those nights he decided he wasn’t going to sleep and he stayed awake in protest telling his dad that he will wait for me to come home before he goes to sleep. Its lovely that he loves me so much so its all worth it. The way to deal with this kind of behaviour would be a warning that this is going to take place. Maybe a few days notice , I find counting on my fingers usually works as its very visual. It works a bit like this ……….”mummy home”, “mummy home”, “mummy out”. If this doesn’t work, a visual timetable could be useful showing the dates that you want to go out, or an egg timer, to count down to the moment when you are escaping for wine and TV. If all else fails you could try either just surrendering or worse still, banning chicken nuggets for a week !.
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