Today I had another highly depressing conversation with another professional – well, a charity worker (are they professionals? I lose track) – about what help I need to look after my daughter. I find these conversations rather trying, because the first part of the conversation is always the same – and always very depressing. They want to go through all the behaviours and foibles of your child that you find difficult. So you have to recount all the battles you have, every time, and because you never talk to the same person twice – or they are so overworked they can’t remember what you said the last time – it doesn’t matter how many times you talk to an organisation, they always do this.
Today, it got to me and in a moment of pique, I threw my toys and basically said “don’t call me, I will call you”. I love my daughter, I love her more than life, and sometimes she is all that keeps me going. I find the neverending recounting of her personality quirks (I refuse to call them faults) heartbreaking and distressing. I feel that all these people have completely the wrong idea about her.
They hear ‘autistic’ and picture a screaming, violent daemon in a child’s body. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she has her moments.. but they don’t seem to grasp that she has a smile that lights up the world and a heart of gold. This little girl, who is still trying to decipher the world she is in, will bring you a blanket if she finds you napping on the couch. She will offer her last sweet or crisp to you. She kisses your ‘owwies’ better and treats them with antiseptic cream (no, she WILL kiss them better and treat them with cream, you don’t get a say in the matter). My darling daughter leaves the house in the morning for school only after telling her daddy she will miss him and giving him one last hug, even though she struggles to form the words. And wants ‘big hugs’ the moment she’s back, too.
Yet I sit and listen to call after call telling me she’s ‘pre-verbal’, ‘non-toileted’ and ‘routine driven’ like this is the sin of a century for a 4 year old. I get it, she’s not in standard parameters, and she is hard work because she has no sense of danger. Believe me, I know, most lemmings have more survival instincts than she does. But she is improving: she now looks before jumping off the staircase. We can now ask her what she wants to watch, and at least she understands the question.
If all you are going to do in these phone calls is list what you see as her negative attributes, then ask me what support you can give me (seriously, how would I know what I need that you can give, I’m not psychic) and then promise to call back in 2 weeks to do the same thing again, the biggest thing you can do for me is sod right off.
It’s been a voyage of discovery raising our daughter. And not just learning about her, either. We have sat in meetings with professionals whilst they assess her behaviour, and been shocked by the statements they have made. Being told that behaviours that you thought were perfectly normal are actually ‘stereotypical’ for a specific condition has raised some eyebrows: both my husband and I have responded “but I did that!”
It seems that the penny has been in the air for quite some time – around 40 years in our case – but it is becoming more and more apparent that there is a strong hereditary aspect to her autism. The only difference is that we are committed to making sure that our fae doesn’t feel like she needs to conform, nor pretend to be something she is not. After so many years of faking it, both my husband and myself are very adept at it, but the mental toll is astronomical.
I taught for 12 years (I may have mentioned this before once or twice!) I fell into teaching because I ended up doing a degree in the sciences. I don’t regret my degree, but I absolutely regret taking advice from a well-intentioned but misguided parent who insisted that I would be lonely if I took a career in writing, which would have been my preference. So, I ended up teaching. It was exhausting! I was good at it, don’t get me wrong, but the constant social interaction burned through my reserves twice as fast as anything else.
Every night I collapsed and needed a nap before attempting paperwork. I could never understand how my colleagues had the energy to go out to the pub, clubs or even stay up and watch TV. I had no life outside the classroom and paperwork. I never seemed to find a balance. A room (or café – I’m very fond of working in cafés providing I can have noise cancelling ear plugs!) and a keyboard, and I’m very happy. I only have three real friends and they all live at the opposite end of the country to me – I chat online with them as and when I can. Apparently the total lack of want for actual human interaction is unusual, and for a lot of my family they can’t get it. I don’t want to talk to people.
I have been assigned a counsellor – they keep insisting all my ills will be cured if I would just, please, interact with the community. I tried; I went on a walk with 5 people who are supposedly in the same situation. They felt better, I needed to sleep for the rest of the day. I don’t want to be social, it’s too much. I can cope with my husband and my daughter, and that’s it. My husband is the same – it’s why he works from home. We are always in. All the delivery drivers and postmen now use us as a local delivery depot as we take in all parcels for the street.
I don’t understand why extroverted people think that introverts need ‘curing’. We don’t, but after years of faking it, you would be surprised how many people think that I’m loud, chatty and generally out-going. It took me until the birth of my daughter to realise that I was none of those things, and if I didn’t have alcohol to help the situation, all I wanted to do was go home and sleep.
So we’re weird, quiet, and have no interest in interacting with anyone most of the time; and that’s ok. And if my fae grows up to be the exact opposite, that’s ok too. The only thing she has to be is herself, and not pretend to be something she’s not.
I have been attempting to get fit. I have mentioned before, this is not out of some sense of high virtue, but rather in self-defense against my fae, who seems to see sleep as an option that frequently isn’t selected, and believes any illness or injury can be run off (you just need to run fast enough). To this end, I have joined a gym and bought a bike. The bike was an abject failure, the chain wouldn’t stay on and, whilst it looked cute, it didn’t manage any of the paths in my local area. So, sighing at my incompetence and despairing for my daughter, my parents bought me a second one, that was actually able to deal with the abuse I threw at it.
This turned out to be a life saver since, having joined the gym 4 months ago, I have managed to set foot in the place precisely 3 times. Once when I joined up, once for an induction with a rather unpleasant instructor who referred to me as ‘hon’ throughout the half hour we spent together (it was supposed to be an hour but instead of showing me anything she just waved in the direction of the weight section and muttered ‘there’s some weight machines over there’). Turned out she referred to me as ‘hon’ because she didn’t bother to remember my name, and wanted a shower more than to show me round. The last time I went, I tried to work out but found that I couldn’t find anything, on account of not really being inducted properly.
I have been cycling more often, though, and am now a fully paid-up member of the Strava cult. I know what a KOM and QOM are, and I chase PRs to the detriment of my safety. It also means that I can now tow my daughter on her bike to the lakeside cycle path, so she can practise cycling in a safe place without worrying about cars or noise. The downside is, the lake area has a play park, so she thinks I tow her there so she can play on the big slide for a bit. Then tow her home again. One of us has the wrong idea. At the moment it’s a toss up which one but I know who spends the most time on the slide…
So, I have been very remiss over the past two weeks at updating this blog. I can only ascribe this to a need for routine. I fear I may have become slightly institutionalised since the birth of my fae, and now that she has started school, I find myself at a loose end and unable to cope with the hours of free time.
I am also not good at getting anything started, knowing full well that in a matter of a few short hours (well 6) I will need to be back at the collection point. So, by the time I have returned home I have lost half an hour; breakfast and a cuppa and another half hour has disappeared. It takes half an hour to return to the school… well, not really, but my brain operates in half hour intervals of time so I have to make sure I have at least this much to go get her. This isn’t helped by her often being out early (very early; school official finishes at 3:10 but she is often waiting with an LSA for me at 3). So an hour and half is already accounted for so I’m down to 4.5 hours.. which my brain tells me isn’t a day’s worth of time, and therefore it’s not worth starting anything.
I have recently started to enjoy going out on my bike (something that I never in a million years thought would happen) but this also eats another hour of time plus a half hour shower. So 3 hours left. By the time I have finished browsing the internet, completing a Spanish lesson and generally procrastinating, I have minutes to drag myself out the door to fetch her.
I don’t know what school dismissal in ‘normal’ schools is like… that’s a lie, actually, I worked long enough to know: it’s like the final scene in an epic jailbreak, complete with screaming and inmates clambering over each other in their attempts to scale the fences before they are brought down by the wardens. The only difference being that in school, the teachers are often desperately leading the charge rather than slowing it down.
At my daughter’s school, things are more organised, as a fleet of transport buses arrive as one, allowing members of staff to allocate the correct students, their accompanying adults, and equipment to each vehicle. It looks like chaos, but as every child seems to make it the correct destination, one assumes there is logic to it.
Children who are being met at the school by a guardian stand with a classroom attendant by one of the four numbered doors that lock automatically. I have seen prisons that would envy the security measures here. Her school is designated a special school: at the end of the day, I am assailed simultaneously by relief that she attends a place that will keep her safe, and dismay that it is necessary. I feel a touch of Imposter Syndrome, as other students have needs that physically significantly outweigh hers and I wonder if she is keeping a more worthy or more in need child from a place – I know they are over-subscribed.
Then I remember that she is not toilet trained, she barely speaks and couldn’t follow a rule to draw a straight line. I have to remind myself (or be reminded) that just because others’ needs may be more extreme, it doesn’t diminish what she needs as well.
The lack of places is not my fault. The fact that she has a place because I know who I need to talk with to make that happen, I have the time and determination to do it, and the ability to navigate the education and health care services successfully to get the support she needs.. is also not my fault. I am writing the blog to try and help those who don’t have those skills, but need them, do the same. It makes me cross that the game is rigged, regardless that I can play it well. Every child should get the support they need. It should not be down to the ability of parent to know the inside track through the maze of paperwork and agencies that you have to fight with to get that support.
I digress. The reason I haven’t updated is that our routine has been up in the air. Apparently I don’t function well without a stable routine. I may need to look into getting my own neuro-divergent behaviour assessed.
Have you ever played one of those infuriating games where, for no apparent reason you have to unlock the green chest with the red key that you got from the one-eyed wizard to retrieve the amulet to make the cat talk so you can get the directions to the hidden forest to save the baby snake from the fire?
Lunch in our house is a lot like that. It can take over two hours to feed our daughter as she becomes fixated on anything other than eating. At the moment it’s ice lollies. She won’t be placated by the idea of a lolly after lunch, she wants it now. Despite being told repeatedly that if she would only eat the food that she asked for then she could have the sodding ice lolly: she refuses. Any attempt to dissuade her from her course to the freezer is met with fierce resistance.
She spent half an hour trying to get to the freezer, banging the table, shouting, and screaming. When this achieved nothing (it never does) she gave up and sulked, so we wiped her down and moved on. After two renditions of Baby Shark (which I believe is against the Geneva Convention) I suggested that we all ate in an effort to encourage her – “monkey see, monkey do” type of thing. Keen to do anything other than watch another rendition of overly-cheerful sea creatures bop along with the top predator, my husband agreed.
Which led to stage one of our mad game – have you got a ball? You need a ball. The ball is used to coax the reluctant fae along the floor into the kitchen – diner. If you don’t roll the ball into the room she won’t come happily. If she isn’t happy, then she won’t eat. So you need a ball. Stage two: you need crisps, any crisps will do but in this case salt and vinegar (apparently, they go well with chocolate hazelnut spread). The crisps are so your fae can alternate between eating her lunch and your lunch, which is apparently the way to eat today.
Stage three: remember that fidget octopus she has? Well you need it now, as without it you have nowhere to store the ball. If you can’t store the ball, it will be rolled around the table getting in everyone’s food. So stuff the ball in the octopus. Yes, it looks pregnant, but whatever. Finally, reheat the food. Because after an hour or so it’s stone cold and Fae creatures won’t eat cold food.
So the final score to get our child to eat the meal she asked for, we needed: a golf ball; microwave; two hours; and a small silicon octopus. And an ice lolly to follow.
Funny old world isn’t it?
Anyone else had issues like this? Please share I would love to hear it!
So my Fae is – as I guess a lot of such children are – entitled to transport, supplied by the council, to and from school. This is because she requires extra support, as she has a tendency to Houdini herself out of any harness or seatbelt; has no sense of danger; and can be a bit of a nightmare if she puts her mind to it.
So, over the summer we received our letter informing us of such things, because the school our child is going to attend seems incredibly competent and orgisned it for us. We dutifully filled in our part of the paperwork, sent it back, and all seemed fine and dandy. That was until last week, when a strange man with no identification knocked on our door.
Waving a list of children’s names and addresses at us, he gruffly enquired if this one was ours. Taken aback by this sudden intrusion, it took me a moment to regain my wits and ask him (a) Who the hell he thought he was and (b) Why did he have my daughter’s details?
Speaking as though I was an idiot for not knowing, he blithely said he was the driver for school transport. He did not offer a name, nor variation of this. He told me he would be picking her up on Monday at 8am. When I informed him that she didn’t start school until Friday, and even then we would not be starting her on transport until later, as she was autistic and would find this too much – something we had arranged with both transport and the school – he scoffed, made a circling gesture with his hand next to his head and said in a knowing tone “Oh a bit like that is she?”.
….
….
He was lucky I was too shocked to recover fast enough to do anything but shut the door. Needless to say, my daughter is not going on transport and we have lodged a complaint. This is not acceptable. No child should be subjected to such an attitude, and no parent should feel the need to defend their child against such ignorance. The failure to keep confidential information safe is illegal; the failure to react courteously regarding a child’s needs is a strike against child protection and the disabilities act.
The scoffing refusal to introduce oneself when arriving unannounced at a stranger’s house is a failure of common manners. This man has no business being anywhere near children, vulnerable or otherwise.
As I type the council has not responded, I will keep you informed should they do.
So on the 29th of September I got a response! but not from the transport but from ACT. Act is a different department in the council set up to help parents with children with disabilities. I wasn’t reassured when I sent them the same email that the automated response said they would get back to me by January 2022 but I felt I had nothing to lose. THey apologised for the driver and asked for his name (missing I sense the bit where I said he did not intriduce himself) and giving me a form to fill in for expenses. Not really promising but still I filled in the form reiterated everything I knew about the driver – pointing out a bit of basic detection the thier part would identify him and sent it back.
I guess it will be another few weeks before anythign else happens.
There are times that, like it or not, your fae needs to do what you tell them. This can cause conflict: if they have PDA (pathological demand avoidance) tendencies, it can be impossible, or at least very difficult. I have some suggestions for how to get your way with your fae child, some of these come from what works for my daughter (that we’ve made up as we went) but most are adapted from my time as a teacher. You would be surprised at how much overlap there is.
Firstly no matter how tempting it is, and no matter how near you may be at the end of your tether, don’t shout if at all possible. This is for a number of reasons: if you continually shout, it loses its effectiveness – ‘mummy always shouts so I will ignore her’ – or worse it will be seen as funny. Either way, what happens is: they ignore you; and you become more frustrated. Shouting doesn’t work.
Offer choices where you get what you want with either option selected; are THEY putting their shoes and socks on; or are YOU helping them? Either way they end up with their shoes and socks on, it doesn’t really matter how it happens.
Leave plenty of time. There is nothing worse than the added pressure of a deadline, whether it’s getting to school or catching a bus. If you know that they need to be ready by a certain moment, leave time to get them there.
Give warnings of change of activity, it doesn’t have to be 5 mins every time, but give some notice; make it clear and concise; and walk away after. Don’t respond to shouts of NO or protests. They know it’s happening, responding to the protest makes them think they can negotiate it. The idea is to make the clock the enemy, not you. ‘We have to leave in 2 mins, time’s up, nothing I can do’.
If there are tasks that your child really doesn’t like but needs to be done (for our daughter, it’s nappy changes) turn it into a competition. We race our daughter to the bathroom: she loves to win, and then she is happy to have the change done now she’s there. We may also compete to see who can finish dinner first, or get to her fork first – she always wins, but then she eats her dinner.
Use ‘when-and-then’ statements. It puts the onus on them to do what you want e.g. “when you put your socks and shoes on, then we can go to the park”. Be clear on what they need to do for you to get the outcome they want.
Warn of consequences that you can follow through on. Never threaten something that you can’t do. We learnt early on that time outs were not the way to go with our daughter, and the punishment had to fit the crime. Where possible, we give her time to change her behaviour (obviously if what she is doing is dangerous, this isn’t possible) I give her a slow countdown from 5. This is enough for her to weigh her options.
If possible, offer a choice; do you want to hold mummy’s hand or daddy’s hand? I don’t care whose hand she holds, so long as she is holding one or the other. It gives her some sense of control over events but also keeps her safe.
Focus on outcomes not methods – what are you trying to achieve? Does it matter how you get them to wear their seatbelt, so long as they do wear it? Do you really care if their clothes are on back to front and inside out, so long as they put them on?
Regardless of how they externally portray them (or don’t), your fae feels emotions deeply: they take things to heart, so take care with how you speak to them; if they are melting down or upset they may need you to name the emotion for them. Give them the words, let them know it’s ok to be angry or frustrated or sad;let them know you understand why they feel that way; and show them how to deal with it in a healthy way. Above all, be calm: you are their anchor, and if you get angry or distressed, then they are going to be adrift.
Your child is a small human and needs to be treated with respect. That doesn’t mean they get to do what they like, when they like; all children need boundaries. Those boundaries need to be firmly enforced: the harder they test it, the more you need to hold it. If you let them break them, or they can’t find any, then children feel very unsafe and their behaviour becomes more outrageous. Be firm but fair: children don’t need to be insulted or scared into behaving, and they certainly shouldn’t be hit or smacked. Smacking a child doesn’t teach respect, it teaches fear and that is not useful in the long run.
It’s funny how one small thing can screw up what was otherwise a damn fine day.
I suppose at this point it would be wise to explain about Bubble. Bubble is a small, green triceratops with a monobrow and a loose thread round his neck. Don’t ask me why he’s called Bubble, I have no idea. My daughter named him (and it is a him, I have been informed quite forcefully). Bubble is one of what we call the ‘bedtime posse’. She has – as I am sure many children, both neurodivergent and neurotypical do – a large collection of plushies that she insists on sleeping with. They include every member of the Paw Patrol (two Chase’s, one with a nightlight), a small reversible octopus call ‘Coba’, Professor Inkling (from the Octonauts; the rest of the crew live in the family room as I drew the line at another 8 characters joining in); a small stuffed dalmatian called ‘Tiny Marshall’; and Bubble. Out of this menagerie, only three leave her room – Tiny Marshall who goes *everywhere* with her (he’s very important; Pro life tip: if your child has a very special toy, have multiple copies in case one gets lost or mislaid. We have 5 Tiny Marshall’s); Professor Inkling goes to the family room to visit the other Octonauts; and Bubble comes down to read in the evening.
Last night, we couldn’t find Bubble. This was beyond a crisis: instead of a calm bedtime routine of doing jigsaws and reading, the time was spent tearing the house apart trying to find Bubble whilst my daughter plaintively cried for him in each room. We went through all the bedding in all the rooms; the cushions in the playroom; and dismantled the couch. Finally we gave up and hit the “break glass” and pulled the spare ‘Bubble’ from hiding. Unfortunately this was rejected. Unlike the ‘Tiny Marshall’s’ which are so similar that she can’t tell them apart, Bubble 2 didn’t have a loose thread or a monobrow.
I suggested we call him Bubble 2, and this was grudgingly accepted, but she still searched for OG Bubble in the family room. And then during reading time.. she managed to lose this Bubble too! She spent the rest of the time crying for both Bubbles and didn’t want to go to bed. It was exhausting. In the end she agreed to go up with “Big Bubble” (a somewhat bigger and more realistic triceratops that her grandparents bought her a few weeks ago.)
After she went to bed, instead of falling headfirst into a bottle of rum, I went back through the family room and found Bubble 2 (hidden in the back of the couch, go figure) but still no sign of OG Bubble.
We gave up. This morning, out of desperation, I pulled her bed apart. Literally: mattress off, bed away from the wall.. and finally found him! He was on the floor, squashed between the side and the wall (no idea how he got there). I also found the plushie Everest that I hadn’t even noticed she’d lost. It’s possible that she has too many soft toys….
Anyone else had their entire day trashed by something small? Please share in the comments!
Last week I didn’t write a post. This is because, like many of you, I am in the depths of the summer holiday. 6 weeks of freedom from routine and the humdrum of school and nursery life. For a lot of families this means the excitement of holidays in far flung places (or at least before Covid), lazy mornings and meeting friends. For most parents it’s a bit of a drag to entertain your youngling(s) throughout the time and wishing that flights were cheaper. If you have a fae child, however, it can be 6 weeks of meltdowns, tantrums, and frustration. They have just lost their regular daily routine, which is their safety net, overnight. This world of freedom robs them of many certainties they relied on. They can become very unsure, and this makes their behavior harder to manage.
My daughter is normally the happiest little thing you have ever seen, but for the past week she has run me ragged. I have tried to keep with her regular morning and bedtime routine, but inevitably there has been disruption. Firstly, her childminder hours have been reduced, she now goes twice a week rather than every weekday. She doesn’t understand why she doesn’t see the same friends there, as some are on holiday, and some are simply busy. Her grandparents came to visit – which for myself and my husband was a relief but, despite how much she loves seeing them it comes with a whole level of change. She thoroughly enjoyed her time with them, but after two days, she just wanted to hide in her room and cuddle on her bed all afternoon. It was important to her that either my husband or myself was with her, but we weren’t to interact with her, nor her games. It’s a difficult balance between supporting and smothering.
She has needed more sleep than normal to cope with the upheaval. We have had to reintroduce nap time, and she has been sleeping later in the morning – a real benefit, at least for us! Her eating has improved too: we had a ‘lightbulb’ moment where she would steal chips from my plate whilst ignoring the ones on hers. It finally occurred to us: the difference was that I had added salt to mine. So, in complete indifference to all known health advice, I started adding salt to her food. My husband also realized that all her food was, at best, lukewarm rather than hot; again, because I did start with the best of intentions on feeding my daughter the correct way. It turns out if you serve her lava with some salt on it, she will eat it. Who’da thunk?
Still, it is only the second week in August and I am fretting about school uniforms, pencil cases and book bags. I believe this must be a displacement activity, as every morning I wake up with a moment of blind panic about what we are going to do that day. So far I am trying to keep some semblance of normality, we go out in the morning and let her burn off the manic, and then chill out at home. We got her a new bike – her first with pedals (sidenote: teaching a non-verbal child to ride a bike is like some sort of bizarre game of charades with added metal contrivances). She spends the afternoons oscillating between being on her new bike and pleading to be allowed on her new bike.
This leads me to my current position, cooling down in my new gym’s café whilst trying to stave off a heart attack having worked out for the first time in four years. This is not penance but pragmatism; if she’s on a pedal bike, I’d better be fit enough to catch her on mine!
Our daughter has a bedtime routine. She will go to bed happily and stay there all night. On a good day she won’t get up until about 7am. On a bad day she’s up at 4am, on average she gets up somewhere between 5 and 6.
This was not something achieved without significant effort on our part. For over 2 years we fought tooth and nail until we found the right combination of naps, activities and routine to make it work. The key is to tailor the process to what works for you and your family and don’t alter it. There are timeframes and certain chores that must be done at set times and then stay rigidly consistent. Before deciding to start instigating a bedtime routine, sit down with a planner or a notepad and map out your week. Anything that happens in that week that absolutely cannot be moved fill in first. That includes such things as jobs / school / regular medical or therapy appointments etc. Next spend some time noting when your child gets tired in the evening, and is ready to be put to bed for the night. NOT when you want to put them to sleep, but when they actually sleep. If this is later than 10pm, then you need to consider shifting or eliminating their last nap of the day.
Once you have an idea of when you want to get your child in bed, you can work backwards. You want your evening routine to be consistent, regardless of whether it is term time or not. Consider that at some point, your child will be attending school, or factor in other children in the house already of school age. You may want to start sleep training during the summer holiday, when sleep deprived older siblings can catch up with lie ins, but that is entirely up to you.
Next make sure the room you are putting your fae into is conducive to sleep. Temperature should be ideally between 16 – 20°C: this may be harder to attain in summer. We actually bought air conditioning units to keep the rooms cool, but this is a luxury that a lot of people cannot afford. A standalone AC unit can be noisy and cost a few hundred pounds. To get integrated AC cost us the best part of £5000. I don’t regret a penny of it, but it is a lot of money, and not an option for a lot of people. You can get a good effect by using fans and placing a bag of ice in front of them (put a tray under the ice to catch run off) or spritzing curtains with water and using a fan to cool them. Ceiling fans are also a cheaper option but require a certified electrician to install them.
Temperature is a significant factor in getting your child to sleep easily. Our daughter can sleep through any noise – we used to walk her around the town in a chest sling to get her to sleep, and even sirens wouldn’t wake her. But being too warm would definitely do it. It’s also very dangerous for young children to overheat. Too hot is significantly more dangerous than too cold: children can snuggle up with bedding for warmth, and are likely to wake if they are too cold, whereas they can fall into a coma and suffer heat related illnesses when too hot.
Try to keep the room calm; keep the décor from being over stimulating; flashing and beeping toys should not be in their rooms overnight – this is a place to sleep, not play. Place loud and exciting toys elsewhere; a playroom or family room. They can, of course, have their favourite stuffed toys (our daughter has the entire Paw Patrol and, at last check, a couple of Octonauts had snuck in) but if it lights up, talks, blinks, beeps or has at any point made me want to launch it out the nearest window, it does not go in her bedroom.
Her room is painted in bland white and off-white shades; her duvet sets are mostly beige with a few characters from books or dinosaurs on them. Bright colours are for other places. It’s deliberately dull: there aren’t even any sheep to count because for her that would be too exciting – she loves numbers.
We spent several weeks planning how to tackle her sleep routine before starting, and once we began we didn’t stop. Commitment is key: if you show signs of weakness, they will sense it. We figured out that 8pm was the sweet spot – the time where she was mostly tired, without being so tired that she went manic. We worked out that baths excited her too much to be the last thing she does before bed, so our bedtime routine started when my husband stopped work. He has half an hour to play with her. They may go in the garden and throw a ball around, or just chill out watching TV and building forts in the living room while I prepare her dinner (apart from when her dad cooks). We eat at around 6:30, and by “we” I mean her father and myself eat. She will sit on the bench opposite and may or may not join us: she has a troubled relationship with food that makes it difficult to predict. I rarely make her anything unfamiliar, there is always something she likes on her plate. If she eats, I sigh in relief and internally dance for joy. If she doesn’t, I will try to hide my disappointment. It’s no good coercing or begging, it doesn’t work.
We always finish the meal by offering her a yoghurt and asking her if she wants ‘anything else’: this is to encourage her verbal skills. She normally counts to 3 to indicate she would like three chocolate buttons. She has been known to try it on, and count to ten with a cheeky grin, but she knows that three ( if she eats really well, 4) is the best she can hope for. After which we wipe her face and hands regardless of whether she needs it (it’s a signpost that she can leave the table) and head to the bath. She has recently got into the habit of brushing her own teeth, although much to my lament I have to sing ‘baby shark’ while she does it. If I stop singing, she stops brushing. Still life is about compromise. By the time the bath is full (and I have caterwauled through the last do-do-do) she is ready to get in. Bath time is also used to encourage language by naming body parts as she smashes a sponge into them: she tries to wash them herself but often needs a little help. Drying her off is most often achieved by chasing her around the bathroom while she hides under the towel pretending to be a ghost.
My husband will clear up from dinner at this point, while I create monstrosities from Lego with her, or complete jigsaws. At about 7:45pm we all curl on the couch and read from a selection of books. Her favourites are an illustrated version of “Rhyme of the ancient mariner” and Poe’s “The Raven” – both were bought as a bit of a joke, but she loves them. By 8 she is normally asleep or very close to. She has a signpost book, ‘Roaring Rockets’: we use it to say “time to sleep”, she uses it to indicate she wants to go to bed. Either way it’s the last book of the night. We then carry her to bed (when we started this, she was a lot lighter!) Originally, this was where the trouble started.
She would be fine until we had kissed her goodnight and left room. At which point she would spring to life and throw herself out of bed to follow us. We sometimes spent literally hours putting her back in bed, while she went through the gamut of emotions from laughter to tears to full out-rage. We would start at 8 and she might be asleep by 10. Some nights we were still fighting her at midnight. Only for her to wake up at 2 and start the whole thing again. I wanted to cry (I did often). Eventually (by that I mean after about 6 months of this) she stayed in bed mostly, but screamed and cried every time we left. We kept going in: we didn’t keep to the recommended “leave her 5 mins”, I was physically unable to leave her that long and frankly it seemed cruel. We began with a maximum of 20 seconds before going back in. The important thing was to settle her and leave. It didn’t matter how long for. We went through this phase for a long time too.
Finally we got to the point where we could put her to bed and she would stay and go to sleep without tears (yay), but if she woke at night she would still need the same amount of pain to get her down again. I caved: I was exhausted from this, so if she woke at night, I started bringing her through to my bed to sleep. Which marked me as a soft touch and probably prolonged the process. In my mind, I didn’t want her waking her father – who had to work then next day – with her cries.
It reached the point where we had to bite the bullet and go through the same rigmarole at 2am as we had at 8. That almost broke us, I think on my own I wouldn’t have managed it. I don’t know how anyone does. The only thought that kept us fighting was that we felt the need to crack this NOW, so as not to be still having this fight when she was 5 or 10. We got a gro-clock (these things can be magic) and informed her she had to stay until the clock face went from blue to yellow. This does two things: 1. It gives her a night light; and 2. The countdown and colour change is a clear boundary, she can rage at it not us; after all it’s not our fault, it’s that silly clock – because rules.
All in all it took just over 2 years. It’s not perfect and even this morning she was up at 5 but she stayed in her own bed until 6.
So TL;DR:
• Decide on the routine that fits you and your family
• Begin the routine at the same time each day
• Turn off all tech well before bed
• Calm activities like reading or jigsaws as a wind-down activity
• Get a gro-clock (link below)
• STICK TO YOUR ROUTINE
• Accept it will take time, potentially years
• Have a support network: you can’t do this on your own.
So with that said, I’m still exhausted so while my fae is with a childminder I’m off for a nap!
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Raising the Modern Fae 