PhD Mum

I always feel a sense of irony looking back at my ignorance of parenting before actually having to do it. The ignorance and arrogance of youth who think they know it all. I am sure 99% of people reading this with kids think this too, as we all sit on a sofa covered in baby snot and chocolate handprints. But in fairness, I had good reason to be cocky. I grew up in a large extended family (I have 30 cousins!), surrounded by babies. Before I was pregnant, loads of my friends had kids, my sister has kids, cousins had kids etc. You get the idea. I was relatively late at reproducing. And I thought I knew what to expect and that I was able to deal with any eventuality. Looking back at when my little bundle of joy arrived, the first few months are hard to recall due to a heavy mix of sleep deprivation and anxiety. But on reflection, the first two years of parenting were relatively straight forward: make sure the baby was physically looked after, remember to feed, change, &...

It would appear that my son is a firm “bed-xiteer”. And I (like most parents I imagine) am a “bed-mainer”. For the last couple of nights, we have had over 2 hours of continually putting our monster back in his bed. During this time, like all bed-xiteers I imagine, he shouts loud saying he doesn’t want to bed-main, he isn’t tired, that I am scaremongering him with my threats of what will happen if he doesn’t stay. Honestly, these bed-xiteers. Do they not know why we want them to bed-main? I’ve tried to show him the benefits of bed-maining – financial stability (he can have pennies for his jar or sweets), improved relationships (both his parents will talk to him, he can see his friends), employment opportunities (he can paint in the morning if he wants to) As you may have seen on my Instagram account, he won. He bed-xited. But he was made to sit in the corner and think about his actions. He soon returned to his room after he saw all the false promises he had believed (i.e. b...